Differing from the English Church with its orders, its episcopacy, and its sovereign headship, the Scottish Reformers denied the authority of the sovereign, or secular government, to interfere in the affairs of the Church; determining that these affairs should be under the direction of a Court of Delegates, the greater number being chosen from the ministers, all of whom were of the same standing and dignity, and the remainder—with equal authority in the deliberations—of a certain number of the laity, called Elders, thus forming what is called “The General Assembly of the Church.” The sacraments were to be simple observances, spiritual only as they were spiritually received. Church edifices were regarded as merely stone and lime structures, having no claims to special regard, except during divine service. So to these Reformers, defacing in the churches what had been considered sacred statuary and ornamentation, even to the sign of the cross, was deemed a ready mode of testifying against Popish superstitions. As to the abbeys and monasteries—“Pull down the nests,” said stern John Knox, “and the rooks will fly away.” Thus the Kirk of Scotland was essentially democratic in its origin, and, although always rigid and often intolerant, it has in the main so continued. Its theological tenets, although wordy and abstruse, were a whetstone to the intellect, and helped to develope a serious and thoughtful, a reading, and an argumentative people. Shepherds meeting each other on the hillsides, weavers with their yarn at the village beetling-stone, would, like Milton’s angels:— “Reason high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.” The English Church, on the other hand, did not encourage doctrinal discussion, but simple faith in its articles, and obedience to its rubric. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: JOHN KNOX’S HOUSE.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But—which we would hardly have expected from its complex system of faith, and its niceties in phraseology—the Presbyterian Kirk produced zeal and earnest devotedness in the Scottish people. Without ordination by a bishop, whose orders were presumed to have come in direct succession from the Apostles, the ministers were held in high reverence and esteem; without printed prayers its common members learned to pray. It had its army of martyrs; except amongst Puritan Nonconformists, the Scottish Covenanters have hardly their English representatives.