This devotional diet of the Assembly was held as the prelude to a work of reformation in religion and morals on which the Church had set its heart, and which, beginning with the ministry, was to be sought also in the Parliament, in the Court, in the seats of justice, in every household, in all ranks and classes, from the King to the meanest of his subjects, to those who were in the highways and hedges, to the 'pypers, fidlers, songsters, sorners, peasants, and beggars.' It was an exhaustive programme; and the ministers gave undeniable proofs of their sincerity by setting themselves to put their own house in order, and drawing up ordinances for sifting their own ranks and 'rypping' out their own ways. The scheme, as it applied to others, was too much of the nature of a magisterial inquisition for sin to do credit to its promoters' wisdom, if the ends they sought did honour to their hearts. No doubt, the condition of the country was such as to distress every good citizen and to make any remedy welcome. There was clamant need for reform in every department of the State. The administration of justice was, by its corruption and its ineffectiveness in the punishment of crime, a disgrace to the country. These were matters of public scandal, calling clearly for public agitation and reform; but in matters of private and domestic life the ministers should have been content with exhortation and example as their means of reformation. A moral police proved then as intolerable and ineffectual as it must always be. Our concern is to vindicate, not the absolute wisdom of Melville and the other ministers of that day, but their thoroughgoing and disinterested zeal for the purity and godliness of their nation, of which this scheme of reform is a signal proof. The movement of the Assembly was soon checked by fresh troubles in the State. It was well known that Philip had never ceased to chafe at the humiliation inflicted on him by the disastrous end of the Armada, and that he was burning for revenge. In January of this year James had issued a Proclamation in which he declared that the ambition of the King of Spain to make conquest of the Crown and Kingdom of England was manifest to all who had the least 'spunk of understanding'; that to have such a neighbour settled on the borders of Scotland would be attended with the eminent hazard of civil and spiritual thraldom; and that it was therefore necessary to unite all their force and concur with England in the defence of their ancient liberties and in preserving the isle from the tyranny of strangers. At the Assembly last held the King had been present, and had urged that contributions should be made from the whole realm for this purpose, when Melville rose and told him, with his usual plainness of speech, that if the estates of the Popish lords were applied, as they should be, to the defence of the country, no contributions would be needed from the people.