The Free Church always regarded herself as a National Church, and during this period she sought actively to be true to that character by providing church ordinances for the increasing population of Scotland and applying herself to the new problems of non-church-going, and of the changing habits of the people. Her Assembly's committee on religion and morals worked toward the same ends as the similar organization of the Established Church, and in her, as in the other churches, the standard of parochial and congregational activity was raised and new methods of operation devised. She passed legislation on the difficult problem of ridding the church of inefficient ministers. The use of instrumental music was sanctioned in Free Churches during this period. An association was formed in 1891 to promote the ends of edification, order and reverence in the public services of the church, and published in 1898 _A New Directory for Public Worship_ which does not provide set forms of prayer, but directions as to the matter of prayer in the various services. The Free Church took a large share in the study of hymnology and church music, which led to the production of _The Church Hymnary_. From 1885 to 1895 much of the energy of all the Presbyterian churches was absorbed by the disestablishment agitation. In the former year the Free Church, having almost entirely shed the establishment principle on which it was founded, began to rival the United Presbyterian Church in its resolutions calling for the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland. In spite of the offers of the Establishment Assembly to confer with the dissenting churches about union, the assaults upon its status waxed in vigour, till in 1893 the Free Church hailed the result of the general election as a verdict of the constituencies in favour of disestablishment, and insisted upon the government of the day taking up Sir Charles Cameron's bill.