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 The Reformers: lectures 
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THE REFORMERS. 
 
PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK. 
 London, .... Hamilton, Adams atid Co. 
 Cambridge,. . . Macmillan and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh,. . . Douglas and Fonlis. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXV. 
 
THE REFORMERS 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED IN ST. JAMES' CHURCH, 
 PAISLEY, 
 
 MINISTERS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 GRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 
 
 GLASGOW : 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS, 
 publishers to the Mnibcrsitti. 
 
 18 85. 
 
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 These Lectures have, in substance, been delivered on 
 Sabbath evenings from a provincial pulpit by Lecturers 
 who are ministers of the same branch of our Scottish 
 Church, and graduates of the same University. It 
 was deemed seasonable, as the five hundredth anni- 
 versary of the death of Wyclif was approaching, thus 
 to commemorate the service which he and his suc- 
 cessors rendered to spiritual Christianity, and to the 
 cause of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 The selection made from among the lieformers was 
 determined by the desire to trace the general history 
 of the Reformation, from its distant beginnings in Wyclif 
 and Hus, down to its accomplishment by Luther and 
 its formulation by Calvin, taking account by the way of 
 kindred upheavals as represented by Savonarola, and 
 of the influence of the Renaissance as represented by 
 Erasmus ; and then to sketch the peculiar history of 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the Scottish Reformation from its earlier and later 
 precursors, through its two most illustrious martyrs. 
 to its consummation under John Knox. 
 
 Bach Lecturer, in dealing with the subject assigned 
 to him, has been left free to select his standpoint and 
 method of treatment, and is responsible only for his 
 own lecture. 
 
 St. James' Manse, 
 Paislet, 8th December, 1884. 
 
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 £ 
 
 MAR 
 
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 ^og/calSe. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7. WYCLIF, 1 
 
 By JOSEPH CORBETT, D.D., Glasgow. 
 
 II. BUS, 49 
 
 By DANIEL M'LEAN, B.D., Alloa. 
 
 III. SAVONAROLA, 91 
 
 By JOHN P. MITCHELL, M.A., Cupar-Fife. 
 
 IV. ERASMUS, 142 
 
 By JOHN MEIKLEJOHN, M.A., Kirkmiurhill. 
 
 V. LUTHER, . 191 
 
 By MATTHEW MUIR DICKIE, B.D., Haddington. 
 
 VI. CALVIN, 241 
 
 By JAMES ORR, B.D., Hawick. 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 VII. LOLLARDS OF KYLE AND OTHER PRECUR- 
 SORS OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION, . 296 
 By WILLIAM DICKIE, M.A., Perth. 
 
 VIII. PATRICK HAMILTON AND GEORGE WISH ART, ZU 
 By JAMES KIDD, B.D., St. Andrews. 
 
 IX. JOHN KNOX, 412 
 
 By JAMES BROWN, D.D., Paisley. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 
 
 John SEsdif. 
 
 He would be a bold man, though hardly a wise one, 
 who should undertake to say exactly when and where 
 that momentous movement originated which, in the 
 sixteenth century, startled the whole civilized world of 
 Europe, and shook to its very foundation the time- 
 honoured ecclesiastical fabric of the Papacy. The 
 Reformation was a series of events of so complex 
 a character as to bid defiance to the most resolute 
 endeavours made to trace its history back to its 
 fountain-head. It was the resultant of well-nigh 
 numberless forces, political and religious, many of 
 which had been in operation even for ages before their 
 effects took shape in the revolution with which the 
 names of Luther and Melanchthon, Calvin and Zwingli 
 are identified. In periods and localities far apart 
 from each other, the surface of society had been again 
 and again disturbed by phenomena that witnessed to 
 undercurrents of thought which, flowing along various 
 channels, were all converging: to the one sure issue, 
 and foretelling, with no uncertain voice, of a deter- 
 mined, victorious revolt from intellectual and spiritual 
 
2 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 despotism. It would betray, therefore, an utter lack 
 of historic sense, a complete misunderstanding of the 
 spirit and significance of the movement were we to 
 claim for any country or for any man the honour of 
 having really begun the work of which it was the 
 completion, and, certainly, we have no wish to inter- 
 pret in this absolute sense the title so often given 
 to John Wyclif, as " The morning star of the Informa- 
 tion." For even he had his predecessors both abroad 
 and at home. 
 
 To confine our view to our own country, his was 
 not the first English voice to make itself heard in 
 eloquent protest against the arrogant usurpations of 
 Rome. As near as may be a century and a half 
 before Wyclifs birth, the famous Robert Grosseteste 
 had been born at the little village of Stradbrook, and 
 of his character and work Matthew Paris gives this 
 summary : " He was a manifest confuter of the Pope 
 and the King, the blamer of prelates, the cor- 
 rector of monks, the director of priests, the instructor 
 of clerks, the support of scholars, the preacher to the 
 people, the persecutor of the incontinent, the sedulous 
 student of all Scripture, the hammer and the despiser 
 of the Romans." 1 In Wyclifs eyes it was one of the 
 many crimes of the Papacy that it had no honours of 
 saintship to bestow on a man whose fervent zeal for 
 the purity of the Church compelled him to denounce 
 the sins that were eating away its strength and -poi- 
 soning its influence, and were still, in his own day, 
 as virulent as before. Not fifty years had elapsed 
 after Grosseteste's death before another English hamlet 
 had given to the world the boy who subsequently be- 
 
 1 Quoted in H. Morley's English Writers, book i. chapter 22. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 3 
 
 came the " invincible doctor," the " dear Master Ockham" 
 of Martin Luther, a paragon of philosophical acumen, 
 and, at the same time, a doughty champion of national 
 independence as opposed to the political supremacy of 
 the Pope. To him, as to Wyclif after him, the doc- 
 trine of the Papal infallibility was a delusion only to be 
 laughed at by reasonable men, nor was it beyond the 
 bounds of possibility that the Pioman Pontiff might be 
 the veriest heretic under the sun, as he shrewdly sus- 
 pected was actually the case in the person of his 
 particular enemy, John XXII. Much about the same 
 time, at Hartfield in Sussex, Thomas Bradwardin was 
 born, destined to be known as the " doctor profundus,'' 
 who was himself what he describes the great Augustin 
 as having been, a " splendid and strenuous champion 
 of grace," and affirmed the all-sufficiency of that divine 
 principle with an uncompromising effectiveness and 
 eloquence on a par with those of Luther himself. In 
 these and others like them the very spirit moved that 
 asserted itself with more commanding power still in 
 the greater Englishman whom his continental followers 
 did not scruple to designate the fifth evangelist, and 
 who is the subject of the present lecture. 
 
 Born, not later than 1324, in quiet Teesdale, Wyclif 
 spent his childhood and early youth amid scenes whose 
 natural loveliness is enhanced to the modern visitor 
 because of the glamour cast over them by the wizard 
 hand of Sir "Walter Scott, who, in his romance of 
 Eokeby, celebrates the very hills and streams frequented 
 by our young Pieformer. The family he belonged to 
 owed their name to the peculiar features of the locality 
 in the heart of which the ancestral mansion stands 
 overlooking the river, and there may still be seen the 
 
4 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 little, simple church, within whose walls, with boyish 
 faith yet undisturbed, Wyclif was wont to kneel. 
 Little is told us, practically nothing indeed, of the 
 home in which he was reared. We search in vain 
 through his writings for such reminiscences of early 
 days as abound in Luther's works, nor do the family 
 records throw any light upon the domestic influences 
 by which the man was " fashioned in his youth." No 
 echoes can we catch of the sounds either of merriment 
 or trouble that issued from his childish lips, nor any 
 signs of the inevitable pains that accompanied his first 
 attempts to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge. 
 Whether he gave early indications of the sceptical 
 spirit that, in later years, drove him so far away from 
 the traditional Christianity of his family, or showed 
 himself a loyal and unquestioning son of the Church 
 till he went forth to breathe the perilous air of Oxford, 
 we have no means of deciding. This only appears to 
 be tolerably certain, that he came of a stock marked 
 by a jealous conservatism of the staunchest and most 
 orthodox type. The fact is a noticeable one that 
 Romanism has always held its own in that secluded 
 Yorkshire parish, and that no other member of the 
 Wyclif family seems to have regarded with aught but 
 utter repugnance the revolutionary tenets of their 
 greatest representative. There is, indeed, one passage 
 in his writings which reads like a page out of his own 
 experience, and may imply that his assaults upon the 
 established order of things had alienated from him the 
 affection and good-will of those nearest to him. It 
 occurs in a wise and pithy tract entitled " Of wedded 
 men and wives, and of their children also," 1 and reads 
 1 Select English Works of Wyclif (Edit. Arnold.) vol. 3, p. 188. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 5 
 
 thus — wedded men and women often say " that if their 
 child draw him to meekness and poverty, and flee 
 covetousness and pride, for dread of sin and for to 
 please God, he shall never be man, and never cost them 
 penny, and curse him, if he live well and teach other 
 men God's law, to save men's souls. For by this do- 
 ing, the child getteth many enemies to his elders, and 
 they say that he slandereth all their noble kin that 
 ever were held true men and worshipful." Even this 
 unique reference to his own circumstances, if such it is, 
 is too meagre to permit any biographer, however 
 cunning, to weave out of it a narrative of the early 
 joys and sorrows of young Wyclif, and we must be con- 
 tent to leave his boyhood in the obscurity that has 
 hitherto enveloped it. 
 
 Some compensation for this misfortune is to be 
 found in the fact that it is not impossible to form a 
 fairly satisfactory idea of the social conditions that pre- 
 vailed in the country whilst Wyclif was advancing 
 towards manhood. The England to which he belonged 
 was that which still lives and moves before us in 
 Chaucer's bright, unfading page. In the ordinary 
 society of the day were to be found in abundance re- 
 presentatives of all the characters delineated with such 
 infinite grace and skill by the father of English poetry. 
 The travelled knight who, meek as he is brave, has 
 fought on every field of battle where a strong arm and 
 a stout heart can be of service ; the gentle squire who 
 has not yet lost youth's predilection for a dainty coat ; 
 the nut-headed, short-haired yeoman, who is skilled in 
 the use of the weapon that wrought such havoc at 
 Cressy and Poitiers ; the solid merchant whose well-to- 
 do comfort shines out in his costly raiment and his 
 
C THE REFORMERS. 
 
 solemn speech ; the weather-beaten sailor, better able 
 to handle a ship than to ride a horse ; the sage doctor, 
 learned in astronomy and fond of gold ; and the ready 
 lawyer, full, like Shakespeare's Justice, of " wise saws 
 and modern instances," all figure on Chaucer's stage, 
 only because they were every day playing their part 
 on the English soil trodden by John Wyclifs feet. How 
 women dressed and gossiped in their pithy mother- 
 tongue or the French of Stratford-le-Bowe ; how goat- 
 voiced pardoners exhibited their relics to gaping, 
 superstitious crowds ; how threadbare students spent 
 their little all on the purchase of their meagre store of 
 books ; how jolly friars lisped and sang and harped 
 the money out of people's pockets, may all be seen on 
 the rich canvas painted for us by the author of the 
 Canterbury Tales. The subtle spirit of that wonder- 
 ful poem, too, reveals better far than any prosaic 
 history the temper of the time. There is a strange 
 lack of earnestness and true sobriety. As has been 
 well remarked, it is the life rather of children than of 
 men and women that we are spectators of. The 
 gaiety that loves bright surfaces, however thin, and 
 hates a preacher with all its small apology for a soul, 
 is the common characteristic of the actors in the pano- 
 ramic drama. In almost equally distinct relief the 
 extravagance stands out which contemporary annals 
 delineate with hardly less force of language, and which 
 was not to be repressed even by the sumptuary laws 
 that forbade a third course at dinner or the use of 
 furs for trimming. It is, indeed, not too much to say 
 that there was prevalent a " desire to make life one 
 long holiday, dividing it between tournaments and the 
 dalliance of courts of love, or between archery meetings 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 7 
 
 (skilfully substituted by royal command for less useful 
 exercises) and the seductive company of " tumblers/' 
 " fruiterers," and " waferers." 1 
 
 To take a somewhat deeper and broader view than 
 is furnished by the poet, Wyclifs lot was cast in times 
 of singular interest and importance. But a few years 
 after his birth, Edward III., a prince of fourteen, was 
 proclaimed king, and began a reign in the course of 
 which good and evil, honour and shame, were almost 
 equally distributed. While Wyclif was yet a boy there 
 broke out the disastrous conflict with France which 
 " dragged its slow length along " for a weary hundred 
 years. Vast changes were passing over the social con- 
 ditions of the people. Serfdom was giving token of 
 very speedily becoming a thing only of the past. The 
 question of the poor, which ever since has so severely 
 taxed the wisdom alike of statesmanship and philan- 
 thropy, was beginning to force itself imperiously upon 
 the thoughts of men. The stern conflict between 
 capital and labour, which rages so fiercely still, was 
 entering upon its earliest stages and provoking attempts 
 at pacification that, like many later ones, were pregnant 
 alike with good intentions and evil consequences. 
 Vagabondage and mendicancy were assuming dimensions 
 ominous of disaster. The rapid dissolution of those 
 restraints on freedom of movement that were insepar- 
 able from feudalism, was being followed, on the part 
 especially of the poorer classes, by a restlessness quite 
 new in English history. The tongue of the common 
 people was at last triumphantly asserting itself against 
 the foreign language that had hitherto been regarded as 
 the only honourable medium of intercourse, and the 
 1 Ward's Chaucer, in English Men of Letters, p. 42. 
 
8 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 real birthday both of English poetry and English prose 
 is to be found in this epoch, in the chronicles of which 
 the names of Geoffrey Chaucer and John "Wyclif stand 
 side by side. So far, indeed, as regards the strong, 
 solid framework of the national life, the England of this 
 fourteenth century was essentially modern rather than 
 mediaeval, despite unglazed windows and unchimneyed 
 houses, narrow and filthy streets, rough and perilous 
 roads, rush-strewn floors and morning-dinners, and 
 despite the lack of forks and the plethora of 
 priests. 
 
 This last feature was singularly characteristic of 
 Wyclif 's age as compared with our own. Ecclesiastics 
 were ubiquitous. There was, on the average, one priest 
 for every eighty of the population. Monks and friars, 
 abbots and bishops swarmed like bees. They crowded 
 about the steps of the throne and clutched greedily at 
 offices of state, and they crept into the hovels of the 
 poor, and cajoled or threatened them out of their scanty 
 earnings. They were of every type and character. 
 There were black friars and grey ; there were sum- 
 moners, limitors and pardoners ; there were priests that 
 played the mountebank, and priests that played the 
 tyrant ; there were priests that feigned a poverty to 
 which they were utter strangers, and priests that made 
 no attempt to hide their predilection for horses and 
 hounds, for furs and jewellery, for good fellowship and 
 dainty fare. Others, certainly, there were of nobler 
 mould, and the poet has not neglected to adorn his 
 canvas with the figure of the poor parson of the town, 
 who was " rich of holy thought and work," who failed 
 
 " Not for either rain or thunder 
 In sickness nor mischance to visit all— 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 
 
 The furthest in his parish, great and small, 
 Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. 
 
 He put not out his benefice on hire, 
 
 And left his sheep encumbered in the mire, 
 
 And ran to London unto Sainte Paul's, 
 
 To seek himself a chantery for souls, 
 
 Or maintenance with a brotherhood to hold, 
 
 But dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold ; " 
 
 while, to all his other virtues, he added this, that he 
 would " sharply snub at once " any " obstinate " person 
 either of " high or low estate." This, however, was all 
 too surely a comparatively rare type of ecclesiastic, and 
 it is not improbable that the exquisite figure would 
 not have been found at all in Chaucer's gallery had 
 Wyclif not been among his contemporaries. 
 
 With many of these features of the period our young 
 Yorkshire scholar may have been little familiar whilst 
 he still lingered in remote, secluded Teesdale, but his 
 removal to Oxford, when he was, in all likelihood, about 
 fifteen or sixteen years of age, would vastly enlarge his 
 horizon, and would necessarily bring him face to face 
 with characters and movements full of interest and 
 novelty to his quick, observant intellect. An almost 
 bewildering change it would be from the quiet country 
 home to the thronged, restless university town, with its 
 six or seven thousand students, for many of whom there 
 was but scanty, uncleanly accommodation. Of the five 
 colleges that then existed, one had a special interest for 
 Wyclif, as it had been founded in 1269 by the widow 
 of Sir John de Balliol of Barnard Castle, a lordly man- 
 sion only five miles distant from our student's native 
 parish ; and there can be little doubt that it was to this 
 college he attached himself on his arrival at Oxford. 
 
] THE REFORMERS. 
 
 It was a troubled and tumultuous world into which 
 he now entered, not by any means distinguished by the 
 calm, dignified repose popularly associated with the idea 
 of intellectual and philosophical pursuits. The air of 
 Oxford was full of the spirit of strife. There was 
 rivalry and contention, sometimes fierce and deadly, 
 between the Australes and the Boreales, the southerns 
 and the northerns, as the two nations were called into 
 which the students were divided. There was war 
 still, even after long ages of battle, between the Eealists 
 and the Nominalists, whose contests, marked by a 
 vehemence strangely disproportioned to the intrinsic 
 insignificance of the questions discussed, recall the 
 poet's question, " Dwells such dire wrath in minds 
 divine ? " And there were conflicts between gown and 
 town, to use modern phraseology, where the combatants 
 were counted by thousands, and in one of which, 
 occurring in Wyclif's own time, no fewer than forty 
 students were killed. Notwithstanding these elements 
 of unrest Oxford was, " during the fourteenth century, 
 by far the greatest theological and philosophical uni- 
 versity in Europe," 1 and the young Yorkshire student 
 w T as destined to add not a little to the lustre already 
 belonging to her famous schools. 
 
 For the first four years of his curriculum he would 
 attend lectures on logic, rhetoric, grammar and arith- 
 metic, and would then attain his Bachelor's degree, 
 provided he passed with Mat through a nine days' 
 ordeal, in the course of which he was expected to settle 
 all manner of subtle dialectical conundrums flung at 
 him in a vivd voce examination. Three years more, 
 spent in mastering geometry, astronomy, and philosophy, 
 1 Creasy's History of England, vol. ii. chap 5. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 11 
 
 would prepare him for the higher degree that secured 
 the right of lecturing, of which at a later elate, at 
 all events, Wyclif largely availed himself. 1 It is im- 
 possible, unfortunately, to follow his career with any 
 minuteness throughout the greater portion of his student 
 life, and he must have been at the university for some 
 sixteen years or more before the occurrence of a change 
 in his position which witnesses to the reputation he had 
 then achieved. 
 
 In the interval, however, occurred one terrible inci- 
 dent which must have left its impress upon a man of 
 Wyclif s temperament as it certainly did upon the 
 history of the nation as a whole ; I refer to the first of 
 the four epidemics of the black death that occurred 
 during his lifetime. For fourteen years rumours had 
 reached England of a fell plague that was raging in 
 Central Asia, and in 1347 it made its appearance at 
 Constantinople. Before a few months had gone it 
 burst upon Avignon, and carried off no fewer than 
 60,000, for whom burial could be secured only in the 
 Rhone, which was duly consecrated for that purpose by 
 the Pope. In August, 1348, it swooped down on 
 Dorsetshire, and thence spread over the length and 
 breadth of the land, working appalling desolation and 
 ruin wherever it came, and utterly disorganizing the 
 whole fabric of society. In Norwich, where seven out 
 of every ten were carried off, no fewer than "15,374 
 died besides religious and beggars, and twenty churches 
 fell into ruins " ; and in Bristol " grass grew several 
 inches high on the High Street and Broad Street." 2 
 
 1 Canon Pennington's John Wyclif, chap. 2 
 
 2 Longman's Life and Times of Edward III., vol. i. p. 305. 
 Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Seebohm, Fortnightly 
 Review, vol. i. 
 
12 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 In the West Hiding of Yorkshire two- thirds of the 
 priests fell victims to its power. In London, after all 
 the existing burial places had been filled, 50,000 
 corpses were laid in a graveyard specially provided by 
 Sir Walter Manny, and at least half the population of 
 the country was swept away in the course of a few 
 months. The rural districts were as fiercely scourged 
 as the towns, and there were whole villages in which 
 no sound of life was to be heard either from man or 
 beast. This, too, was but a specimen of what was 
 taking place over the entire continent of Europe, where 
 it is calculated that the enormous number of twenty- 
 five millions were destroyed. It is impossible that 
 Wyclif learnt nothing from a calamity so overwhelming. 
 His was not the ear to be deaf to, nor was his the heart 
 to be proof against the lessons that were being imparted 
 in this visitation by a higher teacher than any whose 
 scholastic disquisitions were to be heard in Oxford's 
 lecture-halls. We can hardly be wrong in thinking 
 that to this agony of distress something was due of the 
 passionate earnestness of the man, and of the vivid 
 sense he had of the supreme importance of spiritual 
 realities. 
 
 The first distinct discoverable token of the high place 
 Wyclif occupied in the esteem of the university is the 
 occurrence of his name in 1356 as one of the Fellows 
 of Merton College, to which both Ockham and Brad- 
 wardin had belonged. The significance of this fact is 
 all the greater that Merton and Balliol were, in some 
 respects, antagonistic, and the election of Wyclif to this 
 office cannot well be explained except on the ground of 
 his acknowledged preeminence. Four years afterwards 
 he appears as the Master of Balliol, a position he held 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 13 
 
 only for a short time, and the last honour of this kind 
 bestowed upon him was the Wardenship of the new 
 Canterbury Hall with which he was invested at the 
 close of 1365. From this he was dismissed by Arch- 
 bishop Langham on grounds it is unnecessary to specify, 
 but which were of such a nature that Wyclif appealed 
 to the Pope, though without effect. 1 These dignities 
 bestowed upon him witness to the fact that his learning 
 and power were such as to make him one of the very 
 foremost men of the university, if, indeed, there were 
 any at all to be put in the same rank. " He made his 
 great aim," says an opponent who lived in his own 
 day, " with learned subtlety, and by the profundity of 
 his genius, to surpass the genius of other men," and he 
 is constrained to allow that " as a theologian Wyclif 
 was the most eminent in the day, as a philosopher second 
 ton one, and as a schoolman incomparable." 2 A similar 
 judgment is passed upon him by Professor Shirley, who 
 assigns to Wyclif a place with Duns Scotus, Ockham, 
 and Bradwardin as the " four great schoolmen of the 
 fourteenth century." 3 
 
 It has, indeed, become the fashion to laugh at the 
 representatives of scholasticism as though they were 
 little better than earnest quibblers who spent their 
 strength in splitting hairs and spinning cobwebs. " They 
 constructed monstrous books," writes one brilliant critic, 
 " in great numbers, cathedrals of syllogism of unheard-of 
 
 1 The doubts raised by the late Professor Shirley as to the 
 identity of the Fellow of Merton and the Warden of Canterbury 
 with the Eeformer appear to be dispelled by later researches ; 
 vide, Pennington's John Wiclif, Warburton's Edward HI., and 
 an able article in the Church Quarterly, October, 1877. 
 
 2 Vaughan's John de Wycliffe, ch. 7. 
 
 3 Fasciculi Zizaniorurn, Introduction, p. 51. 
 
14 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 architecture, of prodigious finish, heightened in effect 
 by intensity of intellectual power, which the whole sum 
 of human labour has only twice been able to match. 
 These young and valiant minds thought they had found 
 the temple of truth, they rushed at it headlong, in 
 legions, breaking in the doors, clambering over the 
 walls, leaping into the interior, and so found themselves 
 at the bottom of a moat. Three centuries of labour at 
 the bottom of this moat added not one idea to the 
 human mind. Each one in turn mechanically traversed 
 the petty region of threadbare cavils, scratched himself 
 in the briars of quibbles, and burdened himself with 
 his bundles of texts, nothing more." 1 A higher and 
 truer estimate of the schoolmen than M. Taine's will be 
 formed by all who are not oblivious of the simple fact 
 that the philosophy of which they are the exponents 
 was "the philosophy which created the universities of 
 Europe," 2 an achievement which a whole army of 
 sparkling critics could neither appreciate nor accomplish, 
 though their glib pens should run on till doomsday. 
 There is doubtless much in the aims and methods of 
 scholasticism that strikes the modern student with utter 
 amazement, so plainly does it carry in itself the doom 
 of barrenness and failure. Numberless questions are 
 discussed the very mention of which provokes a smile 
 and brands them as mere ingenious but absolutely im- 
 practical speculations. But there is at the same time 
 a most impressive grandeur about the earnestness and 
 hungry zeal with which the mighty intellects of the 
 schoolmen press forward to the furthest verge of the 
 
 1 Taine's English Literature, translated by Von Laun, book i. 
 ch. 3. 
 
 2 Shirley's Scholasticism, p. 9. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 15 
 
 only world of thought they felt at liberty to explore, 
 and there are names associated with this stage of philo- 
 sophy which will bear an untarnished glory so long as 
 the world sets any value on sublety, acuteness, and 
 accuracy of thought. Nor can we fail to see that, even 
 whilst indulging in these wild, fanciful speculations, 
 the intellect was but passing laboriously across the 
 wilderness in unconscious search of a rich land of pro- 
 mise, and was there undergoing the very discipline 
 necessary to fit it for the conquest and enjoyment of a 
 worthier heritage. Many of the qualities developed in 
 the arid soil and in the dry air of scholasticism were to 
 stand humanity in good stead when once a breach had 
 been made in the stone boundary-walls beyond which 
 it was, for centuries, counted heresy to peep. 
 
 It is not, therefore, to be regretted that Wyclif passed 
 with such signal success through this scholastic dis- 
 cipline, and it may well be doubted whether he would 
 ever have been so resolute and so incisive a reformer 
 had he not first achieved fame as a prince among the 
 schoolmen. When he had taken his degree of Doctor 
 of Theology, he was at liberty to expound not merely 
 the " Sacred Page," as the Bible was called in aca- 
 demical circles, but also the great university text- 
 book of the age, " The Sentences of Peter the Lombard," 
 a " series of extracts from the Latin Fathers and the 
 Popes, so tesselatecl together as to construct a system 
 of theology out of the most unsystematic of all possible 
 materials." 1 In all probability, however, Wyclif did not 
 take this degree till after his removal from the Warden- 
 ship of Canterbury Hall, and after the occurrence of a 
 crisis in his career which brought him to the very front 
 1 Shirley's Scholasticism, p. 21. 
 
10 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 of the national life and committed him virtually to the 
 path he pursued throughout his subsequent history. 
 
 This happened in 1366, when Pope Urban V. de- 
 manded from Edward payment of arrears of an annual 
 tribute of 1000 marks which, promised by King John, 
 had not been transmitted to the papal treasury for the 
 last thirty years. There were many circumstances that 
 made this demand peculiarly offensive and exasperat- 
 ing. Very shortly before, statutes had been framed 
 and enacted asserting most emphatically the independ- 
 ence of the empire, and imposing severe penalties upon 
 all who should affirm the supremacy of the Pope in any 
 such way as infringed the rights of the people or the 
 King. Urban's insolent demand, therefore, was 
 ominously like an intentional defiance, and a formal 
 declaration that all such enactments would be treated 
 by him as null and void. The claim, too, came not 
 from Ptome but from Avignon, where the head of the 
 Church w T as bearing his share of what was termed the 
 " second Babylonian captivity." He was himself a 
 Frenchman and a slave of the French monarch, and it 
 was quite reasonably suspected that the money was 
 needed, not to meet the wants of the Church, but to 
 swell the resources of the nation's rival and enable him 
 to carry on the war with this country. If ever Eng- 
 land might have been expected to play a part so 
 suicidal as that the Pope enjoined upon her, it was not 
 like an infallible Pontiff to ask her to do so when just 
 at the zenith of her power, and when she had won 
 victory after victory in the open field. 
 
 It might have been conjectured beforehand how 
 Parliament would deal with the foolish and impertinent 
 demand when the matter was referred to them by 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 17 
 
 Edward. With one voice, Lords spiritual and temporal, 
 as well as the members of the lower chamber, indig- 
 nantly denied the obligation, and with no " bated breath 
 or whispered humbleness " let it be known after what 
 fashion they would shape their reply, were any attempt 
 made to enforce the claim. Challenged by an anony- 
 mous monk to vindicate the attitude of the King and 
 Parliament, Wyclif, not without manifest delight in the 
 work, published a most vigorous statement, professedly 
 reproducing the arguments used by certain of the 
 Lords. " Let the Pope get the money if he can ; 
 England is not afraid," says one. " Christ was no 
 civil governor," affirms another, " neither should the 
 Pope be if he is Christ's follower." " Wages are for 
 work," argues a third, " but popes and cardinals do 
 us no good either in body or soul, therefore, give them 
 no pay, say I." " If King John undertook to pay in 
 silver and gold for spiritual blessings," another insists, 
 " the King was a fool and the Pope a simonist." " If, 
 as is maintained, the Pope gave the King this country 
 of England, then," a fifth declares, " the Pope either 
 gave what was not his and so could not have been 
 given, or he gave what was his only for the Church, 
 and so should not have been given." Thus with strong, 
 sturdy strokes, the reply is shaped into a form there 
 could be no mistake about, and which pretty well 
 settled the matter for all time to come. Speaking in 
 his own name, Wyclif emphatically repudiates the 
 opinion that the State has no right to touch or meddle 
 with ecclesiastical persons and possessions, though, 
 whilst broaching this most pernicious heresy, he claims 
 to be " a lowly and obedient son of the Roman Church/' 
 and to " assert nothing that may appear unjust towards 
 
 B 
 
18 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the said Church, or that may reasonably offend pious 
 ears." 
 
 The next important step in Wyclif's career was the 
 publication in 1367 or 1368 of his treatise on "Divine 
 Dominion/' the preface to which is regarded by Pro- 
 fessor Shirley as "the true epoch of the beginning of 
 the English Reformation." 1 The fundamental principle 
 of the work is that all dominion belongs to God alone, 
 and that others — popes, priests, emperors, kings, and 
 individual men — hold whatever authority they possess 
 only and directly from Him on condition of loyal ser- 
 vice and obedience, and that to Him each is immediately 
 responsible. Into any examination of this striking 
 theory it is impossible to enter here, but it is evident 
 that this one simple principle struck at the very root 
 of sacerdotal supremacy, and must have provoked the 
 ire of the ecclesiastical world, apart altogether from 
 Wyclif's assertion of the startling paradox, at which 
 his adversaries clutched with jubilant avidity, that 
 " God must obey the devil." 
 
 Another opportunity for the affirmation of his bold 
 radicalism with regard to the relative power of Church 
 and State arose out of the national disgrace and hu- 
 miliation which followed so swiftly upon the noon-day 
 of England's glory. After a period of almost uninter- 
 rupted successes, there came a time when disaster after 
 disaster robbed the kingdom of all the fruits of her 
 toil, bravery, and sacrifice. " It was a time of shame 
 and suffering such as England had never known. Her 
 conquests were lost, her shores insulted, her fleets anni- 
 hilated, her commerce swept from the sea ; while within 
 she was exhausted by the long and costly war, as well 
 1 Fasc. Ziz., Introd. p. 40. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 19 
 
 as by the ravages of the pestilence." 1 The interests of 
 the country demanded that most strenuous efforts 
 should be made to utilize all her resources for the 
 maintenance of her integrity. The community in 
 general were already overburdened, but there was one 
 organization that still rolled in riches and whose mem- 
 bers managed to keep themselves well out of the straits 
 in which all besides were pressed ; that organization 
 was the Church. Hitherto its representatives had been 
 allowed to tax themselves, and, being human, and es- 
 pecially ecclesiastically human, they had not made too 
 severe demands upon their exchequer. Now, however, 
 the hour was come for them to bear a heavier yoke, 
 and no sooner was it proposed that taxes should be 
 levied upon livings hitherto exempt, and that the 
 Church should bleed a little for the nation's good, than 
 the clergy were up in arms. The thought of such 
 sacrilege stung their noble souls to the quick, and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury fainted, either from pious 
 horror or physical exhaustion, whilst denouncing the 
 enormity from the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral. A 
 nobler voice than the Archbishop's championed the 
 cause of the patriot as against the ecclesiastic, and in 
 his work on Civil Dominion, published probably in 
 1371, Wyclif quotes, with marked approval, a fable 
 ascribed to a certain peer who argued that the tempo- 
 ralities should be taken from the clergy, as being the 
 property of the realm, and so the kingdom should be 
 wisely defended with its own possessions. 
 
 The appearance of a Papal emissary called Gamier 
 kept the fire burning in Wyclif s soul. He came, of 
 course, to gather funds, travelled in great style, with 
 1 Green's Short History of the English People, chap. 5, sec. 3. 
 
20 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 a large retinue, netted a considerable amount of ill- 
 spared gold, and, after two years and a half of pleasant 
 harvesting, withdrew to Eome resolved in a few 
 months to return for fresh spoil. This new illustration 
 of Papal greed called forth from Wyclif a tractate in 
 which he demonstrates the falsehood of this rapacious 
 foreigner, who had secured permission to prosecute his 
 work in England only by taking an oath of which his 
 whole procedure was a violation. For he had sworn 
 to do nothing hurtful to the interests of the kingdom 
 when his very mission was to rob it of resources most 
 urgently required for its own necessities. Such pro- 
 cedure should be withstood, Wyclif insists, by every true 
 patriot, even though sanctioned by the Head of the 
 Church himself, for even our Lord Pope, he dares to 
 say, is " sufficiently peccable." Evidently he is mov- 
 ing fast, and not without the sympathy and approval 
 of some at least who are high in power. Of this proof 
 is given in the appointment of Wyclif to act on a 
 Commission sent to Bruges in 1374, to confer with 
 representatives of the Pope about questions of procedure 
 and jurisdiction. The meeting was productive of little 
 good, and a curious illustration of the subtle power of 
 the Church is furnished in the anomaly that a reward 
 for his services was given to the chief of the English 
 commissioners, the Bishop of Bangor, not by the King, 
 but by the Pope. 
 
 This visit to Bruges, however, was not without 
 result, as it would appear to have brought our Reformer 
 into close relationship with the famous John of Gaunt, 
 who was in the city at the same time on a political 
 mission. " Time-honoured Lancaster " had no love for 
 the grasping, ambitious ecclesiastics that kept so firm a 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 21 
 
 hold upon the highest offices of State, and was as eagerly 
 desirous to humble the Church as Wyclif was to exalt 
 it. Strangely enough, though apparently antagonistic, 
 these aims were, so the two men thought, to be fulfilled 
 by pursuing one single path. Hence, whilst no actors 
 in the eventful history could be more unlike in spirit, 
 they were drawn together, and were, to some extent, 
 sympathetic. The alliance was not of much real bene- 
 fit to Wyclif. John of Gaunt had, by his anti-ecclesi- 
 astical policy, incurred the bitter enmity of Courtenay, 
 the Bishop of London, who had his revenge in an 
 accusation of heresy he brought against Wyclif, 
 Lancaster's friend and ally. The patience of the clergy 
 was by this time fairly exhausted, and their desire to 
 silence the Eeformer's voice was intensified by the action 
 of " The Good Parliament," which made it patent to all 
 that the leaven of his principles was working effectively 
 in the popular mind. Wyclif, therefore, was summoned 
 to answer for himself before the Archbishop, and appeared 
 accompanied on one side by John of Gaunt, and on the 
 other by Lord Percy, the Earl Marshal. An unseemly 
 squabble between Lancaster and Courtenay opened the 
 proceedings, which terminated in something like a riot, 
 Wyclif standing calmly by and needing not even to 
 unclose his lips. 
 
 But higher dignitaries than Courtenay were now 
 alarmed, and, three months after this memorable fiasco, 
 the Pope himself issued no fewer than five separate 
 bulls, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 
 Bishop of London, the University of Oxford, and even 
 the King himself were all enjoined to take immediate 
 steps to muzzle the heretic of Lutterworth. After some 
 delay, occasioned by the death of Edward and the 
 
22 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 accession of Richard II., Wyclif received another sum- 
 mons, and appeared before another tribunal in the early 
 spring of 1378. He had laid upon him the formidable 
 duty of vindicating or repudiating nineteen different 
 errors which he was alleged to have propounded in his 
 writings ; but, though he handed in to his judges a 
 written defence of his teaching, this fresh attempt to 
 arrest his influence ended in a manner as pointless as 
 the preceding one. The King's mother forbade the 
 prosecution of the case, and the people of London 
 assumed a threatening attitude, whereupon, in Wal- 
 singham's angry and scornful language, the champions 
 of orthodoxy were " like reeds shaken with the wind, and 
 their words were softer than oil." They retained only 
 courage enough to give the vexatious Eeformer a caution, 
 to which he paid practically no attention. 
 
 Almost immediately after this, Pope Gregory XL 
 died, and then occurred the great schism in the Church, 
 and the edifying spectacle was presented to the world 
 of two rival Pontiffs, each claiming to be the vicegerent 
 
 o o 
 
 of Christ, the one at Eome thundering forth anathemas 
 against his brother at Avignon, and the other at 
 Avignon proving himself quite as good at hating and 
 cursing as his brother at Eome. At first Wyclif was 
 in hopes that Urban VI., the Italian Pope, would in- 
 troduce beneficial changes and prove himself in sympathy 
 with the spirit of the gospel. But he was doomed to 
 disappointment, and as, from his peaceful home at 
 Lutterworth, he watched the progress of the wretched 
 quarrel he came to the common-sense conclusion that 
 the Church would not lose much even if it lost both 
 its heads. 
 
 A few months more, and our Eeformer, less and less 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 23 
 
 able to rest content with a system so utterly disorgan- 
 ized, found himself compelled to take a great step for- 
 ward, and to surrender the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
 which is of the very essence of the Papacy. To his 
 repudiation of this dogma he gave formal expression in 
 a series of twelve theses, which he undertook to defend 
 against all comers. This bold utterance set even Ox- 
 ford on fire, reluctant as its authorities had been to take 
 action against their ablest and most influential graduate. 
 The Chancellor of the university called together instantly 
 a judicial committee, largely composed of monks, who 
 branded Wyclif 's statements as erroneous and heretical. 
 On the basis of this decision, an ordinance was published 
 prohibiting all students from listening to such revolu- 
 tionary teaching, and forbidding Wyclif from any 
 further academical promulgation of his opinions. This 
 injunction, which practically terminated his connection 
 with the university, was brought to the Eeformer whilst 
 lecturing to his students on the very doctrine in dispute, 
 and evoked from him the immediate declaration that 
 neither the Chancellor nor any similar authority could 
 make him alter his opinion. 
 
 There were other methods of promulgating the truth 
 than that from which he was thus debarred, and whilst 
 for scholars he published a treatise on the sacrament of 
 the altar, written in his not too classical Latin, he sent 
 forth for the people generally his famous tract entitled 
 " The Wicket," of which the English is full as usual 
 of nervous force. His adversaries, however, were not 
 done with him, and his old antagonist Courtenay, now 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, summoned a large council 
 consisting of ten bishops, sixteen doctors of law, thirty 
 doctors of divinity, thirteen bachelors of theology, and four 
 
24 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 bachelors of law, reliable men all of them, and of un- 
 impeachable orthodoxy, who would not find it hard to 
 agree upon a verdict. They assembled in the Domini- 
 can Chapter House at Blackfriars, but hardly had they 
 begun their deliberations when an earthquake startled 
 them, and made them dubious as to the wisdom of their 
 action. Courtenay was not, however, to be thus baffled, 
 and interpreted the omen as a sign of Heaven's approval, 
 and an indication that, following the trembling earth's 
 example, the Church must purge herself of the evil 
 humours that were distressing her. After this ingenious 
 piece of exegesis, things moved on comfortably, and a 
 most satisfactory issue was reached. A long catalogue 
 of damnable errors and heresies was drawn up, some 
 twenty-four in all, and these were duly condemned. 
 A mandate was sent to Oxford ordering that steps 
 should be taken to prevent the dissemination of these 
 obnoxious tenets. An imposing penitential procession 
 of barefooted priests and others paraded the streets of 
 London, and a Carmelite monk wound up the demon- 
 stration with a sermon denouncing the heresies of 
 Wyclif, and threatening with severe ecclesiastical penal- 
 ties all who might teach them or adopt them. The 
 authorities at Oxford resented the interference with 
 their right of self-government, but, after a little 
 restiveness, they found themselves under the necessity 
 of virtually pronouncing sentence of exile upon their 
 famous "Doctor Evangelicus." 
 
 So only Lutterworth remains to him as the sphere 
 of his labours, and thither he finally withdrew, but two 
 or three years before his death, with health already 
 shattered by incessant toil. Retirement, however, was 
 not rest. Message after message he sent out into the 
 

 JOHN WYCLIF. 25 
 
 world, whilst diligently fulfilling his duty to the 
 parishioners he loved most truly. What his idea of 
 a clergyman's life was we may gather from a passage 
 in " A Short Rule of Life/' one of his English writings. 
 " If thou be a priest/' he says, " live thou holily, 
 passing others in holy prayer and holy desire and 
 thinking, in holy speaking, counselling, and true 
 teaching, and ever that God's commands and His 
 gospel be in thy mouth, and ever despise sin, to draw 
 men therefrom. And that thy deeds be so rightful 
 that no man shall blame them with reason, but thine 
 open deeds be a true book to all subjects, and lead 
 men to serve God and do His commands thereby. 
 For example of God, and open and lasting, stirreth 
 rude men more than true preaching by naked word. 
 And waste not thy goods in great feasts of rich men, 
 but live a mean life of poor men's alms and goods, 
 both in meat and drink and clothes ; and the remnant 
 give truly to poor men that have nought of their own, 
 and may not labour for feebleness or sickness, and then 
 shalt thou be a true priest both to God and man." A 
 beautiful picture fitted to stand alongside of Chaucer's, 
 to which reference has been already made, and the 
 first of a notable series of similar portraits of the ideal 
 English clergyman with which our literature has been 
 enriched. Nor was Wyclifs only a fancy sketch, but 
 rather a model he did his best to realize in his several 
 parishes of Eylingham, Ludgershall, and Lutterworth, 
 though it was impossible for him to confine his work 
 to the comparatively little sphere of the quiet Lincoln- 
 shire village. 
 
 Even after his withdrawal to its retirement, he was 
 not left alone by those who imagined they could silence 
 
26 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 his fearless voice. He was again cited to appear before 
 an imposing array of bishops in November, 1382, at a 
 time when he was sorely discouraged by the cowardly 
 retractations of more than one of his most intimate 
 associates, and in 1383 he was ordered to betake 
 himself to Rome to answer before the Pope himself 
 for the heresies he had so persistently propounded. 
 Whether he actually responded to the former summons 
 is a matter involved in considerable uncertainty, but 
 his reply to the last citation, which he did not obey, 
 is still extant. Pleading his inability to take so long 
 a journey, he uses the opportunity for a renewed and 
 impressive assertion of some of the convictions he had 
 already reiterated in many forms. Before this incident 
 took place, moreover, his fierce indignation had been 
 enkindled by the proceedings of Spencer, Bishop of 
 Norwich, who headed a crusade and went forth to wage 
 war in the interests of Pope Urban, and against those of 
 Pope Clement. Every kind of spiritual bribe was held 
 out to induce people to join the army by which this holy 
 war was to be prosecuted, and Wyclif, burning with 
 wrath as he heard of the blasphemous allurements, 
 denounced in keen, uncompromising words the guilt 
 incurred by such gross departure from the law of 
 Christ. 
 
 The most absorbing and momentous work of these 
 last few years was, however, beyond all question, that 
 of preparing, completing, and revising the first Bible 
 ever issued in our mother tongue, and, indeed, the first, 
 by a century, in any living European language/ It 
 was the grandest work of his life, a most fitting close 
 to his splendid service, and when once that priceless 
 1 "Wyclif s Place in History, by Prof. Burrows, p. 20. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 27 
 
 gift had been bestowed upon his country, it might well 
 seem that there was little left for him to do but die, 
 and enter into rest. No premature summons, there- 
 fore, was that which came to him while attending 
 service in his church at Lutterworth, and was obeyed 
 when, two days after, on 31st December, 1384, he 
 " fell asleep in Jesus." " Eequiescat in pace " was, 
 we may be sure, the tender prayer breathed by many 
 as they took farewell of a master and a friend who 
 had endeared himself to them, not more by his untiring 
 zeal than by the purity and grace of his personal 
 character. The loving wish was vain, indeed, so far 
 as the poor mortal dust of him was concerned. For 
 forty years it lay undisturbed beneath the stones of 
 Lutterworth Church ; but then, in obedience to one of 
 the countless irrational and inhuman decrees of which 
 Church Courts have been guilty, the innocent bones 
 were rudely disinterred, borne to the village bridge, 
 burned to ashes, and flung in contemptuous triumph 
 into the waters of the Swift. And there was an end 
 of Wyclif — at least, so some men thought. 
 
 A very meagre sketch this is of the life of one of 
 the grandest Englishmen that ever breathed. The 
 outline needs filling up as it cannot be filled up here. 
 The years over which we have run so swiftly were 
 packed to the uttermost with diligent toil. " Man is 
 born to work," Wyclif says in one passage, " as the 
 bird for flight," and the principle is one to which he 
 rendered most constant homage. His writings are a 
 library in themselves, numbering, according to different 
 methods of estimating them, from 150 to 200 separate 
 compositions. The larger proportion of them are in 
 Latin, and the others, in English, belong, most of them 
 
28 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to the last few years of his life, when he made his 
 appeal directly to the people, one of those daring, 
 original, and patriotic acts that threw great light upon 
 his character and spirit, and elicited the bitter animad- 
 version of his opponents. In 1410 two hundred 
 volumes of his works were burned by order of the 
 Archbishop of Prague, and there are still extant 
 some four hundred of his sermons. 1 Of the theolo- 
 gico-philosophical system expounded in his writings no 
 survey can be attempted in this lecture, and it will 
 be hardly possible to do more than indicate even his 
 fundamental positions as a Eeformer. 
 
 One fact to be constantly borne in mind, if our 
 estimate of his character is to be fair and intelligent, 
 is that Wyclif s was eminently a progressive life. He 
 has been often charged with inconsistency, and the 
 accusation w T as plausible enough so long as no attempt 
 had been made to discover the sequence of his writings. 
 It is now manifest that the inconsistency is only such 
 as is inseparable from growth. He declares honestly 
 that he has changed, and that he is ready to change 
 again should that be necessitated by loyalty to truth 
 and conscience. He was not the man to see any beauty 
 in the metallic immobility that, with so many, passes 
 current for faithfulness, when it is nothing better than 
 an amalgam of indolence and cowardice. 
 
 Another point with reference to which censure has 
 been passed upon him is the part he took in the poli- 
 tics of his day. Milner laments that " a political spirit 
 deeply infects Wyclif \s conduct," and for that and other 
 reasons he cannot " rank him anion? the highest wor- 
 thies of the Church," and a greater critic than Milner 
 1 Shirley's Catalogue of Wyclif's Works. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 29 
 
 has spoken of politics as the rock on which Wyclif 
 split. Such a judgment is possible only when a mere 
 fragment of his work is kept in view, and when there 
 has been an entire failure to appreciate the spirit that 
 animated him when bearing his part in the settle- 
 ment of national problems. Happily, he was not 
 ashamed to be a patriot. He had enough of the old 
 prophet's faith in him to be convinced that a man is 
 little likely to do any divine work in the world who is 
 so exceedingly cosmopolitan that his fatherland is no 
 more to him than any other country on the face of the 
 earth. He was jealous, with a godly jealousy, for 
 the honour and welfare of the nation. There was 
 nothing in him of the sickly other- worldliness that sur- 
 renders the reins of civic and political government 
 into any hands, however dirty, and regards such 
 matters as too secular to have any claim upon the 
 attention of a pious soul. All honour to his memory, 
 that any attempt to trample on the independence of 
 England provoked him to passionate protest and resist- 
 ance, and that his very faith in God made it simply 
 impossible for him to sit tamely by, " a dumb dog," 
 whilst the people were being wronged by foreign 
 usurpation or domestic injustice. Wyclif was, to his 
 praise be it said, an Englishman, every inch of him, 
 not unworthy of a place in the very front rank of 
 those whose names, " familiar in our ears as household 
 words," suggest the memory of glorious battles fought 
 and won in the cause of Britain's liberties. Besides, 
 it was impossible that Wyclif could steer clear of 
 politics if he were to be a Eeformer at all. The 
 Church itself was more political than anything else. 
 It claimed to be the supreme civil power in Europe. 
 
30 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 It arrogated to itself the right to dethrone kings and 
 instruct parliaments. Its dignitaries were at the 
 bottom of every intrigue that sought to arrest the 
 nation's march to freedom. If, therefore, Wyclif was 
 political, the fault lay not with the Eeformer but with 
 the system he laboured to reform ; if he wrote much 
 about Church and State, it was only because the 
 former was intent upon devouring the latter, or 
 degrading it into a mere puppet of ecclesiastic am- 
 bition. 
 
 What, essentially, Wyclifs aim was, there can be 
 little doubt about. It was just to bring back Christianity 
 to its original character as portrayed in the New Testa- 
 ment. He was a reformer because he was, first and 
 above everything else, a student of the " Sacred Page." 
 The early Apostolic records he had pored over year 
 after year, until the one fact that, more than any 
 other, bulked largely in his intellectual horizon, was 
 the absolute disparity between the Christianity of the 
 first and that of the fourteenth century. " Back to 
 the Bible," the so-called formal principle of the six- 
 teenth century movement, was the scroll he blazoned on 
 his banner from the outset, and in the elevation of this 
 principle, as has been truly said, he is without a com- 
 peer throughout the history of the English Eeforma- 
 tion. 1 Authority which, with the Church, meant the 
 whole heterogeneous mass of ecclesiastical tradition, 
 meant, with Wyclif, simply and alone the Word of 
 God. That constituted, he maintained, the sole 
 tribunal whose verdict was final and without appeal in 
 matters of doctrioe, worship, and practice. " If there 
 were a hundred popes, and all the monks were to be 
 1 Boehringer's Vorreformatoren, Johannes v. Wykliffe, p. 3. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 31 
 
 transformed into cardinals, we ought not," he said, " to 
 ascribe to their opinion in matters of faith any other 
 value than they have as founded on the Scriptures." 
 His convictions as regards the supreme glory and 
 excellency of the Bible were intense. It is " the 
 immutable Testament of God the Father." " God and 
 His Word is all one and they may not be separated." 
 " To be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of 
 Christ," Who, in these writings, " has given a law 
 sufficient for the government of the whole militant 
 Church," 1 the one Magna Charta of the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 This single principle once adopted, all else, in 
 Wyclif's procedure as a reformer, followed by natural 
 and necessary sequence. In Apostolic days he could 
 find nothing answering to the haughty, grasping 
 priesthood. " These brokers of the city of Eome," as 
 they are styled in the Complaint of the " Good Par- 
 liament," who sold benefices to the highest bidder, 
 whose income was as large again as the royal revenue, 
 who had turned the Church into a huge banking con- 
 cern, and who hailed and bargained about the verv 
 grace of God as if it were an ox or an ass, these 
 were no successors of the men who had said, " Silver 
 and gold have we none." Wretched " penny priests " 
 they were who bartered to the devil the souls 
 Christ had redeemed by His precious blood. 2 " Ah, 
 Lord God, where is there reason," he exclaims in a 
 Petition to King and Parliament, " to constrain the 
 poor people to find a worldly priest, sometimes unable 
 both of life and cunning, in pomp and pride, covetous- 
 
 1 Johann v. Wicklif (Lechler), Buch 2, Kap. 7. 
 
 2 Cf. Boehringer, I.e. p. 445. 
 
32 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ness and envy, gluttony and drunkenness and lechery, 
 in simony and heresy, with fat horse, and jolly and 
 gay saddles, and bridles ringing by the way, and him- 
 self in costly clothes and furs, and to suffer their wives 
 and children and their poor neighbours perish for 
 hunger, thirst, and cold, and other mischiefs of the 
 world." x And the case was in no way better that 
 at the head of this priesthood was a Pope who, in life 
 and teaching, was " most contrary to Christ," not 
 Peter's successor but Christ's enemy, " poison under 
 colour of holiness," the " root and ground of all the 
 misgoverning of the Church," 2 and nothing else, indeed, 
 than Antichrist, and if a vicar at all, then a vicar 
 only of Satan. As Wyclif scanned the features of the 
 organization represented by this priesthood he could 
 discover there no resemblance to the " Church of poor 
 confessors " described in the New Testament. There 
 was clamant need of reform, and the measures he 
 advocates are sufficiently drastic. He is a champion 
 of the principles of " Thorough." His plea is for a "root 
 and branch " re-organization. He does not hesitate 
 to cry out even for disendowment, strange as such a 
 method may appear amid the old-fashioned manners 
 and customs of the fourteenth century. The Church 
 is being suffocated by its wealth, he argues, and the 
 State should restore to it its original poverty, unde- 
 terred by any denunciations of sacrilege and spoliation, 
 or any predictions of calamity and retribution. Wyclif 
 even appeals to the clergy themselves, with what suc- 
 cess need hardly be said, to forego their riches and 
 return to the wholesome use-and-wont of earlier days. 
 He quotes with emphatic approval St. Bernard's famous 
 1 English Works (Arnold), hi. 519. 2 lb. p 278. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 33 
 
 saying, " Whatsoever thou takest to thee of tithes and 
 offerings besides simple livelihood and straight cloth- 
 ing, it is not thine, it is theft, ravine, and sacrilege"; 
 and argues that all priests of whatsoever rank should 
 live " of alms, freely and wilfully given." * There 
 you have a reformer indeed, and one who approaches 
 very near the furthest extremes even of voluntaryism 
 itself. 
 
 We have already seen how absolutely he denies the 
 right of Pope or priest to possess temporal lordship or 
 to be independent of civil authority. The State must 
 assert its rule, he avers, over all citizens alike without 
 distinction of class or person. This he holds to be 
 indispensable to the welfare both of the nation and the 
 Church, and, curious, unaccountable soul that he is, he 
 lets it be plainly seen that he has little faith in the 
 ecclesiastical administration of justice, and that, if he 
 had to be tried at all, he would prefer, as his judges, a 
 bench of civil magistrates to a bevy of tonsured 
 priests. 2 
 
 With equal emphasis did he challenge the Pope's 
 supremacy in spiritual things. The " power of the 
 keys " was a figment of sacerdotal assumption. Ex- 
 communication he did indeed believe in as a terrible 
 reality, but not one in the control of any but God 
 Himself, Who is alone able to discern the true character 
 of men. Hence he affirmed that " no man could be 
 excommunicated at all who had not first and chiefly 
 excommunicated himself " ; 3 and that " man's curse 
 harmeth nothing, neither interdicting, nor any censures 
 
 1 English Works (Arnold), III. 518. 
 
 2 Boehringer, I.e. 494. 
 3 Fasc. Ziz. p. 250. 
 
 c 
 
34 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 that Satan may feign." 1 Just as little could the Pope 
 grant remission of sins, and indulgences he brands as 
 worthless and wicked mockeries, " a subtle merchandise 
 of Antichrist's clerks," which tempt men to wallow in 
 sin like hogs. 2 Christ, and Christ alone, is the true 
 custodier of heavenly grace. 
 
