The Scottish Reformation Part 12

[Sidenote: He leaves Edinburgh.]

This great national calamity preyed on the spirit and broke the already waning strength of Knox. In the month of October in that year[222] he had a stroke of paralysis or of apoplexy, which for a time laid him aside altogether from work, and permanently enfeebled his const.i.tution.

As in the case of Wycliffe in the fourteenth century, his opponents exulted over his misfortune, and circulated maliciously exaggerated accounts of his condition, on which probably their more malicious and notoriously fict.i.tious accounts of his last illness were founded. But this first seizure was not so severe as to put a final arrest on his activities. Before many weeks were over he had so far recovered as to be able, in part at least, to resume his labours. He was able in a measure to continue them through the anxious and unquiet months of the succeeding winter and spring--bearing faithful testimony to the principles, religious and political, which he had long professed; standing up resolutely in defence of the authority of the young prince, when many, who had formerly sworn allegiance to him, led by the intriguing laird of Lethington and the "fause" house of Hamilton, went over to the party of his popish mother. He exposed their sophistries, and fearlessly rebuked their defection, even after they had gained for the time the supremacy in Edinburgh. Others might truckle to them or quail before them, but that palsied old man, with all his former plainness and much of his former fire, persevered in denouncing their treachery and discrediting their proposals. Threatenings were uttered against his life if he persisted in his course; protection seems to have been refused him by the party against the violence of their lawless followers; and one evening (as had often happened to Calvin in his years of conflict) a musket-ball was fired in at the window of his house, and lodged in the roof of the apartment in which he was sitting. Again and again faithful citizens, an attached kirk-session, and John Craig, then his colleague in the ministry, entreated him to remove for a time to some place where his life would be safe from violence, and whence he could return to his loving and beloved flock as soon as the prevailing faction should be put down, or should vacate the city. But he heard them all unmoved, until at last they were constrained to tell him plainly that if he was attacked they had made up their minds to peril their lives in his defence, and if they were compelled to shed blood in the contest it must lie on his head. Thus "sore against his will,"[223] as one of the earliest historians of his declining years tells us, and "almost thrust out by the authority of the church court,"[224] as another of them has it, he, on the 5th May 1571, took farewell of Edinburgh for a time, and crossing the Firth of Forth at Leith moved on by short and easy stages through Fife to the city in which "G.o.d had first opened his mouth" to proclaim His truth, and for which to the last he, as well as the Good Regent, cherished a special affection. As Mr John Davidson, then a teacher in one of the colleges, has expressed it in homely Scotch:--

"Thou knawis he lude the by the lave, For _first_ in the he gave the rout Till Antechrist that Romische slave, Preicheing that Christ did only save.

Bot _last_ of Edinburgh exprest, Quhen he was not far fra his grave He came to the by all the rest."[225]

[Sidenote: His preaching in St Andrews.]

In St Andrews the reformer was sure to be free from personal danger, and on the whole to have the sympathy of the citizens; though it was not to be supposed that--in the city and university where the late Archbishop Hamilton had been long supreme, and had recently been claiming to exercise the authority of Chancellor of the University, and new founder of St Mary's College,[226] and where he had left behind several relations and dependents more compliant with the new order of things than himself--there were not to be found in this crisis several influential persons who had more sympathy with their late chief and with the selfish and crooked policy of the Hamiltons than with the straightforward course and steadfast fidelity of the dauntless reformer, and who would have little relish for his earnest warnings and stern reproofs. The notices preserved to us regarding this last and, so far as is yet known, longest visit of Knox to St Andrews are both detailed and interesting. From the simple and loving Memorials of his attendant, Richard Bannatyne, we learn that all the time he was there--_i.e._, from the beginning of July 1571 to the 17th of August 1572--he preached every Sunday, and expounded the prophecies of Daniel to the middle of the ninth chapter, applying the words of the prophet to the circ.u.mstances of Scotland at the time, and inveighing in the strongest terms against "the b.l.o.o.d.y house of Hamilton" and its abettors for their deceit, treachery, and turbulence, their base murder of the Good Regent, and cunning plot to restore a popish queen.[227] These themes, to which in the applications of his sermons he ever and anon returned, woke up all the fire and fervour of the old man eloquent; and if it might not be said, as in earlier days, that every sermon was of more value to the cause he defended than five hundred armed men, yet the report of his untiring zeal and unswerving fidelity would still contribute greatly to animate and cheer the adherents of the young prince and of the new regent in all parts of the land.

