derous grip of his assassins. Knox remembered, as if it had happened yesterday, the proud and imperious tyrant who reclined on velvet cushions at the castle. window, to feast his eyes on the torments of his martyred friend. A life of such dazzling strength as Beaton's, terminating so swiftly in an abject and miserable death, may well move us to pity-it could only move Knox to irony; and if the event be not one for irony, we may say with Mr Froude, "we do not know what irony is for."

Nearly a year subsequent to the death of Beaton (April 1547) Knox took refuge with his pupils in the castle of St Andrews, which continued to be held against the Regent notwithstanding his efforts to reduce it. It became the temporary stronghold of the reforming interest, and many resorted to it for protection. Here Knox began, he tells us, "to exercise his pupils after his accustomed manner. Besides their grammar and other human authors, he read unto them a Catechism, account whereof he caused them to give publickly in the parish kirk of St Andrews. He read, moreover, unto them the evangel of John, proceeding where he had left at his departing from Langniddrie, and that lecture he read in the chapel within the castle at a certain hour." In this modest way Knox introduces us to the great epoch of his life which was approaching. Now in his forty-second year, with his convictions fully formed, and with obvi ous powers of expressing and defending them beyond those of any other man of his time, he had yet remained, as we have seen, silent. The awe and respon

sibility of speaking to the people in God's stead

weighed heavily on his mind as on Luther's, and the arguments of his friends failed to move him. Struck with the "manner of his doctrine," they "began earnestly to travail with him that he would take the preaching place upon him." John Rough, who was preacher in the castle, and who seems honestly to have felt his own weakness in comparison with the gifts of the reformer, and Henry Balnaves, a Lord of Session, and one of the most influential of the early reformers, joined in urging this request. But he tells us "he utterly refused, alleging that he would not run where God had not called him." This refusal, however, only sharpened the desire of his friends to see him in his natural vocation, and they devised, in company with Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, equally eager with themselves, a plan by which they hoped to surprise him into compliance with their designs. The story is one of the most singular and characteristic in all the reformer's life, and can only be told in his own language: "Upon a certain day a sermon was had of the election of ministers, what power the congregation (how small soever it was, passing the number of two or three) had above any man in whom they supposed and espied the gifts of God to be, and how dangerous it was to refuse, and not to hear the voice of such as desire to be instructed. These and other heads declared, the said John Rough, preacher, directed his words to the said John Knox, saying, 'Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge even from all those that are here present, which is this: In the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of these that pre

sently call you by my mouth, I charge you that you refuse not this holy vocation, but as ye tender the glory of God, the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me whom ye understand well enough to be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take upon you the public office and charge of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply His graces with you.' And in the end he said to those who were present, Was not this your charge to me, and do you not approve the vocation?' They answered, 'It was, and we approve it.' Whereat the said John, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears, and withdrew himself to his chamber; his countenance and behaviour from that day till the day that he was compelled to present himself to the public place of preaching, did sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart; for no man saw any sign of mirth of him, neither yet had he pleasure to accompany any man many days together." *

A special necessity soon occurred to him to enter upon his vocation. Dean John Arran, "a rotten Papist, had long troubled John Rough in his preaching." and Knox was roused to vindicate the doctrine of his friend "in open audience in the parish church of St Andrews." The people heard him gladly, and called upon him with one consent to give them by his preaching "probation of what he had affirmed; for if it was true, they had been miserably deceived." And so the next Sunday Knox preached in the parish church, and expounded at length his views of the Papacy. He at *History, Book I.

once urged the most decided opinions, and supported his assertions under the different heads of life, doctrine, laws, and subjects. The sermon made a great noise, as may be imagined; and on the remonstrance of Hamilton, the bishop-elect (not yet "execrated"— "consecrated," they call it, bitterly remarks Knox), with Winram, the sub-prior and vicar-general during the vacancy of the see, Knox and Rough were summoned to give an account of their doctrine in a convention of grey-friars and black-friars appointed in St Leonard's Yards. Certain articles were read to them, and are admitted by Knox to contain a fair representation of his views. They are preserved in his History, and enable us to understand very clearly, in connection with the dispute which followed, the position which he now occupied. The Pope is asserted to be Antichrist, the mass abominable idolatry, purgatory a falsehood, and bishops, except as ordinary preachers, to have no function. When we contrast such views with those of Luther or Latimer at the outset, we perceive at once what comparatively clear and determinate ground, as opposed to the old Catholic system, was taken up by our reformer. He offered no points of mere advance and improvement upon that system; he shewed no regretful dealing nor sympathetic connection with itbut a complete and decisive reaction against it. It was not merely corrupt, but absolutely abandoned to evil -the Church not of God, but of the devil. "Ye will leave us no kirk," said the grey-friar (Arbugkill) who rashly entered the lists with the reformer on the occasion, and, driven to shifts by his arguments, had nothing to reply but that "the apostles had not receaved

the Holy Ghost when they did write their Epistles” —“Ye will leave us no kirk," urged the friar. “Indeed," said Knox, "in David I read that there is a Church of the malignants; for he says, 'Odi Ecclesiam Malignantium.'" It was clear that there was no room for compromise here. Knox could recognise no authority, no sanctity, no respectability in the Papacy of his country. The very order of bishops, as identified with it, had already become undivine to his mind. He was a Presbyterian all at once, by the mere force of antipathy to Catholicism as it presented itself to his view. The absence of positive doctrinal sentiments in these articles is observable; but too much is not to be made of this. The points of definite negation to the papal system were necessarily those which came into most prominence; and in the sermon which was the occasion of them, he tells us that he spoke also of the "doctrine of justification expressed in Scripture, which teach that man is justified by faith alone—that the blood of Jesus Christ purges us from all our sins.”*

Knox's activity at this period was but shortlived. A French squadron appeared before the castle of St Andrews in the end of June of the same year; and the brave garrison who had held out so long, being now pressed both by sea and land, were forced to capitulate. The honourable terms on which they had surrendered were speedily violated; and Knox, who had shared the fate of his comrades, was transported along with them to France, and then confined as a prisoner on board the French galleys.

This may be said to close the first great period in

* Book I.