 Whilst Wyclif condemns so unsparingly the wealth 
 and luxury of the clergy, he is not less vehement in 
 his denunciation of the mendicant orders who professed 
 to have adopted poverty as their rule of life. His 
 assault upon the friars was not, as has often been sup- 
 posed, one of the earliest exhibitions of his zeal as a 
 reformer, though even in his Oxford days he must 
 have grown suspicious of the Franciscans, who exer- 
 cised a pernicious influence over the youthful students 
 at the university. As he approached the close of his 
 career, however, his wrath boiled over, and he scourges, 
 with overwhelming scorn, these able-bodied and strong- 
 handed bes^ars who were robbers alike of the rich 
 who willingly gave and of the poor who had need to 
 receive. He tramples upon their appeal to the ex- 
 ample of Christ, Who, he indignantly protests, was no 
 mendicant, as they affirmed, even though (to refer to 
 the incidents they founded on) He had asked a drink 
 of the woman of Samaria, cast Himself upon the hospi- 
 tality of Zacchaeus, and borrowed the ass on which He 
 rode into Jerusalem. 3 He accumulates proof upon 
 proof of their falsehood, dishonesty, and blasphemy, 
 and never, in the whole history of the Church, has so 
 conclusive a demonstration been given of the utter cor- 
 
 1 English Works (Arnold), iii. 218. 
 
 2 " Of Prelates," quoted by Pennington, John Wiclif , p. 262. 
 
 3 Boehringer, I.e. 542. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 35 
 
 ruption of the orders that began their career in a spirit 
 of holy enthusiasm and magnificent promise. 
 
 The wrath enkindled by his assault upon the friars 
 grew into white heat when Wyclif repudiated the 
 dogma of Transubstantiation, of which they especially 
 were the acknowledged champions. In defence of his 
 position on this matter (which, as already seen, was 
 absolutely antagonistic to that of the Church), he ap- 
 pealed to Scripture, to the testimony of the senses, to 
 the axioms of philosophy, and even the poor church- 
 mouse is called into court as an unprejudiced witness 
 whose testimony is more to be depended on than that 
 of any number of bigoted bishops and popes. The 
 orthodox doctrine, he insisted, cast an unpardonable 
 slur upon the truthfulness of the evangelists and 
 apostles, and even of Christ Himself; it involved the 
 blasphemy of believing that a creature can create its 
 Creator ; it imposed upon men the necessity of discre- 
 diting and contradicting the clearest evidence of the 
 faculties of taste and touch ; and it posited the utterly 
 impossible absurdity of " accident without subject," 
 qualities without an underlying substance, " the most 
 heresy that God suffered to come to His Church." 1 It 
 is not easy to gather from Wyclif s writings an alto- 
 gether satisfactory idea of his position with regard to 
 this matter, his language not appearing quite self-con- 
 sistent, and lacking the clear-cut precision which is 
 desirable in theological and philosophical formulae. 
 He certainly does not adopt the somewhat baldly em- 
 blematic interpretation that subsequently found favour 
 with Zwingli, and has come to be the popular doctrine 
 in our Presbyterian Churches. The bread was with 
 1 English Works, iii. 502. 
 
36 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 him something more than a mere figure of the body of 
 Christ. That body itself is there, though only 
 spiritually and sacramentally, not essentially, substan- 
 tially, or corporeally. At the same time his departure 
 from the idea of any change answering to the phrase 
 " transubstantiation " is absolute and final, and there is 
 no sufficient ground for ascribing to him any such com- 
 promise as that with which Luther was satisfied. His 
 position is rather Calvinistic than Lutheran, though it 
 cannot fairly be identified with the interpretation put 
 upon the sacrament either by the German or the 
 French reformer. 1 He believed, however, that by his 
 assault upon this dogma he had done much to emanci- 
 pate the people from a pernicious superstition, and to 
 wrest from the hands of the clergy a weapon by the 
 use of which they had too long enslaved and tyran- 
 nized over a credulous Church. 
 
 For Wyclifs battle was, all through, in the interests 
 of the people. It was no mere strife of theological 
 opinion or for speculative victory. His concern was, 
 pre-eminently, for the men and women who had for 
 ages been denied their rights and privileges, and, very 
 especially, had been kept in ignorance of the truth of 
 God. How intensely he pursued this aim appears from 
 the methods he adopted for the dissemination of his 
 principles. He was not content to proclaim his faith 
 to amazed students in the Oxford lecture-rooms, nor 
 satisfied either with his enunciation of them in the 
 pulpit. He did preach with all the effectiveness of a 
 
 1 Cf. "The Wicket," The "Confessio Magistri Johamiis Wyclif," 
 Fasc. Ziz. 115. Two Short Papers " Concerning the Eucharist," 
 English Works, iii. 499-503 ; and many passages in the Sermons, 
 English Works, i. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 
 
 6i 
 
 man who believes strongly in the power of a living 
 voice proclaiming living convictions. His faith in this 
 method of influencing men was very firm, as it cer- 
 tainly could not have been had not his idea of preach- 
 ing been widely different from that illustrated by the 
 great mass of sermons to which people listened in those 
 days. Very pungently lie ridicules the pitiable maun- 
 derings that, passing current as sermons, might make 
 idiots laugh, but could only make wise men weep. 
 No patience had he with the long-robed quacks who 
 served up to their hearers, instead of the simple truth 
 of God, a despicable medley of pagan mythologies and 
 hagiological incredibilities. Hardly a greater sinner 
 could he conceive of than the preacher whose whole 
 aim, as often happened, was to amuse his audience and 
 put them into so good a humour that they would be 
 willing to pay liberally for the spicy entertainment. 
 Wyclif resolutely set himself to redeem this ordinance 
 from the desecration to which it had been subjected, 
 and his sermons, though many of them are but out- 
 lines, throb still, as we read them, with the earnestness, 
 directness, passion, and spirituality of the preacher. 
 There is a boldness and simplicity about them that at 
 once explain the influence his eloquence had not only 
 over the residents of Lutterworth but also over the 
 citizens of London. 
 
 But his single voice was an instrument by no means 
 adequate to the results he was anxious to achieve, and 
 hence an institution in which he anticipated a method 
 adopted, with signal success, by John Wesley, in 
 modern times. Wyclif s "poor priests," as lie styled 
 them, were men whom he had drawn to himself, 
 probably during his Oxford days, and whom, after 
 
38 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 special training, lie sent out to proclaim, in simple 
 language, the good tidings of the grace of God. There 
 is no reason to suppose he meant to originate a per- 
 manent order, or to supersede the parochial system 
 and replace it by a ministry of itinerant and unendowed 
 evangelists. These " true men " were rather a tempo- 
 rary expedient, suited to the present need and designed 
 only to awaken in the people an interest in spiritual 
 realities, and to secure their co-operation in the work of 
 reform. As they wandered about the country in pilgrim 
 guise, bare of foot and with staff in hand, clad in long 
 russet robes, their appearance excited alternately the 
 ire and the ridicule of the clergy. Whether, however, 
 priests laughed or raged, despised or persecuted, these 
 evangelists, ordained and unordained, held upon their 
 way preaching anywhere and everywhere, and not with- 
 out result. The statement that before long every second 
 man in the country was a Lollard is manifestly 
 an exaggeration, but it witnesses to the sagacity of the 
 lveformer in originating the institution, and to the 
 attention these " poor priests " excited and the accept- 
 ance they secured. 
 
 A yet more startling appeal to the people was that 
 made by Wyclif in his translation of the Bible into the 
 common tongue, which, as we have seen, was the splen- 
 did culmination of his career. The attempt has been 
 made to rob our Eeformer of the crown of honour 
 that belongs to him in this respect, and even a man 
 so learned as Sir Thomas More maintained that the 
 Scriptures had been translated into English before 
 Wyclif 's day. It has, however, been conclusively proved 
 that his statement rests upon a manifest blunder, and 
 the fact may be accepted as established that " down to 
 

 JOHN WYCLIF. 39 
 
 1360 the Psalter was the only book of Scripture which 
 had been entirely rendered into English." But "with- 
 in less than twenty-five years from that date a prose 
 version of the whole Bible, including as well the 
 Apocryphal as the Canonical books, had been completed, 
 and was in circulation among the people. For this in- 
 valuable gift England is indebted to John "Wyclife." 1 
 Not that the actual work of translation was all done by 
 our Beformer. He was assisted, to a very considerable 
 extent, by Nicholas Hereford, though the rendering of 
 the New Testament appears to be all his own. As was 
 to be expected, the first edition was not quite satisfactory, 
 and before Wyclif's death a revision was begun which 
 was carried on by John Purvey and published about 
 1388. The work was rapidly disseminated, as is de- 
 monstrated by the large number of manuscript copies, 
 some 150, that are still extant, and that were issued 
 within a very short period after the first publication. 
 This bold adventure was, of course, the rankest heresy 
 in the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. How they 
 regarded the matter may be inferred from Knyghton's 
 often-quoted language — " This Master John Wycliffe 
 translated it out of Latin into the Anglican, not the 
 angelic tongue, and thus laid it more open to the laity 
 and to women who could read than it had formerly 
 been to the most learned of the clergy, or even to those of 
 them that had the best understanding. And in this way 
 the Gospel pearl is cast abroad and trodden under foot of 
 swine, that which was before precious both to clergy 
 and laity is rendered as it were the common jest of 
 both. The jewel of the Church is turned into the 
 common sport of the people, and what was hitherto the 
 3 Forshall and Madden's Preface to Wycliffe's Bible, p. 6. 
 
40 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 principal gift of the clergy and divines is made for ever 
 common to the laity." 1 A reluctant but most emphatic 
 testimony on the part of his antagonists to the wisdom 
 displayed and the success achieved by Wyclif in the 
 use of these sacred weapons. 
 
 And yet the fact must be conceded that, despite his 
 choice of the aptest methods and the most effective in- 
 struments, this great man did not accomplish the 
 Eeformation for which he worked with such unsparing- 
 diligence. The yoke was not broken for more than a 
 whole century which he strove so hard to destroy, and 
 the question has often suggested itself, Was Wyclif's 
 life a failure ? Certainly no such results followed upon 
 his labour as crowned with almost immediate success 
 the kindred toil of Martin Luther. The light he 
 kindled, instead of steadily spreading and deepening 
 till the whole horizon was filled with its beauty, speedily 
 faded into almost utter darkness, and the ecclesiastical 
 powers he had sought to overthrow scarcely lost aught 
 of their supremacy, and, before long, appeared to have 
 attained to more absolute and tyrannic rule than 
 before. To account for this apparent futility of Wyclif's 
 labours, we must remember how great were the dis- 
 advantages under which he laboured as compared with 
 his great German successor. Wyclif stood practically 
 alone against the world and the Church. His few 
 political allies deserted him so soon as he assailed the 
 fundamental doctrinal positions of the Papacy. He 
 had no colleagues of intellectual calibre approaching his 
 own to aid him with their weapons. He lacked the in- 
 valuable help of the press, and was able to publish his 
 writings only by the slow and limited processes of the 
 1 Eadie's English Bible, vol. 1, cli. 4. 
 

 JOHN WYCLIF. 41 
 
 amanuensis. He was accused, especially in connection 
 with the Eevolt of the Peasants, of fostering and pro- 
 mulgating wild revolutionary tenets, and of advocating 
 a policy of rebellion, and the mere suspicion of such 
 purposes was enough to imperil and wreck his cause ; 
 and his followers, thanks partly to their own extrava- 
 gance, were combated with the dread instruments of 
 persecution, and among these, the monstrous statute 
 concerning the burning of heretics, which " asserted the 
 orthodoxy of the Faith of the Church of England." In 
 fact, it is one of the distinctions of Wyclif that his work 
 suffered from the very grandeur of his personality. He 
 was not really a man of his age, but rather a man full a 
 century and more in advance of his time. England was 
 not ready for him, and the under-currents of thought and 
 feeling that in the sixteenth century had gathered the 
 force necessary to carry forward the vessel of the Re- 
 formation, were, in Wyclif 's day, too sluggish and too 
 isolated to serve his cause. In some aspects, indeed, 
 despite the antique garb in which his thoughts are 
 arrayed, Wyclif strikes the student of his history as being 
 the most modern of all the Reformers, really touching 
 our nineteenth century life more directly than any of his 
 successors, and this very peculiarity explains, in some 
 measure, the fact that the immediate effects produced 
 by him were not larger and more permanent. 
 
 We must not, however, exaggerate this apparent 
 failure. His work told at home to a much greater 
 degree than is generally recognised. It is not my 
 place to trace the history of Lollardism, but its repre- 
 sentatives survived all down the fifteenth century, and 
 were to be found in every class of the community, 
 developing at last, on the less extreme side, into 
 
42 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 " the Eeformed Church of the age of Elizabeth," 
 and, on the more extreme side, " into the Puri- 
 tanical party of the same period." x The obnoxious 
 tenets of Wyclif lingered on at Oxford, too, for many 
 a long year, notwithstanding repeated attempts to 
 extirpate the heresy ; and if the followers of the 
 Reformer, the " Lollard Bible-men," did nothing else, 
 they did certainly not a little to disseminate among 
 the people a knowledge of, and love for, the sacred 
 Scriptures, 2 and so to perpetuate the work of their 
 great Master. This was done, too, on a larger scale 
 and with vaster results, on Continental soil, where 
 the Bohemian movement was, beyond all question, 
 largely inspired and fashioned by the influence of 
 our English Reformer. Whether this was a mere 
 " echo " of Wyclif, as has been maintained by a 
 German historian, 3 is a question the settlement of 
 which belongs to my successor in this lectureship, 
 but Hus himself made no secret of the impulse and 
 instruction he had received from his English prede- 
 cessor. Thus Wyclif, dead, yet speaking, contributed 
 not a little to the great European movement of the 
 sixteenth century, prepared the way for Luther's work, 
 and helped to make it the success which so remarkably 
 fulfilled a prophetic dream in which he had indulged. 
 Eor even in the midst of his fierce conflict with the 
 Friars he cherished the conviction that, in days to 
 come, there would arise among them men who would, 
 
 1 Mr. Babington's Introduction to Peacock's " Repressor," cited 
 by Canon Pennington. 
 
 2 Professor Lindsay's " Lollards," Encycl. Brit. 
 
 3 Boehringer, I.e. Einleitung ; cf. also, Loserth's Wiclif and 
 Hus. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 43 
 
 by their service, atone for the evil with which the 
 mendicant Orders were chargeable, return freely to 
 the original religion of Christ, and then build up the 
 Church as the Apostle Paul had done. 1 The great 
 German monk, in whom this anticipation was realized, 
 did, indeed, but little justice to Wyclif, whom, strangely 
 enough, he charges with bringing too much logic and too 
 little grammar to bear upon his interpretations, and with 
 having attacked the life rather than the doctrine of 
 the Papacy. 2 Luther's acquaintance with the English 
 Reformer could only have been meagre and, probably, 
 second-hand, otherwise he would have done frank 
 homage to one of the healthiest, noblest natures that 
 ever did battle for God and the world. 
 
 For such, indeed, we hold Wyclif to have been. 
 Our hurried and fragmentary review of his doctrinal 
 position and his methods of reform must have been 
 a sheer failure if it has not presented him as a man 
 of transcendent originality. Give all the credit that 
 is due to those who preceded him in opposing the 
 Papal claims, and the fact still remains that there is 
 a comprehensive sweep in Wyclif s assault, a massive 
 majesty in his grasp of the questions involved, and a 
 keen, subtle discernment of the root principles requiring 
 to be affirmed, to which we find no parallel at all in 
 all the previous history of England, and which give 
 him some right to be called the first of the Reformers. 
 This originality is nowhere more signally displayed 
 than in his bold, unprecedented appeal to the common 
 people to bear their part in casting off the oppressive 
 yoke of the clergy. It was a new thing that the laity 
 should be credited with a right to think and act in- 
 1 Lechler, I.e. Buck. ii. Kap. 7. 2 Boehringer, I.e. 605. 
 
44 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 dependently in ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs, and 
 greatly must they have marvelled at the intrepid 
 eccentricity of a priest who thus trusted ordinary 
 men and women, and flung himself with confidence 
 upon their sympathy. It was a grand conception that 
 of flooding the country with his short, telling, pungent 
 tracts, and originating a method of intiuenciim' the 
 national thought, which has since proven a mighty power 
 in England's political and religious history. And the 
 most daring act of all was performed by this first 
 of pamphleteers when he put into the people's hands 
 his noble translation of the Bible and bade them read 
 it for themselves, and fashion their own creed and 
 their own conception of life and duty. Therein, cer- 
 tainly, he was a true Protestant, and affirmed a principle 
 which, for many an age, was branded only as rankest 
 blasphemy. It was the inevitable penalty of this 
 originality that throughout the chief part of his life 
 " his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." There is 
 something approaching sublimity in the loneliness of 
 the man. Hus had his Jerome, and Luther his 
 Melanchthon, but Wyclif had no such equal and sym- 
 pathetic nature to walk by his side. The compara- 
 tively very feeble voices that echo his utterances are 
 only the echo, and nothing more. The mine he works 
 is one within whose dark galleries he is cheered by the 
 presence of no fellow-labourer with indomitable will 
 and iron arm like his own. At best those nearest him 
 are content to wait till he brings to bank the treasures 
 he has toiled for on bended knee and with aching brain, 
 and to bid him Gocl-speed as he betakes himself again 
 to his solitary labour. In his heart, too, all the while 
 was a vivid sense of the risk he ran, and of the possi- 
 

 JOHN WYCLIF. 45 
 
 bility there was of his being overtaken by some terrible 
 calamity. It was not given him, indeed, to wear the 
 martyr's crown, but within the tall, spare frame there 
 burned the martyr spirit, and through the clear eye 
 there shone the dauntless soul, all whose care was — 
 
 " To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds 
 Judged him perverse." 
 
 That there are deficiencies in his doctrinal statements 
 cannot be denied, and it is well known that Melan- 
 chthon maintained Wyclif had no conception of the 
 crucial truth of justification by faith. The assertion 
 need not be vehemently disputed, if it means that he 
 failed to apprehend and formulate that doctrine with 
 the precision of the later Eeformers. There was 
 something left for them to do in recovering the 
 Pauline conception, and restoring it in a worthy form 
 to the conscious possession of Christendom. But the 
 essence of the truth is enshrined unmistakeably in 
 Wyclif s teaching, and no language has ever affirmed 
 more emphatically than his, the sinner's absolute 
 dependence upon the grace of God, and the undivided 
 prerogative and glory of Christ as the Saviour of men. 
 " Christ," he affirms, " is all manner of meat and 
 drink " ; 1 He is " our Patron " ; He is " the Prior of 
 all His religion, the Abbot of the best order that can 
 be " ; 2 He is " the highest Pope," a " our ever august 
 Cresar, and the saint of saints, who is at once priest 
 and prophet, law -giver and king." 4 It is true, indeed , 
 that Wyclif frequently presents evangelical truth in 
 somewhat legal phraseology. He designates Christ as 
 
 1 English Works (Edit. Arnold), vol. i. 4. 
 
 2 lb. pp. 28, 77. 3 lb. p. 283. 4 Lechler, I.e. Buch. ii. Kap. 7. 
 
46 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 our Legifer, our Law-bringer, and. he habitually speaks 
 of the Gospel as the law of Christ. But this is neither 
 surprising nor inexcusable. In an age when, even in 
 ecclesiastical circles, religion was to so large an extent 
 divorced from even common decency and morality, 
 Christianity divested of its ethical significance and 
 degraded into mere ceremonial conformity, it was 
 urgently necessary to enforce this special side of truth, 
 to insist upon the fact that " faith without works is 
 dead," and that Christianity means nothing if it does 
 not mean holiness of life. 
 
 It would have been little short of a miracle had none 
 of the old dross been found adhering to the rich 
 gold which Wyclif made his own and the world's, but 
 its existence is hardly to be spoken of in presence of 
 the fact that " to Wyclif we owe, more than to any 
 one person who can be mentioned, our English lan- 
 guage, our English Bible, and our reformed religion." 
 It was honour enough for one man to win and ser- 
 vice enough for one man to render, that he fought 
 the battle of his country's freedom with a power, 
 persistency, and courage never surpassed and seldom 
 equalled ; that he broke the might of huge super- 
 stitions that, for almost untold ages, had lain like a 
 nightmare on immortal souls ; that he taught men to 
 repudiate the disastrous, paralysing delusion that the 
 clergy are the Church, and lords of the human con- 
 science ; and that, securing for himself the foremost 
 place in the long heroic succession of the Eeformers, he 
 won also, for his country and ours, the honour of serving 
 as the advanced guard of the noble army whose efforts 
 resulted at last in the triumph of truth over error, of 
 1 Professor Montagu Burrow's Wyclif 's Place in History, p. 6. 
 
JOHN WYCLIF. 47 
 
 light over darkness, of freedom over slavery, and of 
 humanity over priestcraft. And his right to our fer- 
 vent admiration and thankfulness is all the greater 
 that, despite the terrible fierceness of the battle, his fair 
 fame is untarnished by aught in life or character un- 
 worthy of the cause in which he fought. As has been 
 already remarked, indeed, we do not get into any close 
 intimacy with his personal experience. We cannot follow 
 him into the humble homes in which he spent his days, 
 unblest by either wife or children, those " hostages to 
 fortune " and " impediments to great enterprises," as 
 Bacon terms them. We seldom catch the smile upon 
 his face, for his humour, at its best, is somewhat stern 
 and grim, and we are not permitted to see him on those 
 rare occasions when he was able to unstring his bow 
 and forget the hard conditions of his service. Now 
 and again we are privileged to hear the prayers that 
 burst from his burdened heart, and which, breathing 
 the spirit of a beautiful humility, reveal the deep sense 
 he had of the risk he ran of being betrayed into un- 
 holy passion and unseemly speech ; but these are 
 only rare occasions. But one fact speaks most 
 eloquently for the purity and nobleness of his per- 
 sonal character. Though his years were spent in the 
 blaze of a light as fierce as that 
 
 " Which beats upon a throne, 
 And blackens every blot," 
 
 no word of blame issued from the lips of his bitterest 
 antagonists. They pelt him with abundance of hard 
 names, but there is never even so much as an insinu- 
 ation that he did not wear 
 
 " The white flower of a blameless life." 
 
48 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Among his friends he had the reputation of being " a 
 perfect liver," and his enemies had grace enough not to 
 challenge his right to praise so rare. 1 A negative, it is said, 
 proves nothing, but the silence of such angry critics 
 as watched Wyclif's course is worth more, a thousand 
 times, as a testimony to his character than the most 
 elaborate eulogium of interested admirers. "It was," 
 says Professor Burrows, " the goodness of the man that 
 made him formidable," and there can be no question 
 that one real secret of his power is to be found in the 
 fair illustration he gave, in his own life, of the earnest- 
 ness and simplicity of his faith, the sanctifying strength 
 and sincerity of his convictions. This, taken with all 
 besides, makes it the more amazing that England has 
 been so strangely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the 
 man whom Milton styles "the divine and admirable 
 Wyclif," and that we have to go to Germany to find 
 scholars, such as Lechler, Boehringer, Buddensieg and 
 Loserth, eager to render full justice to our great Be- 
 former, and, in works distinguished for their Teutonic 
 thoroughness, vindicating for him the high place he 
 is entitled to. He was a true prophet, meeting with 
 the prophetic fate, but, happily, undisturbed by antici- 
 pations of neglect, able to keep alive within his heart 
 the prophetic fire, and to impart to the world the divine 
 impulse the force of which has never been arrested and 
 never will die out until Wyclif's confident expectation 
 is fulfilled, and the truth of God has won its final 
 triumph, and proved its inherent, invincible omnipotence. 
 
 1 Eadie's English Bible, vol. i. p. 57. 
 
us. 
 
 Like a picture set in a framework of hills, Bohemia 
 lies on the north-west frontier of Austria, and may 
 generally be described as the basin of the Elbe, with 
 Prague as the centre of its converging streams. As a 
 nation, Bohemia emerges from pre-historic times in a 
 struggle between the Boii and a branch of the Sla- 
 vonic race ; but it comes distinctly on the horizon of 
 history as a Slav province, speaking the Czech lan- 
 guage. 
 
 During the ninth century, Christianity was intro- 
 duced into Bohemia. Its upland valleys felt the 
 touch of that missionary age, as the inlets of the sea 
 respond to the tidal wave. Yet they showed their 
 insular character by a stubborn resistance to ecclesias- 
 tical uniformity ; for, while accepting the leading- 
 doctrines of the Church of Eome, they refused to 
 adopt the Latin language in the liturgy, and were 
 allowed to retain their mother tongue. Through the 
 dark ages, therefore, the Czesko-Slavonic fire burned 
 on their altar and hearth ; and the native dialect — 
 like our Gaelic and Welsh — became in the hands of 
 the preachers the mesmeric touch of patriotic brother- 
 hood. Gradually, however, the astute leaders at Eome 
 
 D 
 
50 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 were able to introduce the Latin liturgy, as well as 
 other details of order ; still the true-born Czechs pro- 
 tested against the use of a foreign tongue in their 
 religious service ; and this was one of the burning 
 questions in the time of Hus. 
 
 But, throughout the secenturies, the Papal genius was 
 working on more ambitious lines of policy. The bold 
 determination of Hildebrand to rescue the Church 
 from feudal power, was carried out with marvellous 
 persistence by his successors, until the Papal chair was 
 erected on the top of the world, 1 and the kings of 
 Europe crouched before the Sovereign Pontiff of Eome. 
 Then, apparently on the principle of making the most 
 of both worlds, purgatory was annexed to the Papal 
 dominions, and the Church reached the giddy height 
 of absolute temporal and spiritual power. 
 
 But her success was won at great cost. As the 
 apotheosis of Caesar marked the decline of pagan Eome, 
 so this self-deification became the caput mortimm of 
 Papal Eome and the back stroke of the two-edged sword 
 fatally wounded the life of the Church. " The fish rots 
 from the head downwards." The avaricious example 
 of the Popes was soon imitated by the priests ; and the 
 rate of progress in degeneracy among the lower orders 
 of the clergy increased by the natural law of accelera- 
 tion. The prostration of moral and spiritual energy 
 was followed by various kinds of corruption, until the 
 unblushing shamelessness of the priesthood shocked 
 the more thoughtful friends of the Church. The 
 monastics arose in alarm at the prevailing abuses, and 
 a stern protest was uttered from the Alpine valleys; 
 but the noise of the Simonists in their unhallowed 
 1 Eoger Bacon. 
 
HUS. 51 
 
 traffic, and of the Sensualists in the haunts of vice, 
 completely drowned the voice of the mystic brother- 
 hoods and the warning of the Waldenses. Samson slept 
 in the lap of Delilah, and awoke at last, shorn of 
 strength, to become the slave of the Philistine. 
 
 The crisis came with a rude suddenness at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century. Philip the Fair 
 of France resented the imperious claims of Boniface 
 VIII. on his kingdom, and the contest ended in the 
 defeat of the Pope, with the transference of the Papal 
 seat to Avignon (1305-76). Petrarch called this 
 " The Babylonish Captivity." It may also be regarded 
 as one of those historic satires on human ambition 
 which illustrate the action of a moral principle in the 
 government of the universe. " Whom the gods wish 
 to destroy they first make mad." 
 
 During this period of Papal conquest and captivity, 
 Bohemia was developing qualities of character well 
 suited to give her weight in the councils of Europe 
 Her mountains were a barrier against envious neigh 
 hours and avaricious priests, and also a cohesive girdle 
 round the native energy. She was less affected by the 
 numbing touch of Borne than most other countries, and 
 was left free to develop her national resources accord- 
 ing to her own genius. Hence, she rose to a first 
 place among the nations, about the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, when Charles IV. was created 
 Eoman Emperor. He was the Augustus of Bohemia, 
 and his reign is the golden age of progress and pros- 
 perity. He was the founder of the University of Prague 
 (1348), the defender of religious liberty, and the patron 
 of the Czech language and literature. He is, therefore, 
 justly regarded as the father of Bohemia, and as one of 
 
52 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the brightest ornaments among the crowned heads of 
 Europe. He died in 1378, and was succeeded by his 
 son Wenzel the Lazy, in whose hands the kingdom fell 
 into disorder, and lost its prestige among the nations. 
 His whole reign was a fruitless effort to gain the crown 
 of the Eoman Empire ; it is not otherwise distinguished 
 in " the equilibrium of weakness " l among the leading 
 powers of Europe. There was neither statesmanship 
 nor steadfastness of purpose in the domestic policy of 
 Wenzel, and his accession to the throne is chiefly 
 remembered for the schism in the Papacy, and the rise 
 of a new power in the government of the Church. 
 
 This split in the Popedom forms one of the great 
 epochs in ecclesiastical history. It arose out of a dis- 
 pute about the true seat of Papal power. The Italian 
 cardinals insisted on restoring the ancient glory of 
 Pome, — the French cardinals had a natural preference 
 for Avignon ; and out of this contention came the 
 Papal schism, in which the outward unity of the 
 Church was sacrificed to the self-interest of two parties 
 in the hierarchy. The rival Popes, Urban YI. and 
 Clement VII., hurled their anathemas at each other 
 with great violence, and disorders of every kind swept 
 in full tide through the gap between Avignon and 
 Rome. " The chair of St. Peter was like to be broken 
 by two sitting down on it at once," 2 and Charles IV., 
 the one man able to reconcile the difference, died in 
 the year of the rupture. This state of self-contradic- 
 tion lasted for forty years — it practically covered the 
 active life of Hus — and it suggested the deeper con- 
 troversy about the true headship of the Church, which 
 issued in an appeal to sacred Scripture. 
 1 Palackv. 2 Fuller. 
 
HUS. 53 
 
 At this juncture, the Universities appear as a third 
 power in the public life of Europe. From their free 
 constitution, as so far independent of both civil and 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and also as the nurseries of 
 the best thought of their age, they were well qualified 
 to act the part of umpire in this contest, and to gain 
 the respect of both claimants to the Papal throne. 
 Gerson, the Chancellor of Paris University, proposed 
 to bridge the gulf by a general council, at which the 
 whole case should be discussed. As a preliminary 
 measure, it was agreed to ask the two Popes to resign 
 in favour of "a new single, supreme head of the Church," 
 — and it was a great gain for freedom when both sides 
 consented to accept the decision of the Council. 
 Hallam calls this the inauguration of a Whig policy 
 in the Papacy, by which an absolute became a limited 
 monarchy, subject to review and reform. 1 The Council 
 met at Pisa (1409), and, although it failed in its imme- 
 diate object of healing the breach, and even increased 
 the confusion by the election of a third Pope, it 
 nevertheless put the balance of power theoretically on 
 a broader representative basis than either kings or 
 cardinals, and it also asserted the right of the Church 
 in council to reform abuses in its head and members. 
 Gerson was a reformer on constitutional principles, who 
 wished to restore discipline without disturbing doc- 
 trine, but the vested interests of the clergy were too 
 strong for abstract theories of morality, and more 
 drastic measures were required to cleanse the life of 
 the Church. 
 
 In Oxford a more radical idea of reform had taken 
 root through the teaching of Wyclif. He went back to 
 1 Hallam's Middle Ages, 4th edition, p. 394. 
 
54 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the original charter for the principles of doctrine and 
 duty. He brought from the teaching of Christ and 
 his Apostles the ethics of religious life, and applied 
 the truth of God with unflinching logic to the expul- 
 sion of error and corruption. The Excalibur of England 
 flashed in the eye of France, where feudal tendencies 
 were strongest, and excited in Gerson the fear of 
 revolution; but, notwithstanding his timidity, the genius 
 of history has owned the method of Wyclif in the 
 progress of reform, rather than the negative theory 
 of the merely critical school. Both currents of reform 
 united in the movement identified with Hus, and it is 
 easy to recognise, in the progress of his work, traces of 
 mental conflict between the principles of Gerson and 
 Wyclif; indeed, Hus never seemed consciously to real- 
 ize that his plea for intelligent faith was fatal to blind 
 authority 
 
 But, long before his day, the same symptoms were 
 evident in the religious life of Bohemia, and earnest 
 minds were engaged in efforts to stem the tide of 
 wickedness in society and in the Church. This spirit 
 of renaissance expressed itself in two main directions, 
 — in a revived interest in the mother tongue, and in an 
 assertion of religious freedom. In the retirement of the 
 University of Prague, Aldbertus Eanconis (1360) was 
 engaged in the attempt to mould his native speech 
 into more flexible forms of expression in sympathy with 
 the new thought. He was a renowned scholar of Paris, 
 the most distinguished Bohemian of his day, and a 
 great friend of national education. He founded a 
 travelling scholarship for gifted Czechs, at Paris or 
 Oxford University, and left his library to native 
 students at Prague. Eanconis represents the scientific 
 
HUS. 55 
 
 iincl literary side of Bohemian reform. Stitny — called 
 " the prose Chaucer of Bohemia " — was also labouring 
 in the same field with great success ; hence, at the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, the language of the 
 land of Hus was, next to Italian, the best literary 
 medium in Europe. Bohemia had the greater portion 
 of the Scriptures in the vernacular even before Eng- 
 land, and some of the germs of reformation-thought 
 were sown by unseen hands among its hills before the 
 soil of the Saxon race was ploughed. 
 
 On the more direct side of Church reform, the im- 
 mediate precursors of Hus are distinguished by the 
 same patriotic feeling ; and the native dialect is the 
 magic charm for reaching the heart of the people. 
 Konrad found it a powerful weapon in his crusade 
 against vice in Prague, and his popular discourses in 
 the Czechian speech glowed with the warmth of prac- 
 tical piety aiid the robust force of sanctified common- 
 sense. Militz the Moravian acquired the vernacular in 
 order to reach the national conscience, and ultimately 
 became the centre of a school of itinerant preachers 
 like the Lollards, who transformed the hot-beds of vice 
 in Prague into the nurseries of virtue. 
 
 Konrad died in the birth-year of Hus, Militz five 
 years afterwards ; but the work of reform was carried 
 forward into fuller statement by Matthew of Janow. 
 He is said to have been the most profound Bohemian 
 thinker of his time, and, without knowledge of Wyclif, 
 to have thought out the leading doctrines of the new 
 theology. He rejected the clay-mould type of uni- 
 formity; he advocated the unity of difference as the 
 richest result of a living faith; he taught the priest- 
 hood of believers with or without orders; and based 
 
56 . THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the whole idea of the Church on the revelation of the 
 Scriptures. He also revived the old controversy in 
 Bohemia about the use of the cup in the sacrament of 
 the altar, and insisted on the right of all to both kinds 
 in the supper. He was forced to retract on this sub- 
 ject ; still, though perhaps wanting in moral courage, 
 his spiritual insight and his efforts to restore a better 
 tone to the life of the clergy, undoubtedly lift him into 
 the front rank of Eeformers before the Eeformation. 
 He died in 1389, lamenting the state of religious de- 
 generacy, regretting his recantation, and predicting a 
 brighter dawn for Bohemia, without being aware that 
 already the hour and the man were near who should 
 fulfil the prediction. 
 
 John Hus was born at Husinetz in 1369. His 
 parents called him John, but, according to the custom 
 of that age, he afterwards adopted the surname Hus, 
 from the place of his birth. He was the child of 
 simple peasants. Like Luther, he was educated as a 
 choir-boy, and was evidently familiar with the pease 
 porridge of the convent school. He thus refers to 
 it in later life, — " When I was a poor scholar I used 
 to make a spoon of a piece of bread till I had done 
 eating my pease porridge, and then I ate the spoon." l 
 The plain fare of Scotland was once supposed to 
 account for the mental and moral vigour of our 
 students. So perhaps the severe discipline of youth 
 helped to develop the manly virtues which fitted Hus 
 for the duties of after-life. Before his education 
 was finished his father died, but his mother spared 
 no sacrifice in assisting him towards the profession of 
 the priesthood, for which, by early choice and home 
 1 Wratislaw, p. 67. 
 
HUS. 57 
 
 consent, he was destined. His personal motive at 
 first was rather a boyish envy of the luxury and 
 laziness of the clergy, than any love for the work 
 of the ministry ; and at a later date he somewhat 
 severely judged the irreverence of his service in the 
 choir. Strong lights cast deep shadows, intense 
 earnestness is apt to exaggerate defects, so possibly 
 these reflections on his former conduct at the close of 
 life are largely due to the keener vision reached 
 through conflict. " The remembrance of youth is a 
 sigh." 1 
 
 Hus matriculated at the University of Prague at the 
 age of twenty-one ; he became Bachelor of Divinity at 
 twenty-five; and obtained priest's orders about thirty- 
 one. Little is known of his earlier student days ex- 
 cept his " loss of time in playing chess " ; 2 but there is 
 evidence at least of a fair knowledge of classics and 
 scholastic philosophy. His intellect was of a practical 
 cast, with little taste for abstract speculations or logical 
 puzzles, and therefore, throughout his arts curriculum 
 he does not seem to have attained to any great dis- 
 tinction. During his divinity course, however, the 
 touch of the Oxford thought opened his eyes to the 
 value of philosophy in theology, and transformed him 
 into an earnest student of Realism. His ability was 
 recognised in the university by an appointment as ex- 
 aminer in philosophy, then as a lecturer, and last of all 
 as Dean of the Faculty of Arts. In theology, he 
 attracted the notice of Stanislas, and retained his friend- 
 ship until the charge of heresy alarmed his old teacher 
 and drove him into an attitude of opposition. These 
 
 1 Sayings of Ali. 
 2 Letter to Martin from Constance. 
 
58 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 facts prove that John of Husinetz was above an aver- 
 age student, and left his university with some reputa- 
 tion for ability and eminence in study. 
 
 But the great era of his history opened in his ordi- 
 nation to the priesthood, and through direct contact 
 with the people in preaching. He set himself earnestly 
 to acquire the art of popular discourse, and soon found 
 in the pulpit a congenial sphere for all his latent talent. 
 His inherited sympathies drew him towards the native 
 population, and his fame as a Czech preacher so rapidly 
 rose, that in two years after taking orders, he was one 
 of the leading spiritual forces in the city of Prague. 
 Through this distinction as a popular teacher Hus was 
 unconsciously led into the great arena of Bohemian re- 
 form. 
 
 About 1390 a merchant named Kreuz or Cross, a 
 friend of Pianconis, resolved to found a chapel for 
 purely native preaching, to be consecrated to the Inno- 
 cents and called Bethlehem. Through the influence at 
 Court of John of Milheim, a royal charter was obtained 
 from Wenzel, granting certain privileges to the rector 
 and congregation. The high renown of Hus as a 
 preacher attracted the attention of the founder of 
 Bethlehem Chapel, who invited him to become its 
 rector, within three years after his ordination. The 
 chapel was founded in the year Hus entered the uni- 
 versity, but its renown dates from the time he began 
 his work within its walls. Brought face to face with 
 the practical duties of his office, the mind of the young- 
 preacher began to recoil from the indifference of the 
 parochial clergy, and he determined to discharge his 
 sacerdotal function conscientiously to society and the 
 Church. As in the early dawn of the Christian era a 
 
HUS. 59 
 
 star guided the Magi to the cradle of the greatest 
 Keformer in the history of the world, so, in less degree 
 and over a smaller area, a new attractive force drew the 
 wise men of the age to this chapel, named after the 
 birthplace of Christ — a voice, as from heaven, was 
 heard by the faithful shepherds watching their flocks 
 in the midst of darkness, and a strange excitement 
 pervaded society, which terrified the Herod-hierarchy 
 into measures for the suppression or slaughter of the 
 innocents, But Hus was charged with a divine mes- 
 sage, and could not be diverted from declaring it ; so 
 he continued to preach the gospel of truth and right- 
 eousness in the calm consciousness of duty. Crowds 
 came to Bethlehem Chapel — even Queen Sophia was 
 fascinated by the eloquence of the preacher, and made 
 him her private chaplain ; but neither popular applause 
 nor Court favour turned him aside from the serious 
 purpose of his ministry. Balbinus the Jesuit said — 
 " Hus was even more remarkable for his acuteness than 
 his eloquence ; but the modesty and severity of his 
 conduct, . . . his pale and melancholy features, his 
 gentleness and affability, persuaded more than the 
 greatest eloquence." 1 Through conflict with error 
 and superstition, a strong element of puritan earnest- 
 ness was developed in his character, which gave edge 
 to his preaching. He had no language too severe for 
 " the shepherds who sheared the sheep," 2 caring more 
 for the fleece than the flock ; and he was specially in- 
 dignant at the mendicant friars who peddled their par- 
 dons from house to house, concealing avarice under the 
 garb of sanctity. Chaucer's pen and ink portraits of 
 
 1 Keformers before the Eeformation, Bonnecliose, p. 71. 
 2 Letter to Zcwyssius. 
 
-* 
 
 60 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 these fraternities easily explain the invective of Hus, 
 " It is not the stole that makes the priest." 
 
 By the regular and secular clergy a strong remon- 
 strance was uttered against these attacks of Hus, and 
 an appeal for protection was presented to the Arch- 
 bishop, who either thought the case too glaring for 
 defence or was afraid to interfere. He died without 
 taking notice of the complaint; and his successor, 
 Zybnek, was evidently at first in sympathy with the 
 earnest priest of Bethlehem Chapel. Zybnek (1403) 
 consulted Hus on the best means of restoring discipline 
 in the diocese, and invited him to examine a reputed 
 discovery of the real blood of Christ in a ruined 
 church in the neighbourhood. Hus denied the reputed 
 miracle in a tract on " The glorified blood of Christ," 
 in which he urged a more faithful preaching of the 
 truth of God as the best cure for traffic in relics, for pil- 
 grimages to sainted shrines, and for the whole machinery 
 of superstition. His pamphlet checked the excitement in 
 one direction, but awoke it in another. The priests were mad 
 with rage at the prohibition of their lucrative trade. Even 
 the Archbishop was alarmed at the commotion ; and, 
 for politic reasons, withdrew from the extreme position 
 of Hus, while still retaining some admiration for his 
 heroic defence of religious morality. But the preacher 
 in Bethlehem Chapel was undaunted by the clamour 
 of these religious monopolists, and became still more 
 aggressive in attack upon the sacrilegious tendency 
 among the authorities of the Church. Hence another 
 memorial was sent to the Archbishop, charging Hus 
 with slanderous attacks in the vulgar tongue against 
 the clergy, "which were undermining their influence' 
 and threatening untold evils in the diocese. Zybnek 
 

 HUS. Gl 
 
 was as reluctant as his predecessor to take up the case ; 
 so the complaint was forwarded to Kome, with the re- 
 sult that instructions were sent down " to use all dili- 
 gence in the extirpation of heresy and disorder." In 
 view of this Papal edict, forty-five articles were extracted 
 from the writings of Wyclif for the judgment of the 
 diocesan synod. By the condemnation of these as 
 heretical, it was intended to strike a blow at Hus, 
 whose chapel was beginning to be called the "Wyclif 
 Cave. It was also gradually becoming the Kaabah of 
 Bohemian reform. 
 
 Zybnek, in this emergency, asked the advice of the 
 university, which, from this point, became an important 
 factor in the history of reform. The University of Prague 
 was founded on the model of the University of Paris, and 
 was intended by Charles IV. to rival it as a centre of 
 culture. It was divided into four nations in voting on 
 any public or constitutional question, and the vote of 
 the majority of nations was the decision of the univer- 
 sity. At first Bohemia held three of these votes, but, 
 in the course of time, the German influence gained the 
 ascendency, and absorbed three votes, leaving only one 
 to the Czechs. There was nothing unjust in this 
 arrangement on the principle of proportion, but it was 
 a constant source of irritation to the Slavonic minority, 
 because it virtually silenced their voice in the govern- 
 ment of a native institution. The ancient feud between 
 the Teuton and the Slav (which is not yet dead) appeared 
 in this seat of learning on every debated question. 
 The solid vote of the Germans was given in favour of 
 Nominalism and Papal absolutism ; whereas the one 
 vote of the Bohemians went in the direction of Eealism 
 and reform. This swamping of their opinions in 
 
62 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 philosophy and theology was a standing grievance to 
 the Czechs. Such a dividing line was certainly inju- 
 rious to truth and freedom, and it declared itself most 
 clearly in this case of reference on the doctrines of Wyclif. 
 
 Stanislas, the teacher of Hus, and Paletz, his fellow- 
 student, argued a general defence of the writings of 
 Wyclif, and refused to accept the forty-five extracts as 
 a true statement of his position ; nevertheless, even 
 without argument, the mechanical majority voted down 
 the heretic, and decreed that all such teaching should 
 be forbidden in the university or diocese. Zybnek 
 issued an edict to this effect. However, the condemna- 
 tion only increased the interest in the study of Wyclif, 
 and intensified the enthusiasm of Hus in the defence 
 of the Oxford Doctor, whom he was accustomed to call 
 " the master of deep thoughts." 
 
 By the broad movements of history, and the more 
 subtle affinities of learning, England and Bohemia had 
 been drawn very close together. In 1382, Anne, the 
 sister of Wenzel, was married to Pdchard II., and stu- 
 dents passed between Oxford and Prague in the pro- 
 secution of their studies, so that the two nations united 
 by marriage also clasped hands in thought. It is im- 
 possible to examine the numerous traditions about the 
 introduction of Wyclif literature into Bohemia, and 
 perhaps the story of English students exhibiting a 
 cartoon of Christ and of the Pope as Antichrist in their 
 lodinno-s at Prague, or of their carrying a forced certifi- 
 cate of Wyclif s university attesting his orthodoxy, may 
 be set aside in view of the undoubted facts that Jerome 
 was a student in Oxford, and that an interchange of 
 students had gone on for many years. Such a leaven- 
 ing as existed at this time must have been the work of 
 
HUS. G3 
 
 various agencies, and cannot with any safety be asso- 
 ciated with a name or any single incident. While the 
 thought of Wyclif was in process of incubation in 
 Bohemia, it attracted no special attention ; it was when 
 in the act of taking wing it caused anxiety, and all 
 efforts to kill the dangerous brood at this stage only 
 succeeded in enlarging the area of flight. The spent 
 shot fell harmless in the region of truth and conscience. 
 The controversy about the doctrines of Wyclif went 
 on with increasing virulence after their condemnation, 
 and stirred up a strong antagonism in the university 
 between the Teuton and the Slav sections. At first the 
 Archbishop leaned to the side of Hus, and selected 
 him as the synod preacher in 1405 and 1407. This 
 preference offended the other dignitaries of the diocese, 
 who secretly conveyed the information to Borne that 
 heresy was becoming defiant in Prague, under a too 
 mild episcopal rule, and that strong measures were needed 
 for its suppression. Innocent VII. at once issued a 
 bull calling upon Zybnek to use energetic means for 
 the wiping-out of all schism and heresy. The Arch- 
 bishop recognised in this edict the intriguing spirit of 
 the offended prelates, and, in resentment at their 
 action, left the edict unfulfilled in its strictest reading. 
 An instruction was published on the sacrament of the 
 altar, which touched the central doctrine of Wyclif, 
 without in any way affecting the modified position of 
 Hus on that subject. A conference was held with the 
 Bohemian nation in the university, at which all that 
 was heretical in Wyclif was unanimously disallowed, 
 without any real definition being given of heresy. 
 This open verdict greatly displeased the aggrieved 
 prelates and the German party in the theological 
 
64 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 faculty ; so, on the accession of the new Pope, Gregory 
 XII., much more stringent injunctions were laid upon 
 the Archbishop, to protect the clergy from abusive 
 attacks, and to root out the revolt from Church 
 authority. The fear of the Pope now overcame the fear 
 of the King in the mind of Zybnek, and forced him to 
 more severe methods of action against Hus. He for- 
 bade all references to the evil lives of the clergy 
 in sermons to the people ; he forbade all preaching in 
 the diocese without episcopal sanction, and ordered 
 those in possession of Wyclif books to give them 
 up immediately. Both the prohibitive and preventive 
 instructions were generally ignored by the reform 
 party, while, to the great consternation of the clergy, 
 Hus became even more bold in lashing the vices ram- 
 pant among the dignitaries of the Church. 
 
 The year 1409 brought this movement to a crisis. 
 The Council was about to meet at Pisa to accept 
 the resignation of the rival Popes Gregory XII. and 
 Benedict XIII. , and the King agreed to assist Gerson in 
 the attempt to heal the schism in the Papacy, by the 
 election of " a single, supreme head of the Church." 
 Wenzel invited the University and Archbishop of 
 Prague to support him in this decision — in which he 
 was looking mainly to his own imperial prospects ; 
 but the Bohemian nation alone sustained his position, 
 while the three German nations and Zybnek resolved 
 to cling to Gregory as the duly elected Pope. This 
 opposition awoke the resentment of the Court, and 
 offered a great opportunity to Hus for reversing the 
 voting power in the university, and for gaining the 
 protection of the King in the growing struggle with 
 the local authorities in the Church. Jerome, the 
 
HUS. 65 
 
 literary genius of reform, assisted Hus in this attempt 
 to make the native influence ascendant in the national 
 school. Home rule was the party cry ; it stirred the 
 memory of the old feud, and unseated the more sober 
 judgment of its advocates ; for it lost sight of the 
 advantages of federation, and sacrificed imperial to 
 parochial views of education. The German majority 
 were indignant at the attempted coercion, and at the 
 threat of being deprived of their ascendency, and they 
 resolved, in the event of the movement being success- 
 ful, to leave Prague in a body. Through the Court 
 influence of Hus, the constitution of the university 
 was restored to its original idea, giving three votes to 
 Bohemia, and one to foreign residents. Thereupon an 
 exodus of German professors and students took place, 
 carrying with it the intellectual glory of Prague. This 
 disruption caused a great commotion in the city, and 
 raised among the shopmen and citizens, dependent on 
 the university, a inaction against the movement of 
 reform. Besides, the Bohemians, hitherto held together 
 by their standing grievance, soon began to show signs 
 of dissension among themselves, and the University 
 never regained the influence of its former days. Hus 
 was elected rector under the new regime, but he 
 nowhere appears less worthy of admiration than in the 
 rectorial chair of a narrow Slavonic school. The right 
 that ignores duty is intolerance ; the patriotism that 
 forgets justice outrages the sanctities of human freedom; 
 and the spirit that would crush conviction into weak 
 concurrence contradicts the first principle of the Gospel. 
 Hus undoubtedly made a mistake in this matter, 
 and Nemesis avenges mistakes as well as misde- 
 meanours. 
 
 E 
 
66 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 The breach with the Archbishop occurred in the 
 same year. One cause of alienation was the refusal 
 of Zybnek to support the policy of the King in relation 
 to the Council of Pisa ; but there was a deeper reason 
 in the defiant attitude maintained by Hus in his 
 exposure of clerical abuses, and in his bold remon- 
 strance against certain judicial acts in the episcopal 
 function of the Archbishop. The temper of Zybnek 
 quite broke down under such interference, and he was 
 roused into fury by a citation to Eome through the 
 combined influence of Wenzel and Hus. Therefore, 
 he at once gave in his adherence to the new Pope, 
 sent a serious counter-charge to the Papal Court, and 
 asked increased powers to deal effectively with the 
 rising revolution. Immediately on his submission, the 
 benediction of the Pisan Pope (Alex. V.) was conferred 
 on the Archbishop in a bull of 20th Dec, 1408, 
 authorizing him " to remove the writings of Wyclif 
 from the eyes of the faithful, and to forbid all preach- 
 ing except in cathedral, conventual, or parish churches, 
 and to proceed in its execution without the right of 
 appeal." Hus protested against this attempt to silence 
 him at Bethlehem Chapel, and, on the ground of its 
 free charter, continued to preach as before to even 
 larger audiences. He denied the imputation of heresy, 
 and called on the excited people to sustain him in the 
 determination to stand by the truth of God even to the 
 death. The process of crushing was generating dan- 
 gerous heat, and symptoms of explosion were very 
 soon evident. 
 
 The Papal edict was at once put into force against 
 the writings of Wyclif. All in possession of these 
 writings were ordered to surrender them under severe 
 
HUS. G7 
 
 pains and penalties, and about two hundred volumes 
 of manuscript were delivered up to the Archbishop. 
 When it became known that these books were to be 
 burned, a strong representation was made by the Uni- 
 versity and by the King; but, although Zybnek promised 
 to do nothing without consulting Wenzel, the glare of 
 the burning in the palace yard at the cathedral soon 
 intimated to all concerned the arbitrary destruction of 
 the forfeited writings. Like a prairie lire, the popular 
 excitement ran beyond all control. It expressed itself 
 in satirical ballads, howled by long processions in the 
 streets, and it greatly helped to recover the popularity 
 lost to reform by the University schism. Hus said of 
 it — " I call the burning of books a poor business. 
 Such burning never yet removed a single sin from the 
 hearts of men, but only .... multiplied among the 
 people disturbances." x The King, as the guardian of 
 the public peace, forbade all social disorder under pain 
 of death. At the same time he was greatly enraged 
 at the duplicity of Zybnek, in casting such a stigma 
 on the kingdom, and thus spoiling his imperial pro- 
 spects at Eome. He therefore wrote to the newly 
 elected Pope, Belthassar Cossa (John XXIII.), denying 
 the existence of heresy in Bohemia, and inviting him 
 either to investigate the case or remove the gratuitous 
 charge. Hus also appealed against the infringement 
 of the charter of Bethlehem Chapel, and in defence of the 
 rights of the University so seriously injured in the burn- 
 ing of its books ; but the only answer to such representa- 
 tions was a more furious bull against prevailing heresy, 
 and a direct citation of Hus to appear at the Papal 
 Court. The king protested ; the queen interceded ; Hus 
 1 Neander, vol. ix. p. 356. 
 
68 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 petitioned to be released from personally appearing 
 before the Pope, and even sent a deputy to plead his 
 case ; nevertheless, the cruel Cossa was inexorable, 
 and, in due course, a sentence of excommunication was 
 published against the Eeformer. The court and 
 cathedral, long in a state of tension, now fell into open 
 rupture, and the King made reprisals on the tem- 
 poralities of the Church, to recoup the loss caused 
 by the burning of the books, and to recover some of 
 the property for his own exchequer. 
 
 The university interposed in favour of compromise 
 between the temporal and spiritual rulers. A council 
 of arbitration was appointed, and, during its delibera- 
 tions, the interdict on Hus was removed ; but no final 
 decision was reached, as in the midst of this strife and 
 confusion the Archbishop died on 28th September, 141 1. 
 
 Up to this point, Hus had no idea of leaving the 
 Church or of founding a new sect. He was rather bent 
 on reforming abuses, and on rousing the conscience of the 
 priesthood to a truer sense of moral obligation ; still, 
 while he protested his freedom from "Wyclif heresy in 
 all good faith, it is easy to see the influence of the 
 more doctrinal aspects of Oxford teaching on his mind, 
 as the movement continued to widen, and as the 
 conflict with Eome deepened. We come now to a stage 
 in the struggle where the controversy is less about 
 Wyclif heresy than papal authority, and where the battle 
 is fought with weapons directly borrowed from the 
 armoury of Lutterworth. 
 
 At the installation of Albik (1412), the successor of 
 Zybnek, the Papal legate preached a crusade against 
 the King of Naples for protecting Gregory XII., one of 
 the Popes deposed at Pisa. Indulgence was offered to 
 
HUS. 69 
 
 ;ill assisting in this holy war, by personal service or 
 money contributions. The treasury of the saints was 
 < »pened to all comers, and the drum of the pardon-monger 
 everywhere called the faithful to buy in the Church 
 bazaars. Hus was roused by this profane traffic, and 
 at once declared war to the death with the wicked in- 
 vention of Hildebrand. He assailed . the doctrinal 
 principle of indulgence, as subversive of the divine pre- 
 rogative and of social morality, and declared that he 
 " would resist it though the stake were staring him in 
 the face." He announced a public disputation in the 
 university, which the authorities in vain tried to prevent. 
 