As I have hinted, there were some in the city to whom such discourses could not fail to be distasteful--some who refused to attend on his ministry, and were perhaps so stung by what was reported of his sharp but not undeserved reproofs that they were compelled to throw off the mask they had hitherto worn, and soon after openly to apostatise from the faith which for several years they had professed and taught. But the effect on many of the young men in attendance on the university, or acting as regents in its colleges, was salutary and enduring; and perhaps it was not without special intention that, when the door was shut against him in Edinburgh and the ears of the men in power there were closed against his counsels, he betook himself to what was still the princ.i.p.al university in the realm, and made his last appeals to the rising hopes of the church and country there. Such discourses as he then delivered, coming from one they had already learned to venerate, could not fail to form or foster in their ingenuous minds that fidelity to the reformed faith, that jealousy of popery, and that hatred of its cruelty and tyranny, which distinguished them to the last.

[Sidenote: Melville's sketch of Knox.]

James Melville, whose plastic nature and gentle spirit retained through life the impressions then made, supplements in his Diary the notices in Bannatyne's Memorials, and, in a pa.s.sage which has been often quoted, gives a very fresh and vivid sketch of the old reformer. "Bot of all the benefites I haid that yeir"--the first year he was a student in St Andrews, and had "drunk of St Leonard's well"--"the greatest," he tells us, "was the coming of that maist notable profet and apostle of our nation, Mr Jhone Knox, to St Androis; wha be the faction of the Quein occupeing the castell and town of Edinbruche was compellit to remove thairfra with a number of the best, and chusit to com to St Androis. I hard him teatche ther the prophecie of Daniel that simmer and the wintar following. I haid my pen and my litle book, and tuk away sic things as I could comprehend. In the opening upe of his text he was moderat the s.p.a.ce of an halff houre; bot when he enterit to application he maid me sa to grew and tremble that I could nocht hald a pen to wryt. I hard him oftymes utter these thretenings [against the faction then] in the hicht of their pryde, quhilk the eis [_i.e._, eyes] of monie saw cleirlie brought to pa.s.s within few yeirs upon the captean of that castle, the Hamiltones, and the Quein hirselff. He ludgit down in the Abbay besyde our Collage."[228] So far was it from being true, as is commonly a.s.serted, that he had caused the destruction of the abbey and of the abbey church or cathedral in 1559, that in 1571 he found a habitable building there, in which he, a frail old man, with his wife and children, could pa.s.s the winter in comfort. It, we know from a letter of his antagonist, Archibald Hamilton, was "the new ludgene of the abbey,"[229] or _novum hospitium_, built for the reception of Mary of Guise, the queen of James V.[230] It was in the immediate vicinity of St Leonard's College, and our diarist further tells us: "Our regents, Mr Nicol Dalgleise, Mr Wilyeam Colace, and Mr Jhone Davidsone, went in ordinarilie to his grace [or devotional exercises] efter denner and soupper.... Mr Knox wald sum tymes com in and repose him in our Collage yeard [that is the gardens immediately to the west of the _novum hospitium_, adjoining St Leonard's College], and call us schollars unto him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw G.o.d and His wark in our contrey, and stand be the guid cause, to use our tyme weill, and lern the guid instructiones, and follow the guid exemple of our maisters."[231] No wonder, in these circ.u.mstances, that he is able to add, "Our haill collage, maisters and schollars, war sound and zelus for the guid cause," or that we can now still further add that thence proceeded several of the men who were to uphold it most resolutely in the evil days which followed.

[Sidenote: Opposition in St Andrews.]

