Under the presbyterian polity, the members of the congregation were generally allowed to choose their own minister, and throughout the local records of the sessions, the presbyteries, and the synods, there is much interesting information on this matter. The people were not the mere slaves of the clergy; they had a pretty strong hold over the ministers. In 1642, James Horne, in the parish of Kinnor, was summoned before the presbytery, and accused of being drunk in the time of divine service. When called before the session for this, he had publicly railed against the minister and the elders. He told them, "all that he had said he would say it again, and worse also; and took up a straw and held it out before the session, and said that he would not give that straw for all that they could say or do to him, and that there were none there that would cause him to make his repentance for anything that he had said". The presbytery ordered him to be summoned again, and if he failed to appear, then to censure him without any more citation. In July, 1643, the case of George Mitchell was reported to a meeting of the presbytery at Gartly; and his offence was, that he prevented his wife from satisfying the discipline of the session, for her visiting of wells and chapels, and for assaulting the minister and the elders-especially for upbraiding George Gordon of Colithie: saying that he would not be corrected by him, and told him to go home and correct his cottars; and that he had as much money as himself; and that he should meet him wherever he pleased, with other abusive speeches, and went out of the session with threatening and menacing words". The presbytery commanded him to pay a fine of twenty pounds, and to make his public repentance in the church next Sunday. But the same day, Mitchell gave in a complaint against George Gordon of Colithie for slandering him; he was told, however, that he must lodge a pledge to prove it, according to the order. He then answered, "that he saw no law for him here, and would crave no law; ye may direct what ye please, he would not obey, and he should get a better advocate against the next day". In

1644, James Middleton of Tullobeg was brought before the presbytery for speeches which he had uttered in the church, and for quarrelling with the minister. The witnesses against him deponed that, "when the minister chided him for his ignorance, he said that he cared not for him nor any minister in Scotland, and bade the minister come out to the churchyard and try himself if he pleased. Also, when the minister said that he should cause him to be put in the stocks, he replied, that neither he nor the best minister within seven miles durst do so much." The presbytery ordered that he should make satisfaction in sackcloth, and pay ten pounds; but when this was intimated to him, he answered in the hearing of the minister, "that he should as soon go and hang himself as obey anything of the kind ". Thomas Dey, in the parish of Glass, was summoned by the presbytery, in October, 1648, because he had failed to give satisfaction for his absence from the church. Instead of giving satisfaction on the appointed day when he was called by the minister, he sat in his own seat opposite the pulpit and railed against the minister, "and with execrable oaths said that he would not acknowledge them nor their sentence". The presbytery ordered him to be again summoned.40

These are only a few instances out of many of a similar character, which tend to show that the clergy had not always submissive people to deal with; indeed, they often encountered extreme opposition in their efforts to reform the people to regular habits of life. Even during the heat of the Covenanting period, when the presbyterians attained their greatest height of power, there was no lack of opposition to many of their proceedings.

In the last volume it was stated that the reformed clergy and the authorities continuously exerted themselves to secure the observance of Sunday, but rooted customs and habits are persistent, and it requires a long time to change or to direct them into other channels. It will be remembered that, prior to

40 Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pp. 34, 37-38, 46, 93.

the Reformation, it was the universal custom to hold markets on Sunday, military musters of the people, and to engage in many other affairs not at all connected with religion. Accordingly, in spite of all the laws enacted after the Reformation, all the efforts of the local magistrates, and all the discipline of the Church, the complete observance of Sunday was not attained till well through the seventeenth century. In the acts of parliament, in the proceedings of the Privy Council, in the records of the boroughs, and in the records of all the Church courts, from the sessions to the General Assemblies, there is evidence of the vehemence of the struggle for the observance of Sunday; and without entering into long details, I will give illustrative and expositive instances to complete this part of our social history.

