His arrival struck terror into the hearts of the Popish clergy, who instantly informed the queen-regent of the event, and procured the publication of a sentence of out lawry against him, which had been pronounced after his for mer departure from the kingdom. He nevertheless hasten ed, without a moment's hesitation, to present himself volun tarily at Stirling, and to share in the defence and danger of the Protestant preachers, who were summoned to stand trial in that city. On his way, he preached at Perth against the idolatry of the mass, and of image worship ; when a priest having imprudently attempted, as soon as the audi ence was dismissed, to exhibit his images, and celebrate mass, the indignation of the mob was excited, and, in spite of all the exertions of Knox and the other preachers, the ornaments of the church were trampled under foot, and the monasteries of the place laid in ruins. The protestant lords, having resolved to commence publicly the reformed worship wherever their authority extended, invited Knox to meet them at St. Andrew's for this purpose ; and there, in defiance of the archbishop's threatening to cause the sol diers to fire upon him in the pulpit, he boldly preached in the cathedral several successive days, and engaged the ma gistrates and inhabitants harmoniously to abolish the Po pish service and ceremonies. Accompanying the forces of the congregation, he soon appeared also in the churches of Edinburgh, where a similar reformation had taken place, and accepted the invitation of the Protestant inhabitants, as sembled in the Tolbooth church, to become their minister. Being soon after obliged to leave the metropolis, in conse quence of its occupation by the regent's army, he under took a tour of preaching through the kingdom ; and, within less than two months, travelled over the greater part of Scotland, diffusing the knowledge, and strengthening the interests of the Protestant principles wherever he went. He greatly exerted himself, by letters to Secretary Cecil, and even to Queen Elizabeth, to procure assistance from England ; and was invited to meet the agents of that court upon the important business. He received their dispatches at Berwick, and hastened to lay them before a meeting of the Protestant leaders at Stirling ; whom he was the prin cipal means of urging to such a renewal of their applica tions, as at length proved successful in securing the pow erful support of the English government. The manage ment of-this political correspondence devolved, for a time, chiefly upon his hands; hut this was a task for which he had no relish, and lie expressed great satisfaction when he was relieved from the burden, by the accession of the younger Maitland to the party of the reformers. " His zeal and ac tivity exposed him to the deadly resentment of the Papists and the queen-regent. A reward was publicly offered to any one who should apprehend or assassinate him ; Jind not actuated by hatred or avarice, lay in wait to seize Ins person. But all this did not deter him from appearing in public, and from travelling through the country, in the discharge of his duty. His exertions at this period were incredibly great. By day he was employed in preaching ; by night, in writing letters on public business. Ile was the soul of the congregation ; was always found at the post of danger ; and by his presence, his public discourses, and private adviccs, animated the whole body, and defeated the schemes employed to corrupt and diusnite them." He had a principal share, along with some other minis ters, in drawing up the Confession of Faith and First Btok of Discipline ; and one of the six ministers who assisted in the first General Assembly, in the year About the close of the year, he sustained a heavy domestic loss by the death of his valuable wife ; and, in addition to his other cares, was left with the charge of two young children. By the arrival of Queen Mary, he was called to new vigilance and vigour in support of the reformed cause ; and had even been personally denounced by his sovereign as the ring leader of her factious subjects, whom she would not fail to call to a strict account. A few days after her landing, she required his attendance in the palace ; and held a long con versation with him, in the presence of tier brother the prior of St. Andrew's, apparently with the hope of awing him into submission by her authority, if not of confounding him by her arguments. " The bold ft eedom, however, with which he replied to all her charges, and vindicated his own conduct, convinced her that the one expectation was not more vain than the other ; and the impression which she wished to make on him was left on her own mind." It re quired all his energy to counteract the influence of her arts upon the Protestant nobles, and to keep alive the zeal of the nation ; and some idea of his pulpit-orations may be formed from the words of the English ambassador, who said of him to Cecil, " the voice of one man Is able, in an hour, to put more life in us than six hundred trumpets con tinually blustering in our ears," His influence appears also from his having been frequently employed in " com posing differences of a civil nature among the Protestant nobility, and acting as mediator with the town council in behalf of the inhabitants who had incurred their displea sure. In the church of St. Giles, at that time the only place of worship in Edinburgh, he performed all the parts of ministerial duty, with the assistance only of a reader." He preached twice every Sabbath, and thrice on the other days of the week.. He met regularly once every week with the kirk-session for discipline, and with the assembly in the neighbourhood for the exercise on the scriptures. He at tended, besides, the meetings of the provincial synod and general assembly ; and, at almost every meeting of the lat ter, he received an appointment to visit and preach in some distant part of the country." As he did not indulge in ex temporaneous effusions, but