The services throughout were marked by simplicity, reverence and freedom from strict and unbending forms; liberty characterized their every part, and room was left for the exercise of the guiding Spirit of God, in a measure not enjoyed by Churches tied to the use of a prescribed worship; at the same time there was a recognized order and a reverent devotion in all parts of the worship which many non-liturgical Churches of this day may well covet. It was a service simple yet impressive, voluntary yet orderly, regulated and yet untrammeled. The Period of Controversy, 1614-1645. "They were splintered and torn, but no power could bend or melt them. They dwelt, as pious men are apt to dwell, in suffering and sorrow on the all-disposing power of Providence. Their burden grew lighter as they considered that God had so determined that they should bear it."--FROUDE. Chapter V. The Period of Controversy, 1614-1645. The years from 1603, the date of James the Sixth's ascent to the united thrones of England and Scotland, until 1645 the year of the Westminster Assembly, cover one of the most exciting and interesting periods in Scottish history. Especially is this period of interest to the student of Scottish Church history, because of the influences both direct and indirect which the struggles of that time had upon the development of the character and practice of the Presbyterian Church. The Book of Common Order had received the authority of the General Assembly sitting in Edinburgh in 1564, and for nearly fifty years from that date it was the unchallenged directory for worship and usage in the Scottish Church. Its use, though not universal, was general, and it was uniformly referred to, as well in civil as in ecclesiastical courts, as comprising for the Church the law respecting public worship. The first mention of any desire to modify or amend this book occurs in 1601, in the records of the General Assembly, when a motion was made respecting an improved version of the Bible, a revision of the Psalter and an amendment of "sundry prayers in the Psalm-Book which should be altered in respect they are not convenient for the time." The Assembly, however, declined to amend the prayers already in the Book, or to delete any of them, but ordained that: "If any brother would have any prayers added, which are meet for the time.... the same first to be tried and allowed by the Assembly."