 His old allies Stanislas and Paletz began to feel the 
 danger of being further identified with his views, and they 
 retired into the safer position of obedience, on the plea 
 of honouring the will of the Pope who had issued the 
 bull, and the wish of the King, who had sanctioned its 
 promulgation. Hus greatly regretted this retrograde 
 action, and compared his old professor and friend to 
 crabwalkers, who, afraid of the Pope, were willing to 
 renounce conscience. " Paletz is my friend, truth is 
 my friend ; and both being my friends, it is my sacred 
 duty to give the first honour to truth." l 
 
 This rupture in the reform party is an important 
 landmark in the history of Hus. It accelerated the 
 speed of the impact and recoil, and gave a tone of 
 bitterness to his further assaults on Papal authority ; 
 besides, it brings into view his greatest enemies in the 
 future development of the movement. Jerome, the 
 brilliant Uhlan of reform, skirmishing on the outer 
 margin of the area of conflict, came to the assistance of 
 Hus in this crisis, and made a defence of his position 
 1 Eeply to Paletz : " Retrocedens sicut cancer." 
 
70 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 with so great power on the popular mind, that a public 
 ovation by the students and citizens was given him on 
 leaving the university hall His intellectual and ora- 
 torical triumph set the whole population in a blaze ; 
 and, a few days afterwards, the excited mob of Prague 
 burned the Papal bull, in answer to the bonfire of 
 Wyclif s writings, and in defiance of Papal authority. 
 The logic of enthusiasm is rarely a syllogism — reason 
 and order seldom rule the action of a panic-stricken 
 crowd, and there was undoubtedly much in this riotous 
 outbreak that it would be difficult soberly to defend. 
 Hus behaved with studied moderation, evidently awed 
 by the popular excitement, and anxious to restrain his 
 followers from conflict with another proclamation of the 
 King, just issued, threatening death to disturbers of the 
 peace. In spite of his moderation, three youths attempted 
 to stop the sale of indulgences by force in one of the 
 churches, and came under the lash of the law. Hus 
 interposed in their favour, and obtained a promise of 
 their release; but a few hours thereafter they were 
 executed at the instigation of the German party in the 
 city council. This first blood was the consecration of 
 the cause of reform — it placed the wreath of martyr- 
 dom on the brow of its victims — it welded the rising- 
 force into stubborn resistance, and transformed Beth- 
 lehem Chapel into the " church of the three saints." 1 
 
 As soon as the news of the action of Hus with re- 
 gard to indulgences reached Pome, it roused the wrath 
 of the Pope, and immediately the heaviest artillery of the 
 Church was levelled at him. A bull of the greater ex- 
 communication was published in 1412, forbidding all 
 intercourse with the arch-heretic, ordering the demoli- 
 1 Abbot of Dola. 
 
HUS. 71 
 
 tion of the chapel, and interdicting all religious service 
 in the place of his residence, unless he submitted to 
 Papal authority within twenty days. 
 
 There was a solemn pause in the battle after this 
 edict was read at Prague. Both sides held their breath 
 to hear the reply of Hus. He threw his scabbard in 
 the face of the foe, and, refusing to surrender, appealed 
 from the Pope to Christ, as the only true head of the 
 Church. This defiant attitude greatly pleased the 
 local priesthood ; for, besides enjoying a happy holiday 
 during the ban on Prague, they saw, in this burning of 
 the boats and cutting of the bridge, the inevitable 
 capitulation of their inveterate enemy. On the expir- 
 ation of the days of grace, the arrest of Hus was 
 ordered, with all the fulminations of apostolic wrath; 
 and the necessity arose of considering whether to fight 
 for freedom to the bitter end or retire into seclusion. 
 After consultation with his friends, Hus agreed, at their 
 request, to leave the scene of his labours for a time, and 
 disappoint the immediate hopes of the elated clergy. 
 
 This period of exile opens the last chapter in the life 
 of Hus, as it also brings into view the more literary 
 side of his work. Hitherto, the exigencies of duty 
 were fatal to any serious efforts at writing, beyond his 
 P)ohemian discourses on current questions, and a few 
 pamphlets on special aspects of the controversy in which 
 he was involved ; but now, from his retreat among his 
 native hills, and in view of the wider bearing of the 
 question at issue, he endeavoured to consolidate his 
 position by a more systematic statement of its main 
 contentions. His letters — some personal, some pas- 
 toral — offered an outlet for his large-hearted affection, 
 and revealed one of the great secrets of his power over 
 
72 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the congregation at Bethlehem Chapel. Luther was 
 greatly charmed with these exile and prison letters, 
 and published an edition of them in Latin, as evidence 
 to his age of how a noble, heroic soul could suffer for 
 conscience and truth. It would be as impossible to 
 convey an idea of " the inflexible sweetness " of this 
 correspondence by analysis, as to present the fragrance 
 of a flower in a dissection chart. The letters present a 
 picture from within of the various stages in the develop- 
 ment of the closing chapter of the Eeformer's history. 
 His mental conflict is expressed to Martin — " My soul 
 is sad, for I know not what to resolve on ; " his calm 
 faith to the rector of the university — " I have never 
 felt myself overwhelmed by persecution ; " and his 
 counsel to the congregation — " Be not shaken in your 
 faith, and regard not those, who, having placed only an 
 uncertain foot in the path, have turned aside elsewhere, 
 and have become the most violent enemies of God and 
 of his disciples." l 
 
 His principal controversial writings also belong to this 
 season of retirement, as well as the greatest of all his 
 works, the Latin treatise on " The Church." This was 
 the Novum Organum of reform, first conceived by the 
 master mind of Wyclif, then adopted in the main by 
 Hus, and more or less borrowed by later reformers. 
 Its principles are drawn directly from Scripture, with 
 variations in application according to circumstances, 
 and its essential idea is that which has found expression 
 in the accepted summaries of the various Protestant 
 Churches. It was an answer to an attempt at com- 
 promise between the Papal authorities of the Church 
 and the representatives of Bethlehem Chapel ; and it 
 1 Luther's edition. Translated by Bonnechose. 
 
HUS. 73 
 
 was most conclusive, for its first principles and whole 
 spirit are such as to show quite clearly that Hus was 
 outside the then received idea of the Church. 
 
 During this exile, Sigismund, brother of "Wenzel, was 
 created Eoman Emperor ; and, with the assistance of 
 Gerson, urged the Pope to call another General 
 Council, to close the state of triangular tension in the 
 Papacy, to reform the Church, and to put down 
 heresy. John XXIII. had sufficient reason to dread 
 such a threatened infringement of his absolute power, 
 or any inquiry about the uses he had made of his 
 authority ; and, with the casuistry of an expert, 
 evaded any decision, until, under severe pressure, he 
 was at last compelled to summon a Council at Con- 
 stance on 1st November, 1414. 
 
 With a good deal of diplomatic adroitness, Sigis- 
 mund also prevailed on Hus, under promise of a safe 
 conduct, to appear at this Council for the purpose of 
 explaining his principles before the best minds of the 
 Church. Confiding in the promise, and confident in 
 the justice of his cause, Hus consented to appear, in 
 the belief that he would gain a victory for truth. 
 Some of his friends shook their heads, others openly 
 predicted danger ; yet they failed to alter his deter- 
 mination to defend his faith before the highest 
 ecclesiastical tribunal of the day. Under a vague pre- 
 sentiment of death, he left in the hands of one of his 
 disciples a valedictory address to his followers, includ- 
 ing a disposition of his little property. He began his 
 preparations for the Council by getting a certificate of* 
 orthodoxy from the local inquisitor, and a similar 
 document from the Archbishop, on the plea thatf he 
 had never been convicted of heresy. The documents 
 
74 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 were readily granted, because his opponents were 
 playing a subtle game, and did not wish to discourage 
 his hopes in the Council, in which they saw the best 
 means of finally crushing this revolt from the autho- 
 rity of the Church. 
 
 In complete ignorance of their scheme, Hus started 
 for Constance, leaving Jerome in charge of Bethlehem 
 Chapel. Everywhere on the journey he was well 
 received by sympathizers with religious freedom, and 
 wrote to his friends that "his worst enemies 
 were Bohemians." On 3rd Nov. he reached Con- 
 stance, a few days after the entry of the Pope ; and 
 the interdict, already a dead letter, was formally 
 removed. Before his arrival, however, Paletz was busy 
 among the leading members of this greatest of all 
 Councils, endeavouring to prejudice their minds 
 against Hus, on the grounds of heresy, contumacy, and 
 revolutionary action. The French Nominalists were 
 urged to suppress this Realist ; the Germans were 
 incited to avenge the insult offered to their nation 
 in their expulsion from the University of Prague ; 
 the English were instigated to crush the disciple of 
 Wyclif ; and the Italians were advised to stand by the 
 authority of their Pope. The treatise on " The Church " 
 was also put in process, and every agency was set in 
 operation calculated to rouse the passions of the priest- 
 hood. Several ingenious attempts were made to settle 
 the case " in camera " before the arrival of the 
 Emperor ; but these were successfully resisted on the 
 plea of the safe conduct, with its promise of a fair 
 hearing in the open Council. But, under pretence of a 
 conference with a commission appointed by the Pope, 
 Hus was taken into custody, and, a week after, was 
 
HUS. 75 
 
 sent as a prisoner to the Blackfriars' Convent on the 
 side of the lake. By whose orders he was arrested 
 has never been determined ; yet the fact remains that 
 he was a prisoner in a Dominican monastery when the 
 Emperor came to Constance on Christmas-day. Sigis- 
 mund professed to be greatly displeased at this breach 
 of honour, and severely assailed the Pope for his vio- 
 lence, and accompanied his reproof with a threat that 
 if Hus were not liberated he would leave the Council. 
 He was soon pacified by the cardinals on the assur- 
 ance that " no promise made to a heretic was binding 
 in law or conscience," and, to his indelible disgrace, 
 the Emperor left Hus to the mercy of an assembly, 
 who began by prejudging the case, and putting out of 
 court the elementary principles of justice. From this 
 point the fate of the Bohemian was practically sealed, 
 though a long series of formal investigations took place, 
 the prisoner meantime undergoing a process of slow 
 poisoning in his unwholesome cell. The letters of 
 his prison life shed a lurid light on these dark pro- 
 ceedings, and reveal the inner history of an indomitable 
 spirit undergoing martyrdom. At one time, like 
 an untamed bird, dashing against the bars of its cage, 
 his heart rebels against injustice and imprisonment. 
 At another time, like a domestic fowl, as he says, 
 playing on his name, 1 his soul is resigned to the 
 will of heaven ; but never once in the most extreme 
 suffering does he lose sight of the interests of truth. 
 His prison letters are a manifesto of faith worth all 
 the creeds. They show the secret of his heroic 
 courage, and sweeten the tragic surroundings of his 
 death with the sunshine of God. 
 
 1 The word Hus means g-oose. 
 
76 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 The programme of the Council was drawn on a plan 
 which had the condemnation of Hus for its culminat- 
 ing point, and all its acts were grouped on this prin- 
 ciple. The first public decision directly affected the 
 Popes. The two absent pretenders were formally 
 deposed ; and, as the peace of the Church was more 
 important than the interests of an individual, John was 
 called on to resign. He resisted for a time without 
 improving his case, and at last, under threats of prose- 
 cution for immorality, the infamous Cossa thought it 
 wise to abscond and thus escape from being deposed. 
 Hus, as the prisoner of the Pope, was now taken over 
 into the custody of the Council and w T as transferred to 
 the castle of Gottlieben to endure the exquisite pain of 
 starvation in fetters. 
 
 The second stage of procedure was the examination 
 of the writings of Wyclif, which were condemned again 
 with all the anathemas of the Church, and given over 
 to the public executioner to be burned. This was a 
 foregone conclusion ; it was now intensified by the 
 further instruction to exhume his bones and remove 
 them by fire from the dust of the faithful. This 
 settled the question of principle, and the severity of 
 the sentence was a bad omen for the cause of Hus. 
 Xews of these cruelties created great excitement in 
 Bohemia, and a strong remonstrance was sent to 
 Sigismund, with the result of arousing the wrath of 
 the Council, and of hastening the activity of Paletz in 
 preparing the accusation against Hus. 
 
 The trial more resembled a gladiatorial show than a 
 judicial proceeding, and reflected little credit on the 
 accusers and judges ; for it was only in the hands of Ger- 
 son and D'Ailly that it rose above the level of a farce. 
 
hus. 77 
 
 The charge against Hus was based on extracts from his 
 own writings in Latin, which in their constructive 
 form he repudiated as garbled ; and also on acts 
 of his life which were greatly misrepresented ; still 
 there can be little doubt that, from the standpoint of 
 the cardinals, Hus was the direct antithesis of ortho- 
 doxy. He professed himself a true son of the Church, 
 seeking to free it from abuses, and desiring to be 
 instructed in any truth on which he might seem to 
 have erred ; but the Council was bent on suppressing 
 discussion and laughed at the idea of debate. It was 
 a conflict between rational freedom and slavish sub- 
 mission to authority. 
 
 On 5th June, 1415, Hus was called before the 
 open Council to hear the libel read, on which already 
 the draft of his sentence was prepared. His exceptions 
 to the various points were hissed down, and, on per- 
 sisting in his defence, the tumult became so great that an 
 adjournment was made to allow the disorder to subside. 
 This clamour forced Hus to exclaim — " I thought there 
 was to be found in this Council more decency, more 
 piety, and more discipline." 1 
 
 On 7th June began the second sederunt. The 
 writings of Wyclif, specially the defence of the forty- 
 five articles, were made the ground of the charge of 
 heresy. It was contended by D'Ailly that a Eealist 
 could not accept the doctrine of the sacrament in the 
 Church sense, but this was a point on which Hus 
 never could follow Wyclif, although it is somewhat 
 difficult to grasp his modified position. He denied 
 that he supported any error of Wyclif, and insisted 
 that his defence of the forty-five articles was based on 
 
 1 Letters from Constance. 
 
78 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the wholesale character of the condemnation, and not 
 on agreement with each in detail. His work in Beth- 
 lehem Chapel was also charged with revolutionary 
 tendencies. To this he replied with an affirmation of 
 loyalty to the throne, to the best interests of social 
 morality, and to the Church as based on Apostolic 
 truth. His appeal to conscience and revelation was 
 ridiculed, and a general finding was come to in the 
 line of the charge. 
 
 On 8th June the conflict gathered round his treatise 
 on " The Church " along with his other polemical pam- 
 phlets — and Paletz was the principal accuser. Gerson 
 held that the teaching of this treatise was subversive of 
 all Church order, and averred, that while anxious for 
 reform, he could see nothing but revolution in the doc- 
 trine of Hus. There are worse things than revolution, 
 as this good man lived to know; in the meantime, how- 
 ever, he could recommend nothing but recantation as a 
 safe course out of the difficulty. Hus appealed to Apos- 
 tolic principles in vain, even urged that the Church 
 without a Pope was an argument for the true head- 
 ship, but the Council refused to listen to his pleadings 
 for liberty. So he at last gave up the unequal contest 
 in a prayer for his persecutors. 
 
 A solemn charge was then read, offering Hus the 
 alternative of an unqualified recantation of heresy, with 
 a full surrender to the mercy of the Council ; or, the 
 unanimous condemnation of the Church. Ecclesiastical 
 law and ethical principle were thus in antagonism, 
 and to the mind of Hus the authority of conscience 
 left him- no choice. Death was the only escape, and 
 he resolved to die rather than deny the truth. With 
 less equanimity did the Emperor and Council look on 
 
HUS. 79 
 
 the result of the trial, and several efforts were made to 
 induce Hus to yield. Friends urged him ; even Paletz 
 pleaded with tears, and several deputations were sent 
 to argue down his doubts ; but the love of truth was 
 stronger than the love of life, and he preferred death 
 to dishonour. The letters to Prague at this supreme 
 moment are full of calm resolution, and urge a similar 
 faithfulness on those still left in the field of struggle. 
 
 On 6 th July, the Council met in full court. The 
 shadow of death was over it, and the last scene of the 
 tragedy was opened with solemn mass. The sentence 
 of degradation from the priesthood, with death, was pro- 
 nounced on Hus ; his tonsure was disfigured, his official 
 robes were removed, then his soul was handed over to 
 the devil and his body to the flames. 
 
 His Latin and Bohemian writings were already burn- 
 ing as he passed to the place of execution. The faggots 
 were lighted as he breathed his prayer for all his enemies 
 and friends, and the smoke choked his utterance as he 
 commended his soul to God. Thus, in a chariot of fire, 
 the Elijah spirit of Bohemia was translated to heaven, 
 leaving his mantle to Jerome and a consecrated memory 
 to his country. Hus died a martyr's death — contend- 
 ing for a rational faith, a pure conscience, a Scriptural 
 Church — exposing the fallacy of force in religious life, 
 as exemplified in the Cross, in the Catacombs, and in the 
 Inquisition ; and lifting into view again the old saying of 
 Tertullian — " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
 Church." x 
 
 The fire that was intended to burn out heresy only 
 burned it more deeply into the heart of Bohemia. On 
 30th May, 1416, Jerome, having recovered from his 
 temporary eclipse in the conflict with material force, also 
 
80 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 stood at the stake to witness for the truth in death, and 
 passed across the stage of Constance in another blaze 
 of light. Hus and Jerome — united in life and death — 
 remind us of Latimer and Bidley, the twin martyrs of 
 England. One was the moral fibre, the other the in- 
 tellect and culture of the Bohemian revival in the 
 fifteenth century ; and their immortality on the page 
 of history proves beyond dispute, that great ideas in 
 moral or mental life cannot be destroyed by any material 
 weapon. " Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it 
 shines." The voice of Antigone, 1 which is the voice of 
 Conscience, is heard in Hus and Jerome — 
 
 " Nor did I deem thy heralding so mighty 
 That thou, a mortal man, could'st trample on 
 The unwritten and unchanging laws of heaven. 
 They are not of tq-day nor yesterday, 
 But ever live, and no one knows their birth-tide. 
 These, from the dread of any human anger, 
 I was not minded to annul, and so 
 Incur the punishment which heaven enacts." 
 
 In the afterglow of these fires of martyrdom, a weird 
 lament rose from the native heart of Bohemia ; it pene- 
 trated into the upland valleys like the coronach of a 
 Highland funeral, and it crept in a subdued wail into 
 the most distant households among the hills. The 
 Czech spirit for the moment was stunned — wounded 
 in its patriotism and in its religious freedom — and took 
 some time to recover the blow thus struck at its chiefs. 
 The issue of the edict of the Council to suppress the 
 Hussite cause awoke a deep resentment in reforming 
 circles, and acted like oil on the smouldering fire of 
 rebellion. Their nobles were ordered to restore all 
 property taken from the Church, their leaders in re- 
 1 Sophocles (Dr. Donaldson's translation). 
 
HUS. 81 
 
 form were cited to Eome, and all adherents of Hus 
 were required to openly abjure the principles of his 
 teaching. Clamour greeted this proclamation on all 
 sides ; it rose into a wild shriek in some quarters, and a 
 general movement began among the nobles to resist 
 this invasion of popular rights. It was as if the fiery 
 cross had been sent among the hillmen. Watchfires 
 were lighted in all directions, and the scattered forces 
 of reform gathered into solid mass. The weak King 
 was placed in a serious dilemma — with the Emperor 
 and Pope on one side, with signs of social revolution 
 on the other — and his habitual indolence increased the 
 difficulty of decision until the opportunity was gone. 
 
 The advent of the Papal legate to enforce the 
 decision of the Council roused the cry of revenge, 
 which drove him out of Prague with all his 
 inquisitorial apparatus. The Emperor then brought 
 pressure to bear on his brother, which still further in- 
 creased the confusion, for it drove Ziska from the 
 Court of Wenzel, and made him the head of the Hus- 
 sites. The personal dignity and military genius of 
 Ziska gave cohesion to the undisciplined army of re- 
 form ; and, like Cromwell, he was soon surrounded by 
 Ironsides whom nothing could resist. The old ques- 
 tion of the cup in communion had been revived during 
 the prison life of Hus, and had gained his sanction on 
 scriptural grounds. This, therefore, was made a lead- 
 ing doctrine of the party. Their watchword was 
 " Ziska of the cup," their standard bore a chalice as its 
 symbol, and one of the features of the ninth century 
 Church of Bohemia was again restored. 
 
 Ziska set up his standard at Tabor, a few miles from 
 Prague, quite in the spirit of Deborah and Barak, and 
 
 F 
 
82 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 began to drill the rustic soldiers to the use of their 
 primitive weapons, for the defence of the ancient 
 liberties of Bohemia. Very soon they swept the coun- 
 try with fire and sword, crying vengeance on the 
 priests and on the German domination. They even 
 attacked the palace of the vacillating king and threw 
 him into a fit of apoplexy, from which he died. They 
 also, in wild fanaticism, sacked the cathedral palace and 
 drew the Archbishop (Konrad) over to their side. An 
 intense republican feeling then laid hold of Ziska's fol- 
 lowers, feebly opposed by the nobles, and social disin- 
 tegration threatened to ruin both Church and State, 
 when the Emperor and Pope joined in a crusade 
 against the revolutionists. Signs of internal dissension 
 already beginning to appear among the Hussites were 
 at once lost sight of in this crisis, and the again 
 united ranks of Ziska defeated and routed the 
 forces of Sigismund. Ziska lost both eyes in the con- 
 flict, but his intrepid spirit could not be broken by 
 blindness. He still led on in an unbroken series of 
 victories. The Emperor tried to buy him over with the 
 promise of his being made lieutenant-governor, and had 
 so far succeeded when the veteran was stricken with 
 the plague and died in 1424. On an altar near his 
 tomb, on which Hus and Ziska are represented, is found 
 this scroll — " Hus, here reposes John Ziska, thy 
 avenger, and the Emperor himself has quailed before 
 him." 1 
 
 The Hussites were called " The Orphans " after the 
 
 death of Ziska, and soon fell into family feud — one 
 
 section more moderate, the other more extreme in it 
 
 demands for concessions from the authorities of the 
 
 1 Bonnechose, vol. ii. p. 311. 
 
ffC/S. 83 
 
 Church, while both were loyal to the principle of 
 communion in both kinds. The Taborites, as 
 distinct from the chalice men, rejected all outward 
 ceremonial in worship, denied the doctrine of the real 
 presence in the sacrament, and refused to acknowledge 
 a hierarchy. This sectarian tendency increased in the 
 after-history of the movement ; yet these sporadic 
 germs, thrown off at different times, had all the living 
 principle of truth within them, and borne on the 
 breeze to various parts of Central Europe, they took 
 root and grew into seed, which, sown again by other 
 causes, gradually ripened into a more glorious harvest. 
 
 Luther said, on his way to Worms, " They could 
 burn Hus but they could not burn the truth." A 
 century after the death of Hus another illustration 
 was given of the truth of his saying, " Pharisee, 
 pontiff, and priest have formerly condemned the Truth 
 and buried it, but it has risen from the tomb and van- 
 quished them all " ; 1 or perhaps Luther is the histori- 
 cal reading of the prophecy of Hus- — " The cackle of the 
 goose will awake the eagle " ; for, on the strong wing 
 of the far-seeing monk of Erfurt, the work of Wyclif 
 and Hus was lifted into a clearer atmosphere before the 
 eye of Europe, in the greater Eeformation of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 This review of the life and work of Hus has already so 
 far indicated his relation to Wyclif ; yet, as that rela- 
 tion has excited a good deal of discussion, it may be 
 well, in conclusion, to offer a broad, general statement 
 of the controversy. 
 
 The natural desire to discover the origin of life, or 
 the beginning of great movements of thought, is like 
 1 Letter to the believers in Prague. 
 
84 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the ancient sigh of Egypt, to gaze upon the fountains 
 of the Nile, or to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. 
 History is a divine plan unfolding through human ex- 
 perience, with a distinct law of continuity, with an 
 equally evident variety in its forms of manifestation, 
 and, working on large areas, and through long periods 
 of time, it brings into view phases of thought which 
 defy analysis. The spirit of an age is an inspiration, 
 not an invention, and the historian comes too late into 
 the field to discover the subtle relation of its motive 
 powers. Still, there are great epochs, with clearly 
 marked characteristics, and one of these is represented 
 by Wyclif and Hus, when the chrysalis of the middle 
 ages was breaking into the winged life of modern his- 
 tory by the natural development of inherent vitality. 
 
 The very success of the Papacy, in its struggle against 
 the temporal powers, awakened in the Church the spirit 
 of freedom, which showed itself in religious questionings 
 and social upheavals. The moral law is constant, and 
 wherever it comes into antagonism with error and cor- 
 ruption in the Church, struggle is inevitable ; and more 
 or less of resemblance will be discernible among those 
 who lead the conflict. Froude says — " A man is great 
 as he contends best with the circumstances of his age, 
 and those who fight best with the same circumstances, 
 of course grow like each other." 1 Similar plants are 
 found under the same conditions of soil and climate in 
 the most distant zones ; volcanic disturbance moves in 
 magnetic circuit over wide areas, and throws up signs of 
 its action in places far separated, yet in sympathy with 
 each other ; so also in mental and moral life, similar 
 causes working under like conditions will produce 
 1 Short Studies, vol. i. p. 582. 
 
HUS. 85 
 
 corresponding effects. " Nature is full of a sublime 
 family likeness throughout her works; and delights in 
 startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected 
 quarters." 1 
 
 Thus, England and Bohemia, outlying provinces of 
 the Eoman Empire, with an inborn love of independence, 
 were most sensitive to this spirit of freedom, therefore, 
 they rose with spontaneous impulse to the leading 
 place in reform, and presented many features of like- 
 ness in their general history, and also in their out- 
 standing figures. 
 
 The spirit of independence among the Czechs had 
 never quite submitted to the rule of papal uniformity, 
 and its protest was at least as early as that of England ; 
 but the mind of the Saxon took a deeper grasp of the 
 positive side of reform than the Slav, and it was this 
 constructive principle that gave it permanence. Abso- 
 lute originality belonged to neither Wyclif nor Hus ; 
 they were comparatively late workers in the field of 
 remonstrance, but the Oxford Doctor was not content 
 with jeremiads on the state of the Church, he suggested 
 curative treatment through doctrinal reform. This 
 undoubtedly made him a greater dynamic force in the 
 movement, and this also o:ave him influence over the 
 practical mind of Hus. The teaching of Wyclif found 
 Hus in the University entangled in the intricacies of 
 the schoolmen ; it gave him the clue with which to 
 thread the labyrinth, so the grateful student followed 
 the philosopher into the region of theology, and in- 
 creasingly found him " the master of deep thoughts." 
 This is the principle on which schools are founded, 
 and it is this affinity of complementary natures which 
 1 Emerson's Essay on History. 
 
86 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 really explains the relation between the two early Ee- 
 formers. No teacher or system of education will give 
 insight to a superficial mind; the faculty to recognise 
 profound statements of truth is near akin to the power 
 that originates them, just as the next thing to being 
 great is the ability to admire greatness. " The mute, 
 inglorious Miltons," the artistic instinct even without 
 technical skill, the appreciative sense of qualities not 
 our own, are beautiful traits of character; and we do 
 not admire Wyclif the less but Hus the more for this 
 unity of difference. It is no fair objection to the moon 
 that it is not the sun. 
 
 Stokes, an English priest, accused Hus at Prague 
 in 1411 of direct plagiarism from "YVyclif. The answer 
 is a frank confession of indebtedness, running into a 
 noble panegyric of the great master, towards whom he 
 had been drawn by instinct and conviction. 1 If Car- 
 lyle can so justly refute the imposture theory as an 
 explanation of the work of Mohammed and the forging 
 of the sword of Islam, it becomes easy to feel that the 
 fanaticism of Ziska was not warmed at a painted fire, 
 nor his sword unsheathed to defend the fame of a pro- 
 fessional tragedian. Nothing less than a great moral 
 force in society will cover the facts of the Hussite re- 
 bellion, and the cause must be equal to the effect. The 
 spirit of the life of Hus refutes the charge of pious 
 fraud, and in the fire at Constance the insult is con- 
 sumed. 
 
 Milton, in the Areopagitica, says, " Had it not been 
 
 the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the 
 
 divine and admirable spirit of Wycliffe, to suppress him 
 
 as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bo- 
 
 1 Neander, ix. p. 329. 
 
HUS. 87 
 
 hemian Husse and Jerome, no, nor tlie name of Luther 
 or of Calvin had ever been known. The glory of re- 
 forming all our neighbours had been completely ours." 1 
 
 The laws of human history are not concerned with 
 the glory of a nation so much as the good of the world, 
 and Milton's regret is simply an admission that Hus 
 was necessary to Wyclif in the evolution of events. A 
 second "Wyclif would have been less powerful than Hus, 
 who, instead of attempting to rival the thinker of Ox- 
 ford, set himself to carry out his theory into a practi- 
 cal result, until he had made Wyclif more powerful on 
 the Continent than at home. Through the life and 
 work of Hus, Wyclif was called the fifth evangelist in 
 Bohemia. History, therefore, has not lost in any de- 
 gree by the admission that more than one man was 
 required for the reformation of Europe. 
 
 On the Continent the keenest controversy has raged 
 around this subject in more recent times, and the efforts 
 of some to minimize the work of Hus almost suggest 
 the current of feeling against the Slav which still per- 
 meates Austro-German minds. At the one extreme, 
 Neander urges a heroic defence of the independence of 
 Hus, and calls him the direct offspring of Bohemian 
 reform. The law of heredity is very apparent on the 
 patriotic side. It explains to some extent the points of 
 difference between Wyclif and Hus on the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, and on the value of tradition ; as also 
 the pathetic clinging of Hus to the hope of reforming 
 without leaving the Church. Still, in view of his own 
 admission, and his undoubted leaning to the side of 
 Wyclif, such a claim for Hus cannot be fairly main- 
 tained. At the opposite extreme Bohringer calls Hus an 
 1 Milton's Prose Works, Bonn's edition, vol. ii. p. 91. 
 
88 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 "echo" of Wyclif, and Loserth endeavours to establish 
 this charge by direct quotation. 1 It is possible that the 
 very choice of such a task unconsciously assists in its 
 performance, as it is easy to select extracts from writers, 
 on the same theme, about the same time, of similar 
 tenour or diction, which, while true in detail, may be 
 misleading in their general impression. The points of 
 divergence in method and thought may be unduly left 
 in the background, and thus a tone of special pleading 
 given to the argument. 
 
 It is granted that Bohemian reform in the earlier 
 days of Hus was associated with the name of Wyclif ; 
 it is also true that the name of Hus came more to the 
 front in the later stages, as his personal courage trans- 
 formed doctrinal belief into moral energy. It is also 
 admitted that the Latin tracts bear strong evidence of 
 borrowing largely from Wyclif; and, if this is not ac- 
 knowledged by their author, it is not therefore necessary 
 to accept the charge of plagiarism. Even Shakspeare 
 would suffer if the same tests were applied to his his- 
 torical plays. 
 
 But Hus was less a school divine than a native 
 preacher ; and it has never been shown, scarcely even 
 suggested, that in his regular sermons there was any- 
 thing more than a general likeness to Wyclif, such 
 as any disciple would bear to an admired master. The 
 life of active labour laid upon Hus so soon, was fatal to 
 leisured thought ; the voices that visit the solitudes 
 and whisper to meditative minds were little heard by 
 him in the over-pressure of pastoral duty and prelatic 
 debate. Like the average Presbyterian minister, his 
 whole capacity required to be concentrated on duty 
 1 Losertli's Wyclif and Hus. 1884. 
 
HUS. 89 
 
 lying to hand, and his literary talent was given np to the 
 feeding of his flock. Besides, Hits died in his forty- 
 sixth year, about the age when ripe fruit generally 
 begins to fall for the benefit of thinking men, and, like 
 a wise man, he was content to leave his immortality to 
 the test of practical work. His expositions in Czech of 
 the Church service, his homilies on the Commandments, 
 the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Scripture lessons, 
 are full of spiritual insight and moral earnestness ; while 
 his letters unite the qualities of a Boanerges and Bar- 
 nabas in a true Pauline combination. If, therefore, a 
 thing is the sum of its relations, an era the resultant 
 of its forces, and a man the equivalent of all his 
 thoughts and deeds, then it may be allowed to 
 claim for Hus, in the work of reform, a place scarcely 
 less honourable than his more renowned and greater 
 predecessor. 
 
 A fair statement of the case seems to be some- 
 thing like this. The thought of the great theologian 
 found and educated the great preacher — the prophet of 
 England inspired the patriot of Bohemia, who, thinking 
 less of literary fame than of the cause of truth, used the 
 instruments already provided with the skill of a suc- 
 cessful workman. Hus is a man lost in his work, 
 oblivious of the ambitions of self-conscious men, and 
 totally removed from the jealous rivalry of the partizan. 
 Wyclif is like Moses on Pisgah sketching the plan of 
 conquest, Hus is like Joshua carrying it out into 
 practical effect, while both are really one in the spirit 
 of the enterprise. The one had mental power, the 
 other moral courage ; and, just as Calvin was a greater 
 theologian than Luther, yet vastly his inferior as a re- 
 ligious reformer, so the intellectual thought of England, 
 
90 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 polarized into the moral energy of Bohemia, produced 
 its greatest result on the Continent of Europe. Wyclif 
 and Hus are twin stars of different magnitude shining 
 in the dawn ; they are the reason and conscience of 
 mediaeval times breaking into the spiritual freedom of 
 modern history, and they represent the revolt from 
 blind authority to the inherent right of private judg- 
 ment. The real contribution of Hus to the advent of 
 the Eeformation was moral or spiritual more than intel- 
 lectual ; and after all, it is character transfigured by 
 conscious communion with God that is the strongest 
 force in moral and religious regeneration. Hus is an 
 example of ordinary ability under extraordinary con- 
 viction, and even his weaknesses reveal the intense 
 earnestness of his purpose. He was before all things a 
 Christian patriot, he bore to the stake a stainless repu- 
 tation, and he died in the heroic effort to restore 
 revelation, reason, and conscience to the throne of 
 religious life. An echo will not explain that commo- 
 tion at Bethlehem Chapel ; an inspiration is needful to 
 account for his courage — an inspiration which is more 
 than verbal likeness or dogmatic agreement, and which 
 comes from a source beyond Wyclif. That crown of 
 martyrdom at Constance has lifted' Hus into the sacred 
 galaxy of heroic men who have fought the battles of 
 humanity in the name of God ; and in letters of fire 
 this confession may for ever be read in his name, 
 " God alone is Lord of the conscience." 
 
This man has been denounced as a demagogue, sneered 
 at as a fanatic, cursed as a heretic. On the other 
 hand, he has been extolled for his patriotism, reverenced 
 for his earnestness, and deemed worthy of a place in the 
 calendar of the Church of Borne. Finally, he has been 
 claimed as a precursor of the Eeformation. Sympathy 
 with this last estimate has, it appears to us, solid 
 enough foundation on which to rest. 
 
 He stands somewhat apart. There is an evident bond 
 between Hus and Wyclif. The Bohemian was obviously 
 a disciple of the English Eeformer ; and if he did not 
 make an advance upon the stand taken by his master 
 such as would have brought him nearer to the position 
 which Luther was urged eventually to assume, if it be 
 even admitted that, while later in time, his work was 
 not so far forward in tendency, yet the fact is incon- 
 testable that the labours of Hus cannot be studied 
 without explicit reference to the teaching of "Wyclif. 
 Externally, however, Savonarola is related to neither of 
 these. We have found no indication of acquaintance 
 on his part with their lives, nor is there any trace of 
 his having been consciously influenced by their labours. 
 His work, the result in measure of like forces bearing 
 
92 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 upon a man in whom there was kinship of soul, is as 
 independent as it is unique. 
 
 We are brought to the latter half of the fifteenth 
 century, a period of history pregnant with interest to 
 every student of the progress of humanity. Essenti- 
 ally an era of transition, an age of becoming, it is 
 the mornhig-clawn of the modern world. Long ere 
 this, it is true, there had been signs of restlessness 
 under the yoke of authority, dogma, and scholasticism, 
 and already the spirit of freedom was stirring to its 
 resurrection. As it is impossible to trace the religious 
 movement back to its first beginning, so it is futile to 
 attempt to fix any elate as the origin of the intellectual 
 unrest without which the Eeformation could not have 
 been. Still, it cannot be denied that while the events 
 which occurred in this epoch did not call into exist- 
 ence the new life, they gave such an impulse to its 
 development as that it seemed like a fresh creation. 
 In no previous age w T as growth so signal, so great, so 
 general. Gutenberg had invented printing five years 
 before this half-century began ; four years before it 
 closed, Columbus discovered America ; and in its third 
 year Mahomet II. captured Constantinople. The mo- 
 ment of these three events as forces acting on thought 
 becoming conscious of its liberty, there can be no danger 
 of exaggerating, and it is not without reason that the 
 era on which they wrought so mightily is distinguished 
 as that of the Eenaissance. 
 
 With the import of the last of these we are here 
 most immediately concerned. From one point of view 
 the capture of Constantinople can be regarded only as 
 a dire disaster whose baleful results remain till this day. 
 It meant the downfall of Christian rule in the East, and 
 
SA VONAROLA. 93 
 
 the substitution of an empire based 011 a religious 
 system of whose falsity the fruits are at least one tell- 
 ing testimony. On its occurrence, however, the cata- 
 strophe involved nearer consequences of another kind. 
 In one direction the Western world gained by the loss 
 which the Eastern world suffered. For the monasteries 
 in the East were rich in classic lore, and the scholars 
 there were imbued with the learning of the past. Ex- 
 iled, they crossed the Adriatic seeking an asylum in 
 Italy. All the principal Courts of Europe extended a 
 welcome to the refugees, but nowhere could the welcome 
 have been warmer than in the land on which the 
 majority of them first set foot. Italy was ready with 
 a deeper sympathy than that which feels for distress. 
 Petrarch in the past had sung of the beauties of the 
 olden time and had wistfully sighed for the repose of 
 the antique culture ; Boccaccio had bidden men see life 
 to be sunny and free ; and before them both, Dante had 
 awakened his countrymen to think of things that widen 
 thought. The study of Plato, too, giving movement to 
 speculation and quickening aspiration for knowledge, 
 had been revived, and in some centres bade fair to rival 
 devotion to the rigid logic of Aristotle. And this spirit 
 was fostered by the patronage of enlightened princes 
 who, Maecenas-like, were glad to place their palaces and 
 wealth at the disposal of scholars and teachers, poets 
 and philosophers, painters and sculptors, that they 
 might pursue their labours free from too much care. 
 In these circumstances the advent of so many ex- 
 ponents of the old-world literature and art was hailed 
 with almost rapturous delight. The classic revival set 
 in with full tide. Its energy was intensified to passion 
 which dominated wherever it took hold. Blind old 
 
94 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Bardo cli Bardi, taxing the patience of his gentle daughter 
 in the library, and greeting Tito Melema with eager- 
 ness when he learned of the country whence he came 
 and of the dispositions he professed to cherish, 1 may 
 well enough be believed to represent hundreds of his 
 day and spirit over whom the fascination of the Be- 
 naissance had cast its spell. 
 
 At the same time it has to be borne in mind that 
 the very nature of the mental culture of this period did 
 nothing to stem the flood of its moral corruption. It 
 is on all hands admitted that iniquity never so abounded 
 as at the time of the revival of the humanities — that, 
 far from tending to pureness, the learning of the Be- 
 naissance served only to add an outward polish to the 
 license that prevailed and which had infected all 
 political and social life. The historians are unanimous 
 in their witness, " neither public nor private morality 
 in our sense of the word existed." 2 The most refined 
 classic tone was quite compatible with the coarsest 
 vices, their coarseness only covered by the haze of a 
 corrupt pestheticism. The abominations of Baganism 
 were side by side with its elegancies. Bopes, princes, 
 prelates, priests, people, were all unrestrained in their 
 courses of incest, murder, falsehood, gambling, and 
 every conceivable form of wickedness, which has led to 
 a comparison of this age with the days of Nero. As to 
 the relation in which it stood to Christianity, perhaps 
 no more suggestive illustrations can be adduced than 
 the counsel of Cardinal Bembo to his friend Sadolet not 
 to read the Epistles of St. Paul, whose barbarous style 
 might corrupt his taste, and the fact that when on his 
 
 1 Romola, chap. v. vi. 
 2 J. A. Symonds. Renaissance in Italy, vol. i. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 95 
 
 return from Mantua, after a vain endeavour to raise a 
 crusade against the infidels, Pius II. stepped ashore 
 from his galley at Ferrara, the landing-place was 
 adorned in honour of his Holiness by statues of the 
 gods. 
 
 It can easily be anticipated that in such a condition 
 of society the man fitted to do a religious work must 
 be one who breathed freely the spirit of its culture, so 
 that he might commend himself to its intelligence ; who 
 loathed utterly the atmosphere of its sin, so that with- 
 out suspicion he might denounce its corruption ; who 
 had a firm faith in the truth which was travestied or 
 treated with neglect ; a fearlessness of any personal 
 consequence for his genuine devotion, and in whose 
 nature, for consecration to God and man, self must no- 
 where be. There was such a man, and it is of his 
 heroic endeavour, his almost incredible but short- 
 lived success, his most touching failure, that it falls to 
 us now to speak. 
 
 Girolamo Savonarola was born at Ferrara on the 
 
 21st of September, 1452. 1 His family was originally 
 
 of Padua, but on the invitation of Nicolas III., Marquis 
 
 d'Este, Michele Savonarola, a celebrated physician, and 
 
 author of several works on medicine, had come from 
 
 his native city to add lustre to his patron's Court. He 
 
 was still alive when his grandson was born, and during 
 
 the first ten years of his life the boy, designated from 
 
 infancy for his profession, enjoyed a large measure of 
 
 the old man's regard. Of his father, Niccolo, but little 
 
 is known. It would appear that he was not without 
 
 good parts, inasmuch as on the death of Michele he 
 
 1 The principal authority followed is the work of Villari. 
 Quotations are taken from the French translation by Gustave 
 Gruyer, Paris, 1874. 
 
90 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was able to superintend the studies of his son in 
 scholastic science, a subject then considered necessary 
 as a preliminary to any professional calling. Beyond 
 this, however, he was for the most part a hanger-on at 
 the palace, and succeeded hi dissipating a not incon- 
 siderable patrimony hi the festivities of the Court. 
 The memory of his mother, Elena cli Buonacorsi, 
 Savonarola cherished with the tenderest affection. To 
 'her he wrote amid the heavy trials of after-life as to 
 his only confidant, and in terms which prove how 
 pure and noble he knew her to be. He was the 
 third of seven children, but of them all he alone lives 
 in history. 
 
 Life in Ferrara was of the gayest for all who could 
 afford to be gay, and for those who were poor, if bread 
 was not provided of charity to keep them from starving, 
 entertainments were furnished to give for the hour a 
 sense of excitement. Borso, who swayed the city 
 during the youth of Savonarola, held its people in sub- 
 jection by his very munificence. To see the town en 
 fite one would have thought that if there was anywhere 
 where sorrow was not it was here. Had he gone to 
 the homes of the poor, or into the cells of the fortress, 
 he would have speedily recognized the vastness of the 
 misery which lay concealed from sight. None that 
 was clothed in sackcloth might enter the King's gate. 
 There was no gentle sensibility, no fellow-feeling, no 
 generousness in Ferrara, where there was splendour so 
 lavish and luxury so ample. And there were occasions 
 when extravagance really deceived those who shared in 
 it and made them forget their constant woes. One 
 such occasion fell when Savonarola was but six years 
 old. It was incident to that mission of Pius II. to 
 
SAVONAROLA. 97 
 
 which allusion lias already been made. Going and 
 returning the Pope rested in the city of the Estes. 
 Never was spectacle more gorgeous, never emperor was 
 more royally received, never were balls merrier and 
 festas more brilliant and carousals cheerier than while 
 the vicar of Christ tarried in the town ! What matter 
 the lavish outlay if there was a sufficient impression of 
 grandeur made ; what matter a debauch for a week if 
 the people were pleased and cried " Viva il Duco ! " 
 Perhaps that child saw the cavalcades from a window, 
 and, as he looked, his face perhaps beamed with glee. 
 We do not know how it was with him then, but this is 
 certain, that scenes such as this were indelibly graven 
 on his heart, and that the memory of them made him 
 sorrowful. As evidence of the revulsion of his soul 
 from all such, we have it that having once been taken 
 by his father to a great Court festival, instead of being 
 dazzled he vowed he would never again cross the 
 threshold of the palace, and that at the age of twenty 
 lie had never walked on the fashionable promenade of 
 Ferrara, which was on the citadel where the dungeons 
 were down below. 
 
 It was early evident that the purpose of his parents 
 as to his career was alien to his disposition. When he 
 ought to have been giving the energies of his mind to 
 the study of medicine, he was deep in thought upon 
 St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. Soon as the fixed 
 hours of study were over (and amongst his fellows he 
 approved himself a careful, competent scholar) he 
 betook himself to the paths by the river side to read 
 and muse alone. The writings of the "Angelic Doctor" 
 specially won his soul, and so thoroughly did he imbibe 
 his teaching that in one of his sermons, long after he 
 
 G 
 
98 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 had joined the order of the great schoolman, he can 
 say: " I am almost nothing, and even that little which 
 I am I possess because I have kept within the influence 
 of his doctrine. He was truly profound, and when I 
 want to become small in my own eyes I read his works, 
 and then it appears to me that he is a giant and I 
 nothing." Not that he confined himself to metaphysic 
 and theology. " He read with eagerness the ancient 
 authors, wrote verses, studied drawing and music." l 
 Devout, too, he prayed much in secret, and learnt by 
 heart passage after passage of the Scriptures, a practice 
 which he continued to follow in after-days until, as 
 several of his biographers attest, he had committed 
 almost the whole Latin Bible to memory. Little, how- 
 ever, can be said of the inward development of mind 
 which marked his youth. The true history of that 
 period of any great life reduces itself to hidden thoughts, 
 secret impressions, unutterable struggles of the spirit 
 which we can never know. Only what we do see is a 
 quiet, serious, meditative man, melancholy as he surveys 
 his surroundings, but laying, in his learning and his 
 moral tone, the basis of force for a work to which a 
 higher Will than that of his parents has appointed him. 
 There was a gleam of sunshine shot athwart the 
 solemn sadness of these days — only a gleam. The 
 daughter of Filippo Strozzi surely forgot not only that 
 she was an exile in Ferrara, but that her mother had 
 not been her father's wife, when she haughtily spurned 
 the generous advances of young Girolamo. Poor, proud 
 flutterer, in thy disdaining of so pure a love! Yet 
 methinks that thou wert even used by God to give thy 
 noble lover to his immortality. 
 
 1 Villari, i. 34. 
 
SA VONAROLA. 99 
 
 Savonarola felt keenly the unexpected rejection of 
 his suit, but the manner of refusal only revealed to 
 him more clearly than ever the lack of true-heart edness 
 which he discerned everywhere in the world, and 
 renewed more strongly the inclination, which had only 
 been weakened for the little while, to seek elsewhere 
 than in its intercourse a rest, which to him it could not 
 give. That tendency grew as he was cast back upon 
 himself. The line of the poet began to seem as though 
 it was a voice to him, 
 
 " Heii ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge litus avarum." 1 
 
 and as he repeated the words he prayed the prayer of 
 another poet — 
 
 Domine, liotam fac niihi viain in qua ambuleni, 
 Quia ad Te levavi animam meam. 2 
 
 It was at Faenza, sometime in the year 1474, that he 
 heard the answer to the cry of his heart. Listening to 
 a sermon preached by a dissolute monk of the order of 
 St. Augustine, he caught a word — a word which he 
 never spoke to another — but which fixed his resolve. 
 Not till the year following did he feel ready to take 
 the way revealed. Sitting one evening alone with his 
 mother, he played a plaintive melody upon his lute. 
 The strain stirred a strange presentiment. She looked 
 up from her work at the face so calm and yet so sad, 
 and said, " My son, that is a sign of parting." Girolamo 
 coloured, controlled himself, but did not answer. The 
 next day, the 24th of April, 1475, Savonarola left 
 home whilst all the family were taking part in the 
 festival of St. George, and was received into the mona- 
 stery of the Dominicans at Bologna. 
 
 !Virg. Ma., iii. 44. 2 Ps. cxliii. 8. 
 
100 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Enough has probably been said to indicate that this 
 step was taken under no spasmodic impulse. It was 
 the decision of a full and mature deliberation. Were 
 it possible to question this, any doubt is set at rest by 
 a letter of apology which he wrote to his father two 
 days after his admission to the convent. That letter 
 gives the reasons for the choice he had made. " The 
 motives which determine me are these : the great 
 misery of the world, the iniquity of men, the rapes, the 
 adulteries, the robberies, the pride, idolatry and awful 
 blasphemy. The age is so depraved that good is 
 nowhere. . . . From one end of Italy to the other I 
 saw virtue in contempt, vice in honour." 1 Similar 
 sentiments found expression in a short poem which 
 bears the title " Dc Ruind Mv.ndi," and the date of the 
 previous year. 
 
 From the very outset, however, he seems to have 
 had another conviction than that of the terrible degra- 
 dation of his native land — to have had, indeed, a measure 
 of the prophetic consciousness which became the very 
 inspiration of his future life. In that same letter he 
 tells his father that in a spot near the window of his 
 room he will find some papers upon which he has 
 written the record of his thoughts. One of these closes 
 thus — " The righteous are oppressed, and the Italians 
 are become like the Egyptians, who kept in bondage the 
 people of God. Already dearths, floods, plagues and 
 many other signs forebode evils to come, announce the 
 wrath of God. Open, Lord, open anew the waters 
 of the Eed Sea and gulf the godless in the waves of 
 Thine anger." 
 
 Thus, then, at the age of twenty- three, recoiling from 
 1 Villari, ii. 447, Appendix. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 101 
 
 the scandalous wickedness of the world, not a mere 
 moody misanthrope, but a hater only of men's sin, a 
 man with discernment of the signs of the times, a man 
 Osgood intellectual calibre, of unblemished moral char- 
 acter, of a profoundly religious disposition, enters upon 
 his noviciate, and little more than twelve months from 
 the day of his coming to the cloisters vows to be poor, 
 chaste, and obedient. 
 
 It can scarcely have been in ignorance of the 
 corruptions of the Church that Savonarola sought this 
 rest from the evil of the world. Or if it was so, that he 
 hoped to find holiness liere, the delusion must have been 
 soon dispelled. For very shortly after he took on him 
 monastic vows he told out his horror- of the abysm of 
 moral depravity in which it was sunk. The verses Dc 
 Buind JEcclesiae are cast in the form of a dialogue. The 
 poet demands of a chaste virgin- — the Church — where 
 be the saints, the teachers, the love, the learning of days 
 bygone? The maiden takes him by the hand, leads 
 him to a cave, and speaks : " When I saw pride and 
 ambition get to Eome's heart, soiling all, I distanced 
 far, and shut me here that I may pass my life in 
 weeping." Then she shows him the scars and bruises 
 on her breast, and after further colloquy concerning 
 the proud harlot who has so disfigured her, Savonarola 
 utters an apostrophe so suggestive, when read in the 
 reflected light of his later labour : " O God, could these 
 great wings be broken ! " " Weep and be silent, for 
 this is best," bids the maiden. Weep the monk might ; 
 silent he could not always remain, though for a time he 
 must. 
 
 If such were the emotions of the young friar they 
 must have been made yet more intense by an event of 
 
102 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the year 1478. We refer to the Pazzi conspiracy. 
 
 Of its causes nothing need here be said. The facts 
 
 are briefly those : Death was decreed for the brothers 
 
 Medici. At mass in Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence 
 
 Giuliano was stabbed. Lorenzo escaped, wounded, to 
 
 the sacristy, for the stiletto which the priest was to 
 
 plunge to his heart did not go home. It was a 
 
 cardinal who had planned the assassination. It was 
 
 Pope Sixtus IV. who, in the hope of advancing his family 
 
 interests, had more than sanctioned the sacrilege. 
 
 Lorenzo took a terrible revenge. More than two 
 
 hundred conspirators, actual and suspected, were 
 
 executed. The Archbishop of Pisa swung in his 
 
 clerical robes from a window in the Palazzo Yecchio. 
 
 Then the Pope replied by hurling his anathema against 
 
 the city where his scheme of nepotism had failed. The 
 
 tidings of all this sped throughout Italy, and one can 
 
 conceive how they must have affected a man who 
 
 already knew and felt the iniquity of those evil times 
 
 as he pondered in his cell. Savonarola, however, was 
 
 not yet prepared for his endeavour. His convent life 
 
 in Bologna extends over a period of seven years — years 
 
 of sustained study in Aristotle and Plato and the 
 
 Bible — years during which he wrote several of those 
 
 treatises on science and philosophy which disclose the 
 
 grasp and subtilty of his intellect — during which, too, 
 
 he covered the margin of his copies of the Scriptures 
 
 with notes in a hand so cramped and in contractions 
 
 so illegible, that for the most part they bear a dumb 
 
 witness to his devotion, but which also, so far as they 
 
 can be deciphered, evince a fine union of critical faculty 
 
 with spiritual feeling. They were years, also, during 
 
 which, for that his superiors were quick to discern his 
 
SAVONAROLA. 103 
 
 fitness, he taught the novices, discharging so ably the 
 functions of " lettore " as to command the respect of 
 his pupils for his genius, and to win their affection by 
 his gentleness. He began, too, to preach on occasions 
 during this period, only, however, to pass, through a 
 not isolated experience of a fire burning within, while no 
 warmth seemed to glow in kindled utterance. The 
 mountain had not yet been touched that it might 
 smoke. 1 For the rest, it must suffice to say that he 
 kept faithfully the vows he had taken on him, and that 
 not from the outward restraint of their imposition, but 
 from the inward imperative of his moral nature. 
 Physically he was constitutionally delicate and suffered 
 from his asceticism ; not a stain of impurity was con- 
 tracted ; his submission was worthy of better superiors 
 than those to whom it was implicitly rendered. He 
 had conceived a high ideal of the true son of the 
 Church, the servant of Christ, and, even though he saw 
 the miserable contradiction of it in others who professed 
 to cherish it, his aim was that for himself he might 
 realize it ever more fully, as, when afterwards he 
 acquired his influence, he strove to raise all over whom 
 he was set to a like consistency. 
 
 It was not in sombre Bologna that Era Girolamo 
 was destined to fulfil his mission, but in the bright 
 capital of Tuscany, beyond the Apennines. He came 
 to Florence for the first time in 1482. It was the 
 only kingdom in the north of Italy in which there was 
 then no political embroilment, for, while Venice, 
 Ferrara, Genoa, and Milan were in arms, Florence, 
 thanks to the prudent policy of her prince, was able 
 to maintain an honourable neutrality. Hither, then, 
 1 Psalm cxliv. 5. 
 
104 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 for personal safety, Savonarola was sent, warmly com- 
 mended by the Dominicans of Bologna to their 
 brethren in San Marco. The commendation, indeed, 
 was not needed except as a formal introduction of one 
 whose name was already well esteemed as that of an 
 ornament of the order. 
 
