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TRADITIONAL CUSTOMS CONNECTED 
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XVII 

TRADITIONAL CEREMONIAL AND 

CUSTOMS CONNECTED 

WITH THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 



F. C. EELES, 

F.R.H1ST.S., F.S.A. Scot. 

Diocesan Librarian of Aberdeen 

Author of 

The Church Bells of KtncanBneshire^ etc. 



LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 

NEW YORK, BOMBAY & CALCUTTA 

1910 
[jtU rights reserved] 



nUlTEl ill EMLAm 






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A 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 
CHAPTER n 



CHAPTER III 



CHAPTER IV 



CHAPTER V 
CHAPTER VI 
CHAPTER VII 







^ 



Introductory j 

Church Furniture and Clerical Dress - 14 

§ I The Church building 

§ 3 Clerical dress 

§ 3 The Altar 

§6 Plate 

§ 7 Tokens 

The Preparation of the Eucharistic 



Elements .... 

^ I The Bread 

§2 The Mixed Chalice 

§ 3 The Mixture before the service 

§ 4 The Mixture at the Offertory 

The Liturgy .... 

§ I Before the Offertory 

§ 2 The Offertory 

§ 3 The Anaphora 

S 4 The Communion 

§ 5 The Posture of the people 

Reservation of the Eucharist 

Mattins and Evensong 

The Occasional Services 

§ I Confirmation 

^ 2 Anointing of the Sick 

§ 3 Burial of the Dead 

^ 4 Marriage 

§ 5 Churching of Women 



35 



48 



- 85 

- 104 

- 119 



VI 



CONTENTS 



APPENDIX I 

APPENDIX II 
APPENDIX III 



APPENDIX IV 



APPENDIX V 



APPENDIX VI 
APPENDIX VII 



Some former Canons relating to the Scottish 
Liturgy 139 

Bishop Robert Forbes' Prayer at the Mixture 144 

Rubrics and directions relating to the prepara- 
tion and offering of the Sacred Elements - 145 
§ I Celtic 
§ 2 Carthusian 
§ 3 Dominican 
§ 4 Anglican 

Manuscript account of liturgical variations by 
John Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen, 1810 -150 

Description of services in St. Andrew's 
Aberdeen 1 795-1840 from the Wagstaff 

Case 162 

The Cultus Euchartstiae. - - . - 172 
A letter from Bishop Jolly about introducing 
the surplice - - . - - - - ^74 



PREFACE 

In 1884 the late Bishop of Edinburgh, Dr. Dowden, 
published his well-known work, the Annotated Scottish 
Communion Office. In it he dealt at full length with the 
present Scottish Liturgy from the historical and textual 
standpoint. The Scottish Liturgy in its present form 
was not the only product of the learning of the Scottish 
clergy of the eighteenth century ; other services were 
drawn up about the same time for other purposes ; these 
are still in manuscript, and are practically unknown to 
liturgical students. But besides the written and printed 
liturgical services there also grew up and were handed 
down a number of traditional customs connected with the 
rendering of the Scottish Liturgy and the other ordinary 
services of the Church. These customs are strictly of 
the nature of ceremonial, although that word is one of 
the last which would be popularly applied to the majority 
of them. They are of great liturgical interest, and 
several of them are of some practical value. With 
the kind assistance of many friends the writer has 
collected all that seems to be known about them, and 
he ventures to exhibit the result of his labours in the 
following pages. As far as possible he has tried to 
avoid encroaching on the ground which Dr. Dowden 
covered in his careful and accurate treatise on the 
text of the liturgy ; and he has confined himself to 
customs which have clustered round our present services, 

vu 



via PREFACE 

leaving for separate treatment the beautiful and in- 
teresting but now obsolete rites of the eighteenth 
century, whose use did not survive the generation 
which produced them. It has also been thought advis- 
able to leave for separate treatment all questions relating 
to the ordination services and to matters of ecclesiastical 
and especially penitential discipline. 

Several friends have pressed upon the writer the 
desirability of adding a short appendix of instructions 
for the clergy who wish to observe the more desirable 
of the old usages when celebrating the Holy Communion 
at the present day. But for many reasons this has not 
been done. It has been the writer's intention to present 
an impartial account of what has come down to us, 
whether good or bad, without selection ; to produce a 
book for the liturgical student and not a directory for 
use in church. Moreover, the surroundings of the 
Church's worship in the eighteenth and early nineteenth 
centuries obviously included many things which ought 
rather to be avoided than imitated, and the writer did 
not wish to incur the charge of attempting to revive 
the bad as well as the good — a charge which experience 
has shown to be very readily levelled against one who 
ventures to suggest that any ceremonial mistakes have 
been made by the revivalists of the last half century. At 
the same time it is impossible to be blind to the practical 
value of many of these half-forgotten traditions, and the 
clergy to whom the principles professed by the compilers 
of our liturgy appeal, will not find it difficult " to refuse 
the evil and choose the good " among the practices 
handed down from the days in which those compilers 
lived. 

The writer must beg the indulgence of his readers. 



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PREFACE ix 



A collection largely composed of unwritten traditions is 
always unsatisfactory, particularly in liturgical matters, 
where students are accustomed to appeal to the /z^era 
scripta of texts and rubrics. If it be difficult to weigh 
the historical evidence of written documents, it is in- 
finitely harder to do so in the case of oral tradition* 
The greatest possible care has, however, been taken not 
to overstate the case for the prevalence of any particular 
practice. And it may be necessary to caution the reader 
against assuming that, because a custom is found in one 
or two places, it was therefore general. On the other 
hand, it must be remembered that certain usages, now 
exceptional, may well be survivals of what at one time 
were common practices. 

The reader who is familiar with the north of Scotland 
will pardon the repetition for the benefit of others of 
much that he already knows, and the liturgical student 
will doubtless remember that a book of this kind has a 
local as well as a more general interest, in consequence 
of which it has been thought well to add numerous details 
and references for the guidance of any who may be 
stimulated to further liturgical study. 

At the time of going to press there are proposals 
for a careful revision of the Scottish Liturgy with a view 
to the issue of a standard text, and also for giving the 
canonical sanction of the Scottish Church to various 
additions to and deviations from the services contained 
in the Book of Common Prayer. The writer hoped that 
it might have been possible to include some account of 
these alterations and to have given the revised text of 
the Liturgy in an Appendix. But as the machinery of 
ecclesiastical legislation is slow, if sure, it will be a con- 
siderable time before efifeqt can be given to any of the 



^ w ^ 'I 



V 



X PREFACE 

new proposals, and as this book is connected rather with 
the past than the present it has been thought needless to 
delay publication. 

It only remains for the writer to express his deep 
gratitude to all who have helped him in making this 
compilation; indeed it is to them that the student is 
indebted for any help he may derive from the follow- 
ing pages. It would be difficult to say how much the 
writer owes to the never-failing kindness of the Dean 
of Brechin, the Very Rev. William Hatt, whose keen 
interest and careful observation have furnished him with 
information, which probably no one else could have given, 
regarding the traditional customs of his native part of 
Aberdeenshire and his present charge of Muchalls, 
Indeed it was what he said in conversations several 
years ago that first suggested the making of this collec- 
tion. The Rev. George Sutherland, Aberdeen, formerly 
of Portsoy, has also given a great deal of useful infor- 
mation. He has kindly contributed several notes which 
are identified by his initials. The late Bishop of Edin- 
burgh, whose Annotated Scottish Communion Office has 
made the work of the Scottish non-jurors well known to 
all students of liturgies, very kindly read the proofs and 
made many valuable suggestions. The same has been 
done by the Bishop of Moray, the Dean of Edinburgh, 
and Dr. J. Wickham Legg, to whom the writer is 
particularly grateful for their ungrudging expenditure 
of time and trouble. Thanks are also due to the Bishop 
of Moray, till recently Principal of the Theological 
College of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and the 
Rev. E. Beresford-Cooke, formerly Diocesan Librarian 
of Brechin, for access to the books and MSS. in their 
respective libraries. The Very Rev. Vernon Staley, 



PREFACE XI 

Provost of Inverness Cathedral, the Rev. C. B. Beard, 
Helensburgh; J. W. Harper, Dunimarle; E. J. Petrie, 
Newlands, Glasgow ; J. A. Philip, Kirriemuir ; W. 
Presslie, Lochlee ; J. H. Shepherd, St. Mary Magda- 
lene's, Dundee ; G. Thompson, Arley, Cheshire ; T. 
W. H. White, Perth ; have given much valuable help. 
Last, but not least, the writer must thank most of the 
clergy and many of the laity of the diocese of Aberdeen, 
that old stronghold of episcopacy and of the national 
liturgy, of whose ecclesiastical record every Scottish 
churchman may well be proud. To mention all to 
whom he is indebted would, it is to be feared, be 
impossible, but he cannot omit the names of the 
Rev. R. Cruickshank, St John the Evangelist, 
Aberdeen; G. L. Duff, Turriff; W. Haslewood, Ellon; 
W. W. Hawdon, Banchory Ternan ; the late Rev. G. 
Low, Folia Rule ; J. Strachan, Cruden ; F. Turreff, 
Fyvie ; and more particularly the Rev. Robert Mackay, 
Longside, among others who ought to be mentioned 
if space allowed. Everywhere has the writer met with 
the greatest possible kindness, and his only regret is 
the weariness which he feels sure his innumerable 
questions must so often have caused. 

F. C. E. 



Aberdeen, 

irdjune^ 1910. 



Traditional Ceremonial and Customs 
Connected with the Scottish Liturgy 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

NOTHING is more common at the present day than 
to be told that the interest in the details of 
liturgical practice consequent on the Oxford Movement 
has been without precedent in the churches of the 
Anglican Communion since the Reformation. Certain 
controversialists are never tired of insisting that any 
sort of regard for the externals of worship— let alone the 
use of what is commonly called ceremonial — is an innova- 
tion upon the post-reformation usage of the Church. 
They interpret the Prayer Book in the light of the 
slovenly neglect prevalent in England in the early part 
of the nineteenth century. Plausible though this theory 
may seem at first sight, it turns out to be untenable 
when the light of history is thrown upon it The 
slovenliness of the late eighteenth and early nine- 
teenth centuries was itself of the nature of an innovation ; 
it was not merely contrary to the letter and spirit of the 
Prayer Book, but it was in marked contrast to the practice 
of the better appointed churches in the seventeenth 
century and in the earlier part of the eighteenth. It is 



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TRADITIONAL CUSTOMS CONNECTED 
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6 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

was often done in the most perfect innocence, by loyal 
upholders of the Scottish Liturgy, but it appears to have 
been otherwise in the case of men who were infected 
with the puritanical or the Romanising dislike of the 
national rite. 

These traditional Scottish usages and customs have 
lasted to our own day. They still exist in some places, 
chiefly in the diocese of Aberdeen, and are being restored 
in others. When we take into consideration the small 
number of the old non-juring congregations and the 
destructive causes just enumerated, it is wonderful that 
any traces of them can be found. It is easy to see how 
difficult has been the work of collecting them, and yet 
this work has been amply repaid by the result, for it has 
shown that side by side with the text of the Scottish 
liturgy there grew up a certain amount of ceremonial 
tradition regarding such practices as the circumstances 
of the Church allowed to be carried out This tradi- 
tion must once have been much more clearly defined 
than it is now, and one of the first things a reader will 
notice in the following pages is the great diversity which 
exists at present In one church, for example, a particular 
custom obtains and in the next it does not But this 
diversity seems to be in great measure a thing of recent 
growth, and is largely to be accounted for by the disuse 
in some places of usages which have lived on in others. 
It is probable indeed that most of the customs mentioned 
were at one time in use in almost all the older congrega- 
tions. At the same time variations certainly existed to 
some extent; for example, in the time at which the 
chalice was mixed, some performing this ceremony 
before the service, others at the offertory. Yet on 
the whole, considering the circumstances, the uniformity 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 7 

of practice was much greater than one would have 
expected. 

Most of the customs with which we have to deal arc 
connected with the Scottish Communion Service, — the 
best liturgy in the English language, and the product of 
the time when Scottish episcopalians were groaning under 
the severity of the penal laws.^ 

It will be advisable to say a few words to explain the 
position of those who gradually brought the Scottish 
liturgy into its present form, and whose clear and con- 
sistent appeal to antiquity gave us many of the traditional 
customs. 

A great part of the Scottish Church was strongly 
Jacobite at the time of the Revolution in 1688-90,* 
the bishops and many of the clergy refusing to take the 
oath of allegiance to William and Mary. While the 
English non-jurors were a small minority which became 
still smaller after secession from the Church, the Scottish 
non-jurors formed the majority of the faithful remnant of 



^ It must not be thought that all the usages described in the following 
pages are necessarily good and worthy to be restored. Many of them 
might certainly be revived, and their disuse in some places is a matter for 
regret ; but there are others which were adopted by reason of the circum- 
stances of the Church in non-jtunng days, or were founded upon mistakes, or 
arose from the idiosyncrasies of particular priests, and some of these are 
by no means matter for imitation. 

'The state of the Church of Scotland before the Revolution was 
very different from that of the Church of England. The services were almost 
indistinguishable from those of the Presbyterians, at any rate in the 
generality of diurches. It would take too long to explain why this was 
the case, as it would involve an outline of the religious history of Scotland 
since the Reformation in 1560. The reader will find a short account 
of it in Dr. Dowden's Annotated Scottish Communion Office^ to which also 
reference must be made for a description of the services as they were at the 
time of the Revolution. 



8 CUSTOMS CONNBCTBD WITH 

the National Church which was true to the principle of 
Episcopacy.* 

Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth 
century the same form of religion which was established 
south of the border was penalised on the northern 
side, and its northern representatives were in communion 
with a body that was schismatic in the southern part 
of the country. Although the surroundings of the 
Church's worship in those days were mean and poor 
to a degree, and ceremonial in the sense in which 
the word is now commonly understood was out of the 
question, by the middle of the eighteenth century the 
services were generally conducted with great care, and 
with attention to such ceremonial details as circum- 
stances allowed. True, the ancient Church had 
become ** a shadow of a shade," but that small remnant 
was refined and purified by the fire of persecution, and 
the irreverent carelessness which afterwards became 
common in eighteenth century England was all but 
unknown. The reasons for this are not far to seek, 
and to fii)d them we must first of all turn to the 
English non-jurors, who were freed from the over- 
whelming burden of puritan latitudinarianism which 
weighed so heavily upon the Church of England at 
the time, and had ample leisure to devote themselves 

^ '' In Aberdeen and the northern dioceses many of the clergy would have 
accepted William and Mary. In the Presbytery of AUord twelve out of 
sixteen would have done sa In 1692 the ** regular" clergy of Aberdeen 
and the north sent two representatives to the General Assembly to give in 
their adhesion under King William's letter and form of 1691. But the 
deputation as well as the larger movement of southern clergy represented 
by Dr. Canaries was not admitted. Proof of this will be found in pamphlets 
connected with the movement for Tderation in 1703, and in most accounts 
of the General Assembly of 1692, which was abruptly dissolved." G.S. 



ja 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 9 

to historical research and theological reading. This they 
turned to good advantage. Unrestricted by connexion 
with the State, or by the prejudices of those who were 
dissenters in everything but name, they at once en- 
deavoured to bring their liturgical practice into closer 
conformity with that of the primitive Church. A com- 
munion service for their own use was printed in 1718,* 
and in 1734 Thomas Deacon, an English non-juring 
bishop, issued what was for all intents and purposes a 
complete prayer book.* In 1748 was published a 
reprint from The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of 
Jerusalem^ of a liturgy and other services which had 
been drawn up by Thomas Rattray, Bishop of Dunkeld.^ 
These books contained provision for the practices which 
were known as the Usages^ that is to say, certain 
liturgical customs which their advocates held to be 
catholic in the true sense of the word, and consequently 
of binding obligation. These " Usages " were : — 

(i) Explicit invocation of the Holy Ghost in con- 
secrating the Eucharist (ii) The Prayer of Oblation at 
the consecration of the Eucharist (iii) Remembrance 

* A Communion'Offiu^ taken partly from Primitive Liturgies^ and 
partly from the first English Reformed Common-Prayer Book : together with 
Offices for Confirmation and the Visitation of the Sick, London : Printed 
for James Bettenham, at the Crown in Paternoster Row 17 18. 

The late Bishop of Edinburgh has reprinted the Communion Office 
in his Annotated Scottish Communion Office^ pp. 293 et seq. 

" A Compleat Collection of Devotions^ both Publick and Private : Taken 
from the Apostolic Constitutions^ the Ancient Liturgies and the Common 
Prayer Book of the Church of England, I-ondon : Printed for the Author 
and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1734. 

' A form of Morning and Evening Prayer^ Daily throughout the Year, 
Together with an Office for celebrating the Christian Sacrifice, London : 
Printed in the Year MDCCXLVIIL 



lO CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

in prayer of the faithful dead, (iv) The mixed chalice. 
The foregoing were sometimes called the "greater 
usages " to distinguish them from certain other usages^ 
which were looked upon as being of less importance/ 
namely : — (i) Baptism by immersion ; (ii) Chrism at con- 
firmation ; (iii) Anointing of the sick ; (iv) Reservation 
for the sick. 

Not all the non-jurors were in favour of the Usages. 
There were many who could not conscientiously take 
the oaths under William and Mary, but who were 
content with the English Prayer* Book as it stood, and 
who violently opposed the " Usagers." The " Usage 
Controversy " was long and acrimonious, and did much 
to weaken the non-juring cause. * But among both 
usagers and non-usagers its natural result was a keen 
interest in liturgy, coupled with scrupulous attention to 
practical details. This liturgical revival began, as we 
have seen, among the English non-jurors, but it quickly 
found its way into Scotland, whither the usage con- 



^ ** Support of the distinction between major and minor usages will be 
found in the Scottish Episcopal Review ^ voL ii. (1821); in the Historical 
Outline of the Ejdscopal Church of Scotlandy p. 205, and on the general 
question pp. 187-196. The article is understood to be by Dr. Gleig. See 
also the language of Bishop Gadderar's personal agreement with the 
College of Bishops, 1724 (Skinner's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland 
1788, vol. ii., p. 633), and an original letter from Gadderar to Bishop Rose, 
1 7 19, in the Episcopal Chest at Edinburgh (A. No. 31). Bishop Rattray 
in a letter to the College Bishops says that the difficulty of introducing 
the Liturgy was greater than the difficulty of introducing the Usages (Thos. 
Stephen's History of the Church of Scotland^ 1843, vol. iv. p. 189)." G.S. 

* On the non-jurors and their controversies, see A History of the 
Non-jurors : their controversies and writings; with remarks on sotne of the 
rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer, By Thomas Lathbury, M.A, 
London, William Pickering, 1846, and also The Non-jurors^ their Uves 
principles and writings. By the Rev. J. H Overton, D.D« London, 1902. 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY II 

troversy soon followed it. The Scottish non-jurors 
seem never to have formally adopted, though no doubt 
they were much influenced by, the service books printed 
by their brethren in England ; indeed it is doubtful if the 
1 718 book and Deacon's were ever more than occasionlly 
used in Scotland. A larger body than the English non- 
jurors, and less uniformly well instructed, the Scottish 
clergy made no attempt at first to print a service book of 
their own, but began by using the English Prayer Book. 
Later on the Scottish liturgy of 1637* was brought into 
use in places,, and gradually superseded the English rite 
as far as the Communion Service was concerned. By 
slow degrees the present Scottish liturgy was developed 
through arranging the 1637 service in such a way as to 
bring it more closely into agreement with primitive 
models, and what is generally looked upon as the re- 
ceived text was first printed in 1 764. " The various 



Mn 171 2 the Earl of Winton reprinted in a smaller form the Book of 
Common Prayer which had been prepared for Scotland in 1637. This book 
seems to have been actually used in places in the i8th century and it 
exercised a wide influence. 

'The earlier editions of the Scottish Liturgy had the parts of the 
Prayer of Consecration in the same order as the 1637 book, which in this 
respect copied the English Prayer Book of 1549 in which the Invocation of 
the Holy QYiOsX. preceded the recital of the narrative of the Institution and the 
Oblation. The researches of the non-jurors in liturgiology had shown them 
that the primitive and all but universal order of parts in the Consecration 
placed the Invocation last^ and so we find it in the book of 1718, in Deacon's 
Liturgy of 1734 and Rattray's Liturgy of 1744 and 1748. The Scottish 
Liturgy was at length revised so as to bring it '* to as exact a conformity 
with the ancient standards of Eucharistic service as it would bear" the 
Invocation being placed after the words of Institution and Oblation. This 
was in 1764, and this form of the service superseded all others and has since 
become generally recognised as the textus receptus of it, although at present 
there is no text of standard authority as regards minutiae^ like the English 
Book Annexed or the American Standard. 



12 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Steps in the process were recorded by the late Bishop of 
Edinburgh in the book referred to in the preface. At 
the same time numerous liturgical customs came into 
use. Some of these seem to have been suggested by 
the English non-jurors' books, but others were of native 
growth. 

While many of the old customs are due to the revival 
of the liturgical spirit among the non-jurors, a persistent 
tradition ascribes others to a date long anterior to the 
eighteenth century. In many places where Episcopacy 
held out during the days of persecution, Presbyterianism 
had never really obtained a footing. Some of the very 
out-of-the-way districts can have been little affected by 
the rapid changes which convulsed the more populous 
centres, and it is scarcely to be wondered at if a few 
of the old customs never died out. 

In 1792, when the Penal Laws were repealed,' the 
ancient Church consisted of a handful of congregations, 
served by only 39 clergy, mostly in the north-east of Scot- 
land. It is this mere handful of churches which preserved 
the Scottish rite.* Now at that time there were a number 
of Anglican churches in Scodand in a schismatical position. 
They formed no part of the national episcopal Church ; the 
Hanoverian occupants of the throne of England were 
prayed for by name in them, and they were consequently 
known as ** Qualified " congregations, to distinguish them 



Mt was not until 1863 that the last disabilities affecting Scottish 
episcopalians were removed. 

*" There were I think many more meeting places, served in rotation. 
I know of a case in the beginning of the Nineteenth century, where one man 
served three congregations of which two still exist I believe the Rev. Paul 
MacColl of Appin had more." G. a 



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THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 3 

from the congregations of the Scottish Church, which 
were non-juring, and therefore disqualified for civil 
toleration. After the repeal of the Penal Laws, these 
schismatical congregations gradually submitted to the 
jurisdiction of the Scottish bishops, and they brought 
into the Scottish Church some of the worst traditions 
of the English and Irish Low Church party. This ex- 
plains the numerous cases of irreverent and careless 
services which were to be found in Scotland at the 
beginning of the Oxford Movement. Such things 
formed no part of the tradition of the genuine Scottish 
episcopacy. 



14 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 



CHAPTER II 

Church Furniture and Clerical Dress 

§ I Tht Church Building 

In the eighteenth century the churches that existed 
prior to the enactment of the Penal Laws were made very 
like those of the Presbyterians, so as to attract as little 
attention as possible. They seem to have had but 
little more furniture than pulpit, reading-desk and 
altar, probably one behind the other, in the fashion of 
the time. The precentor's or reader's desk seems to 
have been called the latron — i.e. lectern, as among 
Presbyterians, e.g., in the Muthill accounts for 1708 we 
have, 

Sunday, Dec. 26, 1708. 

Given for setting up a lattron in the meeting 

house, 01 04 00 

and in the Peterhead accounts for 1731 we find : — 

To Cash pd. for Covering the pulpit and latrin. 

To Do. pd. for linen Cloath for the Communion 
table, — 6 4J 

From " the '45 " to the death of George II, the Penal 
Laws were administered with relentless severity. After 
the accession of George III in 1760, these laws, though 
unrepealed, were not rigorously enforced. In 1745 and 
1746 all episcopal churches and chapels were burnt or 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 



15 



destroyed by the Hanoverian party, * and for the follow- 
ing twenty years services could only be held with the 
utmost caution " in dens and caves of the earth," or oc- 
casionally in private houses in remote districts.* After 
1760 the expedient was resorted to of building churches 
in such a way as to evade the effect of the laws while 
complying with their strict letter. A building like an 
oblong cattle-shed was erected in a rough manner in 
some out of the way place, and it was divided into three 
rooms as shown in the accompanying plan : — 



The small central compartment was for the priest 
and the maximum congregation allowed by the Penal 
Laws, viz. five persons. The partitions were high enough 
to prevent the people who occupied the different rooms 
from seeing each other, but they did not reach to the 
roof. The doors into the large end compartments were 



^ The chapel at Muchalls Castle, although built and used by a power- 
ful Whig family, was burnt by the " Butcher " Cumberland in 1746. This 
and other like cases are sufficient to show how the party in power were 
determined to destroy episcopacy if they could, even where no political 
danger was to be feared from its followers. 

• " After the first outburst I believe the prosecutions were not very 
numerous. Informers were held odious, and it became necessary to send 
out soldiers to act as witnesses when pressure was put on the authorities to 
put down meetings. Dr. Temple's father told me of his uncle watching for 
the soldiers coming from Aberdeen to the Udny meeting. For other 
instances see Craven's Bp, Forbes (Life) and Bp. Jolly's experience." G. S. 



1 6 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

on the side of the building opposite that which con- 
tained the door into the priest's room, so that the people 
who entered them could approach the " church " from the 
reverse direction. As the end rooms were separate from 
the central room, it did not matter how many people 
assembled in them, and in this way a large congregation 
could be gathered, and could join in the service without 
breaking the iniquitous laws. Some few churches were 
built which contained more rooms, but they were on the 
same principle. 

In some places, especially in towns, a house was used 
in this way. The clergyman and the legal five 
assembled in one room, and the congregation in the 
adjacent rooms. Or the clergyman and the five were 
in the passage at the head of the stairs, and the con- 
gregation in the various rooms entering from it This 
was the case at Montrose, in the house which stood in 
the High Street until it was destroyed a few years ago 
to make room for the Public Library. 

At Banff, Portsoy, Old Meldrum, and probably in 
other places, the first churches after the repeal of the 
Penal Laws were built in cottage form. The churches 
of Banff and Old Meldrum were let as cottages when 
better churches were built That at Banff is still stand- 
ing, a substantial cottage on the Braeheads. At Portsoy 
the old church was converted into the present parsonage 
in 1840 when the new church was built 

At Chapelhall (Udny), now merged in Ellon, the 
chapel was built like a joiner s workshop. This was before 
the Penal Laws were repealed. It was used till 1 8 1 6, when 
a church was built at Ellon to serve the congregations 
of Chapelhall and Tillydesk, from plans furnished by 
Bishop John Skinner, who had charge of Tillydesk 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 7 

and Bernie before he moved to Aberdeen/ This 
church was never consecrated. It was an oblong body or 
nave* with a shallow apse in the east gable, the windows 
being on the north side and in the apse only. The altar 
was in the apse, close to the wall, small, and the back of 
it was shaped to the curve. The rails ran in the line of 
the gable. A " three decker " * stood a little in front of 
the rails ; in later days it was cut down to reading desk 
and pulpit There was a west gallery which afterwards 
held the organ and the best singers in the congregation. 

One arrangement of the cottage plan of church 
seems to have been to have the altar in a small enclosure 
in the side of the building opposite the door, with the 
reading desk on one side of the enclosure and the pulpit 
on the other. Sometimes these last were at the back 
of the altar. 

After the repeal of the Penal Laws, the Church, as 
may be imagined, was miserably poor, and the buildings 
at first very often combined both chapel and priest s 
house, the latter occupying the lower story, the former 
being above. Even when early in the nineteenth century, 
the churches began to be built separately again, it was 
long before the builders shook themselves free of the in- 
fluence of the days of persecution and the practice of their 
Presbyterian brethren around them. Their doctrine was 
different, but as often as not the altar was a small and 
mean table below the pulpit, or in some corner near it. 



1 **He died in 1816, when the Church at Ellon was just finished and a 
sermon intended for the opening was found in his desk and used on the 
occasion." G. S. 

*That is to say, a structure, or structures, consisting of a precentor's 
desk with the reading desk behind it on a higher level and the pulpit behind 
the reading desk on a still higher level 

a 



1 8 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

These circumstances must be borne in mind when dis- 
cussing traditional usages, in order to understand the 
absence of many things which any one would naturally 
expect to find, who knew only the liturgy and not the 
circumstances of the Church at the time. 



§ 2 Clerical Dress 

The black gown was the vesture for all ministrations * 
until the Synod of Aberdeen in 1811 recommended the 
cautious introduction of the surplice, which was not used 
in many churches until very much later, although it had 
come into use at the end of the eighteenth century in one 
or two places. Indeed at Lochlee, in the Forfarshire 
highlands, the black gown was worn for all services within 
the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. When the 
surplice was re-introduced, no attempt was made to imi- 
tate the degraded form commonly seen on the Continent ; 
but the large and full kind was adopted,' such as had been 

* See WagstafTe Case, Appendix p. 164. 

* Recent research tends to show that the albe and surplice were 
originally the same vestment Anciently both were long, reaching to the 
ground, and both were full. The surplice had large wide sleeves, the albe 
had narrow sleeves and was always worn with a girdle and an amice. The 
original vestment may be seen in mosaics set up about A.D. 547 at Ravenna, 
where it is of the surplice form. The narrowing of the sleeves and the 
addition of the maniple and girdle for certain occasions seems to have 
arisen in consequence of a Judaising ceremonial movement which overspread 
the Western church at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The name 
surplice (Lat. Superpelliceum) is of much later introduction. Because the 
surplice-like form of the vestment is earlier than the other form it does not 
follow that it was worn alone for Eucharistic use, as some Protestant con- 
troversial writers have maintained. The mosaic at Ravenna iust referred 
to, shows the chasuble worn over it, and in the Orthodox Eastern Church 
at the present day the chasuble is worn over an albe without an amice. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 9 

in continuous use in England during and since the middle 
ages. Some of the clergy kept one specially and 
exclusively as a eucharistic vestment, and this was usually 
smocked and embroidered round the neck. 

One of these was recently found in a chest at Kirrie- 
muir just before the old church was burnt down. 
Another old Scottish surplice is in the possession of the 
Rev. J. W. Harper, the present rector of Leven. It was 
used by the late Dean Harper, incumbent of Inverurie 
and Dean of Aberdeen, and has the peculiarity of a 
square opening at the neck ; it does not contain so much 
linen as many old surplices, although of course it is large 
and full. 

Bishop William Skinner was said to be the first to 
reintroduce a surplice in the north. In 1801 he became 
curate to his father, and amongst other ** new fangled " 
notions from Oxford, he brought a surplice. Bishop 
Sandford did not venture to wear a surplice in Edinburgh 
" till his new chapel was built." When he first came to 
Scotland his chapel " would have been pulled about his 



The albe and surplice have been distinct in the West for ages and we now 
have no right to use the surplice under the chasuble without the albe 
as well, except in cases of necessity. But the point to be noticed is 
that the surplice, like the albe, is properly a vestment that comes to the 
ground or at any rate below the middle of the shin, as the Council of Basel 
laid down. This prescription of the Council of Basel was enforced pretty 
well all over the West, e.g. at Aberdeen in 1 5th century statutes {Regisirum 
Episcopatus Aberdonensis^ Edin. 1845, vol. ii. p. 62). The cutting short of 
the surplice is a very modem innovation. Baruffaldi, a standard Roman 
commentator on the RitucUe Romanutn follows Bauldry in saying that it 
should reach infra genua fere ad media crura and that it should have 
very large sleeves and be exceedingly full. Both refer to the Acta Ecclesiae 
Mediolanensis of St. Charles Borromeo, which are still of very great authority 
in the Roman Church, {v. Ad Ritumle Romanum Commentaria^ Tit. II. § 
VII ; Venice 1752 pp. 10, 11.) See Appendix I. for the Scottish Canon of 
1811. 



20 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

ears had he done so." The "new chapel" referred to 
was probably Charlotte Chapel.' 

The following is part of a letter from the Rev. 
Canon Bruce, of Dunimarle to the late Rev. N. K. 
Macleod, rector of Ellon, which is printed in The 
Buchan Churchman, vol. i., pp. 53, 54. 

" I hasten to say that my memory carries me back to about 
1828 or 29 — by which time the surplice (as the vestment for 
Morning and Evening Prayer and the Administration of the 
Holy Communion) had come generally into use. The Black 
Gown was always used in preaching, and in private offices, such 
as Baptism, Marriage and Funeral Services, as they were then 
and for some time afterwards performed, 

"Bishop Tony never wore the surplice. When performing 
Episcopal acts, which he very seldom did, he assumed the 
Lawn Sleeves. In going to the houses of his flock for Private 
Services, he was wont to walk through the streets in his Gown 
and Cassock, as I have seen him do. He was a man of very 
dignified aspect, and it was a fine sight to see his portly figure 
so attired, with Shovel Hat and Silver-headed Cane, passing 
along the thoroughfare. 

The last time in which I saw him thus was about Christmas- 
tide, 1844, when I, a lately-advanced Deacon, had come to 
spend a short holiday at Peterhead. The incumbency was 
then vacant by the removal of Rev. Charles Cole to Greenock. 
A member of his flock had just died, and the good Bishop, by 
whom she had been baptized, had been asked to take her 
Funeral Service. He being then past 80, gladly availed him- 



* See a letter from Dean Hook to Dr. Charles Wordsworth, Bishop 
of St Andrews, in the present bishop of Salisbury's Episcopate of Charles 
Wordsworth p. 176. Also Lockhart's Taunt to the Scots Clergy ; qu. Thos. 
Stephen, History voX. iv. p. 229 and Lawson's History^ vol. ii, p. 250 ** priests 
in the diocese of Edinburgh, who as if they were serving the covenanted 
cause, should change their black gowns into brown cloaks.*' Bishop Jolly 
did not introduce the surplice till 1825, see Appendix VII. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 21 

self of my help, and we went to the house together. On calling 
for the Bishop, I found him already vested in Gown, Cassock 
and Bands. But the day being very inclement, and snow 
falling heavily, he put on over all, an old-fashioned loose 
greatcoat which, of course, he laid aside on coming to the house, 
I meanwhile carrying my surplice in a bag. Of Bishop William 
Skinner's custom I may say this, that when I was a boy at 
Aberdeen Grammar School, I well remember that on the 
Sunday mornings when he always preached at St Andrew's 
Church he was wont to come into Church at the beginning of 
service in his black gown. In it he remained in the Sacrarium 
during morning prayer, and in it he read the Ante-Communion 
Service and preached ; of this a memorial probably still remains 
in a small half-length portrait of the Bishop, painted by J. Giles 
R.S.A., about 1838, in which he is represented in gown, and 
bands, reading the Service from an open quarto Prayer Book. 
This portrait used to hang in his dining-room in Golden Square 
before the larger portrait in his lawn sleeves was painted. The 
Sunday Services were then conducted in strict accordance with 
the Prayer Book. You are aware of course that in the 
administration of the Holy Communion, according to the 
Scotch Office, addresses and hymns were largely interpolated. 
The Church Militant Prayer generally followed the Sermon^ 
often from the pulpit and always in the Black Gown, unless 
when there was another clergyman already vested in surplice- 
The Black Gown for the whole service was used by the 
Rev. A. Simpson * at Lochlee, Glenesk, during his Incumbency, 
so bringing down the use to a much later date than the days of 
Bishop Torry." 

In Old Church Life in Scotland (2nd series, Paisley, 
1886, p. 391) Dr. Edgar writes ** People still living 
remember when such gowns were denounced by some 
good folks in Scotland, as the rags of popery. The 
wearing of black gowns by ministers, when either 
performing divine service or attending Church courts, 

^ Mr. Simpson was Incumbent of Lochlee from 1840 to 1871. 



22 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

was enjoined by Act of Parliament 1609, and subse- 
quent Royal Proclamations founded thereon. In 161 2 
it was minuted by the Synod of Fife that 'the haill 
number of the brethren present were found in their 
gownes, exceptand some few, quho in the next Session 
wes found sic lyk to gif obediens.' The wearing of 
a gown came, thus, to be thought a compliance with 
Erastianism — submission to the King's command — and 
a badge of Prelacy. At the reforming Assembly of 
1638, when Episcopacy was abjured, Bishop Burnet 
remarks that * the Marquis (of Hamilton) judged it 
was a sad sight to see such an Assembly, for not a 
gown was among them all, but many had swords and 
daggers about them.'" In Church Folk Lore^ p. 231, Mr. 
Vaux quotes evidence that about 1822 the clergy in 
Philadelphia, U.S.A., used the black gown for prayers 
as well as preaching in Advent and Lent. 

The black scarf, properly called the tippet, was worn 
by all clergy whether dignitaries or not. Deacons wore 
it in the same way as priests. This was certainly the case 
at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Longside, Fy vie, St Andrew s 
Aberdeen, and everywhere else, as far as the writer has been 
able to gather, after the introduction of the surplice, and 
sometimes before.* Bands were also worn of course, as 
they had been in earlier days with the black gown. 
Latterly the black scarf fell out of use, owing to some of 
the clergy copying the unintelligent things that were 
being done in England, where certain people had mis- 
taken the black scarf for a corrupt kind of broad stole, 
and then adopted first a black, and afterwards a coloured 
stole at all services, without regard to the ecclesiastical 
custom of this country, which had generally restricted 

* As in the case of Bishop Jolly, see Appendix VII. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 23 

the use of the stole to the administration of the 
sacraments. At Longside there is an oil painting, 
representing Dean Cuming in cassock, gown and 
bands. The cassock was of the double-breasted kind 
traditional in England and Scotland and almost identi- 
cal with that used throughout the Orthodox Eastern 
Church. 

^ 3 TAe Altar 

The holy table was generally called the altar, the 
prejudice against this word, so frequently found in 
England, being practically unknown. That the word 
altar was applied clearly and definitely to the holy table 
itself and not merely to the place where it stood,' is easily 
proved by contemporary documents as well as by the unani- 
mous witness of those who can remember the days before 
the influence of the Oxford Movement became felt 

As far as the writer can gather, the holy table was 
always kept covered, at any rate during the celebration 
of the Eucharist, when a large linen cloth was employed 
which enveloped the whole of the altar.* At Ellon and 
Fraserburgh the altar was covered with a red cloth 
cover enveloping top, front and ends, but not the 
back, which was close to the wall : the loose cloth 

^ In the Eastern Church the place where the altar stands is called the 
altar, and what we call the altar is called the holy table. 

