The cassock is a somewhat ugly garment of black silk, which resembles an ordinary short coat; it rarely reaches as far as the knees. There can be no doubt that it is a modification, for convenience' sake, of the long cassock worn by clergy of the Episcopal Churches, which was the inner garment, university and clerical, of the middle ages. The scarf is a long strip of black cloth, wound sash-wise round the waist and knotted in front. The bands are two short pendant tails of white lawn, hanging in front, now fastened round the neck by an elastic cord. These survive in the universities as well as in the Presbyterian Church. The name was originally applied to the Elizabethan ruff, in which must be sought the prototype of the ecclesiastical bands; and the use of a cylindrical box to keep the ruff in has caused the survival of the old meaning of the word in 'bandbox.' The stiff starched or propped band passed at the commencement of the seventeenth century into the _falling band_ (not unlike a modern child's lace collar), of which the ecclesiastical 'bands' is the diminution. The gown is of the pattern known as the Geneva gown—a black silk gown with ample sleeves and faced with velvet. It should be here remarked that there is considerable laxity in individual usage. The cassock and scarf are almost universally discarded, and, in fact, they were probably never very generally worn. For the Geneva gown is often substituted the gown proper to the university degree of the wearer. Very few regulations affecting robes have been passed by any of the assemblies of the churches in the Presbyterian Alliance. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1575 passed an important injunction, which, however, refers rather to personal than to official attire. As it is a curious document, we give it here in full: