In 1858 the Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended to congregations that were without a minister, the use in worship of a book prepared by its authority, in which were embodied the prayers of the Book of Common Order, together with much material from the Directory of Worship. This action on the part of the Church was regarded by some as indicating the existence of a spirit which warranted the formation of "The Church Service Society." This Society was formed by certain ministers of the Established Church who were strongly impressed with the desirability of the adoption by the Church of certain authorized forms of prayer for public worship, and of the use of prescribed forms in the administration of the Sacraments. By the publication of its constitution, in which it announced its object as "The Study of the Liturgies ancient and modern of the Christian Church, with a view to the preparation and ultimate publication of certain forms of prayer for public worship, and services for the administration of the Sacraments, the celebration of Marriage, the Burial of the Dead," etc., it very early aroused vigorous opposition on the part of many who saw in its organization an evident intention to introduce into the Church a liturgical service. Such a purpose the Society emphatically disavowed, and insisted that there was no desire on the part of its members to encroach upon the simplicity of Presbyterian worship, but claimed rather the desire to redeem the same from lifelessness and lack of a devotional spirit with which they declared it is so likely to be characterized. So effectively have the fears of those who first uttered their objections been allayed, that the Society is said to comprise in its membership, at the present time, more than one-third of the ordained ministers of the Established Church. The results of this Society's labors have been published in a volume which is now in its seventh edition. It is a book of more than 400 pages, and is entitled, "Euchologion--A Book of Common Order." Its contents seem to harmonize more with the views which were charged against the originators of the Society at its commencement than with the defence which was put forward in its behalf at that time. Although widely used it has no official sanction of the Church, and, therefore, it is not necessary to enter into any close analysis of its contents. Briefly, however, it may be said, it is a liturgy much more closely approximating to the English Book of Common Prayer than to Knox's Book of Common Order, or to the ritual of any of the Reformed Churches of the Continent, with which its projectors declare themselves to be more in sympathy than with the Episcopal Communion of England.