' Speaking roughly two forms of '* fair linen cloth ^ have been used 
in the West from time immemorial. One, which is probably the oldert 
completely envelops the altar or at any rate covers the front for the same 
distance as the sides. This is probably the more ancient and may be seen 
in early mosaics at Ravenna. The other form covers the mensa and the 
two ends, reaching to the ground at each side, but not covering more than an 
inch or two— if that — of the front. Both are equally legitimate. It is a 
great error to regard the larger form as in any sense ** Protestant" or of 
Post- Reformation introduction. 



24 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

at the front corners was drawn out obliquely, just as 
may be seen in certain pictures of Eighteenth century 
altars, e.g., those in The Orthodox Communicant^ 
engraved by Sturt, 171 7.' At the time of 'the 
Communion the large linen cloth was used, envelop- 
ing the altar to the floor, and at Ellon it was pinned 
close to the frame work at the ends. At Stonehaven 
the arrangement was similar. 

The altar at Turriff was very small and almost 
square. At one time it had a blue frontal of some 
historic interest' 

At Peterhead the altar was covered with a crimson 
velvet frontal on all sides, which was embroidered in 
front with a gold IHS in a glory of rays. A large 
white cloth, with fleur-de-lys etc., in diaper, covered 

* At Staunton Harold in Leicestershire an altar of this kind may still 
be seen in the beautiful chapel of Elarl Ferrers, which was built by Sir Robert 
Shirley in 1653, in fifteenth century style, and is a good late specimen 
of genuine English gothic architecture. Here the original frontal, cushions, 
candlesticks and plate are still in use, as well as the large linen doth, and the 
whole chapel and all its fittings are good examples of the best post-reforma- 
tion tradition, such as the non-jurors endeavoured to carry out 

*A fragment of it is preserved in the Diocesan Museum at Aberdeen 
together with the following extract from the Turriff minute book : — 

**In the year 1780 the Blue Qoth cover and hanging of the Altar, 
having the letters I.H.S. that is Jesus Hominum Salvator, and a Cross 
encircled in silver embroidery, was given by a Bishop Gordon in London, 
the last Nonjurant Bishop there, to a Mrs. Gibson, a Widow Lady in 
Banff, she being in London at the time, and ordered her to give to any 
Clergyman or Congregation in Scotland that she should think proper, as he 
hoped and expected it would meet with more reverence and respect in 
Scotland than what it was likely to do in London at that time, as mobs 
were daily burning and demolishing all the Popish places of worship. And 
the said Altar Cover having a cross upon it, he feared that his Chapel 
might share the same fate, as upon that account it might be mistaken for 
a popish Chapel: — Accordingly the said Mrs. Gibson brought it to 
Scotland and gave it to Mr. Jolly for the use of this congregation." 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 2$ 

the whole when the Eucharist was celebrated. The 
linen cloths at Cruden, Longside and Fyvie were of 
the same kind; that at Cruden had IHS with a glory 
of rays woven in it Two damask corporals 25 inches 
square woven with IHS, crosses, mitres and crossed 
croziers, are still preserved at Cruden. One corporal 
only was used as a rule, and was turned up so as 
to cover the chalice after the communion.' In some 
churches, however, as at Ellon, no corporal was used 
upon the altar, but only to cover the vessels from the 
communion to the end of the service. The same appears 
to have been the case at Peterhead, where the elements 
were set on the altar at the beginning of the service, at 
any rate in Dr. Rorison's time. This is the only case 
which the writer has found of the observance in Scotland 
of this unrubrical practice — a survival from the middle 
ages which was common enough in England, Wales and 
Ireland. Before the offertory, the elements were often 
covered with the upper corporal as they stood prepared on 
the credence. 

§ 4 Plate 

In the altar plate used in the eighteenth century we 
naturally expect to find neither elegance nor richness, nor 
even any very strongly marked individuality of form. 
Congregations which were penniless, if not persecuted, 
could only use such vessels as they could get, and the 



' This is the most ancient form of corporal and remained in use all 
through the middle ages side by side with the more recent custom of using 
two smaller corporals which seems to have come in about the nth century, 
if not earlier. St. Anselm, writing about i loo, says *' Whilst consecrating, 
some cover the chalice with a corporal, others with a folded cloth {Opera 
138, c. 4) . The damask corporals were very likely made in England. 



26 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

earlier vessels are almost all of pewter. In form, they 
were simple and sometimes rather clumsy variants of 
the types used late in the seventeenth century, or 
by the Presbyterians of the eighteenth. After the 
repeal of the Penal Laws there was an approxima- 
tion to late eighteenth century English types, and 
most of the more modern plate is English. The 
sacred monogram surmounted by a cross and en- 
circled with a glory of rays generally formed the only 
attempt at decoration on the plate of the eighteenth 
century. The patens were nearly always large. Some- 
times they had short stems like the Eastern paten or 
Sl<rK09: this was also frequently the case with English 
patens of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The 
few existing eighteenth century flagons are of the usual 
tankard type with a hinged lid There are some large 
plain pewter alms dishes. Some churches possess rather 
eccentric looking early nineteenth century plate which 
appears to have been made for domestic purposes and 
given to the church by generous benefactors. It is only 
when we come to the chalices that we find anything of 
liturgical as distinct from merely archaeological interest 
Besides the ordinary eighteenth century chalices with 
their more or less straight sided cups and their small feet 
and almost knot-less moulded stems, we find the peculiar 
form know as the * beaker,' 4n frequent use all over the 
north-east of Scotland. Episcopalians and Presbyterians 
alike used them in the seventeenth century, and the latter 
still possess and use a great number, some of which are 
very richly ornamented. These vessels are like large 
metal beakers or tumblers ; sometimes they have small 
feet, like rims round their bases, sometimes their lips are 
slightly curved outwards, otherwise their form scarcely 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 27 

varies at all. Chalices of this type are common among 
the reformed in Holland, and they are also used by the 
Lutherans in Denmark and on the shores of the Baltic. 
They made their first appearance in Scotland under what 
is known as 'the first Episcopacy,* and the oldest 
examples are those belonging to the parish church of 
Arbirlot in Forfarshire, which are dated 1633 and 1634, 
and were made in Edinburgh in 1608- 16 10. Most of 
them however were made in Aberdeen and (with one 
exception) they are not found south of the Tay. They 
are most frequent in the counties of Forfar, Aberdeen, 
Banff, Moray, Nairn and Orkney and Shetland. Perhaps 
the richest examples are at Kings College and the 
Cathedral, Aberdeen, and the parish church of Ellon. 
The parish of Cruden possesses some large plain beaker 
chalices given by Dr. James Drummond, who was 
bishop of Brechin from 1684 and lived at Slains Castle 
after the disestablishment of Episcopacy at the Revolu- 
tion. They are inscribed : — 

DEDICATED TO THE SERVICE OF IeSVS AND OF HIS 

Church at Cruden by D' Ia Drummond 
LATE Bishop of Brechin who Died at Slains. 
13. Ap. I 6 9 5. 

Some idea of the proportions of chalices of this type 
may be gathered from the dimensions of these, which 
are 6A jn. high, 4iin. across the mouth and ^i in. across 
the foot, which is rw in. in height, or rathfer, thick- 
ness. 

The beaker chalices made during the eighteenth 
century were of pewter and very plain, and it only 
remains to say that examples still remain in the posses- 
sion of several congregations, although the writer believes 
that none are in use at the present time. Their practical 



k. ^-^1... . ■ I — 



28 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

inconvenience is obvious. Montrose, Drumlithie, Stone- 
haven, Longside and Old Deer are among the churches 
possessing them.' 



§ Tokens 

If not actually to be reckoned as a part of the church 
plate, the Communion Tokens were generally looked 
upon as intimately connected with it They were (and 
are) small metal tickets given to intending communicants 
as a certificate of being in full communion with the 
Church, and therefore entitled to partake of the holy 
mysteries. In older and stricter times none were admitted 
to communicate without producing one, and this discipline 
is still kept up by almost all Presbyterians in Scotland, 
although the metal token is fast giving place to the 
printed card. 

The history of the communion token with special 
reference to Scotland has been very carefully written by 
Dr. Burns in his Old Scottish Communion Plate, pp. 435- 
468, and by Mr. Alex. J. S. Brooke, F.S.A. Scot, in 
the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scot- 
land, 1907, vol. xxxviii, so that it is unnecessary to do 
more than give an outline of it here. 



* Scarcely any plate survived the Scottish Reformation, but that of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is often of great beauty and interest, 
exhibiting more variety of shape and treatment than the English plate of 
the same period. The whole subject has been very fully dealt with by the 
Rev. Thomas Bums in his Old Scottish Communion Plate, Edinburgh, 1892. 
Dr. Boms confines himself to the plate of the parish churches. For pewter, 
Scottish Pewter-ware and pewterers, L. Ingleby Wood, Edinburgh, n.d. 
[1907?] may be consulted, in which the writer illustrates and describes 
practically all the pewter plate belonging to the Episcopal Church. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 29 

The origin of the custom is obscure : it is said that 
tokens were used in pre-reformation times, but the writer 
has not seen satisfactory evidence of it, at least as 
regards this country. It is certain, however, that the 
practice at once becomes prominent just after the 
Reformation, and especially among the continental 
reformed communities. By 1560 they had been in- 
troduced in France by Calvin and Viret under the names 
mirreau^ masreau, marreaux and marque^ but were not 
adopted at Geneva till 1605. They were common in 
Holland and used by the Amsterdam Walloons as early 
as 1586. In England they appear in 1559 at St 
Saviour's, Southwark, and Cardinal Pole is said to have 
used them in Mary's reign. At Newbury, Berks, 300 
tokens were bought in 1658, and in the parish books 
of Henley on Thames they are called "Communion 
half-pence." In 1634 one John Richardson was 
charged at Durham with disturbing Divine Service by 
irreverence in collecting certain dues. A witness 
disponed that his predecessor ** tooke Easter reckenings 
of such people as received the holie communion and 
there accompted with them, and delivered and received 
tokens of them, as is used in other oarishes as 
examinate beleveth." Tokens are first mentioned in 
Scotland under the name of * tecket ' in the kirk session 
records of St. Andrews, in May, 1560, and for along 
time they were frequently called * tickets ' or * testificats.* 
A meeting was held shortly before the day on which the 
Communion was to be administered, and the intending 
communicants were examined as to their scriptural 
knowledge and their moral and spiritual condition. 
Tokens were given to those whose answers were 
satisfactory. The written ticket existed side by side 



30 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

with the metal token as early as 1572 at St 
Andrews. 

The size of the tokens varies slightly, and their form 
varies considerably. Some are square, others round, 
elliptical, octagonal, or triangular. Sometimes the 
letters or devices on them are in relief, sometimes incised. 
The custom of dating tokens began as early as 1588, but 
it did not become common until late in the seventeenth 
century. Tokens generally bore the ministers initials 
with or without the name of the parish in a greatly 
abridged form, such as Phd for Peterhead. From the 
end of the seventeenth century onwards various devices 
and ornaments appear on tokens, and in the eighteenth 
century short texts of scripture became common. On 
many Presbyterian tokens devices and emblems appear 
which are often very surprising and would scarcely have 
been tolerated upon anything else. Thus the Sacred 
Heart appears on the tokens of Evie and Kendall 1734, 
Anwoth 1755 and Mochrum 1759, and a Latin cross with 
INRI on that of Langton, 1789. 

Tokens were sometimes moulded, sometimes cut 
with a punch. Lead was generally the metal used, but 
a few are of tin and a few of brass. 

After the Revolution the disestablished congregations 
sometimes contrived to retain possession of the old 
tokens, but in the majority of cases it was found both 
necessary and desirable to make fresh ones. These 
generally followed the old models and were usually very 
plain, although many were adorned with a cross and 
some bore the sacred monogram IHS, often surmounted 
by a cross. 

At Peterhead some oval tokens bear S / Peters /PHD 
on one side and a Latin cross surrounded by chr. mort. 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 3 1 

PRO NOBIS on the other. These are probably the tokens 
to which the following account refers : — 

Dr. The Managers of the Chapel to James Argo 

Paid Mr. James Arbuthnot for the Pr Acc^ jCo 7 6 

Paid for forging stamps for Making tockens 026 

„ to Making and Ingraving the stamps! 2 i o 

,9 and Casting off 500 tockens | 

Peterhead April 27th 1797 ^ ;^5r u 

the Above is settled Pr. Stampt J-Jas. Argo 
Receipt of this date. 

Almost all the old nonjuring churches used tokens, 
including those at such places as Dundee, Arbroath, 
Forfar, Montrose, Aberdeen, Ellon, Fyvie, Folia Rule, 
Longside, Fraserburgh, Forgue, and Arpafeelie. Mr. 
Robert Dick gives particulars of over 50 different 
tokens made or believed to have been used by 
Scottish Episcopalians since the disestablishment of 
Episcopacy at the Revolution, on pp. 96-101 of Scottish 
Communion Tokens other than those of the Established 
Church, Edinburgh 1902. This list however appears to 
include one or two Presbyterian tokens. The practice 
was revived at St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and All Saints, 
Edinburgh, in the nineteenth century, and it is continued 
at Longside, Leith and St Mary Magdalene's Dundee 
by means of printed cards. 

Tokens were in use at Longside and Old Deer as 
recently as 1 893, and at Cruden on the great festivals as 
late as 1895. At Cruden they were given out from the 
chancel steps on the previous Sunday or Holy Day 
immediately after the Service ; then on the festival they 
were collected by two of the Vestry as the communicants 
passed up to the altar. It was customary up to a recent 
date at Ellon for the incumbent to stand near the west 



32 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

door after service on the Sunday previous, to take down 
the names of the intending communicants. « 

At Fraserburgh the clergyman stood within the altar 
rails on the previous Sunday ; intending communicants 
went up and bowed to him ; as he returned the bow he 
took down the name of the communicant 

In earlier times the tokens were probably given out 
at a preparation service during the week and not upon the 
previous Sunday, 



' Bnchan Churchman^ I. pp. 36, $3. 



THE SCOTTISH UTUROY 33 



CHAPTER III 
The Preparation of the Eucharistic Elements 

§ I The Bread 

Until very recently the universal practice with regard 
to the sacred elements was to use "ordinary bread, but 
the best and purest wheat bread that conveniently may 
be gotten." At Fraserburgh the bread was specially 
baked by a member of the congregation, and it contained 
only the finest flour, with water and a little yeast Red 
wine was used, nearly always tent With their knowledge 
of Eastern practice one is not at all surprised that the 
nonjurors adhered to the use of leavened bread. Their 
knowledge of antiquity would also teach them the very 
striking universality of red as against white wine. 

The bread was generally prepared somewhat as 
follows. Several slices were cut from one loaf, without 
crusts, and carefully squared These were placed above 
each other and cut through about thrice each way, so as 
to make numerous small square pieces.' The top slice 



* In Aberdeenshire the Presbyterians have retained the tradition of 
dividing the bread into small cubes, instead of merely cutting it into slices 
to be broken by the communicants themselves. 

The Presbyterians of the south west of Scotland long retained the practice 
of using shortbread for Communion. This was at one time universal round 
Dumfnes and in Kirkcudbrightshire and is still the custom at Minnigaflf on 
the west side of the latter county. A special kind of bread is still used at 
Wigtown. The writer hopes to deal at length with this practice upon some 
other occasion. 

3 



'fcp' 



34 CUSTOMS CONNECTBD WITH 

in some places, e.g., Muchalls, was treated differently : it 
was made into the form of a cross by cutting rectangular 
pieces from each corner, and was used by the priest for 
the ceremonial fraction during the consecration. At 
Arbroath, however, five small cubes were placed in the 
form of a cross on the top of the rest and one of them 
was used for the fraction. I n this more or less ceremonial 
preparation of the bread we seem to find an echo of the 
practice of the Eastern churches, where the bread is 
specially baked, stamped with a cross, and is divided and 
set out on the paten with great ceremonial elaboration in 
the service of the Prothesis before the commencement of 
the liturgy itself. There is no resemblance however, in 
the details of the ceremonial, that in the Eastern rites 
being considerably more elaborate, and having a definite 
symbolism, attached. This symbolism has no counterpart 
in the Scottish custom. 



§ 2 The Mixed Chalice 

The mixed chalice was one of the "greater usages" 
and before the middle of the eighteenth century it became 
practically universal Indeed, when the Penal Laws were 
repealed, there was probably not one of the northern 
congregations in which the mixture was not used 

In 1809 the Rev. Robert Adam wrote of the mixed 
chalice as follows : — 

** In commemoration of the blood and water which 
flowed from our Saviours side when pierced with the 
spear, every branch of the Christian church, the 
Armenians excepted, administered the sacrament of the 
blood of Christ in a mixed cup of wine and water, till the 
Reformation, when Luther first departed from this 



THE SCOTTISH LITUROY^ ^5 

primitive practice, and was followed by the reformers at 
Geneva. The mixture is accordingly practised in this 
church, though not enjoined in her Communion Office."" 

There appear to have been two distinct traditions as 
to the time when the mixture was made. In some 
places this was done at the time of the offertory, just 
before placing the bread and wine on the altar : in others 
before the service* This last appears to be much the 
older, probably a survival from pre-reformation times at 
least, while the mixture at the offertory would seem to 
be an introduction of the nonjurors. It is very hard to 
know which was the commoner, for about thirty or forty 
years ago, certain people, wishing to popularise the 
making of the mixture at the offertory, set up a false dis- 
tinction between what they called a "ceremonial 
mixture " and a " non-ceremonial mixture," and thus found 
a reason for condemning as unsatisfactory any mixing of 
the chalice not carried out in a particular way at the time 
of the offertory. It was said by mid- Victorian cere- 
monialists to be "correct" if done in this way and at 
this time; "incorrect" if done otherwise. Hence in the 
case of many churches it is very hard to tell whether the 
mixture at the offertory was really the old custom, or 
whether in these cases it was formerly done before the 
service and was transferred to the time of the offertory 
some thirty or forty years ago. 

In places where the sacred elements were prepared 
before the commencement of the service, the bread was 
cut and placed on the paten, and the wine and water 



* A view of the History^ Doctrine j Worship^ Constitution and Present 
State of The Episcopal Church in Scotland^ and of her Sister Church in 
America^ by the Rev. Robert Adam, B.A., Edinburgh, 1809, p. 32. 



36 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

were poured out, usually into the flagon, on account of 
the large number of communicants. The writer has 
been told that it was the custom of some old Aberdeen- 
shire priests when pouring the water into the flagon or 
chalice/ to say the words '* A soldier with a spear 
pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood 
and water." Bishop Robert Forbes left in MS how- 
ever a long prayer to be said at the mixture " composed 
according to St Cyprian's Explanation of this Usage." 
This will be found in Appendix II. 

The elements so prepared were set on the 
credence, or upon some substitute for the credence — 
scarcely ever on the altar itself.' The credence table, 
indeed, was sometimes a mere bracket fixed to the side 
of the pulpit Rather than that the rubric should 
be broken by the elements being set on the altar at the 
beginning of the service, a chair was made to serve 



* This fonnula was used by Alexander Jolly, the well known and 
learned Bishop of Moray, who was also incumbent of Fraserburgh in 
Aberdeenshire. He repeated it aloud. Mr. Vaux quotes the late Henry 
Humble, Canon of Perth, as saying that '*the celebrant, in making the 
mixture, which was done publicly in all churches of the older type, used to 
say, and still in some places continues to say: — *And one of the soldiers 
with a spear pierced His side, and thence came there out blood and water.'" 
{Church Folklore^ p. 69). 

* Bishop Jolly, in a note in his Christian Sacrifice^ Aberdeen, 1831, pp. 
143-4, quotes a private letter from Dr. Walker, Bishop of Edinburgh, in 
which he describes the practice at Manchester Collegiate Church in 1813. 
He says, "the elements were not upon the altar, but covered on a side 
table, in the south comer, within the rails. One of the assistant clergy 
went, immediately after the offertory was placed upon the altar, uncovered 
the elements, and brought them to the warden, into whose hands he 
delivered them ; and the warden, having solemnly placed them upon the 
altar, said, with a loud voice, * Let us pray for the whole state,' etc." 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 37 

the purpose of a credence table in case of need The 
credence was covered with a linen cloth. The elements 
remained in this position during the first part of the 
service, and after the presentation of the alms at the 
offertory they were brought from the credence and, in 
some places, solemnly offered, both kinds simultaneously^ 
with a slight elevation : nothing being said by the cele- 
brant' Where, as at Longside, the mixture was made 
in a separate vessel, it was now poured into the chalice 
or chalices. It is worthy of note that the Russian 
practice at the present day is for the deacon to make the 
mixture in a separate vessel when preparing the table of 
the Prothesis, and afterwards to pour the mixture into 
the chalice during the Service of the Prothesis. 



§ 3 The Mixture before the Service 

This custom of making the mixture before the service 
is one of the most important with which we have to deal, 
for there is good reason to believe — reason which almost 
amounts to proof — that it has existed continuously for 
many centuries, ever since the days of the Irish mission- 
aries who introduced Christianity into Scotland. 

In the simple form in which we have described it, this 
ceremonial corresponds to what is done in those Eastern 
rites which the revisers of the Scottish Liturgy took as 
their model. But it was certainly not introduced by 
them, for it had been done by a tradition which was old 



* While perhaps most modem liturgies provide some verbal ofTering 
of the unconsecrated elements, the Anglican rites are not alone in prescribing 
no form of word at this time, as witness the Roman rite prior to the loth 
or I ith centuries, and certainly up to the middle of the 9th. 



38 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

in the time of Thomas Rattray, Bishop of Dunkeld, 
1 727- 1 743, who writes : 

" It may not be improper also to remark, that even 
before we had the Common Prayers, it was the custom in 
many places to mix a little pure and clean water with the 
Sacramental Wine — not indeed at the Altar but in pre- 
paring the elements before. This custom was almost 
universal throughout the North, perhaps from the very time 
of the Reformation, and after this time we are now speaking 
of, came to spread still somewhat more : several of our 
younger clergy especially beginning to acquaint themselves 
with the principles and practices of the Primitive Church, 
and to pay great regard to them." * 

Previous to the Reformation the elements were pre- 
pared before the service at low mass under the Sarum 
rite,* which was used in the greater part of Scotland, 
and in the Gaelic tract which accompanies the Stowe 
Missal the preparation also takes places before the 
service,^ 



^ Quoted by Dr. Dowden, Annotated Scottish Communion Office^ p. 53. 

* Indirect testimony to this may perhaps be found in the words of 
John Major, the well known historian and theologian, a man of Scottish 
birth, who, in his treatise on the Fourth Book of the Sentences of Peter 
Lombard writes, ^ £t debent vinum cum aqua misceri a principio sacriiicii : 
quia vinum aquam in se conuertit in magno tempore: non autem sic in 
brevi tempore." lohannis Maioris doctoris Theoiogi In Quartum Sentm- 
tiarum quaestiones vtilisnmae, Venundantur a sui impressore lodoco Badio 
in officina lodoci Badii Ascensii, 1519. Dist xii, quaest. v, p. Ixvj col. ii. 
In other places of this book John Major mentions Scottish circumstances, 
and it is not easy to think that in this he would have given advice contrary 
to the prevalent Scottish use without saying so. His book is dedicated to 
Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld and Robert Cockbum, bishop of Ross. 

* With this pecularity, vis. that the water was poured in first, then 
the wine. See Appendix III. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 39 

The Dominican Order still prepares the chalice 
before the service at low mass'; the same is done in 
Spain in the Mozarabic rite, and it was formerly done in 
several Western rites, at high as well as at low mass. 

The question of the liturgical moment of the mixing 
of the chalice demands a somewhat more detailed con- 
sideration. 

Before the sacred elements are ready for consecration 
three actions generally take place. 

(i) The bread is placed on the paten, the wine and 
water are poured into the chalice. 

(ii) The chalice and paten, with the elements thus 
placed in them, are taken to and set upon the middle of 
the altar. 

(iii) The elements are offered as material for con- 
secration before they are consecrated. 

There are numerous variations in the way in which 
these ceremonies take place and in the subsidiary accom- 
panying ceremonies, but for the present we must confine 
our attention to one point, viz, the time in the service at 
which these things are done. For the present we need 
not consider the ^.zlwslk preparation oi ^^ elements. In 
some rites the bread is made or baked with prayers and 
ceremonies. In the Russian Church the actual mixture of 
wine and water is made beforehand by the deacon without 
ceremony, and the mixture thus made is poured into the 
chalice during the Service of the Proskomide before the 
liturgy itself begins. Elsewhere there seems to be no such 
preliminary preparation of the wine and water, the 



' For the Dominican rules now in use prescribing what is done kt 
the present day see Appendix III, f 3. 



40 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

mixture being made in the chalice when the elements 
are poured in, whether before the liturgy or at the 
offertory. 

The offering (iii) is always made at the time of the 
offertory, the very beginning of the Missa Fidelium, but 
the time at which the first two actions take place has 
varied considerably in the different rites of the Church^ 
Sometimes (i), (ii) and (iii) are all found together at the 
time of the offertory. This is perhaps the less common 
arrangement ; but the Roman rite at high mass is the great 
example of it Sometimes (ii) and (iii) take place together 
at the time of the offertory, the elements being set on the 
altar immediately before they are offered, having been 
placed in the paten and chalice (i) at a much earlier 
point in the service ; this seems the most primitive use ; it 
is now practised throughout the East ' and is the same as 



^ The reader must be cautioned against assuming that the Russian 
and Greek practice are the same, for they differ in the time of the making of 
the mixture although not in the time of the filling of the chalice. In both 
cases the chalice is filled, not during the liturgy itself, but during the pre- 
liminary Service of the Proskomide, which is held at the table of the prothesis. 
In the Greek Church the mixture itself is made when the chalice is filled, the 
deacon pouring first wine from one cruet and then water from the other into 
the chalice. But in Russia there is no such use of two cruets during the 
Service of the Proskomide ; there the deacon has already made the mixture 
in a separate vessel called a Kovshick, like a small basin. This 
mixture is made without any form of words being said, and before the 
deacon puts on his vestment ; the basin containing it remains, covered, upon 
the prothesis near the empty chalice until the time arrives for the deacon to 
pour it in. There is yet another difference, inasmuch as in Russia the water 
is poured in first and extremdy little is used» whereas in Greece the wine is 
poured in first and then a fair quantity of water in the form of a cross, some- 
times nearly as much as a third of the contents of the chalice. It is hardly 
necessary to add that the addition of hot water in the litui^es of St. 
Basil and St Chrysostom takes place after consecration. The Greek and 
Russian rubrics for the filling of the chalice are as follows : — 



i 4t. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 4 1 

our Scottish custom. Sometimes (i) the placing in the 
sacred vessels and (ii) the setting on the altar, take 
place together at an early part of the service ; the oblation, 
(iii), here little more than verbal, being made at the 
usual place ; this is what is done in most non- Roman 
Western rites, including those of Sarum and of the 
modern Dominicans. Looking at the Church at large, 
the custom of doing (i), (ii) and (iii) all together, 
although perhaps the most familiar to us now, is really 
the more exceptional. In England it only seems to have 
prevailed at Hereford. Mr. Brightman, however, con- 
siders it the most primitive. Where (i) and (ii), viz. 
preparation, and the setting on the altar, take place early 
in the service, there is sometimes a difference between 
high and low mass, the time in the service being earlier 
still at the latter. Thus in the Sarum rite (as with the 
Dominicans at the present day) the chalice was mixed 
and set on the altar between the Epistle and Gospel 
at high mass, while at low mass this was done before the 
service. But in some rites there was no such distinction 
as to time of mixture between high and low mass. 

Although the Roman rite of the present day retains 
the old Roman ceremonies at high mass, (i), (ii) and (iii) 
all taking place together at the offertory, a curious anomaly 
exists at low mass, the preparation of the two kinds being 
separate. The bread is placed on the paten in the 
sacristy by the priest before he vests, and that is 



Greek. '0 ^ Atd/rorot iyxfti rf Ayltp UvnjpUfi ix roO wdftarot ifAoO Ktd roO Mftror, 

Russian. (Trans, from the Church Slavonic). TAe Deacon then pours into 
the Holy Cup wine and water together. [John Glen King, The Rites and 
Ceremonies of the Greeh Church in Russia, London, 1772.] 



4i CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

set on the altar before the .beginning of the service, 
together with the empty chalice, while the wine and 
water are not poured into the chalice until the time of 
the offertory. 

Another rather abnormal rite in this respect is the 
Carthusian, and the peculiarity is also evident at 
solemn or conventual mass. The celebrant at low mass 
places the bread on the paten, and pours the wine 
(but not the water) into the chalice before the be- 
ginning of the service. When the time of the offertory 
arrives, he mixes the chalice by pouring in the water. At 
high mass all this is done by the deacon, and the prepara- 
tion which is made before the service at low mass does 
not take place till later, although still separate from the 
actual mixture which is at the same time as at low mass.' 

From what has been said it will appear that the time 
at which the sacred elements are prepared has varied 
(and still varies) considerably in different parts of the 
Church. It is undoubtedly an ancient practice to pre- 
pare the elements and place them in the sacred vessels 
before the altar service begins. The custom of setting 
the elements on the altar at the beginning of, or very early 
in, the service, while very common in mediaeval Western 
rites, seems to be peculiarly Western, and although 
distinctly ancient, is not primitive, and partakes of the 
nature of an anticipation of the offertory ceremonies. It 
is difficult to see how it can be followed in the face of the 
modern Scottish or English rubrics. The Scottish 
rubric speaks of the sacred elements as already ''pre- 
pared," i.e., probably before the service. 

Reasons have been given which go far towards show- 

> For the Carthusian rules see Appendix III i 2, 



I 

V 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 43 

ing that the making of the mixture before the service in 
Scotland is the. survival of a very ancient usage, and not a 
fresh introduction by the non-jurors.' The English 
non-jurors' practice was different: they made the 
mixture at the offertory : this seems to have been a new 
introduction, while the mixture before the service was 
an old survival. The non-jurors' liturgy of 1718* 
was influenced in many ways by the English Prayer Book 
of 1 549 ^ which prescribed that the mixture should take 
place immediately before the offering of the elements. 
This had been the use of Hereford, hence perhaps its 
finding its way into the 1 549 Prayer Book, although it 
never seems to have been at all widespread in England. 
So we find the non-jurors' book directing that the chalice 
be made at the offertory. Their curious direction that 
the mixing take place ** in view of the people " forms a 



* This is also borne out by the fact that the usage of a mixed cup 
survived among the Presbjrterians in out of the way parts of West Aber- 
deenshire until almost within living memory. Dr. G. W. Sprott, formerly 
Minister of North Berwick writes, "The late Dr. Bisset of Bourtie informed 
me that some of the older clergy whom he knew as a young man, were very 
particular about continuing the use of a mixed cup which had been handed 
down to them. The Synod of Aberdeen, during the Covenanting Period 
attempted to stop this early Christian usage, but without success. In the 
visitation of parishes one of the questions put at that time was, ' Is your 
wine for the Holy Communion mixed with water or not ? '—-see Davidson's 
Inverurie^ &c. pp. 308, 311. Boston speaks of the usage in a way that 
leads one to believe that it was common in the South of Scotland alsa" 
The Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland^ by George W, Sprott, 
D. D., Edinburgh, 1882 p. 242. 

^ In Appendix III § 4 will be found in parallel columns the rubrics re- 
lating to the preparation of the elements in the English Prayer Books of 
1549 and 1662, the modem Scottish Liturgy (1764), and the nonjurors' 
liturgies. 

^ Ibid 



44 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Strange contrast to tl^eir otherwise consistent appeal to 
antiquity and universality, for there is not a single 
ancient liturgy in which any such provision is made. 
True, there were numerous mediaeval Western rites in 
which it might have been possible for the people to see 
the mixing, but only accidentally, and not of set purpose. 
We have met with the idea in our own day ; more than 
one Romanising ceremonialist has tried to popularise the 
making of the mixture at the offertory by giving this 
reason. But it might just as well be said that the people 
ought to see the cutting of the bread — an act which in 
many liturgies is accompanied with more ceremony than 
the making of the chalice. 

In the later non-juring liturgies — Deacon's 1734' 
and Rattray's 1744 and 1748* — the words "in view of 
the people " still find a place, but accompanied by very 
different directions for the rest of the preparation of the 
elements. Study of the Eastern rites seems to have 
suggested to the compilers that the sacred elements ought 
to be prepared before the service. So we find this ordered 
for everything but the pouring of water into the chalice, 
which takes place alone at the time of the offertory, and 
** in view of the people. " Curiously enough the ceremonial 
here prescribed agrees very closely with that of the 
Carthusian monks, ancient and modern, which also orders 
the pouring of the water into the chalice to take place by 
itself at the time of the offertory, the wine being already 
there.3 It seems highly improbable that the non-juring 



* For the Carthusian rules see Appendix III f 3. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 45 

ritualists consciously imitated the Charterhouse rite. It 
is more likely that the desire to mix the chalice '* in 
view of the people " prevailed over everything else — even 
over their wish to follow Eastern usages ; and perhaps a 
misunderstanding of the infusion of hot water which takes 
place after the consecration in the Liturgy of St Chry- 
sostom may have suggested adding the water at a later 
point in the service. At the same time it is quite possible 
that the Scottish clergy may have known that it is the 
practice of a Greek bishop to make additional symbolic 
commemorations by taking extra pieces of bread and 
placing them upon the paten at the time of the offertory, 
immediately before the great entrance. 

§ 4 The Mixture at the Offertoiy 

We now turn to the second tradition regarding the 
mixture, viz. the making of it at the time of the offertory, 
which as we have said, appears to have been introduced 
by the non -jurors. 

It would of course be very surprising if the rubrics of 
the English non-jurors' liturgies exercised no influence 
upon Scottish practice,' and we naturally find that there 
were certain churches — among them Lochlee in Forfar- 
shire, and Ellon, Fraserburgh and Fyvie in Aberdeen- 
shire — where it was traditional to make the mixture at 
the time of the offertory ** in view of the people," though 



^The late Bishop of Edinburgh suggested that Bishops Archibald 
Campbell and James Gadderar assisted the English non-jurors in the com- 
pilation of their liturgy of 17 18. To satisfy the non usage party, Gadderar 
agreed in 1724 that he would not **mix publicly" {Annotated Scottish Com. 
Office, pp. 72, 77') 



46 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

not ostentatiously so. These churches were probably 
very numerous, for one of the rubrics after the Commun-! 
ion Service in Bishop Torry s Prayer Book runs : 

" It is customary to mix a little pure and clean Water 
with the Wine in the Eucharistic Cup, when the same is 
taken from the Prothesis or Credence to be presented 
upon the Altar." 

Other evidence pointing in the same direction, and 
belonging to Bishop Torry s diocese, is to be found among 
the manuscript additions to a copy of the Scottish Liturgy^ 
which were transcribed from those in an old one used at 
Kilmaveonaig, and printed by Hall, for "In the rubric 
which directs the Presbyter to place upon the Lord's 
Table the bread and wine ' prepared for the Sacrament,* 
it is added, * openly mix, and bring kneeling.'" This 
may very well be a tradition from the time of Bishop 
Rattray, whose office of 1748 has just been mentioned.* 
At Ellon a linen cloth was used to cover the elements on 
die credence, as well as one to cover the credence itself. 

Further evidence of the same kind may be found in 
the fact that Bishop Seabury introduced a direction to 
mix the chalice at the offertory into the Communion 
Office which he printed for the use of his diocese of 
Connecticut in 1786.* In it the rubric at the time of the 
offertory runs thus : — 

" f And the Presbyter shall then offer up, and place 
the bread and wine, prepared for the sacrament, upon 



* Sec the late Dr. J. M. Nealc*s Life and tinus of Patrick Torry, 
London, Masters, 1865, and the late Bishop of Edinburgh's Annotated Scot, 
Com. Office, passim. 

* Annotated Scottish Communion Office, p. 291. 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 47 

the LorcCs table ^^ putting a little pure water into the 
cup : and shall say. 

Let us pray for the whole state . . / 

At Fyvie an empty paten was placed in the middle of 
the altar and an empty chalice on each side. This was 
done before the service when the mixture was made in 
the flagon, which together with a plate containing the 
bread, and a glass crewet containing the water, was then 
set on the credence table. At the offertory the priest 
took the bread from the credence table and placed it on 
the paten on the' altar. He then took the flagon con- 
taining the mixture to the altar, and poured it out into 
the chalices, placing them side by side behind the paten 
and covering them with an unfolded corporal. He also 
covered the bread with a corporal, folded. That which 
remained of the consecrated elements after communion 
was arranged and covered in the same way. There was 
no lower corporal. The credence was, as usual, on the 
north side. 

The mixture took place at the offertory at St. John's 
Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Cruden and Peterhead as far 
back as the writer has been unable to discover, but it is 

^ Id his Companion for the Book of Common Prayer published at a later 
date. Dr. John Hobart writes :— '* The Offertory. The bread and wine are 
then placed upon the table by the Priest^ to which he adds a footnote, "The 
elements are commonly placed on the altar before Morning prayer by the 
clerk or sexton. This is contrary to the rubric, and to the custom of the 
primitive Church " (p. 53). Later still the Rev. William Staunton wrote : — 
"Though the prothesis has for the most part been banished from our 
Churches, yet in the Communion office there is a distinct allusion to it, and 
the rubrics cannot be fully met without some provision of this kind. . . . 
With the justice of this sentiment [a quotation from Wheatley] Bishop 
White fully concurred, and (if we are rightly informed) always had a small 
side-table near the altar of his Church in Philadelphia." — A Dictionary of 
the Churchy 2nd ed. New York, 1839, p. 388. 



48 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

only fair to add that the evidence does not go back very 
far in any of these cases. 

