From the time of the Reformation onwards the sermon has taken a foremost place in the service of the Church of Scotland. There was a time when a preacher would continue his discourse for five or six hours, and when sometimes a succession of preachers would give sermon after sermon and keep the congregation continuously sitting for ten hours. These days of perfervid oratory are past. But a sermon of an hour’s duration or even more may still be heard, and, when the preacher is eloquent, will be listened to with deep interest. This part of the service maintains its early prominence. It is from his capacity to preach that a man’s qualifications for the ministry are mainly judged, not merely by the church which licences him, but by the congregation which chooses him as its pastor. The half-yearly celebration of the sacrament, which included a fast-day, services on two or three week days, and a long ‘diet’ on Sunday, was appropriately known as ‘The Preachings.’ The Fast-Day, when the shops were closed and there were at least two services in the churches, forenoon and afternoon, became in the end a kind of public holiday in the large towns. Attracted to the country, rather than to the sermons, the people used to escape from town, and railways carried an ever-increasing number of excursionists away from the services of the Church. The ecclesiastical authorities at last, some years ago, put a stop to this scandal, and the Fast-Day no longer ranks as one of the public holidays of the year. [Sidenote: HEADS OF SERMONS]