 The monastery, from whose inmates he received 
 cordial greeting, was famous. Given to the Dominicans 
 by the illustrious Cosimo de' Medici, it had been designed 
 by Michelozzi, one of the most celebrated architects of his 
 day. The valuable collection of MSS. made by Niccolo 
 Niccoli had been purchased by the same prince, and 
 retaining some of these for himself, he made over the 
 larger number to the convent, thus entitling it to the 
 claim of possessing the first public library in the land, and 
 in the age of the Renaissance attracting to its cloisters 
 the foremost scholars of the time. San Marco had been 
 dignified, also, by the piety of Antonino, its first prior, a 
 man who with his early disciples approached very near 
 to the ideal of monastic life which Padre Marchese had 
 expressed in his words : " What is the use of the 
 cloister in the midst of society if it is not a focus and 
 centre of morality and religion, diffusing and planting 
 deep in the hearts of the people ideas of honesty, 
 justice and virtue, in order to temper and hold in 
 balance the brutal force of the passions which threaten 
 continually to absorb all the thoughts and affections of 
 men ? " It is to this good prior that Florence owes 
 the institution of the " Good Men of S. Martin," who 
 to this day gather the offertories at the street-corners 
 and distribute the charity amongst the city poor. 
 There was another noble name early identified with the 
 monastery — the name of Era Angelico. His marvellous 
 
SAVONAROLA. 1()5 
 
 frescoes are not yet too faded to speak their silent 
 eloquence of the sufferings and triumphs of the God- 
 man, and when Savonarola first came they were all in 
 their early freshness. 
 
 Coming from the gloomier environments of Bologna 
 to take up his abode in this Athens of Italy — from the 
 drearier precincts of the monastery there to the bright 
 cloisters of this convent — from the society of ruder 
 monks to intercourse with the brethren who were 
 students of letters, and who in their converse revered the 
 memory of holy Antonino — Savonarola, we are told, was 
 charmed. As he came to know Florence and San Marco 
 better the charm was dispelled. His new home was soon 
 to be his field of conflict, of victory, and of defeat. 
 
 All that has already been said regarding the con- 
 dition of Italy in general, and of Ferrara'in particular, 
 applies with special force to Florence. We are not called 
 upon to trace the steps of her history as the freest of 
 all the old Italian republics, Venice only excepted, 
 walked into a willing bondage so thorough that she 
 submitted to the despotism of one house for three 
 generations, so wonderful that she was all the while 
 unconscious of her loss of liberty. It was by the 
 lavish use of his wealth that Cosimo de' Medici forged 
 the fetters with which he bound her to his sway — a 
 sway albeit wise and righteous. For although he 
 gradually secured the monopoly of every appointment 
 to civil office which had formerly lain with the citizens 
 convened in " Parlamento," it may freely be allowed 
 that his judgment was quite as politic for conserving 
 the interests of the State as his ambition was resolute 
 to secure the supremacy of his family. It was not 
 possible, however, to pursue political ambition after 
 
106 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the fashion of liberal patronage without depraving 
 those whose subjection was solicited ; and the result, if 
 not so apparent in the days of the founder of the 
 tyranny, had become terribly evident when Lorenzo 
 " the Magnificent," in the third generation, was able as 
 though by hereditary right to assume the despotism 
 without a whisper of dissent. Of his character, it can 
 only be said that it combined the best and worst 
 features of his time. The partiality of his English 
 biographer 1 has led him to pronounce a panegyric which 
 cannot stand the criticism of history. With very much 
 of it no fault can be found. Of Lorenzo's sagacity as 
 a statesman there is no doubt ; the peace and prosperity 
 of his princedom in an era when constant feuds were 
 elsewhere prevalent, were in large measure due to his 
 clear-sighted policy. Himself a scholar (trained in 
 early days under Ficino, the exponent of Platonism in 
 the Florentine Academy), he did all that wealth and 
 sympathy could do to encourage learning. A fine 
 artistic taste set him to secure the services of the best 
 painters and sculptors of the age to enrich his halls 
 and gardens. All this and much more in like direction 
 can be admitted. But that does not complete the true 
 portrait of the man. There are ample grounds upon 
 which the following description can be demonstrated 
 as not more vivid by its few strokes than correct in its 
 general tenor : " A man of superb health and phy- 
 sical power, who can give himself up to debauch all 
 night without interfering with his power of working 
 all day, and whose mind is so versatile that he 
 can sack a town one morning and discourse upon 
 the beauties of Plato the next, and weave joyous 
 1 Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de Medici. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 107 
 
 ballads through both occupations." 1 We venture 
 to add : who can write a letter full of pious 
 counsels to his son in the morning, and at nightfall 
 head a band of boon revellers through the streets of 
 Florence, and who is probably quite as conscientious 
 when he does the former as he is abandoned when he 
 does the latter. It is quite necessary to insist upon 
 this, for Eoscoe's estimate of Savonarola is darkened 
 in hue just in proportion to the brilliancy of colour 
 with which he paints Lorenzo de' Medici. The testi- 
 mony is convincing that, with no lack of culture, with 
 a true perception of the beautiful in art, with a certain 
 magnanimity, with a cautious faculty of control, with 
 even a tinge of emotionalism, he was destitute of all 
 steadfast moral principle, not to say of religious faith. 
 One needs only to read some of the lewd Canti 
 Garnaleschi which he wrote, to be shocked at the 
 prostitution of his genius. And if it be held to be too 
 grave a charge to prefer against him that he was 
 directly responsible for the degradation of his subjects, 
 for their gross sensualism, their unblushing profligacy, 
 their sheer disregard of moral sanctions, their rusted 
 infidelity beneath the smooth enamel of refined 
 religionism, still it must be a valid indictment that 
 not only did he in nowise use the influence at his 
 command to keep the flood within barriers closer than 
 had respect to political security, but that his personal 
 countenance of iniquity was a force to the popular 
 license, which it is hard to call other than an encourage- 
 ment. The fact at least is established that, under his 
 rule, Florence, not merely intellectually and aesthetically, 
 but not less morally, was paganized. 
 
 1 Mrs Oliphant, The Makers of Florence. 
 
108 • THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Savonarola's first pulpit appearances in the gay 
 metropolis were disappointing to the Dominicans and 
 disheartening to himself. Little more than a score of 
 hearers were found willing to listen to him in San 
 Lorenzo, while San Spirito could not accommodate the 
 crowds that flocked to hear Fra Mariano, a clerical 
 "browser in the Medicean Park." 1 The polished style 
 of the Court preacher, as he treated with all the aids of 
 studied oratory some theme as far removed from men's 
 consciences as possible, who sympathized with the con- 
 ception of preaching as one of the fine arts, and was 
 careful beyond all else to avoid giving offence to deli- 
 cate sensibilities, pleased the elite, and those who aped 
 the tone of the dite followed the fashion. Fra Giro- 
 lamo's ponderous expositions, spoken with harsh voice 
 and ungainly gesture, loaded, too, at this time with a 
 burden of scholastic " fivefold sense," fell flat upon 
 the cultured society of Florence ; for still the inspira- 
 tion tarried that should make his words penetrate the 
 crust of complacency to reach the passions of the heart. 
 
 For the moment Savonarola seems to have questioned 
 his call and to have been so crushed by his failure that 
 he resolved to confine himself to the work of teaching, 
 in which he had achieved conspicuous success. The 
 consciousness of a mission, however, could not be re- 
 pressed. It strengthened while he kept vigils, fasted, 
 prayed, and, concentrating the forces of his soul upon 
 the Bible, waited for the vision. 
 
 It came at last. Rumours reached Florence of a 
 
 revival of religion in San Gemigniano and Brescia and 
 
 other villages and towns where the less sophisticated 
 
 mountaineers and the more impressionable provincials 
 
 1 Eomola, c. vii. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 109 
 
 were being moved by the fervent predictions of the 
 brother of San Marco, who declared that, as God had 
 of old dealt sore chastisement upon His people for their 
 wickedness, His judgments upon Italy were near at 
 hand. Then Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, that 
 " prodigy of intelligence," " Phoenix of geniuses," x a 
 man who, at the age of twenty- three, had mastered not 
 only Latin and Greek, but several of the Eastern 
 languages, and whose name for learning was acknow- 
 ledged beyond the bounds of Tuscany, came from Eeggio 
 to tell Lorenzo that at a chapter there he had heard a 
 monk whose words had stirred strange springs of 
 thought in him, and to beg the Prince to bid the friar's 
 return. 
 
 That Dominican chapter at Eeggio is virtually the 
 turning-point in Savonarola's career. It is interesting 
 to learn of the part he took in the deliberations. 
 While dogma was discussed his lips were sealed. To 
 him doctrinal precision was not the clamant need of 
 the age. But when the debate turned on discipline he 
 rose. " His voice trembled, and, like thunder, terrified 
 the auditors, silent and spell-bound. He stigmatized 
 the corruption of the clergy, and so let himself be 
 carried away by the impetuosity of his words that he 
 had difficulty in coming to a close. Everyone gazed 
 on him as an extraordinary man, animated by a higher 
 spirit." 2 
 
 Nor is it less interesting to think of the significance 
 of the impression made upon Pico, an impression which 
 deepened as intimacy became closer, and which was so 
 real that only a premature death prevented the scholar 
 from becoming a monk. For " it was, so to speak, the 
 1 Villari, i. 116. -Villari, i. 120. 
 
HO THE REFORMERS. 
 
 first point at which the Frate had touched the men of 
 the new learning." 1 And to the last Savonarola had 
 friends like him who were able to appreciate the union 
 of religious enthusiasm and intellectual culture in the 
 man they admired. 
 
 For the present, however, as we trace the course of 
 external events, the importance of this crisis lies in 
 this, that it prepared the way for a favourable reception 
 to Savonarola, invited by Lorenzo, and esteemed by Pico. 
 
 This was in 1486, and there is a gap in the history 
 containing the record of no events of much moment. It 
 extends over four years, during which he seems to have 
 been almost entirely absent from the monastery. It is 
 impossible that these years can have been other than 
 amongst the most fruitful of force to himself, but we 
 can read anything of their secrets only in the light of 
 the work that was done after they closed. 
 
 In 1490 he returned to San Marco, only, however, 
 at first to resume his lectures within its walls. Pressed 
 to open his prelections to others than the inmates, he 
 found ere many weeks had passed that the room in 
 which he taught was much too small for his increasing 
 audience, and, under a damask rose-tree in the garden 
 of the convent, he began his exposition of the Apoca- 
 lypse to a circle of hearers, who stood or sat round him 
 riveted by the teacher's power. They implored him 
 to preach, and, at length, overcoming a diffidence, due, 
 probably, to the memory of the past, he yielded to their 
 entreaties. At the close of lecture on the first 
 Saturday in August he intimated simply, " To-morrow 
 we shall speak in the church ; our discourse will be at 
 once a lesson and a sermon." 
 
 1 Prebendary Clark, Savonarola, His Life and Times, p. 75. 
 
SAVONAROLA. HI 
 
 The next day the capacity of the convent church 
 was taxed to the utmost to contain the crowd. The 
 motives, doubtless, were various. Many were already, 
 as we have seen, devotedly attached to the lettore — 
 more, perhaps, were urged by curiosity to see and hear 
 the man that Mirandola had praised ; some, perhaps, 
 were prompted by the tidings of the provincial revival, 
 and were desirous to learn, like the Athenians, what 
 new doctrine was disturbing men's tranquillity. Con- 
 jecture is easy when the mobile temper of the Floren- 
 tines is considered. Be this as it may, none who 
 came that morning could ever forget the scene or the 
 sermon. 
 
 What like was the preacher ? Not tall, but erect ; 
 finely-limbed, but not robust ; sallow and wan with 
 years of anxious waiting. But it is a wonderful face. 
 The forehead would be high but for the furrows ; the 
 lashes are long and dark ; the deep-set blue eyes are large, 
 like windows of a great, pure soul ; the nose is heavy, 
 and like that of the sons of Israel ; and the wide 
 mouth, with its broad lips, silently tells of power. 
 When the massive features are in repose there seems 
 the soupcon of a smile about them. 1 But when the lips 
 part and the eyes gleam and the thin transparent hand 
 points its long tapering fingers, one could imagine that 
 it was as though they were piercing an entrance for the 
 words and looks into the hearers' conscience. Effort 
 after oratorical effect there was no more now than there 
 was years ago, but there was the free eloquence of a 
 man possessed by his theme commanding the submis- 
 sion which no rhetoric without conviction can secure. 
 
 Savonarola's sermon on that day insisted upon 
 1 See the portrait in The Makers of Florence, p. 243. 
 
112 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 three propositions, the earnest enforcement of which 
 had been the cause of his success in the highlands of 
 Tuscany and elsewhere during his preaching tours, and 
 which were at' the foundation of all his future achieve- 
 ments in Florence. They were as follows : — 
 
 1. The Church is to be renewed in our time. 
 
 2. God will bring a great scourge on Italy before 
 
 this renewal. 
 
 3. Both these things will happen very soon. 
 
 That was the burden of his message to Italy, and when 
 Florence first heard it in 1490 she began already to 
 believe it. Villari says of the immediate effect : " The 
 success was complete. In every circle Florentine 
 society spoke only of Savonarola ; the learned as in an 
 instant abandoned Plato, to discuss the merits of the 
 Christian preacher." These last words indicate the 
 nature of this initial complete success. Fra Girolamo 
 had awakened interest and criticism. It remained to 
 win moral consent. 
 
 As he had had to pass from the lecture-room to the 
 garden, from the garden to the church, so now he was 
 soon compelled by the popular excitement to pass to the 
 cathedral. There, beneath Brunelleschi's splendid dome, 
 which one of his hearers and afterwards one of his 
 most ardent followers declared to be as noble, if not so 
 large, as the vastest in the world which he himself 
 designed, 1 Savonarola, fired with prophetic certainty, 
 cried aloud to Florence, " The kingdom is at hand ; 
 repent, repent, repent!" And as he exposed the vices 
 of the land and pictured in language all aglow with 
 
 1 Michel Angelo's comparison of the dome of S. Peter's at 
 Rome with that of the Duomo of Florence : " Piu grande, ma 
 non piu bello." 
 
SAVONAROLA. 113 
 
 passion the advent of Divine purifying vengeance, 
 Florence was fascinated in anxiety. The audiences in 
 San Spirito dwindled when the elegant Mariano aired his 
 sermonizing talents, the Duomo was densely packed as 
 the earnest monk denounced luxury and sin, preached 
 righteousness and temperance and judgment, and then, 
 softening his sharp tones, with tearful tenderness com- 
 mended the love of Christ. 
 
 In endeavouring to account for this quickening of 
 interest it has to be kept in mind that iniquity had 
 assumed startling proportions in the last years of the 
 century. AVe have not space to enlarge on the fact, 
 but one incident is worth volumes of platitude. Inno- 
 cent VIII. rilled the Pontifical chair, and he was 
 no purist. Yet even he was forced to think of reform. 
 And this is the reform he attempted. He revived 
 an edict of Pius II. forbidding " priests to keep 
 taverns, playhouses or brothels, or to act as paid 
 agents of courtesans." Men were sunken, indeed, but 
 when evil had gone lengths like that, it would be 
 strange if, when it was laid bare, there should be 
 no fear, however vague. Beyond this it must be 
 noticed that Savonarola proclaimed the imminence 
 of the cleansing judgments. He was not the first 
 to lift a warning voice. Vincent Ferrier, Bernardino 
 of Siena, Bussolari, Capistrano and others had preached 
 crusades against sin in various parts of Italy, and had 
 predicted disaster as sure to befal. F'ra Girolamo, 
 however, lifted foreboding out of the mist of indefinite- 
 ness. The catastrophe and the cure w T ere both to 
 happen " very soon " " in our time," and thus by 
 declaring the nearness of these he wielded a power 
 which their indistinct assertions lacked. Just when 
 
114 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 evil was at its worst his words proclaimed that doom 
 was at the door, adding to the force of fear the influ- 
 ence of hope that when the storm was over there 
 would be the wreck only of corruption. 
 
 Moreover, we cannot join hands with those who 
 seek to minimize the claim which Savonarola advanced 
 to have received revelations from (rod. No doubt 
 many special predictions have been attributed to him 
 which are obviously to be discredited and relegated to 
 the category of legend. No doubt, also, he did not at 
 the very outset of his career explicitly maintain the 
 certainty of his three assertions as other than con- 
 clusions from his study of Bible history and the 
 exercise of his reason. But that these three proposi- 
 tions were believed by him to be God-given, that 
 as he continued to unfold and illustrate them he in 
 the most unqualified language so averred, no one can 
 deny. And to place that fact in the background is to 
 deprive us of one aid to the explanation alike of 
 his success and his failure. It has only to be added 
 that while cynicism must perforce write down one who 
 makes such a claim a fanatic, 1 the evidence of 
 Savonarola's work is to the end that it was consistent 
 with the most rational views of human life, and the 
 most practical endeavours for the good of men. 
 
 When in 1491 the Prior of San Marco died, the 
 brethren with one consent chose Era Girolamo to 
 lie their Superior. This election at once brought him 
 into contact with Lorenzo, who, as some say, had 
 already evinced some uneasiness at the hold which the 
 preacher was obtaining on the people. The evidence 
 of this, however, is not sufficiently clear, and. as seems 
 1 Bayle, Critical Dictionary. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 115 
 
 confirmed by all that follows, it is at least quite as 
 probable that " The Magnificent " had even conceived 
 an incipient respect for the learned and interesting 
 friar. 
 
 It had been the custom of all former priors to go to 
 court on their election to office to do obeisance. 
 Savonarola, on being reminded of his duty by the 
 elders of the order, bluntly replied, "I owe my election 
 to God ; to Him alone shall I promise submission." 
 Lorenzo, learning of the refusal, said to some of his 
 courtiers in a half-amused tone which covered his 
 chagrin, " See, a stranger lias come to my house 
 and does not deign even to visit me." The vexation, 
 nevertheless, was due not so much to a feeling of 
 insult as to a sense of disappointment, and to the 
 credit of Lorenzo it must be said that instead of 
 thinking of retaliation he was prompted to seek ac- 
 quaintance with the monk who had so set use and 
 wont at defiance. He went to mass at San Marco 
 and then after service hovered about the gardens of 
 the monastery. Savonarola, informed of the fact, 
 inquired, " Has he asked for me ? " " No." " Then 
 let him enjoy his walk." The convent coffers began to 
 glitter with golden pieces. The prior sent the Prince's 
 presents to the "good men" to be given to the poor. 
 And all the while that Lorenzo was thus devising 
 to win regard, the preacher preached, hurling his 
 invectives with uncompromising plainness of utterance 
 against the immoralities of court and clergy, not in 
 wild aimless declamation, but with definite exposure of 
 individual vices, and with a directness of reference 
 which not unreasonably excited alarm. Still Lorenzo 
 was not minded to declare war. A deputation was 
 
11G THE REFORMERS. 
 
 conmiissioned, cautioned to conceal whence they came. 
 It was composed of five noble citizens of Florence, who, 
 having sought and obtained audience, begged Savonarola 
 us lie cared for the peace of the city to moderate his 
 tone, insinuating that by so doing he would consult 
 also his personal safety. They failed to deceive his 
 perception. " I fear not your threats. Go, tell 
 Lorenzo that though I be a stranger in the town, 
 while he is its chief citizen I must stay; he must go." 
 In spite of this dauntless attitude with regard 
 to personal peril it is worthy to be noticed that 
 Savonarola at this point calmly reviewed the position 
 to which his outspokenness was surely leading, and did 
 so with a momentary misgiving as to the issue. He 
 even considered with himself whether he might not 
 remain true to his mission, while in some measure he 
 yielded to the request which had been preferred. 
 He told the people, in a sermon, preached about this 
 time, that he had endeavoured to persuade himself 
 to this effect, but that even as he prayed he seemed to 
 bear the rebuke : " Fool ! dost thou not see that God 
 wills thee to follow the same path ? " Such an incident 
 deserves to have a place given to it in any testimony 
 which enables us to determine our verdict as to the 
 sobriety of judgment which characterized his intense 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 • Foiled in this effort, with the same denunciations of 
 wickedness ringing in his ears, and aware of the 
 increasing ascendancy of the preacher, Lorenzo took 
 action in another direction which was not noble. Fra 
 Mariano was ordered to combat Savonarola's teaching 
 in the pulpit of San Gallo. Nothing loth to make an 
 attempt for the resuscitation of his waning popularity, 
 
SAVONAROLA. 1]7 
 
 the Franciscan complied. The fact was soon known, 
 and the chnrch was full. Taking as his text the 
 words, " It is not for you to know the times or the 
 seasons," he attacked the doctrine of the three proposi- 
 tions, but with so much acrimony, such evident per- 
 sonal animus, such palpable misrepresentation, that 
 even the partizans of the Medici were disgusted, and 
 numbers who had cherished some suspicion of 
 Savonarola's integrity were induced to espouse his 
 cause. It only required that the Prior should dis- 
 course upon the same text to convert what was 
 designed to be a crushing humiliation into a signal 
 victory. Mariano, smarting under defeat, invited 
 Savonarola to celebrate mass with him. The cele- 
 bration took place, but soon afterwards Mariano left 
 Florence for Rome, and there restlessly wrought to 
 compass the ruin of the man he hated with fiendish 
 spite, and whom he did not hesitate to call an agent of 
 the devil. 
 
 There is but one more scene between the Prior and 
 the Prince of which to tell. Lorenzo knows that he is 
 dying. The gem-potion of Lazzaro da Ficino cannot 
 stay the disease - ; the philosophic comfort of Poliziano 
 cannot calm his fears; no cleric sycophant can shrive 
 to give him peace. " Send for the prior of San Marco ; 
 he is the only true monk I know." So whispering, as 
 he lay on his death-bed, Lorenzo de' Medici reveals the 
 real esteem which for months lie had silently cherished 
 for the man who had challenged his wickedness. 
 Having been assured of the good faith of a summons 
 he could scarcely credit, Savonarola came to the 
 splendid villa of Careggi and into the richly furnished 
 chamber of death. Lorenzo confessed, and asked alt- 
 
118 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 solution for the sack of Volterra, the confiscation of the 
 funds banked to provide dowries for the poorer girls of 
 Florence, and the massacre of the innocent with the 
 guilty in the revenge which followed the Pazzi con- 
 spiracy. Savonarola demanded three things of the 
 penitent — First, faith in the infinite mercy of God; 
 Lorenzo avowed his utter confidence. Second, the 
 restitution of all ill-gotten gains ; after a pause, the 
 prince consented. " Savonarola raised himself to his 
 full height, and, while the dying man cowered 
 trembling on his couch, the austere Dominican added, 
 ' Lastly, liberty must lie restored to Florence.' " Lor- 
 enzo turned his back to the confessor and was silent. 
 Savonarola left without bestowing the boon. Soon 
 after he left " The Magnificent " was no more. 1 
 
 The attitude of Savonarola seems harsh and unfeel- 
 ing. But full account must be made of the fact that 
 lie held the despotism which Lorenzo had exercised 
 to be not only a political wrong but a moral injury. 
 And we have already indicated our sympathy with that 
 estimate. He read the history of Florence during the 
 past years as it told not of the usurpation of a people's 
 civil rights alone, but as it showed also the wreck of 
 religious sentiment. In his view the two were indis- 
 solubly joined, and he could not have been true to his 
 deepest convictions had he given the faintest semblance 
 of countenance to the continuance of a tyranny which 
 sapped the foundations of j:mre social life, and which 
 so long as it existed presented an insurmountable 
 barrier to the salvation of men's souls. Ere this 
 course of lectures closes, the story will be told of 
 
 1 This account is preferred after sifting of evidence. See 
 Villari's note, i. 205. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 119 
 
 another reformer who would not bend before a beauti- 
 ful but imperious Queen. If a parallel in more 
 familiar history to this less known intercourse of the 
 Florentine Prior and Prince may be suggested, let some 
 features of such be sought in the relations of John 
 Knox to Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 Our space forbids more than a few sentences re- 
 counting the events in the history of Florence which 
 led to the utmost of Savonarola's success. Lorenzo 
 died in 1492. He was succeeded by his son Piero, 
 as incompetent to govern as his father had been 
 capable, as imprudent as he had been cautious, as 
 vacillating as he had been firm, and with all the love 
 of dominion, all the longing for display, all the passion 
 for self-indulgence which had marked Lorenzo's char- 
 acter. The citizens became conscious of a despotism 
 they had not felt before, while the sermons of Fra 
 Girolamo, daily more pointed and fervid in the interests 
 of righteousness and freedom, gained to their own in- 
 herent power from the sense of oppression and the 
 spectacle of the tyrant's sin. The visitation of Clod 
 was drawing nigh, and as he proclaimed its advent, the 
 people began eagerly to look for its coming. Two 
 years of endurance, and then Savonarola declared that 
 the instrument of divine anger was Charles VIII. of 
 France. He had crossed the Alps to undertake that 
 famous expedition in furtherance of his title, as a scion 
 of the house of Anjou, to the throne of Naples, that 
 " excursion " of which one wishes that the historian of 
 the " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " had 
 been spared to write. Piero had at first resolved to 
 side with the claims of Arragon, but on the approach 
 •of the French army he changed his mind and hastened 
 
120 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to the camp to surrender five of the fortresses of Tus- 
 cany that Florence might be spared. On receipt of the 
 tidings of these terms the smouldering passions of the 
 citizens burst. In a few days Piero de' Medici was 
 hissed out of the town, saved from a worse fate by the 
 counsels of Savonarola, who assuaged the popular fury 
 by reminding the people that the hand of God was in 
 the mission of the monarch. 
 
 Piero Capponi had spoken bravely the will of 
 Florence when he had declared for the deposition of 
 the traitor-tyrant, and now he spoke their will again 
 when, recommending an embassy to Charles, he added, 
 " And above all things let us not fail to send alom* with 
 the other ambassadors Father Girolamo Savonarola, who 
 now possesses the entire affection of the people." That 
 counsel was followed, and the preacher solemnly 
 charged the king to be faithful to the divine com- 
 mission with which he was entrusted. So profound 
 was the impression made by the earnest appeal, that 
 Charles pledged himself not only to pass through 
 Florence in peace, but on his return to restore to her 
 her own — a pledge the latter portion of which he 
 never redeemed. Then when, having entered the city, 
 the invader seemed loth to leave, when he threatened 
 to exact harder conditions, and if they were not acceded 
 to, to " sound his trumpets," Capponi fairly cowed the 
 little blusterer by his immortal retort, " And we will 
 ring our bells " ; but it was the persuasion of Savona- 
 rola that induced the God-sent man to depart, 
 
 And so the crisis passed. The strong despotism of 
 more than sixty years was at an end ; the danger of 
 conquest by France was averted; Florence was free, 
 and not a drop of blood, Medicean, French, or Floren- 
 
SAVONAROLA. \±Y 
 
 tine, had been shed. Nor can it be denied that all this 
 had been mainly accomplished by the patriotism, the 
 intrepidity, the calmness, the religious force of the 
 Dominican monk. 
 
 Much, however, remained to be done. A new con- 
 stitution had to be established. Of what kind should 
 it be? A limited democracy, said the voice in the 
 cathedral pulpit, and the vast majority concurred. 
 A Christocracy ! cried Savonarola, and Jesus Christ 
 was proclaimed King of Florence. This last beautiful 
 idealism must not be confounded with any thought of 
 ecclesiastical domination. To the mind of the man 
 who expressed it, civil authority did not belong to the 
 Church to seek. In one passage he speaks in language 
 altogether remarkable. " That which has so thoroughly 
 corrupted the Church is the temporal power. "When 
 the Church was poor she was holy ; when the temporal 
 power was given to her the spiritual power crumbled 
 away/ 11 
 
 Nor, again, was it at all inconsistent with quiet, 
 practical sagacity in the direction of affairs of the State. 
 Four principles of the new Republic were propounded 
 by the preacher — first, the fear of Cod and the refor- 
 mation of manners ; second, the care of the public 
 weal rather than of private interests ; third, an amnesty 
 for all political offenders ; fourth, a General Council on 
 the model of that of Venice, without a Doge, consisting, 
 however, only of those whose ancestors had filled some 
 civil office. Then a law of appeal in capital cases was 
 enacted, an equitable system of taxation was introduced, 
 measures prohibiting vice were passed, work was pro- 
 vided for the poor — everything, indeed, was done that 
 1 Sermon xvi. 
 
122 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was possible to protect the liberty that had been 
 secured and to conserve purity in the free city. And 
 for a time the history of the palmy days of the past 
 seemed to he repeated in the experience of the people, 
 and they reverenced the great, good man who had 
 broken their chains. For in all Savonarola did it was 
 not of himself he thought ; not for pay or power did 
 he labour, but only for Florence. Never did he even 
 come to a meeting of the Signoria except his presence 
 was requested ; he did all by the power of his preach- 
 ing, and prompted alone by the ambition to see the 
 citizens living purely and peaceably. We feel safe in 
 affirming that Savonarola was absolutely unselfish in 
 his patriotism. A demagogue, if you will, but only in 
 the sense that he had the cause of the people at heart, 
 and by his wise counsel sought to win them to the 
 adoption of an order of government, which he deemed 
 the best to promote their well-being, anxious, above all, 
 that political conditions might be such as to advance 
 the kingdom of Christ in the hearts of men. 
 
 Meanwhile the monastery had undergone a thorough 
 reform. In the year 1492 Savonarola succeeded in 
 securing a brief which separated the Dominican con- 
 gregations in Tuscany from those in Lombardy, to 
 whose Vicar-General they had hitherto been subject. 
 This severance, accompanied by his election to be Vicar 
 of the Florentine congregation, placed the Prior of San 
 Marco in a position of authority, which enabled him to 
 correct the abuses that prevailed. So gently did he 
 deal with the brethren, and with earnestness so single 
 that they obeyed under the constraint of love. His 
 own monastery was his first care. It had amassed con- 
 siderable wealth, and though the words of Antonino 
 
SAVONAROLA. 123 
 
 were inscribed on its walls, " May my curse and 
 that of God fall on him who shall bring possessions 
 into this order," the monastic vow of poverty had 
 come to be regarded as a mere form of initiation. 
 Property had fostered luxury, luxury bred indolence 
 and vanity and declining spirituality. In a letter 
 to his mother, which bears date 10th September, 
 1493, Savonarola speaks of the reformation which was 
 in progress, and tells her of the general inconsistencies 
 which call for reform. It is no innovation the monks 
 of San Marco are making. " What is a novelty is for 
 men making profession of beggary to rear convents, 
 which with their pillars and their marbles resemble 
 palaces, to have rooms tit for lords, to possess goods 
 contrary to the rules of the Order, because they have 
 no confidence in this word of Jesus Christ, ' Seek first 
 the kingdom of God and the rest will be added to you.' 
 It is a novelty to clothe oneself not in the usual com- 
 mon stuffs but in the finest and most choice, to pray 
 little, to gad about, to be willing to be poor without 
 wanting anything," etc, It was with such abuses that 
 Savonarola set himself to deal. The superfluous wealth 
 was surrendered, and they who insist on this monk's 
 iconoclasm must face the fact that the treasures were 
 devoted in part to the purchase of the remainder of 
 the MSS. of Niccoli which Cosimo de' Medici had 
 reserved for his own library, and which, after the 
 banishment of Piero, the Signoria proposed to bring to 
 the hammer. Then, the example always set by the 
 Prior himself, a rigid regime was appointed. Plain 
 fare, simple dress, and profitable work for the mainten- 
 ance of the always necessary, but never lavish, expenses 
 of the institution marked the routine. The study of 
 
124 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the Scriptures was revived, the classic authors were 
 read, the monks painted and carved, copied MSS. and 
 illuminated them. They became devout and charitable. 
 For recreation they desired nothing better than to walk 
 with their Prior and enjoy discourse of reason. Savona- 
 rola had this joy at least of seeing piety at home, and 
 of finding that San Marco became a centre of influence 
 which extended to all the convents under his control. 
 If true, useful, cultured monks were anywhere they 
 were in the Dominican monasteries upon whose Vicar 
 the mantle of Antonino had fallen. 
 
 As for Florence, this is in brief the testimony. For 
 nearly three years there was a revival of religion and 
 morals. The aspect of the whole city seemed to be 
 changed. Indulgence gave place to simplicity. Hymns 
 were heard instead of lewd bacchanalian songs. Work- 
 men read the Bible at meal times. Public worship 
 was regular. Almsgiving was generous and ready. 
 Usury seemed an extortion of the commercial past. 
 And when Savonarola sent his little army of children 
 (to whose instruction he gave himself with kindly 
 heart, when he must not preach because of the order of 
 the Pope) to beg the citizens to give up their " vanities " 
 for a carnival bonfire, there was forthcoming such a 
 melange of wigs, and obscene tapestries, and boxes of 
 face powder, and bad pictures, etc., etc, that never 
 was there a finer blaze. For it was only evil things 
 that Fra Girolamo would wish to be burned. 
 
 During these years he preached not to Florence only 
 but to Italy. He proclaimed unfalteringly that God 
 had sent him, that God spoke to him, and that what he 
 spoke he spoke as having received it from God. There 
 was no scholasticism in his sermons now. He had 
 
SAVONAROLA, 125 
 
 steeped his soul in the Bible. He had stood in idea 
 with Noah before the Hood, with Amos and Haggai 
 and Malachi in face of the iniquity of Israel, with John 
 in Patnios, and the voices and the visions had been 
 heard and seen by him to tell to the priests and people 
 of his age. With increasing vehemence, in which 
 caustic sarcasm was blended with fierce invective, both 
 combined with searching appeal, he kept depicting the 
 abominations of the Church which demanded the Divine 
 scourge that it might be roused to righteousness. His 
 message never varied. " Repent, lest ye perish " was 
 its sum. " Behold the anser of God and return to 
 holiness." 
 
 .^ v 
 
 Before the days of change, still is it so : 
 By a Divine instinct, men's minds mistrust 
 Ensuing danger ; as by proof we see 
 The waters swell before a boisterous storm. 1 
 
 This was the consciousness of Savonarola even when 
 at the height of his success. In several of his sermons 
 in which he exhorts Florence to remain free and pure 
 he strikes the chord of sad foreboding. " Before my 
 eyes I see tribulation and tempests appearing; behind 
 me the harbour is lost, and the wind drives me forth 
 into the deep." That is but one sentence, spoken 
 shortly after his reform had been achieved, representa- 
 tive of many utterances of an ever-present anxiety. 
 He had cause indeed from the beginning to be fearful. 
 It was impossible that so radical a revolution, political 
 and moral, could be effected without awakening sonic 
 hostility. There were factions from the first. Even 
 when the character which the new constitution should 
 assume had been openly discussed, Vespucci had com- 
 1 Richard III. act 3, sc. 4. 
 
126 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 mended an oligarchy, and with him many of the 
 upper classes naturally sympathized. They retained 
 their sympathy despite their defeat, and formed the 
 party of the Arrabiati. Then at the opposite ex- 
 treme were the Bianchi, impatient of the restric- 
 tion which excluded them from the Grand Council. 
 The amnesty permitted partizans of the Medici, like 
 old Bernardo del Xero, Giannozzo Pucci, Lorenzo 
 Tornabuoni, Xiccolo liidolfi, and Giovanni Cambi 
 to remain in Florence secretly plotting- with Piero 
 for his restoration. There were still " fast " youths — 
 Dolfo Spini and his Oompagnacci — who were im- 
 patient of the restraint put upon their revelry. There is 
 always a class of indifterents — Tepidi — who keep aloof 
 from any study of principles. And that the Frateschi, 
 the followers of Savonarola, could be nick-named Pia- 
 (jnoni (weepers) is proof that, though far the most numer- 
 ous, they were not omnipotent. It is easy to see that 
 a combination of all these parties and a defection from 
 the ranks of the loyal might avail to secure a hostile 
 majority in the annually elected Signoria. Besides, the 
 commercial interests of perruquiers, and tavern-keepers, 
 and purveyors suffered by the abolition, or at least 
 the diminution, of masquerades, and debaucheries, and 
 banquets. Beyond Florence, too, princes could not 
 regard with equanimity such a change as had been 
 wrought. And Mariano was at Rome, and so was 
 Piero de' Medici, while, to crown all, the Spaniard 
 Rodrigo Borgia had purchased his election to the Papal 
 throne. The death of Innocent VII I., one who, like 
 most of the Popes of the Renaissance, was a disgrace 
 to humanity, not to say to the Christian Church, fell 
 but a fortnight after the death of Lorenzo. " Then, as 
 
SAVONAROLA. 12" 
 
 he disappears, a din of fiends is heard, and a triumphal 
 chariot drawn by the seven deadly sins leads Belial 
 himself upon the stage. Murder and Treachery and 
 Fraud and Fear, and all the shapes of Death and Lust, 
 are dancing round this car. At the side of Belial 
 smile his two children — his daughter Incest, white as 
 leprosy, and His son Fratricide, subtle-featured, smooth 
 and tortuous as a snake. That is Alexander VI." l 
 Let that not too strong figurative language stand in 
 room of plain details of the monster's crimes. No soph- 
 istry can serve to drag the Borgia from the nadir of 
 inhuman cruelty and brutish sensualism in which he lay. 
 
 Such a Pope was not one to remain indifferent to 
 the scathing criticism of ecclesiastical corruption which 
 was thundering forth from Florence, and, when some 
 of Savonarola's sermons exposing the enormity of sins 
 of which he was consciously guilty came into his hands, 
 it hardly needed the falsehoods of the malicious Fran- 
 ciscan and the solicitations of the exiled Prince to 
 determine the doom of the man who wielded so mighty 
 an influence. 
 
 While Charles VIII. remained in Italy, however, no 
 action could safely be taken. It was well known that 
 the King held the friar high in favour, and that 
 Florence of all the Italian states had alone refused to 
 join the league against him. But when the monarch 
 quitted Naples on being warned of the gathering peril, 
 when he left Florence, having even taken Piero de' 
 Medici to its gates, and having fulfilled not one of his 
 promises, then though Savonarola spoke his condem- 
 nation of such perfidy to his very face and once more 
 averted danger, his influence received a check, for 
 1 Symonds' Renaissance in Italy. 
 
128 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 his predictions of ultimate good to the Republic were 
 unrealized. Capponi fell before Pisa. The live con- 
 spirators were executed, and some said that if 
 Savonarola had not sanctioned the penalty exacted 
 from Bernardo del Nero, who had done service to the 
 State and whose white hairs moved compassion, 
 his refusal to interfere on behalf of him and his 
 comrades in the plot was virtually to approve the 
 severity of the sentence. These and other incidents, 
 well enough known at Borne, gave encouragement to 
 the course of injustice which the Pope pursued to the 
 bitter end. To follow the narration of that course 
 is out of the question here. The main points are these. 
 Inhibitions to preach Savonarola at first obeyed. 
 Vague charges of heresy he boldly repelled by refer- 
 ence to his written works, and a Papal commission 
 failed to detect any deviation from Catholic dogma 
 which could give colour to the indictment. Bribed by 
 the offer of a Cardinal's hat, he indignantly declined, 
 declaring that the only red hat he desired was the red 
 hat of martyrdom ; commanded to reform the tie 
 between the Tuscan and Lombard congregations, he 
 positively refused: excommunicated at length in 1497, 
 he kept silence for six months, and then, implored by 
 the Signoria, he returned to the pulpit, declared the 
 Pope illegally elected, and the excommunication to be 
 null and void. The ground of his apology was that of 
 his own entire harmony with Catholic dogma and the 
 notorious character of the man who assumed the 
 prerogative of the Vicar of Christ. He avowed his 
 readiness to submit to any decision of the Church, but 
 lie would not submit to the iniquitous decree of this 
 son of perdition. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 129 
 
 The briefs, however, had a disastrous effect upon 
 Savonarola's influence with the people of Florence. 
 During the intervals of his silence Fra Dominico had 
 taken his place in the pulpit, but he could not com- 
 mand the force of his superior's personality, and in his 
 comparative seclusion Fra Girolamo heard, with feelings 
 almost of despair, that all the good he had accom- 
 plished was slowly being undone. The Arrctbiati 
 and the Compagnacci took full advantage of his with- 
 drawal, and not only succeeded in corrupting the 
 populace, but in gaining the majority in the Signoria. 
 An outbreak of the plague at a time when the Prior 
 was helpless under ban to discharge his priestly 
 functions, and the political intrigues of other States 
 during the same period aided their determined endea- 
 vours. We cannot enlarge upon these points. It 
 must be sufficient to say that when Savonarola was 
 prohibited to preach by the civil government on the 
 17th of March, 1498, he could count upon com- 
 paratively few devoted followers beyond the walls of 
 San Marco. 
 
 He had one hope. The Council of Constance had 
 deposed John XXIIL, why might not a General 
 Council dethrone Alexander VI. ? It was an open 
 secret that Charles of France had even expressed to 
 the Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincola his readiness to 
 support such a project, and it was believed that not 
 in Italy only but in other parts of Europe the wicked- 
 ness of Borgia was causing unrest. So Savonarola 
 wrote his memorable " Letter to the Princes," addressed 
 to Charles VIII., Maximilian of Germany, Ferdinand 
 and Isabella of Spain, and Henry VII. of England, 
 telling them that the Church was full of abomina- 
 
130 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 tions and chiding them for worshipping " the cause of 
 evil which is undermining her. I tell you that this 
 Alexander is not Pope, nor can he be retained as such. 
 For not to speak of his most heinous sin of simony by 
 which he bought the Holy See, and the fact that he 
 sells to bidders the benefices of the Church, not to 
 speak of his other flagrant vices, I affirm that he is not 
 a Christian, that he does not believe in God, and that 
 he has passed the summit of infidelity." 1 
 
 But in the life of men there is sometimes an hour 
 when the course of events is rolled back by a secret, 
 irresistible force. That hour had struck for Savonarola. 
 It is useless to conjecture what might have resulted 
 had the Council been convened. It never met. A 
 preliminary note despatched to the French King fell 
 into the hands of the Duke of Milan, who promptly 
 forwarded it to Home. 
 
 Meanwhile incidents happened in Florence to 
 precipitate the impending issue. We must content 
 ourselves by referring to the historical romance 
 for a graphic account of the " Ordeal." 2 The 
 factions filled the square eager to see two men 
 walk along the platform between the walls of fire. 
 Florence was fond of spectacles, and this contest of 
 the flames between the champion of the Dominicans, 
 implicit believer in the Divine mission of his great 
 superior, and him of the Franciscans who had chal- 
 lenged that mission to the test of miracle, seemed one 
 which would not only settle the question, but which, 
 however it ended, would be a splendid scene. Savona- 
 rola was there with Fra Dominico, who was to risk his 
 
 1 The whole letter is quoted by Villari, ii. 312. 
 2 Romola, Ixv. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 131 
 
 life to vindicate his master, and the brethren of San 
 Marco were there with hopeful hearts. Savonarola 
 had done what he could to dissuade his brother from 
 the trial, but, when the Signoria appointed it, he could 
 not but acquiesce and pray. They waited for the 
 Franciscan, but he came not. Pretext after pretext 
 prolonged delay. The feverish impatience of the mob 
 rose to frenzy, and they clamoured that Dominico 
 should pass through the fire alone. Savonarola forbade. 
 Then the rain fell, and at length came a mandate 
 from the Signoria to prevent the ordeal, which it had 
 never intended to take place. Full well had foes 
 gauged the mood of the Florentines. The rabble 
 howled in fury, baulked of the sating they had been 
 urged to expect, deceived by the prophet who would 
 not prove his claims, and as the monks of San Marco 
 came down from their gallery, the populace, spurred by 
 the gibes and angry cries that rent the air, surged 
 round Marcuccio Salviati's gallant little escort that 
 slowly took them to the convent. While Savonarola 
 knelt in his cell in sorrowful prayer he could hear 
 the vengeful shrieking of the crowd that filled the 
 piazza. 
 
 The attack was made upon San Marco the following 
 day. Every entreaty to arm the brethren the Prior 
 refused. The church was soon forced. Francesco 
 Valori went to rouse the Frateschi. He was stabbed 
 before the eyes of his wife, and she was shot as she 
 saw her husband slain. The soldiers of the Republic 
 came to help the assailants. Savonarola retired to the 
 library to prepare for the end. Gathering round him 
 those of the brotherhood who could respond to his 
 summons he addressed them thus : " My children, 
 
132 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 before God, before the sacred host, at this hour when 
 our enemies have made entrance to the convent, I 
 affirm anew the truth of my doctrine. What I have 
 spoken is what God has revealed to me, and he is my 
 witness in heaven that I lie not. I did not know that 
 all the city was so soon to turn against me ; but the 
 will of the Lord be done. This is my last counsel : 
 let faith, patience, and prayer be your armour. I 
 leave you in anguish to give me to mine enemies. 
 I know not if they will take my life, but sure I am 
 that, dead, I shall be able to help you more in 
 heaven than, living, I have been able to do on earth. 
 Be brave, clasp trustingly the Cross, and by it you 
 shall reach the haven of salvation." 
 
 The demand of the Siimoria was that Fra Dominico, 
 Fra Salvaestro, and Fra Girolamo should be sur- 
 rendered. There was a Judas, called Malatesta, and 
 he whispered, " Should not the shepherd give his life 
 for the sheep ? " Savonarola kissed the traitor and the 
 other brethren, and then he and Fra Dominico, amid 
 hooting and jeering, were led away to prison. Fra 
 Salvaestro was in hiding, but the next day he too was 
 in a cell ; Malatesta told the soldiers where he was. 
 
 If the joy of the Pope, on being informed of what 
 had transpired, was great, other tidings not less 
 welcome must have enlarged it beyond measure. On 
 the very day of the ordeal Charles VIII. died at 
 Amboise. 
 
 The trial (?) was protracted for six weeks. The one 
 charge which the Signoria resolved to formulate was 
 that Savonarola was an impostor. To establish this 
 they had recourse to the most awful tortures with the 
 view of eliciting from him a confession of deceit. At 
 
SAVONAROLA. 133 
 
 the same time they hired a notary, Ser Ceccone, to 
 fabricate a process that might be circulated in the city. 
 There seems no room to doubt that physical agony 
 wrung some ambiguous utterances from his lips, but it 
 is certain that the only true confession he made was to 
 this effect — "Now hear me, magistrates of Florence. 
 I have denied my light through fear of torture. If I 
 have to suffer, I seek to suffer for the truth. That 
 which I have spoken I have received from God." The 
 concoction of Ceccone, however, deftly substituted for 
 another scroll, upon which were written the prisoner's 
 answers to his inquisitors, was signed by Savonarola, 
 and the Dominicans believed that their prior had ad- 
 mitted the falseness of his claims. It was cowardly 
 of them to crave absolution for having put faith in 
 him — an absolution accorded at once on their dis- 
 owning "the head of the whole error, Era Girolamo 
 Savonarola." 
 
 There was one voice raised in the Signoria in noble 
 protest against a capital sentence. " Do not," pled 
 Agnolo Pandolfini, "inflict an irreparable loss on the 
 world by putting to death a man so remarkable 
 that one scarce sees his like in a century. This man 
 might not only restore faith on the point of perishing, 
 but might render the greatest services to the sciences 
 which he has cultivated with success so signal. Keep 
 him in prison, then, if you will, only I counsel you to 
 spare his life and to give him the means of writing 
 that the world may not lose the fruits of his genius." 
 That manly appeal, a magnificent witness to the im- 
 pression which Savonarola had made upon the culture 
 of his day, was greeted with the coarse rejoinder, " A 
 dead enemy makes no war." 
 
134 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 The Papal commissioners, Eomolino and Turriano, 
 arrived in Florence on the 19th of May, armed with 
 instructions to expedite the sentence, even though 
 Savonarola were John the Baptist. Another examina- 
 tion was held, another false process was penned, and 
 then judgment was pronounced. On the 23rd of May, 
 1498, in the Piazza of the Palazzo Vecchio, the three 
 martyrs finished their course. Pronouncing the formal 
 sentence of anathema against Savonarola, the Bishop 
 of Vasona in his confusion made an addition to the 
 formula. He said — " Separo te ab Ucclesia militante 
 atquc triurrvphante" Calmly the martyr corrected 
 him — "Militante, non triumphante, hoc enim tuum 
 non est!' The fire soon finished the hangman's work, 
 and when it was dark they carted away the ashes and 
 tumbled them into the Arno. 
 
 Such is the plain story of the life of Girolamo Sav- 
 onarola He was a patriot and his people killed him. 
 He did a prophet's work and he met a prophet's end. 
 He was a pure man and the wicked slew him. There 
 is an exquisite pathos in these simple words spoken in 
 his adieu to San Marco — " I did not know that all 
 the city was so soon to turn against me." They 
 breathe the melancholy of disappointed hope, the 
 sad consciousness of ill-requited sacrifice, the plaint 
 of fell ingratitude. Yet, as he speaks them, we can 
 almost believe that that noble, disinterested soul was 
 crushed in sorrow far more for the ruin which 
 Florence had chosen for herself than for the destructi< >n 
 she was dealing upon him. He would have saved her, 
 but she would not have the salvation for which with 
 passionate love he had laboured to the last. 
 
 In the course of the centuries he has received his due, 
 
SAVONAROLA. 135 
 
 which the men of his own day denied him. "Even in the 
 city of Dante no greater figure has its dwelling. The 
 shadow of him still lies across those sunny squares and 
 the streets through which in triumph and in agony he 
 went upon his lofty way, and consecrates alike the 
 little cell in San Marco, and the little prison in the 
 tower, and the great hall built for his great Council, 
 which in a beautiful poetical justice received the first 
 Italian Parliament, a greater Council still. Thus, only 
 four hundred years too late, his noble patriotism had 
 its reward." 1 
 
 Savonarola's relation to the progressive culture of 
 the Renaissance was one of cordial sympathy. That 
 has been more than once indicated in our sketch of his 
 career. With all that was pure in art he was in full 
 consent, and, not to cite the testimony of his writings, 
 let the devotion of Michel Angelo to his memory be 
 sufficient witness. For that devotion was determined 
 not only by regard for his wisdom in politics and his 
 earnestness in religion, but also by his instruction on 
 the true principles of beauty, expressed in a treatise 
 which the great sculptor used often to read in his old 
 age. The same holds good of his esteem for heathen 
 writers. There is something touching in the advice he 
 gave, that in school boys should read only the authors 
 who were "clean," and that "Jupiter" or "Zeus" should 
 always by them be translated " God." Restrictions 
 such as these were the outcome of his single aim, that 
 learning should go hand in hand with purity. But in 
 this matter Savonarola's attitude recalls very strikingly 
 the position of Origen, as it anticipates remarkably the 
 bearing of Erasmus. Christianity was no foe to 
 ^he Makers of Florence, pp. 327-8. 
 
136 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 liberal culture, but should find a handmaid in all 
 learning. We submit only one quotation taken from 
 his work, " The Triumph of the Cross " — a work in 
 which Savonarola undertakes to demonstrate the 
 truth of Christianity by arguments from reason. 
 " Despise no good works nor reasonable laws of pagan 
 peoples, of philosophers, and emperors. In their 
 doctrines and in their books gather what is true and 
 good, affirming that all which is true and good conies 
 from God and has been given specially for His elect." * 
 
 We are more immediately concerned in this lecture, 
 however, with his relations to the reform of the Church. 
 And, here, while conceding willingly the warrant which 
 the Church of Rome of to-day has in claiming Savonarola 
 as a faithful son, we not the less claim to regard him 
 as in many respects deserving well to be ranked as 
 unconsciously but really preparing for the work of 
 Luther. 
 
 We have seen the impression which ecclesiastical 
 corruptions made upon him at the very outset of his 
 career, and we have alluded in general terms to his un- 
 compromising antagonism to these iniquities. But, 
 when we read such of his sermons as have been edited, 
 then we feel that not even Wyclif was severer in his 
 censures. Hear him on the prelates — " They speak 
 against pride and ambition, in which they are them- 
 selves plunged up to the eyes ; they preach chastity 
 and keep concubines." 2 " With their rich chasubles 
 and their brocaded copes they chant vespers and 
 admirable masses before the altar, and they seem full 
 of solemnity and holiness." " See him, this priest, 
 who struts along so spruce, with his fine locks, his 
 1 Trmmphus Crucis, iii. 13. 2 Sermon iii. p. 209. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 137 
 
 purse, and his perfumes. Go to his house, you will 
 find his table laden with plate, his chambers garnished 
 with tapestries. They have so many dogs, so many 
 mules, so many horses, so many ornaments, so much 
 silk, so many servants. Think ye that these fine lords 
 will open to you the kingdom of God ? " * The sar- 
 casm of this is inimitable. " Hear what I say. In 
 the primitive Church the chalices were of wood and 
 the prelates were of gold. To-day the Church has 
 golden chalices and wooden prelates." 2 These are 
 samples of the doughty flail-blows with which Fra 
 Girolamo lashed the clerical chaff of his famished age. 
 
 Again, Savonarola recognized the clamant evil of a 
 soulless externalism which was fostered. He scoffs at 
 the summons, "Come from this side and that; cover with 
 kisses Saint Peter and Saint Paul, such and such a saint. 
 Come, come, ring bells, deck altars, garnish churches." 3 
 "0 preachers and monks," he cries, " ye have buried 
 this people in the sepulchre of ceremonies. I tell 
 you this sepulchre must be broken, for Christ 
 wishes the resurrection of His Church to spiritual 
 life." 4 Countless such citations can be adduced 
 in which the dead ritualism of the Church is exposed 
 without sparing. 
 
 But Fra Girolamo was not content with denuncia- 
 tion of abuse. He proclaimed the remedy, and that 
 he declared to consist in the preaching and reviving of 
 Bible truth. He was himself a priest, and he does 
 not discountenance the right observance of ceremony. 
 But it belongs to him in that era of empty formalism 
 to have given to the pulpit its true place and to have 
 
 1 Sermon xvii., p. 545. 2 Sermon xvii., p. 540. 
 
 3 Lent Sermon. 4 Sermon xxii. 
 
138 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 asserted for the Word of God its place in the pulpit. 
 " I shall preach the Scripture," he maintains, and the 
 most cursory perusal of his sermons testifies how true 
 he was to that resolve. True, the Old Testament pro- 
 phecies have, from the very character of his genius, by 
 far the largest space; but there are expositions of the 
 Gospels and of the Epistles of St. John which are full 
 of the very spirit of the evangel. Few sermons in 
 any age can excel in eloquence and solemn appeal that 
 on the visit of the Magi to the cradle of Christ, in 
 which he contrasts the self-denial of the Eastern sages 
 hastening from their distant homes that they might do 
 homage to the child Jesus with the chill indifference 
 of the men and women of the fifteenth century to the 
 worship of a glorified Eedeemer. Often words seem 
 to fail him when he would utter all his thoughts of 
 the love of God in Christ. " pity ! charity ! 
 infinite love ! I have grievously sinned, and Thou, Jesu, 
 wert the sufferer. I have been Thine enemy, and Thou, 
 Jesu, for my sake wast nailed to the Cross." To our 
 mind it is beyond question that Savonarola based all 
 his hope of moral reform upon a return to Christian 
 faith. Granted that in so far as distinctive dogma is 
 concerned he was, as he himself averred, in perfect 
 accord with the Church of Borne, still it is as obvious that 
 it was to the exhibition of the fundamental doctrines 
 of a common Christianity that he always turned for 
 moral power. Personal holiness through the know- 
 ledge and love of God gained by devout obedience 
 to the precepts of the Word was the imperative which 
 he ceaselessly uttered from the pulpit. " Justification 
 1 >y faith " or " Justification by works " was not an 
 alternative which occurred to him to consider. That a 
 
SAVONAROLA. 139 
 
 Christian must be true and pure was the essential of 
 his teaching, a doctrine which had been utterly lost 
 sight of in the pedantic sermonizing of the age. 
 