In the New College we are told, "whowbeit Mr Jhone Dowgla.s.s, then Rector [and Princ.i.p.al] was guid aneuche," yet the "uther maisters and sum of the regentes war evill-myndit," and "hated Mr Knox and the guid cause";[232] and two of them, Archibald and John Hamilton, soon after apostatised, betook themselves to the Continent, and rose to high office in the Universities of Louvain and Paris, where the one in not inelegant Latin, and the other in courtly Scotch, sought to vindicate their conduct, and to traduce and refute their former co-religionists. Some of the masters of the Old College also, as Bannatyne has recorded, hated the plain-speaking reformer, though "be outward gesture and befoir his face thei wald seime and apeir to favore and love him above the rest."[233] The Hamiltons especially seem to have given him considerable occasion to complain of their bitter and unguarded criticisms, and one of them, stung by his denunciations, challenged him to defend his doctrine in the schools of the university. This he at first refused, maintaining that the pulpit was not to be controlled by the university schools, nor the church put into subjection to the academy.

[Sidenote: Patrick Adamson.]

St Andrews at that time was the _rendezvous_ of others of the adherents of the young prince, who did not feel themselves safe under the faction then in possession of the castle and city of Edinburgh. One of these, Mr John Durie of Leith, was "for stoutness and zeall in the guid cause mikle renouned and talked of." He was an enthusiastic leader of the volunteers of his day. "The gown was na sooner af and the Byble out of hand fra the kirk, when on ged the corslet, and fangit was the hagbot, and to the fields."[234] Another was Robert Leckprevick, the famous printer, who brought his types and printing-press with him, and so did notable service to the cause. "He haid then in hand," Melville tells us, "Mr Patrik Constant's [or Adamson's[235]] Catechisme of Calvin, converted in Latin heroic vers, quhilk with the author was mikle estimed of";[236] and deservedly so, for Adamson was an accomplished scholar, was using his scholars.h.i.+p for the church's good, was eulogised by Lawson, Knox's colleague and successor, and had not yet developed that spirit of subserviency to the powers that be which afterwards proved his ruin.

The printer had also the honour of publis.h.i.+ng in St Andrews the last work which engaged the thoughts of the reformer. This was his 'Answer to a letter of a Jesuit named Tyrie.' It had been drawn up some years before, but was now carefully revised and enlarged, and exhibited his matured views respecting several of the most notable subjects of controversy between the reformed and unreformed churches. Possibly it may have been because he had detected through all their disguises the secret leaning of the two Hamiltons to Romanist or semi-Romanist views regarding the apostolical succession, the nature of the sacraments, and the unfailing visibility and perpetuity of the church, that he now so fully entered into a controversy which previously he had been inclined to shun. Perhaps this is what is hinted at in the preface, in which he says: "Wonder not, gentill reidar, that sic ane argument suld proceid fra me in thir dolorous days after that I have taken gude-night at the warld and at all the fasherie of the same.... There ar sevin yeares past sen a scrole send from a Jesuite to his brother was presented unto me be a faithfull brother requyring sum answer to be maid to the same....

Amongs my other caires I scriblit that which followis, and that in few dayis; which being finished I repented of my laubour, and purposed fullie to have suppressed it. Which, na dout I had done, if that the devil had not steirit up the Jesuites of purpois to trouble G.o.dlie harts, with the same argumentis which Tyrie usis, amplifyed and set furth with all the dog eloquence that Sathan can devyse for suppressing of the free progres of the Evangell of Jesus Christ." Then, after a touching reference to the hard lot of his dispersed flock "suffering lytill les calamitie than did the faithfull efter the persecutioun of Steaphen," and an earnest pet.i.tion that G.o.d would grant them one day to meet in glory, he entreats the brethren to pray for _him_, that G.o.d "in His mercy will pleis to put end to my long and panefull battell," as he was unable to fight as erewhile he had done, and longed for release, though still resigned to bear patiently whatsoever G.o.d saw meet to lay upon this, his "wicked carkase."[237]

[Sidenote: The St Andrews a.s.sembly.]