All this supports the rubric in Bishop Torry's Prayer 
Book. Now this prayer book was very largely the work 
of the Rev. Alexander Lendrum, an Aberdeenshire 
clergyman, and a native of the Meikle Folia district, who 
was incumbent of Muthill in Perthshire at the time it was 
drawn up. Its rubrics may very well represent the 
custom of Muthill, or perhaps also of Meikle Folia. 
Bishop Torry, we may remember, was incumbent of 
Peterhead. 

In a copy of the i2mo edition of the Scottish liturgy 
printed in 1764 by Drummond at "Ossians Head," 
Edinburgh, which is bound up with a Book of Common 
Prayer printed at Edinburgh in 1761, and left by the 
Rev. James Lyall to the Episcopal Chapel at Kirriemuir 
there is a marginal note in MS at the rubric And the 
Presbyter shall then offer up, etc., probably indicating 
words to be used, as follows : — 

"While our Saviour J + C hung upon the Cross a 
Soldier pierced his most blessed side and . . . ." 

The margin is cut away where the rest was written. 

The evidence of this points in the same way, and it 
may be noted that Kirriemuir, like Kilmaveonaig, was in 
Dr. Rattray's diocese. 

In The Office for the . . . Holy Communion according 
to the use of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, with a 
preliminary dissertation (Aberdeen, 1807, p. 108) the 
Rev. John Skinner says : "After the rubric for offering 
up, and placing the bread and wine, prepared for the 
Sacrament, upon the Lord's table, the first Liturgy of 
Edward directed, that to the wine there should be put 



i^ 



THB SCOTTISH LITUROT 49 

* a little pure and clean water ; ' and to this practice, 
though no such direction occurs in her G>mmunion 
Office, the Episcopal Church in Scotland still adheres." 
This may perhaps be interpreted as alluding to the 
mixture at the offertory, but the writer more probably 
intended to refer to the fact of mixture without reference 
to the time of mixing, as he only quotes the words 
referring to the water, and not the whole of the 
Edwardian rubric. 



50 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 



1 



CHAPTER IV 

The Liturgy 

§ I Before the Offertory 

From the preparation of the elements we now pass on 
to consider the ceremonial of the service itself. 

The non-jurors* liturgy of 1718 and Deacons liturgy 
of 1734 each gives a list of the psalms for the introit 
appointed in the First English Prayer Book of 1549. 
The use of an introit, due no doubt to the influence of the 
English non-jurors, appears in Scotland as early as 1731, 
if not earlier, for we find references to psalms for this 
purpose noted in MSS of sermons, dated 1731 to 1737, 
preached at Peterhead and now preserved among the 
church records there. The writer of these sermons, pro- 
bably William Dunbar, Bishop of Moray and of Aberdeen 
successively, made a note, generally at the top of the 
first page, of the day of the month, the lessons and the 
introit for the day, thus : — 

Phd Dec 23 : 1733 / Fourth Sunday in Advent Mat 

1 Less Isai 30 : 2 Less Acts 23 : / Vess I Lesson Isai 32 : 

2 Less I John 3 : Introit Psal 5 / 

In every case the introit is the same as that appointed 
in the 1549 and non-jurors' prayer books. 

But there is another scheme of introits marked in MS, 
one in front of each collect in the Prayer Book given by 
Queen Anne to Montrose qualified chapel in 1701. It 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 



51 



IS probable, although not certain, that they are of earlier 
date than those in the Peterhead sermons. The writer 
has been unable to discover the source from which 
they were taken. They are as follows : — 



DAY. 


PSALM 


VERSK 


St. Stephen 


• xxxiv 


19 


Sl John - - . , 


cxix 


104 


Innocents . - . . 


• •• 

VllI 


1 


Circamcision 


li 


9 


Epiphany . - - . 


• • 

11 


7 


Ash Wednesday 


li 


9 


Mon. before Easter - 


xl 


7 


Tues. „ „ . . 


xxii 


17 


Wed. „ >» • ' 


li 


16 


Thurs. „ M - - 


XX vi 


6 


or 


li 


I 


Tues. in Easter week 


cxix 


15 


Ascension Day 


Ixviii 


18 


Mon. in Whitsun week 


M 


19 


Tues. „ „ 


cxlv 


10 




civ 


33 


St. Andrew 


ex 


2 


St Thomas 


• • 

w 


10 


Conversion of Sl Paul 


xix 


7 


Presentation of Christ 


li 


7 


St. Matthias 


V 


5 middle part 


Annunciation - 


• • 

u 


6 


St. Mark - . - - 


xl 


10 middle part 


SS. Philip and James 


11 


10 


St. Barnabas 


cxlv 


Q 


St John Baptist 


xl 


5 


St Peter . - . . 


xlvi 


4 


St James - - - - 


xlv 


10 


St Bartholomew 


cxix 


116 


St Matthew 


If 


35 


St Michael 


• •• 

cm 


20 


or 


xxxiv 


7 


St Luke - 


xli 


4 


SS. Simon and Jude - 


- cxxxiii 


I 


All Saints - - - 


1 


5 


Gunpowder Treason - 


- cxxiv 


7 


Restoration 


- cxviii 


27 



52 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

While a few of these are very appropriate, as for ex- 
ample those for St Michael, St Luke, SS. Simon and Jude 
and All Saints, together with those for Ash Wednesday, 
Holy Week and Ascension Day, the majority seem to 
have but little connexion with the days to which they 
are assigned ; and some, including those for the Presenta- 
tion of Christ in the Temple, and for St James, appear to 
be singularly unsuitable. The same may be said of the 
1549 introit psalms, which seem to be the result of a 
somewhat hurried selection and only occasionally exhibit 
any special appropriateness for the occasions on which 
their use is directed. These 1549 introits were the ordin- 
ary ** prose psalms ' of what afterwards became known as 
the Prayer Book version. But it may be that metrical 
versions, or parts of them, were substituted in Scotland. 
In a Prayer Book (London, T. Baskett, 1751) now in 
the possession of the rector of Lochlee there is the 
following rubric added in manuscript after the General 
Thanksgiving at the end of Morning Prayer : — 

** Rubric : On Sundays and Holy-days here rise 
up and give out part of a Psalm before the Com- 
munion Service. As the Prayer of St Chrysostom 
and the Blessing were intended to conclude the 
Morning Service,' it is evidently improper to use 
them after the Thanksgiving, when we are 
immediately to begin another part of Divine Worship. 
For which reason the clergyman should give out 
part of a Psalm after the Thanksgiving, and then 
proceed to the Communion Office." 

The copies of the Scottish Liturgy printed in the 
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries began with the 

'An extraordinary misapprehension of the meaning of this prayer, which 
is intended to look forward to the Eucharist In the Liturgy of St 
Chrysostom its place is near the beginning of the service. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 53 

Long Exhortation and did not include the earlier part of 
the service, the mtssa catechumenorum of ancient times. 
The late Dr. Dowden pointed out the difficulty of 
ascertaining the exact text of this earlier part of the rite 
in the eighteenth century. I n his Annotated Scottish Com- 
munion Office he discussed the matter at lengfth, and 
showed that the form in the English Prayer Book seems 
to have been generally followed, though not without 
some amount of variation. 

An instance of such variation may be found in an 
Ordinal which belonged to John Skinner, Bishop of 
Aberdeen, and is now in the Diocesan Library at Aber- 
deen. This book is an English Ordinal of the usual kin<^, 
printed at Oxford in 1787, and corrected in the bishop's 
hand- writing. After the rubric Then shall be sung or said 

the Service for the Communion as followeth^ and 

before The collect the bishop added in manuscript : ** The 
Lord be with you. Our Father &c.," evidently indicating 
how the Communion Service was to be begun. The Our 
Father is clearly that at the beginning of the service and 
the prefixing of ** The Lord be with you " to it seems to 
be on the analogy of the last part of Mat tins and Even- 
song. 

The " north end " position was always taken by the 
celebrant, and latterly came to be used throughout the 
service, but in earlier days the eastward position seems 
to have been taken at the Sanctus, i.e., for the actual 
consecration, as was the practice of the Caroline Divines 
in England in the seventeenth century.* In Bishop 
Torry's Prayer Book the rubric runs : 

> Fragmenta Uturzica Vol. V. p. 278. The " North End *" position was 
very explicitly insisted on in the Nonjurors' Liturgy of 1718, one of the 
preliminary rubrics running as follows : — 



54 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

" U The Altar, when the Holy Eucharist is to, be Cele- 
brated, shall have a fair white linen cloth upon it, and the 
Presbyter standing at the north-side thereof, shall scty the 
Lords Prayer, with the Collect following, the people 
kneeling^* 

In the earlier part of the nineteenth century it was 
customary to use the Ten Commandments and the 
collect for the King, in preference to the Summary of the 
Law and the collect for grace and strength, at any rate 
at the principal public service. Where the celebrant was 
unassisted' both Epistle and Gospel were usually read 
from a point just in front of the middle of the altar, from 
which also the Commandments were read, the priest of 
course facing the people. It is scarcely necessary to 



%Note, that whenever in this Office the Priest is directed to turn to 
the Altar or to stand or kneel before it, or with his face towards it, it is 
always meant that he should stand or kneel on the North side thereof. 

That this did not mean ** north part of west side" seems very clear 
from the entire absence of any tradition of the use of the eastward 
position during the earlier part of the service. A rubric at the beginning of 
Deacon's Liturgy speaks of the priest turning to the altar, ** and standing 
humbly before it." For the same reason it is probable that this did not 
indicate the eastward position. Rattray merely speaks of the priest " stand- 
ing at the altar.'' 

It is very curious that with all their love for Catholic antiquity the non- 
jurors did not insist on the eastward position. Their rubrics evince great 
particularity about the priest and deacon turning to the people whenever 
anything was read to or addressed to them : this is in accordance with 
ancient practice ; but not so the celebrating at the north end. There is, 
it may be added, some authority for saying the very b^inning of the 
service near the north end, facing south, as in the Carthusian rite at the 
present day. At the same time there seems good reason to believe that the 
eastward position was used by the non-jurors for the actual consecration. 

^Whenever a second clergyman was present, he always assisted the 
celebrant and read the epistle. The modem abuse of the priest celebrating 
unassisted when another clergyman is present who could help, was unheard of. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 55 

remark that the people always sat for the Epistle' and 
stood for the Gospel, saying, ** Glory be to thee, O Lord " 
before and ** Thanks be to thee, O Lord, for this thy 
glorious Gospel," after it. 

Commenting on the last the late Bishop of Edin- 
burgh wrote "So the Canons, Horsley and Torry. In 
ed. 1637 • Thanks be to thee, O Lord,* and so Nonjurors 
(17 1 8) and Deacon (1734). The Canons of 1838 en- 
joined, those of 1863 and 1876 permit, the use of these 
words. • . . The addition * for this thy glorious Gospel ' 
seems to be wholly Scottish. * " Scudamore summarises 
various usages as to the response after the Gospel as 
follows : "No response followed the Gospel in the 
old English Liturgies. The Roman has * Praise be to 
thee, O Christ ; * the Mozarabic, * Amen ; ' the Armenian 
and Malabar the same after as before ; the Ethiopian, 
'The Cherubim and Seraphim send Glory up to 
Him.' '.Amen* seems at one time to have been the 
common response in the West, for it is mentioned by 
Durandus, Beleth, and Alexander of Hales, the two 
latter telling us, however, that some preferred * Thanks 
be to God.' " ^ A trace of this no doubt exists in the 



* So too in the American Church in the early part of the nineteenth century. 
Dr. John H. Hobart, Bishop of Now York wrote : — ** The congregation, who 
are supposed to sit during the Epistle, as soon as the Gospel is announced, 
stand up, as being the attitude of praise, and bless God for the glad tidings 
of salvation, by pronouncing aloud, "Glory be to thee, O Lord.'* See A 
Companion to the Book of Common Prayer^ containing an explanation of the 
service. By John HenryiHobart, D.D. 4th ed New York ; n. d. [1827], p. 34. 
There is a similar direction on p. 11 of Familiar Instructions for the Public 
Worship of Almighty God agreeably to the services of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, 2nd Ed. New York, n.d. 

* Annotated Scottish Communion Office ^1^, 192-3. 
^ Notitia Eucharistica^ 2nd ed. 1876, p. 264. 



1 
I 



56 CUSTOMS CONNBCTED WITH 

response Deo gratias at the end of the Last Gospel in 
the Roman rite of the present day. The same response 
is often found in the Gospels included in books of hogrs. 
At Lincoln in 1548 the Royal Commissioners ordered 
that after the Gospel the deacon should say " Thanks be 
to God," and "God save the King."* John Cosin, 
Bishop of Durham, wished ** Thanks be to God " to be 
ordered after the Gospel when the Prayer Book was 
being revised in 1661, and there has been a certain 
amount of English tradition for the use of it. It used to 
be, and still is, common in the north of England, and to 
some extent in other districts. A writer in Notes and 
Queries* in 1854 states that it had formerly been 
customary at South Stoke, near Arundel, for the clerk 
to respond *• Thanks be to God for the Holy Ghost" 

The creed seems to have been looked upon as 
essentially an act of praise, and it was thought unsuit- 
able to make any gesture of reverence at the mention of 
the Incarnation. No such gesture, it may be noted, is 
made in the East, and its introduction in the West is 
only of mediaeval date. 

In some churches — e.g. St Andrew's Aberdeen, in 
Bishop William Skinner's time — ^those who did not 
intend to communicate were requested to withdraw. 
This was not from what would now be called " Protest- 
ant " motives, as might at first be supposed, but was a 
relic of the old discipline of the non-jurors, who would 
not allow the presence of any but the faithful. At Cruden 
the priest said " Morning service being now over those 
who do not wish to communicate may depart" 

^Statutes 0/ Lincoln Catktdra^ Bndthaw and Wordsworth, ii, p. 594. 
*ix^p. 566. 



TW->,^.. i*-*-*--^— - --.W-- » ■- T ■*-- •• ^^^#1^ 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 57 

In an official letter to Dr. Suther, bishop of Aberdeen, 
in 1868, the late Dr. Grub stated that the withdrawal of 
non-communicants was then the immemorial usage of the 
Scottish church : — 

" Your Lordship is aware of the immemorial usage 
of our Church in regard to what is called noncommuni- 
cating attendance. At every administration of the Holy 
Communion, all persons who had no right to communi- 
cate, and all communicants who did not intend to receive 
the Communion at that particular time, left the church 
at the end of the sermon. Any practice to the contrary 
was, I believe, almost entirely unknown till within the 
last twenty years : and the ancient usage still prevails in 
most of the congregations of our Church."' 

In the book used at Kilmaveonaig in north-west 
Perthshire, which has already been mentioned, the 
following was added in manuscript at the end of the 
Exhortation : 

** If there be any present, who do not intend to receive 
the holy Communion, let them now depart Doors 
locked."' 

In Bishop Torry's Prayer Book the rubric runs thus : 

" H Then shall follow the Sermon ; and when the Holy 
Eucharist is to be celebrated^ the Minister shall dismiss the 
non-Communicants in these or like words^ Let those who 
are not to Communicate now depart" 

* Correspondence in regard to the Right of the Members of the Congrega- 
tion of St. fohn the Evangelists Churchy Aberdeen^ to retire when not 
communicating before the celebration of the Holy Communion^ p. 5. (Printed 
for private circulation.) The English Liturgy was then in use in St John's 
Aberdeen. 

> A writer in the Scottish Guardian^ 1886, p. 404, states that the locking of 
the door was customary. 



58 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

With respect to the use of the longer Exhortations, it 
may be well to quote a note in the handwriting of the 
late Dean Webster in a copy, preserved at New Pitsligo, 
of the 1863 edition of the Scottish Liturgy, in which both 
the larger Exhortations from the English Prayer Book 
were reprinted. 

** Neither of these Exhortations appears in the attested Copy. 
Two reasons may be assigned for the omission. The exhorta- 
tions contain no "Variations" from "the present Common 
Prayer Book of the Established Church of England " and hence 
it may have been thought unnecessary to specify them ; or they 
were not considered to be an integral and constituent part of the 
Eucharistic Liturgy, and therefore were not collated. Previous 
to the year 181 1 nearly every clergyman of the Scottish Church 
used an Exhortation peculiar in some respects to the Cure in 
which he served. After the Enactment of the Canons in that 
year, this unseemly diversity soon disappeared, and the Two 
Exhortations in the English Book of Common Prayer are now 
alone authorised in the Scottish Church." 

At the words ** To him, therefore : " at the end of the 
Exhortation, in the Kilmaveonaig book, a direction to 
turn to the Lord s Table was added. 

In the Diocesan Library at Brechin there is a copy of 
the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637 in which the various 
parts of the liturgy are numbered so as to be said " in the 
natural order." This was a common practice in the 
early part of the eighteenth century and was the earliest 
stage in the making of the present Scottish liturgy. The 
long exhortation Dearly beloved in the Lord is here 
nnmbered so as to follow the consecration and precede 
Ye that do truly and the Confession.* 

*The full scheme is as follows ;-~(i) Lift up your hearts (2) Consecration 
(3) Oblation (4) Lord's Prayer (5) Prayer for the Church (6) Long Exhorta- 
tion (7) Invitation (8) Confession (9) Absolution (10) Comfortable Words 
(11) Prayer of Humble Access (12) Administration (13) Thankgiving (14) 
Gloria (15) Blessing. 



«*--•■- 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 59 

§ 2 The Offertory 

Directions among certain private devotions at the 
end of an edition of the Scottish Liturgy printed at 
Edinburgh in 1762' afford evidence that in some places 
at any rate the communicants drew near to the altar at 
the time of the offertory. These forms begin with a 
prayer ** Before going to the Altar," which is followed 
in succession by forms for use ** At going to the Altar," 
** At prostrating before the Altar," and ** Whilst others 
are coming up, and the Priest preparing to read the 
sentences." That these are the offertory sentences is 
shown by the next prayer, which has reference to 
the poor widow's two mites, being headed "At the 
Offertory." This custom is not to be found anywhere 
in the north of Scotland and there is no tradition 
regarding it there, but it was by no means unknown 
in England, where however the people were wont to 
go forward to the chancel at the words " Draw near " 
in the bidding, Ye that do truly ^ &c. 

While the alms were being collected, the offertory 
sentences were read ; all, if the number of the congrega- 
tion made it necessary ; if only a selection was used, it 
generally included In process of time^ Give unto the Lord, 
and To do good. With a few communicants these three 
alone were often read. If one only (it was unusual to 
use two only) was used, it was Give unto the Lord in 
many of the Buchan churches. 

* The Communion Office For the Use of the Church of Scotland cu far as 
concemeth the Ministration of that Holy Sacrament Authorised by K. 
Charles I, Anno 1636. To which is cuided Private Devotions at the 
Administration of the Holy Communion. Edinburgh : Printed for James 
Reid, Bookseller in Leith, 17O2. This edition closely follows the 1724, '34, 
*43 type. Theological College Library, Edinburgh, c. 3. i. 



6o CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

During the whole time of the offertory the majority 
of the congregations stood, but at Fy vie it was, and is, the 
practice to sit This last is the universal Presbyterian 
custom duririg the collection. It also seems to have 
been observed in the Irish church/ 

The alms were set upon the altar before the ele- 
ments were offered, never afterwards.* They were held 
a few inches above the altar during the form Blessed 
be thouy and slightly raised for an instant at the words of 
thine own do we give unto thee, when they were set upon 
the altar, on the south side, and left there. ^ The alms 
dish was very commonly covered with a linen cloth, 
which sometimes took the form of a bag, lying in the 
alms dish or basin, a custom explained by the following 
rubric which appears in the non-jurors' liturgy of 
1718: 

" IT Whilst these Sentences are in readings the Deacons^ 
Churchwardens, or other fit person appointed for that 
purpose, shall receive the devotions of the people there present, 
in a decent basin provided for thai purpose. And thcU no 
one may neglect to come to the Holy Communion, by reason 



» Church Folklore, Vaux, p. 68. 

* On the abuse of offering the elements before the alms, which is contrary 
to the rubrics of both the Scottish and English rites, see Dr. Legg's paper 
On Ancient Liturgical Customs, quoted above, p. 3. 

* In the Kilmaveonaig book : — 

"At the end of the first rubric, * Then the Presbyter or Deacon shall 
say ' &c. it is added, * Deacon to offer, kneeling at prothesis.' 

*' Immediately before the offertory it is written, ' People to kneel ' : and 
in the last line of the first sentence, ' to ' is inserted before * his offering.' 

'* At the end of the rubric before ' Blessed be thou,' is added the word 
' kneeV And at the end of the first sentence, * Let the Deacon remove the 
alms to the prothesis/ 

These directions do not agree with the Aberdeenshire traditions, but tfiey 
may represent Perthshire custom. 



Mova 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 6l 

of having but little to give^ the person who collects the 
Offerings shall cover the basin with a fair white linen cloth^ 
so that neither he himself nor any other may see or know 
what any particular person offereth. And when all have 
offered^ he shall reverently bring the said basin with the 
oblations therein^ and deliver it to the Priest^ who shall 
humbly present and place it upon the Altar^ 

The corresponding rubric in Deacon's liturgy is 
identical, as far as the direction for the linen cloth is 
concerned, and so is that in Rattray's liturgy of 1 748. 

Two of these covers are still preserved in the 
Diocesan Library at Brechin : they are circular bags 
about 9 in. across, open at one side to let in the plate, 
with a linen cover extending over about two thirds of the 
upper side, so as to conceal the money. The covers 
are embroidered with IHS in small plain letters. At 
Fraserburgh, cloths folded and J)inned were placed upon 
the plates, and at Ellon there was a somewhat similar 
usage. 

It would be very interesting to know if the non-jurors 
introduced this custom, or if they merely included in the 
rubric a usage already existing. If the latter, it is just 
possible that the linen cloth may have been a relic of a 
sudary used in the days long ago when the elements 
for the Eucharist were offered in kind by the faithful ; but 
this is very doubtful. The practice was also followed 
by Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, the plate being 
wrapped in linen as it stood at the church door, a usage 
still kept up in some places. A linen cover for the 
stool at the door on which the plate stands is still used 
almost everywhere by Presbyterians on communion 
Sundays ; at other times it may still be seen in some 
places, and also in one or two Roman Catholic churches. 



62 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

The alms having been offered, and left on the south 
part of the altar, the priest went to the credence and 
removed the linen veil which covered the prepared ele- 
ments, placing it on the altar so as to be ready for use 
after the communion. If the paten and chalice had not 
been filled before the service, he filled them here. He 
then took the bread and wine from the credence and 
solemnly offered them on the altar, both kinds together, 
making a slight elevation, but saying nothing. 

The chalice and paten were set on the altar side by 
side, as in the Eastern rites, and not one in front of the 
other as in most Latin uses, including the Sarum rite 
and the present day Roman. But the more common 
practice, recently at any rate, was to place the paten on 
the right and the chalice on the left, which is the reverse 
of the Eastern usage. Such great care was taken by the 
older clergy of the north even in the smallest matters 
that it is surprising not to find the Eastern practice, 
which no doubt represents a very primitive tradition, 
strictly adhered to. The reason for the change may 
have been the desire to take the paten in the right 
hand and the chalice in the left at the elevation at the 
words which we now offer unto thee without the crossing 
of wrists practised at this point in the Eastern rites. 

It has been shown that the elements have not always 
and everywhere been prepared at the same time or in the 
same way ; this is also true of the act of offering them 
on the altar. In some rites the bread is offered first, 
separately, and then the wine, also separately ; in others 
both are offered simultaneously or in quick succession. 
The Roman rite is among those in which the two kinds 
are offered separately; they are also offered separately 
at Milan ; at Lyons the more common Gallican custom 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY ^ 63 

of a simultaneous offering is still followed, and this is 
also the case with the Dominicans and Carthusians. 
York seems to have had a separate oblation of each kind, 
although not exactly in the same way as the Roman use ; 
at Sarum they offered both kinds at once, and the 
Scottish custom is perhaps a continuance of the Sarum 
and Gallican tradition. It may be added that both 
kinds were offered together at Throndhjem, long the 
metropolitan church of our Scottish islands. 



§ 3 The Anaphora 

At Fyvie, in central Aberdeenshire, the people have 
always sat during the offertory, kneeling at The Lord be 
with you and standing at the Sanctus. But the more 
general practice seems to have been to stand during the 
offertory and to remain standing for the Preface or 
Sanctus, only kneeling for the consecration, if then. If 
they knelt for The Lord be with you they rose (as at 
Muchalls and Ellon) at the words Therefore with angels 
and archangels. Standing at the Sanctus seems to have 
been universal. It was also practised in the north and 
west of England. 

As in England and Ireland, it was the universal 
custom for the people to join with the priest in repeating 
the words Therefore with angels and archangels . . . and 
saying, as well as the Sanctus itself. It has long been 
the fashion to regard this practice as a post-reformation 
development or rather corruption, peculiar to the Anglican 
rites. But it is very questionable if it be not much older. 
For one thing, its widespread adoption would tell against 
it being a mere corruption of late origin, and for another. 



64 CUSTOMS COKNECTED WITH 

it IS not, as so many have supposed, peculiar to these 
islands. The writer has been informed by Mr. Arthur 
Machen that he recently found it in France, at Genille in 
Touraine (DepL Indre-et-Loire), and no doubt a search 
on the Continent would produce other instances. 

At Fyvie, the people stood (and still stand) 
for the consecration. This is known to have been 
introduced by a former non-juring incumbent, in imitation 
of Eastern practice. At Longside also the congrega- 
tion used to stand : indeed there they remained standing 
from before the Gospel until Ye that do truly. They 
still stand from before the Gospel until after the 
Sanctus at Longside. 

Hall quotes the manuscript additions in the Kil- 
maveonaig book as follows : — 

" Before the Sanctus is placed a direction to turn to 
the holy Table. To the rubric which follows the 
Sanctus is prefixed, (but in pencil and in another hand), 
*• If there be a Deacon, he is to order the bread and wine, 
so that the Presbyter may, &c" 

*' Before the Consecration is the word * Kneel.' " 

"Before the Exhortation, 'Ye that do truly,' is 
inserted, 'Deacon to stand and say:' . . . and 'Kneel' 
prefixed to the rubric before the General Confession." 

•• The word * Kneeling ' is prefixed to the comfortabU 
words** 

In the earlier part of the consecration during the 
words THIS IS MY BODY, and this is my blood, the priest 
crossed his hands,' keeping them extended with the 
fingers joined and the palms downwards, the left hand 

^ For the plural kands^ see Deacon's Liturgy, p. 93. 



t 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 65 

being uppermost, and so laid them upon the bread and 
upon the chalice respectively — if there were more than 
one chalice, he laid his hands in this way upon each in 
succession. 

At the words do this, a very slight elevation of each 
kind was made; and at the words which we now offer 
UNTO THEE, a considerable elevation, but not higher than 
the breast of the celebrant, and both kinds were offered 
simultaneously, the paten in the right hand, the chalice in 
the left hand of the priest This elevation at the 
oblation is of great liturgical interest, for it closely 
agrees with the practice of the Russian Church. Dr. 
Dowden notes that "the word eleva, inserted at this 
point in the margin of a copy of the edition of 1 764, said 
to have belonged to, and been used by, John Alexander, 
Bishop of Dunkeld (1743- 1776), probably points to a 
common usage." This conjecture is entirely borne out 
by the traditional practice of some of the northern 
churches. 

In the Russian liturgy after the words " In all and for 
all, we offer unto Thee Thine own of Thine own " there 
is the rubric : — 

"While this is saying the Deacon lays down the 
Fan, and crossing his arms, lifts up the Holy Dish 
in one hand and the Cup in the other, bowing 
reverently and devoutly." 

When carrying out this ceremony, the deacon, in some 
churches, makes the sign of the cross over the holy 
table with the chalice and paten while he elevates them, 
but this making of the sign of the cross is not uni- 
versal in Russia. There is no rubric at this point 
in the Greek Euchologion, but the deacon takes the 

5 



I 



66 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

holy vessels with his hands crossed' and makes the sign 
of the cross with them, raising them only very slightly, 
The paten is on the left, the chalice on the right of the 
centre of the holy table during the liturgy in the 
Orthodox Eastern Church, and so the crossing of the 
arms is necessary to enable the deacon to raise the paten 
with his right and the chalice with his left hand. In 
the absence of a deacon the priest makes this elevation 
himself There seems little reason to doubt that the 
old Scottish custom is a slightly simplified form of the 
above, introduced from the East by the non-juring 
liturgiologists of the eighteenth century. 

In Bishop Alexanders book effunde is written in the 
margin at the words "which was shed for you and 
for many," indicating that the mixture had been made 
in the flagon and was then to be poured into the chalice. 
This curious ceremony seems to be without other than 
post- Reformation precedent at the actual time of conse- 
cration. 

At the words ble^s and sanctify, with thy wo^d 
and Holy Spi^rit the sign of the cross was made as 
here indicated, and some also made it at the words 
become the bo^y and blo^od of thy most dearly beloved 
Son, after which in certain churches the priest made a 
slight inclination. 



> This crossing of hands also takes place in the Liturgy of the Syrian 
Jacobites, when after the elevation of first the paten and then the chalice 
Qt sancta Sanctis, the priest holds them both up, the paten in his right 
hand, the chalice in his left, CFOsswise over the holy table. The same is 
done at the end of the service of the prothesis in the same rite, and at 
the offertory in the Nestorian. See F. £. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern 
and Western, Oxford 1876, p.p. 73, loi, and 267. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 67 

With regard to these crossings, it is interesting to 
note the directions of the three non-jurors' liturgies. 
The signing is indicated in the book of 1 718 at the words 
BO^^DY and BLo-pOD in the words of our Lord, but not 
in the invocation. In Deacon's book of 1734 the cross- 
ing is at the same words where they occur in the 
invocation, but not in the recital of institution. In 
Rattray's liturgy of 1 748 the crossing is to be made at both 
these words in both places. From this we may gather 
that some of the Scottish clergy preserved the tradition 
of Deacon and Rattray, but that others who made the 
sign of the cross added two other crossings not 
prescribed by these non-juring books viz : at the 
words "ble^J^ss and sanct^J^ify." In the copy of the 
Scottish Liturgy, (1764) which has the manuscript 
additions of Bishop Alexander of Dunkeld, crosses are 
added at the words boJ^dy and bloiJiod in the invocation. 

The priest did not turn to the people at the words 
As our Saviour Christ hath commanded . . . before the 
Lord's Prayer, but he did so at all biddings or addresses 
to the people except that before the Prayer for the whole 
state of Christ's Church, when he half turned, always with 
the sun. After the Lord's Prayer it was the custom of 
some priests to say privately, " My soul doth magnify the 
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." 

§ 4 The Communion 

At Ye that do truly the congregation at Ellon used to 
stand, kneeling again for the confession. During the 
Absolution the priest raised his right hand extended at 
the words Have mercy, keeping it so raised to the end, 
and making the sign of the cross at the words pardon 
an'^d deliver. 



68 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

In at least one church, viz., Lochlee in the high- 
lands of Forfarshire, the following responses to the 
Comfortable Words were said until within living 
memory : — 

[Come unto me^ &c^ 

*' Refresh, O Lord, thy servant, wearied with the 
burden of sin." 

\God so loved the worlds &c!\ 

" Lord, I believe in thy Son Jesus Christ — O let this 
faith purify me from all inquity." 

\This is a faithful saying, fyc.l 

'*I embrace with thankfulness that salvation, which 
jesus Christ has brought into the world." 

[If any man sin, &€."] 

" Intercede for me, O blessed Jesus, that my sins may 
be pardoned, through the powerful merits of thy pro- 
pitiating death," 

These responses, printed in very small italics, follow 
the Comfortable Words, exactly in the manner here 
shown, in an edition of the Scottish Liturgy printed at 
Edinburgh in 1781." They are also to be found in A 
Layman s Account of His Faith and Practice^ as a 
Member of the Episcopal Church in Scotland: published 
with the approbcUion of the Bishops of that Church. To 
which are added some forms of Prayer, from the most 
approved Manuals, for assisting the Devotion of private 
Christians on various occasions. The Second Edition. 



* The Communion Office for the use of the Church of Scotland^ as far as 
concemeth the Ministration of that Holy Scurament, With private devotions. 
Edinburgh 1781. Theol. CoL Libr., Edinburgh, c. 6. i, (Follows the 1764 
type exactly.) The text differs from that given above, as follows. The 
second response reads and instead of O^ the third adds all before thankful^ 
ness and omits Christ, The fourth reads '^Intercede for me, O blessed 
Jesu I that my sins may be pardoned through the merits of thy death." 



I' 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY ' 69 

With an appendix, containing the code of Canons of thie 
Episcopal Church in Scotland. Aberdeen : D. Chalmers 
& Co, 18 1 3, p. 145, where they are introduced by the 
following words : — 

"When these portions of scripture are read, that 
follow the absolution, and are designed to beget in us a 
lively faith, and trust in God's mercy, we may use some 
short ejaculations after them, in the following manner: 



VIZ. — 



Then follow the responses as given above.' The 
book A Layman's Account was passed through the 
press by the Skinners, although it seems to have been 
actually written by Niven of Thornton. Letters exist 
from William Skinner, when an undergraduate at 
Oxford, in which he refers to it as "our book." 

Such responses are not uncommon in the English 
devotional manuals of the i8th century and this set of 

^ The section of the book which includes these is entitled " Private 
Devotions at the Holy Communion, adapted to the public office in the 
Liturgy." Like the old editions of the Scottish Liturgy it begins with the 
Missa Fidelium^ thus : — " When the sermon is ended, we shall endeavour 
to compose ourselves for the devout celebration of the Christian Sacrifice 
and while the minister is preparing for the Holy table we should be preparing 
our minds for the humble participation of the holy mysteries, and when he 
is going to the altar, we may say in his behalf : — 

"The Lord hear thee I The name of the God of Jacob defend thee t 
Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Sion \ 
Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice ! ^ 

It is curious coincidence that the same words with but slight variation 
are appointed in the corresponding place of the York rite to be said as the 
response to Orate Fratres. It is probable that they found their way into A 
Laymatis Account from the 2nd part of Deacon's Devotions, 1734, p. 316^ 
where they are appointed to be said " by any other but the officiating Priest " 
" Before the Eucharistick Service," or possibly from an eariier book Private 
Devotions Before^ At, and After the Christian Sacrifice^ Collected from the 
Holy Scriptures and the Ancient Liturgies of the Catholic Church : and 
Recommended to the Orthodox Laity. By a Primitive Catholic Printed for 



70 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

them, introduced by the same words, is to be found in 
A Short Office for the Holy Communion ; Consisting of 
prayers, meditations and thanksgivings, before^ at, and 
after the Blessed Sacrament. Collected from Abp. 
Tillotson, Bp. Fleetwood, and other eminent divines. 
London, printed for B. Dod, Bookseller to the Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge [n.d., but c. 1756]. 
The text is the same with one exception as that in the 
1 78 1 edition of the Scottish liturgy already referred to. 
These responses, like other forms in devotional manuals, 
seem to have been generally intended for private use, and 
in the Great Duty of Frequenting the Christian Scurifice^ 
by Robert Nelson, London, 1706 [many subsequent 
editions] the writer states that '* They are generally read 
with so great a Pause between them that the Communi- 
cants may have leisure to make some short reflections 
upon them, which may be done in the following 
manner." ' The Lochlee tradition is no doubt the relic 
of attempts to introduce them into the service. 

An edition of the Scottish Liturgy was printed at 
Edinburgh in 1796 by Dr. Abemethy Drummond the; 
Bishop of that see, in which similar responses are 
provided for by rubric, thus : — 

J. Smith in Corahill, 1720. A copy is in the writer's possession bound 
up with one of the small edition of the non- jurors' Liturgy of 17 18. 

^Tben follows a set of very long responses. In the same book, pp. 
114 and 115, the people are bidden to stand at Ye thai do truly etc., and 
the writer says that *Mt is in some Places the Custom to pronounce an 
Amen in a low tone, after every Sentence of the Absolution." 

Another set of responses to the Comfortable Words is to be found in an 
early 19th century American devotional book, entitled, A Companion for the 
Altar; or a Weel^s Preparation for the Holy Communion, Consisting of a 
short explanation of the Lord's Supper, and meditations and prayers, proper 
^0 be used before, and during, the receiving of the Holy Communion. 



^M 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 7 1 

•* Come unto me 

" After this and the other sentences^ the Clergyman shall 
yause so long that t/u people may have tifne to offer up the 
annexed ejaculations, 

" In obedience to Thy call, O dearest Lord I, an un- 
worthy and polluted creature, come. O, by that unutter- 
able love which moved Thee to undei^o such grievous 
suflfering for man's sake, be graciously pleased to speak 
peace to my soul, and say, * Thy sins are forgiven.* 

" For God so loved the world 

" O blessed Jesus, I believe Thee to be the eternal Son 
of God, and Saviour of the world. Grant that by the 
continual exhibition of thy healing stripes and wounds 
and precious blood shedding, the God of compassion and 
mercy may be moved in wrath to remember mercy and 

According to the form prescribed by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United Sttites of America, By John Henry Hobart, D.D. Bishop of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New- York. 3rd. ed., New- York, 
1 8 16, pp. 223-4. [Brechin Diocesan Library, U. iii. 7.] 

The responses are as follows. They do not seem to have been intended 
for use aloud. 

[After each of the following sentences use the short ejaculations 
annexed,} 

Come unto me 

[Make me, O Jesus, truly sensible of my guilt and unworthiness ; 
that, oppressed with the burthen of my sins, I may go to thee for 
rest and deliverance.] 
So God loved 

[O Lord, I believe — increase and establish my faith; that, ever 
loving and serving thee, I may finally, through thy mercy, be 
made partaker of everlasting glory.] 
This is a true -saying 

[I bless thee, O Jesus, who, moved by infinite compassion, 
didst come into the world to save sinners.] 
If any man sin 

[O blessed Jesus, by thy blood and merits, by thy powerful 
intercession, procure my pardon and deliverance from the guilt 
and condemnation of sin.] 