 His conflict with the Pope was ultimately a I'm- 
 trance. When first he learned of the charges brought 
 against him, he could not bring himself to believe that 
 they were conceived by his Holiness. With a gener- 
 osity which is quite pathetic, he attributes them all to 
 the machinations of his enemies. Even when he has 
 cause to suspect that in this he has erred, he writes a 
 letter of condolence to Alexander upon the occasion of 
 the murder of his eldes t son, the Duke of Candia. 
 Then, when suspicion becomes certainty, he discusses 
 the question of infallibility, and avers that he can- 
 not submit to the injustice which is prompted by 
 hate. This is the position he defends — " It must be 
 maintained that the Pope quel Pope cannot be de- 
 ceived .... because his very function preserves him 
 from error : but when he is deceived, he is not Pope, 
 and if he commands injustice, he does not command it 
 qua Pope, but quel man." 1 It has then to be reckoned 
 that it w T as with the mem, not with the office, that 
 Savonarola did battle. He says : " When the power 
 ecclesiastical is utterly corrupted, one must address 
 himself to Christ, who is the first cause, and say, 
 ' Thou art my Confessor, my Bishop, my Pope. See 
 Thy church which is falling to ruins, begin to avenge 
 Thyself.' But, my brother, thou dost weaken the 
 power ecclesiastical. That is not true. I have always 
 submitted, and I submit to-day to the correction of the 
 Roman Church ; far from weakening it, I strengthen 
 it. Only I am not willing to obey the power infernal, 
 1 Sermon xi. on Exodus. 
 
140 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 and all power which is against goodness conies not 
 from God, but from the devil." 1 To the idea of 
 the outward unity of the Church under the autho- 
 rity of a successor of St. Peter he was conscientiously 
 loyal, while at the same time he could as conscien- 
 tiously obey his conscience rather than bow to a 
 decree of Alexander VI. We have not a word to say 
 against his sincerity, though the casuistry which seems 
 to straightforward common-sense to surround the 
 Catholic principle renders it rationally somewhat in- 
 comprehensible. It must be left, too, to the decision of 
 the theologians of the Church of Borne to say whether, 
 in view of the enunciation of the dogma of Pio Nono, 
 Savonarola, condemned ex cathedra, can consistently be 
 declared orthodox. One thing, however, is clear, that 
 protests such as he and others before him raised 
 against the supremacy of bad men w T ere altogether in 
 the line of tendency to schism from the system which 
 bad men continued to dominate. 
 
 Perhaps, however, on the whole, the surest ground 
 we can take in support of our claim is the failure of 
 so nobly desperate an endeavour to achieve a reform. 
 The reasons of that failure we have striven to indicate. 
 Certainly his close identification with Florentine 
 politics had not a little to do with it, inasmuch as it 
 not only brought ultimate disaster to himself, but, from 
 its very nature, isolated him from the wider sphere. 
 The Church was more than Florence, and though 
 Savonarola might seek to revive the Church, it could 
 only too easily find an apology for refusing to hear him 
 in the determination to regard the Eepublican rather 
 than the Reformer. His claim to inspiration, likewise, 
 1 Savonarola's Farewell Sermon. 
 
SAVONAROLA. 141 
 
 while it gave force to his predictive preaching, could 
 not prevail when several of his principal predictions 
 were unrealized. Nor has it to be forgotten that Italy, 
 politically dismembered though it was, felt some pride 
 in that it had within itself the centre of Christendom, 
 and that some scion of almost every ducal house was 
 officially connected with the Roman See. On the other 
 hand, beyond Florence and Italy, rulers and people were 
 becoming sensible of the corruption which had reached 
 such fearful magnitude, and thev could not be in ignor- 
 ance of the endeavour which the stern, stainless monk 
 was making for reform. When he failed accordingly, his 
 failure was to the world a witness that effort, to be 
 successful, must find some more decided method. 
 Matters could not rest as they were. And as reform 
 of the Church from within had been so convincingly 
 shown to be hopeless, it remained for one with a 
 clearer perception of the doctrinal roots of the moral 
 evil and a freer individualism in face of its ecclesias- 
 tical countenance, with external conditions also in even- 
 way more favourable, but with no more earnest desire 
 for the accomplishment of the end, to take the way that 
 must be taken. And it will be allowed us to say that 
 the Church of Eome, by all the witness of history, 
 owes the magnanimous estimate which she has set 
 upon Girolamo Savonarola in no small measure to the 
 work of Martin Luther. 
 
 It is not altogether without interest to reflect, as 
 furnishing slender links of external connection, that 
 Leo X. was a son of Lorenzo de' Medici ; that Tetzel 
 and Cajetano were both of the order of St. Dominic; and 
 that the indulgences they pressed for sale were offered 
 to procure funds to finish the work of Michel Angelo. 
 
© r a 6 m u s. 
 
 Erasmus, though not usually ranked amongst the 
 Reformers, and not regarding himself as one of them, 
 rightly enough finds a place in a course of lectures 
 dealing with those whose life and work influenced 
 the great ecclesiastical and religious movement of the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 That event, like some others in history involving 
 interests numerous and varied, and issuing in results 
 momentous and far reaching, was due less to the 
 circumstances of the time in which it took place, 
 and less to the influence of those whose names have 
 become associated with it, than is perhaps generally 
 supposed. In that sphere of human action which 
 forms the province of civil and religious history, as 
 among phenomena of a material kind, causes are 
 oftentimes long at work before they reveal themselves 
 in the effects that follow them. For days before the 
 electric force discharges itself in lire the thunder- 
 storm has been gathering ; and it is not until the 
 moon is on the wane that the tidal wave reaches 
 high-water mark along our shores. And that con- 
 vulsion that ruptured the Roman Church and sent 
 a wave of blessing over the face of so many nations, 
 
ERASMUS. 143 
 
 was the result of the co-operation of many causes, 
 some of which, at least, had been long at work. One 
 of these causes was undoubtedly the intellectual 
 movement that specially characterized the sixteenth 
 century, and found at the time of the Reformation 
 its brightest ornament in Erasmus. 
 
 To show how this movement originated, grew, and, 
 as represented by Erasmus, helped to fulfil those 
 conditions without which the cause in which Wyclif 
 laboured and Hus perished, could not but fall short 
 of its aim, is the duty that has been specially assigned 
 me in connection with your course of lectures. 
 
 To say, indeed, when the movement began is not 
 easy, any more than it is easy to say when night 
 breaks into day, or self-conscious life awakens in the 
 child. Far back in what are called the Middle Ages 
 there are manifest tokens of an awakened intellectual 
 activity, and of a renewed interest in learning. As 
 the Church has never been so corrupt as to be without 
 those in whose hearts the Gospel shone with some- 
 thing of its pristine purity — pious souls that realized 
 that religion was something else and something higher 
 than a mere observance of outward forms — men and 
 women who, like Anna the prophetess or Simeon the 
 aged, mourned the desolation that had come upon 
 Israel, and longed for the advent of a better time, 
 so no age has been so dark as to be without those 
 who sought knowledge for its own sake, and found 
 the deepest satisfaction in its possession. Even in 
 the darkest of those ages that have, through com- 
 parison with some that went before and all that have 
 come after, been designated the Dark Ages, truth of 
 an intellectual kind — as distinguished from that which 
 
144 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 is theological — has shone ; and from a period as 
 remote at least as the eleventh century this light be- 
 came more diffused. But though the ignorance which 
 brooded over the nations of Christendom began at 
 this time to get dispelled, the interest in intellectual 
 pursuits which this implied did not grow, like the 
 breaking day, steadily and uniformly, but fluctuated, 
 rose and fell, and as in the flowing tide, the advancing 
 wave reached the shores of different countries only 
 at different times. 
 
 Though the revivals of learning which took place be- 
 tween the eleventh and fourteenth centuries were but 
 partial, they were not unproductive of a good that was 
 permanent. During this time the modern languages of 
 Europe began to be formed, and a literature that 
 embodied them to accumulate. The study of Eoman 
 law revived, and schools and universities were 
 founded. And in this way preparation was made 
 for the special movement to which we have referred 
 — a movement so deep and wide-spread, so steady 
 and continuous, so distinct from any that went before, 
 that it has been designated by a special name — the 
 " Eenaissance " it has been called, as indicating a time 
 of renewing — the awakening of the European mind 
 to a consciousness of its own nature and capacities, 
 and the value of that intellectual inheritance which 
 had been treasured up in ages and in countries the 
 glory of which had for ever passed away. 
 
 The country to which we have to look as that in 
 which this movement took its rise is Italy — beautiful 
 then as now in its skies and the tideless seas that 
 sweep its shores ; in its fertile plains, and the lakes 
 that lie embosomed among its mighty hills ; but far 
 
ERASMUS. 145 
 
 from being beautiful at the time of which we speak 
 by the moral corruption and political disorder that 
 characterized it. And yet even its political state, its 
 foreign wars, and internal troubles ; its dissensions 
 and its dismemberment ; its despotisms and city- 
 republics, could not in some respects prove otherwise 
 than favourable to the growth of the new movement. 
 The strength which springs from self-reliance, the 
 activity which comes from jealousy and mutual con- 
 flict, could not but help to make this Queen of countries 
 all the fitter for becoming the nursing mother of the 
 child of the new intellectual era. 
 
 The time which those who have studied this move- 
 ment regard as that in which it took its rise, is nearly 
 the same as that which gave birth to Wyclf ; and in 
 so far as it was helpful to the Eeformation, the men 
 who took part in it, though separated from him not 
 only by geographical distance, but by intellectual 
 character and moral aims, may be said to have 
 been fellow-labourers with him. 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 The individual to whom we are asked to look as the 
 one who furnished the motive power that gave this 
 new movement birth and direction is the poet Petrarch. 
 And in so far as a movement which was so genial to 
 the intellectual life of man, and for which so much 
 had been done by others that helped to prepare the 
 way, could be said to take its rise in any single mind, 
 it is to him rather than to any other to whom we 
 have to look. What seems clear is that if he was not 
 the first who tried to awaken a general interest in the 
 
146 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 works of those who had lived in a classic age, he was 
 at least the first to succeed in doing so. A poet born, 
 and schooled by a greater master of poetry than 
 himself, he was able to appreciate " the best that had 
 been thought and written " by those whose works, 
 through the indolence and indifference of some who 
 had every opportunity of obtaining a knowledge of 
 them, and a mistaken notion on the part of others 
 whose minds were active and inquiring, as to the place 
 which that learning that goes by the name of secular 
 has in furthering man's development and promoting 
 man's chief end, were allowed to lie in all but utter 
 neglect. Of a knowledge of Greek literature, or even 
 of the Greek language, in which we have to remember, 
 in considering this subject, were written not merely the 
 poems of Homer and the philosophy of Plato, but 
 the story of the Evangelists and the letters of Paul, 
 there was throughout Western Europe, at this time, 
 according to those who can speak with authority on 
 the subject, hardly any trace. With Latin indeed it 
 was different. Latin was the language used in the 
 service of the Church, and ecclesiastics, for the sake of 
 a knowledge of the language, if for no other end, 
 could not fail to make some acquaintance with Latin 
 authors. And yet so little was Virgil known in the 
 Middle Ages, so little heed was given to the thought 
 and melodious words with which " the Prince of Latin 
 poets " could charm the men of his own time, and 
 awaken so general an interest in ours ; that Dante, 
 writing before the dawn of the new era, speaks in the 
 opening canto of the Inferno of him who was his 
 " master and his guide " as " by long silence dumb." 
 But this could no longer be said after the time of 
 
ERASMUS. 147 
 
 Petrarch. Partly through his labours, partly through 
 the labours of those on whom his influence made 
 itself felt, a passionate desire was awakened in the 
 minds of many of the educated sons of Italy to under- 
 stand the thought and imitate the style of those who, 
 possessed of genius, had long ago spoken and written 
 in the languages of Greece and Rome. Not to pro- 
 duce what was new, but to imitate what was old ; to 
 resuscitate an age that was thought to be golden, 
 and reflect the light that glowed in the spirits of 
 the men who lived in it, became the ambition of the 
 scholars of the time. In their eagerness to come into 
 the possession of a treasure which men who had long 
 been dead had bequeathed to the world, and that at 
 the time of which we speak found no better repository 
 than the cell, or sometimes the dungeon of a monastery, 
 scholars travelled over sea and land, and the recovery 
 of a manuscript written by one whose name was 
 believed to shed a lustre on the age in which he lived 
 was welcomed by the members of the literary frater- 
 nity more than the spoils of war or than the news of 
 the discovery of an unknown land. 
 
 The movement thus begun deepened and widened. 
 Scholars multiplied, and princes, and even popes — 
 little conscious at the time how great an influence the 
 work in which the men of letters were engaged was 
 calculated to exercise in undermining their authority 
 and shaking their throne — patronized them and shared 
 their labours. 
 
 In that strange intermingling of causes we see so 
 often in human experience, and of which history 
 furnishes us with so many examples, in which the 
 circumstances of the time seem to develop the means 
 
148 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 which are needful for its exigencies, two events 
 occurred in the middle of the fifteenth century which 
 greatly furthered the new intellectual movement. One 
 of these was the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. 
 Before that event, indeed, " wise men " had come from 
 the East carrying with them treasures in the form of 
 Greek manuscripts, and a knowledge of the language 
 in which they were written, the value of which the 
 scholars of Italy were learning to appreciate, and the 
 possession of which they were eager to secure. But on 
 the downfall of Constantinople, many more Greek- 
 speaking refugees sought the hospitality which the 
 educated sons of Italy were so willing to afford in 
 return for the educational services that could be 
 rendered them. 
 
 The other event was the invention of printing, the 
 influence of which, in promoting the cause of literature 
 and preparing the w T ay for the Reformation, it would 
 be difficult to estimate, and perhaps be hardly possible 
 to exaggerate. By it copies of books were more 
 rapidly made and their prices greatly reduced. By it 
 not only was a previously existing demand more 
 readily met, but as in the introduction to a civilized 
 country of a root, or fruit, good for food and pleasant 
 to the taste, the supply helped to create the demand. 
 By it the inner shrine of knowledge was opened, 
 so that not only the high priests of literature could 
 enter, but so too could those whose approach had been 
 barred by poverty and ignorance. 
 
 It was not in Italy, however, this invention was 
 made, but in Germany ; and this fact is itself an evid- 
 ence that the light which had now been shining so 
 long among the Italians was beginning to make its in- 
 
ERASMUS. 149 
 
 fluence felt elsewhere. When Gutenberg indeed estab- 
 lished his press at Mentz, and consecrated it and all its 
 produce by issuing somewhere between 1452 and 
 1455, as the first book printed from its types, the 
 Mazarin Bible, the prevailing condition in his own 
 country, as in other countries on this side the Alps, 
 was one of ignorance and superstition. The study of 
 physical science could hardly be said to have begun, 
 and classical learning was possessed only by the few. 
 In Germany and the Low Countries, it is true, schools 
 had been established about the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century, where Latin was taught to bands of peasant 
 youths, who formed a kind of religious brotherhood 
 and supported themselves mainly by the labours of their 
 hands. These, combined with others of a more public 
 kind that were founded shortly afterwards, became the 
 source whence emanated ere many years had gone much 
 of the light that enlightened Germany. Scholars issu- 
 ing from them, inflamed with a desire to learn more 
 than any in their own land could teach them, went to 
 Italy that they might sit at the feet of some of those 
 whose fame was spreading throughout the whole of 
 Christendom. Returning with " the instruction they 
 received, and with a zeal which those with whom they 
 came into contact could enkindle in minds already 
 possessed of a desire to learn, they laboured hard to 
 redeem their country from the ignorance and barbarism 
 with which in comparison with Italy they felt it could 
 be reproached. The hardy Teutonic mind, with its 
 steadiness and patience, its industry and earnestness, 
 formed a soil more favourable for the growth of know- 
 ledge than the Italian ; and the seeds which these 
 scholars of the fifteenth century sowed upon it yielded 
 
150 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 fruit more valuable and more enduring than any of 
 which Italy could boast. 
 
 Of those on this side the Alps whose spirits caught 
 lire from the light that shone beyond them, there was 
 none stimulated to the same degree of earnestness, or 
 accomplished through his labour the same measure of 
 good, as he of whom we wish specially to speak. 
 
 Erasmus indeed was not a German, but a native of 
 Rotterdam, though for few biographies is the country 
 to which their subjects belonged a matter of as little 
 moment. If it be true, as has been said, " that Greece 
 or Rome never produced a great man but only a great 
 Greek or a great Roman," that is not true of Holland. 
 Of anything peculiarly Dutch there was nothing re- 
 tained by Erasmus— hardly even a knowledge of the 
 language ; for in after years we find him apologizing to 
 a friend for writing' to him in Latin, on the ground of his 
 being unable to do so freely in his own tongue. His 
 Dutch name, Gerard, too was dropped, and the Latin 
 and Greek languages — after the fashion of the time — ■ 
 furnished him with the one by which we best know 
 him — Desiderius Erasmus. The languages of the 
 classics were regarded as those which are best suited 
 to man as man, and in so far as they are so, there was 
 a special fitness in naming young Gerard by words 
 found in them ; for of all that was specially character- 
 istic of humanity there was much in Erasmus. Great 
 he was not in having in any pre-eminent degree that 
 which is best in men — moral force or earnestness — but 
 his spirit was broad and human — many-sided, and saw 
 truth in aspects to which greater men were blind. 
 Whatever concerned man as an intellectual or spiritual 
 being afforded him the deepest interest ; and those of 
 
ERASMUS. 151 
 
 any nation who devoted themselves to literary pursuits 
 were regarded by him as his friends. He claimed no 
 country as his own, but found a home, as he said, 
 " wherever he had his books." In the wandering life 
 he led he could say, like Dante in his exile — "The 
 whole world is my kingdom." 
 
 In his career there is nothing to record of tragic 
 incident or heroic suffering for righteousness' sake — 
 none of the elements which give to the lives of the 
 others who have found a place in your syllabus of 
 lectures much of the interest that belongs to them — 
 and we shall deal with that career only in so far as it 
 may help us to understand the nature and the measure 
 of the influence Erasmus exercised on the Eeformation 
 movement. 
 
 Like others whose names are more closely associated 
 with that event than his own, he grew up a baptized 
 son of the Church; and one of the first views we get of 
 him from his biographers is when he is four years of 
 age, and in the year 1471, singing as a chorister in 
 the cathedral at Utrecht. In the school to which he 
 afterwards went, despite the disadvantages which the 
 Latin language presented to learners at the time, 
 through the imperfect helps that were then in use, lie 
 took so readily to his lessons and progressed so 
 rapidly in them that at the age of thirteen, we are 
 told, he had the whole of the poems of Horace on his 
 memory. About this time his parents died, and he 
 was left in the hands of guardians, who, in so far as 
 they interested themselves in him, seem to have done 
 so specially for the sake of his small patrimony. To 
 dispossess him of his claim, and get his portion into 
 their own hands, they tried to induce him to devote 
 
152 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 himself to the Church. And notwithstanding a re- 
 sistance which showed a measure of wisdom unusual 
 in one of his years, through threats and entreaties he 
 was persuaded at the age of fifteen to enter a monas- 
 tery of the Augustinian order. Though he remained 
 here for eight or nine years, he did so involuntarily, 
 and it was only in his helplessness he in course of 
 time took the vows of a monk. 
 
 Very different was the experience of Erasmus as a 
 monk from that of another of the same order who was 
 born into the world sixteen years after him, and for 
 whose work he did so much to prepare the way. Of 
 that darkness and unrest, of that long and earnest 
 struggle through which the soul of Luther passed, 
 Erasmus never knew anything, and he never felt 
 accordingly as Luther did with regard to those con- 
 ceptions of truth in which he found light and peace. 
 Different, too, was the life of Erasmus as a monk from 
 that of those with whom he was associated in the 
 house of Steyn. For a time, indeed, he seems not to have 
 been altogether untainted by their vice, but he had 
 little sympathy with them in their habits of idleness, 
 immoral ways, or religious practices. Even as a 
 monk he was studious, and found more interest in his 
 Horace and Terence than in his psalter or missal. 
 
 Though in this house he breathed an atmosphere he 
 found neither genial nor wholesome ; though he had 
 duties to perforin and company to associate with he 
 could not find agreeable, the time seems to have been 
 spent not altogether unpleasantly. Having a nature 
 in which there was much natural buoyancy, and an 
 element of mischievous trickery, he lightened by its 
 indulgence time that might otherwise have been dull. 
 
ERASMUS. 153 
 
 Nor was it altogether unprofitable ; for lie here not 
 only acquired that intimate knowledge of monks and 
 monkery that helped to lead him in after years into 
 so direct antagonism to them, and give point to the 
 missiles he so vigorously discharged against them ; but, 
 despite the disadvantages, such a place could not but 
 afford for the acquisition of learning ; through reading, 
 and essays in composition, he laid the foundation of 
 that vast erudition and acquired the elements of that 
 literary skill for which he became so famous. 
 
 Though the monastery seems to have provided the 
 young scholar with plenty of books, yet a house whose 
 numerous inmates almost without exception had no 
 interest themselves in literature, and held all in suspi- 
 cion who had, and where, as one of his biographers has 
 said, " one could get drunk quite openly, but had to 
 carry on study in secret," could not at any time afford 
 him much satisfaction ; and he very readily took 
 advantage of the first favourable opportunity that 
 was given him of leaving it. This he had when he was 
 twenty-four years of age through the Bishop of Cam- 
 bray offering to appoint him, on the reputation of his 
 scholarship, as his secretary. The Bishop had in- 
 tended taking him to Italy — whither Erasmus had 
 the strongest desire to ao, — but he changed his mind, 
 and sent him, after he had been ordained as priest, to 
 the University at Paris. The funds with which his 
 master and patron provided him were too limited to 
 enable him to keep himself with comfort, and he had 
 to take up his abode in one of the colleges that were 
 intended for the poorer class of students. 
 
 Of the kind of life led here, Erasmus in one of the 
 famous dialogues in his "Familiar Colloquies," gives what 
 
154 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 has usually been regarded as a description ; but he makes 
 fun of it, and probably exaggerates its hardship. If it is 
 to be trusted as giving in any measure a faithful account 
 of his experience, however unpleasant his life at the 
 house of Steyn had been, it must have been more so 
 at the College of Montague — " Vinegar College " as 
 he nicknames it. Through false notions prevalent at 
 the time, and heartily imbibed and acted on by the 
 rector or president under whose supervision Erasmus 
 found himself, as to the best way of practising self- 
 denial, and the manner in which it stands related to 
 the development of spiritual life, the students were 
 subjected to the severest discipline. They had hard 
 beds to sleep on, and menial work to do. The drink 
 was unwholesome, and " rotten eggs " furnished part of 
 their meals. There were " unmerciful whippings, too, 
 even of innocent persons " ; though, he says, he men- 
 tions these things not " out of any ill-will to the 
 College," but to give a warning lest the young and 
 inexperienced should be injured " through severity 
 being practised in the name of religion." The treat- 
 ment Erasmus underwent in this, his first trial of 
 college life, was too much for his health — which at all 
 times was delicate — and he returned to the Bishop, 
 taking back nothing with him, he says, but " disease 
 in his body and vermin in his clothes." 
 
 But there was another reason for Erasmus disliking 
 this College of the " Scotists," which, if we would 
 understand him and his relation to the Eeformation 
 movement, it is needful we look at with some care. 
 And that was, that the studies in which he had now 
 so much interest were held in little favour there. 
 Though Paris had one of the most famous universities 
 
ERASMUS. 155 
 
 in Europe, it was only within recent years it gave 
 the slightest evidence of being influenced by the 
 literary movement that had been so long at work in 
 Italy. Here, as in most other seats of learning, 
 subject to the authority of the Church, Scholasticism 
 was dominant, and with Scholasticism Erasmus had, 
 even at this period of his life, but little sympathy, 
 and had still less as time went on. And it could 
 not be otherwise, for with its method and aims the 
 movement which was now carrying Erasmus along 
 with it had nothing in common. To its assumption 
 that the truth of the Creed was to be received on the 
 authority of the Church, and that other truth had 
 value as it stood related to that Creed, the spirit of 
 the Eenaissance was entirely opposed. And though 
 sharp disputes arose, and rival schools were formed 
 by those who sought, in fulfilment of the end of 
 Scholasticism, to systematize the doctrines of the 
 Church and vindicate them at the bar of reason ; 
 though questions in endless number were put, and 
 conflicting answers returned ; though different leaders 
 viewed the relation in which faith stands to reason 
 in different lights ; thouqh Anselm differed from 
 Abelard, and Duns Scotus from both, they were all 
 agreed that the truth of the doctrines of the Church 
 was unquestionable, and that all things else had value 
 only as they stood related to them. Philosophy, it 
 was supposed, had its value, but only as " the hand- 
 maid of Faith " ; Logic had its use, but only as 
 its formulas and categories could be pressed into 
 the service of truth of a different kind. 
 
 This system, which for centuries engaged the attention 
 and exercised the ingenuity of the ablest minds in 
 
156 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Europe, was not altogether a wasteful or profitless 
 expenditure of thought ; for not only did it keep 
 alive an intellectual interest in the Church, but 
 though opposed to the " New Learning," it helped to 
 prepare the way for it. In trying to make clear to 
 the understanding what had previously been received 
 by faith ; 1 in seeking to rationalize the dogma, it 
 prepared the way for that freer movement of mind 
 which attaches value to and finds interest in every- 
 thing that is rational — everything, that is to say, that 
 bears in itself the evidence of being the expression 
 of mind or reason, whether human or divine, in nature 
 or the Bible, in art or science, in literature or politics 
 — and that is the spirit of the Iienaissance — a spirit 
 which finds its legitimate issue in our own time in 
 the twin processes of criticism and physical science — 
 a spirit which, though opposed to Scholasticism and 
 that ecclesiasticism which found its development in 
 the Eoman Catholic Church, as the history of science 
 in relation to the action of the Church so clearly 
 shows, is not opposed to that religion we have been 
 taught by Christ, which affords not only a controlling 
 principle for the conduct of life, but seeks, too, to 
 hallow all human knowledge by leading the mind 
 to regard its increase as an evidence and manifestation 
 of the growth of human intelligence, and a widening 
 of human thought by a further participation in that 
 Divine wisdom which underlies and gives unity to alJ 
 the varied phenomena of the universe. 
 
 Of this general movement of mind it will be seen 
 the Revival of Letters was but a phase. Art, like 
 literature, had suffered through being subjected to 
 1 " Credo ut intelligaru." — Anselm. 
 
ERASMUS. 157 
 
 scholastic methods. The activity of mind which the 
 pursuit of art implies had been trammeled through 
 another end being sought than that which art seeks 
 for itself. The importance was attached to the object 
 and not in the least to the form in which it was 
 presented. The less the form diverted the attention 
 from the saint or virgin, or whateA r er other object 
 possessing the element of sacredness, was pictured, 
 the more completely it was supposed it had fulfilled 
 its end. But in the new impulse under which the 
 mind was working, the beautiful was sought for its own 
 sake, and its search thought to be justified by the 
 satisfaction which its conception or realization could 
 afford. And it was in that bvQ-one a^e of which we 
 have been speaking that the educated mind of Europe 
 found beauty and truth expressed as they had not 
 been during the centuries that intervened. Believing, 
 too, they saw in it the human spirit in its richest 
 development, the interest in them, and the influence 
 over them, the knowledge of it was capable of exer- 
 cising, were regarded as being of a very human kind. 
 And there was a special appropriateness accordingly 
 in the name of " Humanist " which those concerned in 
 this movement both took and received. Very terrible 
 indeed was " Humanism " in its moral consequences. 
 Nearly all of those who were carried away by the 
 movement as it developed itself in Italy sought to 
 mingle, as had been done centuries before, Christianity 
 and Greek Philosophy ; and in seeking to lay hold 
 of both they missed what was best in each. Ficino, 
 the head of the Platonic Academy in Florence, was 
 said Y to keep a lamp burning before the shrine of 
 1 Seebolim's Oxford Eeformers, p. 10. 
 
158 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the Virgin, and one before the bust of Plato ; but in 
 thus seeking to pay adoration to the old and the new, 
 to combine the lights issuing from two diverse systems, 
 as in a process known in physical science as the 
 intervention of waves, the result was darkness — moral 
 disorder and confusion. Heathen vice was practised 
 without any of the restraints which many of the 
 heathen knew. This immorality — the selfishness and 
 worldliness which characterized the lives of so many 
 of the Humanists, and stirred up noble hearts like that 
 of Savonarola to a fierce and holy antagonism — made 
 Erasmus, in after years, fear " lest, under the pretence 
 of a revival of ancient literature, paganism should 
 again rear its head." But the immorality to which 
 the Eenaissance led in so many cases was not an 
 essential feature of it, and it was in the end to which 
 Erasmus and those who acted like him made it sub- 
 servient, it found its justification. The Humanists 
 for the most part sought to live in the past, and 
 finding Christianity rather a barrier in the way, took 
 from it only what was considered to be compatible 
 with thought which had received expression before 
 Christianity began. But Erasmus sought to lay hold 
 of what in itself was good in the past, and make it 
 helpful in supplying the intellectual and moral needs 
 of man in the present. And how he did so we shall 
 see by looking further at the life he led and the work 
 he did. 
 
 Unable at the time to go to Italy through want of 
 money and enfeebled health, Erasmus returned to Paris, 
 and spent there the most part of several years in hard 
 and congenial labour. Books afforded him not only 
 work but pastime. " At dinner," he wrote to a friend, 
 
ERASMUS. 159 
 
 as quoted by one of his biographers, " we talk of noth- 
 ing but books ; and our suppers are made palatable 
 with literature. When we go to walk our conversation 
 is still about books, and even in our games we cannot 
 quite forget them. We converse about them till sleep 
 steals over us, and then our dreams are learned. When 
 we waken in the morning we begin the day with 
 letters." And the habits of industry and interest in 
 learning to which this bears witness continued with 
 Erasmus throughout his life. Already was he suffi- 
 ciently well known for his scholarly acquirements to 
 make his services as tutor solicited by students who 
 had been drawn from other countries to Paris through 
 the fame of its university ; and it was through the 
 emoluments he received in teaching some of these he 
 was able at this time to maintain himself. One of 
 these pupils — an Englishman, named Lord Mountjoy 
 — helped him in after years freely with money, and re- 
 mained throughout life his friend. Through his influ- 
 ence, and in his company, Erasmus, now thirty-one 
 years of age, set foot on English soil. 
 
 His fame had gone before him ; and there may be 
 truth in the story so often repeated, that on meeting 
 with Sir Thomas More — who was some years younger 
 than himself — at the dinner-table of the Lord Mayor, 
 or ex-Lord Mayor, of London, and getting into friendly 
 discussion with him, each was so much struck with 
 the ability of the other, that Erasmus, who had heard 
 of his antagonist, but had not been introduced to him, 
 exclaimed : " Either thou art Sir Thomas More, or no- 
 body ;" on which Sir Thomas replied: "Either thou 
 art Erasmus, or the devil." Whatever truth there may 
 be in this, the famous Lord Chancellor, with his great 
 
160 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 intellectual gifts, combined with a disposition sweetened, 
 as we know from Erasmus' own account of him, by 
 great gentleness and strong affection, quickened in 
 Erasmus, as he did in many others who became ac- 
 quainted with him, a feeling of the keenest interest 
 and warmest attachment. But there were others besides 
 him whom Erasmus got to know on this visit to Eng- 
 land whose friendship was, throughout life, helpful to 
 him and a source of the greatest satisfaction. These 
 he found at Oxford. Though the University there, 
 
 O t/ ' 
 
 like that of Paris, was still under the control of the 
 Scholastics, there were men in it who had gone to Italy, 
 and were teaching — though with little favour from 
 those in authority — the Greek they had learned there. 
 Among the scholars with whom Erasmus became 
 acquainted at Oxford, there was one who perhaps ex- 
 ercised in course of time a greater influence upon him 
 than any other. A man — according to all we are told 
 of him — of deep and fervent piety ; of unselfish ways 
 and religious earnestness; of great ability and varied 
 learning ; and one who did more perhaps than any other, 
 since the clays of "Wyclif, to prepare the way for the Ke- 
 formation in England. That was John Colet — after- 
 wards the Dean of St Paul's. He, too, had been in 
 Italy, and may in Florence have heard Savonarola 
 pour out the fiery eloquence that quickened new life 
 and new interest in many hearts that were satiated 
 and deadened through worldliness and unbelief; and 
 on his return to Oxford, Colet showed the influence 
 the New Learning had exercised over himself, in a way 
 that was not only novel, but calculated to excite op- 
 position on the part of those in authority, and who were 
 still regarding the Greek language — the language of 
 
ERASMUS. 161 
 
 " pagans and heretics" — with the greatest suspicion, 
 and were affording even less freedom for the study of 
 the Scriptures than had been enjoyed in days before 
 Wyclif began his work. Despite the danger he ran, 
 Colet began to lecture on the Epistle of Paul to the 
 Romans ; and in doing so, rejected the Scholastic 
 method of treating the Bible as an armoury of texts, 
 in which those possessed of logical skill might find 
 weapons either for offending each other or defending 
 the dogmas they held in common ; and in the use of 
 which they were led in their interpretation of Scripture 
 to meanings that were fanciful and absurd. To Colet, 
 the Bible was a book of vital truth — of truth that 
 stood in the closest relation to the hearts and welfare 
 of men. To him the Christ of the Epistles was real, 
 and the apostle in writing about Him was rational. 
 To him, as much perhaps as to Luther, " Paul's words 
 were not dead words, but living creatures that have 
 both hands and feet " ; and in so treating the book, 
 he was led, and led others, into direct opposition not 
 only to the corruption that characterized the Eoman 
 Church, but to much that was regarded as an essential 
 part of the system it had reared. Erom this man, it 
 would appear, Erasmus got not a little of that material 
 which in after years he fashioned with so much skill 
 into those shafts he levelled at the abuses of the 
 Church ; and which, pointed as they were with a wit 
 and raillery peculiarly his own, did so much to injure it. 
 Erasmus was not only charmed with Colet, Colet was 
 charmed with Erasmus, and finding in him one who 
 not only shared his tastes and aims, but an apt pupil 
 who was already prepared to receive his views, Colet 
 had hope of finding in Erasmus a fellow-labourer at 
 
 L 
 
162 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Oxford ; and on seeking to realize that hope urged him 
 to deal with some book or part of the Old Testament 
 in the way in which he himself had been dealing with 
 the New. But Erasmus, now and always, was 
 unsettled in his views and restless in his habits ; not 
 without ambition either, and looking perhaps at the 
 time elsewhere and in other ways for rewards such as 
 Oxford had not then in its power to bestow upon him. 
 That was not the reason, however, he gave to his friend 
 for refusing his appeal. This he found in his imper- 
 fect knowledge of Greek, and in the fact that though 
 he approved of Colet's opposition to the Schoolmen, he 
 did not believe that he himself " had strength of mind 
 sufficient to enable him to sustain the ill-will of so 
 many men stoutly maintaining their own ground." 
 
 From Oxford Erasmus went to London, where, 
 unrestrained by any of the Puritanic notions that gave 
 to the life of his friend Colet a serious earnestness, 
 he lived merrily, yet, so far as evidence goes, also 
 morally. His scholarly reputation gave him free access 
 to the best society, and his affable ways and ready 
 wit made him a favourite with all. Of those away 
 from Oxford to whom he was introduced there was 
 none whose acquaintance was regarded by him with 
 the same measure of interest, or held as so great an 
 honour, as that of a lad of nine years into whose 
 presence his friend Sir Thomas More brought him in a 
 quite unexpected way. This was Prince Henry, after- 
 wards Henry VIII. of England. 
 
 Gratified by this and other introductions, and 
 delighted with England and the scholarly men he 
 had met — of whom he specially mentions Grocyn and 
 Linacre, Colet and More, he returned to the Continent, 
 
ERASMUS. 163 
 
 where for some years, partly through want of 
 money and partly through want of health, life pressed 
 somewhat heavily upon him ; and there is a touch of 
 pathos in this earnest student, though not actually 
 poverty-stricken, crying out for money, and declaring 
 that as soon as he gets some " he will buy first Greek 
 books and then clothes." Poor he really was not, but 
 he liked to live comfortably, and believed that the deli- 
 cate state of his health required him to be more than 
 ordinarily careful with regard to his food and drink, 
 and whatever else may be thought to furnish an 
 external condition of human comfort. To attain this 
 end he dunned his friends for money and presents ; 
 and though he always did so in the best of humour, 
 yet he did it in terms so plain and direct that it would 
 be difficult to understand how one so sensitive as 
 he was could write as he did, if we forgot that he had 
 been, and was still, a monk, and that begging and 
 beggary were in a monk if not a virtue, at least 
 no disgrace. 
 
 But we shall not seek to follow this little fair-haired 
 man — as he was painted by his contemporary and friend 
 Holbein — with his delicate health and restless brain, 
 with his sparkling eye and subtle mind, as he wanders 
 from place to place, shunning the plague or seeking 
 intercourse with the learned ; editing old books or 
 producing new ones ; composing as he rides and writ- 
 ing when he rests ; penning the cleverest letters, and 
 sometimes, in after-life at least, as many as forty in a 
 day. It is enough for our purpose to notice that during 
 these years Erasmus carried out his long-cherished 
 desire of going to Italy and seeing the capital of the 
 western world. 
 
164 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Very different was the manner in which Erasmus 
 entered Borne from that of Luther, who went 
 there a year or two after him. The Monk of 
 Erfurt, in the company of another, goes on foot 
 depending for board and lodging upon the charity 
 shown him at the various religious houses that lie in 
 the way. Erasmus rides, is clothed comfortably — 
 having received a dispensation to abandon his monkish 
 dress — and lives on the best that money can command. 
 Different, too, were the feelings which possessed the hearts 
 of these two men, who were afterwards so closely related 
 in their work, as they approach the same destination. To 
 Luther, Eome was interesting, specially as the city 
 where the blood of so many martyrs had been shed ; 
 to Erasmus, as the city where so many men of genius 
 had lived. Here poets had sung and orators had 
 spoken, whose very names excited in the breast of the 
 scholar of Eotterdam feelings of admiration and even 
 affection ; and did so, because he was able to say with 
 regard to them, as he wrote years afterwards in his 
 colloquies: 1 "I find some things said by some of them" — 
 among whom he specially mentions Cicero — "so chastely, 
 so holily, and so divinely, that I cannot persuade 
 myself but that when they wrote they were divinely 
 inspired, and perhaps the Spirit of Christ diffuses itself 
 further than we imagine, and that there are more 
 saints than we have in our calendar." 
 
 The interest Erasmus felt in the writers of a classic 
 age was shared by some of those he met in Eome, and 
 to whose society he found a ready entrance. But in 
 Eome — the citadel of the Church, as throughout Italy 
 the Eenaissance was not developing as it was in some 
 
 1 Colloquies. The Religious Treat. 
 
ERASMUS. 165 
 
 other countries through transforming and assimilating 
 
 the thought of the time, and already was its strength 
 all but exhausted. The Pope, Julius II., though a 
 patron of men of letters, had, according to Ranke, " as 
 the ruling passion of his life " an " innate love of war 
 and conquest " ; and Erasmus found him, as he wrote, 
 " warring, conquering, triumphing, and openly acting the 
 Caesar " ; and of war Erasmus had throughout his life 
 the greatest horror, and again and again denounced 
 it in the strongest language. " I often wonder," he 
 says on one occasion, " what it is that urges, I will 
 not say Christians, hut men to such a pitch of madness, 
 that they will make every effort, incur any expense, 
 and meet the greatest dangers for their mutual de- 
 struction .... Can we who glory in the name of 
 Christ, whose precepts and example taught us only 
 gentleness, we who are members of one body, who are 
 one flesh and grow up by the same Spirit, who are 
 nourished by the same Sacraments, attached to the 
 same Head, and called to the same immortality, and 
 who hope for that highest Communion, that as Christ 
 and the Father are one, so we may be also one in 
 Him, — can we, I say, think anything in this world of 
 such value that it should provoke us to war ? — a thing 
 so ruinous, so hateful, that even when it is most just 
 no truly good man can approve of it." 
 
 Though Erasmus found much in his experience at 
 Rome that tempted him to remain ; though he was 
 received with favour by those whose acquaintance he 
 was most anxious to make ; though prospects of high 
 ecclesiastical preferment were held out to him by 
 those who had influence enough to secure it ; and an 
 honourable position in his court was actually offered 
 
166 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 him by the Pope, after a few months' stay in Rome 
 he left it at the invitation of friends in England. 
 
 To ecclesiastical preferment, or honours in Church 
 or State ; to the friendship of popes and princes and 
 the worldly advantage that might bring, Erasmus was 
 far from being indifferent ; and the prospect of reaping 
 reward more speedily in England than in Borne would 
 seem from his own account of the matter to have had 
 something to do with his going there. There he had 
 many friends, and amongst them one at least who 
 had it in his power to do him service — Henry VIIL, 
 who had shortly before this time succeeded to the 
 throne. And though the King conferred no special 
 favour upon Erasmus, he believed he had ground for 
 the expectation he entertained in the fact that before 
 his accession the King, with his own royal fingers, 
 had penned a most friendly letter to Mm. 
 
 Of this letter, as of others he received from those 
 who were high in authority in Church and State, 
 Erasmus was proud and inclined to boast, And yet 
 we should mistake the character of the man if we sup- 
 posed he did so through that "puerile vanity" with which 
 he was so freely charged in his own day, and by 
 D'Aubigne at least in ours. The impulse under which 
 he acted in speaking or writing as he did, of some of 
 the letters sent him and honours bestowed upon him, 
 was not that feeling which so often leads a man to 
 affect the possession of gifts, or ostentatiously display 
 those he has, for the supposed advantage this may 
 secure. Erasmus had at no time an exaggerated feeling 
 of his own importance, or immoderate desire for the 
 applause of his fellows. He was not, it is true, alto- 
 gether insensible to his own merits, or without a feeling 
 
ERASMUS. 167 
 
 of gratification in their receiving acknowledgment from 
 those in high places. Possessed of a nature that was 
 quick and sensitive, and that felt praise and blame as 
 men of coarser mould do not, this poor scholar of 
 Kotterdam, who was by the sheer force of his own 
 exertions quickly raising himself to the foremost place 
 among the men of letters, found no little gratification 
 in the testimony that was borne to his merits and 
 influence in the notice taken of him and the favours 
 bestowed upon him by those, around whose names 
 worldly greatness had thrown a halo of glory ; and with 
 that frankness that characterized him and led him to 
 open his heart to all the world, and make everyone 
 who would a partaker of its secrets, he readily gave 
 expression to it. A truer estimate indeed of himself 
 and of the influence he exercised, a clearer perception 
 of the value of his work and the principles that were 
 guiding him in it, would have made him less anxious 
 for the applause of popes and princes, and afforded him 
 the satisfaction of knowing that his name had a lustre 
 which their favour could not increase, and would yet 
 shine with a splendour such as theirs would never have. 
 Ambitious, too, Erasmus was, as his conduct on this 
 and other occasions, and his letters with regard to them, 
 clearly show, and yet his ambition was not of that 
 ignoble kind which finds its end in mere self -gratifica- 
 tion. Wisdom he placed above wealth, and all the 
 honours of the world he thought were not to be com- 
 pared in value with the culture which learning brings ; 
 and though he found and felt the highest satisfaction 
 in excellence of an intellectual kind, yet his pursuit of 
 literature had not merely that as its end, but the pro- 
 motion of a general good to be attained through the 
 
168 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 diffusion of a knowledge in the benefits of which all 
 might share. 
 
 Of his desire to further useful ends, through the 
 application of the knowledge he had been acquiring 
 during years of hard and continuous work, he 
 had already, before this visit to England, given 
 abundant proof. Besides other books he had published, 
 there was issued in 1500 the first edition of his 
 " Adages " — a collection of " the wise and witty say- 
 ings " of those who in former days had written in the 
 languages of Greece and Rome. To this he appended 
 notes, explanatory and practical, which are interesting 
 — if for nothing else — as showing that the age of mere 
 collecting and editing had gone, and that one of criti- 
 cism and exposition had begun. In subsequent editions 
 we are informed by the accounts we get of the book, not 
 only was the number of the Proverbs greatly increased, 
 but Erasmus took advantage of some of them when 
 explaining and applying the principle they contained, to 
 attack many of the abuses of the time in Church and 
 State, and as exemplified in the conduct of popes and 
 princes, priests and monks. 
 
 But another book Erasmus published shortly after 
 his first edition of the " Adages," though less interesting 
 in a literary point of view, is more so for our present 
 purpose, as giving us a clearer indication of the relation 
 in which he stood to the Romish Church, and the 
 views he held of religious truth in its application to 
 daily conduct. The occasion of the book is interesting 
 and is worth mentioning. 
 
 A lady whom Erasmus met at the Castle of Tornen- 
 hens, though herself manifesting a spirit of true piety 
 and religious earnestness, had as a husband a soldier 
 
ERASMUS. 169 
 
 of licentious life. Concerned about him, and anxious 
 to do him good, she asked Erasmus to write a few 
 thoughts on the subject of religion, such as he supposed 
 were calculated to effect the end she had in view. 
 Erasmus complied, afterwards expanded his notes, and 
 published them under the title of " Enchiridion," or the 
 " Christian Soldier's Dagger," or " Manual." 
 
 Though Ignatius Loyola, in his consuming zeal, found, 
 we are told, no " unction " in the treatise, and forbade 
 his Order to read it, ere many years had gone it became 
 a favourite with the Reformers. Of much in the book, 
 bearing more particularly on the subjects of human 
 depravity and the relation of faith to works, they could 
 not approve ; but they liked it because of the manner 
 in which it condemned the superstitions of the Church, 
 and commended a piety that was practical. " The 
 most acceptable worship," he wrote, " which you can 
 ( iffer to the Virgin Mary is to endeavour to imitate her 
 humility." " If you must adore the bones of Paul 
 locked up in a casket, adore also the spirit of Paul 
 which shines forth from his writings." " You gaze 
 with mute wonder on a tunic or handkerchief which is 
 said to have belonged to Christ, and yet when you read 
 the oracles of Christ your eyes droop with sleep." 
 
 But with monks and monkery, and the abuses gener- 
 ally which in the course of centuries had grown up in 
 the Christian Church and marred its beauty, Erasmus 
 dealt in a different manner, and with more effect, in a 
 book published in 1510, and shortly after he arrived 
 in England from Italy. Sitting in the house of his 
 friend Sir Thomas More, ill, and waiting for his books, 
 lie beguiled his leisure by writing from notes he had 
 made on his travels, his " Praise of Eollv " — or " En- 
 
170 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 comium Morise " — suggested to him, lie tells us in its 
 dedication, by the fact that his wise friend had a name 
 whose literal meaning was " Folly." In the book, Folly 
 is represented as mounting the rostrum, and, as in 
 Holbein's illustration, with cap and bells, speaking in 
 terms of the highest self-laudation. This she finds 
 ground for doing in the conviction that all men are 
 more or less under her influence, and it is because they 
 are so happiness is so generally enjoyed. In a vein 
 of the richest satire, men of all classes are attacked, 
 and abuses of all kinds exposed. The value so many 
 in his time ascribed to shrines and relics, fasts and 
 pilgrimages, pardons and indulgences, is freely ridiculed ; 
 and kings and princes, popes and cardinals, schoolmen 
 and divines, priests and monks are freely chastised, and 
 chastised all the more severely that raillery and banter 
 give directness and force to the serious purpose the 
 writer has in view. "Erasmus," it has been said, 
 "injured the Pope more by joking than Luther by 
 scolding." 
 
 Of the Popes, amongst much more, he says : " They 
 think to satisfy the Master they pretend to serve, our 
 Lord and Saviour, with the great state and magnificence, 
 with the ceremonies of instalments, with the titles of 
 reverence and holiness, and with exercising their episco- 
 pal function only in blessing and cursing Their 
 
 only weapons ought to be those of the spirit ; and of 
 these indeed they are mighty liberal, as of their inter- 
 dicts, their suspensions, their denunciations, their aggra- 
 vations, their greater and lesser excommunications, and 
 their roaring bulls whomever they are thundered against ; 
 and these most holy fathers never issue them more 
 frequently than against those who at the instigation of 
 
ERASMUS. 171 
 
 the devil, and not having the fear of God before their 
 eyes, do feloniously and maliciously attempt to lessen 
 and impair St. Peter's patrimony ; and though that 
 Apostle tells our Saviour in the gospel in the name of 
 all the other disciples, we have left all and followed 
 thee, yet they challenge as his inheritance, fields, towns, 
 treasures, and large dominions; for the defending where- 
 of, inflamed with a holy zeal, they fight with fire and 
 sword, to the great loss and effusion of Christian blood ; 
 thinking they are apostolical maintainers of Christ's 
 spouse, the Church, when they have murdered all such 
 as they call her enemies ; though indeed the Church 
 has no enemies more bloody and tyrannical than such 
 bloody popes, who give dispensations for the not preach- 
 ing of Christ ; evacuate the main design and effect of 
 our redemption by their pecuniary bribes and sales ; 
 adulterate the gospel by their forced interpretations 
 and undermining traditions ; and, lastly, by their lusts 
 and wickedness grieve the Holy Spirit and make their 
 Saviour's wounds to bleed anew." 
 
 Of the monks, amongst other things, he says : " Most 
 of them place their greatest stress for salvation on a 
 strict conformity to their foppish ceremonies, and a 
 belief of their legendary traditions : wherein they fancy 
 to have acquitted themselves with so much supereroga- 
 tion, that one heaven can never be a condign reward 
 for their meritorious life ; little thinking that the Judge 
 of all the earth at the last day shall put them off with 
 a — Who hath required these things at your hands ? and 
 call them to account only for the stewardship of Iris 
 legacy, which was the precept of love and charity. It 
 will be pretty to hear their pleas before the great 
 tribunal : one will brag how he mortified his carna] 
 
172 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 appetite by feeding only upon fish ; another will urge 
 that he spent most of his time in the divine exercise of 
 singing psalms ; a third will tell how many days he 
 fasted, and what severe penance he imposed on himself 
 for the bringing the body into subjection ; another will 
 produce in his own behalf as many ceremonies as would 
 load a fleet of merchantmen ; a fifth will plead that in 
 three score years he never so much as touched a piece 
 of money, except he fingered it through a thick pair of 
 gloves ; the next that comes to answer for himself shall 
 plead that for fifty years together he had lived like a 
 sponge upon the same place, and was content never to 
 change his habitation. But amidst all their fine ex- 
 cuses our Saviour shall interrupt them with this answer: 
 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, verily 
 I know you not : I left you but one precept of loving 
 one another, which I do not hear any plead he has 
 faithfully discharged ; I told you plainly in my gospel, 
 without any parable, that my Father's kingdom was 
 prepared, not for such as should lay claim to it by 
 austerities, prayers, or fastings, but for those who should 
 render themselves worthy of it by the exercise of faith 
 and the offices of charity ; I cannot own such as depend 
 on their own merits without a reliance upon my mercy ; 
 as many of you therefore as trust to the broken reeds 
 of your own deserts, may even go search out a new 
 liea ven, for you shall never enter into that which from 
 the foundation of the world was prepared only for such 
 as are true of heart." 
 
 Seven years before Luther publicly attacked the sale 
 of indulgences, Erasmus wrote : " What shall I say of 
 such as cry up and maintain the cheat of pardons and 
 indulgencies that by these compute the time of each 
 
ERASMUS. 175 
 
 soul's residence in purgatory, and assign them a longer 
 or shorter continuance according as they purchase more 
 or fewer of these paltry pardons and saleable ex- 
 emptions By this easy way of purchasing pardon, 
 
 any notorious highwayman, any plundering soldier, or 
 any bribe-taking judge shall disburse some part of their 
 unjust gains, and so think all their grossest impieties 
 sufficiently atoned for; so many perjuries, lusts, drunken- 
 nesses, quarrels, bloodsheds, cheats, treacheries, and all 
 sorts of debaucheries, shall all be, as it were, struck a 
 bargain for, and such a contract made as if they paid 
 off' all arrears and might now begin a new score." 
 
 A book, much of which is written after this manner,, 
 circulating rapidly and widely — and no less than seven 
 editions, we are told, were sold out in a few months of 
 its first publication — -could not but prove an effectual 
 means of preparing the way for those who in virtue of 
 the definiteness of their aim, and the success that at- 
 tended their work, have by special emphasis been 
 named the Reformers. 
 
 It is not merely, however, through his publication of 
 the Praise of Folly we see the relation in which he at 
 this time stood to the Church. Paying a visit one day 
 to the shrine of " Our Lady of Walsingham," and being 
 shown a gate in the churchyard wall so small that one 
 had to stoop to enter, through which, he was assured, 
 a knight on horseback pursued by an enemy, on recom- 
 mending himself to the Holy Virgin, managed to go ; a 
 huge joint, which he was told belonged to the finger of 
 St. Peter; some of the Virgin's milk, and other curiosities, 
 he expressed his scepticism so freely that the " shewer 
 of relics " got indignant, and was only pacified by the 
 bestowal of a small sum of money. 
 
17-i THE REFORMERS. 
 
 From the same dialogue in which, after his humor- 
 ous way, he records a description of this visit we learn 
 that in the company of his friend Colet he paid a visit 
 to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. 
 Through the favour of Archbishop Wareham, with 
 whom Erasmus was on terms of friendship, and to 
 whom he dedicated one of his greatest works — his 
 edition of St. Jerome — there was not a little shown 
 them that was regarded as too sacred, or too precious, for 
 ordinary eyes to see ; and on Colet suggesting that much 
 of the wealth they saw in the form of jewels and gold 
 might be devoted to the good of the poor, and that one 
 who was kind to them in his lifetime was more likely 
 to be gratified by its being put to that use than allowed 
 to lie where it was, " the shewer of relics," Erasmus 
 says, got angry, and but for the Archbishop's recom- 
 mendation " would have taken them by the shoulders 
 and turned them out of the Church." 
 
 During the period in which these and other excur- 
 sions were made, Erasmus was engaged part of the 
 year teaching Greek at the University of Cambridge ; 
 and nothing he did helped the Eeformation movement 
 so much as his labours in connection with this lan- 
 guage. As early as 1505 he had edited and published 
 some annotations on the New Testament by Laurentius 
 Valla, and in doing so prefaced the book with a letter 
 in which he publicly vindicated " the right and neces- 
 sity of a free criticism, as in many passages the 
 Vulgate was manifestly at fault, was a bad rendering of 
 the original Greek, or had been corrupted." But 
 Erasmus took a step in advance of this, and believed 
 in doing so he was doing, as he said, " a work accept- 
 able to the Lord, and necessary to the cause of Christ," 
 
ERASMUS. 175 
 
 when as the fruit of a labour so great that he was able 
 to say of it : " If I told you how much sweat it cost 
 me you would not believe me." He superintended in 
 1516 at the famous printing press afc Basle the issuing 
 of his " Novum Instrumentum," or " Greek New Testa- 
 ment with a new Latin Translation," a book the 
 importance of which we shall acknowledge all the more 
 readily as we recognize as a main element of the 
 principle involved in the Reformation movement the 
 assertion of the right of the individual conscience to 
 be brought into direct contact with the Eternal, or any 
 manifestation He may have made of Himself. 
 