In March 1572 the General a.s.sembly was held at St Andrews in the schools of St Leonard's College.[238] This place was no doubt chosen in part at least for the convenience of the aged reformer, whose counsel in that time of trouble was specially needed. It was the last a.s.sembly at which he was able to be present, and probably the first witnessed by Davidson and Melville. "Thair," the latter narrates, "was motioned the making of bischopes, to the quhilk Mr Knox opponit himselff directlie and zealuslie";[239] and thus probably were implanted in the youthful student's mind the germs of those presbyterian principles which were nurtured by intercourse with his uncle Andrew Melville, and were retained by him to the last with heroic tenacity.

[Sidenote: Three Kinds of Bishops.]

Two months before this a convention at Leith had given its sanction to a sort of mongrel episcopacy, nominally to secure the t.i.thes more completely to the church, but really to secure the bulk of them by a more regular t.i.tle to certain covetous n.o.blemen who sought in this way to reimburse themselves for their services in the cause of the Reformation.[240] Chief among these n.o.blemen was the Earl of Morton, then one of the chief supporters of the young prince, and soon after regent of the kingdom. Having secured a presentation to the Archbishopric of St Andrews for Mr John Douglas before mentioned, he came over to the city, had him elected by the chapter in terms of the convention, and on the 10th of February inaugurated into his office.

This function was performed by Wynram, Superintendent of Fife, according to the Order followed in the admission of Superintendents, save that the Bishop of Caithness, the Superintendent of Lothian, and Mr David Lindsay, who sat beside Douglas, laid their hands on his head. Knox had preached that day as usual; but, as Bannatyne is careful to tell us, had "refuised to inaugurat the said bischope";[241] and as others add had "denounced anathema to the giver, anathema to the receaver,"[242] who as rector and princ.i.p.al had already far more to do than such an aged man could hope to overtake.[243] It was in reference to the same appointment that Adamson, as yet uncorrupted by Court influences, had a few days before in a sermon from the same pulpit given utterance to his famous distinction of three kinds of bishops, my lord bishop, my lord's bishop, and the Lord's bishop, the first of whom had been in time of popery, the second was now brought in merely to enable my lord to draw the kirk rents, and the third was the evangelical pastor as he should be in times of thorough reformation.[244]

One more brief sketch from the Diary of the quaint but graphic chronicler on whom I have repeatedly drawn may conclude our notice of these last labours of the reformer, and bring us to his last illness and death. "The town of Edinbruche recovered againe [out of the hands of the queen's faction] and the guid and honest men therof retourned to thair housses,[245] Mr Knox with his familie past hame to Edinbruche." During the time of his residence in St Andrews he was very weak. "I saw him everie day of his doctrine," says Melville, "go hulie and fear with a furring of martriks about his neck, a staff in the an hand, and guid G.o.dlie Richart Ballanden, his servand, halding upe the uther oxtar, from the abbey to the paroche kirk; and be the said Richart and another servant lifted upe to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first entrie; bot or he haid done with his sermont he was sa active and vigorus that he was lyk to ding that pulpit in blads, and fly out of it."[246]

[Sidenote: His Message to Charles IX.]

Soon after his return to Edinburgh he found himself quite unable to preach in the large church which he had formerly occupied, and a smaller one was fitted up for him in the western part of the nave of St Giles.[247] But not even so were his services to be long available. On one occasion only after his return may it be said that the old fire burst out with all its former fierceness and brilliancy. This was in September, when tidings reached him of the b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre of St Bartholomew's day in France. "Being conveyed to the pulpit," Dr M'Crie tells us, "and summoning up his remaining strength, he thundered the vengeance of G.o.d against 'that cruel murderer and false traitor, the King of France,' and [borrowing the language of the Old Testament prophets] desired Le Croc, the French amba.s.sador, to tell his master that sentence was p.r.o.nounced against him in Scotland, that the divine vengeance would never depart from him nor from his house, if repentance did not ensue; but his name would remain an execration to posterity, and none proceeding from his loins should enjoy his kingdom in peace."[248]

