We refer now to injudicious extremes, such, indeed, as our Lord condemned, and which seem a fair subject for notice amongst Scottish peculiarities.
But the philosophy of the question is curious.

Scotland has ever made her boast of the simplest form of worship, and a worship free from ceremonial, more even than the Church of England, which is received as, in doctrine and ritual, the Church of the Reformation.

In some respects, therefore, may you truly say the only standing recognised observance in the ceremonial part of Presbyterian worship is the Sabbath day--an observance which has been pushed in times past even beyond the extreme of a spirit of Judaism, as if the sabbatical ceremonial were made a substitute for all other ceremony.

In this, as well as in other matters which we have pointed out, what changes have taken place, what changes are going on! It may be difficult to assign precise causes for such changes having taken place among us, and that during the lifetime of individuals now living to remember them.

It has been a period for many changes in manners, habits, and forms of language, such as we have endeavoured to mark in this volume.