At this period of its history, therefore, we find the Church of Scotland more pronounced than any other section of the Reformed Church in its desire for freedom from prescribed forms in the worship of God. Indeed, we are probably not in error in judging that in different circumstances, with an educated ministry in the Church and those appointed as leaders of worship who had received training for that important work, Knox would have felt even such a book as that which he prepared, to be both unnecessary and undesirable. Knox's Book of Common Order. "The Book of Common Order is best described as a discretionary liturgy."--SPROTT. Chapter III. Knox's Book of Common Order. The Book of Common Order makes no reference to the reading of Scripture as a part of public worship, nor does it, after the fashion of many similar books, contain a table of Scriptures to be read during the year. This omission however, is amended by an ordinance found in the First Book of Discipline prepared by Knox in 1561, and adopted by the General Assembly of that year, by which it is declared to be: "A thing most expedient and necessary that every Kirk have a Bible in English, and that the people be commanded to convene and hear the plain reading and interpretation of the Scripture as the Kirk shall appoint." It was further enjoined by the same authority and at the same time that: "Each Book of the Bible should be begun and read through in order to the end, and that there should be no skipping and divigation from place to place of Scripture, be it in reading or be it in preaching." It is evident, therefore, that it was the purpose of Knox that the whole of Holy Scripture should be publicly read for edification, and that it should be read as God's message to men and not as an exercise subordinate to the preaching, or intended merely to throw light upon the subject of the discourse.