The only further notice of his work is by Melville, who simply informs us that after "inst.i.tuting in his roum, be the ordinar calling of the kirk and congregation, Mr James Lawsone, a man of singular learning, zeal, and eloquence, ... he tuk him to his chamber and most happelie and comfortablie departed this lyff."[249]

With this kindly notice by his youthful admirer this lecture would have ended, had I not promised to the late Dean Stanley several years ago that, when a suitable opportunity occurred, I would not fail publicly to advert to a shameless misrepresentation of the closing scene to which he had directed my attention. This originated with Archibald Hamilton, already referred to as one of the two masters of the New College, who apostatised from the Protestant faith, and after his flight to the Continent published the most barefaced lies of his old antagonist and the n.o.ble men who were a.s.sociated with him in his hard battle and well-earned triumph. These lies were exposed and refuted at the time by Princ.i.p.al Smeton of Glasgow, himself a convert from that Society of Jesus which Hamilton ultimately joined. But as they have been revived in our own day, and distributed in the form of a tract by Popish emissaries at the doors of Protestant churches in London, and as one of a series bearing the sensational t.i.tle of "Death-bed Scenes," I shall, in fulfilment of my promise, subjoin a brief account of the reformer's last illness and death, taken almost exclusively from the contemporary narratives of Bannatyne and Smeton, the former of whom was an eye-witness, and the latter of whom had full information from Lawson,[250] who also was an eye-witness of all. This, I feel a.s.sured, is all that is required to set matters in their true light.

[Sidenote: Popish Calumny.]

The vague charges of immorality brought against the reformer by those calumniators, ancient and modern, may be dismissed at once as nothing more than the stock-in-trade of hard-pressed controversialists in the sixteenth century. Had there been the slightest foundation for them, some of Knox's many opponents in Scotland--Ninian Winzet, or the Abbot of Crossraguel, or Tyrie the Jesuit, or Hamilton himself before he left the country--would not have scrupled openly to upbraid him with them.

Neither would the culprits among the Protestant clergy and laity, whom at various times he subjected to so rigorous a discipline, have borne this patiently at his hands had he himself been a known offender. It was his character which gave him his influence both at home and abroad, both with friends and with foes, and could it have been successfully a.s.sailed, it would not have been left to two Jesuits in a foreign land to lead the a.s.sault after he was silenced in death.

Such, however, I hardly need to a.s.sure you was not the end of the restorer of a really holy church in Scotland, if aught of credit is to be given to the unanimous testimony of those who attended him during his last illness and witnessed its closing scene, though it may have been the end which Popish controversialists in the sixteenth century deemed meet for him--as well as for Luther and Calvin and many more of whom the world was not worthy--as it is in one of the foulest legends with which their successors in the nineteenth century think it fair to supplement the legends of their predecessors in the sixteenth. According to them Luther was the child of a demon, not figuratively but literally; Calvin was eaten up of worms, like Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem and was smitten by the judgment of G.o.d, because (though apparently in this they confound him with a later Herod) he affected divine honours. To mention such slanders, as the sceptical Bayle has said with special reference to the case of Knox, is all that is needed to refute them.

They are the product of malignity so evident that it defeats itself. I know but one parallel to them in our literature, and it has the excuse that it has come down to us from the dark ages.[251] Some would persuade us that the time has come when we might afford to forget old controversies and to shake hands with our former antagonists, but such occurrences as these tend to show that such forgetfulness and affectation of cordiality is likely to be all on one side.

And now let me simply set over against these fables, in as abridged form as I can, the unvarnished statements of Bannatyne and Smeton, the latter of which was published in reply to Hamilton who first gave shape to these charges, and which hitherto has been deemed a conclusive refutation of them.[252]

[Sidenote: His last Illness.]

[Sidenote: His Dying Exhortations.]