Like the other sets of responses to the Comfortable Words, these are 
dearly traceable to English i8th century sources. 



72 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

to admit me, by holy Sacrament to a participation of all 
those benefits and blessings which Thou hast procured for 
mankind. 

'* This is a faithful saying 

" Adored be Thy holy name, O gracious God, who sent 
Thy blessed Son to die that men might live. O grant, 
that by a pure faith, and universal obedience to Thy holy 
will, I may obtain that salvation which he purchased 
for the world and not die eternally. Amen. 

**If any man sin 

** Blessed God, who has provided a remedy when our 
spiritual enemies prevail against us : grant me that true 
repentance which is not to be repented of : that so these 
sins for which my Saviour did so dearly atone, may be 
pardoned through His death and passion. Amen." 

These responses appear to have been merely in- 
tended for private use like other devotional forms printed 
in small type in this edition of the Scottish Liturgy.* 

In a copy of the Scottish Liturgy formerly in the 
possession of Kirriemuir church but now unfortunately 

In this book the communicant is directed to say Amen secretly to the 
words of administration after everlasting life^ and to receive in the right 
hand, without gloves, and preferably with hands crossed (pp. 234-5). This 
direction to say Anun is not infrequent in English devotional manuals of 
the previous century. 

The same author, Dr. John H. Hobart, also published an adaptation 
for* American use of A Laymatis Account of his faith and practice 
under the title of The Churchmatis Profession of his Faith and Practice^ 
as a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States 
of America, New York : [n.d.]. On the verso at the title page is the 
following: *'This Tract is altered, and, with some additions, adapted to 
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from 
a Tract exhibiting the Faith and Practice of a Member of the Episcopal 
Church of Scotland, published with the approbation of the Bishops of 
that Church. John Henry Hobart New- York, May, 1821." 

^ * Sec Hall's Fragmenta Liturgica^ vol. v. pp. 244, 245. 



'^^-^ m- 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 73 

i I 

lost, the words "Holy things to holy persons" were 
added in the margin. 

The celebrant always seems to have knelt when 
receiving Communion himself. This, although contrary 
to the well-nigh universal tradition of standing, seems to 
have been the practice of all the non-jurors, and was no 
doubt a relic of the contest against the puritan objection^ 
to kneeling in the seventeenth century. 

Each railful of communicants waited in a body and 
left the rails together. Women used to bring a clean 
handkerchief and spread it over the left hand, placing the 
right hand extended upon it when receiving. All received 
with the hands extended and crossed, the right hand 
being uppermost. At Old Meldrum, Ellon and Turriff 
forty years ago, old women used to bring a clean white 
handkerchief for Communion, with a scrap of southern- 
wood or costmary to smell instead of snuff. This use of 
a piece of scented herb was at one time common all over 
Scodand and was also practised by Presbyterians. 

The seventh of the post-communion rubrics in Bishop 
Torry's Prayer Book is as follows : — 

*• f // ij customary for the Communicants in this Churchy 
to receive the Sacrament of our Lord's Body upon the palm 
of t/ie right hand^ crossed over the left^ and thus reverently 
raise It to the mouthy so as not to let the smallest Particle 
fall to the ground** 

Whether introduced by the non-jurors, or a survival 
from ancient times, the use of a linen cloth about the 
hands by women when communicating is a custom of 
very great antiquity. St Caesarius of Aries in a sermon 
says, "All men wash their hands when about to go to 
the altar and all women display clean linen cloths on 
which they receive the Body of Christ" The Council 



74 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

of Auxerre in a.d. 578 forbade women to receive the 
Eucharist with uncovered hand, and ordered each 
woman to bring her Dominicale (evidently this linen 
cloth) with her when about to communicate. It will be 
noticed that in the Scottish custom, although the left 
hand was covered the right hand was not. It is not 
easy, with so little evidence at hand, to form an opinion 
whether this usage was an attempt by the non-jurors to 
revive the primitive custom alluded to by St. Caesarius 
and the Council of Auxerre, or a relic of the mediaeval 
houselling cloth. The receiving with hands extended 
and crossed certainly seems to be a revival by the non- 
jurors.' 

The writer has also heard of at least one case where 
an aged female communicant used a clean handkerchief 
to hold the chalice when the priest delivered it into her 
hands. This was at Brechin, but the practice does 
not seem to have been common. 

When a whole railful had received Communion, the 
priest turned towards them and said a form of blessing ; 
in some places, e.g., Muchalls, he uplifted the chalice 
over them with his right hand, saying : 

" Arise, go in peace, and may the God of peace be with 
you henceforth and for evermore." 

Other similar forms were used, and they sometimes 
varied with the individual priest 

" At Longside, in the days of Mr. Cumine, after each 
railful of communicants had partaken, the custom was for 
the clergyman to say, * Arise in peace from the Table of 

* See Reichel, Complete Manual of Canon Law^ p. 129 ; Francis de 
Berlendis, De Oblationibus ad Altare^ Venice, 1743 P* I39> Edmund 
Mart^ne, De AnHquis Ecclesiae Ritihus^ Venice, 1783, Lib. I, cap. 4 
art. X,§Vni. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY fS 

the Lord, and may the God of all Peace be for ever with 
you.' The doxology was then sung, prefaced by the 
words, * Let us express our thanks and praise to 
Almighty God by singing the Doxology of the Church. 
•• When all had communicated a hymn was sung."' 
At Ellon, in east Aberdeenshire, the Rev. Nathaniel 
Grieve used to set the chalice on the altar, turn round 
and descend from the first step ; then spreading out both 
hands over the kneeling railful of communicants he 
said: 

" Arise (or * Depart ') in peace and may the God of 
peace go with you." 

This is still said at Ellon. At Peterhead the form 
used was : 

" Go from the table of the Lord in peace and the God 
of love and peace be with you." 

Bishop Torry of Dunkeld and St Andrews used the 
form : 

" Arise in peace from the table of the Lord, and the 
God of peace be with you." 

Nothing is said about this in his Prayer Book. 
At Ballachulish some such form as the following was 
used : — 

•* Arise ye now from the table of the Lord and may 
the blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and 
the Holy Ghost be with you and remain with you always. 
Amen." 

A longer form was sometimes used, as at Folia Rule, 
no doubt without the uplifting of the chalice, respecting 

^ From a note signed " S." in the Bttckan Churchman^ vol. i., p. 37. 



76 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

which the late Bishop of Edinburgh' quotes from a private 
letter of the late Very Rev. W. Webster* as follows : 

'' The dismissal of each railful of communicants was, 
I believe, general in this Diocese [Aberdeen], at least ; it 
was practiced also in Brechin and Moray, but less 
generally. The formula varied considerably ; there was 
no fixed form, everyone had his own, but all were to the 
following effect: — 'Depart — or go — in peace and the 
God of love and peace with you. While others are com- 
municating let your hearts and minds be occupied in 
thankful meditation on the great blessings of which you 
have now been partakers, and on the solemn responsi- 
bilities which these blessings lay upon you. After you 
have joined in singing the first (or next) verse of the 
Communion Hymn.* The Hymn was that which is given 
in the S. Andrew's (Aberdeen) Collection." 

The form used by Dr. William Skinner, Bishop of 
Aberdeen was as follows : 

** Now may the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which 
was given for you, and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ 
which was shed for you preserve your bodies and souls, 
spotless and blameless, unto everlasting life, and present 
you with joy and rejoicing at the judgment of the great 
day. Go in peace, and may the God of all love and peace 
be for ever with you. Let your hearts and minds be 
occupied in meditating upon the inestimable privileges 
of which you have now been the happy partakers, after 
you have expressed your grateful sense of them by 
joining in a verse of the Communion Hymn.*' * 

The late Bishop of Edinburgh gave the writer the 

^ AnfwtaUd Scottish Communion Office, p. 327. 

' Incumbent of New Pitsligo, and Dean of Aberdeen. 

* Hall's Fragmenta Liturgicc^ vol. X, p. Ixviu 



J 



THl SCOTTISH LITURGY 77 

following form, which was sent to him by a Mrs. 
Erskine, doubtless the well known daughter of Bishop 
Walker of Edinburgh (the first Pantonian Professor) : 

** God almighty bless you with his holy spirit, guard 
you by his presence and his providence, guide you in your 
going out and coming in, keep you in his faith and 
fear, free from sin and safe from danger." 

This dismissal of the communicants with a blessing 
immediately after the reception of the holy Eucharist 
seems rather to be traced to an attempt to adapt Eastern 
practice than to a survival of any mediaeval usage. At 
first sight the blessing with the uplifted chalice is almost 
suggestive of the very late mediaeval practice of giving 
benediction with the reserved Sacrament immediately 
after mass, or perhaps of the common mediaeval custom 
of giving the blessing at the end of mass with the empty 
paten or chalice.^ But even making the most liberal 
allowance for possible survivals in out-of-the-way places, 
it is most unlikely that any remnant of such a ceremony 
could have lived on through the seventeenth century. 

It is more likely that this dismissal was introduced 
by the non-jurors from the Eastern rites by a rather 
clumsy process of adaptation. The Eastern ceremonial 
is as follows : — 

When Communion is given in the Liturgies of SS. 

*So at Coutances 1557 {Tracts on the Mass^ Henry Bradshaw Society, 
p. 67), at Paris in 14th and 15th centuries, and at Bourges in MS of 1446 ; 
with paten alone at Paris, 1481 to 1615 (Le Brun, Expltcatio Missae^ 
Venetiis, 1770, vol. i p. 331) also in V Exposition de la Messe^ Alcuin Club 
Collection, ii, plate 17, and in Dat Boexken van der Missen^ Alcuin Club 
Collection v, p. 139 ; with chalice alone at Hereford on principal and double 
feasts {Mis sale ad usum per Celebris ecclesiae Herfordensis^ Leeds, 1874, p. 
xlvii). • 



78 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Basil and John Chrysostom the priest advances to the 
doors of the eikonostasis and communicates the faithful 
from a spoon with which he administers both kinds at 
once, from the chalice which he holds in his left 
hand. The communicant stands before the priest, and 
the deacon, standing on the priest s right, holds one end 
of the KoKifjLfia, or purificator, beneath the communicant's 
chin and wipes his lips with the other end, after he has 
received. When all have communicated, the priest, still 
holding the chalice with the sacred species in it, blesses 
the people before he returns to the holy table. In the 
Armenian rite as given by Mr. Brightman,' the rubric 
directs the priest to make the sign of the cross over the 
people with the sacred gifts. A few minutes later, in the 
Liturgies of SS. Basil and John Chrysostom the priest 
with the cfhalice in his hands again turns towards the 
people saying a kind of blessing, when he is about to 
take it to the table of the prothesis for the ablutions. 
The Scottish custom is possibly an adaptation of this 
Eastern dismissal of the communicants, although the 
words used have no connection. The Scottish words 
of dismissal bear some resemblance to the opening words 
of the long form beginning " Depart in peace, brethren 
and beloved, whilst we commend you to the grace and 
mercy of the holy and glorious Trinity " at the end of the 
Liturgy of the Syrian Jacobites.* But this seems a 
mere coincidence. While it is not impossible that this 
may have been known to some of the non-jurors through 
the edition printed by Renaudot,^ it is far more probable 

^Liturgies Eastern and Western^ cd. F. E. Brigbtman, Oxford, 1896, p. 

453. 

* Ibid, p. 106. 

* Utufgiarum Orientalium Collection Parisiis, 1716. 



t 

^ 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 79 

that the words came from seventeenth century puritan 
sources, as similar forms survived among Presbyterians, 

A verse of a hymn was sung while the railfuls of 
communicants changed places. This appears to be a 
survival in a modified form of a usage taken from the 
Presbyterians in Pre-Revolution days/ The late Bishop 
of Edinburgh quotes the Supplementary Act of Assembly 
(1645) which enjoins "That while the Tables are 
dissolving and filling, there be always singing of some 
portion of the psalm, according to the custom."* Dr. 
Sprott refers to Wither's Poems as testifying to a like 
usage in the Church of England in ii52i.3 

In an edition of the Scottish Liturgy printed by 
Chalmers at Aberdeen in 1786 the hymn beginning, 
•* Bless'd is the man " is printed at length preceded by the 
rubric A Hymn to be sung during the time of and after the 
Communion^ and followed by verses x to xv preceded by 
the rubric The following verses may be sung as part of 
the Post-Communion Service. 

At Lochlee some verses of the 103rd psalm were used, 
and sung to a tune called •' Bethlehem." At Cruden 
the communicants at the rail sang the verse before 
rising and going back to their seats. 

^ But Deacon and Rattray both provide psalms to be sung during the 
Communion : 

Deacon : — 

Whilst the Faithful are communicating^ the following Psalms one or 
more ofthem^ may be sung or said in this order: the 34M, the 4Sthf the 133rd, 
the 145M, 

Rattray : — 

Whilst the Faithful are communicating, Psalm XXXIV and CXLVmmy 
be sung, 

^ Annotated Scot, Com, Office, p. 328. 
• Worship 6r* Offices, p. 135. 



80 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

At the bidding Having now received^ etc' which 
follows the Communion, the priest turned towards the 
people, and in many churches e,g.^ Muchalls, Ellon» 
Pitsligo, the people stood up; in some, e.g.^ Longside, 
Folia Rule, they remained (and still remain) standing 
through the prayer of thanksgiving. Everywhere they 
stood for the Gloria in Excelsis, and knelt for the final 
blessing. The priest turned towards the people for the 
whole of the blessing, and some made the sign of the 
cross over them at the mention of the Holy Trinity. 
At Ellon the ablutions were taken in the vestry after- 
wards.* 

§ 5 The posture of Uu people. 

Allusion has been made to the posture of the 
congregation at various parts of the service and to 
customs such as sitting for the Epistle, and standing for 
the SanctuSy the consecration or the Gloria in excelsts. 
While these customs varied to an extent locally, the 
general principle was the same, namely to signify and 
emphasise the priesthood of the laity, and the fact that 
the eucharist is the offering not of the priest alone or 
even of the sacred ministers, but of the whole family of 
God. This aspect of eucharistic worship, which we find 
throughout the whole Church in ancient times, and in the 

* In the Kilmaveonaig book "To the rubric •When all have com- 
municated,' the word * Deacon is pre6xed and 'standing' added. Before 
the Post-Commufiion Collect kneeling' is placed ; and before the Gloria in 

Excelsis 'standing' 'kneeling' is prefixed to the Blessing." (Hall, 

FragmentOy p. 279). From this one gathers that the Deacon at Kilma- 
veonaig covered that which remained of the Holy Eucharist with the corporas 
and said the bidding Having tww received. 

*On the history of the ablutions see Dom F. Cabrol, Dictionnaire if 
Afcheologie Chretienney fasc. i, p. 106. 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 8 1 

East at the present day, became largely obscured in 
Western Christendom as Latin grew increasingly obsolete 
and unintelligible, and the people became less and less 
able to follow the service. Hence there arose such 
customs as kneeling during the Epistle — recently in- 
troduced by the thoughtless among ourselves, who have 
also taken to kneeling through the Gloria in excelsis.^ 
In 1863 the late Dr. Pratt, incumbent of Cruden, em- 
bodied what seem to have the customs in these matters 
at Cruden and Peterhead and- included them in a little 
book of instructions for young communicants,* which 
was often bound up with some editions of the Scottish 
Liturgy. This rationale of postures is as follows : — 

"Rationale, etc." 

" In the services of the Sanctuary there are parts where the 
people should stand \ others where they should kneel \ and 
oti^ers where they may sit. 

** I. They should stand at Exhortations and Addresses by 
the Minister as the Messenger of Christ to His people ; at the 
Direct Profession of the Faith ; at every Hymn, Psalm, or Anthem 
of Praise^ generally ordered by the Rubric to be sung or said ; 
and at the reading of the Lord's Prayer and Ten Command- 
ments when they occur in the Lessons for the Day ; and at the 
reading of the Gospel for the Day. 

"2. They should kneel at all Prayers, Collects, and 
Supplications to Grod, even at Supplications which may be sung ; 
at all Offerings solemnly made or dedicated to God ; at all 
formal Confessions to God ; and at the reception of all holy 
gifts from God — Absolution, and the Sacred Elements. 

^ The writer has even seen this extended to the Gospel ! 

* Short Instructions for Young Comntunicants ; and a Rationale of Postures in 
Divine Service : with especial reference to the Communion Office for the use of the 
Episcopal Church in Scotland, Aberdeen : John Wilson, Castle Street 1863. 

6 



82 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

" 3. They may sit at the time of hearing and receiving 
Instruction, whether from the Inspired Word, or from Sermons 
and Lectures by the Minister. 

"If we apply these general rules as * Directions for the 
People' in the Communion Service — they should kneel at the 
Lord's Prayer, Collect, Supplications after the Commandments 
Collects for the Queen, and for the Day ; they should sit while 
instructed by the Epistle; stand during the reading of the 
Gospel, and at the Short Ascriptions of Praise before and after 
it, and at the Confession of the Faith in the Nicene Creed ; they 
should sit while receiving instruction from the Sermon. 

"They should stand during the Exhortion ; and ^»^^/when 
presenting their offerings, and also when the Priest humbly 
presents them before the Lord.* They should stand at the 
words, 'Lift up your hearts, &c,* and at the Proper Preface, 
and at the Doxology, * Therefore with Angels, &c.' The whole 
of this Doxology, and not the latter part only, is an act of high 
praise, and therefore, whether sung or said, the people should 
join in it from the beginning. At the Prayer of Consecration, 
when the transcendent Mystery of the Faith is shewn forth, and 
the great commemorative offering made, and in which the 
People, by saying Amen^ are understood to take their part 
— they with the Priest and the Priest with them* — kneeling 
is the proper posture, as it is also at the Prayer for the whole 
state of Christ's Church, and at the Lord's Prayer which 
follows. 

" At the Address, * Ye that do truly,' etc., the people should 
stand; while they should kneel at the Confession and 
Absolution, and at the receiving of the joyful tidings in the 
Comfortable Words ; at the Collect of Humble Access ; and at 
the Reception of the Sacred Elements. 

"They should stand at the Address, 'Having now,' &c. ; 



This is the only direction in this " Rationale ^ which seems to be an 
innovation of its author and not supported by tradition. 

See I Fet. ii. 9., Rom. xii. i. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 83 

kneel at the Collect of Thanksgiving ; standi and also join^ in 
the 'Gloria in Excelsis; and kneel at the Reception of the 
Blessing." 

♦^* In the Morning and Evening Services^ this Rationale of 
Posture is universally recognised and observed 



On Sunday morning when the Eucharist was not 
celebrated, after the Litany, the priest went to the altar 
and read the first part of the Communion service, 
generally out of the English Prayer Book, although 
at Ellon the Rev. Nathaniel Grieve used to say Let 
us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church without 
the unfortunate addition militant here in earth.^ 



^ This fonn of service has been subjected to an unnecessary amount of 
abuse by those who ought to have known better. It has been called an 
invention of Protestant reformers and has been nick-named " Table Prayers.** 
During the last 300 years it has certainly been used in a way that was never 
contemplated by the Church, namely as a substitute for the Eucharist when 
there was no possible reason against a celebration. But the abuse of a 
thing does not take away its lau-ful use, and it has recently been proved 
beyond all doubt that " Table Prayers " are a service of high antiquity, spread 
throughout the Church (much the same as the use of incense, for example) 
and used when for some legitimate reason the Eucharist cannot be cele* 
brated. Under the name of Typica it is used throughout the East ; the 
Carthusians called it nudum officium and used it till very recently. It was 
used generally in the West in the middle ages, and is still used throughout 
the diocese of Milan in the Ambrosian rite (serving over a million souls) on 
Good Friday, where there is not only no consecration, but no public or 
general communion with the reserved Sacrament. Thus on Good Friday 
the liturgy at Milan is very like the liturgy as used by us. It is a grave 
question whether the Holy Eucharist ought to be celebrated on all week 
days in Lent : there is a very large amount of teaching in the Church to the 
effect that the consecration of the Eucharist, being the supreme act of thanks- 
giving, is unsuited to seasons of penitence. Thus in the East the Typica 
is used in all week days except Saturdays in Lent, on the Wednesday and 
Friday of the week before Lent and on Good Friday and when two services 



84 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

In some places, however, as at St Andrew's 
Aberdeen, the Summary of the Law was used instead of 
the Ten Commandments, and the Prayer for the whole 
state of Christ's Church from the Scottish Liturgy was 
said instead of its English counterpart It was also a 
common custom in the north during the octaves of the 
great festivals, to add the Sursum corda with the proper 
preface and the Sanctus, on these occasions, to this service 
of the Typica, as it is called in the East 



are required and there is only one priest or only one altar. For a full dis- 
cussion of the question, see Three Chapters in Recent Liturgical Research^ 
Church Historical Society, no. Ixxiii, London, S.P.C.K., 1903, price is. 
Among ourselves priests duplicate in a most reckless way, unknown to the 
rest of the Church. There are many cases where " Table Prayers " ought 
unquestionably to be added to Mattins and Litany, when for some good 
reason the Eucharist cannot be celebrated ; for example in many places 
where a single-handed priest has already celebrated at an early hour. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 85 



CHAPTER V 
Reservation of the Eucharist 

In accordance with a long standing usage, the sick 
and infirm are still communicated with the Reserved 
Sacrament — always in both kinds. This has certainly 
been done since the early part of the eighteenth centur>% 
and there is a persistent tradition in the remoter parts of 
the north of Scotland to the effect that it has been 
continuous from still earlier days. In more recent times 
it has existed as one of the old traditional customs which 
belong to the Scottish liturgy, but it was looked upon 
by a previous generation as antecedent to any form of 
that rite as now used. 

From the Reformation until after 1718, there is no 
explicit evidence for reservation in Scotland ; indeed the 
direction of the modern English Prayer Book that what 
remains of the Holy Eucharist shall not be carried out 
of the church, first appears in the Scottish Prayer Book 
of 1637. On the other hand there seems to be nothing 
said against the practice in all the controversial writings 
of that period — at least by the Church party. The 
struggle was not between clinical celebrations and clinical 
communion with the reserved elements, but between 
clinical communion and denying the Eucharist to the 
sick. This was a subject of fierce controversy during 
the reign of James VI (I of England) and the Sacrament 
was restored to the sick by one of the famous Five 



86 CUSTOMS CONNBCTBD WITH 

Articles of Perth in 1618/ During the next few years 
we have record of sick communions, but nothing is said 
whether reservation was used/ About the time of the 
Perth Assembly, steps were being taken towards the 
provision of a Scottish Prayer Book. Later on, a draft 



* "The "Five Articles of Perth" were agreed upon by a General 
Assembly held there in 16 18. They provided for (i) kneeling at Communion 
(2) Baptism in private when necessary (3) Communion of the Sick (4) Con- 
firmation (5) Keeping of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and 
Whitsunday. The third ran as follows : 

'* If any good Christian visited with long sicknesse and knowne to the Pastor, by 
reason of his present infirmity vnable to resort to the Church for receiving of the holy 
Commanion, or being sick, shall declare to the Ptotor vpon his conscience, that he 
thinks his sicknes to be deadly, and shall earnestly desire to receiue the same in his 
house : The Minister shall not deny to him so great a comfort, lawfull warning being 
giuen to him upon the night before, and that there be three or foure of good Religion 
and conuersation, free of lawful impediments, present with the sicke person to 
communicate with him, who must also prouide a conuenient place in his house, and all 
things necesary for the reuerend administration thereof, according to the order 
prescribed in the Church." 

The "order'' was the Communion service and administration in Knox's 
dook of Common Order. 

Dr. David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin, speaking of private communion 
in reference to this enactment, says : — 

'* Our owne Church hath practised the same (Le. private communion) in former 
times, as was qualified in diuers particulars at the last Assembly. So where the 
reformed Churches haue approved it, and wee ourselves by our owne practice, now to 
stand against it, when, by a speciall Canon, it is appointed to bee done, cannot but 
bee thought obstinate disobedience." 

A true Narration of all the passages of the proceedings in thegenerall 
Assemkly of the Church of Scotland^ holden at Perth the 25 of August. 
Anno Dom. 1618 with a just defence of the articles therein con- 
cluded, against a seditious Pamphlet By Dr. Lyndesay, Bp. of Brechin, 
London, 162 1, pp. 32, pt ii. 107 et sq. 

' That private Communion was practised in the 17th century, especi- 
ally in the North, there is good evidence, e.g. 

In the Session Records of S. Nicholas, Aberdeen, occur the following : 

25 July 1630 Sibbaldo moderatore 

Recea\ed be the Collector threttie fyve shillinges of Collection at Alezr. Hilles 
wyff her commonion 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 87 

• 

book was sent to London by the Scottish bishops/ but 
was practically rejected through the influence of Laud, 
who with Wren and other English divines and the 
Scottish bishops Maxwell and Wedderburn, ended in 
substituting the far-famed and ill-fated Prayer Book of 
1637, which contains a service for a clinical celebration 
exactly like that in the English Book of 1559, as well as 
a rubric at the end of the Liturgy forbidding what 
remains of the consecrated elements to be taken out of 



27 November 163 1 Sibbaldo modenttore 
• •••••••••• 

The Sessioun appointes this day audit dayes the holy communion to be celebrat 

and for that effect ordainnes the ministeris To Intimat the samen to the people out 

of the pulpettis of both the kirkis. 

zj decembris 163 1 Sibbaldo moderatore 

Collectit to the poore at the auld kirk dore be Archibald Beanes upon thirsday efter 
Sunday being wponn the fourt of december ten pundis and be Alexander Patersoun 
at the new kirk dore wponn sonday and twysday thaireeftir six pundes xij shillings 
six penneis 

Collectit at the priuat communion minbtered to Marioun Beanes aught punds 



Vigesimo tertio die mensb decembris 1632 magistro Alexandro Ross moderatore 



Collectit siklyk to the poore at the ministration of the holie communion on 

sonday the sixteene day of December 

Item gevin be Alexander Stewart at the ministration of the communion to him in 
his house be occasion of his sicknes the soume of Ten poundes aughtene shillinges on 
the sixtene day of December. .... 

Tertio Novembris 1633 Doctore Forbesio moderatore 
Collectit to the poore 



Item njrne shillinges gewin by John Touche at the receaving of the sacrament of 
the Lordes Supper 

* Sec Scottish Liturgies of the Reign of fames VL " The Booke of 
Common Prayer cmd administrcUion of the Sacraments with other rites and 
ceremonies of the church of Scotland as it was sette doune at firsts before the 
change thereof mcuU by ye archb, of canterburie^ and sent back to ScotUmdP 
Edited with an introduction and notes by the Rev. G. W. Sprott, Edinburgh 
1871. 



88 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

the church.* The curious thing is that the draft book 
of 1629 which did not contain this prohibition was 
Puritan to a degree, and the 1637 Prayer Book in which 
it first appears was the very reverse. Perhaps the 
explanation is that the use of reservation for the sick 
was looked upon as part of the administration of the 
sacrament to the faithful which had already taken place 
in the service. Certainly Laud, Maxwell and Wedder- 
burn drew up the new rubric to prevent the scandalous 
misuse of the holy gifts which was common among the 
puritanical clergy. Probably no one thought about 



> Dr. Sprott called it " the fourth or fifth draft " adding ** There was that of 
the original Committee in 161 7 ; that approved by Kmg James a year or two 
later, and sent up to Charles in 1629 ; the book referred to as signed by the 
King, Sep. 28, 1634, the draft taken to London by Maxwell, and approved 
with corrections May 1634, partly printed towards the end of that year but 
then destroyed ; and lastly that of Laud and Wren, written into an English 
Prayer Book, April, 1636." Scottish Liturgies of James F/., pp. Ixiv., Ixv. 

This draft book contains the following rubric at the end of the Visitation 
of the Sick : — 

[" Line cot off] able to resoirt to the Church for receiving the holy commanion, 
and desire earnestly to receive the same declaring upon his conscience that he thinks 
his sicknesse to be deadlie, the minister shall not deny him ye comfort, lawfuU warn* 
ing being given him, npon the night before and some of good religion and conversa- 
tion being present to commonicat with him." 

In the book of 1637 the Communion of the Sick is the same as in 
the English Prayer Book of 1559, the word "minister** and not "celebrate" 
being used. At the end of the Communion Service is the following rubric, 
which appears for the first time :— 

IT And to take away the superstition^ which any person hath or might have in the 
Bread and tVine, {though it U lawfullto hav* wafer bread) it shali suffice that the Bread 
he such as is usuall : yet the best and purest IVheal Bread that conveniently fuay begotten. 
And if af^ of the Bread and I4^ine remeUne^ which is consecrated, it shatt be 
reverently eaten and drunk by such of the communicants only as the Presbyter which 
celebrates shall take unto him, but it shall not be carried out of the Chnrch. And to 
the end that there may be little left, he that officiates is required to consecrate with the 
least, and then if there be want, the words of consecration tnay be repeated again, over 
more, either bread or wine : the Presbyter beginning at these words in the prayer 
of consecration (our Savioor in the night that he was betrayed, took, &c) 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 89 

reservation, or if it was considered as a remote con- 
tingency, the compilers took it for granted that the rubric 
would be interpreted in the sense in which the non-jurors 
explained and extended it in 1718. We may remember 
that the Caroline divines must have known of reservation, 
as they were well versed in Christian antiquity, and that 
the non-jurors were their direct descendents as far as 
theological opinion is concerned. We may also note 
that in the seventeenth century there was no outcry 
against reservation which would explain this prohibition 
as applying to it In the middle ages there were very 
similar prohibitions against the misuse of any of the 
reserved Sacrament that might not be required for 
communicating the sick. In the light of these facts 
the writer would venture to suggest that the continuous 
use of reservation, which northern local tradition claims, 
is not impossible, although definite evidence is still 
wanting for the period 1560-17 18, and that the in- 
terpretation of the rubric of 1662, which was condemned 
by the Archbishops at Lambeth in 1 899 is at least not 
unreasonable.' 

^ The Lambeth "Opinions'' on Incense and Reservation of 1899 are 
greatly discredited. The practice of the particular clergy who were singled 
out as examples was for the most part based not upon any sound knowledge 
of liturgical history and principles, but rather upon an unauthorised copying 
of a foreign rite. Worse test cases could scarcely have been found, for — 
with one exception — no honest man could say from a Catholic stand-point 
that all the details of what those clergy did were lawful in the English dioceses. 
From the two chief bishops in the land, however, a wider knowledge 
of the subjects might have been looked for. One might have thought that 
the history of the liturgical use of Incense and of the Reservation of the 
Holy Sacrament would have received original and independent investigation 
at the hands of those who were to give decisions on the subjects. The 
actual "opinions" make it very plain that nothing of the kind was done. 

Reservation for the sick has a fair claim to be called a Catholic custom 
in the strict meaning of the word, and in view of the history of the so-called 



90 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

The non-jurors' book of 171 8 contained the following 
rubric, 

" IT If tlure be any persons who through sickness or any 
other urgent cause are under a necessity of communicating 
at their houses^ then the Priest shall reserve at the open Com- 
munion so much of the Sacrament of tJie Body and Bloody as 
s/iall serve those who are to receive at home. And if after 
tJtat, or ify wJten none are to communicate at their houses 
any oft/ie consecrated elements remain, then it shall not be 
carried out of the church ; but the Pfiest, and such other of 
tlu Communicants as lu shall then call unto him, shall im- 
mediately after the Blessing revet ently eat and drink the 
same.^^ 

At the time when this rubric was written the Scottish 
clergy were using both the English book of 1662 and the 
Scottish book of 1637, and they continued to do so at 



prohibitive rubric at the end of the Communion Service it scarcely can be 
held to be forbidden by the Prayer Book. A similar prohibition existed in 
mediaeval days, but certainly did not then exclude reservation. It is in 
Gratian's Decretum; De consecr. dist ij, c 23 tribus, Lindewode comments 
on it in his Provinciale, Lib. Ill, tit de custodia Eucharistie^ cap. Dignis* 
simum, verb, die dominica, and says " Non obstat eodem dist c. ttibus!^ Too 
much has been made of the provision of the service for clinical celebration 
and the absence of directions for reservation, but the history of reservation in 
Scotland shows that the first is no obstacle and the directions unnecessary, 
for in Scotland communicating the absent with the reserved Sacrament is and 
has been looked upon as a natural sequel to the public service, and no special 
form is used. 

The use of Incense is a very ancient and widespread custom, about as 
much so as that of ^ lights " and '* vestments.'' It is very difficult to under- 
stand how the Act of Uniformity can affect the use of it There are numerous 
missals of various mediaeval rites in which incense is not mentioned ; but it 
certainly was used at the usual times, e^, the entrance of the celebrant and the 
reading of the Gospel— times of ministration provided in the Book of Common 
Prayer. See A History of the use of Incense in Divine Worship, E. G. Cuth- 
bert F. Atchley, (Alcuin Club Collection xiii), London 1909, pp. 328-369. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 9 1 

any rate until after 1731." The non -jurors* book of 17 18 
seems to have been very little in actual use in Scotland, 
but the Scottish clergy of the early part of the eighteenth 
century were very strongly influenced by it, and the rubric 
just quoted entirely described their practice with respect 
to reservation. When the 1637 liturgy was reprinted in 
1722 the final rubrics were omitted, including the one re- 
lating to the consumption of the Sacred Elements, and no 
such rubric appears in the Scottish liturgy of 1735 or in 
any subsequent edition. The custom of reservation had 
grown up, but it was not provided for by any rubric. 
The non-jurors* book also provided for the administration 
of the reserved Sacrament in the Office for the Com- 
munion of the sick. No such directions were printed in 
any Scottish book until that issued by Patrick Torry, 
Bishop of St Andrews, in 1849. Custom determined 
what was done. 

In 1764 was published what the late Bishop of Edin- 
burgh considered to be the Textus receptus of the Scottish 
Liturgy, and thence forward all other books seem to have 
been entirely disused until the English rite was once more 
used in the Scottish Church by those of the ** qualified " 



Mn 1 73 1 certain articles of agreement, sometimes known as the 
Concordat of 1731, were drawn up by the Scottish bishops with a view to 
terminating various disputes about the ''usages'* and certain matters of 
iurisdiction. The first of these ran thus : — 

"Thftt we shall only make use of the Scottish or English Liturgy in the public 
divine service nor shall we disturb the peace of the church, by introducing into the 
public worship any of the ancient usages, concerning which there has been lately 
a difference among us ; and that we shall censure any of our clergy who shall act 
otherwise," 

The Scottish Liturgy here referred to seems to be that of 1637. It is 
noteworthy that although the '* ancient usages'' here spoken of grew and 
flourished in spite of this concordat, reservation was not among those con- 
cerning which there had been any ** difference." 



92 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

congregations who returned to the communion of the 
national Church at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
It is sometimes said that in the time of the penal laws 
most of the communions made were with the reserved 
Sacrament. The consecration took place either in the 
clergyman's house with his own family and others as 
congregation, or else in the house of some of his 
parishioners, and thence the priest went from place to 
place giving communion with the reserved elements. 
Reservation was always in both kinds, and it is said 
that a specially prepared vessel was used. The service 
on these occasions varied according to circumstances. 
Wherever a congregation could be assembled in safety 
the whole service was used, with the exception of the 
actual consecration. In the copy of the Scottish Liturgy 
used by Bishop Alexander of Dunkeld between 1764 
and 1776 a long prayer is added in manuscript, to be 
said in place of the consecration when communion was 
given with the reserved Sacrament : — 



" When the consecrated elements are reserved, and a 
new company is afterwards to be communicated of them, 
the following may be used instead of the Consecration 
Prayer : 

" Almighty God our heavenly Father, who of thy tender 
mercy didst give thine only Son J.^C. to suffer 
death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there 
by his own oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, 
and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the 
sins of the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy 
Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memorial 
of that his precious death and sacrifice until his coming 
again; hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly 
beseech thee, and of thy almighty goodness vouchsafe to 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 93 

bless with the Holy Spirit us (these) thy servants here 
before thee, and to grant that we (they) receiving thy g^fts 
and creatures of bread and wine already consecrated into 
the mos^ precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour 
J.^C. according to his holy institution, and in com- 
memoration of his death and passion, may be made par- 
takers of all the benefits of the same : and so sanctify our 
(their) whole spirits, souls, and bodies, that we (they) may 
become holy, living, and acceptable sacrifices unto thee. 
And we entirely desire thy Fatherly goodness to be pro- 
pitious to us sinners : and grant that by the merits and 
death of thy Son, and through faith in his blood, we and 
all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, 
may be delivered from the Devil and his snares, may be ful- 
filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and be 
made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we 
in him, and at the last may obtain everlasting life with 
thee ; thou, O Lord Almighty, being through him recon- 
ciled unto us, by whom, and with whom, in the unity of 
the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O 
Father Almighty, world without end. Amen." * 

While this form as a whole is an adaptation of the 
consecration prayer in the Scottish Liturgy, certain 
phrases towards the end — "may be delivered from the 
Devil and his snares" *'thou, O Lord Almighty, being 
through him reconciled unto us " appear to have been 
adapted from the non-jurors* liturgy of 171 8, into which 
they were introduced from the so-called Clementine 
Liturgy. 

In ckses of emergency the service consisted of Confes- 
sion, Absolution, Comfortable Words, Prayer of Humble 
Access, Administration, and Blessing. The Collect 



» Hall, FragnUnta Uturgica^ v. pp. 217, 223. 



94 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Epistle, Gospel, and Gloria were added wherever 
possible." 

That which in earlier days was done on account of the 
Penal Laws as well as for the sick, was continued for the 
latter after the Penal Laws had been repealed. It has 
been continuous to this day, and is the constant and 
cherished tradition of the northern congregations. Docu- 
mentary evidence is practically nil even in later times, 
for when sick-communions were recorded, no one ever 
thought of mentioning that the reserved Sacrament was 
used. It was the custom ; the usual, regular, and natural 
thing to do. In the early years of the last century an 
Aberdeenshire priest would no more have thought of re- 
cording the fact that he communicated a sick person with 
the reserved Sacrament, than he would have thought of 
specifying that at a particular administration of Com- 
munion in the church the newly consecrated elements were 
used. To this day there are many old people who when 
ill would not like to be communicated at a clinical or 
private celebration. In north Aberdeenshire thirty years 
ago, old people spoke of Communion with the reserved 
Sacrament as ** the Altar coming to them." 