 Not only did the Church put itself between the 
 heart of man and the Bible, but it was by no means 
 careful to see that the truth it received was in the 
 purest form attainable. For centuries the Vulgate, or 
 Latin translation of the Scriptures, had been the only 
 one in use, and, imperfect as it was, the Church of 
 Erasmus' time received it as having an authority that 
 was absolute. And all the translations that had been 
 made of the Bible into the vernacular tongues of 
 Europe, Wyclif's included, had been made from this. 
 
 Though not a few translations had been made, to 
 the great bulk of the people the Bible was an unknown 
 book, and many ecclesiastics knew nothing more of it 
 than was contained in the church service. But the 
 work Erasmus did, put the New Testament into the 
 hands of scholars in the language in which it was 
 written, and stimulated men like Tyndale in our own 
 land to put the truth, as they found it at its source, 
 into the hands of the people in the tongue they spoke. 
 So much did D'Aubigne think the Reformation in 
 England was due to this that he was led to say : " The 
 
176 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 principle of the Reformation at Oxford, Cambridge, and 
 London was the Greek New Testament published by 
 Erasmus." 
 
 That Erasmus contemplated in the work he was 
 doing not merely the good of scholars but that of 
 others as well, is manifest from much that was said in 
 the lengthy and remarkable preface with which the book 
 was issued. "The sun itself," he says," is not more com- 
 mon to all than the teaching of Christ. For I utterly 
 dissent from those who are unwilling that the Scriptures 
 should be read by the unlearned translated into their 
 vulgar tongue, as though Christ had such subtleties 
 that they can scarcely be understood even by a few 
 theologians, or as though the strength of the Christian 
 religion consisted in men's ignorance of it. The 
 mysteries of kings it may be safe to conceal, but 
 Christ wished his mysteries to be published as openly 
 as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman 
 should read the Gospel — should read the Epistles of 
 Paul. And I wish these were translated into all 
 languages, so that they might be read and understood, 
 not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks 
 and Saracens. To make them understood is surely the 
 first step. It may be that they might be ridiculed by 
 many, but some would take them to heart. I long 
 that the husbandman should sing portions of them to 
 himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver 
 should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the 
 traveller should beguile with their stories the tedium of 
 his journey." 
 
 These words are not only interesting as showing the 
 feeling with which Erasmus regarded the truth of the 
 Bible, but remarkable as being expressed and pub- 
 
ERASMUS. 177 
 
 lislied at a time when the Church was in no way 
 favourable to the general and indiscriminate reading 
 and teaching of the Scriptures. While, however, 
 Erasmus had a good end in view in the publication of 
 this book, he liked, at the same time, it has to be 
 said, to be on the safe side, and took the precaution 
 iu this case of dedicating his scholarly work to the 
 scholarly man who was then at the head of the Church, 
 Pope Leo X. 
 
 The introduction to this New Testament is not, 
 however, the only feature of it that is remarkable, and 
 that makes it worth while for our present purpose to 
 notice it. Several of the books and many of the 
 passages that had hitherto been received without 
 question on the authority of the Vulgate were chal- 
 lenged, and handled, in a spirit that was free and 
 critical. The Epistle to the Hebrews, e.g., he main- 
 tains, was not written by Paul ; and he questions the 
 genuineness of the 2nd Epistle of Peter. The famous 
 passage of the three witnesses in the 1st Epistle of 
 John, which our Eevised Version omits, was rejected by 
 him on the authority of the MSS. he collated. Even 
 the Pope's authority had doubts thrown upon it, or at 
 least found to have no good ground in the celebrated 
 passage, now done in purple and gold in six-feet letters 
 on the interior of the dome of St. Peter's at Eome : 
 " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my 
 Church." 
 
 The critical work, indeed, of Erasmus in this book 
 has been superseded by the labours of others, and is held 
 by scholars to be of no value. But not only was its 
 publication a bold step for this man with his nervous 
 shrinking from opposition to take, but it was one that 
 
178 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was not without value, and that not merely in pre- 
 paring the way for those who would follow up his 
 work, but as affording, too, a protest against an 
 authority that was external and traditional. 
 
 What Copernicus did not many years afterwards in 
 a different sphere of thought, Erasmus may be said to 
 have done in the sphere of Biblical criticism. The 
 labours of Copernicus were not perfect, and ere long 
 had to give way to those of Kepler. But in shatter- 
 ing the cycles and epi-cycles of an older theory, and 
 taking his stand on the sun as the centre of the 
 solar system, his protest was no less strong against 
 that view of things which the Church maintained had 
 an authority that was divine. And Erasmus, in carry- 
 ing out his work in the spirit he did, and writing 
 as he wrote, showed he believed that truth was 
 greater than the Church, and the spirit of man en- 
 dowed with an authority which to him who was 
 faithful to it was superior to that of Pope and Council. 
 " He who is spiritual, as Paul says," he wrote in 
 closing his New Testament, " judgeth all things, and is 
 judged by no one." And thus, may we not say, in 
 the spirit of the Eenaissance, as that had manifested 
 itself in Erasmus, and more particularly in his labours 
 in connection with the New Testament, the sacred 
 and the secular, which the Church in the Middle Ages 
 had kept so far apart, " had met together " ; intel- 
 lectual enlightenment and truth divine " had kissed 
 each other." 
 
 Erasmus, indeed, did not break away from the 
 Church or shake off its authority, and felt all the less 
 inclined to do so as time went on and the Reformation 
 movement developed. It was not given him to see the 
 
ERASMUS. 179 
 
 full drift and value of the principles he had been 
 so usefully applying, any more than those who first 
 applied steam as a motive power or electricity to the 
 practical purposes of life saw how rich the discovery was 
 in the issues to which in its development it would lead. 
 Erasmus believed that the Church had an origin that 
 was divine, and, corrupt though it was, the Pope was 
 still its head. " I am not so impious," he wrote, when 
 the Reformation had really begun, " as to dissent from 
 the Catholic Church nor so ungrateful as to differ from 
 Leo, from whom I have experienced no common favour 
 and kindness." " If the corrupt manners of the Roman 
 Court call for some great and immediate remedy, 
 certainly it is not for me, or the like of me, to usurp 
 this office." 
 
 And it was through such work as that in which he 
 had been so long and so earnestly engaged — through 
 disseminating literature and attacking the abuses that 
 prevailed in the Church, that he hoped to be helpful in 
 purifying and strengthening it. But not only was the 
 disease too serious, too deeply rooted and of too long 
 standing thus to be cured, but the principle of the 
 movement which had been carrying Erasmus along 
 with it demanded in its application to the Church a 
 reconstruction of its form. " No man putteth a piece 
 of new cloth unto an old garment . . . Neither do 
 men put new wine into old bottles." But this was 
 what Erasmus was seeking to do. The seed he planted 
 had its natural outcome in liberty — in a measure of 
 freedom of thought that is incompatible with the 
 authority exercised by the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 to that authority he continued to bow. 
 
 To shake it off, indeed, and seek the reformation of 
 
1 80 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the system that asserted it, needed a different kind of 
 man from Erasmus — one of intenser conviction and 
 stronger self-assertion ; one who feared death less, and 
 loved truth more ; one who could not only influence 
 the learned, but move the hearts of the people ; one 
 who would not sacrifice principle for peace, and dared 
 answer Rome's thunder with thunder. And such a 
 one was at hand girding on his armour and all but 
 ready for the fray. The year after Erasmus published 
 the first edition of his New Testament, Luther nailed 
 Iris famous propositions to the church door at Witt- 
 enberg — a deed which may be said to have first 
 made visible, as the first flash of lightning does the 
 coming storm, the commotion and revolution which the 
 meeting of concurrent forces that had been long at 
 work produced in the Protestant Eeformation. 
 
 Though not associating himself with the Eeformers, 
 Erasmus continued to be helpful to them through 
 carrying on the very same kind of work by which 
 he had done so much to prepare the way for them. 
 Before the memorable day on which the Pope's Bull 
 was burned by Luther, Erasmus had sought to popu- 
 larize the Bible by issuing a paraphrase of some of 
 Paul's Epistles, and a few years afterwards he did the 
 same for the whole of the New Testament — the Apoca- 
 lypse excepted. The fame of the author helped the 
 book to sell, and ere long it found a place in every 
 parish church in England. 
 
 Previous to the publication of this there appeared a 
 second edition of the " Familiar Colloquies " — the book 
 which, of all Erasmus wrote, became the most popular, 
 and contains so much that is opposed to the Pioman 
 Catholic system that it was condemned some years 
 
ERASMUS. 181 
 
 after it was issued by the Theological Faculty of the 
 University of Paris, and placed by the Inquisition 
 among " the first -class " of prohibited books. 
 
 But Erasmus, though he continued to help the 
 Reformation movement in this indirect way, believing 
 that he saw in it an influence that was adverse to the 
 cause of learning, in which he had so deep an interest, 
 regarded its progress with a feeling akin to dismay. 
 And though the Reformation was ultimately favourable 
 to literature — though it quickened intellectual activity 
 and stimulated research ; though it spread information 
 among the people and awakened them to a sense of 
 their interests ; though it circulated the Bible and 
 sowed principles the development of which helped to 
 usher in the brightness of that day that burst upon the 
 world in " Great Eliza's golden time," yet its immediate 
 effects were different. So much so, in the opinion of 
 Goethe, that he was led to say, as quoted by Froude, 
 that " Luther threw back the intellectual progress of 
 mankind for centuries by calling in the passions of the 
 multitude to decide on subjects which ought to have 
 been left to the learned." And as Erasmus saw 
 this — saw religious zeal and the questions of the day 
 absorb the attention of the ablest minds — saw the 
 movement which Luther was heading carry away in 
 its sweep such men as Von Hutten, and Melancthon, 
 and Beuchlin — Saint Reuchlin as after his death he 
 called him — and who had been doing for Hebrew what 
 Erasmus had been doing for Greek, he regarded it as 
 nothing short of a calamity. 
 
 But another reason Erasmus had for deprecating the 
 new movement was the disturbances both in Church 
 and State to which it gave rise. The unsettling of the 
 
182 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 old-established order led, as it could hardly otherwise 
 do, to violent controversy and political rebellion. But 
 to Erasmus, in his way of looking at things, it was 
 better to tolerate error and injustice than seek their 
 removal if that could be effected only through the 
 application of means that were violent. He declared 
 " he hated discord so much that he would dislike the 
 truth itself if it were seditious." " By a natural 
 instinct," he wrote, " I so abhor all kinds of quarrels 
 that if I had a large estate to defend at law I would 
 sooner lose it than litigate." 
 
 Feeling in this way, and seeing the commotion that 
 was likely to arise from a man of Luther's strength and 
 temperament opposing himself to the head of the 
 Church, shortly before the burning of the Pope's Bull 
 he sent him a letter, in reply to one he had received, 
 in which he addressed him as " My dearest brother in 
 Christ," and exhorted him to moderation. But he 
 might as well have tried to curb the wind, or alter the 
 stars in their course, for Luther believed that, in what 
 lie was doing in relation to the Pope's authority, he 
 was possessed by a divine impulse, and as much called 
 upon freely to fulfil the divine purpose as the wind, or 
 the stars, or other objects of God's creative power, 
 that have no will of their own to refuse compliance 
 with the divine behests, but are and do as God com- 
 mands. 
 
 These two men were different, entirely different, and 
 it was only in an indirect way they could co-operate. 
 Great as Erasmus was in his power of acquisition, and 
 in the measure of his knowledge, lie was not like Luther 
 — a spiritual force that could shape the history of all 
 coming time through moulding by its inherent strength 
 
ERASMUS. 183 
 
 opposing circumstances so far to its own nature as to 
 make them subserve its purpose, but was pliable enough, 
 through his sensitiveness and dread of conflict, to have 
 even his conceptions of truth and duty affected in his 
 seeking to fall in comfortably with his surroundings. 
 What was in itself right, did not always seem to him, 
 specially perhaps in later years, the first consideration 
 in determining the course of conduct he would pur- 
 sue, but what was safe or prudent. " There was a cer- 
 tain pious craft and innocent time-serving," he thought, 
 " could be used without doing injury to the interests of 
 true religion." As for the truth, " he had," he said, 
 " no inclination to die for it. Every man has not the 
 courage to be a martyr, and I am afraid if I were put 
 to the trial I should imitate St. Peter." 
 
 And yet there was a limit to the measure in which 
 his conception of duty could be affected, and in so far 
 as he heard the voice of conscience he seemed willing 
 to obey it. And though, in his frankness, he speaks 
 of himself as he has done, there is no saying how much 
 he would have been willing to suffer had he thought 
 that through his suffering the interests of humanity or 
 of true religion would have been promoted. It is not 
 those who have boasted of their fearlessness and devotion 
 to truth that have shewn in a righteous cause the 
 greatest powers of endurance, or the greatest readiness 
 to suffer ; and had Erasmus believed there was good 
 occasion for it, he might have proved himself — as many 
 a woman has done in the hour of extremity — possessed 
 of a courage that was invincible. It was probably a 
 very genuine feeling, and more than a mere passing one 
 to which he gave expression when he said that though 
 he had " no wish to be martyr for Luther, he was ready 
 
184 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to be a martyr for Christ, if He gave him strength to 
 be one." 
 
 Eeligion on its practical side — religion viewed as 
 " morality touched by emotion " that had its exciting 
 cause in a belief of the Holy One — had the greatest 
 interest for him, and he " could honour piety," he 
 said, " wherever it was found, provided only it 
 was genuine." But for mere theological truth, or 
 religion viewed as a system of dogmas, he cared very 
 little, regarding it as valuable, like rites and cere- 
 monies, only as it tended to promote " a pious disposi- 
 tion of the heart." 
 
 Had he been asked to formulate a creed, in comply- 
 ing with the request he would have drawn out a very 
 short one. " Formerly," he wrote in his introduction 
 to his edition of St. Hilary's works, " faith consisted in 
 the life rather than in the profession of a multitude of 
 articles. By-and-by it became necessary to impose 
 articles of faith, but these were at first few in number, 
 and of apostolic simplicity. Then the perverseness 
 and malice of heretics caused the Holy Scriptures to be 
 more diligently discussed, and points of doctrine to be 
 determined by the authority of synods. At length 
 faith ceased to be a matter of the heart, and was 
 wholly transferred to written documents ; and there 
 were almost as many confessions of faith as there were 
 persons capable of drawing them up. Articles in- 
 creased, but sincerity decreased. Contention waxed 
 warm, charity waxed cold. The doctrine of Christ, 
 which at first repudiated all strife of words, began to 
 look to the schools of the philosophers for protection ; 
 this was the first step in the decline of the Church. 
 Wealth increased, and power too. The interference of 
 
ERASMUS. ] 85 
 
 the authority of the Emperors, moreover, was not very 
 conducive to sincerity of faith." And elsewhere he 
 says : " It would be better for the Church not to de- 
 cide so dogmatically upon so many speculative points 
 and make them articles of faith, but only require assent 
 to those doctrines which are manifestly laid down in 
 the Holy Scriptures as necessary for salvation. These 
 are few." What these are, however, he does not seem 
 inclined to inquire. Theological truth had too little 
 interest for him to tempt him often, or far, it would 
 appear, in its investigation, and when he enters upon it 
 he manifests a sceptical tendency in the indulgence of 
 which he is restrained through fear of differing from 
 the Church and giving ground for a charge of heresy. 
 Possessed of a mind that was keen and quick in its 
 movement, but broad rather than deep, receiving many 
 impressions rather than any one with intenseness, he 
 saw difficulties and felt doubts in connection with theo- 
 logical truth of which men with less true piety than 
 himself had no experience : and finding he was apt to 
 get unsettled on points that the Church had settled, and 
 regarding the form which these assumed as a matter of 
 comparatively little moment, he satisfied himself, as 
 so many have done, with that spurious rest that is 
 found in bowing to the authority of the Church. So 
 much did that authority weigh with him, he said, that 
 he " could be of the opinion of the Arians and Pelagi- 
 ans if the Church had approved their doctrine." To 
 leave the Church and join the Reformers he regarded as 
 a mere change of masters, and as he honestly differed 
 from their leaders in some of their views, he was con- 
 tent to remain where he was. 
 
 His opposition to Luther showed itself specially in 
 
18G THE REFORMERS. 
 
 his controversy with him on the subject of Free Will. 
 Though Luther's new that the will of man was in 
 bondage by reason of sin, and that he could will freely 
 only in so far as divine grace enabled him to do so, 
 was to him, as he said : " a matter serious, necessary 
 and eternal, of such momentous interest that it must 
 be defended at the risk of life itself," the whole 
 question to Erasmus had an interest of a merely 
 speculative kind, and he was only led to deal 
 with it to gratify his friends in the Church, and 
 to satisfy them that he was not, as he w T as so much 
 blamed for being, either with the Reformers or one of 
 them. 
 
 Though he did not join them, and protested often, 
 and strongly, against his name being associated with 
 theirs, he had, as he could not but have, after all 
 he had done that tended to prepare the way for them, 
 much true sympathy with them in the work in which 
 they where engaged. Luther, Erasmus regarded as a 
 remedy " bitter and drastic," which the unhealthy 
 condition of the Church required ; and while he de- 
 precated his violent temper and thorough-going ways, 
 he had a true admiration for his character ; and it 
 was only after frequently excusing himself, and much 
 delay, that he took up his pen to write against him. 
 No good came of the controversy. Erasmus charged 
 Luther with unworthy motives, and Luther, in bad 
 temper, called his opponent, " that enraged viper, 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, the vainest creature in all the 
 world." 
 
 Luther w T as not the only one of the Reformers who 
 got angry with Erasmus. With some of them, indeed, 
 specially with Melancthon, whom Luther loved, he 
 
ERASMUS. 1ST 
 
 remained on terms of friendly intercourse. But the 
 majority of them could not understand how one who 
 had done so much to promote the cause into which 
 they had thrown their strength, should have refused to 
 join them when they broke away from the Romish 
 Church and put themselves in opposition to it ; 
 and the more violent of them attacked him with 
 violent language and applied to him opprobrious 
 epithets. 
 
 But Erasmus had to suffer attacks from another 
 side. The priests and monks were enraged at him, 
 and could not but be after having written about them 
 in the way he had, and done so much that tended 
 not only to weaken their influence and blast their 
 reputation, but undermine the system the interests of 
 winch they regarded as bound up with their own. With 
 more truth than he was willing to acknowledge they 
 declared : " Erasmus had laid the egg and Luther had 
 hatched it." And the monk of whom Erasmus tells us 
 who took his picture and hung it up in his chamber 
 " that he might get spitting upon it," is an indication of 
 the bitterness of feeling with which many of them 
 regarded him. " And thus," he says, " I am well 
 rewarded for all my labours by being pelted on both 
 sides. Among ourselves I am universally accused of 
 being a Lutheran, while among the Germans I am 
 evil-spoken of as an adversary to the Lutheran faction. 
 I would, however, give not only my good name, but 
 life itself, to calm this most disastrous storm." 
 
 Despite these troubles, Erasmus did not lose his 
 merry - heartedness, nor did his vigour grow dull. 
 During these years, while the Eeformation controversy 
 was raging, and he was defending himself for the 
 
188 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 middle course he seemed to be pursuing of sympathizing 
 with much in the spirit of the Eeformation, and yet 
 keeping friendly with Borne, he continued to pursue 
 in his own peaceful way, and with as much earnestness 
 as ever, the kind of work in which he had been so 
 long engaged. For eight years, beginning in 1521, he 
 worked at " Froben's mill," as he termed the printing 
 press of his friend, issuing now a new edition of one 
 of his own books, or writing an introduction to one 
 by somebody else ; publishing a commentary on part 
 of the Bible, or editing one of the classics or fathers ; 
 No longer entreating his friends for money or presents, 
 but receiving many, and as acknowledged to be the 
 brightest luminary of his age, making the greatest of 
 those who sent them feel honoured if they received a 
 letter in return. 
 
 The troubles in Basle arising from the Eeformation 
 movement, and the suspicion in which he was there 
 held by those who were favourable to it, induced him to 
 seek refuge for a time in Friburg. But he returned; and 
 here in 1536, beside the swift-flowing Bhine, and near 
 the printing press from which had issued the first pub- 
 lished New Testament in Greek, Erasmus died, " sine 
 lux, sine crux " — without candle, without crucifix — 
 so years before an ignorant monk had reported to his 
 friends he had died, thinking apparently it would be 
 an agreeable piece of new T s to know that one who had 
 spoken about them as Erasmus had done, had departed 
 without the consolations of the Church, or the hope 
 which the Church could give. And it was better that 
 this man who had sought to direct human faith to a 
 higher source of help than that which the ceremonies 
 of the Church could afford, should have died without 
 
ERASMUS. 189 
 
 any priest or priestly rite intervening between his 
 spirit and Him to whom he prayed with his departing 
 breath the prayer, " Jesus, have mercy " ; " Lord, 
 have mercy " ; " Lord, make an end." 
 
 Thus passed away Desiderius Erasmus — the amiable, 
 so his name means, and in the signification we have an 
 index to one of the special features of his character, 
 for whatever else he was, he was amiable. And if we 
 could wish that with his gentleness and kindness he 
 had had more firmness and force of will ; that with his 
 keen intellect he had had a clearer perception of the 
 value of truth even in its formal expression ; that with 
 his hatred of discord he had hated more all manner 
 of unrighteousness ; that with his humanistic breadth 
 he had had greater evanp-elistic zeal, we can still esteem 
 him for what he was and admire him for what he did. 
 Possessed of the greatest abilities, he devoted them to 
 the best of ends. Though he delighted in peace, his 
 life was one of continual conflict, and the foes he did 
 battle with were ignorance and superstition. If the 
 truth and freedom which have come down to us as the 
 fruit of the Eeformation movement are valued by us, 
 then we have reason to be grateful to him; for without 
 him the Eeformers of his time would not have been 
 what they were, or have accomplished what they did. 
 It was he, more than any anyone else, who 
 
 " Stenim'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 
 And drove those holy vandals off the stage." 
 
 And now, in leaving him, though we may differ in 
 opinion as to the excellence of his character or the 
 value of his work, as those have done who were best 
 able to estimate both, we may all at least join in 
 
190 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the prayer with which he closed his most popular 
 book : " May that Spirit which is the pacifier of all, 
 who uses His instruments various ways, make us all 
 agree and consent in sound doctrine and holy manners, 
 that we may all come to the fellowship of the New 
 Jerusalem that knows no discords. Amen." 
 
SCttth-er. 
 
 During a midsummer afternoon of the year 1415, on 
 the bank of the beautiful lake of Constance, a memor- 
 able scene was witnessed. In pursuance of the sentence 
 of condemnation passed by the Church Council as- 
 sembled in the town, and in defiance of the imperial 
 safe-conduct, John Hus was burnt at the stake. For 
 many years he had laboured and written in his native 
 Bohemia, for the reformation of the Church. But, 
 although he had gathered round him a large party of 
 his countrymen like-minded with himself, the autho- 
 rity of Pope and Council was against him, and he died 
 the heretic's death. There is a tradition to the effect 
 that in the hour of death's approach — that hour when 
 sometimes the soul has seemed to be gifted with a 
 prophetic power, and the dying eyes have seen into 
 the future with more than mortal vision — the martyr, 
 playing with the meaning of his own name, declared 
 to his judges that now they burnt a goose, but that in 
 an hundred years a white swan would come whom no 
 one would be able to destroy. 
 
 Never had prophetic word seemed less likely of ful- 
 filment : and as the years wore on there was little 
 indication that the hope which it breathed would be 
 
192 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 realized. The ashes of the faithful confessor were cast 
 into the river Ehine, which here issues from the lake. 
 His martyrdom became the watchword of a long and 
 dreadful war between the people of Bohemia and the 
 German Empire. In this war the Hussites were re- 
 peatedly and decisively victorious. But success proved 
 more dangerous than might have been defeat ; for 
 through internal discords, the indulgence of carnal 
 passions, and the imperfect apprehension of Christian 
 doctrine, the reforming movement, which had been so 
 full of promise in the hands of Hus, lost its strong 
 impulse, and fell into a languishing condition. 
 
 The worst effect, however, of this great religious 
 feud was the alienation of the German mind from all 
 doctrines akin to those which were inscribed on the 
 banners of the men who had put to disgraceful rout 
 the imperial armies. The national honour had already 
 been touched by a dispute in the University of Prague 
 in which Hus's party remained masters of the situation ; 
 and the feeling of soreness was intensely aggravated by 
 the bitter and bloody war which proved so humbling to 
 the military reputation of the Germans. The Hussite 
 victories had shut and sealed the mind of Europe 
 against the Hussite doctrine ; and there was nothing 
 from which a German, whether ecclesiastic or lay, 
 shrank with greater horror than any suspicion of being 
 tainted with the Bohemian poison. Even Luther him- 
 self was at first cautious in admitting kinship or sym- 
 pathy with the Keformer of Prague. 
 
 No doubt there were voices in the night which gave 
 unmistakeable, though fragmentary, utterance to some 
 parts of the truth which became full-voiced in Luther 
 and the later Keformers. Thus, for instance, John 
 
LUTHER. 193 
 
 Wessel, who taught in Paris during the latter part of 
 the century, attached such importance to faith as the 
 turning-point between the natural and the spiritual 
 life, that Luther calls him a rare and lofty spirit, and 
 says, " If I had read Wessel first, my adversaries might 
 have imagined that Luther had taken everything from 
 him." So, too, such men as John of Goch, in Germany, 
 Savonarola in Italy, and others, amid much that was 
 defective, emphasized the great central truth that 
 religion consists in a direct and immediate relation 
 between the soul and the work of Christ. These teach- 
 ings, however, never became rallying centres of fresh 
 thought and life. And although, along with many of 
 the secular influences of the century — such as the 
 revival of classical learning, the decay of Scholasticism, 
 which fell in great part by its own weight, leaving a 
 want which the culture of Humanism could not satisfy, 
 the invention of printing, which was to the Eeforma- 
 tion what the universal diffusion of the Greek language 
 was to primitive Christianity, the widening of the 
 horizon of common life by geographical discovery and 
 commercial enterprise — they combined to predispose 
 men's minds for the reception of new truth, yet their 
 visible effect was very limited. 
 
 On the other hand, the Church of Rome appeared to 
 renew and consolidate her power. Councils met which, 
 by their mild and utterly insufficient attempts at out- 
 ward reform, gave a further sanction and fixity to the 
 abuses of the Papal system. Towards the close of the 
 century the Inquisition seems to have been established 
 with renewed vigour in Germany. The Ptoman Court, 
 becoming supremely confident in its apparently impreg- 
 nable security, set no bounds to its excesses, and the 
 
 x 
 
194 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Papal chair was repeatedly occupied, by men whose 
 lives were stained with the foulest worldliness and im- 
 morality. When, on the 1 6th day of March, 1517, Leo 
 X. brought the fifth Lateran Council to a triumphant con- 
 clusion, not a whisper of revolt was to be heard through 
 the wide realm of his spiritual sovereignty. There was 
 scarcely an indication that Europe was on the eve of 
 the mightiest change in her history which has taken 
 place since the day when an apostle lauded on her 
 shores. 
 
 Yet even then, almost in the same hour, an unknown 
 hand came forth and wrote strange words of destiny 
 within sight of all. Little more than seven months 
 had elapsed since the close of the Lateran Council, 
 when, on the last day of October, an Augustinian monk, 
 without informing anyone of what he was about to do, 
 appeared at the Castle Church of Wittenberg among a 
 crowd of relic-worshippers, and, standing under the 
 arched doorway, posted on the door of the church a 
 paper containing ninety-five short Latin theses con- 
 cerning indulgences, which in a prefaratory note he 
 offered as subjects of a public disputation to be held 
 under his own presidency. While Leo was devoting 
 himself to those autumn pleasures of which he was 
 passionately fond — hawking and fishing and hunting, 
 being splendidly entertained by the princes of the 
 Church in their country palaces — a writing was written, 
 although he did not at once see it; and the interpretation 
 of it was, that the vast system of religious worship and 
 life of which he was the head, had been weighed in the 
 balances and was found wauling. These theses, which 
 remain to this day, graven in brass, on the spot where 
 they were first set up, formed the beginning of the 
 
LUTHER. 195 
 
 Eeformation, and were the edge of the axe laid to the 
 huge and monstrous growth of mediaeval superstition. 
 
 Even before this, just the one hundred years from 
 the very day on which the martyr's spirit ascended in 
 its chariot of fire at Constance, this monk, who was 
 also a doctor and professor, was finding in the Bible, 
 and in his university lectures was declaring to others, 
 the truth which had been hidden for long ages, and 
 which Hus had but dimly descried. The white swan 
 was indeed come, and a new and glorious doctrine — 
 the true message of the everlasting Gospel itself — was 
 being unfolded, out of the heart of a deep experience 
 and Scriptural knowledge, to the roused intelligence 
 and spiritual consciousness of the hearers. 
 
 It was by no rapid process that Martin Luther had 
 become capable of such teaching, and of such an act. 
 The vehemence of his language has somtimes led people 
 to think of him as reckless and revolutionary, self-confi- 
 dently assuming the rdle of Reformer. Nothing could 
 be further from the fact. He was a man whose con- 
 victions ripened slowly ; and it is remarkable that 
 almost all the great crises of his life had their occasion, 
 though doubtless not their deepest cause, in outward 
 compelling circumstances. At this time he was 34 
 years of age, and the publication of his theses was the 
 outcome and climax of a distinct experience of 14 
 years' duration — from the day on which he found a 
 Latin Bible in the University Library at Erfurt, till 
 the time when his penitents came to him seeking 
 absolution on the authority of Tetzel's letter of indul- 
 gence. Let us mark the steps of this progress. 
 
 Born almost under the shadow of the Harz moun- 
 tains at the town of Eisleben, to the copper mines near 
 
196 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 which his father had come in search of work, he early 
 learnt the meaning of poverty. Blessed with excellent 
 and kind parents, he seems, however, to have been sub- 
 jected to a somewhat stern discipline. In his schools 
 he was unfortunate, till he went to Eisenach, where his 
 young heart expanded under the sweet motherly influ- 
 ence of Ursula Cotta, and the instruction of the wise, 
 far-seeing Trebonius ; so that he ever afterwards looked 
 back to his " dear " Eisenach as a green spot in the 
 journey of his life. At the age of 1 8 he is a student 
 at the University of Erfurt, remaining there for four 
 years, and in the middle of that period making his 
 momentous discovery of a copy of the Vulgate — the 
 first complete Bible he had seen. And although his 
 readings in this book were, as yet, but like the drift- 
 wood which Columbus saw, revealing the existence of 
 a new world yet undiscovered, they quickened in him 
 those spiritual fears and longings which had already 
 begun to make themselves felt. 
 
 By what looks an accident, and in consequence of a 
 vow uttered in a moment of terror, and which he him- 
 self said that he for a time regretted after it was made, 
 he enters the convent at Erfurt. Not seldom God 
 deepens the darkness ere he leads to the light ; and it 
 was needful that Luther should know to the uttermost 
 the hard yoke from which he was to be God's instru- 
 ment for liberating the bodies and souls of men. The 
 student, whose work had been full of promise, and for 
 whom his father and his friends were anticipating a 
 brilliant career in the profession of the law, at first 
 tells no one of his new resolve. A fortnight after- 
 wards, on a July evening, he invites a number of his 
 college friends to supper ; after a few pleasant hours 
 
LUTHER. 197 
 
 have been spent, before the merry party breaks up, 
 informs them that this is his farewell to the world ; 
 and, notwithstanding their entreaties, that very night 
 knocks for admittance at the door of the Augustinian 
 Convent. 
 
 For the young graduate there was at first total and 
 bitter disappointment. He entered with devotion into 
 the life which he had chosen. He made full proof of 
 the monastic discipline. But the thought of sin, 
 which had become a reality to him even while he was 
 at the University, deepened, and overspread his whole 
 consciousness ; while, on the other hand, the char- 
 acter of God seemed equally terrible. He brooded 
 over the word " righteousness," but in the Divine 
 " righteousness," or " justice," he could find no com- 
 fort. He felt the intense need which the Mystics 
 before him had felt, of communion with God ; but in 
 his case there was interposed a tremendous conviction 
 of sin, which had been almost wanting to them. An 
 immense gulf yawned between God's holiness and him- 
 self as a sinner — a gulf which seemed only to widen 
 as he strove, by all the prescribed methods, to narrow 
 it. He sought carefully in fastings, and vigils, and 
 prayers, and all kinds of penances and mortifications, 
 for the secret of peace ; but he could not find it. " I was 
 a pious monk," he said ; " if ever a monk came to 
 
 .heaven though a monkish life, I would have come 
 
 Hhither." 
 
 Gradually, however, a change takes place. He 
 pores over the Word of God — first the red-leather 
 convent Bible, chained to the wall, and then a copy 
 which he obtains as a present. He reads the pages of 
 Occam and Augustine. And, above all, he is brought 
 
198 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 into contact with Staupitz, the Vicar- General of his 
 Order, who at this time paid a visit to the convent, 
 and through whose means it was largely that the 
 blindness was at last taken from his e} r es, and he saw, 
 as he tells us, the light of the Gospel dawning out of 
 the darkness in his heart. The young monk, who 
 had at once attracted the eye of his superior, un- 
 bosoms to him all his difficulties — his experience of 
 the mastery of sin, his fear of the Divine justice. 
 " Why torment thyself with these things ? " says this 
 spiritual father. " Look to the wounds of Jesus 
 Christ : then shalt thou see the grace of God. In- 
 stead of making a martyr of thyself for thy faults, 
 throw thyself into the arms of the Eedeemer." 
 " But," objects Luther, " I must be changed before 
 God can receive me." '* No repentance is true," replies 
 Staupitz, " save that which begins with the love of 
 God and of righteousness. If thou wouldst be con- 
 verted, dwell not upon all these macerations and 
 tortures : love Him who first loved thee." He finds, 
 to his intense surprise, that the word " penitentia," 
 which had seemed so bitter to him as he read it in 
 his Vulgate, does not mean the penance which he has 
 deemed so necessary, but repentance. He comes to 
 see that the righteousness of God is not to be de- 
 served, but to be received as a gift by faith. Accord- 
 ingly he is able to write, in one of his letters, that all 
 the passages of Scripture which " used to frighten him, 
 now seemed to rise up from all sides, smiling and 
 leaping, and sporting with him." " As I had pre- 
 viously," he says, " hated the words ' righteousness of 
 God,' so from that time I began to esteem and love 
 them, as words most sweet and most consoling. In- 
 
LUTHER. 199 
 
 deed they were to me the true gate of Paradise." The 
 Vicar-General was deeply impressed by his conversa- 
 tions with Luther, and he predicted for him a great 
 future. " It is not without cause that God exercises 
 you by so many combats : be assured He will employ 
 you in great things as His minister." 
 
 The enlightening process goes on. During the second 
 year of his stay at the convent, while he is prostrate 
 under a severe illness, and is again shaken with spiritual 
 terrors, an old monk repeats to him the article of the 
 Apostles' Creed, " I believe in the forgiveness of sins," 
 impressing upon him the fact that we must believe not 
 only that David's or Peter's sins, but that our own sins, 
 are forgiven; and the words become a rock in the surg- 
 ing sea of his troubled thoughts. While he is pur- 
 suing his studies in the University of Wittenberg, to a 
 chair in which he had been appointed by the Elector, he 
 is struck with the sentence in the Epistle to the 
 Eomans, " The just shall live by faith," which became 
 the heart of his religion and his theology, and which 
 has proved to be one of those fontal texts from which 
 truth, for a time condensed and sealed, has flowed forth 
 in a mighty stream, showing itself to possess an infinite 
 significance and power of expansion. Again and again 
 during his life these words sounded in his ears — at 
 Bologna, where he lay dangerously sick ; at Rome, while 
 climbing up Pilate's staircase on his knees, and else- 
 where. Forming first one of the practical means of his 
 personal salvation, they became the basis and starting- 
 point of the great doctrine of Justification by Eaith, 
 which he framed into a scientific expression in after 
 years. 
 
 One event happened during those years which exerted 
 
200 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 an important influence upon him as a reformer of the 
 Church — his visit to Rome. He approached the city 
 in a spirit of deep devotion, falling upon his knees, and 
 exclaiming, " Hail to thee, holy Rome ! " but he left it 
 with the dream of its sanctity rudely broken. In the 
 Holy City fifteen centuries of Christianity had brought 
 men round again to the condition of pagan Rome, in 
 which, according to a celebrated testimony, two augurs 
 could scarcely meet without laughing. At ecclesiastical 
 dinner-tables, and elsewhere, he heard the holiest 
 mysteries of his religion made a jest of, and he was 
 utterly shocked by the wickedness and unbelief which 
 abounded on every side. And although he was careful 
 to distinguish between the religion and its unworthy 
 ministers, the facts of which he had been an eye-witness 
 sank deeply into his mind. " I would not have missed 
 seeing Rome for a hundred thousand florins," he after- 
 wards declared ; " for I might then have felt that I had 
 done some injustice to the Pope." 
 
 The years which followed his return from Rome show 
 him to us still quietly engaged at his studies and lec- 
 tures. During all this time he seems to have had no 
 presentiment of the great work which was awaiting 
 him. Far from counting it a prize to be eagerly grasped, 
 that he should change the thoughts of men about re- 
 ligion which had served them in the past, the strong 
 language which he used in the midst of later labours 
 gives evidence of the intellectual modesty and spiritual 
 reserve with which he yielded to the fulfilment of his 
 mission. " Had I known what I now know," he 
 said afterwards, " not ten horses would ever have 
 dragged me into it." " God hurries, drives me. I am 
 not master of myself. I wish to be quiet, and am 
 
LUTHER. 201 
 
 hurried into the midst of tumults." Staupitz had the 
 utmost difficulty in persuading him to preach. " In 
 asking me to do this," he exclaimed to his chief, " you 
 wish to kill me. I shall not live for three months, if 
 you make me go on." " Very well," was the reply, " so 
 be it, in God's name ; it would be a noble offering to 
 make. And up yonder, too, our Lord has need of able 
 and devoted men." And so, first, in a small wooden 
 chapel, thirty feet long, temporarily used as the convent 
 church, and then in the town church, that voice began 
 to speak which was afterwards to be heard in tones of 
 thunder by the world. The touching reluctance, thus 
 repeatedly struggled with and overcome, is the highest 
 modern rendering of the apostolic " Necessity is laid 
 upon me." 
 
 At length a flagrant abuse confronts him in his ordi- 
 nary work. Among his duties was that of confessor. 
 In the year 1517 Tetzel, Chief Commissioner of Indul- 
 gences for Germany, under the Cardinal- Archbishop of 
 Mayence, set up his establishment at Jtiterbok, a few 
 miles from Wittenberg; and Luther, who had already 
 begun to feel an aversion to the system of indulgences, 
 became fully alive to its enormity when some persons, 
 coming to the confessional, claiming from him, as priest, 
 unconditional absolution for their sins, and being re- 
 fused the Church's forgiveness except after promise of 
 amendment, at once produced Tetzel's paper bearing the 
 authority of the Pope. According to the terms of this 
 document they had received the remission of all penal- 
 ties for sin, including the pains of purgatory, and had 
 been re-established in the purity of the first hour of 
 their baptism. 
 
 The chief means by which this writing had been ob- 
 
202 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 tained was the payment of a sum of money. It was 
 the custom of the Commissioner to enter the town, 
 which from time to time he fixed as his head-quarters, 
 in a grand procession, with the Papal brief carried in 
 front on cloth of gold. Before the altar a large red 
 cross, on which hung a silk banner bearing the Papal 
 arms, was set up ; and before this cross was placed a 
 great iron chest, to hold the money. Before the money 
 could be received, confession had to be made, and con- 
 trition felt. But it was frequently arranged that con- 
 fession should be made wholesale, while the contrition 
 deemed satisfactory was of the vaguest kind. The chief 
 stress was laid on the giving of the money ; all else was 
 practically lost sight of in regard to the living, while the 
 tinkling of the coin in the box was declared to achieve 
 the instantaneous deliverance of the dead from purga- 
 tory. All the bad features of this system were ren- 
 dered doubly bad through its management by a man 
 like Tetzel, a vulgar and shameless braggart, distin- 
 guished by incredible effrontery and license of speech. 
 With stentorian voice and brazen audacity he recom- 
 mended his wares, in the style of an auctioneer or a 
 quack, urging the people not to lose such a splendid 
 opportunity of buying their salvation. In Tetzel's ap- 
 peals we have the loudest and most unblushing contra- 
 diction to the language of the New Testament and the 
 ancient prophets, which offers the gifts of God without 
 money and without price. 
 
 These indulgences were no new thing in the Church ; 
 and it is important to get a clear understanding of what 
 they mean, for in them Luther's whole controversy with 
 the Church is illustrated, and brought to a focus. As 
 the subject was discussed in all its bearings, and when 
 
LUTHER. 203 
 
 lie found that his theses, instead of being approved by 
 the Pope, as calling attention to the gross mismanage- 
 ment in the administration of indulgences, were con- 
 demned, he was led to re-consider the whole question 
 of Christian doctrine and authority. Little more than 
 three years had elapsed when the same hand which 
 fixed the theses on the church door committed the 
 Pope's bull to the flames. 
 
 "We must remember, then, that the effect of an in- 
 dulgence was supposed to extend to the temporal 
 punishment of sin, whether in this world or the next, 
 that is, all punishment till the day of judgment, which 
 had still to be borne after its eternal punishment was 
 remitted. This temporal punishment was twofold, con- 
 sisting, on the one hand, of penances imposed by the 
 Church, and, on the other hand, of the chastisements 
 laid, especially in the future life, on the sinner by 
 God, notwithstanding the forgiveness of the quilt of his 
 sin. Now it was these penances and chastisements 
 which in early centuries the Church, and in later times 
 especially the Pope, had claimed the power of remitting. 
 There is no doubt that the existence of such a claim 
 finds its explanation in the overwhelming sense of sin 
 which dominated the mind of the early Church, together 
 with a partial obscuration of the meaning and value 
 of Christ's atonement. The effect of that atonement 
 was practically more and more confined to the eternal 
 aspect of sin — the removal of its guilt and of its re- 
 mote penalty in the eternal future ; while as to its 
 temporal aspect there was, under the management of 
 the Church, what can be called nothing less than a 
 copy or imitation, on the scale of human merit, of the 
 supreme work of the Saviour. It was granted that 
 
20 -i THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Christ's sacrifice was an absolute and complete atone- 
 ment for the guilt and eternal punishment of sin ; but 
 these severe penances, which were imposed originally on 
 those who had committed great offences, were regarded 
 as having an expiatory effect for the temporal penalty. 
 
 The burden was too great to be borne. Accordingly, 
 relaxations were gradually introduced. At first these 
 were bestowed at the request of the martyrs and con- 
 fessors, whose superabundant merit was held to have a 
 vicarious value, and who were in the habit of granting 
 letters of commendation on behalf of those who were 
 undergoing penance, whose penalty was on this ground 
 remitted to them. Certain good works, however, were 
 still imposed on the penitent before he was restored to 
 the communion of the Church, partly as a test of sin- 
 cerity, and partly for the reason that the merits of the 
 martyrs were not regarded as an absolute equivalent 
 for the whole temporal penalty. In subsequent times 
 these good works were commuted for contributions of 
 money towards some religious object, such as the build- 
 ing of a church. The danger of such a system is un- 
 mistakeable; and it had reached its grossest develop- 
 ment in the time of Luther. The full-blown theory 
 then was, that the Pope had authority over an inexhaust- 
 ible treasure consisting of the merits of Christ and the 
 supererogatory works of the saints, and that he could 
 dispense this treasure for the benefit of those who were 
 willing to give money for so good a purpose as the 
 building of St. Peter's Church. In the case of the 
 living this contribution was to be made by each indi- 
 vidual ; while in regard to the souls in purgatory, it 
 could be made by others on their behalf. 
 
 No doubt it may be said that in the original con- 
 
LUTHER. 205 
 
 ception of indulgences, as thus historically traced, 
 there is nothing inherently ignoble, or necessarily of a 
 corrupting tendency ; and the practice may be ideal- 
 ized by sophistical reasoning. But it rested upon an 
 absolute fiction. There is no such treasure of martyrs 
 and saints ; and such a conception of Christ's work as 
 the theory involved is entirely without foundation. 
 Cardinal Cajetan, before whom Luther appeared at 
 Augsburg, maintained that " one drop of the blood of 
 Christ being sufficient to redeem the whole human 
 race, the remaining part was left as a legacy to the 
 Church, and might be distributed by indulgences from 
 the Roman pontiff." It is obvious that on such a fan- 
 tastic principle of the interpretation of Christian facts 
 as this, any doctrine whatever might be framed. 
 Moreover, it was practically inevitable that a system 
 which made the remission of sins and the assurance of 
 peace with God obtainable, in however refined and 
 indirect a way, by means of money, should become an 
 encouragement, rather than a preventive, of sin. The 
 refinements of subtle thought, especially when founded 
 on an ecclesiastical figment, were lost sight of, and the 
 bare result, stripped of all disguise, amounted to this, 
 that a tax, according to a graduated scale, was levied 
 on sins, which thus became luxuries which all might 
 enjoy who could afford to pay for them. 
 
 With Tetzel's proceedings there was a widespread 
 dissatisfaction, and the matter had become a public 
 scandal. No one, however, dared to raise a voice in 
 opposition to what was going on, for excommuni- 
 cation had been threatened against all who obstructed 
 the indulgences. But Luther's conscience was set on 
 flame. And when the matter is brought home to his 
 
206 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 own responsibility as a pastor of souls, he feels that he 
 must do what he can to drive these vile and profane 
 traffickers in sin out of the temple of God ; he will 
 beat a hole in Tetzel's drum. And so he appears with 
 his remarkable theses, which were the trumpet-blast to 
 waken Europe to a new life. 
 
 Yet it is remarkable how cautious and conservative 
 Luther is in this celebrated protest. He does not even 
 commit himself to maintain any of the propositions ; 
 but according to a custom of the age, which allowed 
 the utmost latitude in public discussion, he simply 
 offers them as matters to be inquired into, in order 
 that the truth on each point may be reached. More- 
 over, if we regard each of the theses as expressing 
 Luther's own opinion, what he retains is almost as 
 remarkable as what he rejects. He upholds the valid- 
 ity of the Papal pardon, although at the same time 
 he says that the Pope has no power to remit sin except 
 in declaring it to have been remitted by God. What 
 he protests against is the abuse of the Pope's commis- 
 sion by those who sold the indulgences. All through 
 he appeals from the Pope's agents to the Pope himself. 
 He denies that there is any such thing as purgatorial 
 penance imposed by the Church, although he believes 
 in the existence of purgatory ; so that, since the Pope 
 can remit no penalties except those which he has him- 
 self imposed, indulgences have no value for the dead. 
 He declares further that every Christian who feels true 
 repentance has a full absolution from punishment and 
 guilt, even without letters of pardon (Thesis 36). 
 And, although the remission imparted by the Pope is 
 not to be despised (Thesis 38), although he even goes 
 the length of saying that God never remits any man's 
 
LUTHER. 207 
 
 guilt without at the same time subjecting him to the 
 authority of His representative, the priest (Thesis 7) ; 
 yet he affirms that works of mercy, and even necessary 
 household expenses, are far more acceptable to God 
 than the buying of pardons (Thesis 45, 46). The in- 
 dulgence, therefore, being not commanded (Thesis 47), 
 seems to become a spiritual luxury which it is allow- 
 able to possess only after the more important duties of 
 life and religion have been performed. He protests 
 against the " errors " and " dreams " of those who 
 preached the pardons, and declares that if the Pope 
 were acquainted with what they did, he would prefer 
 that the basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to ashes 
 rather than that it should be built up with the skin, 
 flesh, and bones of his sheep (Thesis 50). The prac- 
 tical and distinct result of the whole document is, 
 that the true treasure of the Church is the gospel of 
 the glory and grace of God (Thesis 62) ; that true 
 repentance, which is life-long and is not to be con- 
 founded with outward penance, obtains a plenary 
 remission ; and that it is better to give to the poor, or 
 to provide for common necessities, than to purchase an 
 indulgence. 
 
 Although some of the propositions seem, and perhaps 
 were meant, to be contradictory, although much of the 
 old error is bound up with the new truth, yet such 
 statements as those last quoted, when received by the 
 popular mind, could not but have the effect of par- 
 alyzing the whole system ; and no long time elapsed 
 before Luther himself saw that the stroke which he 
 had aimed against the abuses of the indulgence went 
 much further than he had thought of, gathering momen- 
 turn as it travelled. The impulse which enabled him 
 
208 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to write the ninety-five theses carried hirn onward to 
 the denial of many things which are enshrined in 
 them as undoubted truth, and the affirmation of many 
 other things which left the controversy concerning 
 them far in the distance. But the study of their 
 phraseology and meaning will always possess a living 
 interest. In their contents we behold together, the 
 darkness and the light, phantoms and facts. The 
 ghosts that were vanishing at day-dawn strangely 
 mingle with the shapes of the great world of truth 
 and reality. These theses form the rubicon between 
 the mediaeval and the modern world ; and the master- 
 spirit who takes us across them, became the hero, 
 mightier than Caesar, who, by the grace of God, con- 
 quered for us the wide and glorious realm of Christian 
 freedom and faith. 
 
 The effect produced in Germany was instantaneous 
 and profound. The public conscience, which had been 
 juggled, was satisfied by this utterance of truth and 
 soberness. The matter was at first treated lightly by 
 the Pope ; but at the Eoman court there never seems 
 to have been the slightest idea of giving a favourable 
 reply to the obscure monk's appeal. When at last 
 Leo roused himself to see the true state of the case, 
 one effort after another was made to dislodge him from 
 the position he had taken up, but with the result only 
 .of convincing him more entirely that he was right. 
 At Augsburg, where, in Cardinal Cajetan, he encoun- 
 tered the calm impassiveness of authority which would 
 accept nothing short of a simple retraction, he appeals 
 from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope better-informed. 
 And when a bull sanctioning the whole doctrine and 
 practice of indulgences was published in December, 
 
LUTHER. 20£ 
 
 1518, he had already appealed to a Council. At 
 Altenburg, in the interview with Miltitz, he parries 
 the kindly but keen diplomacy which sought to 
 win him to submission. At Leipzig he engages in 
 a public Latin disputation of nine days' duration with 
 Dr. Eck, who seems to have been, what Tetzel was in 
 a lower rank, a clever but shallow and blatant 
 quibbler. While, at Augsburg, he had set the Scrip- 
 tures above the Pope, he now strenuously denied that 
 the primacy of the Pope was of divine appointment ; 
 and in declaring that four of Hus's propositions, con- 
 demned at Constance, were perfectly orthodox, he 
 virtually asserted that Councils might err. At each 
 stage the scales dropped from his eyes, one error after 
 another was put aside : and although for a time he saw 
 men as trees, walking, yet his position became more 
 and more clear to himself, and he rapidly attained to a 
 complete understanding of the truths, both negative 
 and positive, which were henceforth written deep on 
 the heart of the new movement. 
 
 At length the rent in the unity of past ages became 
 an outward fact. But it was the doing, not of Luther, 
 but of the Pope and his Eoman advisers, who would 
 allow no place to the work of purification within the 
 limits of the unbroken Church. A bull published on 
 the 16th of June, 1520, rejected forty-one of Luther's 
 propositions, sentenced his books to be burnt, and 
 declared him excommunicated if he did not recant 
 within sixty days. And the Eeformer, having been 
 thus cast out from the Church, at length himself took 
 the final step, after which no return was possible. At 
 nine o'clock on a winter morning, at a spot outside the 
 east gate of Wittenberg, still marked by an oak tree, 
 
 o 
 
210 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 he, with his own hands, cast the Papal bull into a 
 blazing pile, kindled by one of the Masters of Arts, in 
 sight of a great crowd from the University and the 
 town. It was the boldest act of his life — one of the 
 boldest acts ever done by man ; and he who was 
 capable of it was fitted to be the leader of his country 
 and of Europe into a new era. 
 
 These years, till the close of his stay at the Wart- 
 burg in 1522, were the most fruitful period of Luther's 
 life. During their course he produced his three great 
 Eeformation treatises, his first Commentary on the 
 Epistle to the Galatians, and his translation of the New 
 Testament. Yet, although he thus steadily advanced, 
 it is interesting and touching to notice with what hesi- 
 tation the great mind turns away from the institutions 
 and thoughts of the past. There are moments when 
 he seems almost willing to stop. He promises to Miltitz 
 that he will be silent, and let the affair, as he says, 
 " bleed itself to death." He writes letters to the Pope 
 in which, though declaring his inabilitv to retract, he 
 uses expressions of profound humility and respect. 
 And, in his subsequent opposition to the iconoclastic 
 proceedings of Carlstadt, he shows himself fearful of 
 laying a rude hand on any of the old usages of worship. 
 While Carlstadt and the more thorough-going party 
 held that everything should be abolished which was 
 not commanded in Scripture, Luther laid down the 
 principle that everything might be retained which was 
 not directly contrary to Scripture. With regard, indeed, 
 to these earlier pauses and indications of a spirit of 
 submission to the Church and the Pope, he has been 
 accused of dissimulation ; his inconsistencies of language 
 have even been interpreted as part of a deep scheme 
 
LUTHER. 211 
 
 for outwitting Italian policy, and proving that a rude 
 German could meet Roman finesse with its own 
 weapons. And it has been too much the fashion for 
 Luther's biographers to represent him as possessing 
 from the first an unwavering consciousness and full- 
 orbed conception of the work he had to do. We 
 believe such a view to be the very opposite of a correct 
 interpretation of the facts ; for it is in entire contradic- 
 tion to the essentially and manifestly progressive char- 
 acter of Luther's mind. His new creed was as far as 
 possible from emerging, like Minerva from the brain of 
 Jupiter, perfect and complete. For a long period it 
 was continually growing and expanding, and receiving 
 new elements. His expressions of attachment to the 
 old system of belief and practice are not irony, but the 
 marks of a sincere mind in a state of transition. And, 
 as the poet tells how the winding Tweed turns and 
 turns again, as loath to leave the lands through which 
 its waters have flowed : so, as we watch the course of 
 the great Reformer's thought, while we behold it 
 broadening and deepening, now flowing majestically, 
 and now hurrying forward, and now letting itself break 
 into a foaming cataract, we see also the yearning regret, 
 the turnings of a noble reluctance, which are precious 
 to us as indications that we have here the procedure 
 and career not of a reckless enthusiast, blinded to the 
 excellence of what he was leaving, but of a reasonable 
 man, slow to change, willing to yield to the ancient 
 authority, if that be possible, and only moving onward 
 by the irresistible power of the truth of God. 
 
 It was during this period that he brought into full 
 and definite statement the doctrine of Justification by 
 Faith. What is the meaning of this great principle 
 
212 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 which in modern times has been identified with the 
 Keformation ? and how far was the expression given to 
 it by Luther satisfactory ? 
 