devoted a part of every day to study, those labours must have been oppressive to a con stitution already much impaired ; and on this account the town council, the approbation of the assembly, ap pointed the Rev. John Craig, minister of the Canongate, to be his colleague. His public services daily became inure extensive and important, and he seemed to fill the office of a Protestant premier in the state, as much as the situation of a Presbyterian pastor in the church. During the rebel lion excited by Huntly in 1562, he contributed most essen tially by his journies, preaching, and letters, to preserve the southern counties in a state of peace, while the vigorous measures of the council crushed the insurrection in the north. He maintained a public disputation in the course of the same year, in the town of Maybole, against Quintin Ken nedy, uncle to the Earl of Cassilis, and Abbot of Crosra guel. He employed all his influence, without success, to induce the Parliament, which met in the summer of 1563, to ratify the treaty made in July 1560, and to secure the establishment of the Protestant religion. Having failed in this object, he laboured to prevent any farther injury to the cause, by publicly protesting against the queen's marriage with any person of popish sentiments, and sustained un moved all her indigiation on account of this interference. He wrote a circular letter, (agreeable to his commission from the church,) to the principal gentlemen of the Pro testant persuasion, requesting their presence in Edinburgh to counteract the oppressive measures of Mary against cer tain individuals, who had insulted her priest at Holyrood house during her absence. This application was pronounc ed by the privy-council to be treasonable ; and Knox was summoned to stand trial for the offence before an extraor dinary convention of the counsellors and other noblemen. In spite of all the artifices employed to prevail upon him to acknowledge his error, and throw himself on the queen's mercy, he boldly determined to encounter the storm ; and was triumphantly acquitted of the charge, as well as com mended for his demeanour before the court.
In March, 1564, he contracted a second marriage with Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a nobleman of amiable dispositions, who had long been a familiar and stedfast adherent of the reformer. In the same year, he defended, against all the acuteness of Secretary Maitland, in a long conference before the General Assembly, the liberties of the pulpit, and the doctrine of the resistance to wicked and tyrannical rulers; and continuing, in full con formity with his avowed principles, to preach with the ut most freedom in the church of St. Giles, he gave so much offence to the king, (Lord Darnley,) that an attempt was made to inhibit him from preaching as long as their majes ties resided in the capital. This was resolutely resisted by the town-council ; but after the murder of Rizzio, and the banishment of many of the Protestant lords, he was ob liged to withdraw from the violence of the queen's resent ment, and embraced this opportunity of paying a visit to his two sons, who had been sent to reside with their mother's relations in England. He endeavoured to render this jour ney subservient to the great cause which engaged his whole heart, by carrying a letter from the Assembly to the bishops and ministers of England, interceding for lenity to such of their brethren as scrupled to use the sacerdotal dress en joined by the laws. He returned to his charge about the
time of the queen's flight with Bothwell to Dunbar ; and was delegated by the General Assembly to repair to the west country, for the purpose of persuading the Hamiltons to join the confederated lords, in settling the distracted af fairs of the kingdom. On the 29th of July 1567, hc preach ed the sermon at the coronation of James VI. in the parish church of Stirling ; and was among the number of those, who strongly urged the trial of Mary for the alleged mur der of her husband, and adulterous connection with Both well. He did not fail, at the meeting of parliament at the end of the year, to urge the ratification of all the acts passed in 1560, in favour of the Protestant religion ; and was ap pointed one of the commissioners for drawing out the par ticular points, which pertained to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to be presented to next meeting of parliament. " Our re former had now reached that point, from which lie could take a calm and deliberate view of the bustling scene through which be had passed, and of the arduous struggle, which he had been so lung engaged in, and which he had at length brought to a happy termination."—" He now con greleased himself on the prospect of from all burden of public affairs, and of spending the remainder of his days in religious meditation."----“ He even secretly cherished the wish of resigning his charge in Edinburgh, and of retiring to that privacy, from which he had been drawn at the commencement of the Scottish reformation." But lie had yet to undergo farther trials of a public nature, and to see the security of the reformed religion endangered, and the peace of his country disturbed, by a civil war among the Protestants themselves. It is impossible to describe the anguish which he experienced at the assassi nation of the good regent Murray ; and the grief, which he indulged on account of this mournful event, preyed so deeply on his spirits, as to inflict a serious injury on his health. In the month of October 1570, he had a stroke of apoplexy, which affected his speech to a considerable de gree ; and, though in a few days he was able to resume his duty of preaching, he never recovered from the debility produced by the attack. But, though so much weakened in body, that he never went abroad except on Sabbath days to the pulpit ; yet, whenever he saw the welfare of the church and commonwealth threatened, he entered into the cause with all the keenness of his more vigorous days.
