ertainly
not of the aristocratic Parliament,--and its courts and pulpits were the
voice of the nation--the only articulate voice it had; so that in
pleading for the rights and liberties of the Church, in demanding for
it free speech and effective influence in the nation's affairs, Melville
and the Presbyterians were, from first to last, fighting for the rights
and liberties of the people against the personal and injurious ambitions
of the King and his courtiers. There can be no really historical
understanding of the course of events in Scotland through the whole
Reforming period except in the light of this truth--that the interests
of Presbytery were dear to the best men in the country, from generation
to generation, because they were the interests both of national
righteousness and of national freedom. That the Church should be free to
reform the nation, meant, practically, and in the only way possible,
that the nation should be free to reform itself. Knox, Melville, and the
Covenanters were the nobler sons of Wallace and Bruce, and fought out
their battles. And this contest with James was a crucial illustration of
the principles involved in the whole long struggle.

On the very day the Commissioners were conferring with the King, it came
out that Mr. David Black, minister of St. Andrews, had been summoned
before the Council on a charge rising out of sermons he had preached.
Black was accused, in the first instance, of having used language
disrespectful to Queen Elizabeth. Bowes, the English Ambassador, had
been wrought upon by one of the courtiers to make a complaint against
Black on this score; and although the latter had made an explanation
with which the Ambassador professed himself satisfied, the charge was
persisted in. Black was further accused of having, on various
occasions, made offensive references to the King and the Queen, and to
others of high position in the land. The charges were based on sermons
spread over two or three years, a circumstance which of itself suggests
that the prosecution had been got up for ulterior government purposes;
that it was a 'forged cavillation,' as Bruce called it in his pulpit in
Edinburgh.

Black denied all the charges, and declared that they had been concocted
by well-known private enemies. When the Council resolved to go on with
the prosecution, Black, on the advice of the Commissioners of the
Church, declined its jurisdiction. The Council went on with the
trial--Black t