 It may be said that religion lies in a connection 
 between the seen and the unseen, between that which 
 is material, temporal, bodily, and that which is moral, 
 eternal, spiritual, between the human and the divine. 
 And the truest realization of religion consists in the 
 complete subordination of the lower element to the 
 higher. When God is supreme, and man is the 
 obedient creature, the holy child, of God, when the 
 material is made the perfect instrument of the spiritual, 
 when the human is the image of the divine, there is 
 an attainment of the ideal condition, which was the 
 purpose of creation. Now in religion, as in all lesser 
 departments of human interest, one of the most 
 widely-spread tendencies has been to make the material, 
 in some of its manifold forms, encroach upon the 
 spiritual : so that the lower becomes first the principal 
 organ of, and then a substitute for, the higher. A 
 memorable and beautiful expression of this tendency 
 has been preserved for us in Greek mythology, in 
 which the divine and spiritual world is a copy and 
 reflection of the natural. And for all worship and 
 religious life there is a right relation between the two, 
 a relation which is recognized in the Christian Sacra- 
 ments and means of grace. But the history of 
 Christianity proves how great a danger there is that 
 the spiritual shall not be allowed its due and supreme 
 place. In the system of the mediaeval Church — that 
 system whose greatest representative is Gregory VII. — 
 we see the fullest endeavour which has ever been 
 made to realize man's highest life by the direct means 
 
LUTHER. 213 
 
 and instrumentality of what is outward, sensuous, 
 material. By the theory of ordination which brought 
 into existence a distinct class of men gifted with 
 mysterious supernatural power, together with the 
 theory of the opus operatum in the administration of 
 the rites of the Church, grace and holiness became 
 unspiritual and external. The sacrifice of the mass 
 attached an extraordinary importance to an outward 
 act of man, through which both the living and the 
 dead were supposed to be benefited. A like fictitious 
 value was given to innumerable ceremonies and 
 penances. Good works, even in the barest form, and 
 almost apart from the motive, were held to possess an 
 absolute merit. The character of God was obscured, 
 the significance of Christ's salvation defaced, by the 
 worship of saints and the introduction of a thousand 
 mediating influences, which largely undid in men's 
 practical experience what had been accomplished 
 by the incarnation and the atonement. Images and 
 relics were holy things. The worship of the con- 
 gregation was conducted by the priest in a dead 
 language. 
 
 The climax and culmination of this system was 
 reached in the extreme development of indulgences. 
 Further than this it was impossible for the material- 
 izing process to go. One of its highest expressions 
 was the episode of the Crusades, in which the whole 
 enthusiasm of the Church was concentrated upon an 
 outward object — an object of interest to Christian 
 feeling, but never, during the pure ages, itself a centre 
 of pilgrimage and devotion. But, whether in its 
 higher or its lower forms, the development of this 
 tendency led to a distinct, and often gross, materializ- 
 
214 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ing of the spiritual. Practically, in all but the best 
 minds, the higher element was almost altogether super- 
 seded by the lower, in regard to every aspect of religious 
 life. 
 
 Now, from all this the Saxon Keformer delivered the 
 minds of men. He restored the spiritual, which had 
 been obstructed and oppressed, to its true place in the 
 estimation of the Church. He made inward faith 
 once more the regal, all-controlling principle of the 
 Christian life. When the body crushes the soul, we 
 have, in natural life, the animal nature ; in religious 
 life, superstition. This superstition Luther swept 
 away ; and the spiritual life, which had been all but 
 smothered, breathed freely again. He made faith, 
 what the New Testament makes it, the beginning and 
 centre of all else, the heart and pulse of the whole 
 body of religion. Nothing need come between the 
 soul and the divine object of its worship. No human 
 nor creaturely mediator — neither priest, nor pope, nor 
 council, nor saint, nor angel, nor weary round of 
 penance, nor long list of meritorious works — shall stand 
 in the way, when man seeks his God. Faith alone is 
 needed — the believing of the heart, the clinging of the 
 soul. 
 
 This was in itself a far-reaching reformation. The 
 true value of faith, however, depends on what its ob- 
 ject is. In those ceremonies and rites, those continual 
 masses and penances, there was the distorted perception 
 and the stammering utterance of a grand truth — a 
 truth which was sometimes dimly prefigured in heathen 
 religions, but has been in a complete and unique way 
 revealed through the gospel — the truth, namely, that 
 God must do something on behalf of sinful man, if the 
 
LUTHER. 215 
 
 purpose of man's being is to be reached. The idea 
 latent in all the sacramental and ceremonial acts, un- 
 spiritual as they were, was that God produced some 
 effect, for the benefit of the worshippers, which was in- 
 dependent of all qualifications on their part, except the 
 external act of submission or reverence ; and further, 
 that this effect depended on an historical act done by 
 God long before, for all the sacrifices of the mass, ficti- 
 tious as they really were, would have been valueless 
 apart from the first sacrifice offered on Calvary. And 
 the Eoman doctrine may be described as a compromise 
 between the human, sensuous, materializing tendency 
 and the truth that a work of absolute grace and atone- 
 ment has been accomplished by God on our behalf. It 
 is the element of sin which so frightfully complicates 
 the problem of the relation between the spiritual and 
 the natural. Both instinct and experience teach that 
 the only effectual way of dealing with sin is, that God 
 shall forgive it — that he shall put it away and implant 
 within us a new nature, a holy character. The utmost 
 which the popular system, prevailing at the commence- 
 ment of the sixteenth century, attained, was a mere 
 fragment or caricature of this truth. But it is this 
 which, according to Luther, is the object of faith — the 
 word of God declaring that this has been done in 
 Christ. The sole object of faith is the merit and 
 righteousness and mediation of Christ, and this so 
 accepted as to be distinguishable in thought, yet really 
 inseparable from a holy life, as its consequence. The 
 sinner is justified by the act of God for Christ's sake ; 
 and the faith which receives this justifying act is not 
 a barren thing, it produces right action. Thus the 
 doctrine, as stated by Luther, is twofold. In virtue of 
 
216 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the faith which is commanded we draw near to God, 
 free from all interposing obstacles whatsoever — whether 
 our sins themselves, or supposed means of our own 
 for putting them away ; while, on the other hand, 
 there is the still more important truth, that God has 
 already drawn near to us in Christ, for whose sake 
 He is willing at once to absolve us from guilt, and 
 give us power to be good and to do good. 
 
 Luther's doctrine has been charged with Antinom- 
 ianism, and his faith has been accused of being in- 
 distinguishable from a mere abstract confidence. It 
 cannot be denied that he occasionally uses exaggerated 
 and paradoxical language. He sometimes speaks con- 
 temptuously of the law ; and, in many passages, he 
 seems to exalt trust in Christ's merits and the divine 
 forgiveness to a solitary and giddy pinnacle of eleva- 
 tion. The very fact of his well-known depreciation 
 of the Epistle of James, — a depreciation which is, how- 
 ever, less than it is often supposed to be, — is an indica- 
 tion of a shrinking consciousness that his conception 
 did not absolutely square with the whole language of 
 the Xew Testament. But there is overwhelming evi- 
 dence, in the rest of his writings, that such language 
 is to be explained as due to the reaction from Eoman 
 materialism, and to the enthusiastic desire to hold up 
 in undimmecl splendour of illumination the truth which 
 had been so long concealed. The momentary, inci- 
 dental exaggeration was amply corrected by the whole 
 mass of the reformer's teaching. Faith, he calls " a 
 living, busy, active, mighty thing," and declares that 
 *• it is as impossible to separate works from faith as 
 heat from fire." The great sentence which he places 
 in the fore-front of his treatise " Concerning Christian 
 
LUTHER. 217 
 
 Liberty" — " a Christian man is the most free lord of all, 
 and subject to none : a Christian man is the most duti- 
 ful servant of all, and subject to everyone ;" as well as 
 that inscribed on the bronze pedestal of his statue at 
 Worms — " Faith is but the right and true life in God," 
 indicates that his real doctrine did not halt in a one-sided 
 failure to give their due place to good works as the 
 necessary fruits, and unfailing evidences, of a true faith. 
 And just as the amusing practical errors respecting 
 quantity and magnitude which are recorded of the 
 author of the " Principia," do not disprove his mathe- 
 matical genius or discredit the law of gravitation, but 
 indeed were rather due to the very perfectness of his 
 mathematical conceptions ; so these expressions of 
 Luther, when fairly interpreted and when due allowance 
 is made for the exigencies of the immense controversy 
 in which he was engaged, do not invalidate the moral 
 perfection of his doctrine ; nor do they carry in them 
 the least design to loosen the indissoluble link which 
 in all true religious teaching must ever bind together 
 belief and practice, the inward and the outward, the 
 faith which justifies and the works which are the body 
 and right hand of the justified life. 
 
 Another objection made to Luther's statement is the 
 too subjective character he gives to faith. At times 
 he fails to distinguish it from assurance. Moreover, his 
 relation to the Word of God seems to be made too de- 
 pendent on his own interpretation of that Word, as is 
 shown in his language about several books of the Canon, 
 and in the unreasoning tenacity with which he clung 
 to his own rendering of the Eucharistic words. We 
 must acknowledge that there is some truth in this 
 charge. It is interesting to notice how Luther's ori- 
 
218 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ginal grasp of justification by faith was a thing indi- 
 vidual and personal — so much so that for years the 
 idea never occurred to him that it involved a recon- 
 struction of the whole of Christian doctrine. And 
 even when he was able to give it an independent dog- 
 matic form, there was a tendency to make the subjective 
 phase predominate. 
 
 In Luther's character the contemplative, self-intro- 
 spective side was always very strong. This is observ- 
 able in his intensely realistic conception of sin. Pro- 
 bably few men have apprehended with such extraordin- 
 ary vividness the idea of temptation. The tempter was 
 a continual presence to him. Yet it is unquestionable 
 that many of his statements on this subject, though 
 having in them an element of reality, as giving expres- 
 sion to his belief in a personal power of evil, were in 
 great measure simply the reflections of his own state of 
 mind. The same subjective bias is observable, though 
 not to the same extent, in his language with regard to 
 justification. " Be in any way sure that you are saved, 
 and you are saved ; only feel yourself safe, and you are 
 certainly safe." Nothing short of this absolute assur- 
 ance, this exercise of simple confidence, is, he implies, 
 of any real avail. The emphasis was practically laid 
 on the inward feeling rather than on the absolute and 
 divine object, on the subjective, and not the objective, 
 element in justification. This is the weak side of much 
 of Luther's language. And under such a representation 
 the spiritual life was too apt, as was proved by some 
 of the social phenomena of the new movement, to "sink, 
 like a sea-weed, into whence it rose." However, 
 it is in Luther but an occasional and passing phase of 
 exaggeration. It was perhaps unavoidable in one who 
 
LUTHER. 219 
 
 had just escaped from the abyss of unreality, in which 
 assurance was attached to what was little more than an 
 external bodily act ; while the antidote was contained 
 in the Eeformer's own complete and sober doctrine. 
 
 One other remark may be made on this subject. 
 Luther, taking the ceremonial observances, with which 
 he had been so familiar, as the type of all works, 
 frequently appears oblivious of the fact that there may 
 be in some works a spiritual element, a something which 
 is pleasing to God and is akin to faith, even apart from 
 or previous to the great act of confidence, in which the 
 whole word and work of Christ is accepted. Just as, 
 in a subsequent controversy, to those who asserted that 
 there is nothing in the knowledge of the intellect which 
 is not already contained in the knowledge of the senses, 
 Leibnitz added by way of reply — " Except the intellect 
 itself." So, when it is said that there is no spiritual 
 justifying element or instrument in works, this is quite 
 true in regard to the works as such, and in regard to 
 human merit ; it is quite true, except in so far as it 
 can be shown that some works are complex things, and 
 contain in them faith itself. It is a fact of spiritual 
 experience that a single act of obedience to Christ, one 
 good work done as the commandment of God, may be 
 the very occasion and birthplace of faith in the soul, or 
 at least may be attended by the faint stirring of the 
 great principle. Within the outer shell of the actual 
 good work there may be that which makes the whole 
 acceptable to God for Christ's sake. The earnest per- 
 formance of a new duty is often a channel in which 
 begins to run the thin, thread-like stream of a higher 
 trust and devotion. Good habits may be, in the order 
 of Providence and of Grace, practically the provocatives 
 
220 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 and suggesters of faith, themselves already possessing 
 something of its secret essence. There are acts which 
 are anticipatory or prophetic of faith, and have in them 
 a latent virtue and a light reflected from its coming 
 glory. It is quite true that, as Luther says, " Good 
 works never make a good man ; but a pious, good man 
 does good works." Yet good works may have a provi- 
 sional, educative value, and may contain the minute 
 germ implanted by the Divine Spirit, which, if un- 
 checked, subsequently becomes a fully-developed trust 
 in the whole person and work of Christ. There is a 
 Light that lighteth every man, and a Spirit who worketh 
 in all. 
 
 It is this aspect of the subject which is not suffici- 
 ently allowed for in many of Luther's statements, and 
 especially in his frequently extreme language against 
 the law. A perception of this fact would have pre- 
 vented Augustine from going far beyond the language 
 of St. Paul in his description of the good works of the 
 heathen as splendida peccata, and would have saved 
 Luther from making his polemic against works occa- 
 sionally short-sighted. Too absolutely he made faith a 
 thing of explicit consciousness, and complete acquaint- 
 ance with the whole doctrine, depriving of spiritual 
 value every good act which did not come up to this 
 standard, and putting it beyond the pale of acceptance 
 with God. He makes what is the best condition of 
 religious life to be the only true one. No work, how- 
 ever, which is anything more than a mere external 
 observance, is to be despised, for it may contain within 
 itself, though in a dim and crude way, the root of a 
 living faith. Faith alone justifies, on the ground of the 
 perfect merit and righteousness of Christ ; but a "work," 
 
LUTHER. 221 
 
 besides being the distinct result of faith, may be, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, a means and organ for its 
 manifestation. 
 
 Luther, however, was called not only to words, but 
 to deeds. In the spring of 1521, when he is in the 
 thirty-eighth year of his age, he is cited to appear 
 before the Diet at Worms. Although he lay under the 
 ban of the Papal excommunication, a safe-conduct was 
 sent from the Emperor, and an Imperial herald, in coat- 
 of-arms, rode in front of him on the long and memorable 
 journey. Hus's fate is before his eyes ; but, notwith- 
 standing the dissuasion of friend and of foe, he goes 
 calmly on, speaking here and there grand utterances of 
 courage, which have ever since been household words, 
 and trumpet-calls to self-sacrificing duty. Leaving his 
 home on the 2nd of April, in a carriage provided by 
 the magistrates, at ten o'clock on the morning of the 
 16 th of April he enters Worms. It is probable that as 
 he came within sight of the towers and tiled roofs of 
 the ancient city, he formed the idea of his great hymn, 
 the " Marseillaise," as it has been called, of the Eefor- 
 mation, though the whole hymn was not published till 
 nine years afterwards. We see him surrounded by the 
 eager crowds, who throng to meet him when his appear- 
 ance has been signalled by the sentinel stationed in the 
 Cathedral tower. We see the poor miner's son, the 
 excommunicated monk, thin and pale, with the marks 
 still upon him of an illness with which he had been 
 seized during his journey, appear on the evening of the 
 next day, amid the glory of a bright sunset, before the 
 august assembly, which represented the highest spiritual 
 and temporal power on earth — Emperor, and princes, 
 and nobles, nuncio, and cardinals, and bishops, knowing 
 
222 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 that among them he had a few who were friendly, but 
 well aware that most were coldly indifferent, or bitterly 
 hostile. We see him agitated and nervous, seeming to 
 hesitate, asking a day's respite to consider his answer. 
 We overhear the wonderful words of prayer, fragments 
 of which have been preserved for us, which broke from 
 his lips when, left alone in the silent night, he wrestled 
 with God and was bowed down in a great agony, in 
 listening to which we seem to enter the holy place of 
 a human soul, where it has immediate access to the 
 Most High. On the next evening he made a noble 
 speech, first in Latin and then in German, worthy of 
 the great occasion, to the delight and admiration of his 
 friends, in which he modestly but firmly refused to 
 retract, unless he were refuted from Holy Scripture. 
 When further pressed, his reply was — " Here I stand : 
 I can do no otherwise : God help me. Amen " — 
 words which have been ever since one of the grand 
 texts of religious liberty, and a very fountain-head of 
 quickening influence for devotion to truth and for all 
 the noblest life of man. They were spoken amid the 
 lights and shadows that flickered in the great hall of 
 the bishop's palace, for the April evening was now well- 
 advanced, and torches had been lighted. The noble 
 speaker is conducted to his lodging amid the congratu- 
 lations of his friends and the scornful hisses of the 
 Emperor's Spanish attendants. He feels all the glad- 
 ness of victory, stretching out his hands when he 
 arrives at the house, and joyfully exclaiming — " I am 
 through, I am through." Had Luther yielded then, the 
 new movement would have been incalculably weakened. 
 The period was one of crisis ; and his highest praise is 
 that in this Thermopyke of the Keformation, himself 
 
LUTHER. 223 
 
 more than the Leonidas of the momentous struggle, he 
 stood steadfast, defending the new-won realm of a 
 purified Christianity, and bidding humble but sublime 
 defiance to the gathered might of Church and Empire. 
 
 If the Eeformer's life rises at Worms into epical 
 grandeur, his concealment at the Wartburg, amid its 
 scenes of sylvan beauty, is one of the romances of reli- 
 gious history. Indeed, if the record were to stop here, 
 we do not know where a grander or more perfect life 
 could be found. It was, of course, marked by human 
 infirmity ; but, after this allowance has been made, 
 there is almost nothing to dim the moral admiration 
 we feel regarding it. Most of the things that we 
 would wish away come afterwards. They are of 
 comparatively slight importance, and only one of them 
 can be referred to in this lecture with any fulness. 
 
 Though the ban of the empire was pronounced 
 against him after his departure from Worms, so power- 
 ful was now the influence in his favour, that it remained 
 a dead letter ; and after his return to Wittenberg, he 
 continued to work unmolested. His task was labori- 
 ously to build up a new system of Church life and 
 doctrine, and to this his whole strength was devoted 
 amid the countless difficulties and hindrances created 
 by the very principle of private judgment which he 
 had so successfully asserted. He was grieved beyond 
 measure to see the new cause compromised by what 
 seemed to him the too sudden and radical changes 
 advocated by Carlstadt (towards whom he acted some- 
 what overbearingly), and especially by the excesses of 
 the Anabaptists and of the Peasants' War. With regard 
 to the latter, he at first took up the attitude of peace- 
 maker, rebuking the lords and urging the peasants 
 
22 -t THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to desist from violence. But when the insurrection 
 had become a terrible fact, and the subversion of all 
 authority was threatened, he pressed the nobles to 
 adopt the severest measures, though, as he afterwards 
 explained, he had spoken not against the conquered, 
 but only against those engaged in actual rebellion. 
 It was in many respects an iron time in which Luther 
 lived ; and something of its hardness, perhaps, entered 
 on this occasion into his feelings. 
 
 In 1525 he was married to Catherine von Bora, 
 a young lady of noble family, who, having escaped 
 from the convent in which she was placed at nine 
 years of age, had taken refuge at Wittenberg. One 
 of the motives of this marriage undoubtedly was to 
 break, by so decisive an act as the union of a monk 
 and a nun, the hard and evil yoke which the Church 
 had so long laid on her ministers ; and the result of 
 it was to set again the happy home close to the very 
 heart of the highest religious life. 
 
 The burning question referred to in his controversy 
 with Erasmus has now become, to a large extent, an 
 extinct volcano, at least in the form in which it 
 presented itself to Luther and Erasmus alike. In 
 the dispute, each combatant aims formidable blows 
 which strike the air ; and probably Luther's bondage 
 of the will is as little contradicted by Erasmus's free- 
 dom, as St. Paul's faith is contradicted by St. James's 
 works. Throughout this passage of his history, Luther 
 shows in several ways to disadvantage, although the 
 strong moral motive by which he was animated raises 
 him far above his gifted opponent. 
 
 That which in the Eeformer's conduct we would most 
 desire to see blotted out, is the advice he gave in 
 
LUTHER. 225 
 
 regard to the matter of the Landgrave of Hesse. The 
 most that can be said is, that it was an honest error 
 of judgment, and that Luther, by the way in which 
 he subjected the whole matter to the test of Scripture, 
 supplied the corrective of the mistake he made. 
 
 In his doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper, the 
 excellences, peculiarities, and defects of Luther's type 
 of Christian thought are strikingly concentrated. We 
 see here the new element of the Eeformation truth 
 brought into union with other parts of his theological 
 experience — his Scholasticism, his Mysticism, his sur- 
 viving Eoman doctrine — and formed into a strange 
 amalgam; while as to his personal advocacy of his 
 own view, his warmest admirers can but deplore with 
 amazement the narrow and uncharitable disposition 
 he showed. 
 
 His procedure in regard to the whole mediaeval 
 doctrine of the Eucharist was, in the first place, 
 destructive. That tendency to substitute the material 
 and the human for the spiritual and the divine, to 
 which reference has already been made, may be ex- 
 pressed by saying, that in ecclesiastical history it is 
 a tendency to substitute the Church for Christ, to put 
 tradition, to a greater or less extent, in the place of 
 Kevelation. Perhaps the most stupendous example of 
 this is to be found in the almost total inversion of 
 thought which gradually took place in regard to the 
 Lord's Supper. Its purely sacramental function was 
 largely obscured by the new sacrificial character given 
 to it. Instead of being looked on as something coming 
 from God to man, as a means of grace in which 
 Christ's blessings and presence were brought to His 
 people, it came to be actually regarded as something 
 
226 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 brought to God by man, as nothing less than a pro- 
 pitiatory offering from man to God. The Sacrament 
 became the Mass, and every mass was supposed to be 
 a veritable renewal of the sacrifice on the Cross. 
 Although, doubtless, it was held that Christ offered 
 Himself anew by the hands of His minister, the priest, 
 yet practically it was the Church, in the priest, 
 which had the power, at will, of repeating the one 
 supreme act of atonement which had been accom- 
 plished in the death of the Saviour, the object of 
 this repetition being the direct application of its efficacy 
 to the whole body of the people, as well as to indi- 
 vidual souls, whether living or dead. Thus, in the 
 most directly gross and material way, the value of 
 Christ's sacrifice was supposed to be appropriated. 
 The deepest cause of this distortion of Christian doc- 
 trine was the strong conviction of sin, which was 
 compelled to seek in this strange way the satisfaction 
 tor which it craved, because it was prevented by other 
 causes from understanding adequately the absolute 
 worth, and eternal spiritual significance, of Christ's 
 atonement ; but it was all the more firmly upheld, 
 since payment for masses, especially masses said for 
 the benefit of the souls in purgatory, was the source 
 oi an immense revenue to the Church. 
 
 This utter mistake and abuse Luther swept away. 
 To the place occupied by the mass he restored the truth 
 which it had so largely concealed. He set the one 
 supreme sacrifice in its true position of solitary 
 grandeur and sufficiency ; so that every other pro- 
 pitiatory offering was felt to be worse than useless. 
 
 The Lord's Supper was thus seen to be a means of 
 grace provided by Christ for the Church. Its sacrificial 
 
LUTHER. 227 
 
 character being demolished, it became the memorial of 
 the infinite sacrifice ; and, thus disencumbered and 
 simplified, it assumed its full value as a true sacrament. 
 Here emerges Luther's second divergence from the 
 Roman doctrine. According to that doctrine the 
 elements of the Eucharist conveyed grace to the com- 
 municant in consequence of their consecration by the 
 priest. The chief condition of this sacramental efficacy 
 was intention on the part of the priest ; while the 
 actual administration of the sacrament was held to 
 confer grace through an inherent virtue belonging to 
 it. But it was distinctly held that faith was not a 
 necessary qualification on the part of the recipient. 
 Now, it was this qualification which Luther asserted 
 as absolutely necessary. Without a living faith the 
 sacrament was inoperative, no grace was conveyed. He 
 did indeed so far keep to the position of the Roman doc- 
 trine as to assert strongly that there was in the Eucha- 
 ristic elements themselves an inherent power, a virtue 
 which exists independently of faith, a virtue which is 
 conveyed to them by the power of the Word of Christ, 
 and which, he says, belongs to them as truly as the 
 healing virtue resided in Christ before the woman 
 touched the hem of His garment. Indeed, Luther 
 attributes not only to the Sacrament, but to the whole 
 Word of God, a peculiar supernatural virtue, a power 
 which it possesses absolutely in itself, as truly as fire 
 possesses heat. But whether for receiving the power 
 which is in the Word, or the power which is in the 
 Lord's Supper, the only true and beneficial medium of 
 communication on man's part is Faith. The feeling of 
 the communicant, not the consecration by the priest, is 
 the vital human element of the sacramental act. Faith, 
 
228 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 then, here, as everywhere else in the relation between 
 Christian doctrine and Christian life, delivers men from 
 a hard, unspiritnal, material relation to divine truth, 
 and is the open secret whereby possession is obtained 
 of all the riches of God's grace. And thus was removed 
 at a stroke, by the one mighty principle, all that world 
 of superstitious feeling which in the great majority of 
 cases, and in the average popular mind, made spiritual 
 safety and holiness dependent on the due performance 
 of an external rite. 
 
 The question remains, How is the grace of the Lord's 
 Supper conveyed ? in what manner does Christ through 
 the Sacrament bring blessing to His people ? what 
 distinguishes it as a means of grace from every other 
 means ? wherein lies its unique character ? The 
 teaching of the Eoman Church was that the whole 
 substance of the bread, as well as of the wine, is changed 
 into the body and blood of Christ, nothing of the 
 elements remaining except the " accidents," or appear- 
 ances. Luther, on the other hand, holds that the body 
 of Christ is present " in, with, and under " the elements. 
 While, however, according to the Eoman theory, the 
 change is effected by a direct and ever-repeated miracle, 
 Luther explains the supposed corporeal presence of 
 Christ by means of a peculiar dogma, which he held 
 before making this application of it, and which, though 
 up to that time it had been a mere speculation enter- 
 tained by some of the Fathers and of the Schoolmen, 
 and not sanctioned by any creed, seemed to him to 
 furnish a philosophical or theological basis for the 
 doctrine of the Eeal Presence : he said this Presence 
 was due to the ubiquity, or omnipresence, of Christ's 
 body. According to the view embodied in this word 
 
LUTHER. 229 
 
 the human and divine natures were so united in Christ, 
 that the qualities of the divine nature, and among those 
 qualities ubiquity, were communicated to His body. 
 If, then, Christ was present in the Sacrament, he was 
 so, not only spiritually, but corporeally. In virtue of 
 its ubiquity, the body of Christ was everywhere; and in 
 virtue of the Word of Christ pronounced by a minister 
 of the Church it came into manifestation in the sacra- 
 mental act, in connection with the bread and the wine, 
 though outwardly indistinguishable from them. And 
 Luther did not shrink from expressing in the strongest 
 possible language the physical reception and oral man- 
 ducation by all the communicants, believers and un- 
 believers alike — the partaking with the very mouth of 
 the body of the Saviour. It is precisely at this point 
 that he introduces Faith. The body was present to all. 
 Only, however, to the communicant who had faith did 
 it convey any grace ; while, in the case of a communi- 
 cant who was without faith, its effect was that of spirit- 
 ual injury and condemnation. Thus in so complete, 
 extraordinary, and memorable a way, in contradiction 
 to ordinary reason and the evidence of the senses, did 
 Faith, according to Luther, prove its unique power. 
 
 It seems strange, unless we take into account the 
 varied intellectual and spiritual influences to which he 
 was subjected, that the Eeformer, who had so thoroughly 
 emancipated himself in most ways from the materializ- 
 ing tendency of Roman doctrine and worship, should 
 in this particular have adhered so closely and uncom- 
 promisingly to the old view. He himself admits that 
 there w T as a time when he had a leaning to a far simpler 
 view, and would gladly have had it proved to him that 
 there was " nothing but bread and w T ine in the Supper." 
 
2:30 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Xo doubt his doctrine represented powerfully one side 
 of the truth in regard to the Sacrament, a side which 
 it cannot be denied was too much overlooked by 
 Zwingli and his friends ; and it was, moreover, quite 
 in accordance with the deep mystical character of 
 Luther's feeling. In the form, however, which it 
 assumes under his treatment, it rests on a hollow basis 
 of assumptions and contradictions. Perhaps it was a 
 recrudescence of Roman dogma in his mind. It may have 
 been a reaction from the too subjective character he 
 was sometimes inclined to give to faith — a reaction from 
 the spirit which was ready to put aside books of Scrip- 
 ture, to a condition of absolute bondage to the letter of 
 Scripture. Or perhaps the strange and unalterable attrac- 
 tion it possessed for him lay in the secret intellectual and 
 spiritual delight which he had in subjecting everything 
 to the great spiritual principle he had asserted, and in 
 being conscious of this most signal triumph of Faith 
 over, as he said to Zwingli, " reason, common sense, 
 carnal arguments, and mathematics." Faith which 
 justifies the soul, which makes the Word of God itself 
 operative, which is the impulse and guarantee of all 
 works, finally accomplishes even this, — that the believer 
 receives into himself the real bod}' and presence of the 
 Saviour. However, whatever be the psychological ex- 
 planation, the marked and specific importance he assigns 
 to believing goes far to rob such a doctrine of its power 
 for injury. Conceived unspiritually, as in the Roman 
 system, its inevitable tendency is to deaden the inward 
 life ; but depending for its practical value and operation 
 altogether on Faith, it escapes the heaviest part of the 
 condemnation under which any development of super- 
 stitious thought and feeling must lie. 
 
LUTHER. 931 
 
 The matter was the subject of a famous discussion 
 held at the castle of Marburg in the autumn of 1529, 
 on the urgent invitation of the Landgrave of Hesse. 
 Luther and Zwingli, with their friends, met face to 
 face under the sumptuous hospitality of the Landgrave, 
 who was anxious to see the schism which was dividing 
 the Eeformation healed. Zwingli had on this point 
 gone to the furthest extreme from the German 
 Eeformer, holding the Lord's Supper to be no more, 
 or little more, than a simply commemorative rite ; 
 although, at the same time, he was exceedingly desirous 
 to approximate, as far as possible, to the other view, 
 and to aid in framing a harmonious statement which 
 might form a meeting ground for both parties. Luther 
 consented to come very unwillingly, having no hope of 
 any good result. 
 
 The scene of the conference was a large apartment 
 in the castle, and it was held in presence of the 
 Landgrave and a considerable assemblage of nobles and 
 theologians. The four theologians who conducted the 
 debate sat together at a table. Before the speaking 1 
 commenced, Luther took a piece of chalk and wrote in 
 large letters on the velvet cloth which covered the 
 table, the words of institution, " This is my body : " 
 and during the whole conference he always returned 
 to the absolutely literal interpretation of these words. 
 (Ecolampadius and Zwingli urged the figurative mean- 
 ing of the verb in other passages, and the significance 
 of such a text as, " The ilesh profiteth nothing ; " but 
 the German Eeformer exclaimed, " ' This is my body/ 
 To seek to understand it is to fall away from the faith. 
 God speaks: men, worms, listen. Let us fall down, 
 and humbly kiss the Word:" and kept laying his finger 
 
232 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 on the chalked text before him. Zwingli, appealing to 
 the article of the creed, " He ascended into heaven," 
 urged that, since it is against the nature of a body to 
 be in several places at once, Christ's body, which is 
 in heaven, cannot be in the bread. To this Luther's 
 reply was that Christ's body was not in the bread as 
 in a place. When, however, (Ecolampaclius wished to 
 take advantage of this admission, and to look for 
 a link of agreement in an inquiry as to the nature of 
 Christ's non-local bodily presence in the Sacrament, 
 Luther, seeing the design, exclaimed, "You shall not 
 take me a step further ; " and seizing the velvet table- 
 cover, he held it up, with the chalked words, in the 
 face of his opponents. " I. abandon you to God's judg- 
 ment," he said, " and pray that He will enlighten you." 
 Zwingli, deeply affected, burst into tears. 
 
 At this point, on the evening of the second day, the 
 news was brought that the fearful epidemic called the 
 sweating sickness, which was desolating Germany, had 
 broken out in the town ; and this hastened the break- 
 ing-up of the conference, though it was practically 
 terminated already. On the following day Zwingli 
 held out the hand of brotherhood to Luther, who rejected 
 it, saying rej^eatedly, " You have a different spirit from 
 ours:" and his friends concurred with him in declaring 
 that they could not receive the Swiss as brethren in 
 Christ, or as belonging to the communion of the 
 Christian Church. At last, Luther was induced 
 to offer " the hand of peace and charity," which 
 did not, however, imply a recognition of Christian 
 brotherhood : and all the members of the opposing 
 parties shook hands. Before they separated fifteen 
 Articles were drawn up by Luther and signed by the 
 
LUTHER. 233 
 
 theologians, which affirmed agreement in doctrine to 
 exist in all points except the corporeal Presence. This 
 point of difference is confined to the second part of 
 the fifteenth Article, which also contains a recom- 
 mendation that the two parties should show Christian 
 charity to each other "as far as conscience permits." 
 This, however, was but a momentary relenting on 
 Luther's part, and he soon afterwards gave evidence, in 
 different ways, that he recoiled from the mild state- 
 ment of the doctrine in the Marburg Articles, as w r ell 
 as from the kindly spirit they inculcated. 
 
 In regard to the doctrine itself of which he was the 
 champion at this conference, the imperious dogmatism 
 with which he defended it, and, especially, the cold and 
 unbrotherly spirit he showed towards his antagonists, 
 Luther appears in a very unfavourable light. However, 
 although we are compelled deeply to regret the position 
 he took up, nevertheless — remembering that there was a 
 sharp contention even between apostles — remembering 
 that a greater man than Luther, the leader out of an ear- 
 lier bondage, was provoked at the waters of strife and 
 spake unadvisedly with his lips — remembering that God 
 gives not all His gifts, either of fortune or of grace, to any 
 one of His servants — remembering that there is some 
 ground for believing a report that he said to Melanc- 
 thon long afterwards, " Dear Philip, I confess to have 
 gone too far in the affair of the Sacrament " — remember- 
 ing that the highest charity is that which thinks charit- 
 ably of the uncharitable — we can surely be generous to 
 forgive, for his intolerance on this occasion, the repre- 
 sentative of a system which treats its adversaries with, 
 at worst, hard words and cold looks, and which, histori- 
 cally, has delivered Europe from the terrible sway of 
 
234 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 that other system whose unfailing arguments were the 
 prison, the rack, and the stake. 
 
 Thus in mingled light and shadow, amid polemical 
 warfare, and with the care upon him of all the 
 Churches, amid private joys and sorrows, amid frequent 
 journeyings and the severe attacks of disease, Luther's 
 life passed on till, " spent, worn, weary," as he describes 
 himself, with his hair white and having lost the sight 
 of one of his eyes, he reached his sixty-third year. 
 The end came while he was on a visit, at the close of 
 an inclement winter, to his native town of Eisleben ; 
 and he was buried in the Castle Church of Wittenberg, 
 on the doors of which he had nailed his theses twenty- 
 eight years before. 
 
 As we look back over his wonderful life, we catch 
 sight of him, almost at every turn, in some scene which 
 touches our imagination or our heart. We see him 
 lying on the floor of the cell at Erfurt, and restored 
 from his death-like swoon by the sweet voices of the 
 choristers ; facing the venomous Eck, in the great hall 
 of the Pleissenburg, with a bouquet of flowers in 
 his hand ; to Serra Tonga's sneering question, " Where, 
 then, do you mean to take refuge ? " replying with 
 untroubled serenity, "Under heaven;" at his "Patmos," 
 the Wartburg, laboriously translating the New Testa- 
 ment ; at Coburg, writing gaily about the diet of the 
 rooks, who flapped their wings, and sent their mandates 
 through the air, in front of his windows. We see him 
 kneeling beside his little daughter Lena, as, at fourteen 
 years of age, she lay on her death-bed, and writing 
 afterwards in a letter, "Although my wife and I ought 
 only to thank God for her happy departure, yet so 
 strong is natural love that we cannot bear it without a 
 
LUTHER. 235 
 
 bitter sense of death in ourselves. So deeply printed 
 on our hearts are her ways, her words, her gestures, 
 when she was with us and when she was leaving us, 
 that even Christ's death cannot drive away this agony." 
 We see him rise from his dinner-table, which was 
 usually well-furnished with guests, and touch, with 
 skilful hand, his favourite lute, or take part with the 
 others in song or hymn. We see him watching the 
 games of his children, and walking with Catherine 
 under the starlight in his garden. We see him in the 
 full flow of conversation, grave or humorous — for he was 
 the Doctor Johnson of his time, and was attended by a 
 whole army of Boswells. We see him now bursting 
 into merriment, now weighed clown with melancholy — 
 a deep vein of which lay in his character ; now enjoy- 
 ing to the full the innocent pleasures of life, and now 
 engaged in stern, quaintly-expressed conflict with Satan. 
 We see him with his portly presence — though in his 
 earlier years, and even when he was at Leipzig and at 
 Worms, his body was thin and wasted ; with his face 
 slightly upturned, according to his habit, and bearing 
 in its expression a mingled pathos and kindliness and 
 calm; with his deep, dark eyes, which "sparkled like 
 stars." According to the testimony of his contempo- 
 raries, his voice was clear and melodious, his conversa- 
 tion was agreeable and witty, he was never at a loss, 
 and had the art of pleasantly adapting himself to every- 
 one in whose company he happened to be. 
 
 He had his failings, and does not belong to that 
 prim, self-conscious type of character which is "faultily 
 faultless." In his Greatest violence, and seeming coarse- 
 ness, of language, there are no doubt pure flashes of 
 that righteous indignation which has found its highest 
 
236 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 expression in the denunciations of the hook of Psalms 
 and our Saviour's rebukes, yet the smoke often mingles 
 thickly with the flame. When we hear him say that 
 " he wrote best when he was angry," we regret the 
 want of a more judicial tone in the great Reformer's 
 writings, even when we make allowance for such a say- 
 ing as the mere hasty half-truth of conversation. His 
 perceptions of truth were intuitive and penetrating, 
 but often lacking in breadth ; while he saw one 
 principle with extraordinary vividness, and though his 
 character was broad and many-sided, he not seldom 
 failed to discern some aspect which was necessary to a 
 complete view. Yet these and other defects are noth- 
 ing more than the small dust of the balance, when we 
 estimate the influence of his character and his work. 
 
 Under Luther, as quickened and guided by the Divine 
 Spirit, there took place a regeneration of religious 
 thought and life, a new beginning of Christianity, the 
 liberation of the human mind from the shackles of 
 man's authority. He breathed into the awakened 
 intellect of Europe a spirit of religion, and did more 
 than anyone else to prevent the revival of letters from 
 becoming, as it seemed only too ready to become, a 
 new paganism. He, largely without assistance, trans- 
 lated the Bible, being thus in himself a Tyndale and 
 company of Translators, united. He brought forth again 
 into fullest light and life the great doctrine which had so 
 long lain crushed under mountains of untruth, though, 
 like the buried giant Enceladus, it had at intervals 
 made the incumbent mass shake above it. He stood 
 at Worms, in the face of Europe, the very embodiment 
 and impersonation of the Christian conscience. In his 
 marriage and home he broke down that middle wall of 
 
LUTHER. 287 
 
 partition which had been built up in the name of the 
 holiest religion between man and woman. 
 
 In his principle of the universal priesthood of 
 Christians — a priesthood conferred, as he held, in 
 baptism — he closed that wide and unnatural gulf 
 which made an absolute separation of the clergy from 
 the laity. In his famous hymn he sang the battle-song 
 of his Church and of his country. Adorning with a 
 grace all his own the least thing he touched, he wrote 
 to his little boy, Hans, what an eminent historian has 
 called " perhaps the prettiest letter ever addressed by a 
 father to a child." In addition to these varied achieve- 
 ments, he formed the German language ; he was a 
 voluminous letter-writer; he was almost ceaselessly 
 engaged in composing books, which, as he says, "rained, 
 hailed, and snowed " from his pen. He was a 
 professor, a pastor, a great orator. He was thus not- 
 one man, but many men ; his life-work resembling his 
 own river Elbe, close to whose waters at Wittenberg- 
 he lived during so many years, which, in its long pro- 
 gress from the mountains to the sea, pays toll to near 
 a score of different governments, through whose terri- 
 tories its vessels pass. 
 
 The Eeformer was a patriot, and, in a sense as full 
 as would be true concerning any similar assertion of 
 the influence of an individual upon a nation, it may 
 be said that Luther is Germany, his influence an 
 enduring impulse in the German Church, as it has been 
 a powerful prompting towards a united empire. Yet 
 he was a true patriot, because he was much more, a 
 religious leader, being at once the Wallace and the 
 Knox of his country. While, further, notwithstanding 
 his intensely national character, more than any other of 
 
238 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the Reformers of the sixteenth century, he has commanded 
 the sympathies of other peoples, and given his name to 
 be the common inheritance of all the Churches. That 
 name, not Graecized, like those of many of his contem- 
 poraries, but remaining the simple German, has become 
 for everyone a very synonym for freedom and for faith. 
 Through all, and in addition to all, he has shown us 
 a noble type of character, which, as it is distinguished 
 by the possession, in fullest measure, of spiritual genius, 
 so it was thoroughly honest — honest with itself, honest 
 with every question of moral and theological truth, 
 honest with opponents ; which, as it was deeply religious, 
 was also simple and natural ; as it was learned in 
 Scripture, so could find delight in nature, and recrea- 
 tion, and amusement ; as it was heroic, was at the same 
 time gentle, and pitiful, and playful ; as it was capable 
 of great self-assertion, was so because it was still more 
 deeply capable of great self-surrender, and therefore 
 could be no less modest and humble than it was 
 decided and confident, and was no less characterized 
 by sobriety of judgment and practical discernment than 
 by courage and devotion. There was in him no hard, 
 granite stoicism ; his nature, while it was strong, was 
 deeply sympathetic, and, in the full round and sweep 
 of his experience, resembled rather the oak tree, with 
 its play of varied movement, now standing serene and 
 grand, and now bending to the earth, in seeming weak- 
 ness almost rent asunder, yet rooted more firmly by 
 the storms which shake it. From the night on 
 which he fixed his destiny by knocking at the door 
 of the Erfurt convent, his life was " a battle and 
 a march." He came onward " like a spectre -ship, sail- 
 ing right against the wind," yet no spectre, but a 
 
LUTHER. 239 
 
 divine life, and mighty, spiritual movement. He had a 
 great, in many respects an awful work to do, a work 
 which was largely against the natural bent of his 
 moderate and deeply reverent character, a work which 
 seems easy since it has been successful, yet was essen- 
 tially the struggle of a minority ; this work was given 
 him to do, and he did it. If, as has been said, the 
 three highest titles which can be given to man are 
 those of martyr, hero, saint, there is not one of them 
 which does not of right belong to the great Reformer 
 of the sixteenth century. 
 
 It has been remarked that, amid all his journeyings, 
 we never meet with Luther by the sea-side. Yet 
 there is no place, in nature, in which we could more 
 fitly imagine that we see him, than on the border of 
 the great deep, where we think that he might have 
 watched " the children sport upon the shore," and heard 
 " the mighty waters rolling evermore." The ocean, 
 with its unfathomable depths and its sunny ripples, in 
 its loud tempests and the gentle lapse of its w T avelets, 
 is a type of Luther's whole spirit and varied disposition. 
 He himself was not only many-sided, but belonged to 
 that class of characters which suggest to us the infinite 
 and the eternal. 
 
 We do not call him Master ; we do not give to his 
 thoughts the seal of infallibility, or the reverence due only 
 to inspiration: w T e do not allow even him to stereotype, 
 and fix finally for all ages, the expression of Christian 
 truth. But we feel the almost unexampled greatness 
 of his service to the Church and to the world. He 
 destroyed, but he also built up. He was emphatically 
 a son of thunder, but he was no less really an apostle 
 of love. He looked wistfully on the past, with its 
 
240 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 thousand years of Boman authority and teaching, but 
 he resolutely put his hand to the plough of the task 
 which belonged to the present and the future. He 
 spoke of an inward invisible faith, yet his life was a 
 giant's labour. He was finely and most loveably 
 human ; yet, more than anyone, since the last of the 
 Twelve fell asleep, he has brought God's truth and 
 God's presence near to men. 
 
John (Ealbin. 
 
 The place deservedly assigned to the commanding- 
 personality of Luther in connection with the sixteenth 
 century Keformation should not blind us to the fact 
 that the spiritual movement which bears this name 
 had not one, but several distinct origins. Zwingli in 
 Switzerland, and Lefevre and Farel in France, were 
 already preaching a pure Gospel, ere yet Luther's name 
 had been heard of. It was natural that, once Luther 
 had spoken, his name should overshadow those of 
 pioneers in other countries. The inherent greatness of 
 the man, his open rupture with the Papacy, the con- 
 spicuous stage on which he figured — in conflict witli 
 Lope, Emperor, and princes — above all, the bold, fresh, 
 ( >riginal character of his utterances — shaking Europe as 
 with thunder-claps, and rousing men's hearts as by 
 the sound of a trumpet — gave him, in the eyes of 
 Christendom, a representative position in relation to 
 the whole movement. But both in Switzerland and 
 France, notwithstanding Luther's influence, the Eeforma- 
 tions retained very much of their indigenous character. 
 Distinct in origin, the streams were kept still further 
 distinct in their after flow by the disputes which early 
 •arose between the German and Swiss Eeformers on 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the subject of the Sacraments. Luther had, properly 
 speaking, no successor. At a later period, the Swiss 
 and French Eeformations found a point of meeting 
 in John Calvin, who, a Frenchman by birth, and a 
 Swiss in virtue of his world-famous connection with 
 Geneva, fitly represented both. 
 
 From another point of view, in France, Switzerland, 
 and Germany alike, the Reformation movement was 
 one. It took its origin in all three countries from the 
 same general causes ; it was characterized by the same 
 return to Scripture, as the living fountainhead of truth, 
 in distinction from Papal dogma and the philosophy of 
 the schools ; it expressed the same revolt of the human 
 conscience against hierarchical domination, and the 
 superstitions and abuses by which that domination was 
 maintained ; it gave the same prominence to the 
 cardinal truths of justification by faith, and the sole 
 mediatorship of Christ. On closer inspection, no doubt, 
 different standpoints reveal themselves. In Germany 
 the personal, in Switzerland the Biblical, element pre- 
 dominates. With Luther, the central point is the 
 certainty of salvation ; with Zwingli, the chief place is 
 given to the outward Word. Luther moves among 
 dignitaries and princes ; in Switzerland the Reforma- 
 tion is on democratic ground, and Zwingli, with his 
 ardent patriotism and love of freedom, is its appropriate 
 apostle. But in essence, spirit, aim, the movements 
 are one. The unanimity of the Reformers is the more 
 remarkable that, in most cases, their views were reached 
 by independent study of the Scriptures. Even in 
 regard to Predestination, it may be noted that Zwingli 
 and Luther were as strenuous upholders of this doctrine 
 as Calvin himself. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 243 
 
 When Calvin entered on his work as Reformer, the 
 first wave of the Reformation movement had already spent 
 itself. Luther's views had taken root not only in large 
 parts of Germany, but in Sweden, Denmark, and the 
 Netherlands, and were rapidly leavening Europe. Most 
 of the Swiss Cantons had embraced the Reformation, 
 but Zwingli had fallen on the fatal field of Cappel. 
 The fervid Farel was evangelizing with singular success 
 in the neighbourhood of Lausanne, Morat, Neuchatel, 
 and Geneva. On the other hand, Francis I. had 
 decided for Catholicism, and Paris was blazing with 
 martyr fires. Politically, Europe was rent with divisions, 
 and distracted with the intrigues of Pope, King, and 
 Emperor. The Reformation itself had let loose 
 fanatical and anarchic tendencies which, at different 
 points, threatened its destruction. The time had 
 clearly come for a new order of man to arise, an equal 
 to Luther in genius, but differently endowed — not an 
 originator, but a consolidator, a thinker and organizer, 
 rather than a man of action — one who, to those gifts 
 of soul which must appear in every great Reformer, 
 and with full devotion to the objects of Reformation, 
 would unite the highest power of intellect, and a rare 
 faculty of construction and systematization — -in short, a 
 man capable of being a spiritual leader and adviser of 
 his age, and of recasting in forms that would endure 
 alike the theology and the polity of the Church. Such 
 a man was Calvin — the subject of our present lecture — 
 and this, as we shall see, was the nature of the service 
 he rendered to the Reformation. 
 
 John Chauvin or Calvin was born at Noyon, in 
 Picardy, on the 1 Oth of July, 1509. He was the second 
 of a family of six — four sons and two daughters. His 
 
244 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 father, Gerard Chauvin, was Procurator-Fiscal for the 
 county and Secretary to the Bishop of the Diocese. He 
 is described as a man of excellent business capacity, 
 but withal of somewhat severe character. Calvin's 
 mother, on the other hand, is spoken of as a lady 
 not less distinguished for her beauty than her piety. 
 From the former parent the Eeformer may have 
 inherited, besides his methodical habits, that gravity 
 of disposition, tinctured with censoriousness, which 
 led even his schoolmates to fasten on him the 
 nick-name of the " Accusative." From the latter he 
 probably derived his fine nervous organization, his 
 delicately chiselled features, his native courtesy of 
 manner, and perhaps, also, that constitutional shyness 
 and timidity which to the end of his life he never 
 wholly overcame. Calvin's boyhood can only be briefly 
 sketched. Thoughtful and grave, the light of a pene- 
 trative intellect already shone in those burning eyes of 
 which all his biographers speak, and his gifts could not 
 long be hid. Soon we find him taken under the 
 patronage of the great, and pursuing his studies in 
 company with the children of the noble house of 
 Mommor, the most honourable in the neighbourhood. 
 This intimacy had important results for Calvin, both as 
 imparting to him that air of good-breeding and refine- 
 ment which never afterwards left him, and as securing 
 for him the advantages of a thoroughly liberal education. 
 How different with Luther, coming from the miner's 
 hut, and fighting his hard battle with poverty by singing 
 on the streets for bread ! Meanwhile, Calvin's father 
 was exerting himself to lay the foundation of prefer- 
 ment for a son of so much promise. A chaplaincy 
 had become vacant in Noyon Cathedral. This, through 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 245 
 
 Gerard's influence, was given to Calvin, then a boy of 
 twelve years of age, a step which necessitated his 
 receiving the tonsure, or shaving of the crown. The 
 transaction startles us, but it was no uncommon one 
 in these times of secularization of sacred things. It 
 may be added that this and other preferments which 
 he received were voluntarily surrendered by Calvin 
 in 1534. 
 
 From Xoyon, in 1523, Calvin proceeded, still in 
 company with the Mommors, to study in the University 
 of Paris. Here lie remained for four years, perfecting 
 himself in Latin under Corderius, and familiarising 
 himself with logic and philosophy. Then his studies 
 took a different turn. Of this change he himself gives 
 the following account in that wonderful piece of 
 autobiography which forms the Preface to his Com- 
 mentary on the Psalms — " When I was yet a very 
 little boy, my father had destined me for the study of 
 theology. But afterwards, when he considered that 
 the legal profession commonly raised those who followed 
 it to wealth, this prospect induced him suddenly to 
 change his purpose. Thus it came to pass that I was 
 withdrawn from the study of philosophy, and was put 
 to the study of law." Calvin himself does not seem to 
 have been consulted in this step, but, governed in all 
 things by a sense of duty rather than by inclination, 
 he lost no time in giving effect to his father's will. 
 Leaving Paris, he repaired first to Orleans, then t<> 
 Bourges, where distinguished teachers of jurisprudence 
 were lecturing, and applied himself with incredible 
 industry to his new study. His success may be 
 estimated by the fact that, when yet a youth of nine- 
 teen, he was frequently called to conduct the class in 
 
246 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the absence or illness of the Professor; and, when 
 leaving Orleans, had bestowed upon him, unsought, the 
 highest honours which the University had to give. 
 At Bourges, in addition to his legal studies, he availed 
 himself of the presence of Wolmar, a German Pro- 
 testant, to acquire a knowledge of Greek, and thus had 
 opened to him, for the first time, the Scriptures of the 
 New Testament in the tongue in which they were 
 written. 
 
 Looking back on this period of training, extending 
 to the death of Calvin's father in 1531, 1 it is not 
 difficult to discern in the direction given to events 
 the secretly guiding hand of Providence, preparing the 
 Reformer for his future work. At Paris, Calvin's 
 mind was brought into contact with the best know- 
 ledge of his time. He beheld there the old and the 
 new in conflict. The Sorbonne, watchful of its 
 orthodoxy, might thunder forth its anathemas, but 
 there could be no question with any thoughtful on- 
 looker that the times were big with change. From 
 the throne downwards, a new taste for letters was 
 diffusing itself ; the fountains of classic learning were 
 unsealed ; the Scriptures were circulating in the ver- 
 nacular ; new opinions were freely discussed ; persecu- 
 tion had begun, and martyrs for the truth of Christ 
 were marching grandly to the stake. Calvin profited 
 in this new learning above many his equals. His 
 attenuated frame bore witness to the diligence of his 
 studies. The old Eoman literature he devoured with 
 avidity. It formed his taste and style, and he never 
 afterwards lost his love for it. His first work, pub- 
 lished in 1532, was a commentary on Seneca's treatise, 
 1 The date is fixed by registers in Noyon. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 247 
 
 " De dementia." Cicero's writings he is said to have 
 read through every year till a late period of his life. 
 Calvin's Latinity has often been extolled, but it is not 
 so well known that, through the strength, grace, flexi- 
 bility, precision, and fire of his compositions, he 
 rendered a service to his native tongue not unlike that 
 which Luther, by his translation of the Bible, rendered 
 to German — in short, became one of the creators of 
 modern French. This power over language, consecrated 
 by him to give weighty and eloquent expression to 
 Christian truth, is doubtless attributable in part to his 
 ripe acquaintance with the Eoman classics. Not less 
 valuable as a discipline was Calvin's laborious study of 
 the principles of jurisprudence. The knowledge ac- 
 quired from his teachers in this department proved 
 of incalculable service to him in his later attempts at 
 devising a satisfactory constitution for Church and 
 State at Geneva. 
 