His situation became very critical in April 1571, when Kirkcaldy, the governor of Edinburgh Castle, who had gone over to the queen's party, received the Hamiltons into the garrison; and their inveteracy against him was so great, that his friends were obliged to watch his house during the night. Intimations were often given him of threatenings against his life ; and, one evening, a musket ball was fired into the window of the apartment in which lie was sitting. At the earnest entreaties of his friends, who declared their determination, if lie should be attacked, to shed their blood in his defence, he reluctantly withdrew to St. Andrew's; where he continued with undiminished boldness to de nounce the enemies of the reformed faith, and to withstand the encroachments made by its false friends upon the polity and revenues of the church. "While he was engaged in these contests, his bodily strength was every day sensibly decaying ; yet he continued to preach, although unable to walk to the pulpit without assistance; and when warmed with his subject, lie forgot his weakness, and electrified the audience with his eloquence." During his stay at St. Andrew's, he published a vindication of the reformed reli gion, in answer to a letter written to a Scots Jesuit, called Tyrie ; and seemed to have intended this work as a dying testimony to the truth, which he had long taught and de fended. From the rapid decline of his health, in spring 1572, there was every appearance of his ending his days at St. Andrew's ; but, in consequence of a cessation of hosti lities, he was invited to resume his charge at Edinburgh, where lie arrived about the end of August, and continued his public labours till the 9th of November following. On that clay, he presided at the installation of Mr. Lawson as his colleague and successor, and never again left his own house. On the Ilth of the same month, he was seized with a severe cough, which greatly affected his breathing ; but was able to see and address his friends till within a few hours of his death. Persons of every rank came in great numbers to visit him during his illness, none of whom he suffered to go away without exhortations, which he tittered with such variety and suitableness, as astonished those who waited on him. expired on the 24th day of November, 1572, in the 67th year of his age, exhausted by his extra ordinary labours of body and anxieties of mind, rather than worn clown by the number of his years. He was interred in the church-yard of St. Giles, (now the area of the Par liament square ;) and his funeral was attended by Morton, the newly elected regent, by all the nobility who were in the city, and by a great concourse of people. When his body was laid in the grave, the regent emphatically pro nounced his eulogium in the well-known words, "there lies he, who never feared the face of man." This eminent reformer was possessed, unquestionably, of strong natural talents ; and, notwithstanding his many disadvantages, was a stranger to none of the branches of tero•dyg cultivated in that age by persons of his profession. He united, in a high degree, the love of study with a dispo siti,n to active employment. A desire to propagate the reformed tenets, and to deliver his countrymen from the delusions of popery, was his ruling passion An ardent at tachment to civil liberty held the next place in his breast ; and he laboured to advance these great objects with a zeal of the most disinterested kind. His integrity was above the suspicion of corruption ; and his firmness was proof equally against the solicitation of friends, and the threats of enemies. His impetuosity frequently exposed him to dan ger; but he never neglected the precautions of prudence. He discharged his ministerial functions with the greatest assiduity, fidelity, and fervour; and no avocation or infir mity prevented him from appearing in the pulpit. He lived in the utmost cordiality with his brethren in the mi nistry ; and there is no record of his having had the slight est variance with any of his colleagues. In private life, he was both beloved and revered by his friends and domestics. When free from melancholy depressions, to which he was subject, and the morose influence of which he often lament ed, he used to indulge among his acquaintances in innocent recreations, and in sallies of humour; to which, notwith standing the gravity of. his general deportment, he had naturally a strong propensity. Although, in the course of his public life, the severer virtues of his character were most frequently called into action, yet repeated instances of acute sensibility occur in his history ; and the unaffected tenderness, which occasionally breaks forth in his private letters, shews that he was no stranger to "all the charities" of human life. Most of his faults may be traced to his natu ral temperament, and to the character of the age and coun try in which he lived. His passions were strong ; he felt the utmost keenness on every subject which interested him; and as lie felt, so he expressed himself, without disguise and without affectation. But he protested, in his last sick ness, that, in his sharpest rebukes, he was influenced by ha tred of vice, not of the vicious ; that his great aim was to reclaim the guilty ; and that, in using the means which were necessary for this end, he frequently did violence to his own feelings. He was austere, not unfeeling ; stern, not savage; vehement, not vindictive. very quali ties which now render his character less amiable, fitted him to be the instrument of Providence for advancing the Re formation among a fierce people ; and enabled him to face danger, and surmount opposition, from which a person of a more gentle spirit would have been apt to shrink back." (Robertson's History of Scotland.) He bore a striking re semblance to Luther in personal intrepidity and popular eloquence ; to Calvin, in his religious sentiments, severity of manners, and an impressive air of melancholy ; to Zuing lius, in his ardent attachment to the principles of civil li berty, and in his exertions to advance, at the same time, the reformation of the church, and the political welfare of the people ; and though not, perhaps, equal in all respects to any of those eminent characters, is well entitled to be rank ed next to them in honour, whether we consider the talents with which lie was endowed, or the important services which he performed.
In this article, we have attempted nothing more than to abridge, (as far as our limits would admit, and as nearly as possible in the words of the author,) the able and accurate life of the reformer by Dr. M•Crie ; and content ourselves with referring to that standard-woik alone, both for farther details on the subject, and for the fullest notices of the most authentic sources of original information. (q)