1 ** It IS singular that there are no contemporary allusions to Reserva- 
tion,— «ven for the sick— before 17 18. Tradition would put it earlier. I do 
not think there is any room for doubt that it was practised earlier as a matter 
of course. I have no great belief in the modem statements about the 
celebrant carrying the elements from one central Celebration to a number 
of subordinate meetings. For one thing I fear the celebrations were few and 
iax between ; for another all traditions are in favour of the people habitually 
breaking the law by meeting together in considerable numbers rather than 
evading it by restricting themselves to the legal few. The Episcopalians 
were well known, and the neighbours were seldom spiteful enough to 
*' inform." Even when zealots did so, there was a difficulty in finding evidence. 
There was a tradition of two Udny farmers. Temple and Pirie by name, 
having been fined for permitting services to be held in their barns.'* G. S. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 95 

In Shetland in the i8th century and later it was a 
common custom for Presbyterian communicants to take 
away in a cle£in handkerchief a portion of the Sacrament 
to sick members of their families. The writer has been 
told that it is still done in places. 

In Bishop Robert Forbes's " Journal to and from 
Inverness, Ross-shire, Strathnairn, Lochaber, and Appin, 
in Argyleshire, in 1770 " is the following ; — 

"June 24 — 2nd Sunday after Trinity and St John 
Baptist's Day. . . In the evening I went to Torbreck 
with Consecrated Elements, and communicated Fraser of 
Phoppachie ...'-** 

The present Dean of Edinburgh, alluding particu- 
larly to the practice at Woodhead, Fyvie, a congrega- 
tion in the Diocese of Aberdeen which goes back as such 
to about 1720, and which represents that of the old parish 
church of St. Peter, Fyvie, says : 

'*It was unquestionably the general practice of the 
Aberdeen cleigy at the beginning of the 19th ccntur>' to 
communicate the sick from reserved elements. My 
father (who was ordained in 1826) continually reserved 
the Sacrament at the Great Festivals, and carried it to 
all the sick and aged in his parish on the days within the 
octave. He did not consecrate again, however many he 
had to communicate during the octave; and on account 
of the long distances he had to go, his rounds occupied 
him two or three days very often. The old people in the 



'^Journals of the Episcopal Visitations of the Right Rev. Robert Forbe s 
with a history of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ross, chiefl y 
during the i8th century, by the Rev. J. B. Craven, London, 1896, p. 283. 



96 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

north had a strong feeling about the privilege of being 
communicated from the elements consecrated in the 
church. They would have thought that the link which 
bound them to their fellow churchmen through all being 
partakers of the one loaf, was relaxed if one had con- 
secrated for each separated Sick Communion." 

In a private letter to the present Dean of Brechin, 
the Rev. William Presslie, Rector of Lochlee in the 
Diocese of Brechin, gives the following description of 
the practice he found in use in that remote district in 
Glenesk in 1871. 

"The celebrations were then only four in the year, 
and large numbers came forward. After the congrega- 
tion left, the churchwardens came up to the altar giving 
in the names of any who wished to be communicated 
privately. The consecrated elements were set aside for 
them, the churchwardens (reverently) consumed the rest." 

Further evidence of this tradition may be found in 
the rubrics of Bishop Torry's Prayer Book. This was 
a service book set forth for use in the Diocese of 
Dunkeld in 1849, which, however, never had any 
authority, having been condemned by the Episcopal 
Synod, the Bishop of Brechin, Dr. Forbes, alone dis- 
senting. At the same time the rubrics undoubtedly 
represent the traditional practice of the north, for in a 
letter by the Rev. Charles Wordsworth, afterwards 
Bishop of St. Andrews, to Bishop Torry, published by 
Grant in 1850, the following passage occurs : — 

" You (Bp. Torry) stated that you had no thought or 
intention of making new laws for the church — a thing 



r 



. THB SCOTTISH LITURGY 97 

which you well knew, it was not competent for you to do 
— nor of introducing new rubrics, still less of contradicting 
those which at present exist, but merely of recording 
your own experience and recollection of the usages of 
the church during the last century " 

The rubrics are as follows. 

At the end of Communion Service : — 

f The priest shall reserve so much of the Consecrated 
Gifts as may be required for the Communion of the Sick 
and others who could not be present at the celebration in 
church ; and when he administers to them, he shall proceed 
as directed in the Office for the Communion of the Sick, 

In the Communion of the sick : — 

But if the sick person be not able to come to the Churchy 
and yet is desirous to receive the Communion, he must give 
timely notice to tlie Curate, who shall thereupon carry the 
same unto him if he have It r^erved. But if there be a 
necessity for the sick person to receive the Blessed Eucharist 
before the time of the next public Celebration, and It hath 
not been reserved, then upon timely warning given, the 
Priest shall come and visit the sick person, and having a 
convenient plaa .... shall there Celebrate the Holy Com- 
munion .... 

IT When the Curate ministers to a sick person of 
the reserved Gifts, he shall begin with the words, •* As our 
Saviour Christ hath commanded and taught us/' with 
the Lord's Prayer, and tlun shall say the Exhortation, 
** Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins/' 
with the Confession following ; and, if he be a Priest, may 
add the Absolution, and he shall then proceed to say the 
comfortable words of Holy Scripture, with the prayer of 

7 



98 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

humble access^ changingy if necessary, its beginning into 
" These Thy humble servants do not presume" or ** This 
Thy humble servant doth not presume*^ with other similar 
changes; and at the distribution of the Holy Sacrament Jie 
shall first receive t/te Communion himself unless he hath 
done so that day already^ and after minister unto them 
that are appointed to communicate with the sick^ if there 
be any, and last of all to the sick person. 

At the end of several nineteenth century editions of the 
Scottish Liturgy there is a rubric somewhat as follows : — 

According to a venerable custom of the Church of 
Scotland, the Priest may reserve so much of the Consecrated 
Gifts as may be tequired for the communion of the sick, 
and others who could not be present at the Celebration in 
Church. 

This is a modern and unauthorised addition to the 
Liturgy, although a perfectly true statement of fact 
Reservation in no way rests upon it, and its history is 
explained in the course of the following letter from the 
present Dean of Brechin to the writer. 

" My own recollections go back to about 1844, when I 
have known relatives of my own communicated with the 
reserved Sacrament as a matter of course and without 
any remark as to novelty. I came of a fairly old Jacobite 
Episcopalian family in the centre of Buchan (N.E. 



* •* I scarcely think Mr. Grieve observed this rule, but my recollections 
go in the direction of tlie Communion of the Clergyman being considered 
part of the nexus with the Celebration in the church. As a Deacon I have 
carried the reserved elements for Mr. Grieve, but never to more than one 
Communion in the day." G. S. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 99 

Aberdeenshire). My mother was bom in 1800; my 
grandmother, who was alive till I was about twelve, was 
born about 1773. I have frequently heard them both 
expressing our duty of thankfulness for the privilege we 
Episcopalians possessed in having the reserved Sacrament 
at our command in times of sickness and old age — a 
privilege denied to Presbyterians by their own forms, 
but common and inalienable to us as Episcopalians. I 
never heard reservation for the sick and infirm spoken of 
as anything new, but always as a regular part of the 
Scottish Church system. 

"When there was a talk of revising the Scottish 
Communion Office in 1889, the Primus met the clergy of 
the northern part of his diocese (on his own invitation) 
at Brechin, and the draft revision was gone over between 
him and his clergy. Reservation was taken as a matter 
of course. Some of us resented the insertion of a per- 
missive rubric as seeming to imply that we had been 
reserving without due authority. We looked on reserva- 
tion as an inheritance antecedent to any form of the 
present Scottish Office. 

"The rubric in Bishop Torry's prayer-book, (which 
was expressly repudiated by the Episcopal Synod about 
50 years ago) was spoken of at the time as an absolute 
novelty. The insertion of a similar note — " according to 
a venerable custom, etc " — in the modern editions began 
first in an edition put forth without any authority, by a 
committee of clergy serving mostly in the dioceses of 
Aberdeen and Brechin. The previous editions of the 
Scottish Communion Office had been bound up with a 
collection of hymns used in St. Andrew's Aberdeen. 
This was out of print and was not a convenient size for 
binding into any of the S.P.C.K. prayer-books ordinarily 
in use. Of their own motion and without any authority, 
a number of clergymen resolved to print a form which 
would be more convenient for use. There was also a 
hope at the time that the use of the Scottish Office would 
spread further South in the Scottish Church, among 



lOO CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

congregations which represented the "quah'fied" of 
former days, and consequently it was thought well for 
the sake of those who had hitherto used the English 
Office, as well as for priests coming from the south to 
insert this note (not rubric) so as to show the invariable 
Scottish Custom. This I know^ for I assisted to revise 
the proofs, and the note has no authority whatever. I 
could mention some of the committee ; one or two are 
still alive (1899), most, like Dean Nicolson of St 
Salvador's, Dundee, or Dean Webster of New Pitsligo, 
are now gone. The note has no force, and reservation 
does not in any way rest upon it. 1 have joined in the 
.Communion of the Sick with the reserved Sacrament, 
years before that note was even dreamed of." 

The rubrics of Rattray and Ueacon required the 
reserved Sacrament to be kept " in the vestry or some 
other convenient place in the Church, under a lock." 
And until the beginning of the Oxford Movement, and to 
the present day in some places, the Scottish practice was 
to reserve in the vestry.' Anciently in Scotland an 
aumbry in the wall of the chancel was very commonly 
used, although the hanging pix was employed in some 



^ Reservation in the vestry was at one time the practice at Ellon. It 
lasted into the i8th century in some parts of France. It is an exceedingly 
ancient custom. The great Benedictine liturgiologist Mabillon speaks of it 
ds follows : — 

^ Antiquior modus [sc asservandi eucharistiam apud Romanos] is 
esse videtur, ut in secretario seu sacristia servaretur : quo ex loco 
Pontifici ad altare accedenti capsula eucharistiam continens prae- 
ferebatur. Hie modus tempore Gregorii XI perseverasse videtur 
saltem in basilica Lateranensi quod innuunt hujus Pontificis Con- 
stitutiones hie editae num. XVI 1 1, ubi praescribitur, ut vetera ejusdum 
ecclesiae instrumenta in sacristia, ubi est mensa Domini^ reclusa 
cwsxo^x^xWMv,^— Museum Italicufn^ ii, p. cxxxix, Paris 1724. 



•s l« 



j 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY lOI 

churches and districts. These aumbries were always on 
the noxth side of the high altar and were usually in the 
north wall of the church, although sometimes in the 
north part of the east wall. Many of them are still in 
existence, and some are ornamented with great richness 
and elaboration. In the vernacular they were called 
Sacrament Houses.* When the Holy Eucharist once 

1 The two most ancient places of reservation are the aumbry or locker 
in the wall and the hanging pix. Speaking roughly the hanging pix was 
more particularly Gallican, and during the middle ages it was almost 
universal in the larger churches of the greater part of France, and 
throughout England It was also used elsewhere, but not to so great 
an extent The aumbry in the chancel wall prevailed in the Netherlands, 
Germany, Scandinavia, Portugal and some parts of France and Italy, and 
it often attained to a high degree of elaboration — indeed in many of the 
larger German and Flemish churches it developed into a separate structure 
standing by itself on the north of the altar. Lyndewode, the fifteenth 
century English canonist^ while approving the hanging pix as fulfilling 
the requirements of the canon law in England, recommends the locker in 
the wall on the grounds of safety, and it seems lo have been occasionally 
used in England. 

In Scotland, while the hanging pix was certainly used in places, the more 
general custom appears to have been to reserve in the Sacrament House on 
the north side of the altar. There is a plain receptacle of the kind in nearly 
every remaining thirteenth century chanceL Few churches were built in 
Scotland in the fourteenth century ; in the early part of the fifteenth century 
the hanging pix seems to have become fashionable, chiefly in the south, but 
before the end of the century, at any rate in the east and north of the 
country, the aumbry in the chancel wall was very widely adopted. It was 
more or less elaborate, and several fine examples remain, mostly between 
the Tay and the Moray Firth. In Aberdeen Cathedral one of them took 
the place of a hanging pix which had previously been used there. A veil 
hanging in front of the Sacrament House corresponded to the pix- cloth 
which veiled the hanging pix. Pictures and descriptions of the best 
examples may be found in the Transactions of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological 
Society^ vols i, ii, and iii, passim; and, accompanied by a not very trust- 
worthy paper, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland^ 
1890-91, vol i, 3rd series, pp. 89-116, Edinburgh, 1891. A little additional 
information may be found in a rough description of them in the Appendix to 
the present writer's somewhat hastily compiled tract on Reservation of the 
Holy Eucharist in the Scottish Churchy Aberdeen and Oxford, 1899. 



102 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

more began to be reserved in the chancel, it was a 
Sacrament House in the north wall that was used. The 
first modern example was erected by Dr. Forbes, late 
Bishop of Brechin, in the church of St. Salvador^ 
Dundee, where it is still in use.' The ancient custom 
was restored in several other churches which followed 
the example set by the Bishop of Brechin. Later on 
Scotland became affected by the copying of Continental 
practice in ceremonial which developed — largely through 
ignorance — about thirty or forty years ago in England, 
and tabernacles began to be built upon the altars. In 
two cases where the ancient Scottish arrangement 
was already in existence, a tabernacle was built to take 
its place ; unintelligent imitation of modern Roman 
methods could scarcely go further.* During the 



^ Among other modern examples are those at Kirriemuir, Braemar, 
Ellon, New Pitsligo, and Thursa 

* In a previous note something has been said of other methods of 
reserving the Holy Eucharist. The tabernacle on the altar is of more 
recent growth than any of them. It seems to have developed in Italy, and 
to have become popular there very quickly at the time of the renaissance^ 
The use of it spread very much after *' Benediction of the Blessed 
Sacrament '' increased in popularity, perhaps because it could be easily 
combined with a *' throne ** on which to set the monstrance containing the 
Host 

The altar tabernacle is associated with that cu/fus of the Eucharist which 
developed very rapidly in the i6th century, and with the modem Roman 
form of altar, which appears to be constructed for " Benediction " rather 
than for Mass. In the pictures of model altars issued by the late Cardinal 
Vaughan, when Bishop of Salford, for the guidance of architects, the altar has 
become a mere adjunct to the tabernacle above it and to the huge erection 
of gradines which support and surround the tabernacle. The Eastern 
method of reserving in a small shrine or casket placed upon the Holy Table 
itself has but a superficial resemblance to the tabernacle set in the gradines 
behind a modem Roman altar. It is rather that the security of the closed 
screen or eikonostasis renders it unnecessary to do much more than leave 



/ 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY IO3 

last few years the development of a sounder type of 
ceremonial which has taken place in England, with the 
growth of the study of liturgiology, has made itself felt 
north of the Border, and altar tabernacles are going out 
of fashion again. At any rate there are several 
churches where Sacrament Houses have been 
provided, and some cases in which they have been 
substituted for tabernacles on the altar. 

In some places it used to be the rule to reserve 
continuously for the whole octaves of Christmas, Easter, 
Whitsunday and Michaelmas in case of emergency, even 
where continuous reservation was not practised at other 
times. This, for example, has always been the tradition 
at Muchalls. 

As is the case in the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church 
at the present day, the non-juring Scottish Church people 
treated the reserved Eucharist with perfect reverence but 
without any external gestures of adoration.* 



the reserved Sacrament upon the altar itself. It may be added that both 
hanging pixes and Sacrament houses are still in use on the Continent, both 
in East and West, although the former arc but rare. Sacrament houses of 
magnificent size and elaboration are used in the low countries and in 
Germany, particularly fine examples being at Notre Dame de la Dyle, 
Malines, and S. Pierre and S. Jacques, Louvain. That in the Lorenz Kirche 
at Nuremberg (now a Lutheran church) is 65 feet high, and said to be the 
finest in Europe. 

1 See Appendix VI. 



I04 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 



CHAPTER VI 
Mattins and Evensong 

The practice of the clergy of the eighteenth century 
in regard to Divine Service, that is to say Mattins 
and Evensong, was exceedingly lax. There seems to 
have been little or no idea of a daily service. Just 
as the Eucharist was but seldom celebrated, so the 
Divine Service seems only to have been used upon Sun- 
days. The ordinary Sunday service of the days of persecu- 
tion seems to have been as often as not of a very loose 
and unfixed type with extempore prayers, much like the 
services of the days of the second episcopacy in the last 
half of the seventeenth century. Where it was not of 
this character it was taken from the Book of Common 
Prayer, or it would be better perhaps to say that the 
services in the Book of Common Prayer were drawn upon 
for it. Very early in the eighteenth century the Prayer 
Book was introduced into several churches, but on the 
other hand the unliturgical type of morning and evening 
service lingered on in the north even after the Scottish 
liturgy had come into regular use. 

As early as 1709 Maxwell the minister of Tealing in 
Forfarshire wrote to Wodrow the historian, " Matters 
seem to grow worse and worse. The English service 
continues with us, and the Liturgy is in great vogue and 
esteem, especially among our gentry, who seem to be 



^ • • •■ . Vfc' .r^m w» ^T 



THB SCOTTISH LITURGY IO5 

disposed to receive anything that is against the 
Established Church, her doctrine, worship and govern- 
ment." Wodrow replied, "Besides the attempts that 
are made in giving the sacrament privately, and almost 
tn articulo mortis^ and the baptising with the cross after 
the English fashion." ' 

The nonjuring liturgists and theologians of the early 
part of the eighteenth century certainly understood the 
principles underlying the ancient choir services of the 
Church. Dr. Hickes's Devotions in the Ancient Way of 
Offices^ which passed through several editions, is 
sufficient evidence of this, not to speak of the forms 
for morning and evening prayer drawn up by Drs. 
Rattray and Deacon, and prefixed to their liturgies. 
But the fact remains that we have at present no 
evidence of the introduction of such forms as these into 
the Scottish congregations. The truth seems to be 
that the controversies regarding the Usages which 
centred round the sacraments, took up so large a 
share of attention that no one seems to have thought 
much about improving or regulating the ordinary 
morning and evening services. The more liturgically 
minded of the eighteenth century clergy appear to have 
contented themselves with drawing upon the English 
Prayer Book when they wanted a fixed form.' So that 



* Wodrow's Correspondence^ i, 79-84, Cf. pp. 243, 254, 39a 

■ In 1770 Dr. Abemcthy Drummond wrote of the Scottish clergy " clergy- 
men who every day use the morning and evening service of the English 
Prayer-book, and the offices for baptism, confirmation, matrimony, visitation 
of the sick, etc. occasionally/' The Rebuffer Rebuffed; or^ A Vindication of 
the Remarks on the Second Part of Principles political and religious^ and of 
several MS, letters sent to the Reverend Mr, Sievright anno 1767. [By Dr 
Abemethy Drummond] Edinburgh 1770^ p. 48. 



I06 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

at the close of the eighteenth century we find the Mattins 
and Evensong of the Prayer Book in general use, but 
individual clergy taking considerable liberty in making 
rather trifling modifications of them. 

We are fortunate enough to possess the interesting 
account of the service as conducted in 1795 at Longside 
by the famous John Skinner of Linshart ('* TuUoch- 
gorum.") The writer is John Ramsey of Ochtertyre, a 
Presbyterian. Speaking of Skinner he wrote : — 

He was perhaps the last of his brethren who formed them- 
selves upon the model of Episcopal ministers before the 
Revolution. Having no affinity or resemblance to the English 
cleigy of those times, either in their sermons or discipline, they 
had, it is believed, all the good qualities of their Presb)rterian 
brethren without the crotchets of the high-fliers. Be that as it 
may, he preached forty minutes every Lord's day ; and, what is 

not so common in his Church, made no use of papers 

Like the parochial clergy in Episcopal times, he had a session 
of twelve elders, who assisted him in visiting the rich, taking 
care of the poor, and exercising Church discipline, which last 
does not entirely accord with the Presbyterian form of process. 
.... For a number of years his stipend did not exceed three 
hundred merks a-year; and in 1745 it amounted to little more 
than thirty pounds sterling, which was very small, considering 
the numbers and abilities of his adherents. 

The architecture of his chapel, which stands hard by the 
manse, is equally primitive and unadorned, having the appear- 
ance of a vast barn shaped like a cross. It is thatched and so 
low in the roof as not to admit ol lofts or galleries. It is tolerably 
well seated, and will contain more than a thousand people. 
The altar is very plain, being a square seat immediately below 
a very humble pulpit 

[In 1795] I saw what I knew would shortly be seen no more 
— ^viz., an old-fashioned Episcopal clergyman, who did not affect 
to tread in the steps of his English brethren, between whom 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY IO7 

and the parochial ministers of Scotland before the Revolution 
there was little similitude. The first thing that struck me was 
the strongly marked faces of the people, which betokened not 
only sense and sharpness, but also a serious frame of mind. In 
point of mode and plainness, their dress reminded me of that of 
our country-people more than forty years ago, bonnets and 
party-coloured plaids being frequent. To my great surprise the 
service began with a psalm taken from the Assembly's version, 
which, he said, was more intelligible to a country congregation 
than Tait and Brady's. This, with the precentor's tone and 
style of singing, made me fancy myself in a Presbyterian church, 
till the reading of the liturgy dispelled the illusion. That and 
the Litany were read by Mr. Cuming, his grandson and 
assistant, he himself officiating only in the Communion service. 
Some of the prayers and collects were not to be found in the 
Book of Common Prayer, being either taken from the Scottish 
Service-book or composed by himself. The precentor sang the 
anthems in a style that would have astonished and offended an 
English ear accustomed to good singing ; but the devout appear- 
ance of the people more than compensated for any defects in 
their music. At a particular part of the service, the elders arose 
from their seats and collected the offering, while the congr^ation 
sang a hymn .... the service being finished, the venerable old 
man gave us a sermon. ^ 



The legislation and the practice of the earlier part of 
the nineteenth century were all in the direction of greater 
strictness in adhering to the forms in the Prayer Book. 
It would be impossible to write a better sketch of that 
legislation than the outline given by the present Dean of 
Edinburgh in An Inquiry into the legal force which the 



* Scotland and Scotsmen in the eighteenth century from the MSS, of 
John Ramsay Esq. of Ochtertyre^ ed. Alex. AUardyce, Edinburgh, 1881, 
vol i. f^ 527- 541* 



I08 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer possess in the 
Scottish Church, Edinburgh, St. Giles' Printing Co., 
1895) where he says : — 

At the b^inning of the present century, as is well known, it 
was the custom of the clergy of our Church (especially in the 
north), while using the Prayer Book forms for morning and 
evening prayer, to vary the wording and to insert in parts of the 
service prayers of their own composition and selection.* 

In the performance of the occasional offices they adhered still 



* A friend has recently found and sent to me a paper in Bishop John Skinner's 
handwriting, dated August, 18 10, in which the Bishop enumerates the variations 
which he himself had been accustomed to introduce. Some of them are supremely 
sensible — ^.^., he substitutes words " understanded of the people *' for archaic or mis- 
leading expressions, as *' impartially administer justice " for '* indifferently minister 
justice," " Bbhops and Pastors ^ for " Bishops and Curates " ; and so on. Again, he 
considers it more proper in the third Collect at Mattins to read that *' God has brought 
OS to the light of this day," than "to the beginning " of it, in view of the hour at 
which Mattins generally was said. So in the third Collect for Evensong — a service 
which, as he remarks, is often concluded early in the afternoon — he prayed to be 
defended " from all perils, accidents, and dangers of the ensuing night and of all our 
time*' ; adding these last words, he explained, so as " to comprehend the sense which 
some have put on the words this night as if they meant aU this night of lift — f.«., all 
our present life.'* Others of his alterations reflect the circumstances of the Church's 
life in the preceding century. In the Litany it was customary to commend " exiles " 
as well as ** prisoners and captives" to the Divine pity, and the Bishop justifies his 
observance of the practice by arguing with more ingenuousness than convincing force 
that to go on praying for exiles shows that there was no occasion for suspecting thai 
the sole object of the petition had been the exiled royal hmWy and their adherents. 
Again, because, to use his own words, " our poor Church has to struggle with such a 
host of ' enemies, persecutors, and slanderers,' " he thinks it pardonable to ask the 
good Lord to disappoint their designs as well as " to turn their hearts." And as the 
days were still remembered when assembled congregations of Episcopalians were bj 
no means sure when or where they might meet together again, the Bishop continues 
to insert in the General Thanksgiving, in grateful recognition of the security now 
enjoyed, a clause which had been used in the time when penal laws were enforced— 
thanking God *'for this opportunity of assembling to Thy worship and praise." 
These are only a few out of many variations he mentions. There seem to have been 
no portions of the ordinary offices which he was in the habit of omitting, save the 
Athanasian Creed, "on account of the scruples that were entertained about it by 
many well disposed members of the Church," and for a like reason he considers the 
use of the Commination Service on Ash Wednesday inexpedient [Dean of Edin- 
burgh's note.] 



»^r "_v-! 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY IO9 

less closely, if at all, to the Prayer Book. This was especially 
the case in the solemnisation of matrimony and the administra- 
tion of baptism. An occasional reference in the baptismal 
roister of Old St Paul's, Edinburgh, to a baptism as having 
been performed per liturgiam shows that the Prayer Book office 
for baptism was by no means invariably followed even when the 
sacrament was administered in Church. In the celebration of 
the Eucharist the Scottish Communion Office, in one or other of 
its forms, was in general use among the old non-juring congre- 
gations ; the English office the invariable use of the " qualified " 
chapels which had united themselves with the Church after the 
Laurencekirk Convocation of 1804. 

Such was the condition of things previous to the meeting of 
the first General Synod in 181 1. The Canons which that Synod 
enacted aimed, among other things, at securing greater uniformity 
in the mode of conducting the public service of the Church. To 
that end presbyters and deacons were ordered to " adhere strictly 
to the words of the English Liturgy in the morning and evening 
service, unless where, for obvious reasons, resulting from the 
difference between a legal establishment and toleration, the 
Bishop shall authorise any deviations " (Canon xvi.). In baptiz- 
ing they were allowed to select from the Prayer Book form " such 
parts of the office as are essentially necessary to the due ad- 
ministration of the sacrament " (Canon xix.). In solemnising 
matrimony they were tied to the Prayer Book only so far as to 
use " what tends to secure the formal consent of the parties," and 
were apparently left to judge for themselves what prayers — 
whether taken from the Prayer Book or not — were " suitable " 
for use on the occasion (Canon XXII.). In the celebration of the 
Eucharist, whether by the Scottish or the English office, "no 
alteration nor interpolation whatever " was allowed (Canon XV.). 
All the clergy were, however, enjoined (Canon xviii.), in giving 
intimation of and preparing for the infrequent communions of 
those days, " to pay attention to the spirit and design of the 
rubrics prefixed to the order for the administration of the Lord's 
Supper in the Book of Common Prayer." 

It should be noted, however, that the Bishops had previously 
drawn up a similar Canon to that last referred to, and in even 



no CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

more stringent terms. The Episcopal Synod in 1809 agreed 
upon six Canons, which all the Bishops signed. The fifth of 
them ran : " That they " (the clergy) ** attend strictly to the 
rubrics prefixed to the Communion Office." I do not know if 
these so-called Canons were ever promulgated ; but I hazard the 
conjecture that the object aimed at in this one was to insure the 
maintenance of what is commonly called Church discipline. 

It is certain, from other features of the Code of Canons of 
181 1, that the wholesale acceptance of the rubrics of the Prayer 
Book was never so much as contemplated at that time. The 
Canon (xiv.) regulating the times for Divine service makes no 
reference to the holy days of the Prayer Book calendar ; the 
clergy are simply required to attend to the celebration of Divine 
service " on the sacred solemnities " of Sunday, and " such other 
holy days as have been usually observed by the Episcopal Church 
in this part of the United Kingdom " ; while in place of accepting 
the ornaments rubric of the Prayer Book the Synod confined 
itself to giving — in the appendix to the Code of Canons — a 
recommendation to the clergy to wear the surplice in reading 
prayers and administering the sacraments, on the ground that 
" white seems to be a much more proper dress for the ministers 
of the Prince of Peace and Purity than black, if propriety can 
be attached to any colour." 

This quaint synodical recommendation of a clerical vestment 
stood unchanged in the next Code of Canons, which was enacted 
by the General Synod of 1828. And in that Code there is t\o 
material alteration made on any of the provisions I have noted 
in the Code of 181 1, save that bishops as well as presbyters and 
deacons are tied down to strict adherence to the words of the 
liturgy at morning and evening service; that no departure is 
allowed from the form prescribed for use at public baptism 
(except in cases of extreme danger); that (apparently by 
carelessness in drafting) the clergy are relieved from the obliga- 
tion to use any prayers whatever at weddings ; and that the 
anniversaries of our Saviour's birth, crucifixion, and ascension 
are specified as being with Sundays specially days of obligation. 

We come next to the General Synod of 1838. There again 
there were very few material alterations made upon the position 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY III 

as laid down in 1811. Still the original Canons with regard to 
the Scottish Communion Office and the giving intimation of and 
preparing for Communion remain in force; still the direction 
stands to pay heed to the spirit and design of the rubrics pre- 
fixed to the Communion Office in the Prayer Book ; the Canons 
relating to the observance of holy days and the administration 
of baptism are — ^so far as our present inquiry is concerned — 
rfe-enacted as in the Code of 1882 ; and the only changes to be 
noted are these — first '' a direction that in the solemnisation of 
matrimony such prayers only shall be used as are contained in 
the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer " (Canon 
XXII.); and secondly, three important new provisions in the 
Canon (xxvill.) ^'on the uniformity to be observed in public 
worship** viz. : — {a) this reference to rubrics, " in the performance 
of morning and evening service the words and rubrical directions 
of the English Liturgy shall be strictly adhered to " ; {b) a clause 
forbidding the clergy " to officiate or preach in any place publicly 
without using the liturgy at all " ; and (c) another clause prescrib- 
ing that "in publicly reading prayers and administering the 
sacraments, the surplice shall be used as the proper sacerdotal 
vestment" 

The paper in Bishop John Skinner s hand which is 
quoted by the Dean will be found in full as Appendix IV. 
It would seem to have been written in answer to Bishop 
Gleigs first charge delivered to the Brechin clergy in 
August, 1809, although it never was published. 

A good deal more about the variations from the Book 
of Common Prayer which were customary in Aberdeen 
about a hundred years ago will be found in the descrip- 
tion of the services in St. Andrew s, Aberdeen, from the 
Wagstaff Case, which has been printed as Appendix V. 

These variations are nearly all due to the Book of 
Common Prayer being only gradually adopted during 
the eighteenth century, and the freedom with which 
the clergy had adapted the services to the circumstances 



1 12 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

in which they were placed. In the services with proper 
lessons before and after an occasion on which the Holy 
Communion was celebrated, we have a survival of the 
seventeenth century customs, of puritan or continental 
protestant origin, which were also practised by Presby- 
terians. 

With respect to the non-use of the Athanasian Creed, 
it would seem that there was great hesitation in intro- 
ducing the use of a document of a highly technical 
character teeming with difficult theological terms. The 
speculative theology of the eighteenth century under the 
influence of Hutchinsonianism questioned the orthodoxy 
of certain of its expressions. As early as 1637 Scottish 
theologians had considered the English translation 
capable of improvement, and in the ill-fated Prayer 
Book of that date the text of the creed appeared with 
two notable emendations. References to it in the 
seventeenth and in the early part of the eighteenth 
century are scanty. It does not seem to have been a 
matter of contention. It had been accepted as one of 
the three creeds in the Second Helvetic Confession 
which the General Assembly adopted in 1 566 ; the 
puritan divine Samuel Rutherford spoke of it as " what 
every man ought to believe;" the *• Savoy Liturgy" of 
the English Presbyterians after the Restoration provided 
it as an alternative to the other two creeds. " But the fact 
that it is not used in the services of the Orthodox Eastern 
Church • may perhaps have made the non-jurors of the 
school of Campbell and Gadderar hesitate to introduce it 

* See The Book of Common Prayer .... for the use of the Church of 
Scotland 1637, ed. Prof. James Cooper, Church Service Society, 1904, p. 
242. 

* On the acceptance of this Creed by the Eastern Churches as a doctrinal 
standard see The Popular Use of the Athanasian Creed^ by Dr. J. Wickham 
Legg, 2nd ed., London, Longmans and Co., 191a 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY II 3 

They probably knew that, although Included in the 
Euchologion, it is not used in the public services of the 
Eastern Church. At any rate there seems no definite 
evidence of its introduction in the Scottish services of 
the first half of the eighteenth century, and when the 
Prayer Book mattins and evensong came to be followed 
with a fair amount of strictness, the wave of Hutchinson- 
ianism had not spent its force. Probably Bishop John 
Skinner of Aberdeen expresses what had been the 
general feeling, when, writing in 1810, he says : — 

" As that doctrine [i.e. of Christ and the Apostles] is 
sufficiently exhibited in these two Creeds [t\e. the Apostles* and 
the Nicene] considered as public Confessions of our Christian 
Faith there seems to be the less reason for our using as such 
what is commonly called the Creed of St Athanasius, part of 
which has been considered by the generality of English divines 
as a kind of Comment upon the doctrine of the Trinity, and 
though intended as an Illustration of that doctrine, may yet be 
far from being so clear to the comprehension of Christians, in 
general, as to entitle it to be repeated by them as a part of their 
public Worship. Therefore on account of the scruples enter- 
tained about it by many well disposed Members of our Church, 
I have always declined making any public use of the Athanasian 
Creed, though I consider the doctrine of it, when properly under- 
stood, to be perfectly sound and orthodox." (Appendix IV p. 

157.) 

An interesting custom at St Andrew s, Aberdeen, 
recorded in the Wagstaff Case (Appendix V.) was 
that of using the Litany on Christmas Day, on what- 
ever day of the week that festival occurred. 

In a letter from Bishop Abernethy Drummond to 

Bishop Watson of Dunkeld, dated 18 May 1792, the 

former writes, ** In reading the prayers at home, I greatly 

curtail the service. I use the Lord s prayer but twice ; 

8 



114 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

one creed, one blessing at one diet of worship ; and the 
doxology, three or at most four times ; particularly, I use 
it only at the end of the last Psalm, however many may 
be read." ' 

Although such variations from the Prayer Book order 
as have just been described have long been a thing of 
the past, several noteworthy customs in connection with 
Divine Service have been handed down by tradition in 
most of the older congregations. 

Respecting Lochlee the Rev. W. Presslie writes : — 
"At one time, not very long ago the usual Morning 
Service began by the clergyman giving out two or three 
verses of a psalm to be sung, and after the blessing the 
precentor and choir sang another psalm of their own 
selection, very often the 134th, called 'the Dismissal.'" 

The Gloria at the end of each psalm was recited as 
versicle and response, as if it were part of the psalms * : 
if the psalm had an odd number of verses the con- 
gregation said the first verse of the Gloria, and the 

* An Episode in the History of the Scotch Office in The Panoply, cd. G. 
H. Forbes, Burntisland, 1863-9, vol. iii, p. 187. 

* There seems to be no Western authority for the priest and people 
saying the Gloria Patri all together, or for the choir singing it •*full.** The 
Gloria Patri is properly a Versicle and Response, and is treated as such by 
the Book of Common Prayer, which is explicit upon the point : — 

IT Here all standing up the Priest shall say, 
Glory be to the Father and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost. 
Answer, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
world without end. Amen. 

IT Then shcUl follow the Psalms in order as they are appointed. And 
at the ep*d of every psalm throughout the year and likewise at the end of 
Benedicite, Bendictus, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis, shall be repeated 

Glory be to the Father 

Answer. As it was 

The Gloria is printed in the same way where it occurs in the 
Litany, and also at the end of the 51st Psalm in the Commination Service. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY II5 

officiant the second, the congregation beginning the next 
psalm. It was usual to incline at the beginning of the 
Gloria.^ 

In a letter on *• old customs in the Scottish Church " 
in the Scottish Guardian of 24th September 1880, and 
signed " Ergadiensis," the writer states that at the Gloria 
all bowed or bent the head, and at the absolution the 
reverence was very marked, all bending their heads. He 
goes on to say that the clergy turned towards the altar 
at the Apostles' Creed, and that at Laurencekirk, at the 
conclusion of the service each one bowed to the altar when 
leaving the seat or pew. 

The Rev. George Sutherland informs the writer that 
at Ellon long ago he was told that it was formerly the 
custom for old women from the Bernie district to curtsey 
at the words " O come let us worship and fall down " in 
the Venite at Mattins. 

Mr. J. E. Vaux* referring to a writer in Notes and 
Queries says that " It was formerly the custom for the 
dean and canons at Durham to kneel down in their stalls 
when these words were sung.^ Dean Cornwallis, Dr. 
Durell, and Dr. Prosser used to do this. Their 
immediate successors only bowed, and then the custom 
disappeared entirely. At St John's, Edinburgh, about 
1 846, the whole congregation knelt at the words cited 
above, and the well known chant, Purcell in G, was 
changed into the minor key for that verse only. The 

1 See Wilkins, Concilia Magnet Britannia iii, p, 20 A.D. 1420^ also 
H. Bradshaw, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral^ ii, p. 333, and The Mirraun of 
our Lady ^. 82 "ye begyn . . . enclynynge to praise the blyssed trynyte. 
&. say Gloria Patri,'* for much earlier instances of this. 

« Church Folk Lore^ p. 37. 

• Notis and Queries^ 4th Series, vii., p. 280. 



r 



Il6 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

late Canon Humble of St Ninian's, Perth, told me 
that throughout Scotland old people frequently bow 
or courtesy when they come to the verse referred to 
above. I fancy that it was mainly a north country 
custom, for amongst all the instances which I have col- 
lected, only one relates to the south of England." Mr. 
Vaux then quotes a case at Thorverton, Devon, in 1854. 

