with all reverence and thanksgiving to God for His truth knowing, as I suppose, ye confirmed the doctrine with your gestures and confession." The order which he observed[6] began with a sermon on the benefits given us by God through Jesus Christ; this was followed by prayer, after which was read the account of the institution of the ordinance from 1 Corinthians xi. 20-30. Then a declaration of "what persons be unworthy to be partakers" was made; after which "common prayer was offered in the form of confession." At the conclusion of this prayer, some notable passage in which God's mercy is most evidently declared was read from the gospel, and thereafter the minister pronounced absolution to such as unfeignedly repent and believe in Jesus Christ. After this came prayer for the congregation and for the sovereign. At this point the fragment which we have been following breaks off, but there is every reason to believe that the remainder of the service was the same as that afterwards adopted in Scotland; and any one at all conversant with the ecclesiastical ritual of the Presbyterian churches in that country may see in the portion which we have given the origin of the "action" sermon, the "fencing of the tables;" and the frequent if not invariable use of the passage from first Corinthians as the "warrant" for the observance of the Supper, {38} which characterize a communion "occasion" in that country. But the singular thing about the matter is that this Puritan and Presbyterian form of administering the ordinance of the Lord's Supper was observed in England by John Knox when he was labouring at Berwick as a recognised minister of the Church of England, and acting under the authority, or perhaps, to put it more correctly, with the permission, of the government. This was at a date anterior by ten years to the time when it was introduced into Scotland with the sanction of its Parliament.