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VIII believed they heard speaking direct from heaven. They invoked their Divine King to lay the foundation of His House. Ten centuries of prescription were less to them than one promise of Christ. They have been accused of narrowness, of fanaticism, of Violence; but all the world has recognized them as men of intrepid courage, of iron will, of high devotion, who quailed not in the presence of kings. Knox, Melville, Henderson, were very different personages from those politic and temporizing prelates who showed a courtier-like subservience to Henry, or trembled lest Elizabeth should unfrock them. As churchmen, they would have no king but Christ. They practically vindicated the doctrine of Christ's Headship, by securing that no Act of Supremacy was inscribed in the statute-book of Scotland. And they had a nation at their back,—an earnestly, ardently believing nation,—"a nation," says Carlyle, "of heroes." The circumstances of their position were such that they could not, and their character and the doctrines of their Church were such that, under any circumstances, they assuredly would not have overlooked the people. The consent of the congregation—laid down by Calvin in the Institutes as an essential element in the appointment of ministers—was given effect to in the ecclesiastical constitution by means of the Call. And thus the Church of Scotland became known to history and to fame as having reconciled the seeming contradictions of an intensely ecclesiastical and a broadly popular character.

Under these auspices the General Assembly of the Kirk came into existence. Implicitly confided in by the people,