The magistrates of Aberdeen, in 1608, asserted that one of the manifold sins of the city was the breaking of Sunday by openly fishing salmon, though this had been already four times condemned, "the possessors of the waters preferring, as it appears, their own greed and avarice to the glory and the worship of God, the manifest contempt of His law, and the slander of the gospel". Some promised to desist from this practice of fishing on Sunday if their neighbours would do so, but others. refused to abandon it. The following year, the session ordered visitors to be appointed at the four chief outlets of the city, to watch those who went out of the town on Sunday. The town's piper was forbidden to play his pipes on Sunday, under the penalty of losing his office, and banishment from the city; while William Stewart, a fiddler, was admonished not to play on Sunday. The tailors, the shoemakers, and the bakers, were still in the habit of working in their booths every Sunday morning for three or four hours, " to the dishonour of God and the slander of the gospel," and these parties were henceforth prohibited from working at their trade on Sunday, under the penalty of ten shillings. In 1647, the town council passed an act for enforcing a more strict observance of Sunday. Many of the citizens were in the habit of going to the Old Town and to

other places, before and in the time of preaching, quite regardless of the laudable acts of the kirk-session which forbade such wandering upon Sunday; therefore, the council not only ratified these acts in all points, but also anew ordained that all should attend the parish church on Sunday in the forenoon and in the afternoon, and hear the Word of God. All who disobeyed the act were to be fined forty shillings, one-half of which was to be applied to maintain the fabric of the church, and the other half to be given to the poor. The council recommended the kirksession to appoint captains for taking the names of all who were found going to the Old Town fields or walking about; and this was ordered to be intimated to the people from the pulpit.41

During the Covenanting period, parliament passed several acts for securing a more complete observance of Sunday. After the custom of holding markets on Sunday was abolished, it was found when they were held on Mondays and Saturdays that they encroached upon the observance of the Sabbath. A series of acts was therefore passed prohibiting markets on Saturdays and Mondays, and everything was done to obtain an entire cessation of all work and business on Sunday. But from the frequent re-enactment of the acts prohibiting work on Sunday, it may be inferred that they were often disregarded. According to the acts of parliament, the labour most persistently engaged in on Sunday was the working of mills, saltworks, and salmon fishing, which are emphatically specified in all the acts prohibiting labour on Sunday.42

It was announced from the pulpits of Aberdeen in 1651, that no inhabitant of the town should walk about the fields or go in companies to the Castle Hill on Sunday. The same year, Jane Barclay was sharply rebuked and admonished for going to

41 Selections from the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pp. 64-68; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Vol. IV., p. 76.

42 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. V., pp. 300, 301, 302, 473; Vol. VI., pp. 127, 128, 215, 370.

the Old Town between the sermons, and several other persons were called before the session for travelling on Sunday.43

The subject of Sunday-breaking by salmon fishing in the Dee and the Don came before the synod of Aberdeen in 1657, and the discipline of the Church was ordered to be enforced against all who engaged in such profanation, and the assistance of the magistrates asked to curb the offenders. In 1663, the synod ordered that the Lord's Day should be strictly kept, and notice taken of those who travelled on Sunday, who were then to be censured according to the degree of their offence. As late as 1680, it is stated that the Lord's Day was everywhere profaned by drinking, travelling to markets, engaging of servants, and making bargains and contracts. But, by the combined application of the means above indicated, and chiefly by the constant exertion of the Church, ultimately an observance of the Sabbath was attained in Scotland, unmatched in any other nation.

Besides the devotion of Sunday to religious exercises, there were daily morning and evening prayers in the churches of the boroughs, and preaching on two or three days of the week, and this was continued almost to the end of the seventeenth century. In the records of the boroughs, and of the Church courts, there are many acts, rules, and notices touching the week-day meetings and preaching. In Edinburgh, in 1650, there was a lecture every afternoon, the ministers of the city performing the duty by turns. The town council of Aberdeen, in 1694, appointed the week-day sermons to be held in the new church; but the next year, the council found that the morning and evening prayers were not frequented as in former times, and therefore they were to be discontinued.45 As the energy

43 Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pp. 115, 136, 137. 44 Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen, pp. 234, 271, 272, 285, 332. There is some curious information on the attempts to secure the observance of Sunday in Dr. Davidson's History of Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch. This work contains much valuable matter of a varied character, and to those with a taste for local lore it is exceedingly interesting.

45 Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Vol. IV., pp. 315, 317.