Benedicite and Jubilate were usually substituted for 
Te Deum and Benedictns at Mattins in Advent and 
Lent ; likewise Cantate and Deus misereatur for 
Magnificat and Nunc dimittis respectively, at Evensong. 
Benedicite was also used upon Septuagesima Sunday 
(not on Sexagesima and Quinquagesima) ; upon Trinity 
Sunday; and upon the 19th Sunday after Trinity' 
when the story of the Three Children was read in 
the first lesson. Very often it was broken off after 
the 2nd verse, O ye Angels etc., and resumed at the 
26th, O ye Children of Men etc. At Fraserburgh it was 
said as far as the 26th verse, and the rest was sung. 
Sometimes the last verse also was omitted, although not 
on the 1 9th Sunday after Trinity. 

The book from which the Lessons were read was 
often left open somewhere in the Book of Isaiah as 
being the evangelical prophet, and this throughout the 
week ; and in like manner the altar book was left open 
at the Gospel for the day. 

When the Lord's Prayer,' the Decalogue, or the 
BenedicttiS, Magnificat or Nunc Dimittis occurred in the 



' *The 2 1 St since the introduction of the " revised ** lectionary of 187 1. 

■ Standing at the Lord's Prayer was a common tradition in many parts 
of England, ^..^. Rochester, Bristol and Norwich Cathedrals. At Exeter 
Cathedral it is said that the congregation used to kneel. See Notes and 
Queries ix, 1854, pp. 127, 257, 567. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY II7 

Lesson, most of the old congregations were accustomed 
to rise up and stand while it was being read. This was 
also done for the words " Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, goodwill towards men *' at the end 
of the Second Lesson at Mattins of Christmas Day. In 
most of the Buchan churches the people stood for the 
words " Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the ever 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace " in the First Lesson at 
Mattins of Christmas Day. Almost everywhere it was 
usual to stand for the words " Holy, holy, holy. 
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come " 
in the Epistle on Trinity Sunday, and in many places they 
stood for the words ** Amen ; Blessing and glory, and 
wisdom and thanksgiving, and honour, and power and 
might be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen," in the 
Epistle on All Saints* Day. At Cuminestown the 
custom is for the people to stand at the words " Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full 
of his glory " in the First Lesson at mattins on Trinity 
Sunday. Latterly at Peterhead they stood when the 
Lord's Prayer or Ten Commandments occurred in the 
Lessons, but not on the other occasions just mentioned. 

In No^es and Queries, vol. ix, i85f, p. 367, is 
the following communication. It is signed " Henry 
Stephens." 

'*The congregation of the English Episcopal Chapel 
at Dundee stood during the reading of the Lords 
Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Song of the 
Angels at the birth of Christ, when these occur in the 
order of morning Lessons. This congregation joined that 
of the Scottish Episcopalians several years ago, and 
whether the practice is continued in the present congrega- 
tion I cannot say. 



Il8 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

"In St Pauls Chapel, Edinburgh, York Place, the 
congregation stand at the reading ^f the Ten Command- 
ments in the Fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, and they 
chant * Glory be to thee, O God,' on the giving out of 
the Gospel, and • Thanks be to thee, O God,' &c., after 
the reading of it In the Communion they sit during the 
reading of the Exhortation, * Dearly Beloved in the 
Lord ; ' and it is but very lately that they have stood 
when repeating * Glory be to God on high,' &c, in the 
Post Communion." 



^ 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY II9 



CHAPTER VII 
The Occasional Services 

§ I Confirmation 

The Canons provide for the use of the following 
form at Confirmation in addition to Defend O Lord etc., 
thus : — 

Canon XL (of 1890), § 5. 

"The Bishop when administering Confirmation may 
at his discretion, with concurrence of the Clergyman, use 
the following form in addition to that prescribed in the 
Book of Common Prayer — ^ N, I sign thee with the 
sign of the Cross (Jure the Bishop shall sign the person 
with the sign of the Cross on the forehead)^ and I lay my 
hands upon thee in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost Defend O Lord,' etc., as 
in the Book of Common Prayer." 

This was no fresh introduction, but merely the 
embodiment in the Canons of a long-standing tradition 
derived from the practice of the non -jurors. A writer 
in the Scottish Magazine for 1850, p. 523, says "Every 
Bishop of the Scottish Church within the memory of 
man did thus confirm. Bishop Rait and Bishop Gleig, 
however, did not use the sign of the cross." 

The use of the sign of the cross in Confirmation, 



120 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

together with anointing, was restored by the English 
non-jurors in their service book of 1718 {A Communion 
Office, Taken Partly from Primitive Liturgies, And 
Partly from the First English Reformed Common-Prayer- 
Book : together with Offices for Confirmation and the 
Visitation of the Sick. London : Printed for James 
Bettenham, 17 18) and a form which included the 
anointing was also drawn up in Scotland in the eigh- 
teenth century. This and other modifications then 
attempted, have been left for separate treatment 

Speaking of the sign of the cross in Confirmation. 
Jeremy Taylor says, " I do not find it forbidden or 
revoked." ' 



§ 2. Anointing of the Sick. 

A tradition was current early in the nineteenth 
century to the effect that unction of the sick had been 
in occasional use not very long before, and that this 
really was the case is proved by the existence not 
only of manuscript forms for blessing the oil but also 
of cruets which were actually used. 

Two glass cruets now in the official keeping of the 
Bishop of Aberdeen were formerly used by John Alex- 
ander, Bishop of Dunkeld and incumbent of Alloa. 
From him they passed to Bishop Petrie his nephew, 
thence to the Rev. Nathaniel Grieve, his pupil, who left 
them to his daughters Mrs. Harper and Mrs. Wilson, 
the former of whom gave them to the late Bishop of 
Aberdeen. One is of green glass and was used by the 
late bishop, Dr. A. G. Douglas, in the case of Mrs 

* IVorks^ (Lib. Ang. Cath. Thcol.) v, p. 653. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 121 

Mary Margaret Cameron of Garth, Lerwick, on Christmas 
day 1903. 

We have seen that the non -jurors' service book of 
1 7 18 had a great effect on the Scottish Church, and 
the use of unction for the sick was probably due to it," 
as well as in some measure perhaps to the influence 
of Deacon s service book which also prescribed it In 
the preface to the first mentioned it is alluded to as 
follows : — 

" The annointing with Oil in the office for the Sick is 
not only supported by Primitive Practice, but commanded 
by the Apostle S. James. It is not here administered by 
way of Extreme Unction but in order to Recovery." 

In this book the oil is blessed by the priest in the 
service for the Visitation of the Sick, immediately before 
its ministration, which takes place just before the blessing 
at the end of the service. In Deacon's book a short 
form of consecration is provided for the bishop to use 
after the Nicene Creed in the celebration of the Holy 
Eucharist. The actual anointing is the same in both 
books, the priest making the sign of the cross with the 
oil on the forehead of the sick person, and saying the 
prayer As with this visible oil, etc., appointed for the 
purpose in the English Prayer Book of 1549.' 



^ Writing in 1723, Gideon Guthrie, then an Episcopal clergyman in 
Edinburgh, includes unction among the usages which he says were then 
being introduced by Bishops Campbell and Gadderar. Gideon Guthrie, a 
monot^aph written 1712 to 1730^ ed. C.E. Guthrie Wright, Edinburgh, 1900. 

' On the whole subject see The Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and 
Tradition^ F. W. Puller, Church Hist Soc., na LXXVII, London, 1904. 



122 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

§ 3. Burial of the Dead, 

Among the fisher people on the East Coast in the 
last decade of the nineteenth century, it was customary 
at burials to place the body (while in the coffin) with 
the feet to the east, and to set a plate of salt ' on the 
breast, with two lighted candles, one near the head the 
other near the foot, on the day of burial, and female 
relatives lifted the coffin first, or " took the first lift " as 
it was called. The priest took the first part of the 
Burial Service in the house, and the second part also, 
if the place of burial were at some distance. In the 
latter case a plate of earth was brought in, and at the 
words of committal the nearest male relative scattered 
it on the body, either in three handfuls or in one handful 
let go three times. Any earth left over from this cere- 
mony was not thrown out carelessly, but put in flower- 
pots containing flowers in the house. At Cruden seven 
or eight men sprinkled the earth and at Longside the 
priest did it, as was ordered in the 1549 Prayer Book. 

At Peterhead the fisher people used to bury on the 
second or third day after death. They watched con- 
tinuously and kept a light burning. At these wakes 
portions of Scripture were read, much tobacco smoked, 
and much ale and bre^^d and cheese consumed. Dr. 
Pratt at Cruden never used to take any part of the 
Burial Service at the house ; it was all said at the grave. 
There was no churchyard round the previous church <5f 
St James, so that those funerals would have been in the 
old parish churchyard. 

* Sec Sir Walter Scott's Antiquary, at the funeral of Steevie. The Rev. 
£. Beresford Cooke writes : " Sixteen years ago, when an uncle of mine was 
buried in Lancashire, a plate of salt was placed on his breast" The custom 
was very wide-spread. See Notes and Queries^ ix, 1854, p. 536. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 23 

Dn Pratt wrote [1858] of the lighted candle as 
follows : — 

'' Again, at funerals it was a practice, and is still far 
from uncommon, for a lighted candle to be placed near the 
dead on the morning of the day of interment, which on no 
account must be blown out, but left to expire of itself."* 

In Old Church Life in Scotland* the late Dr. 
Andrew Edgar wrote, " At the beginning of the last 
century, coffins were in Scotland covered with large 
black cloths, on which were spread herbs and flowers ; 
and in the funeral procession some walked in front of the 
coffin, more behind the coffin, and in the rear there 
followed a company of women (Morer.). Sometimes 
frankincense was used for odorous or deodorising 
purposes. A minister in Perth died in 17 19, and the 
following bill for his death and burial was presented to 
his executors : — Final charges, £^^1 6s. Scots; doctor's 
fees, ;^75 12s.; drugs furnished, and frankincense for 
corps and coffin, j<f32 4s. Fasti." The late Dr. 
Walter Gregor, minister of Pitsligo, in his Notes on the 
Folk' Lore of the North-Ec^t of Scotland^ says that it 
was customary to cover the body of a child with a sheet, 
and that, as signs of mourning, "If there was a looking- 
glass, it was covered with a white cloth, as were also the 
pictures." This veiling of pictures as a sign of mourning 
may be compared with the similar practice of covering 
pictures in church with white veils from the beginning 
of Lent until Easter which obtained all over this part 
of the church in mediaeval times. 

* Buchan^ by the Rev. J. B. Pratt ; Aberdeen, 1858, p. 2a 
'2nd. ser. Paisley, 1886, p. 259 ;i. 
' London, 1881, pp. 207-21 1. 



124 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

§ 4. Marriage, 

Until comparatively recently marriages more 
commonly took place at the bride s house than at the 
church. 

Before marriage, women used to wear nothing on their 
heads, except perhaps a shawl on a rainy or a cold day 
and in church. The hair was kept in place by a narrow 
black band called the snood, passing round the temples 
and tied behind, the presence of which unfailingly denoted 
virginity : — indeed if an unmarried woman committed 
fornication the snood would have been torn from her 
head, if not laid aside by herself. At and after marriage 
the woman put on a cap, made of white linen, flat in 
front and pleated behind. This was worn no matter how 
young the bride might be, or how much hair she had, and 
it was never afterwards discontinued. It will be noticed 
that it was really of the nature of a veil, and may have 
originally denoted that the wearer was living under vows. 
This would rather lend support to the view that the 
bride's veil is separate and distinct from the care-cloth.' 

^ Mgr. Duchesne, one of the leading foreign liturgiologists, points 
out that the early marriage ceremonies described by Pope Nicolas in A. D. 
866, are merely the ancient pagan Roman marriage rites, with the Mass 
substituted for the pagan sacrifice. Part of this old ceremonial was the 
veiling of the bride's head with the Flammeunty a bright red veil, afterwards 
exchanged for the veil which formed part of the out-door dress of all married 
women. It was from this OhnubilaHo capitis that such words as nubere^ 
nuptiae &c. were derived. In the Christian service the chief act was the 
velatiOy which was accompanied by a solemn blessing, and such it is called 
in the old Leonine Sacramentary. Mgr. Duchesne refers to St Ambrose 
as saying that marriage ought to be sanctified velamine et sacerdotcUi 
benedicHone, This then seems to be the origin of the bride's veil and of 
the custom of wearing it, or a similar veil, in after life. The veiling of virgins, 
and later, of nuns, seems to have been originally done in imitation of this. 
See Christian Worship^ trs. McClure, London, 1903, pp. 428-434. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 25 

The bride's dress was usually a mixture of reds and 
whites. The bride was attended by one bridesmaid 
(who was not a mere child) called her maiden, and also 
by a young man. The bridegroom had likewise a 
young man, and also a "maiden." The bride and 
bridegroom were accompanied at the altar by one 
"maiden" and one young man, the other "maiden" 
and the other young man remaining in a seat in the 
church. Widows and widowers were married on Sunday 
morning immediately before service. 

In the Middle Ages we find a custom of holding a large veil or cloth 
over both bride and bridegroom during the solemn blessing. In England, 
this was called the care-cloth and the Sarum rubric directed it to be held by 
four clerks in surplices. There were numerous local variations. The 
York Manual mentions only two clerks ; at Hereford four clerks held it over 
the backs of the parties. In some foreign rites it approximated more closely 
to the veil, for at Aries, Valencia, Toledo and Salamanca it was placed on 
the woman's head and the man's shoulder. The care-cloth was sometimes 
purple, sometimes white ; the word purple was often used to describe a 
colour which we should call red. At Toledo in 1680 and 1766 a veil of both 
colours is prescribed. 

The exact relation between the care-cloth and the bride's veil never 
seems to have been thoroughly investigated. Did the old Flammeum turn 
into the care-cloth and afterwards revert to its old use as a veil for the 
bride alone, or was the care-cloth a later addition in the form of a canopy, 
something like the canopy heldoverakingathis consecration ? In the absence 
of sufficient evidence it is not very easy to say. Dr. Wickham Legg in his 
Notes on the Marriage Service in the Transactions of St. Pauts Ecclesio- 
logical Society^ vol iii, p. 170, reproduces an early 19th cent. French prini 
showing the nuptial benediction with the care-cloth in use, the bride wearing 
a veil. In this case certainly the care-cloth did not take the place of the veil. 

If the writer might venture to make a suggestion, it would be that the 
care-cloth is of the nature of a canopy, and was an addition to the bride's 
veil ; that perhaps its use arose from a desire to extend any virtue there 
might be in the veil to both parties in the same way as the ring, which was 
originally given only to the woman (being the representative of the purchase- 
money), in many places came to be given also to the man ; and that uses 
like those of Aries and Salamanca, in which the care-cloth was actually laid 
on the woman's head arose through confusion between the care-cloth and 
the bride's veil. 



126 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

During the marriage service (which was that in the 
Book of Common Prayer) the man stood on the right 
(the priest's left), the woman on the left (the priest's 
right) as directed by the rubric, which like most of 
the marriage service, is taken directly from the Sarum 
Manual. At the words " Who giveth this Woman to be 
married to this Man ? " the bride's father took her right 
hand and placed it in the priest s right hand, and the 
priest thereupon gave it into the right hand of the man, 
who then said, '* I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, 
&c." The ring was placed upon the book and the priest 
made the sign of the cross over it, using some form of 
blessing in silence/ The man placed it on the third 
finger (that next the little finger) on the woman's left 
hand. An old tradition told how at one time the ring 
was first placed momentarily on the thumb and the other 
fingers in succession before being finally placed on the 
ring finger. This was a very interesting survival of the 



* The Sarum rubric runs : — 

DHnde ponai vir aurum vel argenium et anulum super scutum vel 
librum. 

The form of blessing follows, in which the sign of the cross is made over 
the ring. In the Prayer book of 1549 the blessing of the ring is turned 
into a blessing of the bride and bridegroom, but the gold and silver remain, 
and are called tokens of spousage. In some foreign ntes more rings than 
one are given ; in others a ring is also given to the man — this is still done 
in the Eastern Church, where it may be noted that both parties are 
crowned — while in some German dioceses the use of a ring is an optional 
and local custom. In the Greek Church the ring is not blessed — merely 
laid upon the Holy Table. (Compare the old way of blessing the episcopal 
pallium at Rome by laying it on the tombs of S. Peter and S. Paul while a 
noctum of mattins was said ; the sword of the Holy Roman Emperor was 
originally blessed in much the same way). There seems to have been no 
blessing of the ring at Milan before the time of St. Charles Borromea 



««M 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 127 

old Sarum ceremony/ We may safely assume that it 
was a survival and not a non-juring restoration, because 
the only non-juring direction we have about marriage 
directs the use of the Prayer Book service,' and we do 
not know of any case in which the non-jurors went be- 
hind the 1549 Prayer Book to the older English 
directions, although they constantly borrowed material 
from the primitive liturgies of the East. 

It is very curious that the more modern custom of placing 
the ring on the left hand has become the rule in Scotland 
— why, it is not easy to say. The right hand was anciently 
the hand for the ring, but Cranmer changed it to the left 
in the 1549 Prayer Book.^ Strangely enough the same 

^ In many old rites the ring was not placed on the ring finger at 
once, but was momentarily placed upon others at different parts of the 
form In nomine Patris &c The Sarum rubric is subjoined. 

Si autem antea fuerit anu/us tile denedictus, tunc statiin postquam vir posuerit 
anuium super librum^ accipiens sacerJos anulum^ trcuiet ipsum viro ; quern vir accipiat 
manu sua dexiera cum tribus principcUibus digUis^ a manu sua sinistra tenens 
dextercun sponsae ; docente sacerdote, dicai. 

With thys ryng I the wedde and tys gold and silver I the geae ; and wyth my 
body I te worscype, and wyth all my wordly catell I the honore 

Et tunc profirat spensus anuium pollici spotnae dicetu^ In nomine Patris ; ad 
secundum digitum^ et Filii ; cut tertium digUum^ et Spiritus Sancti ; ad quartum 
digitum^ Amen ; et ibi dimittat eum. Missale ad usum . . . Sart4m, Burntisland 
1861-83, col. 833. 

This represents the commonest English custom. Foreign rites varied 
very much in the order in which the ring was placed upon the different 
fingers. 

* " TAe Form of SolemnizcUion of Matrimony is the same with that in 
the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England^^ — Deacon's Devotions^ 
p. 154. 

' The placing of the ring on the left hand is comparatively new. 
J^early all ancient books prescribe the right hand, and the right hand is the 
ring hand in the East. Cranmer seems to have made the change to the left 
hand in the Prayer Book in 1 549, either in accordance with the renaissance 
of pagan custom prevalent at that time, or else under the influence of an idea 
then current that the left hand had a specially close connection with the 
heart. Bishops still wear the episcopal ring on the thp-d finger of the right 
hand. 



128 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

change was made by the Roman Church in the Riliiah of 
Paul V, in 1615/ but it was at first only received in certain 
places. The Romanists in this country, for example, dd 
not seem to have adopted it until the eighteenth 
century. The English Prayer Book of 1552 was 
occasionally used in Scotland about the time of the 
Reformation' ; the 1637 book, though hardly ever used, 
also prescribed the left hand ; and of course the left 
hand is ordered in the Prayer Book of 1662. The use 
of the left hand probably came in from England, little by 
little, but it is of course possible that Scotland was among 
the exceptional districts which used the left hand in the 
middle ages.^ The fact of the persistence for so long of 
the ceremony of placing the ring on different fingers 
makes it rather hard to believe that the hand would have 
been changed. 

The bride and bridegroom did not walk arm in arm 
or even side by side within the church ; the bridegroom 

^ In the 4th .Provincial Council of Milan, St Charles Borromeo appears 
to have changed the ring hand from right to left. The Roman Church soon 
made the same change : down to the end of the i6th century the Roman 
books agreed with general Christian custom in prescribing the right hand, 
but in 1600 one was printed at Venice directing the left, and in the Rituale 
Romanum of Paul V in 1614 the left hand is directed This is the Ritual 
now used at Rome, and as might be expected it has caused many foreign 
dioceses to make the alteration. The change seems to have originated in 
the i6th century fashion of copying pagan customs, just like the custom of 
burying bishops and priests with the feet towards the West which grew up 
in Rome during the i6th century. 

* For the use of the Prayer Book of 1552 in Scotland, see a paper by Dr. 
Leishman on The Ritual of the Churchy [Presbyterian.] 

'The left hand is ordered in one mediaeval Spanish use — that of 
Salamanca, and in one Swedish use, that of Scara, 1498, where, as at Abo, 
1 522, and perhaps elsewhere, the ring was placed on the second or middle 
finger. See Manuale Uncopense^ Brevinrium Scarense^ Manuaie Aboense^ 
ed. Joseph Freisen, Paderbom 1904, pp. 132 and 173. 



^j 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 29 

went first followed by the bride, and afterwards the young 
men and the "maidens." 

But the great occasion for ceremony — more than the 
actual marriage — was the " kirkin\" or first appearance in 
church of the newly married couple. This took place 
on the first Sunday after the marriage, or on the same 
day (being Sunday) in the case of a widow. About half 
an hour before the beginning of the service, the bride's 
father (or oldest male relative) went to the church and 
sat down at the outside end of the seat which the newly 
married couple were going to occupy, so as to keep out 
intruders. At the beginning of the service, the bride 
and bridegroom came to church in procession ; the bride 
went first, supported by the two young men, one on each 
side, and the bridegroom followed, supported in like 
manner by the two *' maidens. " At the church door the 
young men and the " maidens " stood aside and allowed 
the bridegroom to pass into the church and up the passage 
first and unattended. The two " maidens " and the two 
young men followed, each side by side. The bridegroom 
stood at the entrance to the seat while the rest of the 
party went in, and they sat in the following order ; the 
bride at the inner end of the seat next the wall ; next 
her, not the bridegroom, but her own " maiden " ; then her 
young man, next the bridegroom's maiden and his young 
man ; last of all the bridegroom himself at the outside 
end of the seat, the bride's father having moved off 
somewhere else on the entry of the procession. 

When the newly married couple first received Com- 
munion together,* they went to the altar one after the 



^This was at the '^kirkin'" if the Holy Communion happened to be 
celebrated upon that day, otherwise at the earliest opportunity afterwards. 

9 



130 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Other, and not side by side. The bride knelt between 
her husband and the priest, that is to say, on the right 
or south side in churches where the priest communicated 
the people from south to north,* on the left or north 
side where the reverse was done. She therefore received 
first, but she kept the Sacrament in her hands until her 
husband received and then they both consumed it 
together. This of course could not be done in the case 
of the chalice. After the " kirkin*," they left the church 
in procession in the same order in which they came. 

This custom of the simultaneous reception of the 
blessed Sacrament seems, like so many other traditional 
usages, to have been adapted from Eastern practice by 
the non-jurors. It is exactly what takes, place in Russia 
when the deacon communicates at the ordinarj' liturgy, 
and it formerly was the custom in Greece. According to 
the older use still preserved in Russia, the priest gives 
the holy bread to the deacon before taking it himself, the 
deacon goes behind the holy table and waits till the priest 
is ready, then both receive simultaneously.** The same 
is the' case in Russia when several of the clergy receive 
communion together. , 

At Muchalls, and there only, so far as the present 
writer has been able to ascertain, a very peculiar custom 



* At Sarum, York and .Exeter the position of the bride and bridegroom 
was reversed during the nuptial mass. The Sarum rubric before the mass 
is : — 

Finitis Oraiionibus^ et introductis tilts in presbyterium scilicet inter 
chorum et altare ex parte ecclesiae australi; et staiuta muliere ad dexteram 
viri^ scilicet inter ipsum et altare^ incipiaiur Missa de Trimtate, 

* Office of the Credence and the Diidne Litursry of our father among the 
saints fohn Chrysostom^ Archbishop of Constantinople^ ed. S. G. Hatherly, 
London, n.d. [1895 pp. 90-95]. 



i^i^t^mmmmK^^^mmm^m^^m^^^mm^^ii^m^^^^^^'^'^^'^'mK^^^^^''''^ "'J- <^ .".^-'J" "i^i i iu. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I3I 

was observed. The bridegroom's young man, who 
supported the bride on her right, carried in his right 
hand a staff, made of some white wood with the bark 
peeled off. It was between 2^ and 3 feet long and was 
carried upright, a bunch of blue ribbons being tied to 
the top of it The young man (who sat next the bride- 
groom) held it in his right hand throughout the service. 
In the evening, the ribbons or streamers were tied round 
the right arm of the bridegroom, who wore them that 
night. 

These marriage customs, which are of great interest, 
survived till the end of the nineteenth century among 
the fishing population on the coast, particularly at 
Muchalls. The recent migration of the fishing people 
to the large towns has had a most disastrous effect upon 
all old usages, and if a marriage were to take place 
among the few remaining inhabitants of the old villages, 
it is hard to know how much or how little of the old 
ceremonial would be followed. 

Some of these customs were more or less peculiar to 
the fisher people, and some were also used by Presby- 
terians ; for example, the supporting of the bride and 
bridegroom by members of the opposite sex. 

At Peterhead the bride and bridegroom went to 
church with supporters, as already described, but there 
were no supporters at the ** kirkin'." 

At Cruden when a man from the fishing village of 
Whinnyfold married an episcopalian, the marriage was 
usually in church. In the procession to the church the 
bride went first led by the two young men, and then the 



13^ CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

bridegroom led by the two "maidens," as described 
above, and they went in the same order at the ** kirkin'." 
In the pew at the '*kirkin'" they sat thus: inmost the 
bride, then maiden, young man, maiden, young man 
and bridegroom, as above. Blue ribbons, called ** favours," 
were worn round the arm, but were not common among 
the church people of Whinnyfold. 

In The Life and Death of Jamie Fleeman the Laird 
of Udnys Fool, Aberdeen, 1904, p. T2>^ is the following 
note upon marriage customs : — 



" It may be interesting to give a brief account of a country 
wedding, conducted according to the manner of former days. 
The bridegroom when inviting his guests, always asked two 
young men to do him the favour to bring home his bride. 
These were termed the sends ; he who was principally entrusted 
with the charge being called the best send He likewise invited 
two young girls to lead him to the place where the marriage 
ceremony was to be performed, and these were called tlie 
bridegroom's maidens^ the best and the worst respectively, as 
each was to lead him by the right or left hand. In like 
manner the bride asked two young men to lead her to the 
place of marriage ; the one called the bride's best young man^ 
the other her worst young man. She had likewise two young 
women termed her maidens \ the one the best, the other the 
worst bride's maid. When the day appointed arrived, these 
repaired to the houses of the bridegroom and bride respectively, 
as they had been invited, and at an hour rather earlier than the 
other guests. Their business was to see that the parties about 
to be wedded were neatly and properly decked out for the occasion. 
According to the time requisite for bringing the bride to the 
place appointed for the marriage, the sends took their departure 
from the bridegroom's house and proceded to that of the 
bride. Having arrived at the door, the best send knocked, and 
the bride, with her maids, having made her appearance, he 






THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I33 

asked, in case of not being acquainted with her, if she was the 
bride of such a man, and, on her answering in the affirmative, 
he told her that the bridegroom had his compliments to her, 
and requested that she would attend to the appointment agreed 
upon betwixt them at their meeting last past He then saluted 
first the bride and then her maids, an example which was 
followed by his companion ; after which the bride invited them 
into the house, where they were treated with something to cat 
and drink ; and when there was music and dancing, they danced 
with the bride and her best maid. That done they shook hands 
with the bride, mentioned the exact time that the brid^room 
expected her, and took their leave. Proceeding till they met 
the bridegroom and his party on the way to the place appointed 
for the marriage, they reported to him that his request had been 
complied with, and that his bridQ was a-coming. The marriage 
ceremony over, the sends now led the bride to her new habitation, 
and the bride's maids led home the bridegroom, while the bride- 
groom's maids, and the bride's youn^ men generally walked in 
pairs. The person who first arrives is said to win the brose. 
Having reached the bridegroom's, some matron appointed for 
the purpose stood ready with a basket full of bun^ or in the 
absence of this, of bread and cheese, which being placed on 
the bride's head, the bun or the bread and cheese were broken, 
and handed round among the company. The bride was then 
welcomed into the house by the bridegroom's mother or some 
other relative appointed for the purpose, who generally took 
care either to complirfient or taunt her according as the match 
was agreeable to the friends or not This matron then led the 
bride to the fire-place, and gave her the tongs, by which 
ceremony she was considered to be established in the possession • 
of her house. All now hastened to the dinner-table, at which it 
was considered altogether contrary to marriage order, and even 
rather unlucky if the officials did not arrange themselves as 
follows : — The bride at the head of the table ; on the left hand, 
first, the best maid, then her best young man, after him the 
bridegroom's second or worst maid, and last of all the bride's 
worst young man ; and, on her right hand, first, the best send 
next to him the bridegroom's best maid, then the worst send^ 



134 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

and, to the right of all, the bride's second maid. Dinner over, 
the bride takes a glass in her hands, stands up, drinks to the 
health of the company ; then the bridegroom's best man or send 
does the same, and, in the bridegroom's name assures them of 
being welcome ; after which the bride's best maid does the same 
thing, and in the bride's name tells them that they are welcome 
guests. When tired at the table, they rise to the dance. This, 
too, is a matter of great ceremony, and four reels are completed 
before any of the ordinary company are allowed to begin. The 
fifth dance is always considered by young fellows as a high 
honour, and is therefore sought by every device, while not 
unfrequently the fiddler decides the matter by declaring who 
has paid him for the tune. The dances are arranged thus: — 
1st The bride is partner to the best send, and her maid to the 
other send. 2nd. The brid(^room's best maid and best send, 
and bride's second maid and other send. 3rd. The bride is 
partner to her best young man, and her maid to the bride's 
worst young man. 4th. The bridesmaid and best young man 
and the bridegroom's second maid with the bride's second young 
man. 5th. The bride and her maid, and any two young men 
of the company. Before each dance, the men claim a kiss from 
their partners ; and at the end of the first, third, and fifth 
dances, the bride and her maid tie a favour or blue ribbon on 
their partner's arm." 

The publication from which the above is taken, 
although anonymous, is well known to have been written 
by the late Dr. Pratt, than whom no one was better 
qualified to speak on the ancient customs of Buchan. 

The resemblance between certain parts of the marriage 
ceremonial and that of the coronation of kings has often 
been noticed. Both include the delivery of a ring ; the 
English coronation ring indeed has been called the 
Wedding ring of England.' In the East, the bride and 

' The great Solemnity of the Coronation^ Macleane, p. 88 ; English 
Coronation Records^ L. G. Wickham Legg, p. xlix. 






THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 35 

bridegroom are crowned by the priest at the solemn bless- 
ing, and the service is called 'AKoXwOla rod XT€</>aiHiiuLaT09 
in the Greek Euchologion. In the West, this has a 
counterpart in the wreath sometimes worn on the top of 
the veil by the bride, and in England before the Re- 
formation, a still more evident parallel existed in the use 
of a metal crown known as the "paste."' Among the 
ceremonies we have been considering another link with 
those of a coronation may be seen, viz : the bride and 
bridegroom walking separately in procession, attended 
by supporters.* These parallels are only incidental, but 
it has been thought worth while to draw attention to 
them. They must not be confused with the very 
intimate connection which exists between the Coronation 
of Kings and the Consecration of Bishops, where almost 
every part of the one service corresponds to something 
in the other.^ 

In a book of occasional services printed in 1827 and 
formerly belonging to Cruden church but now in the 
Diocesan Library, Aberdeen, the exhortation at the be- 
ginning of the marriage service has been altered as 
follows : — 



^ TAe Ortuunents of the Rubric^ Micklethwaite, Alcuin Club Tracts, 
I. p. 48. 

* Dr. Freisen quotes a Miinster Agenda as prescribing something similar ; 
^'Sponsus et sponsa copulandi ante sacrum a suis amicis deducantur ad 
templum . . . Sacro (inito accedat sponsus cum suis primum ad altare. 
Deinde sponsa honeste ab amicis et consanguineis duobus ducatur ad altare 
ut solemniler copulentur." Manuale Lincopense^ ««f. p. 37. 

• See The Coronation of the Queen by Dr. J. Wickham Legg, Church 
Hist. Soc., No. XL 1 1 ; English Coronation Records^ L. G. Wickham Legg ; 
The Great Solemnity of the Coronation^ Macleane ; The English Coronation 
Service^ by the present writer. 



■ xvi ' "■ "< < mF< ■ ""^n 



136 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

The second and third paragraphs, beginning •• First " 
and ** Secondly " respectively, are bracketed, probably to 
be omitted in reading, and the earlier part of the fourth 
paragraph is extended so as to read : — 

"Thirdly. It was ordained for the mutual society, 
help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, 
both in prosperity and adversity and it was ordained and 
sanctioned by the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that 
each might be a help meet unto the other for the purpose 
of each other s salvation, and that the one might stir up 
the other to virtue and righteousness of life, and that in 
[the] end the souls of both might be saved and united 
for ever in that heavenly Society where the Spirits of the 
just made perfect exist in the purest love and felicity." 

Whether the ring was always used during the dark 
days of the eighteenth century it is impossible to decide. 
The non-jurors were of course the spiritual decendants of 
the men who had fought so vigorously for the use of the 
ring in marriage against the Puritans in the previous 
century, but in a prayer book of 1701 which formerly 
belonged to Montrose, where it had been given by Queen 
Anne, and is now in the Diocesan Library at Brechin, in 
the prayer " O Eternal God, creator and preserver, &c." 
the words whereof this ring .... pledge are heavily 
surrounded by black lines. And in the form " Foras- 
much as N," the words by giving .... ring, and are 
likewise surrounded 

§ S Churching of Women 

If there were a woman to be churched, the Churching 
service was interpolated into Mattins after the second 
Lesson, and the woman left her place and knelt before 
the altar, the priest not changing his place until the 



-A.v^r*^-^, I 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I37 

offering was made. The woman invariably made a 
special offering after the Churching service, which was 
then placed upon the altar (in the alms dish used for the 
offerings of communicants) and if she happened to be 
churched on a Sunday when the communion was cele- 
brated, she always received. We see here some reflection 
of the rubrics in Dr. Thomas Deacon s book, which are 
as follows : — 

Before the service. 

" This office is to be used immediately after the Nicene 
Creed in the Eucharistic Service. 

" The woman at the usucd time after her delivery y shcUl 
come into tlu churchy decently apparelled with a white 
Covering or Veil^ and there shall kneel down before the 
Altar or at the rails thereof'* 

After the service. 

" The woman that cometh to give her thanks^ must remain 
in the same place ; and there offer her offerings and receive 
the Holy Communion*' 

In Buchan it was generally thought unlucky for a 
woman to go anywhere before she had been churched 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 39 



APPENDIX I 
Extracts from the Canons of i8ii.* 

[Not now in force]. 

Canon XVII. 

Enjoining all due reverence and attention in time of Divine 

Service. 

It is hereby ordered that all proper care be taken of the 
Chapels, or Places of Worship, in this Church, and every endeavour 
used to have them decent and commodious, and kept in good 
repair. In the time of Divine Service, the most devout attention 
shall be given by the people to what is read, preached, or 
ministered ; and that they may glorify God in body, as well as 
in spirit, agreeably to what an Apostle enjoins, they shall 
humbly kneel upon their knees, when the General Confession, 
the Litany, and other Prayers are read, making the appointed 
Responses with an audible voice in a grave and serious manner, 
and shall reverently stand up at the repetition of the Creed — at the 
reading or singing of the Psalms, Hymns, or Anthems, bowing 
devoutly at the name of Jesus in the Creed ; and when the 
Minister mentions the Gospel for the day, the people rising up 
shall devoutly say, (where the custom has so been) " Glory be 
to thee, O God ; " and when the minister declares the Holy 
Gospel to be ended, they shall answer, " Thanks be to Thee, O 
Lord, for this thy glorious Gospel." During the time of Divine 
Service, no Person shall depart out of the place of worship 
without some urgent or reasonable cause. 



^ The Code of Canons of tlie Episcopal Church in Scotland, Drawn up, 
and enacted by, an Ecclesiastical Synod, holden for that purpose, at 
Aberdeen, in the xixth and xxth days of June in the year MDCCC.XI. 



140 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Canon XVIII. 

Requiring due instruction^ and preparation^ to be made for the 

Holy Communion, 

In every Congregation of this Church, the Holy Sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper shall be administered by the Bishop, 
Pastor, or Minister, so often, and at such times, as that every 
Member of the Congregation come to a proper time of life for 
discharging that duty, may communicate at least thrice in the 
year, whereof the feast of Easter, or of Pentecost, to be one 
solemn season set apart for that purpose. Of this due warning 
shall be publicly given to the Congregation, during Divine 
Service, on the Sunday before each Holy Communion, that the 
People may the better prepare themselves for the participation 
of that venerable * Sacrament. For this purpose, every Clergy- 
man shall pay attention to the spirit and design of the Rubrics 
prefixed to the Order for the Administration of the Lord's 
Supper, in the Book of Common Prayer .... And because 
strangers, or those who have but lately joined his Congregation, 
with the intention of remaining therein, cannot always be so 
well known to him, as to enable him to judge whether they be 
meet to be partakers of these Holy Mysteries : Such persons, if 
required by him, shall produce from the Clergyman; to whose 
Congregation they formerly belonged, or from some respectable 
Member of this Church, an Attestation, that they are regular 
Members of this Church, or of the United Church of England 
and Ireland. 

In most of the Congregations of this Church, it is customary 
to have publick Prayers on some day immediately before, and 
after the Administration of the Lord's Supper, and have a 
Collect suited to the purpose for which the people are assembled 
on each of these Days; in which case every Bishop shall 
prescribe what he judges proper to be used within his own 
Diocese. 

Canon XIX. 

Respecting the Administration of the Sacrament ofBaptistn. 