On the 10th of November, the day after he inducted Lawson as his colleague, he was seized with a violent cough and began to breathe with difficulty. Many, who desired ardently, if it were possible, to detain him a little longer here, advised him to call in the a.s.sistance of skilful physicians. He readily complied with their advice, though he felt that the end of his warfare was now nigh at hand. Next day he caused the wages of all his servants to be paid, and earnestly exhorted them all to be careful to lead holy and Christian lives. On the 13th, being obliged by the increase of his malady to leave off his ordinary course of reading in the Scriptures (for every day he had been wont to read some chapters of the Old and New Testaments, especially some of the Psalms and Gospels), he directed his wife and servant to read to him each day the 17th chapter of St John's Gospel, one or other of the chapters of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. On the 14th he rose early, apparently supposing it had been the Lord's day, and being asked why he did so when he was so ill, he replied that he had been meditating all night on the resurrection of the Lord (the subject which would have fallen to be treated next in order by him in his ministry), and that he was now prepared to ascend the pulpit to communicate to his brethren the consolation he had enjoyed in his own soul. Next day, though very sick, he prevailed on Durie, already mentioned, and another friend, Steward by name, to remain to dinner with him, ordered a hogshead of wine in his cellar to be pierced for them, and desired Steward to send for some of it as long as it lasted, for he should not tarry till it was done. Little is recorded of him for several days after this, but it was probably in this interval that he was visited by many of the chief of the n.o.bility, including the Earl of Morton, so soon to be created regent,[253] and by many members of his congregation. All of these he "solidly exhorted" and comforted. On the 20th or 21st he gave orders that his coffin should be prepared. On the 22nd he sent for the ministers, elders, and deacons of the church, that he might give them his last counsels and take final farewell of them. In the brief but solemn address which he delivered to them he called G.o.d to witness, whom he served in the Gospel of His Son, that he had taught nothing but the pure and solid doctrine of the Gospel of the Son of G.o.d, and had never indulged his own private pa.s.sions, or spoken from any hatred of the persons of those against whom he had denounced the heavy judgments of G.o.d. He exhorted them to persevere in the truth of the Gospel and in their allegiance to their young sovereign, and dismissed them with his solemn blessing. To Lawson and Lindsay, whom he asked to remain behind, he gave a last earnest message for his old friend Kirkaldy of Grange, the commandant of the castle, who had gone over to the party of the queen,[254] and whose soul, notwithstanding, he said, was dear to him--as being one of his congregation in the castle of St Andrews, and a sharer in his hard lot in France--so that he would not have it perish if by any means he could save it. "Go and tell him," he said, "that neither the craggy rock in which he miserably trusts, nor the carnal prudence of that man whom he regards as a demiG.o.d, nor the a.s.sistance of foreigners, as he falsely flatters himself, shall deliver them, but he shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment and hung on a gallows in the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life and betake himself to the mercy of G.o.d."

[Sidenote: His Consolation.]

On the 23rd the difficulty of his breathing had greatly increased, and he seems to have thought that his end was near at hand. To one of his most intimate friends who asked him if he felt great pain, he replied that that was not reckoned as pain by him which would be the end of many miseries and the beginning of perpetual joy. And soon after, apparently supposing his end was come, he repeated the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, adding certain paraphrases of his own on each pet.i.tion of the prayer and article of the creed to the great comfort of those who stood by; and then lifting up his hands to heaven he once more said, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." During the succeeding night he caused the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians to be read and re-read to him, and repeatedly said to himself, "O! how sweet and salutary consolation does the Lord provide for me in this chapter." The following day, about noon, he once more sat up in bed, but owing to his extreme weakness was not able to remain long in that posture. About three in the afternoon one of his eyes failed, and his tongue performed its office less readily than before. About six in the evening he again said to his wife, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor," referring to the instructions he had given on the 13th.[255]

When this had been done, he continued for some hours in troubled slumber. It is in this occurrence alone that there can be got the slightest foundation for the slanders which his traducers have circulated. And it is only necessary to quote the account given of it by those who witnessed it to show that it was as honourable to the dying confessor as the gross misrepresentation of it was dishonourable to his opponents. During these hours he uttered frequent sighs and groans, so that those who stood by could not doubt that he was contending with some grievous temptation. When he awoke they asked him what was the cause of his distress. He answered that in the course of his life he had had many contests with his spiritual adversary. Often he had been tempted to despair of G.o.d's mercy because of the greatness of his sins, often also tempted by the allurements of the world to forget his calling to endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. But now the cunning adversary had a.s.sailed him in another form, and endeavoured to persuade him that he had merited heaven itself and a blessed immortality by the faithful discharge of the duties of his high office. "But blessed be G.o.d," exclaimed the dying reformer, "who hath brought seasonably to my mind those pa.s.sages of Scripture by which I was enabled to quench the fiery dart, 'What hast thou, that thou hast not received?' 'By the grace of G.o.d I am what I am,' and 'Not I, but the grace of G.o.d in me' ...

