At a meeting of the nobles and barons attached to the Reformation, held at Edinburgh in December 1557, two resolutions were adopted for regulating their conduct in the present delicate juncture. It was agreed, in the first place, that they should rest satisfied for the present with requiring that prayers, and the lessons of the Old and New Testament, should be read in English, according to the book of Common Prayer,[330] in every parish, on Sundays and festival days, by the curates of the respective parishes, or, if they were unable or unwilling, by such persons within the bounds as were best qualified. And, secondly, that the reformed preachers should teach in private houses only, till the government should allow them {229} to preach in public.[331] The first resolution has been represented as an unwarrantable assumption of authority by this reforming assembly, and as implying that they had a right to dictate to the whole nation, by setting aside the established worship, and imposing a new form. This construction is, however, irreconcilable with the situation in which they were then placed, and with the moderate and submissive tone in which they continued to urge their claims at a subsequent period. It is rather to be viewed as expressing the opinion of that meeting respecting the degree of reformation which individuals of their body might introduce, in places to which their authority and influence extended. And, accordingly, it was reduced to practice in many parishes where protestant barons resided, and where the people were disposed to imitate their example.[332]