In the present situation of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, 
various causes combine in rendering it hardly possible to 

^ It is perhaps coincidence rather than design that this is the same 
adjective that was commonly used of the Eucharist in mediaeval Scotland. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I4I 

persuade the Members of this Church to bring their Children 
to be baptized in a Chapel, or place of Public Worship : and it 
would be found equally improper to press upon them the 
necessity, or even the expediency, of procuring any other 
Sponsor, under the name of Godfather or Godmother, than the 
Father or Mother of the Child, if no impediment lies against their 
being received as such : Therefore, Baptism being thus almost 
constantly administered in private houses, without the possibility 
of obtaining any solemn recognition of it before a Congregation, 
or in a place of Public Worship, the officiating Clergyman may 
select from the Office of Public Baptism, in the Book of 
Common Prayer, such parts of that Office as are essentially 
necessary to the due Administration of that Sacrament ; provided 
that such selection be approved of by his Bishop, and do not 
tend to excite any doubt as to the validity of the Baptism so 
administered. ...... 

Canon XXII. 

Respecting the solemnization of Matrimony. 



As the legal Provisions respecting Marriage differ very much 
in this country, from what the Law appoints to be done in the 
Church of England, therefore it is unnecessary for the Clergy 
of this Church to use any more of the Form of Matrimony con- 
tained in the Book of Common Prayer, than what tends to 
secure the formal consent of the parties ; and that they 
solemnly promise before God and the Witnesses present, to 
live together as Husband and Wife, according to God's Holy 
Ordinance ; and all this accompanied with suitable Prayers for 
the Blessing of God's Grace and Assistance, to enable them so 
to live together in this life, that in the world to come they may 
have life everlasting. ..... 

Canon XXIII. 

Respecting tfie Visitation of the Sick, and the Burial of the 

Dead. 



It is hereby enacted, that when any Presbyter or Clergyman, 
of this Church, is called to visit any sick Member of his Congrega- 
tion, he shall not neglect to perform his duty; but, repairing to 



142 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

the sick person's house, shall be there ready to administer all 
suitable comfort and instruction, either according to the Order for 
the Visitation of the Sick, as laid down in the Book of Common 
Prayer, or in any other way, "as he shall think most needful 
and convenient" For his assistance in discharging this pious 
and charitable office, he shall have recourse to such Books of 
Devotion, as have been approved, and recommended by some 
of the best and soundest Divines of the Church, and be willing 
to take the advice, or direction of his own Bishop, in any case, 
which may particularly call for it. When the Prayers of the 
Congregation are desired in behalf of any sick Member of it, the 
Clergyman is at liberty to use the Collect appointed for the 
Communion of the Sick, inserting after the words — "visited with 
thine hand," — the words, "for whom our prayers are now 
desired," or any of the other prayers in the "Order of the 
Visitation of the Sick," as the case may require ; and he shall 
also be ready to do the last duty, when called to read the 
"Order for the Burial of the Dead," which he shall use as 
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, as far as circum- 
stances will permit that Order to be observed by the clergy of 
this Church. 

Appendix 

No. VII. 

Recommendation of a proper Clerical Habit 

Whereas it was represented to the Synod of the Episcopal 
Church in Scotland, holden at Aberdeen, in the year of our Lord 
i8i I that different dresses have of late been worn by the Clergy 
officiating in this Church : and whereas more importance seems 
to have been attached to the colour of the Clerical Vestments 
than can properly be ascribed to any colour, it is hereby declared, 
that it is not essential to the purity of Public Worship, whether 
the Clergyman, when reading prayers, be arrayed in a white, or 
in a black vestment : Yet as the white garment was the proper 
Sacerdotal Vestment of the Jewish Priesthood, and likewise of the 
Christian Priesthood through the Universal Church for at least 
1400 years;* as it is the proper Sacerdotal Vestment in the 
United Church of England and Ireland, with which the Epis- 
copal Church in Scotland is in full Communion ; and as white 

* SIC, 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 43 

seems to be a much more proper dress for the Ministers of the 
Prince of Peace and Purity, than black, if propriety can be 
attached to any colour, the Synod recommends to the several 
Clei^ of this Church to wear the Surplice, when publicly reading 
Prayers, or administering the Sacraments ; but to introduce it 
with prudence and discretion, by explaining, where they find it 
necessary, the principles on which they have adopted the use of 
this very decent dress. 



CANONS OF 1838. 
[Not now in force]. 

Canon XXI. 

Respecting the Communion Service as the most Solemn Part of 

Christian Worship, 

Whereas it is acknowledged by the Twentieth and Thirty- 
Fourth of the Thirty-Nine Articles, that "not only the Church in 
general, but every particular or National Church, hath authority 
to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church 
ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to 
edifying" ; the Episcopal Church in Scotland availing herself of 
this inherent right, hath long adopted, and very generally used, 
a form for the celebration of the Holy Communion, known by 
the name of the Scotch Communion Office^ which form hath been 
justly considered, and is hereby considered, as the authorised 
service of the Episcopal Church in the administration of that 
Sacrament And as, in order to promote a union among all 
those who profess to be of the Episcopal persuasion in Scotland, 
permission was formerly granted by the Bishops to retain the 
use of the English Office in all congregations where the said 
Office had been previously in use, the same permission is now 
ratified and confirmed : And it is also enacted that in the use of 
either the Scotch or English Office no amalgamation, alteration, or 
interpolation whatever shall take place, nor shall any substitu- 
tion of the one for the other be admitted unless it be approved 
by the Bishop. From respect, however, for the authority which 
originally sanctioned the Scotch Liturgy, and for other sufficient 
reasons, it is hereby enacted, that the Scotch Communion Office 
continue to be held of primary authority in this Church, and that 
it shall be used not only in all consecrations of Bishops, but also 
at the opening of all General Synods. 



144 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Canon XXVIII. 

On the Uniformity to be observed in Public Worship. 

As in all the ordinary parts of Divine Service, it is necessary 
to fix, by authority, the precise form, from which no Bishop, 
Presbyter, or Deacon, shall be at liberty to depart, by his own 
alterations or insertions, lest such liberty should produce con- 
sequences destructive of "decency and order" it is hereby 
enacted that at the performance of Morning and Evening 
Service, the words and rubrical directions of the English Liturgy 
shall be strictly adhered to : And it is further decreed, that, if 
any clergyman shall officiate or preach in any place publicly 
without using the Liturgy at all, he shall, for the first offence, be 
admonished by his Bishop, and, if he persevere in this un- 
canonical practice, shall be suspended, until, after due contrition, 
he be restored to the exercise of his clerical functions. In 
publicly reading Prayers and administering the Sacraments, 
the Surplice shall be used as the proper Sacerdotal Vest- 
ment 



APPENDIX II 
Bishop Robert Forbes' Prayer at the Mixture 

From : — 

A Catechism dealing chiefly with the Holy Eucharist, by 
Robert Forbes, A.M., afterwards Bishop of Ross and 
Caithness, together with a Prayer at the Mixture of the 
Chalice. Edited from the original MSS. for the Scottish 
Clergy Society, by John Dowden, D.D., Bishop of Edinbui^h, 
Edinburgh 1904. 

A Prayer which may be used by the Priest when he is per- 
forming the Mixture^ composed according to St Cyprian^s 
Explanation of this Usage. 

O most gracious and merciful Lord God, as this Wine re- 
presents to us the Sacred Blood of Christ, and this Water 



* 
4 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 45 

thy people,* and also as the Mixing of these two together ^ 
represents to us the blessed Union between Christians and 
their merciful Saviour and Head ; so, of thy infinite mercy 
grant, that those thy Servants, who are to partake of this 
mixed Cup, may no more be separated from Christ their 
Head than this Water can now be separated from this Wine, 
but they may continue their unmerited Union with him by a 
firm and steady perseverance in that Faith once delivered to 
the Saints, and by the serious Practice of all virtuous and 
godly Living, till at last they arrive at that unspeakable Bliss 
in the glorious Mansions above, which thou hast prepared for 
those who are thy faithful Servants, through the same Jesus 
Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, O Father, and the 
Holy Ghost, ever one God, World without End. Amen. 
Our Father, which art in Heaven, etc. 

[Forbes* MSS. old Press-mark F. i. 7, p. 268. 



APPENDIX HI 

Rubrics and directions relating to the preparation and offering of 

the Sacred Eletnents, 

1. Celtic (Early Irish) 

2. Carthusian. 

3. Dominican. 

4. Anglican. 

§ I CELTIC 

§ I. From the Gaelic tract on Eucharistic symbolism in the 
Lebar Brecc^ a fuller form of that which accompanies the Stowe 
Missal. 



^ Aquas namque populos significare in Apocalypsi (cap. 17, ver. 15) 
Scriptura Divina declarat, dicens, "Aquae quas viaisti, super quas sedet 
meretrix ilia, populi et turbae et gentes Ethnicorum sunt et linguae." Quod 
scilicet perspicimus et in Sacramento Domini Calicis contineri. Nam quia 
nos omnes portabat Christus, qui et peccata nostra portabat, videmus in 
Aqua Populum intelligiy in Vino ostendi Sanguinem Christi. Quando 
autem in Calice Vino Aqua miscetur^ Christo Populus adunatur^ et 
credentium plebs ei, in quem credidit, copulatur et jungitur, Quae copulatio 
et conjunctio Aquae et Vini sic miscetur in Calice Domini ut commixtio 
ilia non possit ab invicem separari. — Nam si Vinum tantum quis offerat, 
Sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis. Si vero Aqua sit sola, plebs incipit 
esse sine Christo. Epistola Cypriani ad Cacilium de Sacramento Domini 
Calicis, Edit. Eras. Roterodami, Tom i. pag. 85. 

* At the pronouncing of these Words the Mixture may be performed. 

^ An Ancient Gaelic Treatise on the Symbolism of the Eucharist with 
Translation and NoteSy by the Rev. Duncan Macgregor, in Transactions of 
the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society^ vol. iii, p. 293. 

10 



146 



CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 



DE FIGURIS ET SPIRITUALIBUS SENSIBUS OBLATIONIS 

SACRIFICII ORDINIS. 



Usqui isin cailech artus icon 
temprid ised is techta. Et dicis^ 
Quaesso ie^ Pater ; banna lassin : 
Deprecor te^ Filii ; banna lassin: 
Obsecro ie, Spiriius Sancte ; in 
tres banna lassin : — Figuir in popuil 
doroiset in eolus in rechta nui tre 
oentaid thoile na Trinoti ocus tria 
erlathar in Spirta Noib, ut dictum 
est: Effundam de Spiritu meo super 
omnem carnem^ et prophetabunt et 
reliqua ; et ut dictum est : Venient 
ab Oriente et ab Occidente et ab 
Aguilone et recumbent cum Abraham 
et Isac et Jcuob in regno Dei^ ./'. in 
ecclesia eterna^ primo, ultimo in 
regno ceksti. 



Fin iarum isin cailech ar in usee : 
— .i. Deacht Crist ar Doenacht, for 
in popul in aimsir a Thusten ocus 
tusten in popuil, ut est, Angelus 
sermonem iecit ; Christum Uirgo 
concepit ; .i. is ann sin tanic in 
Deacht ar cend na Doenachta. Is 
don popul dino atbert : Numquid 
ego in utero accepi omnem populum 
istum ? Iterum : In tristitia et in 
dolore accipes filios tuos. In eclais 
atbert sin : Ut apostolus dicit : 
Filioli meij quos iterum parturio 
donee Christus formetur in uobis. 



Water into the chalice at the 
beginning by the minister : that is 
what ought to be done. And thou 
sayesty ^^ I pray thee, O Father ;^^ 
a drop with that : " / beseech thee^ 

Son ; " a drop with that : ^^ I en- 
treat thee O Holy Ghost;" the 
third drop with that: — A figure 
of the people who were poured into 
the knowledge of the new law, 
through the unity of the will of the 
Trinity, and through tl^e presence 
of the Holy Ghost, as it was said: 

1 will pour out my Spirit upon all 
fleshy and they shall prophecy y etc. : 

and as it was said : they shall come 
from the East and from the West 

and from the North and shall re- 
cline with Abraham and Isaac and 
Jcuob in the Kingdom of Gody i,e,y 
in the earthly church first, finally in 
the heavenly Kingdom, 

• • • • 

Wine thereafter into the chalice, 
on the water: — that is, the Deity 
of Christ on the Humanity (and) 
on the people, at the time when he 
was begotten and when the people 
were begotten, as it is (said). The 
angel uttered the word ; the Virgin 
conceived Christ : i.e., it was then 
that the Godhead came into con- 
junction with the Manhood. Of 
the people, however, he said : Have 
I conceived all this people ? Again : 
In sorrow and pain shall thou receive 
thy children. It was the Church that 
said that: As the Apostle says: 
My little childreny of whom I tra- 
vail in birth again until Christ be 
formed in you. 



' dna read, ierrena 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I47 

Ised chanair ic tabairt fina isin This is what is recited in putting 

Cailech nofrind ^^ Mittet Pater ;^ wine into the Chalice of the Offering: 

banna annsin : " Indulget Filius ; " ** May the Father forgive ; *' then a 

banna aile andsin : '* Miseretur drop : " May the Son pardon ; " 

Spiritus Sanctus ; " in tres banna then another drop : " May the 

andsin Ifo/y Ghost have mercy ; *' then the 

third drop. 

§2. CARTHUSIAN. 

Ordinarium Cartusiense. Lugduni, 1641, pp. 340, et seq. 

Cap. xxxii. De mode celebrandi Missas privathn^ & earum 

Minis tris, §4. 

4. Indutus autem Sacerdos, versus piscinam stans, & socius 
in altera parte constitutus, Altare praeparant: vt prius traditum 
fuit, cap. 25. num. 7. Adiutor postea puluinar, & Missale 
superponit : Sacerdosque praeparaturus oblationem, Calicem 
explicat, Hostiam de pixide ponit super patenam, vinum in 
Calicem infundit, cooperit patena, & coopertorium ad hoc 
deputatum cum cochleari superponit Postea Calicem sic 
praeparatum collocat super Altare, inter Corporale & Missalis 
mappulam : denique in Altaris medio ipsum Corporale, more 
supra descripto cap. 26. n. 18. & cap. 27. n. 13. extendit, factaque 
ibidem inclinatione, ad alterum cornu pro facienda confessione 
pergit : & alia facit omnia, quemadmodum supra sunt descripta 
cap. 25. n. 13. Dicendo Co'nfiteor 

10. Credo, si dicendum sit, ac Offertorio dictis, remouet 
superiorem Corporalis partem versus dorsum Altaris, locum 
praeparat Calici reponendo, quem discooperiens capit cochlear, 
& vnam, aut duas aquae guttas infundit, nisi prius hoc fecerit : 
dicens (De latere, &c.) post-modum extremitates digitorum, 
quibus Hostiam est tractaturus, lauat, solitos Psalmi versus 
dicendo, cap. 26, num. 18. 

§3. DOMINICAN. 

Missale iuxta Ritum S. Ordinis Praedicatorum. 

Tomaci Nerviorum^ 1889, p. 17. 

Cum vero ad altare pervenerit .... ascendat ad medium 
altaris, et ibi antequam calicem imponat, eum mox versus cornu 
Evangelij seponat, quo detur explicationi corporalis locus, quod 



148 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

de bursa accipiens, reverenter explicet in medio altaris. Deinde, 
amoto velo, et palla, patenam cum hostia super corporate 
deponat: e calice purificatorium auferens, juxta corporalis 
partem dexteram in longum extendat. Deinde praeparaturus 
calicem, eum per medium nodi sinistra manu tenens, ampulla 
vini de manu ministri dextera accipiens, parum vini infundat : 
deinde porrigente ministro ampullam aquae, et dicente : Bene- 
dicite, signo Crucis ipsam consignet, dicendo : In nomine Patris, 
et Fility et Spiritus sanctL et Minister respondeat : Amen. Postea 
tantum quantitatem aquae distillet in calicem, quae facillime 
tota possit in vinum converti ; deinde calicem purificatorio 
abstergat: et sic praeparato, patenam cum hostia imponat, et 
palla veloque cooperiat, et super corporate in medio altaris 
collocet ; et ad Missale super cussino ad cornu Epistolae parato 
se conferat, aperiat, et reperiat Missam. Quo facto, revertatur 
.... ad medium altaris et ibi . . . . dicat : Aciiones nostras .... 
Deinde attente ac devote ad Missae celebrationem progrediatur. 

§4. ANGLICAN. 

Showing in parallel columns the rubrics of: — 

i. The English Liturgies of 1549, & 1662 (now used) ; 

the Scottish of 1764 (now used). 
iL The three liturgies of the Nonjurors, viz,^ 171 8, 

Deacon's and Rattray's. 

1st. P.B. Edw.VI. 1549 Eng. P.B. 1662 Scot. Lit. 1764 

Then shall the IT And when there H And the Presbyter 

Minister take so much is a Communion^ the shall then offer up^ and 
bread and wine as shall Priest shall then place place the bread and 
suffice for the persons upon the Table so wine prepared for the 
appointed to receive the much Bread and Wine sacrament upon the 
holy communion^ laying as he shall think suf Lord*s Table, 
the bread upon the cor- ficient. [So also in the Scot. 

porasy or else in the [The American of Lit of 1637 which 
pateny or in some other 1 892 is the same, omit- adds : — 
comely thing prepared ting only the words that it may be ready 
for that purpose ; and when thire is a Com- for that service"] 
putting the wine into the munion,] 
chaliccy or else in some 
fair or convenient cup 
prepared for that use^ 
(if the chalice will not 
serve)y putting thereto 
a little pure and clean 
water y and setting both 
the bread and wine upon 
the Altar. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 49 

NoN- Jurors Lit. 1718 Deacon's Liturgy 1734 Rattray's Liturgy of 

[After presentation of [Before service] I744-I74<> 

alms] Before the Com- Before the service 

IT Then shall the munion time the Dea- begins^ the * Deacon 
Priest take so much con shall prepare so shall prepare so much 
Bread and IVine, as much Bread^ JVine^ Bread, Wine, and 
shall suffice for the and Water for the Water as he judgeth 
Persons appointed to Eucharist, as he judg- convenient j laying the 
receive the Holy Com- eth convenient ; laying Bread tn the Paten, or 
munion: laying the the Bread in the Paten, in some decent thing 
Bread in the Paten, or or in some other decent provided for that pur- 
in some other decent thing provided for that pose; and putting the 
thing prepared for that purpose; and putting Wine into the Chalice, 
purpose; and putting the Wine into the or into Flagons pro- 
the Wine into the Chalice, or else into vided also for that use; 
Chalice, or else into some fair and conveni- and the Water into 
some fair and con- ent Cup provided for some other proper 
venient Cup prepared that use, and the Vessel: And shall 
for that use, putting Water into some other place them upon the 
thereto in view of the proper vessel. After Prothesis, and cover 
People a little pure and which he shall place them with a fair white 
clean Water : And them all upon the linen cloth. 
then setting both the Prothesis, and cover [After presentation of 
Bread and the Cup up- them with a fair alms] 

on the Altar, he shall white linen cloth. Then shall the Dea* 

turn to the People, and [After presentation of con go to the Prothesis, 
say. alms] and having mixed the 

Then the Deacon Wine and Water, he 
shall bring water to shall bring the Bread 
the Priest, who shall and mixed Wine to the 
wash his hands there- Priest, who shall re- 
in; after which the verently place them up- 
Deacon shall go to the on the Altar, 
Prothesis, and having 

mixed the Wine and iNote, If there be no 
Water openly in view Deacon, what is in this 
of the People, he shall OflSce ordered to be per- 
bring the Bread and formed by him must be 
mixed Wine to the done by the Priest himself. 
Priest, who shall 
humbly present and 
reverently place them 
upon the altar. 

If there be no Dea- 
con, the Priest shall 
go to the Prothesis, 
and after having 
washed his hands he 
shall mix the Wine 
and Water openly in 
the vierv of the people ; 
after which he shall 
humbly present and 
reverently place the 
Bread and mixed 
Wine upon the Altar, 



150 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

APPENDIX IV 
THOUGHTS 

ON 

THE ENGLISH LITURGY 

AS IT MAY BE USED 

IN THB 

EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

WRITTEN IN THB MONTH OF AUGUST 181O 

By Bishop Skinner* of Aberdeen. 

Being desirous, under certain existing circumstances, to 
commit to writing my sentiments respecting the most useful 
way of employing the English Liturgy in the religious Service 
of the Scotch Episcopal Church, I feel it my duty to introduce 
the following remarks by declaring, on the word of a clergy- 
man, that no one can think more highly of the general structure 
of the English Liturgy than I do ; nor can it be supposed, that 
I have any wish to lessen its character, or detract from its 
usefulness in the Church, to which I more immediately belong. 
On the contrary, I have always beheld with admiration its 
scope, and tendency on the whole, and how well it is calcu- 
lated to keep alive that spirit of devotion, which ought to 
animate all our applications to the throne of Grace. While 
I continue to view it in this favourable light, and it is more 
than probable that I shall do so, to the end of my life, there 
is no risk of my proposing any addition to it or deviation from 
it, but what, instead of interrupting, or obstructing, may rather 
tend to forward, and promote the pious and laudable purpose, 
which the compilers of it evidently had in their view. Since 
it first appeared in that reformed state, which the errors of 
Popery had rendered necessary it has undergone various 
reviews, both to suit it more completely to the received 
doctrine of the Church, and make its language easy to be 
understood by all her members. The doctrine of the Church, 
when founded on the authority of Scripture, is justly con- 
sidered as fixt and immutable, but the language of men has 
no claim to this divine authority, and therefore varies accord- 
ing to the customs, and modes of speech adopted in different 
countries. The situation of the Church too is very apt to be 
affected by the changes and c/iances of this world ; while in one 
nation, it is l^ally established, amply endowed, and closely 

^This was John Skinner, who held the see until 1816. 



U" ■ ■" 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I5I 

incorporated with the State, in another, forming a part of the 
same Empire, it is merely tolerated by the State, but otherwise 
as to all matters of spiritual concern, is wholly unconnected 
with it, and unsupported by it. Such is precisely the 
difference of situation between the Established Church of 
England and Ireland, and the unestablished, the merely 
tolerated Episcopal Church in Scotland. It may therefore 
be naturally supposed, that such a difference of outward situa- 
tion will admit of, and even require some variety of Ritual 
in regulating their external modes of worship, and shewing 
wherein the condition of the one Church differs from that of 
the other, as to matters connected with legal support, and 
civil establishment In things of pure ecclesiastical concern, 
embracing the doctrine and discipline of the Church, so far as 
regards the Faith peculiar to Christianity, and the mode of 
transmitting Apostolic Episcopacy. In all these respects the 
reformed Episcopal Church is the same in every part of the 
British Empire. That system of religious faith, and ecclesias- 
tical order by which it is distinguished in every part of England, 
and Ireland, is also its mark of distinction to the remotest 
corner of Scotland. But in this country it is so peculiarly 
situated as to require in all our religious Services a particular 
attention to the nature of its situation, and to the necessity of 
having its members properly instructed, and well disposed to 
bear their part in these holy Services. When they look into 
the Book of Common Prayer^ they find it appropriated to 
the use of the Church of England, and meet with many things 
in it, respecting the legal sanction by which it is authorised, 
and the manner in which it is to be publicly used, that we 
have no concern with, and indeed no power, or opportunity 
of observing though we were ever so much inclined to the 
observance of them. It may therefore be reasonably pre- 
sumed, that other things will arise from the peculiar situation 
of our Church, in regard to which, we shall find no rule, or 
direction in the English Rubrics, that will at all apply to the 
circumstances in which we are placed, or help us to adapt our 
religious Services to these peculiar circumstances. In all such 
cases much is left to the judgment, and discretion of those who 
have a right to order these matters so, as that according to the 
Apostolic rule, all things be done decently, and in order, with a 
becoming regard to the increase, and edification of the Church. 
The Right, to which I here allude, must, on our principles, be 
acknowledged to lie with the Bishops of the Church ; and even 
under all the legal restrictions, to which the Church of England 
is subjected, we find many things referred to the judgment of 



15^ CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

the Ordinary, and to be regulated by his decision. The 
propriety of such a reference must be still more evident in an 
Episcopal Church situated as ours is, deprived of all support 
from civil Establishment, and therefore left to provide for 
itself, by its own internal regulations, what may best stipply 
the want of that outward support During the turbulent state 
of the kingdom for some time previous to the Revolution in 
1688, and for several years after the shock, which our Church 
received by the termination of that national struggle, there was 
no precise form of public prayer appointed for the Scottish 
Church in general : the Bishops, no doubt, regulated this matter, 
as they best could, in their own particular Districts. With 
their consent, and approbation, the English Prayer Book was 
gradually introduced into Scotland, and came at last to be 
generally used, with such alterations as the Bishops thought 
fit to adopt for the purpose of suiting it the better to the cir- 
cumstances of our Church, and rendering it the more acceptable 
to the Members of her Communion. I am old enough to re- 
member what was the practice of our Bishops in this respect as 
far back as at least half a century : and when I was myself 
admitted into the Service of the Church, I thought it my 
duty to make their practice the rule of my conduct, and had 
the satisfaction of knowing that during the whole time of my 
Service both as Deacon and Priest in this Diocese, my mode 
of officiating was perfectly agreeable to my Ecclesiastical 
Superior, and no less so to the congregations immediately under 
my pastoral chaise. 

From the time when the necessities of our Church called me 
to the Office, which I have now long held, with small ability, but 
sincere good will to promote the welfare of our little Zion, the 
practice of my predecessors in their public ministrations has been 
the uniform object of my humble imitation, and from the success, 
with which, I hope, I may say, without pride or presumption, it 
has pleased God to bless my ministerial labours, it would seem, 
as if I were thereby called upon not to deviate from the line, in 
which they have hitherto been carried on, even although the 
course I have pursued should appear a deviation from that strict 
conformity to the English Ritual, which some affect so strongly 
to recommend, as if the Scottish Church could not be upheld 
without it It may be owing perhaps to my weakness, but cer- 
tainly not to my want of experience, that I happen to be of a 
different opinion ; and till I am convinced by clearer evidence, 
than any I have yet met with that my opinion is wrong, my 
conduct must be regulated by it In reading what is called the 
ordinary Morning and Evening Service of the Church, the only 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 53 

freedom of deviation from the English Form which I have ever 
made use of, may be easily accounted for by its evident tendency 
to produce a little more uniformity in the language of the Liturgy, 
and to give our people, as it were, a closer interest in it, and a 
full dependence on it, as including everything, which the con- 
gregations of our Church ought to make the subject of their 
common applications to Almighty God. Thus, as the relative 
who instead of which is made use of in almost all the other 
prayers of the Church, no good reason can be assigned why it 
should not be so in the Lord's Prayer also, since a deviation 
from the New Testament translation here, would have been not 
more improper than in the concluding prayer of the Morning 
and Evening Service, where the word Fellowship is substituted 
for Communion ; although the latter is the word used by our 
translators in the passage from w^hich the prayer is taken. In a 
Church so much surrounded by error as ours is, and constantly 
exposed to the attacks of such an enemy, we have surely need 
to pray, that the Lord would give Truth as well as peace in our 
time. 

In this country it is generally towards mid-day before our 
Morning Service begins, and therefore it seems more proper to 
say, that God has brought us to the Light of this day, than to the 
beginning of it 

And so in the third Collect for the Evening Service, which is 
often concluded early in the afternoon, instead of praying to be 
defended " from all/m/j, and dangers of this nighty I have been 
accustomed to say, all perils, accidents and dangers of the ensuing 
night ; " adding — ** and of all our timel^ to comprehend the sense 
which some have put on the words, this nighty as if they meant 
cdl litis night of life^ that is — all our present life. 

In the prayers for the King and the Royal Family, as mat- 
ters now stand, and from a wish to avoid giving any ground for 
former suspicions, I do not incline to make, or propose any 
deviation from the prescribed Form, although I cannot help 
thinking, with the much extolled Theologian, Dr. Paley, that 
the ^* State Stylel^ as he calls it, "seems unseasonably intro- 
duced into these prayers, as ill according with that annihilation 
of human greatness, of which every act that carries the mind to 
God presents the idea." And if human greatness ought to be 
thus annihilated before God, there is at least equal reason for 
avoiding every appearance of overrating human goodness ; and 
therefore after introducing the prayer for the parliament by 
saying, " Most Gracious God," I cannot bring myself to speak 
of our " most religious and gracious Kingy' when I can mention 
the High Court of Parliament in more modest terms, as under 



L 



154' CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

thy Servant our King, at this time assembled, because we are 
always sure, that a lawful King must be God's servant, but can- 
not be so certain of his always being a most religious King, In 
the prayer for the Clergy and people, it has always, I believe, 
been customary among us to use the term pastors instead of 
curates, the latter title, though well understood in England, 
being little known, and still less respected in this country, where 
even the Episcopal clergy are never distinguished by that appel- 
lation. « 

In the prayer of St. Chrysostom, after the words, ** thou wilt 
grant their requests,*' it has always been my practice to add, 
" and be amongst them to bless them^' both because this is included 
in the promise here referred to, and because the addition seems 
highly proper for keeping the people in mind of Christ's power- 
fully blessing presence, wherever two or three are regularly 
gathered together in his Name. 

In the prayer for "all Conditions of Men," as there are 
always some of our fellow Christians expecting, if not actually 
desiring our prayers, I therefore say, " desired, or expectedl^ and 
in the conclusion of this truly Christian prayer, to make the 
sense of it bear more fully on the necessity of having human 
resignation supported by divine strength, I beseech God to give 
to the afflicted or distressed ** strength " as well as *' patience," 
and ** in His good time a happy issue out of all their afflictions." 

The "prayer in time of War and Tumults^* I have en- 
deavoured to make more directly applicable to the nature of the 
present War, and the danger to be apprehended from, those 
" tumults of sedition " with which our country has been so often 
threatened, since the beginning of this awful contest. 

When I was admitted into the service of the Church, and 
for several years before and after that period, many of our Con- 
gregations, and mine in particular, were sadly distressed by the 
want of any fixed or permanent place of public worship, so that 
when they met together for that purpose, they were often at a 
loss to know, when, or where they might have another oppor- 
tunity of being thus piously assembled. In a situation so pre- 
carious, and exciting constant anxiety in the mind of a devout 
Christian, I thought it peculiarly becoming in such a state of 
things, after blessing God for our creation, for our preservation, 
and all the blessings of this life, to insert in the General Thanks- 
giving, *^ especially for this opportunity of assembling to Thy wor- 
ship and praise'* And though the opportunities of our thus 
assembling, are at present, thank God, somewhat better 
secured to us, than at the time, to which I have been now 
looking back, yet is it still very proper to preserve in the minds 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I55 

of our people a thankful sense of our deliverance from the 
restraints, which were once imposed on our public Worship, and 
at any rate to hold out to them the just value of this inestimable, 
blessing, by making it the subject of our public Thanks, as often 
as we assemble in the House of prayer, and praise, I come now 
to that part of our general Supplications called the Litany y in 
which I have always been happy to find but a very few additions 
or alterations necessary. In all Seaport towns, I suppose, it is 
considered as agreeable to the inhabitants to pray for the safety of 
their friends, and connections that may be " travelling either by 
land, or by water " ; and therefore to the general supplication 
for the safety of such travellers, I always add, " those belonging to 
this place in particular^ 

In the end of this clause in the Litany, our Church was long 
accustomed to insert the word " Exilesl* with some view, no doubt, 
to the sufferings of the exiled Family, and their adherents ; 
but to show, that there was no occasion for suspecting this to 
be the sole object, which the word Exiles had in view, I humbly 
think there is no impropriety in continuing to beseech our 
good Lord to " show pity upon all prisoners, exiles^ and captives," 
when we consider what a prodigious number of unfortunate 
Exiles there is in this country, more perhaps than ever before 
was known, and not in this country only, but in many of the 
surrounding nations, not to speak of the great number of un- 
happy convicts banished from their native land. 

When we have thus expressed a charitable wish for pity to 
those that need it, and also for "forgiveness to our enemies, 
persecutors and slanderers ; " and when we consider what a host 
of these our poor Church has to struggle with, we may surely 
call in the divine aid to our support, by praying, that our good 
Lord may disappoint their designs^ as well as turn their hearts. 

In begging of the same Lord to "give and preserve to our 
use the kindly fruits of the earth," it is no less proper that we 
mention this as the end of our praying for these temporal 
blessings, that "in due time we may thankfully enjoy them," 
because we need to be kept in mind, that without a tltankful 
enjoyment of them, we cannot be said to enjoy them at all. 

When the Litany applies lor peace ^ and mercy from the Lamb 
of God, it is surprising, that any word in the Baptist's descrip- 
tion here quoted should have been altered, and put in the 
plural, instead of the singular number ; and therefore we do 
well to adhere to the express declaration of Scripture, and say — 
" O Lamb of God, that takest away " not the " sins^^ but the sin^ 
that is, the sinful state " of the world ! " 

In one of the concluding prayers of the Litany, where 



156 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

mention is made of those Evils, that we most " righteously have 
deserved/' it is surely better to say, that we have most justly 
deserved them, because Righteousness^ in its scriptural sense, 
carries to the mind of a Christian something rather favourable, 
than forbidding, and at any rate, is of more comprehensive 
import, than what we usually mean by the term Justice, 

After the Morning Prayer, with the Litany, is ended, and a 
Hymn, or part of a Psalm sung for enlivening the attention of 
the Congregation, we proceed to what is usually called the 
Communion, or Altar Service, which very properly begins with 
the Lord's Prayer, and a suitable Collect, as introductory of what 
follows. In our Church, as far as I can recollect, the practice 
has been to read the Ten Commandments, or the Summary of 
the Law, or both, as the officiating clergyman shall think fit 
And as we have no mark of distinction for the penitential, or 
humiliating season of Lent, but the Collect for Ash- Wednesday, 
my method has been to appropriate the reading of all the Ten 
Commandments^ as well as the Summary^ to that holy Season, 
and the Season of Advent, as preparatory to the Festival of 
Christmas, and to read the Summary only, throughout the 
rest of the year, which I think, is a more proper way of shorten- 
ing the Service, where that is thought necessary, than by 
leaving out, after Sermon, as I am told, is sometimes done, 
our most excellent Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's 
Church. 

After the rehearsing of the Ten Commandments, the English 
Liturgy provides two Collects for the King, and leaves it to the 
discretion of the Priest to use which of them he pleases. Many 
people think, it would have been much better ordered, had he 
been allowed to use them in some other part of the public 
Service, as it is difficult to discover, why a Prayer for the King 
should immediately follow our imploring God's mercy, and 
grace to keep his holy Laws. " It were to be wished," says Dr. 
Paley, " that every part of a Liturgy were personally applicable 
to every Individual in the Congregation, and that nothing were 
introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp a flame, which it is 
not easy to rekindle. Upon this principle the State Prayers in 
our Liturgy should be fewer, and shorter. Whatever may be 
pretended, the Congregation do not feel that concern in the 
subject of these prayers, which must be felt, or ever prayer be 
made to God with earnestness." Where the Doctor alludes to 
" whatever may be pretended^* he probably had in his eye the 
pretence of the King being the Head of the Church, as a 
sufficient reason for supposing its prosperity to be so connected 
with the welfare of its Head, as to give an interest in that 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 157 

welfare to all who wish to share in the prosperity of the Church. 
But as we have nothing to expect from that quarter, and the 
King would think it no compliment to be looked up to, as the 
Head of our Church, we need not expose ourselves to the 
jealousy of our Enemies by using a prayer which seems 
connected with the temporalities of an established Church, 
when another prayer can be found much better adapted to the 
occasion, and embracing as its object the spiritual concerns 
of a Church, unestablished as ours is, and unbeneficed by any 
act or instance of the Royal Bounty. It is therefore with 
peculiar propriety, that after the reading the Ten Commandments 
or the Summary of the Law, we make use of that Post Com- 
munion Collect, in which "we beseech our Almighty Lord, 
and everlasting God to direct, sanctify, and govern both our 
hearts, and bodies in the ways of his Laws, and in the works of 
these his Commandments," because that will be the means of pro- 
curing for us, what is better than any support from the highest 
of the sons of men, even God's " most mighty protection both 
here and ever." 

Mr. Wheatly observes, that "as the Apostles Creed is 
placed immediately after the daily lessons, so is the Nicene 
Creed after the Epistle and Gospel, both of them being founded 
upon the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles : " — And as that 
doctrine is sufficiently exhibited in these two Creeds, con- 
sidered as public Confessions of our Christian Faith there seems 
to be the less reason for our using as such what is commonly 
called the Creed of St Athanasius, part of which has been 
considered by the generality of English Divines as a kind of 
Comment upon the doctrine of the Trinity, and though intended 
as an Illustration of that doctrine, may yet be far from being 
so clear to the comprehension of Christians, in general as to 
entitle it to be repeated by them as a part of their public 
Worship. Therefore on account of the scruples entertained 
about it by many well disposed Members of our Church, I have 
always declined making any public use of the Athanasian Creed, 
though I consider the doctrine of it, when properly understood, 
to be perfectly sound, and orthodox. 

For a similar reason, it has ever appeared to me as equally in- 
expedient to introduce on Ash- Wednesday what is usually called 
the Comtnination Office, the design of which is so apt to be mis- 
apprehended, that the use of it can hardly be considered as in 
any way tending to edification. 

In considering that part of the Divine Service, which remains 
to be gone through, after the Sermon is ended, I think it strange, 
that those who affect to enforce a strict observance of every 



158 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

Rubric, should not attend to that which appoints the " Prayer for 
the whole State of Christ's Church," to be always used before the 
Blessing, as well as one, or more of the Post Communion Collects ! 
And I see no good reason why those who use the Scotch Com- 
munion Office, and introduce the " Prayer for the Whole State of 
Christ's Church," without adding ** Militant here in earth," should 
not conclude that prayer in the words of the same Office, as more 
full and expressive of what our Church believes respecting the 
state of the faithful departed, between death and the resurrection. 