wherefore I give thanks to my G.o.d by Jesus Christ who has been pleased to grant me the victory. And I am firmly persuaded that ... in a short time, without any great bodily pain, and without any distress of mind, I shall exchange this mortal and miserable life for an immortal and blessed life through Jesus Christ."

[Sidenote: His Peaceful Death.]

This persuasion of his speedy and happy departure was soon to be justified by the event. After evening prayers Dr Preston, his physician, asked him whether he had heard them, when he replied, "I would to G.o.d that ye and all men heard them as I have heard them, and I praise G.o.d for that heavenly sound." Shortly after the signs of immediate dissolution appeared, his friends gathered round his bed, and his faithful servant addressed him: "Now, sir, the time that you have long called to G.o.d for, to wit an end of your battle, is come. And seeing all natural power now fails, remember those comfortable promises, which often times ye have shown to us, of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And that we may understand and know that ye hear us, make us some sign." And so he lifted up one of his hands, and incontinent thereafter rendered up his spirit apparently without pain or movement, so that he seemed rather to fall asleep than to die.

Such was the account of his last illness and death transmitted by those who attended on him and witnessed it, a death worthy of his n.o.ble life, and fully justifying the brief comment of Smeton, "Surely, whatever opprobrious things profane men may utter, G.o.d hath in him given us an example of the right way as well of dying as of living." It is true, as his heartless traducer takes care to remind us, no dirge was chanted over his remains, no ma.s.s of requiem was celebrated for his soul. He and his countrymen had long ceased to believe in the worth of such priestly ceremonies, or to imagine that their eternal state could be affected by them, or by aught save Christ's finished work and their own faith and repentance while G.o.d's day of grace was prolonged to them here. The brief eulogy p.r.o.nounced over his grave by the stern and reserved regent[256] was a truer and more impressive testimony to his worth than the most gorgeous celebration of Romish rites which he could but have shared with a Borgia or a Betoun. The stern simplicity of his grave, which, like his master Calvin's, was till lately preserved in the memory of men without stone or bronze to mark it out, tells a tale very different from that his traducer hints at; and if his bitter taunts shall lead the reformer's countrymen now to erect a material monument to him in some measure corresponding to the benefits he has been honoured to confer on them, this attack on his fair fame will have been overruled for good.

[Sidenote: The Scottish Nation his Monument.]

But his real monument will never be one graven by art or man's device.

It is one more n.o.ble, more lasting far. It is to be found in the life G.o.d enabled him to live, and the work G.o.d honoured him to do. It is to be seen in the plans he devised, in the inst.i.tutions he founded, in the people he moulded anew, when the old church had confessedly failed in its mission. And while the Scottish nation continues to retain these inst.i.tutions, and to bear this impress, it will continue the grandest, as it is the most telling, monument to the memory of its n.o.ble-hearted and single-minded reformer.

FOOTNOTES:

[220] Dr Lorimer in British and Foreign Evangelical Review for 1872, p.

758.

[221] [The Good Regent was a.s.sa.s.sinated on the 23rd of January 1569-70.]

[222] [1570.]

[223] Bannatyne's Memoriales, Ban. Club, p. 118.

[224] See Laing's Knox, vi. 651.

[225] M'Crie's Knox, 1855, p. 459; Rogers' Three Scottish Reformers, p.

97.

[226] [Archbishop Hamilton was hanged at the market cross of Stirling on the 7th of April 1571.]

[227] Bannatyne's Memoriales, Ban. Club, p. 255.