I have now stated my opinion with respect to all the variations 
from, or additions to, the English Liturgy, which I think, might, 
with propriety, be adopted in the ordinary Service of our Church. 
What I have mentioned as my own practice, in regard to these 
matters includes all that can be considered of any importance ; 
since I do not view in that light the change of a word here, and 
there, such as these for those in the Absolution, — impartially for 
indifferently in the "Prayer for the whole State of Christ's Church" 
and " now and for evermorey* instead of always in the Blessing. 

My only wish in giving this very brief sketch of my sentiments, 
is to shew in a few words, but as clearly as possible, the ground on 
which my opinion rests, respecting the alterations, not many in 
number, which I have thought proper to adopt, in going through 
the ordinary public Service prescribed by the English Liturgy. 
Whether all, or any, of these alterations are generally considered 
as Improve^nents, is more than I can say. If they are not so con- 
sidered, I am far from desiring, that they should be adopted ; but 
if any of them shall appear to be peculiarly suited to the situa- 
tion of our Church, and such as may enable her Members to 
pray with understanding, as well as with piety, so as that her 
religious Service may be acceptable to God, and edifying to men, 
let it not be pretended, that our Church has no authority to order 
her ritual with particular view to the attainment of objects so 
truly Christian, and commendable. Certain it is, that as matters 
now stand, the use of the English Liturgy in this part of the 
Kingdom neither is, nor can be supported by any aW authority ; 
it is here merely allowed, but not enjoined, tolerated, but not 
commanded. Neither can those English-ordained Clergy offi- 
ciating in this Country, who are supposed to conform strictly to 
it, pretend to do so, in obedience to any authority derived from 
the Church of England, because it is well known, that while 
they reside in Scotland, they are completely out of the reach of 
her jurisdiction, and have no more authority from her to use her 
Liturgy than to assume the charge of congregations merely call- 
ing themselves, but showing no xight that they have to be called, 
of the Church of England. 



J.. « w i^Ammmm--^^^m^m ^-r^ 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 59 

The only Ecclesiastical authority that can be found in this 
country for using a reformed Liturgy, is the authority of the 
Scotch Episcopal Church, in asserting which I have the support 
of those very Articles of Religion, to which our Clergy have sub- 
scribed as a Testmony of our agreement in doctrine and discipline 
with the United Church of England, and Ireland. For in her 
XXXIV Article, she expressly declares that " every particular, 
or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abo- 
lish ceremonies ordained only by man's authority, so that all 
things be done to edifying." " In this authority," says a very 
learned Divine, " the right of framing its own Articles, and its 
own Liturgy must necessarily be included ; and the Church of 
England, in acknowledging this right to belong to every parti- 
cular, or national church, asserts only what the Church Catholic, 
in its primitive, and purest times, constantly maintained, and al- 
lowed, it being evident, that not only particular Churches have 
varied in their Liturgical Offices, but that even particular Dioceses 
or Districts in the same Church, have used offices varying in some 
respects from each other. Now the Church of Scotland, having 
been from its first foundation to the present moment, a distinct, 
national Church, has surely the same right as the Church of Eng- 
land to frame Articles, and a TJturgy for itself This cannot 
be denied on the principles of the Church of England, who might 
indeed justly be charged with an usurpation of authority over 
other Churches, if she were to assert a contrary principle." 

These were the sentiments expressed in a Letter, of which 
I was favoured with a copy, as written about eight years ago 
to a Clergyman in Edinburgh by Mr. Van Mildert, the present 
worthy Proctor of St. Mary le bow, London. I have reason to 
believe that the same sentiments are entertained by several of 
the most learned and soundest Divines of the Church of Eng- 
land, who by acknowledging ours as a Sister Church, plainly 
declare that she is not the same Church, no more than two 
sisters can be considered as one, and the same person, or as 
obliged on every occasion to appear precisely in the same dress, 
as a proof of their family likeness, and affection to each other. 

There is such a material difference between the outward ap- 
pearance of the Church of England, and the humble condition 
of her Sister in Scotland, that I cannot help thinking there 
should be some peculiarity in our public Service, pointing out, 
as it were, the modest unassuming character in which we wish 
to appear as a purely primitive, but not a legally established 
Church. 

Such is the opinion I have always held respecting the part 
which it becomes us to act, under the trying circumstances in 



l6o CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

which we are placed, always remembering, as an Apostle ob- 
serves, " that the trying of our faith worketh patience," showing 
us the necessity of that patient submission to the will of God, 
which will keep us from affecting such a close resemblance of 
things, within our reach as would seem to indicate a strong de- 
sire of what our Church can never hope to attain, the splendour 
and affluence of an Episcopal Establishment All this I took 
an opportunity of representing very plainly in a C/iarge delivered 
to the Clei^y of this Diocese, and published at their request, 
a few years ago ; and though my sentiments on this subject, 
are I believe, pretty generally known, not only through the 
circle of our small ecclesiastical Society in this country, but 
among those, who have shewn themselves our sound, and steady 
friends in England ; I have never heard, that either my principles, 
or my practice in explaining, and performing our Liturgical 
Offices have given any offence to those whose good opinion I 
would wish to cultivate, as far as is consistent with what con- 
science, and a sense of duty lay me under as higher obligations. 
To what is enforced by such superior motives, I must 
ever yield obedience, be the consequence what it will as to all 
worldly, and therefore inferior considerations. The Doctrine of 
the Church of England, as founded on the authority of Scripture, 
and exhibited in her Creeds, and Articles of Religion, I most 
cordially, and conscientiously embrace. Her Episcopal form of 
Government, as handed down by succession from the Apostles, 
I look up to, with grateful veneration, as the channel through 
which Scotland has received its pure, and primitive Episcopacy. 
With the pious strain, and structure of the English Liturgy, as 
regulating the ordinary Service of the Church, I am highly 
pleased, and use it with still increasing delight, when accom- 
modated more closely to our situation, by those few verbal 
alterations, or additions, which I have briefly noticed, together 
with my reasons for adopting them. But as I do not embrace 
the doctrine, or venerate the government of the Church of 
England, merely because they are the doctrine, and government 
of that Church, so neither do I use any part of her form of 
worship, because it is prescribed by the English Liturgy, but 
because it is admirably calculated on the whole to convey to 
the Throne of Grace the piety, and devotion of sound and 
sincere Christians. But this surely it can do, without binding us 
down to the use of every word, and the following of every 
Rubric to be found in the Book of Common Prayer. On the 
same principle which would enforce such an obligation, it may 
be pretended, that we ought strictly to adhere to the "Order 
for the Administration of the Lord's Supper" as laid down in 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY l6l 

the English Prayer Book; and indeed there is but too much 
ground to fear that a general rejection, or disuse of the Scotch 
Communion Office will be the consequence of the attempts that 
are now making to assimilate our Divine Service in every the 
minutest article to that of the Church of England, yet if we 
may judge of what would be the effect of this among the people 
of our Communion, by what we see, and hear of the use that is 
made of it by those, who calling themselves Episcopal Congre- 
gations, have yet no relation to, or connection with any Clergy- 
man in the character of a Bishop, we need not be very zealous 
in enforcing this strict adherence to all the English forms in our 
religious Service. For, I believe, it will be found on a fair 
enquiry, that nothing has so much tended to produce and con- 
tinue a lamentable division among those who profess to be of 
the Episcopal Communion in Scotland, as this ill-founded notion, 
that wherever the English Liturgy is used, without the smallest 
variation, it is there, and there only that a congregation can be 
considered as of the same principles with the Church of Eng- 
land — without ever enquiring by what authority the person 
officiates who uses that Liturgy, or whether, as an Episcopal 
Clergyman, he has been regularly appointed by a Bishop to the 
charge of the congregation, in which he thus officiates. It is 
well-known what complaints are daily made on account of such 
irregularities even in the Church of England, where thousands 
are deluded by the use of the English Prayer-Book, and by this 
deception are carelessly led astray, and tempted to follow the 
very wildest sectaries. The delusion indeed is said to be greatly 
encouraged by the use that is allowed to be made of what is 
called the Bidding prayer, before sermon, which, it seems, is 
often turned into ^ petitionary form, and made to embrace such 
a variety of matter in the way of supplication as far exceeds the 
utmost reach of deviation from the English Liturgy that is ever 
practised in the Scotch Episcopal Church. I see no good reason 
therefore, why we should be laid under restrictions in the mode 
of our officiating, to which, I believe, no church situated as ours 
is, was ever subjected. Though no longer established by legal 
authority, we are still by Ecclesiastical statute, a regularly 
formed, distinct, and national church, authorized to ordain such 
rites, and ceremonies in our religious Service as are found to be 
most edifying to her Members. That is the rule, by which I 
have always acted in regard to these matters ; and till the 
authority of our Church be interposed, in a canonical manner, to 
give a different direction to my official conduct, I have a right, 
as Bishop of the Diocese, which has been so long under my 
charge, to see that the celebration of Divine Service be carried 

II 



1 62 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

on in this Diocese agreeably to the instructions which I may 
find necessary to be given for that purpose. When these shall 
appear to be no longer conducive to the peace, the comfort, and 
edification of our Church, it will be time for me, after nearly fifty 
years already spent it its service, to relinquish the station, which 
I have so weakly filled, and take ray leave of all its concerns 
with a " Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." 



APPENDIX V 

A Description of the services in St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, between 

1795 and 1840 
From 

ANSWERS 

for 

The Reverend Charles WagstafT, M.A., 

Junior Incumbent of St Andrew's Church, Aberdeen. 

to 

THE CHARGES 

preferred against him by 

The Reverend John Burnett Pratt, 

appointed by the Bishop of the Diocese to state the same, 

in terms of Canon XXXVI 

2 1st November, 1849. 

pp. 7 to 17. 

In order to understand aright the present controversy, it is 
absolutely necessary that the history of St Andrew's Church 
and the forms of worship which at different times have prevailed 
there, should be accurately known. To a statement of these the 
Respondent therefore, first of all, solicits the attention of the 
Synod. 

The Congregation, which is now represented by St Andrew's 
Church, first makes its appearance after the issue of the unsuc- 
cessful attempt to restore the Stuarts to the throne of their 
fathers in 1715. Its founder was Mr. Andrew Jaffray, who 
before the Revolution of 1688 had been minister of Alford. 
Like many others of the Clergy of this Diocese, he retained 
possession of his parish long after the Church had ceased to be 
established. He was at length driven from it, and about the 
year 17 16 came to reside in Aberdeen. Here he opened what 
was then called a meeting house at the back of the Tolbooth, 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 63 

where he continued to officiate till his death, about the year 1730. 
During the period of his incumbency at Aberdeen, the Book of 
Common Prayer was generally used throughout the Diocese, 
which was then governed by the fearless and high-principled 
Bishop Gadderar. But, whatever the cause may have been, it 
was not used in Mr. JaflFray's congregation, neither was it used 
during the incumbency of his successor, Mr. James Miln.* How 
far this circumstance may have made a lasting impression on 
the character of the Congregation the Respondent will not here 
consider. 

On the death of Mr. Miln, Mr. William Smith became 
Clergyman in his room, in the year 1735. He showed how well 
he deserved his appointment, by taking immediate steps for 
removing the grievous deficiency which had been tolerated by 
his predecessors. He caused the Prayer Book to be used on 
Sundays.* It was still only on Sundays that divine service was 
celebrated at all. As might be expected, in a Congregation 
where the Book of Common Prayer had been disregarded, there 
was no observance of Holy-days or other sacred seasons. On 
these occasions, Mr. Smith assisted his friend, Mr. Gerard, then 
clergyman of another congregation in Aberdeen, and afterwards 
Bishop. The relative position of these two Congregations, both 
of which still exist, in their progress towards the recovery of the 
full liturgical and ritual system of the Church is worthy of 
remark. 

Mr. Smith continued to officiate as Pastor of the Congrega- 
tion during the trying times in which his lot was cast, to his 
death in 1774- While he was clergyman, the place where the 
Congregation met was removed from the neighbourhood of the 
Tolbooth, first to the Concert Close in the Broadgate, and 
afterwards to a Close on the West side of the Guestrow. 
During his incumbency, if not prior to it, the Scottish 
Communion Office was used in the celebration of the Eucharist, 
and that venerable Liturgy has ever since been faithfully 
maintained. He also succeeded in gradually introducing the 
observance of the other Holy-days of the Church, in addition to 
the Sunday. 

Mr. Smith was succeeded, as Pastor of the Congregation, by 
Mr. John Skinner, afterwards Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus 
of the Scottish Church. Soon after his appointment the Chapel 



* Introductory Sketch of the History of the Congregation prefixed to the 
Rules and Regulations of St. Andrew's Church, p. 12. 

• Introductory Sketch, p. 15. 



164 CUSTOMS CONNBCTED WITH 

was removed from the Guestrow to the upper part of a house in 
Longacre. This, also, in the course of years, proving insufficient 
for the increasing Congregation, a new place of worship which 
was named St Andrew's Chapel was erected on the site of the 
former, and divine service was first celebrated within it on 
Sunday, the 13th day of September, 1795. From this time, the 
memory of persons yet living supplies information, sufficiently 
full and accurate, as to the modes in which divine worship was 
celebrated ; and here, therefore, it may be convenient to mention 
what was then the established ritual in St Andrew's. It is 
almost needless to state that, at the period to which reference is 
made, the Incumbent of St Andrew's Chapel was Bishop of 
Aberdeen, and Primus of the Church in Scotland. 

There was Morning and Evening Prayer on Sundays, and a 
sermon at each of these services. The Holy Communion was 
celebrated seven times in the year, viz., on Christmas Day, on 
the first Sunday in Lent, on Good Friday, on Easter-day, on 
Whitsunday, and twice during the Sundays after Trinity. 
There was Morning Prayer on all the other Holy-days, on every 
Wednesday and Friday, and on the Saturday before, and the 
Monday after. Communion when celebrated on a Sunday. 
There was no service on Christmas-eve, or Whitsun-eve. The 
Respondent has not been able to ascertain precisely what 
services there were at this time during the Holy Week. It may 
be mentioned that, in all these services, including the celebration 
of the Holy Communion, the only vestment worn by the 
Minister was a black gown. 

The following was the order of the Sunday Morning 
Service : — It commenced with the singing of several verses from 
the metre psalms of Brady and Tate, which were given out by the 
Clergyman. These were followed by the Order for Mattins, as 
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, without any varia- 
tion, to the conclusion of the first Lesson. The Te Deum was 
always used after the first Lesson, except on a few occasions 
when part of the Benedicite was said. It was the custom, in 
singing that Canticle to leave out the whole between the 
commencement of the second verse and the conclusion of the 
twenty-fifth. The second Lessons were according to the 
Calendar, except that, in reading the third Chapter of St Luke, 
our Lord's genealogy was left out The practice as to the 
corresponding portion of the first chapter of St Matthew cannot 
be distinctly ascertained. It is rather thought that another 
Lesson was substituted. The service then proceeded, without 
variation from the Prayer Book to the Creed. The only Creed 
used in Morning Prayer was the Apostles' Creed. That of St 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 65 

Athanasius was never said. There was no further difference 
from the order prescribed in the Rubric till the end of the 
third collect Singing had all along been used in St Andrew's, 
but there was at this part of the service no Anthem. 

Morning Prayer was followed by the Litany, according to the 
Prayer Book. As far as has been ascertained, the Prayer ap- 
pointed for the Ember Weeks was not used at this time. After 
the Litany was ended, a hymn was sung from the Collection of 
hymns and anthems stil! used in St Andrews Church. 

The Priest then proceeded to the Altar and said the Lord's 
Prayer and the Collect following as in the Prayer Book. The 
Ten Commandments did not follow ; but in their place was 
substituted the summary of them contained in the Gospels. The 
service then proceeded according to the Prayer Book to the 
commencement of the Gospel, which was preceded and followed 
by the Gloria and Thanksgiving still used in terms of the 
present Canons. The Nicene Creed was then said. It may 
here be remarked that it was the universal practice at this time, 
both of Priest and people, to bow the head at the name of Jesus 
in the Creeds, and when glory was ascribed to the Blessed 
Trinity. 

When the Nicene Creed was said, another short hymn from 
the Collection of Hymns and Anthems was sung by the Congre- 
gation. The Minister then went to the pulpit, from which he 
announced the Holy Communion when it was to be celebrated 
and also the Holy-days, but not the Fasting-days in the week 
following. A Collect and the Lord's Prayer were then said, and 
after these came the Sermon. 

When the Sermon was concluded, several verses of Brady and 
Tate were again sung and thereafter the Priest returning to the 
Altar, said the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church from 
the Scottish Communion Office, and concluded with some 
Collects and the Blessing. 

The Sunday Evening Service was begun with verses from 
Brady and Tate, and was then conducted like the corresponding 
portions of the Morning Service. There was no Anthem after 
the Third Collect ; and, as far as can be ascertained, the Ember 
Prayer was never used. Evensong, like Mattins, was concluded 
with a Hymn from the Collection of Hymns and Anthems. 
After the Hymn came a Sermon, preceded, as in the morning, 
by a Collect and the Lord's Prayer, and followed by the singing 
of verses from Brady and Tate, by some Collects, and the 
Blessing from the Communion Office. After all came the 
Anthem ; for which provision is made in the Collection of Hymns 
and Anthems already referred to. 



1 66 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

The Morning Prayer on other Holy-days was the same as on 
Sundays, except that there was no singing. The Creed of St 
Athanasius was not used ; and the Gospel Summary was sub- 
stituted for the Decalogue. On Christmas Day, the Litany was 
always said on whatever day of the week the Festival took place. 
There was Evening as well as Morning Service on Christmas 
Day, and a Sermon at both services. There was a Sermon on 
the Feast of the Circumcision. On the same Festival, a special 
prayer in commemoration of the New-year was said, and a Hymn 
was sung on the subject from the Collection of Hymns and 
Anthems. There was a Sermon on the Feast of St Stephen, 
and on Monday in Easter week. There was, it is believed, 
nothing besides Morning Prayer on Ascension day. There was 
no celebration or mention in any way of Eves or Vigils. 
When there was Evening Prayer on the Eve of a Holy-day, in 
consequence of the Eve happening on a Sunday, the Collect for 
the Holy-day was not used. 

There was both Morning and Evening Prayer on Good 
Friday and a Sermon at each service. There was Morning 
Prayer on Ash Wednesday, but neither then nor at any other 
time was the Commination Office used. Special Lessons were 
used on Ash Wednesday in place of the Lessons prescribed in 
the Calendar.^ The Lent Fast was never announced as such. 
Notice was given of catechising, which took place in Church 
during Lent on Sunday evenings, but not during divine service. 
The Congregation were enjoined to pay particular respect to 
Lent as a season of more than ordinary religious observance ; 
but this announcement was not made till Quadragesima Sunday. 
The Morning Prayer and Litany on ordinary Wednesdays 



^ The Rev. George Sutherland informs the writer that the following lessons 
for Ash Wednesday are marked in the margin of the leaf containing the 
proper lessons in a folio prayer book which belonged to Robert Forbes, 
Bishop of Ross and Caithness. The note (in the bishop's own hand) is as 
follows : — 

Proper Lessons for Ash Wednesday, used by Bp. Andrewes. 
For the Morning Service 

1st Lesson, Isaiah 58 Chap. 
2d Lesson St. Luke 15 Chap 
Evening 

1st Lesson Isaiah 55 
2d Less 2 Cor. 7. Chap 
[Another note at the foot of the page :— ] 
According to \ Ash Wednesday Mattins Isa 58. St. Luke 13 or 15 



Bp. Sage / Vespers Isa 55. 2 Cor 7. 

iccording to ^ Ash Wednesday Mattms Joel i St. Luke 22 v. 5^^ 
Dr. Deacon / Vesper Johnah [sic] 3. i Cor v. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY l6j 

and Fridays were the same as on Sunday, with the exception of 
the singing. 

The mode in which the Eucharist was celebrated may now 
be mentioned. The Liturgy used, and the times of its celebra- 
tion, have already been stated. It has also been mentioned that 
it was announced from the pulpit on the previous Sunday. On 
these occasions was read part of the first Exhortation, appointed 
in the English Communion Office to be used in giving warning 
of the celebration. Sometimes part, sometimes the whole, of the 
first paragraph of that Exhortation was used, but not the other 
two paragraphs. As has been mentioned, there was Morning 
Prayer on the Saturday, as well as on the Wednesday and 
Friday before Communion. On these three days the first 
Morning Lessons of the Calendar were superseded by the 51st, 
53rd and 55th chapters of Isaiah ; and a special prayer was used 
on the subject of the Communion, to be found in the Collection 
of Prayers and Thanksgivings used on particular occasions in 
St. Andrew's Chapel. 

On the day of celebration, the service proceeded as already 
mentioned, to the end of the sermon. This was immediately 
followed by some Collects and the Benedictory Prayer from 
2 Cor. xiii. Here the non-communicants retired, and the 
service recommenced with the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses 
of Brady and Tate's twenty-seventh Psalm. The service then 
proceeded in exact conformity with the Scottish Communion 
Office, as far as the delivery of the Sacrament of the Lord's Body 
and Blood to the people. When as many as could kneel at the 
Altar rails at one time had received the Sacrament, the Minister 
made an Address to them in a set form nowhere to be found in 
any Office used in the Church, nor, so far as is known, in any of 
the Hymn Books or other compilations for the use of St 
Andrew's Chapel, but familiar to all grown-up members of the 
present Congregation. After this Address they were requested 
to join in singing a verse of the hymn on the Communion, 
which is printed in the Collection of Hymns and Anthems. 
The same form was repeated to each portion of the com- 
municants. After all had received the Eucharist, the service 
proceeded to the end as in the Scottish Communion Office, 
except that, just before the Blessing, the Minister announced to 
the Communicants that there would be Morning Prayer on the 
following Monday, in order that they might have an opportunity 
of thanking God for the great mercies then bestowed upon 
them. On the great Festivals it was also the practice, 
immediately after the Gloria in Excelsis, to sing the concluding 
portion of what was called the Communion Hymn, as printed 



1 68 CUSTOMS CONNBCTED WITH 

in the Collection of Hymns and Anthems. The number of 
Communicants, especially at the high festivals, was great, and 
as the whole service, in the form above described, was very 
long, it was the custom of many to leave the Church after 
receiving the Communion, and before the service was concluded. 

As has already been mentioned, there was Morning Prayer 
on the Monday after the Sunday on which the Eucharist was 
celebrated. On this occasion the first Daily Lesson was not 
read, but, in its place, the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. There 
was also read a Thanksgiving for the Communion, immediately 
after the General Thanksgiving ; the form of which is to be 
found in the Collection of Prayers and Thanksgivings above 
referred to. On the Feast of St. Stephen the Martyr, on Mon- 
day in Easter Week, and on Monday in Whitsun Week, there 
were also read special Thanksgivings, to be found in the same 
Collection. It was the practice, when there was service during 
the Octaves of Christmas, Easter, and the Ascension, during 
Whitsun Week, and on the Feast of Trinity, whether the 
Eucharist was actually celebrated or not, in the Communion 
Office, after the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, 
to read the Sursum Corda, the Proper Preface, and the 
Trisagium. 

These remarks may be concluded with some observations on 
the other services of the Church. The Sacrament of Baptism 
was never celebrated before the Congregation. Children were 
christened either in private houses, or in the Chapel after Morn- 
ing Service was over, and when the Congregation had retired. 
On these occasions, however, it was not the form of Private 
Baptism in the Prayer Book which was used, but that for Public 
Baptism, in whole or in part. There was no Font. This 
Sacrament was also ministered beside the Altar rails.^ There 
was no particular rule or practice as to sponsors. The parents 
were allowed to act, as is still permitted by the Canons ; and, it 
is believed that persons who were not Communicants, and not 
even members of the Church, were not excluded. 

The children baptized in the above manner were not after- 
wards brought into the Church, in order that the Congregation 
might be certified that the true Form of Baptism had been 
used. 



^The practice in America, down to 1839 at least, seems to have been 
similar. In the Dictionary of the Churchy already quoted, it is stated that 
*the font for baptism is now usually placed within or near the chancel." 
See pp. 106, 238-9. 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 69 

The Catechism was never used in the time of divine service. 
It was taught, however, in the Chapel on the Wednesdays and 
Fridays in Lent, after Morning Service. On the same days an 
explanation of the Catechism was also taught On the evenings 
of the six Sundays in Lent, but not during divine service, a still 
longer explanation of the Catechism, divided into six parts, was 
taught in the Chapel. The sixth of these parts was devoted to 
those who proposed to communicate for the first time on Easter 
day. The other five parts were intended for those who had been 
confirmed, but who were supposed to be not yet fitted to receive 
the Communion. These five parts were presumed to be gone 
over by Catechumens in the course of five years; but the in- 
struction was given to them not in the order of the parts, 
beginning with the first and so proceeding to the fifth, but 
beginning with any of them which might happen that particular 
year to be set apart to the portion of the Chapel where their 
parents' or guardians* pew was. The several Catechisms used 
on these different occasions are to be found in the printed col- 
lections of them still well known, and formerly in actual use in 
most Congregations in the Diocese of Aberdeen. 

Holy Matrimony was not solemnized in Church but in 
private houses. Some portions of the Service in the Prayer 
Book were uniformly left out, as being supposed not conducive 
to edification, or disagreeable to the people. Some attention 
was paid, however, though not uniformly, to the rule of the 
Catholic Church in r^ard to the proper seasons for solemnizing 
marriage. 

The Order for the Burial of the Dead was used in whole or 
in part, according to the form in the Prayer Book, but in the 
house of the departed, not in the Church or Churchyard. 

The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth was used in 
the form given in the Book of Common Prayer. It was said 
after the Creed at Morning or Evening Prayer. When it was 
used, the Kyrie Eleison, and the Lord's Prayer, after the Creed 
in the Daily Service were omitted. 

All days of thanksgiving or fasting, appointed by the Sove- 
reign, were regularly observed. When a day of thanksgiving for 
the harvest was ordered to be kept by the Ecclesiastical Courts 
of the Established Church, it was the uniform practice to observe 
the same. A form of thanksgiving used on such occasions, is to 
be found in the Collection already referred to. When a criminal 
was to be executed in the town of Aberdeen, a special form of 
prayer for him was used between the sentence and the execution. 
That form has not been printed so far as is known. 

Such were the forms of the Regular and Occasional Services 



1 70 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

at St Andrew's Chapel when first erected, and so they continued, 
with no important alteration, in that Church, and in the present 
one, for many years. 

It may, perhaps, be thought that the previous narrative is 
needlessly minute. If, however, the cause of the unhappy dis- 
putes, which have given rise to the present Trial, be examined, 
it is presumed that the absolute necessity of such an account, in 
order to explain the matters at issue, will be admitted. 

It is hitherto simple narrative which has been given. No 
opinion is expressed as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness, ex- 
pediency or inexpediency, of the forms used at St Andrew's, so 
far as they differed from those in the Book of Common Prayer, 
and the Scottish Communion Office, at the time to which 
reference is made. It is known to the venerable Synod, and 
will immediately be particularly explained, that when these 
Forms were first used, and for many years after. Bishops and 
Incumbents in the Scottish Church were not governed by any 
precise Canons or Rubrics in regard to the mode of celebrating 
divine worship. 

The Respondent will not proceed with the subsequent history 
of the Congregation. The first event of importance which took 
place after the erection of St Andrew's Chapel in Longacre, 
was the appointment of the present Bishop of Aberdeen, as 
Assistant to the late Bishop, his father, in the Incumbency. 
This took place in 1802. A few changes in the mode of con- 
ducting Divine Service took place subsequently, but the 
Respondent has not been able to ascertain the exact period of 
their introduction. The Surplice was used at Morning and 
Evening Prayer, and at the Communion Office, except the 
Sermon. A partial use of the Ember Prayers was established. 
On the other hand, the use of the Prayer for the State of 
Christ's Church, when there was no Communion, was given up 
the service being concluded with the Collects and Blessing, both 
said in the Pulpit An increase took place in the number of 
services. There was Evening as well as Morning Prayer on 
Ash Wednesday, and on every Wednesday and Friday in Lent 
after Quadragesima Sunday, and on each day of the Holy Week ; 
and there was a Sermon on the morning of Holy Thursday, and 
Prayers in the evening. The former practice continued of 
announcing Lent on Quadragesima, in place of Quinquagesima 
Sunday, and in accordance therewith, although there was 
Evening Prayer on Ash Wednesday, there was none on the 
following Friday. It is somewhat singular that the same 
practice as to the commencement of Lent prevailed in the 
ancient Scottish Church, and was one of the usages altered by 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY I7I 

the influence of St. Margaret Of old, as then, it was probably 
the mere effect of a custom introduced in some unknown way. 
Cer[tainly] there was no thought of the authority for such a 
practice, or of the diversities as to the commencement of Lent 
in the ancient Church Catholic, and in, at least, one celebrated 
Church of the Roman Communion in modern times. 

[The following is from the Appendix to the Wagstaff Case], 

No. XLIL— FORM of PRAYER used in St. Andrew's Church 

for a Convict under Sentence of Death (for murder). 

O most just and Holy Lord God, to whom vengeance 
belongeth, who bringeth to light the hidden things of darkness, 
and visitest the sins of the wicked upon even them in this life, that 
thou mayest deter others from the evil of their ways, and save 
their souls in the day of the Lord Jesus. Whilst we humbly 
adore the justice of Thy Divine Providence, we most earnestly 
recommend to thine infinite mercy and compassion all those 
who, for their crimes, are appointed to die; more especially 
Thy very unworthy servant, now lying under sentence of death 
in this place. Deal not with him, O God, as his sins have justly 
deserved, but let the rod of punishment which now lies heavy on 
his body, be effectual by Thy Grace, to the preservation of his 
soul. Open now his eyes, that he may see the wonderful things 
of Thy law. Take away from him, we humbly beseech Thee, 
all his former ignorance and hardness of heart Help him, O 
gracious God, so carefully to improve the short space yet left 
him for repentance, that his small remaining portion of time may 
afford him some comfort, some hope of mercy at his untimely 
end. O give him a just sense of his flagrant iniquity, and blot 
out of Thy remembrance his many crying and notorious sins, 
especially that cruel and murderous deed for which he is now to 
die. When the justice of God and the law of man require life 
for life, let Thy mercy, O Blessed Jesus ! present thy precious 
blood for him, and thy sufferings save him from eternal death. 
And grant, O Lord ! that our Land may not be defiled with un- 
avenged blood crying unto Thee for judgment, but that all trans- 
gressors and contemners of Thy holy law, may take warning from 
such necessary examples of temporal punishment, and renounce 
and forsake those wicked and sinful courses which expose them 
to thy wrath and indignation for ever. Hear our prayers, O 
Lord ! and grant us a gracious acceptance for the sake and 
through the merits of Thy blessed Son, our Lord and Saviour, 
Jesus Christ. — Amen. 



172 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

APPENDIX VI 
The Cultus Eucharistiae 

[From an article in The Church TimeSy 23rd October, 1908, p. 
542, entitled " The Newer Eucharistic Theolc^y."] 

It is unnecessary to restate the Catholic doctrine of the 
Eucharist, in which the Real Presence of our Lord under the 
forms of bread and wine, and the nature of the offering as a true 
and proper Sacrifice, are indissolubly united and are inter- 
dependent. From this doctrine of our Lord's Presence, that of 
Eucharistic adoration follows. . . . But while in the undivided 
Church of old and in the East to-day, the adoration of our Lord 
present in the Eucharist was and is subordinate to the first in- 
tention of the rite, which is communion and sacrifice ; in later 
times in the West this adoration has come to take, in practice at 
least, an equal, if not a more prominent, place. 

To understand this change we must try and recall in the 
first place how the essential character of the Eucharist as a 
sacrifice offered to the Blessed Trinity, and, in a sense, specially 
to the First Person, is brought out by the language of every 
Christian liturgy. All Eucharistic prayers are addressed to the 
Eternal Father, with only occasional and insignificant local 
exceptions. Here we see the primitive conception of the rite. 
At the beginning of the Middle Ages in the West we note the 
coming of a change in the treatment of the Mass. The doctrine 
of the Real Presence is attacked, and the attack is repelled, 
although not, perhaps, in an entirely satisfactory way. The 
Catholic doctrine is vindicated by the elevation of the newly- 
consecrated Host for adoration. This became general in the 
West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Little by 
little the essential elements of an Exposition for Adoration, now 
so familiar, became added to the canon of the Mass, which, 
instead of being said in the stillness and silence reminiscent of 
the drawn curtains of earlier days, came to be accompanied 
with additional lights, the use of incense, gestures of adoration, 
and the ringing of bells. A few short prayers addressed to our 
Blessed Lord k)und their way into mediaeval missals ; they were 
but private devotions for the celebrant, however. Bells and 
lights were carried in honour of the Blessed Sacrament when 
taken to the sick. The feast of Corpus Christi was introduced, 
first as a Low Country festival, and then by Papal authority for 
the whole Western Church. Processions of the Blessed 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 73 

Sacrament became more and more common, with increasingly 
elaborate ceremonial, and the open monstrance succeeded the 
closed pix. Later on the Exposition of, and Benediction with, 
the reserved Sacrament which accompanied Eucharistic pro- 
cessions became separated from them and were used alone. 
This was about the time of the Reformation, and these devotions 
seemed to supply a want strongly felt by Catholics, who rejoiced 
in finding a new means of testifying to their sacramental belief 
in the face of Protestant denials and blasphemies. It was not 
long before the authorities ofthe Church were obliged to regulate 
and restrain popular enthusiasm, and towards the end of the 
seventeenth century the great French liturgiologist, J. B. Thiers, 
wrote a treatise on the subject, in which he strongly urges the 
need of a wholesome restraint in the extra-liturgical use of the 
Holy Eucharist. Nearer our own day the restrictions on the 
use of these devotions have been more and more relaxed, parti- 
cularly in certain countries, till at last Benediction and 
Exposition have reached the ifrequency we now see among our 
Roman Catholic neighbours. With them Benediction is the 
almost universal Sunday evening service in this country and in 
America, and is admittedly far more popular than the Mass it- 
self with a large class of worshippers. The change has been 
enormous and far-reaching ; it has altered the whole popular 
conception of the Eucharist 

Side by side with the Culius Euckarisiice^ we may note the 
growth of that dread of the loss of the slightest particle ofthe 
consecrated species which led to the withdrawal of the chalice 
from the laity. Here again we have a similar instance of the 
application of a too rigorous logic to the doctrine of the Rea 
Presence. Western theologians pressed the need of reverent 
care for the sacred gift to such an extent that they mutilated 
the Communion of the faithful, for fear of accidents. Beginning 
from motives of reverence to our Lord, they ended in disobeying 
His command " Drink ye all of it" 

Let us now turn to the East. 

During all the Christian centuries the practice of the Holy 
Orthodox Eastern Church has remained untouched by what has 
gone on in the West. The liturgies of SS. Basil and John 
Chrysostom have been celebrated upon Sunday and festival, 
just as of old. The faithful have always received in both kinds 
and the Blessed Sacrament has been continuously reserved in 
every church and taken to the sick and infirm. The ceremonial 
surroundings are no less magnificent than those of the West — 
to many they seem far more impressive. The closed doors and 
drawn curtain at the time of the consecration proclaim, in no 



174 CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH 

uncertain way, that the unfathomable mystery is being accom- 
plished which passes man's understanding, and which the angels 
desire to look into. There is no shadow of doubt as to the Real 
Presence or the true sacrifice. The priest offers to God the 
Father "this reasonable and unbloody worship," and prays 
Him to send His Holy Spirit to make the bread the Body and 
the wine the Blood of Christ The language throughout the 
liturgy is more definite on the Sacrifice and Real Presence 
than that of the Roman missal. But there is no Exposition or 
Benediction, no procession of the Holy Eucharist, and there 
are no ** visits '* to " the Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle." 
The external marks and gestures of adoration are only used in 
connexion with the liturgy itself and more specially with the 
act of Communion. Although no one genuflects when passing 
before the reserved Sacrament, the priest prostrates himself 
before the holy Gifts when in the act of taking them for the 
Communion of the sick, because it is for that sacrificial act that 
the Divine Presence is given. Yet the Eastern is as much at 
home in his church and has as strong a realization of the presence 
of God as any Western. And it is in the East that an even 
deeper and stronger faith in the reality of the Eucharistic gift 
carries out to the letter, by the Communion of children, the 
command of Him who said, " Suffer the little children to come 

unto Me." 

Is it not a remarkable fact that, whereas in the West the 
mediaeval application of a relentless (and shall we say human ?) 
logic to this Divine mystery has been followed by negations, 
heresies and schisms, with a materialising denial of the truth of 
the Eucharist, the faith of Christians throughout the East in our 
Lord's presence has never wavered ? 



APPENDIX VII 

A Letter from Bishop Jolly about Introducing the 

Surplice. 

The ten shil. I'm afraid exceed my claim for postage upon 
the Fund. Since writing the above a thought has taken 
possession of my old noddle, which, had it entered before your 
transmission of Uie money, I would have had less hesitation to 
lay before your kind indulgence. The surplice is now pretty 
generally, if not universally, used through Ab". Diocese ; 
and that we may promote uniformity in a practice so very 



THE SCOTTISH LITURGY 1 75 

ancient and decent, I would have requested of your goodness 
to order and get made for us in Ed\, where it can best be 
done, I imagine, a decent surplice, of best description for each 
of us (Mr. P. and me). Now, as you are going to send a parcel 
for him, might not you quickly get ready two such, and send all 
in a Box, to be added in price to theirs? But, even by the 
Mail, I would have them (if no other conveyance be found) 
before Christmas-day, that we may then consecrate them in 
honour of that high Festival. I shall soon, I hope, find some 
opportunity of remitting the whole price. Pardon this freedom, 
my very good sir, and grant the request of your obliged servant, 
who will go to the expense of a new scarf with his surplice, 
which may be wrapt up in it 



[In margin] 1825 Bp. Jolly to Mr. Pressley. 

[Endorsed] The Reverend James Walker 

N. 22 Stafford Street 
Edinburgh 



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XXV-XXVII. Elizabethan Episcopal Administration. An 

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