 We come now to the great crisis in our Reformer's 
 life — that which changed him from a devoted adherent 
 of the Eomish faith into a not less uncompromising 
 defender of the Reformed doctrines. The steps in this 
 change can only be hurriedly indicated. Calvin's life, 
 from his boyhood, had been marked by a sincere moral 
 aim. His youth was irreproachably pure — so pure as tc 
 be a sort of marvel to his gayer and less earnest com- 
 panions. But his mind at this time was tenaciously 
 wedded to the beliefs in which he had been brought 
 up. " I was obstinately addicted," he tells us," to Papal 
 superstitions." It goes without saying that whatever 
 system of beliefs Calvin adopted, he would adopt it 
 with his whole soul, and would not be readily moved 
 away from it. At Taris, he must have been perfectly 
 
248 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 aware of the new doctrines that were heini>- taught. 
 but, absorbed in other studies, he probably gave them 
 little attention. Yet the young student was not 
 at peace. His experience during these years resembled 
 that of Saul the Pharisee. His correctness of moral 
 conduct did not satisfy him, and his assiduity in the 
 practices of piety failed to assure him of Divine for- 
 giveness. The law which he strove so faithfully to 
 obey entered into his conscience, and convinced him 
 ever more deeply of sin. Absolutions, penances, 
 intercessions, proved ineffectual for relief. " I tried 
 all these methods," lie says, 1 " but without obtaining 
 relief or peace of mind. As often as I looked into 
 myself, or attempted to lift my eyes to Thee, God, I 
 was filled with a dread which no penances or satisfac- 
 tions of mine could mitigate. The more narrowly I 
 inspected myself, the deeper did the sting enter 
 into my conscience, so that at last I could find 
 no ease but by steeping my mind in forget fulness." 
 Considerable influence seems to have been exerted on 
 his mind by his kinsman Olivetan, a disciple of 
 Lefevre's, and future translator of the Bible into 
 French, who directed him to the study of the 
 Scriptures. But it was not till a later period that 
 the light broke, and he was brought, as he expresses 
 it, by " a sudden conversion " 2 to a subdued and 
 teachable frame of mind. This was the decisive 
 turning-point. The idea of the Church occasioned 
 him some difficulty, but only till he was able to dis- 
 tinguish between the Church as a visible society, and 
 the true, invisible Church of Christ, consisting of all 
 
 1 In his answer to Cardinal Sadolet. 
 2 Preface to Psalms. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 949 
 
 faithful souls, whether in communion with the visible 
 society or not. 
 
 The precise date of Calvin's conversion is uncertain. 
 Some place it as early as 1529, while Calvin was yet 
 a student of law at Orleans or Bourges ; others as late 
 as 1532, after the publication of his first work. It 
 favours the earlier date that Ave have distinct accounts 
 of his teaching and evangelizing in Bourges and its 
 neighbourhood about this period. But whenever or 
 however the change was brought about, its effects were 
 immediate- on the young scholar's plans of life. Earthly 
 distinctions stood awaiting him, but these he was 
 willing to renounce for Christ's sake and the Gospel's. 
 His place henceforward was with the friends of the 
 Eeformation, and his powers were to be devoted to the 
 service of the God who had been graciously pleased to 
 reveal His Son in him. Not yet, however, had Calvin 
 any thought of mixing with public affairs, or even of 
 coming forward as a regular preacher. On the con- 
 trary, he shrank from such work, and desired only to 
 have opportunity of pursuing his studies in retirement, 
 hoping, perhaps, as Providence might guide, to be able 
 to serve the Eeformation with his pen. Man proposes, 
 but God disposes. The retirement which Calvin sought 
 seemed to flee from him. Now we get glimpses of him 
 at Paris, now at Noyon, now at Orleans, now at Angou- 
 leme, at the chateau of his friend l)u Tillet, now at 
 Poitiers, now again at Paris, but wherever he went, 
 friends sought him out, so that, he says, "All my 
 retreats were like public schools." At Paris he taught, 
 preached, and evangelized, encouraging many who were 
 soon to glorify God by martyrdom. Here, in 1533, an 
 incident occurred which shows that Calvin's name was 
 
250 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 becoming known. Nicholas Cop, rector of the Univer- 
 sity, took occasion of an inaugural address to deliver an 
 oration on " Christian Philosophy," which, it turned out 
 afterwards, had been composed for him by Calvin. The 
 boldness of the ideas, and the evangelical character of the 
 sentiments, excited a storm of disapprobation. Cop had 
 to nee, and suspicion falling at once on Calvin, his house 
 was searched, and papers were discovered implicating him- 
 self and several of his friends. The Reformer had barely 
 time to make his escape, disguised, it is said, as a vine- 
 dresser. At Orleans, in 1534, he published his first 
 theological work, a treatise entitled " Psychopannychia," 
 directed against the Anabaptist tenet of the sleep of 
 the soul after death. At Poitiers he formed a small 
 congregation, and the Lord's Supper was administered 
 in a cave near the city, known to this day as " Calvin's 
 Grotto." Calvin revisited Paris in 1534, then, still 
 seeking seclusion, betook himself first to Strassburg, 
 afterwards to Basle. Here an event took place which 
 raised him at one stroke to the position of foremost 
 influence among the Eeformers. We refer to the 
 publication of the "Institutes of the Christian Religion." 
 The " Institutes " of Calvin is one of those epoch- 
 making books, like Bacon's " Novum Organum " or 
 Newton's " Principia " in science, or Kant's " Kritik of 
 Pure Reason " in philosophy, the interest of which is 
 enduring. Hitherto no book had appeared which took 
 commanding rank as an exhibition of the doctrines of 
 the Reformed Churches in their systematic unity and 
 connection. Melancthon's " Commonplaces " appeared 
 in 1521, but hardly served the purpose. Yet this 
 was a work necessary to be done, both as a satisfaction 
 to the mind of the Church, and that the Reformation 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 251 
 
 might have something to oppose to the imposing and 
 compact systems of the Middle Ages. Calvin under- 
 took the task, and accomplished it with decisive 
 success. 
 
 The motive which led to the composition of the 
 book was, however, anything but a dogmatic one. The 
 " Institutes " have been compared to various works — to 
 Acminas's " Summa Theologia," to Augustine's " City of 
 God," to those noble " Apologies " presented by the 
 early Christians to the heathen emperors, asking justice 
 for their cause, and vindicating it from the calumnies 
 of their enemies. The last comparison is as true as 
 any. A fresh outbreak of persecution had taken place 
 in France. Calvin's soul was stirred by tidings brought 
 him of holy persons — many of them members of his for- 
 mer flock — burned and tortured for their adherence to 
 the Eeformed views. Still more was it stirred to hear 
 them denounced as enemies of civil order. Hitherto 
 he had contemplated nothing higher than the preparation 
 of an elementary manual of doctrine for the instruction 
 of his countrymen. Now his work was to take the 
 grander shape of a vindication of his wronged brethren. 
 He would plead their cause in the ears of Christendom; 
 he would state and defend the doctrines for which they 
 suffered ; he would vindicate their principles from the 
 aspersions cast upon them. This being the purpose of 
 the book, we can imagine the spirit that reigns in it. 
 It is anything but a dry compendium of doctrine. Its 
 motive raises it almost to the dignity of a prose poem. 
 On some points in the theology of the " Institutes " 
 we may remark hereafter ; meanwhile it will suffice to 
 give a general idea of its method and contents. The 
 book, as published at Basle in 1 536, was a small volume, 
 
252 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 which subsequent editions enlarged to many times its 
 original size. It was written in Latin, and afterwards 
 translated into French. Prefixed to it is a Preface, 
 addressed to Francis L, which is justly regarded as one 
 of the chefs d'ceitvres of literature. It is composed in a 
 strain of noble eloquence ; reminds the Sovereign of 
 his responsibilities as minister of God; asks him to 
 undertake the investigation of a cause unjustly con- 
 demned; and replies to the objections urged against 
 the Eeformed doctrines as being new, unsupported by 
 miracles, opposed to the teaching of the Fathers, de- 
 structive of the idea of the Church, and provocative of 
 sedition. The additions subsequently made to the 
 body of the work gave it architectural completeness, 
 but wrought no change in its essential contents. The 
 plan is simple, following the order of the Creed. 
 Treating first of the knowledge of God as Creator, 
 Calvin shows that the mind is naturally imbued with 
 this knowledge, yet needs Scripture as a guide and 
 teacher in coming to God as a Creator. Here lie 
 investigates the grounds of our confidence in Scripture, 
 passing from this to the consideration of the Triune 
 nature of God, the creation and original condition of 
 man, and the doctrine of Divine Providence. His 
 doctrine of Providence gives equal prominence to the will 
 of God, as the last ground of explanation of all that is, 
 and to human volition as the means by which the 
 purposes of God are carried out. The second book 
 treats of the knowledge of God as Redeemer. This 
 portion of the work discusses the doctrine of the Fall, 
 man's corrupt and enslaved condition through sin, the 
 gradual steps in the revelation of the purpose of salva- 
 tion, and, finally, the person, offices, and work of 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 253 
 
 Christ. In the third Book, we proceed to the work 
 of the Holy Spirit. Here Calvin treats of faith and 
 repentence, of gratuitous justification, and the sanctiti- 
 cation of the believer, combating Romish errors on 
 each of these subjects. He sketches in beautiful lan- 
 guage the life of the Christian man, and towards the 
 close of the Book unfolds his doctrine of eternal 
 election to salvation, with its logical counterpart, the 
 reprobation of the wicked. It ought to be noticed 
 that, however fundamental this doctrine is in Calvin, it 
 is brought in, not at the head of his system — not, e.g., 
 in the place it holds in the Westminster Confession — ■- 
 but rather as a corollary from what has been shown 
 of the dependence on Divine grace of all that is 
 good in man. The last Book treats of the Church, of 
 Church government, of the Sacraments, and of the 
 province of the Civil ruler. It is well known that in 
 his views on the Sacraments, Calvin steers a middle 
 course between the High Church Lutheran view, which 
 affirms baptismal regeneration and a corporeal presence 
 of Christ in the Supper, and the lower view, which 
 would degrade the Sacraments into mere signs. The 
 Sacraments, with Calvin, are connected with a real 
 presence of Christ and a real work of the Spirit, 
 but the presence is spiritual, and the reception of 
 blessing is conditioned by the faith of the recipient. 
 All this may seem familiar enough and trite enough to 
 us, but it was different with the Reformers, to whom 
 the Scriptures had newly been opened, and on whose 
 minds these doctrines had burst with the power of 
 a grand discovery. Now they saw them set in their 
 relation to each other, and expounded and defended 
 with constant appeal to Scripture, by a mind that 
 
254 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 perhaps had no equal in Europe. The) 7 saw this 
 done, moreover, not in the stiff, repellent phraseology 
 of the schools, but in language of surprising force and 
 freshness, largely free from technicalities, and glowing 
 with the fervour of personal conviction. The great- 
 ness of the " Institutes " lies in its combination of 
 these two sets of qualities. It is great in constructive 
 power. It took the matter of the Reformed doctrine, 
 and reduced it once for all to coherence — o:ave it com- 
 pactness, unity, system. It; grasp is wonderful, especi- 
 ally in those parts where Calvin puts forth his full 
 original strength. Men cavil at Calvin, but it is 
 easier to cavil than to meet the Eeformer on his 
 own ground, and solidly refute him. Not less great 
 is the book in the fire, force, and freshness with which 
 its ideas are expressed. Considering that Calvin was 
 at this time but twenty-six years of age, his work must 
 be regarded as one of the most surprising examples in 
 literature of early intellectual maturity. 
 
 The toil of these months of seclusion in Basle 
 was not to remain unrewarded. The sensation pro- 
 duced by the publication of the " Institutes " was 
 immense. The book was speedily translated into the 
 languages of Europe, and passed through innumerable 
 editions. As if a meteor had appeared in the sky, 
 men's attention was everywhere arrested by it. Calvin 
 published his work anonymously, but his was a name 
 not easily concealed. Friends felt that a new David 
 had risen to do battle for them with the Philis- 
 tine, and were correspondingly overjoyed. Enemies 
 wreaked their rage on the book by burning it. As 
 evidence of its popularity we may mention that ver- 
 sions of it exist in modern French, Italian, Spanish, 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 255 
 
 Dutch, German, English, and even in the language of 
 Hungary, in Greek, and in Arabic. But the effects 
 of the " Institutes " were not confined to Calvin's 
 contemporaries. Its influence on posterity was yet 
 more remarkable. It passed through the creeds into 
 the thoughts of men, moulded the life of nations, 
 became the soul of Puritanism in England, of Bepub- 
 licanism in Holland, of Democratic institutions in 
 America, identifying itself in every land to which 
 it went with the undying principles of civil freedom. 
 
 Calvin has published his great work- — what shall 
 he do next ? Ear from him as ever is the thought of 
 entering upon public life. Bather, with the bookish 
 man's love of retirement growing upon him, he is in- 
 creasingly captivated with the idea of some quiet 
 retreat, where he may pursue his studies uninter- 
 ruptedly, and use his pen in the interest of the cause 
 for which he had taken it up. Besides, has he not 
 proved his strength in this department of service, and 
 may he not reasonably infer that it is in this way, 
 rather than by a life of action, that the Master, who 
 giveth " to every man his work," intends him to take 
 his part in the battle of the time. Whither shall he 
 go ? We find him for a space in Italy, at the Court of 
 the little deformed daughter of Louis XII., Benee, 
 Duchess of Ferrara, whose love of the Gospel forms a 
 bright spot in the dark ambition-stained records of 
 the houses with which she was related. We get a 
 trace of him at Piedmont ; we see him recalled to 
 Noyon by the death of his elder brother Charles, an 
 ecclesiastic, but also, alas, a sceptic and a libertine ; we 
 find him, ultimately, resolving on return to Basle, that 
 fair city on the Bhine, whose reformed government, 
 
256 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 flourishing University, busy printing-presses, and 
 learned society, made it so tempting an abode for a 
 man of letters. But again the hand of Destiny seems 
 on our Keformer. Other work is to be found for him 
 than that which he contemplates. Yonder, under the 
 shadow of the Alps, on the banks of Lake Leman, at 
 the junction of its waters with the PJione, stands a 
 brave, liberty-loving little Eepublic, whose citizens, 
 having fought and won the battle of their independ- 
 ence, have just opened their gates to the Information. 
 This was the place Providence had chosen as a new 
 centre and nursery of the truth, and to it, by circum- 
 stances apparently fortuitous, the Eeformer's steps were 
 guided. War had broken out between Charles V. and 
 Francis I., and the direct route to Basle through 
 Lorraine was blocked. The agitated condition of the 
 country compelled Calvin to make a long detour, and 
 thus, late in August, 1536, we find him at Geneva. 
 He entered the city, intending to remain only a single 
 night ; with the exception of a short interval of banish- 
 ment, he never afterwards quitted it. Before, how- 
 ever, describing Calvin's connection with Geneva, it 
 will be proper to bestow a glance or two on recent 
 events in the history of the city itself. 
 
 From an early period the Genevese people had been 
 distinguished for their love of liberty. Their Bishop 
 was also their ruler, but the constitution was popular. 
 There were ancient franchises and customs, which the 
 Bishop on his accession took an oath to respect. The 
 management of affairs was in the hands of a Council 
 of Twenty-Five, consisting of four Syndics or Magis- 
 trates, elected by the people, twenty councillors, and a 
 treasurer. Over this was a Council of Sixty; over this 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 257 
 
 again a Council of Two Hundred ; and above all was a 
 General Assembly of the whole body of the citizens. 
 These liberties of the Genevese had not been maintained 
 without a struggle. The neighbouring lords of Savoy, 
 jealous of the independence and covetous of the ter- 
 ritories of the little Kepublic, had long sought to 
 reduce it under their power. They received aid from 
 Pope Martin V., who, in 1513, having deprived the 
 people of the right of electing their own Bishops, 
 nominated to the vacant see a creature of the House 
 of Savoy. The new Bishop made over the temporal 
 sovereignty to the Duke, and a struggle commenced, 
 lasting over twenty years, in which much patriotic 
 blood was spilt. The citizens themselves were divided 
 into two parties — one, the patriotic party, known as 
 the Eidgenossen, and the other, adhering to the Duke, 
 known as the Mamelukes. The fact that in this con- 
 flict Pope and Bishop were on the side of the enemies 
 of their liberties, naturally tended to inflame the minds 
 of the Genevese against their ecclesiastical superiors ; 
 and the hostility with which they regarded them was 
 increased by the scandalously dissolute lives of all 
 orders of the clergy, and by the refusal of the latter to 
 bear any part of the expenses of the patriotic contest. 
 
 This was the state of matters when, in 1532, Wil- 
 liam Farel, who had been labouring in the neighbour- 
 hood, first entered Geneva, preaching the Eeformed 
 doctrines. He did not meet with immediate success, 
 but the word took root, and, furthered by the teaching 
 of Anthony Froment, whom Farel, when compelled to 
 withdraw, sent to fill his place, the new ideas 
 made rapid progress. From this point the struggle 
 between liberty and despotism becomes inextricably 
 
258 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 intertwined with the deeper struggles between Evan- 
 gelical truth and Popish error and superstition, the 
 Eeformers drawing their chief strength from the 
 patriotic party, while the Mamelukes lent their utmost 
 support to the priesthood. The Magistrates, mean- 
 while, fearful of offending powerful allies, temporized, 
 but the movement was growing with a volume they 
 could not resist. A church was conceded to the 
 Protestant preachers ; a disputation, after the usual 
 fashion of the times, was held before the Council, in 
 which the defenders of Eome were worsted; hi 1534 
 the Bishop, having left the city, was deposed by the 
 Council as an enemy of the public peace ; finally, in 
 1536, the worst danger being over, a General Assembly 
 of the people was convened, and the citizens, " lifting 
 up their hands, promised and sware to God that by His 
 help they would live according to the holy Evangelical 
 religion and Word of God lately preached to them, 
 renouncing the mass, idols, images, and every other 
 Papal abuse, and that they would live in union and 
 obedience to justice." l Immediate steps were taken to 
 apply the ecclesiastical revenues to purposes consonant 
 with the reformed faith — to the support of an hospital 
 and public school, and to the payment of the 
 preachers. 
 
 Thus far had the Eeformation advanced in Geneva 
 on that memorable evening when Calvin might 
 have been descried entering its gates. The city was 
 impoverished and disorganized by its long struggle ; 
 men's blood was still hot with the spirit of faction ; 
 morals, owing to the absence of all effective restraints, 
 the bad example of the great, and the long unsettled 
 1 M'Crie's "Early Years of John Calvin," p. 168. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 259 
 
 condition of public affairs, were exceedingly corrupt. 
 Not a few had accepted the Gospel from the heart, but 
 the masses had embraced the Eeformation more from 
 detestation of the priests and love of change, than from 
 any intelligent understanding of Christian doctrines, or 
 desire for the kind of life to which the Gospel con- 
 strains men. There were immense congregations, but 
 there was no proper organization of churches, or pro- 
 vision for exercising church discipline. Laws had been 
 re-enacted against vice and profaneness, but there was 
 no power adequately to enforce these laws. Affairs in 
 the city, in short, were largely in a condition of chaos ; 
 a revolution had taken place, but the actors in it had 
 not as yet had time to comprehend what it involved, or 
 what new forms of life it would impose. 
 
 Calvin, as we have seen, had not intended to remain 
 in Geneva longer than a single night. Providence, 
 however, had ordained otherwise. His presence, which 
 he had thought to keep secret, was discovered, and 
 reported to Farel, who, feeling deeply his own inability 
 to cope with the elements of disturbance around him, 
 lost no time in waiting on the Eeformer, and implored 
 him to come to his assistance. The scene that follows 
 is dramatic in its interest. Calvin, shrinking with his 
 whole soul from the task sought to be forced upon 
 him, made every excuse he could think of. He was a 
 studious man ; he did not wish to bind himself to one 
 Church, but would endeavour to serve all; he was 
 timid and loved retirement. But Farel was not to be 
 daunted. With something of the energy of an old 
 Hebrew prophet, he suddenly placed himself before 
 Calvin, and proceeded to pronounce a curse on the 
 studies he held so dear, if they kept him from coming 
 
260 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to the help of the Lord against the mighty. " I declare 
 unto thee," he said, " on the part of God, that if thou 
 refuse to labour with us here in God's work, He will 
 curse thee ; for in pleading thy studies as an excuse 
 for abandoning us, thou seekest thyself more than God." 
 This "fearful obtestation," Calvin tells us, filled him 
 with such terror that he felt powerless to resist any 
 longer. He recognized that the call of God had come 
 to him, and, laying aside his own preferences, prepared 
 at once to obey. He commenced by permission of the 
 Magistrates to give lectures in theology, and soon after- 
 wards was formally appointed pastor. 
 
 Calvin's entrance into Geneva falls exactly midway 
 in his life, and it marks also a natural division in his 
 history. Henceforward we are to see the Eeformer in 
 a different light from any in which we have hitherto 
 considered him. He remains as before the man of 
 thought and learning, but it is now to be discovered 
 that the timid, retiring student, anxious only to be 
 left alone with his books, is no less extraordinarily 
 endowed with the faculty of rule, that the genius of 
 organization and control exists in him in as powerful a 
 degree as the genius of dogmatic construction. His 
 labours to attain his ends involved him, as we shall 
 see, in long protracted conflicts, but the principles he 
 fought for ultimately triumphed, and made Geneva the 
 astonishment of Christendom for civil order, administra- 
 tion of justice, pure morals, liberal learning, generous 
 hospitality, and the flourishing state of its arts and 
 industries. We shall best review this period of Calvin's 
 life, interrupted, after about two years, by a temporary 
 banishment from the city, by considering first, in con- 
 nection with a sketch of his polity, his conflicts with 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 261 
 
 the Libertine party in Geneva ; second, his much mis- 
 understood share in the trial and condemnation of 
 Servetus ; and, lastly, the period of the triumph of his 
 principles. 
 
 The stormy events of Calvin's earlier residence in 
 Geneva — that which ended in his expulsion from the 
 city — can be briefly narrated. Hardly had he com- 
 menced his labours before his reforming activity began 
 to show itself. It went out in the three directions of 
 the Church, education, and the reform of public morals. 
 One of his first tasks was to draw up, in conjunction 
 with Farel, a short Confession of twenty-one articles, to 
 which, after it had been ratified by the Council of Two 
 Hundred, the citizens, in parties of ten each, solemnly 
 gave in their adhesion. This laid the basis of that 
 theocratic constitution which Calvin afterwards toiled 
 so zealously to perfect. At the same time he prepared 
 a short form of discipline. He next directed attention 
 to the schools, and sought to establish throughout the 
 Canton a system of compulsory education. Calvin 
 rightly felt, however, that if the Eepublic was to be 
 Christian at heart as well as in name, a reform was 
 needed more urgent than any of these — to which these, 
 indeed, were but means — a reform of the manners and 
 morals of the State, and to this, also, he earnestly 
 addressed himself. The agencies which presented 
 themselves for the accomplishment of such reform were 
 three-fold — preaching, exhortation, and reproof in the 
 pulpit ; a rigorous enforcement of the laws of the State 
 by the Magistrates ; but, above all, the right inherent 
 in the Church of excluding moral offenders from the 
 Lord's table. 
 
 Laws were already in force in Geneva when Calvin 
 
262 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 entered it, not only forbidding vice, but laying down 
 regulations in regard to dress, food, and ornament, and 
 requiring attendance at the services of public worship ; 
 to which, therefore, no objection could be taken on the 
 score of want of strictness. As respects these, Calvin 
 could only use his influence with the Magistrates to 
 put them in execution ; but the power of excom- 
 munication was with himself, and he did not hesitate 
 to employ it against notorious evil-livers. The Magis- 
 trates, however, warmly seconded his efforts. These 
 measures could not be carried out without encountering 
 strong opposition, and a party soon developed itself bit- 
 terly hostile to the new regimen. This party received 
 the name of " Libertine," and not unjustly, for obviously 
 the best portion of the community was with Calvin, 
 and the soul of the opposition consisted of men of 
 profligate and abandoned character. Joined with it, 
 however, may have been members of the old patriot 
 party, naturally jealous of Calvin's influence, and resent- 
 ful of what they regarded as a new attempt to deprive 
 them of their liberties. In course of time, the party of 
 opposition gained an ascendancy in the Council, and 
 then the contest began in earnest. A point of even 
 greater soreness with the malcontents than the rigour 
 of the laws, was the power claimed by Calvin to debar 
 the unworthy persons among them from the Sacra- 
 ment ; but on this point, a vital one for the purity of 
 the Church, the Eeformer stood firm, notwithstanding 
 that his conduct exposed him and his associates to the 
 coarsest public insults. The dispute was still pro- 
 ceeding, when a message came from Berne urging the 
 Genevese to restore certain holidays, and to keep the 
 Sacrament with unleavened bread. The Eeformers op- 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 263 
 
 posed these changes, and immediately the Libertines 
 were inflamed with an eager desire to see the Holy 
 Supper observed without leaven. Matters reached a 
 crisis on Easter Day, 1538. During the previous week, 
 the city had been torn with dissensions, and when the 
 Lord's Day came, the churches were filled with armed 
 and riotous men. Under these circumstances, Farel 
 and Calvin announced that the Lord's Supper would 
 not be dispensed that day. Furious tumults ensued, 
 and the lives of the Keformers were threatened. Next 
 day the Council met, and pronounced sentence of banish- 
 ment on the two preachers. Calvin received the de- 
 cision with calmness, remarking, "Had we been the 
 servants of men, we would now be ill repaid ; but we 
 serve a great Master, who never lets those who serve 
 Him go unrewarded, and who even pays them what He 
 does not owe them." Then, in company with Farel, 
 he left the city. 
 
 His disputes with the Libertines were not his only 
 troubles during this residence in Geneva. He had 
 early to oppose the Anabaptists, whose extravagant 
 opinions tended to subvert Church and State alike. 
 Specially was he annoyed by the attacks made on him 
 by one Caroli, who impeached his orthodoxy, and even 
 had him brought before a synod to clear himself of the 
 charge of Arianism. It is curious to see Calvin — hard 
 dogmatist as we are apt to think him — called to ac- 
 count for not using the terms " Trinity " and " Person " 
 in his teachings on the Godhead, and having to defend 
 himself for his preference for simple Scriptural expres- 
 sions. When blamed by Caroli for not accepting the 
 ancient creeds, he "rejoined," say 1 the Genevese preach- 
 1 In a letter to Berne. 
 
264 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ers, " that we had sworn to the belief in one God, and 
 not to the creed of Athanasius, whose symbol a true 
 Church would never have admitted." 
 
 The next three years of the Eeformer's life were 
 spent tranquilly at Strassburg in ministering to a 
 congregation of French refugees. Save for interrup- 
 tions of bodily sickness — the effects of toil and anxiety 
 upon a frame not naturally strong — these quiet years 
 of exile were perhaps the happiest Calvin ever knew. 
 He did not indeed permit himself repose. He preached, 
 lectured, wrote incessantly. But the labour was con- 
 genial. Here, in 1539, he revised and recast his "In- 
 stitutes," giving the book substantially its present form. 
 Here also, in the same year, he issued from the press 
 his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans — the 
 first of that noble series of Commentaries which, in 
 their sober regard for the historical and grammatical 
 sense of Scripture, in their skill in detecting and apt- 
 ness in expressing the meaning of the sacred writers, 
 and, generally, in their depth and penetration — bear so 
 remarkably modern a character, and are to the present 
 day aids in the interpretation of Scripture which no 
 exegete can afford to despise. The Emperor Charles 
 V. was at this time engaged in schemes of mediation 
 between Protestants and Romanists, and Calvin went 
 as delegate to several conferences in Germany, where 
 he made the acquaintance of Melancthon, and of other 
 leaders of the German Reformation. A yet more tender 
 interest attaches to this sojourn in Strassburg. It was 
 here that Calvin married. The lady who won his affec- 
 tions was Idelette cle Bure, a widow, distinguished for 
 discretion, virtue, piety, and a cultivation and elevation 
 of mind which made her a fit helpmate for the Reformer. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 265 
 
 The union lasted for but nine years. Idelette seems 
 to have been devoted to her husband's interests. " She 
 was," says Calvin, "the best of companions, who, if 
 anything harder could have happened to me, would 
 willingly have been my companion, not only in exile 
 and in want, but in death itself." 1 Calvin, on his part, 
 cherished for his wife not only high esteem, but tender 
 love. His letters show that her death in 1549 left him 
 well-nigh inconsolable. The fruit of the union was 
 one son, who died in infancy. 
 
 What, meanwhile, of Geneva? Bitterly by this 
 time had it repented of its treatment of the preachers. 
 Only disorder had reigned since their departure. The 
 citizens had had a taste of Libertine rule, and did not 
 relish it. Laws were set at nought. The grossest 
 licentiousness prevailed. Of the four Syndics who 
 expelled Calvin, one " was found guilty of promoting 
 an insurrection, and endeavouring to escape through a 
 window, fell and broke his neck. Another was 
 accused of murder, and beheaded. Two others, guilty 
 of treason, were obliged to flee." 2 No power existed 
 in the city itself capable of restoring order, and soon 
 the cry arose to bring Calvin back. 
 
 The Eeformer, however, had too vivid a recollection 
 of his Genevan experiences to be easily persuaded to 
 return. " Why not rather submit to be crucified ? " 
 he says in one of his letters, " It would be better to 
 perish at once than to be tormented to death in that 
 chamber of torture." At length he consented, and 
 re-entered Geneva on the loth September, 1541, 
 amidst general popular enthusiasm. The magis- 
 trates provided him with a house and garden, gave 
 1 Letter to Viret, 1549. 2 Beza. 
 
266 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 him cloth for a coat, and settled on him a salary 
 of 500 florins, twelve measures of wheat, and two tuns 
 of wine. His conflicts were not over — the worst, 
 indeed, lay before him — but for the moment he was 
 in honour. The next five years of his life might be 
 described as peaceful, but for a dispute with Castellio, 
 tutor of his school, whom Calvin, for some acrimo- 
 nious attacks made on him in public, had removed 
 from his office. 
 
 The time had now come for a complete remodelling 
 of the constitution of Church and State in Geneva, 
 and before proceeding further, some account must be 
 given of the new polity thus introduced. It may 
 seem a bold thing to say, but we think it true, that 
 the logical consequence of Calvin's principles would be 
 the entire separation of Church and State. Civil and 
 spiritual government he holds to be distinct. However 
 friendly may be the relations of the two powers, how- 
 ever freely they may co-operate in matters of common 
 interest, they yet represent distinct jurisdictions, each 
 has its own responsibility, and neither is subject to the 
 control of the other. The spiritual is not at liberty to 
 control the civil, and as little is the civil entitled to 
 control the spiritual. This perfect independence of the 
 two jurisdictions can only be secured by keeping them 
 apart. Even granting to Calvin that the Magistrate 
 should profess the Christian religion, and that his care 
 extends to both tables of the law, the conclusion 
 based on the distinctness of the jurisdictions is not 
 affected. The more numerous the points which 
 the jurisdictions touch in common, the greater 
 the need that each should be left free to act on its 
 own responsibility. Calvin, however, did not thus 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 267 
 
 conceive of his principles in practice. Starting from 
 the duty of the Magistrate to put himself at the head 
 of a work of Reformation, and from the consent of the 
 citizens to the articles of the Christian faith, he thinks 
 he finds a basis for a Christian Republic — a theocracy. 
 The model constitution figures itself to his mind as one 
 in which the two powers do not remain apart, but are 
 united for mutual support, and for the attainment of 
 common ends. 
 
 Constructing the Genevan Republic under this idea, 
 Calvin began with the Church. The city was divided 
 into parishes, and a minister was alloted to each ; 
 elders were appointed; rules of Church government 
 were drawn up; order was introduced into the services, 
 including a liturgy, and congregational singing. In 
 the civil department, Calvin undertook the revision of 
 the laws. Under his superintendence, the laws and 
 edicts of the State were collected, such changes were 
 made on them as was necessary, and the whole was 
 reduced to a well-digested code. 
 
 But in a theocracy, Church and State are so far 
 identified that the whole body of the people are by 
 profession Christians — the two jurisdictions apply to 
 the same body of people. Accordingly, the third part 
 of Calvin's work, and that by which he is best known, 
 was the drawing up of a code for the joint use of the 
 civil and ecclesiastical authorities in those matters 
 which, on the theocratic principle, came under the 
 cognizance of both. This code — the famous " Eccle- 
 siastical Ordinances " — was properly a code of morals. 
 It laid down rules for the regulation of the life of the 
 citizens of Geneva, entering minutely into social, and 
 even domestic details, but specially aiming at the 
 
268 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 suppression of the darker vices — profanity, drinking, 
 gaming, lewdness, and the like. On the ecclesiastical 
 side, it was a code of discipline. As such, it was 
 administered by the Consistory, a court composed of 
 ministers and elders, which sat weekly to hear and to 
 dispose of cases. If ecclesiastical discipline did not 
 produce amendment, the case was reported to the 
 Council, which dealt with the offence as against civil 
 order, and punished it accordingly. The laymen — 
 twelve in number — who sat in the Consistory, were 
 chosen from the Councils, and formed the link 
 between the two jurisdictions. 
 
 This polity of Calvin's has been the subject of much 
 animadversion. It is no easy matter to do it justice. 
 Viewing it theoretically, it is obviously not without 
 grave faults. Its fundamental idea — that of making 
 Christian profession the basis of civil privilege — modern 
 society justly rejects as incompatible with the full 
 recognition of the rights of conscience. On the 
 other hand, the idea of theocracy — of a fair Divine 
 order in society, of an earthly state organized in all 
 respects in obedience to, and in perfect harmony with, 
 the Divine will, of a kingdom of God among men, is 
 surely in itself a noble one, a conception which human 
 society cannot forego, but must ever keep before it as 
 its goal. Yet Calvin errs in the shape he gives to 
 his conception. Two jurisdictions are recognized, but 
 their spheres are not kept distinct. The civil ruler is 
 invested with functions which do not properly belong 
 to him. The Church invites his aid in matters with 
 which he has no right to interfere. 
 
 Viewing it as a practically working system, the 
 Genevan polity is not less open to criticism. It 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 269 
 
 undeniably went too far in interference with individual 
 liberty, and tended to confound the follies of society 
 with its vices. When, however, we find fault with its 
 details, it is important to remember that the laissez- 
 faire doctrine of government is essentially a modern 
 one, and that sumptuary laws were not peculiar to 
 Geneva. 1 It is to be pointed out, further, that most of 
 the provisions of the " Ordinances " were based on 
 existing enactments. " It can be shown," says Dr. 
 Hagenbach, " that strict prohibitions against cursing 
 and blaspheming, against games of chance, masquerades, 
 dances, magnificence in dress, &c, had been issued by 
 the Geneva Government as early as the fifteenth and 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that 
 Calvin, consequently, cannot be regarded as the 
 originator of such laws." 2 Calvin drafted the code, 
 but the Councils revised and amended it, and, says the 
 above-quoted writer, " It has been proved that not 
 only in political affairs, but even in ecclesiastical 
 matters, the civil authorities of Geneva insisted jeal- 
 ously upon their rights, and reserved to themselves 
 the prerogative of final decision ; and that there were 
 not lacking instances when their opinions conflicted 
 
 1 " Sumptuary laws were in great favour in the legislation of 
 England from the time of Edward III. down to the Reforma- 
 tion. Statute 10, Edward III enacts that no man, of 
 
 whatever condition or estate, shall be allowed more than two 
 courses at dinner or supper, or more than two kinds of food in 
 each course, except on the principal festivals of the year, when 
 three courses at the utmost are to be allowed. All who did not 
 enjoy a free estate of £100 per annum were prohibited from 
 wearing fur, skins, or silk, and the use of foreign cloth was 
 allowed to the Royal Family alone." — Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 
 Art. "Sumptuary Laws." See also Hallam's "History of 
 Europe during the Middle Ages," chap. ix. 
 
 2 " Hist, of the Reformation," vol ii. p. 313 (Eng. trans). 
 
270 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 with those of the Consistory." 1 Calvin, therefore, 
 cannot fairly be held responsible for everything the 
 code contains. Valuing it mainly as an instrument in 
 repressing vice, there is no evidence that he attached 
 much importance to its pettier details. 
 
 The code, once enacted, was administered with 
 wholesale rigour. The highest families in the Ee- 
 public were required to yield obedience to it, or if 
 they did not, were summoned before the Consistory. 
 This rigour had its reprehensible, but it had also its 
 salutary side. A system is best judged of by its 
 moral fruits, and Calvin's need not shrink the applica- 
 tion of this test. The moral state of Geneva was such 
 that drastic treatment was necessary. The Consistory 
 had a sufficiently high idea of its functions ; both 
 Consistory and Council occasionally erred in the severity 
 of punishments meted out to small offences ; 2 but the 
 effect of their work was to recover Geneva out of the 
 hands of a lawless and flagitious faction, whose vices 
 were destroying it, and to raise it to the first rank in 
 Europe as a city of pure morals, of enlightenment, 
 peace, and order. 
 
 Libertinism reared its head again in Geneva in 1546, 
 this time in darker colours than before. It now 
 appeared in connection with Pantheistic and Atheistic 
 doctrines, breathing a fierce hatred of Christ, and 
 openly justifying the most shameless immorality. 
 
 1 " Hist, of the Keformation," p. 323. 
 
 2 It is worth observing that the instances commonly quoted 
 of excessive severity in the punishment of minor offences mostly 
 belong to a period subsequent to Calvin's death. A boy, for 
 example, was beheaded for striking his parents in 1568. Yet 
 the Genevan code fairly enough reflects Calvin's severely judicial 
 spirit. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 271 
 
 " The Libertines or ' Spirituals,' " says Dr. Philip 
 Schaff, " combined a Pantheistic creed with licentious- 
 ness and free-lovism, and anticipated the worst forms 
 of modern infidelity to the extent of declaring the 
 Gospel a tissue of lies of less value than iEsop's 
 Fables." 1 This party, with which the ribaldry of the 
 city speedily associated itself, found a leader in Amy 
 Perrin, the Captain-General, a former friend of Calvin's, 
 but now, on account of some proceedings taken 
 against his wife's relations, the Pteformer's bitterest 
 enemy. Perrin demanded that the Council should 
 deprive the Consistory of its power of excommunica- 
 tion, and assume the power into its own hands. He 
 was not at first successful, but in 1549, his party 
 having gained in numbers and influence, he was elected 
 First Syndic, and the old conflict was renewed. Calvin 
 behaved with great courage. He presented himself in 
 1547 before the Council of the Two Hundred, and 
 facing the drawn swords of his enemies, said, " If it 
 is my life you desire, I am ready to die. If it is my 
 banishment you wish, I shall exile myself. If you 
 desire once more to save Geneva without the Gospel, 
 you can try." This ended the matter for the time. 
 
 A second crisis in the struggle was in 1553. 
 Calvin's influence in this year was at its lowest ebb. 
 Popular feeling ran strongly against him. His 
 enemies, insolent in their triumph, " resorted to per- 
 sonal indignities and every device of intimidation ; 
 they named the very dogs of the street after him ; 
 they one night fired fifty shots before his bed-chamber; 
 they threatened him in the pulpit." 2 At this juncture, 
 
 1 "History of the Creeds of Christendom," p. 471. 
 2 Ibid., p. 471. 
 
272 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 one Berthelier appeared before the Council, asking it to 
 rescind a sentence of excommunication passed upon him 
 by the Consistory. Calvin withstood him, but Perrin's 
 influence prevailed, and the Council reversed the sen- 
 tence as desired. It went further, and transferred the 
 power of excommunicating from the Consistory to 
 itself. This decision was ratified in the popular 
 assembly. The next Sabbath was the day of Com- 
 munion in St. Peter's. Curiosity was strung to its 
 highest pitch, for Berthelier was expected to present 
 himself, bearing the warrant he had received from the 
 Council. Calvin, however, was resolute. When the 
 moment arrived to dispense the sacred elements, and 
 the Libertines made a move forward as if to seize the 
 bread and cup, he covered the symbols with his 
 hands and cried, " You may break these limbs and 
 shed my blood ; I would rather die than dishonour the 
 table of my God." His opponents were awed, and 
 retreated in silence. The service was then quietly 
 proceeded with. 
 
 The final conflict was in 1555. The spiritual 
 supremacy had by this time been restored to the Con- 
 sistory. But the enemies were untiring in their 
 opposition. So far at length did their rage carry 
 them, that a tavern-house plot was formed for the 
 massacre of refugees resident in the city. The plot 
 failed, and its authors were brought to justice. Pour 
 persons were beheaded, Perrin had to flee, others were 
 banished. Prom this period Geneva had rest. 
 
 Thus ended the conflict with the Libertines. In 
 justice to Calvin's enemies, it should be remembered 
 how unbearably galling it must have been to freer 
 spirits in the Republic — many of them belonging to old 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 273 
 
 native families, and accustomed to hold their heads 
 high among the citizens — to find themselves suddenly 
 stopped in a career of pleasure, and put under 
 Calvin's hard moral yoke — forbidden the wine-shop, 
 the card-table, the revel, rigorously limited in dress 
 and manner of living, compelled to attend sermons in 
 which their vices were unsparingly castigated, and 
 required, on pain of humiliation, to yield unquestioning 
 obedience to the dictates of a Consistory. They saw, 
 as they thought, a new Popedom established in their 
 midst ; they found themselves put under a yoke more 
 rigorous than that from which they had escaped ; they 
 rebelled that they, the children of the soil, should be 
 subjected to this hateful tyranny by an alien ; they 
 beheld the city filling up with refugees, and they 
 clamoured that the native influence was being illegi- 
 timately swamped. Flesh and blood would not be 
 what it is if such rule had been endured in quietness. 
 Nor is it wonderful that the Magistrates were jealous 
 of a power which they saw growing up in the State 
 rivalling their own, which they thought bore hardly on 
 the life of the people, and which kept them embroiled 
 with leading citizens. We will not dispute that the 
 influence of the Council on the Consistory was on the 
 whole a moderating one. Yet it must be repeated that 
 Calvin's discipline proved wholesome for Geneva. 1 It 
 was no Popedom, but rule in accordance with a Con- 
 stitution which had been established by the free votes 
 of the citizens, and which, it must be said for them, 
 amidst all the heat of their disputes, they never seem 
 to have desired to alter. 
 
 1 Hooker somewhere says, " This device I see not how the best 
 then living could have bettered, if we consider duly what the 
 existent state of the Genevese did then require." 
 
274 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Passing by other controversies of this period, as 
 those with Pighius and Bolsec, both on the subject of 
 Predestination, and other labours, as those for the 
 union of the Swiss Churches, we come without further 
 delay to that episode in Calvin's life which more than 
 any other has left a stain of reproach upon his memory ; 
 we refer to the episode of the trial and burning of 
 Servetus. Of this mournful transaction — so im- 
 possible to justify at the bar of the modern conscience 
 — we shall endeavour to speak impartially, not 
 screening Calvin from the share he actually took 
 in it, but at the same time endeavouring to show 
 that this share has popularly been very much exag- 
 gerated. 
 
 To his own age Servetus was a monster and blas- 
 phemer ; we may be permitted to give a calmer 
 account of him. He was a Spanish physician, who, 
 in 1531, had published a work against the Trin- 
 ity, and, again, in 1553, had printed clandestinely a 
 book entitled " Christianismi Eestitutio," in which he 
 further developed his views of a perfectly reformed 
 Christianity. 1 He was a man of undoubted talent 
 and accomplishment. His genius, however, was 
 erratic, his mind restless and speculative, and his 
 manner of (lealino; with Divine things daring and 
 irreverent. 
 
 It is not easy in short compass to give a coherent 
 account of his doctrines. They were of a very crude 
 order. With a denial of the distinction of persons in 
 the Godhead, and consequently of the eternity of 
 Christ's Sonship, he seems to have combined Pan- 
 
 1 He was born in the same year as Calvin (1509), and, like 
 Calvin, had studied both theology and law. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 275 
 
 theistic notions of the relation of God to the universe. 
 One passage-at-arms between him and Calvin in the 
 trial at Geneva will serve to illustrate the character of 
 his views, as well as give an example of the levity 
 of his manner of treating sacred subjects. " When he 
 asserted," says Calvin, " that all creatures were produced 
 from the proper essence of God, and that therefore all 
 were filled with gods, I was so hurt by this WTetched 
 absurdity that I assailed him with these words — 
 ' What, unhappy man! if anyone treading on this 
 floor should say to you that he was treading your God 
 under his feet, would you not be scandalized at such 
 an assertion ?' He answered, ' I, on the contrary, do 
 not doubt but that this footstool, or anything else 
 which you may point out, is the substance of God.' 
 When it was again objected to him, ' Then will the 
 devil actually be God ? ' he answered, with a peal of 
 laughter, ' And can you doubt it ? This, however, is 
 my general principle, that out of the substance of God 
 all things have arisen, and that the nature of things 
 is actually the Spirit of God.' wl 
 
 Sentiments like these, in Calvin's day, were not only 
 regarded with abhorrence, but by both Protestants and 
 Catholics were held to be justly punishable by the 
 sword of the Magistrate. In separating from the 
 Church of Borne, the Keformers had no idea of chal- 
 lenging the principle of that Church, that heresies 
 ought to be restrained and suppressed by the civil 
 power. They upheld that principle. Their own 
 defence, when the secular sword was unsheathed 
 against them, was not that the Magistrate ought not 
 to punish error, but this, that what they taught was 
 1 Henry's "Life and Times of Calvin," vol. ii. p. 196. 
 
-276 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 not error, but manifest truth. They appeared before 
 their judges ready to support their doctrine by appeal 
 to the Scriptures. If what they taught was error, by 
 all means let the civil ruler correct them for their 
 error, but if it could be shown to be truth according to 
 God's Word, they ought not, they held, to be made to 
 surfer for it. In two ways only this principle of 
 Rome was modified. First, mere opinion was not to 
 be punished, but only the active diffusion and dis- 
 semination of errors ; and second, forbearance was 
 to be shown to minor aberrations. But attacks on 
 oecumenical doctrines, such as those of Servetus, 
 were supposed to be beyond all bounds of toleration. 
 " The more we reflect on it," said the Church of Berne, 
 speaking of the errors of Bolsec, " the more we are con- 
 vinced that it is not necessary to proceed with too 
 much severity against those who are in error, lest in 
 seeking at all hazards to maintain purity of doctrine, 
 we come short of the measure of the Spirit of Christ." 
 Yet this same Church, when consulted two years later 
 about the heresy of Servetus, replied, " In effect he has 
 reckoned himself free to call in question all the 
 essential points of our religion, wholly to overthrow 
 it by new explanations, and utterly to corrupt it by 
 reviving the poison of the ancient heretics. We pray 
 the Lord that he may give you a spirit of prudence 
 and counsel and strength, that you may put your own 
 and other Churches beyond reach of this pest ; and 
 that in the meantime you may do nothing which might 
 appear unseemly in a Christian Magistrate." 1 The 
 one charge that can be brought against Calvin is, that, 
 sharing this all but universal opinion of his age, he 
 1 Quoted by Eilliet, Henry, &c. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 277 
 
 did not hesitate, with the consistency of a logical 
 mind, to give effect to it. 1 
 
 The connection of Servetus with Calvin began as 
 early as 1534. Calvin was then at Paris. A meeting 
 was arranged for, but Servetus did not keep his 
 appointment. In 1546, he sent to Calvin the manu- 
 script of his " Christianismi Restitutio." The Reformer 
 gave him his opinion of the writing, and in reply to an 
 expressed wish of Servetus to come to Geneva, very 
 plainly hinted to him that if he did, he would not be 
 responsible for his safety. 2 In 1553, he was appre- 
 hended at Vienne, and would have suffered death at 
 the hands of the Roman Catholic authorities of that 
 place, but for a timely escape from prison. Servetus 
 always regarded Calvin as the cause of this arrest. 
 The accusation, however, has no further truth in it than 
 that the real accuser, one I)e Trie, a French refugee, 
 residing at Geneva, succeeded, after much pressure, in 
 obtaining from Calvin certain documents incriminating 
 Servetus, and establishing his identity with the author 
 of the " Restitutio." 3 
 
 This leads to the remark that, deeply as we deplore 
 
 1 Calvin was not in spirit a persecutor. This is shown by his 
 friendly relations with Lselius Sochms, and others of free-think- 
 ing tendencies, in whom he thought he discerned an earnest 
 disposition for the truth. 
 
 2 He wrote to Farel at this time, " If he come, I shall not 
 suffer him to depart alive, as far as my influence can avail." To 
 Servetus himself he wrote, " I neither hate you nor despise you, 
 nor do I wish to persecute you ; but I would be hard as iron 
 when I behold you insulting sound doctrine witli such audacity." 
 
 3 " I must, however, plainly confess to you that [ have had 
 great trouble in obtaining from Mr. Calvin what I now send 
 you. . . . But I so wore him with my importunities, showing 
 that the charge of levity would be cast upon me if I had not his 
 help, that at last he yielded, and gave me what you see." — De 
 Trie's letter in forwarding the documents. 
 
278 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the fate of Servetus, unjustly as we think him to 
 have been treated, he is not a man for whose character 
 it is possible to feel much respect. At Vienne his 
 career was one of long-continued dissimulation. In 
 his trial in that city, he did not hesitate to avail him- 
 self of the weapons of falsehood — palming oft' upon his 
 judges false statements in regard to almost every par- 
 ticular in his history. At Geneva, the same arts of 
 deception were resorted to. He was plausible or 
 defiant, humble or insulting in turns, according as he 
 thought it would best serve his purpose. A man of 
 this stamp, whatever other qualities there may be 
 about him to interest us, is without genuine moral 
 backbone ; he may win our sympathy, but cannot com- 
 mand our esteem. 
 
 Servetus escaped from Vienne in April, and came 
 to Geneva in August. Why, of all places on earth, he 
 should have come to this one, it is difficult to con- 
 jecture, unless he had the hope of finding friends 
 among the enemies of Calvin. It was the year 1553, 
 when the conflict with the Libertines was at its height, 
 and Calvin's influence was at its lowest point. The 
 Council was hostile to him. It was during the trial of 
 Servetus that those events occurred which we have 
 already described — the reversal of the sentence of ex- 
 communication on Berthelier, the stripping of the 
 Consistory of its power of debarring from the Lord's 
 Supper, the memorable scene in St. Peter's. Calvin's 
 spirits were so depressed at this time that he some- 
 times felt as if he could wish to die. On the evening 
 of that day when he made his stand in St. Peter's, 
 he had an affectionate farewell meeting with his flock, 
 expecting fully to be banished on the morrow. 
 
JOHN CALVJN. 279 
 
 On the other hand, it was the Libertines who stood 
 by Servetus. Their temporary triumphs in the Council 
 nearly turned his head, and led him, confident of 
 victory, to indulge in unmeasured invective against the 
 Reformer, who, warmly aroused, did not spare injurious 
 epithets in reply. 
 
 Calvin, hearing of Servetus' arrival, and dreading 
 his influence in the city, had him at once arrested, 
 and, through his secretary, La Fontaine, instituted pro- 
 ceedings against him. The Magistrates, whatever their 
 private sentiments, had no alternative but to investi- 
 gate the charge. Some days were occupied with pre- 
 liminary examinations, then La Fontaine and his 
 fellow-pursuers were discharged from their connection 
 with the case, and the trial passed into the hands of the 
 Council, and was conducted by the public prosecutor. 
 We need not recount its different stages. The services 
 of the ministers were sometimes required to cast light 
 on points of doctrine ; in particular, Calvin was ordered 
 to extract, and give in, without note or comment, a 
 list of the passages in Servetus' book which he thought 
 objectionable, and to this Servetus replied. But the 
 Council jealously kept the trial in its own hands, and 
 gave attention less to the abstract theological error of 
 Servetus' opinions than to their supposed bearings on 
 the peace and good order of society. 1 Servetus, on his 
 part, showed exceptional adroitness in turning the 
 tables on his accusers, and though he often quibbled 
 and evaded, many of his answers to the charges brought 
 against him were solid and well reasoned. He was 
 specially keen in his attacks on Calvin, against whom 
 he brought counter articles of charge, and whom he 
 1 The writings of Servetus were at this time widely circulated. 
 
:280 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 wished to pursue "till," as he said, "the cause be ter- 
 minated by the death of him or me." 
 
 We hasten to the end. Before finally deciding, the 
 Council resolved to take the opinion of the Swiss 
 Churches on the case, and accordingly sent copies of 
 the documents to the Churches of Berne, Zurich, 
 Schaffhausen, and Basle, requesting their advice. The 
 replies they received were unanimous as to the guilt 
 of Servetus. Nothing remained but to pronounce 
 sentence, and on the 26th October it was decreed that 
 the unhappy man should expiate his errors in the 
 the flames. 
 
 Was the verdict challenged ? Yes, one man chal- 
 lenged it — one whose name does not readily occur to us 
 in such a connection — this man was Calvin. Cal- 
 vin agreed with the Council that the errors of Servetus 
 were such as deserved death, but he shrank with 
 horror from the infliction of a death by burning, and, 
 with his colleagues, did his best to induce the Council 
 to substitute a milder form of execution. The Magis- 
 trates w^ould not enter into his views. " It is to him, 
 notwithstanding," as one has said, " that men have 
 always imputed the guilt of that funeral pile which he 
 wished had never been reared." * 
 
 Servetus was publicly burned on 27 th October, 
 1553. The first announcement of his doom utterly 
 unmanned him, but he afterwards recovered some 
 composure, and died in protracted agony, calling on 
 " Jesus, Son of the Eternal God." It is a mournful 
 spectacle, yet perhaps the pile of Servetus was needed 
 fully to awaken the conscience of Protestantism to the 
 perception of the error of the principle which, in 
 1 Rilliet. 
 
JOHN CALVIN, 281 
 
 inconsistency with its own grand truth that " God 
 alone is Lord of the conscience," it had unthinkingly 
 adopted. Servetus was right in maintaining that a 
 man ought not to be punished for error in his 
 opinions, and his avowal of this principle, however 
 little we may respect himself otherwise, makes him a 
 martyr for liberty of conscience. The shock which 
 men received at seeing this burning pile raised by 
 Protestant hands was itself an indication that there 
 was something wrong, and only a little reflection was 
 needed to discover what it was. To condemn Ser- 
 vetus for opinions arrived at in the exercise of his 
 undoubted right to search the Word of God for him- 
 self, — or, generally, his right of thought and inquiry, 
 — was, for Protestants, to go in the teeth of their own 
 claim — to outrage in his person the very principles for 
 which, in their own case, they were nobly contend- 
 ing. The defence, of course, was, " Ours are true 
 views ; his are pernicious errors." But this is to 
 overlook that the concession of the right of inquiry 
 involves the right to form an independent judgment 
 on the truth of the matters submitted. It is clearly 
 illogical first to grant a man the right of judging 
 of what is true, then to punish him for the use 
 he makes of it. Nor, pondering the nature of the 
 tribunal before which grave theological questions of 
 the Trinity and Sonship of Christ were debated — a 
 secular tribunal, presided over by Perrin the Libertine, 
 and composed of men all unversed in such subtleties — 
 could thoughtful minds fail to be struck by the 
 absurdity of entrusting to such tribunals the final 
 decision of what was to be held true and false in 
 doctrine. In fine, the stake of Servetus brought 
 
282 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 better home to men's minds than a hundred arguments 
 could do, the untenableness of the fundamental assump- 
 tion that it belongs to the civil Magistrate to restrain 
 and punish heresy — showed it to be alien to the 
 Gospel, a confounding of civil and spiritual jurisdic- 
 dictions, inimical to free inquiry, and destructive of 
 rights of conscience. 
 
 Calvin's share in this painful transaction can now 
 be fairly appraised. With the later stages of the 
 trial of Servetus he had really little to do. His influ- 
 ence on the final decision was all but nil. The 
 Magistrates had taken the matter into their own 
 hands, and Calvin at the time was the object of their 
 distrust. " Their folly and rage have increased to 
 such a degree," we hear him saying, " that all which 
 we state is received with distrust. Were we to say it 
 is light at noon-time, they would immediately begin to 
 doubt it." 1 It was against Calvin's wishes that the 
 Swiss Churches were consulted. It was against his 
 will that Servetus died by fire. 
 
 On the other hand, there can be no question that 
 Calvin, in common with most of his age, held that 
 blasphemies such as those of Servetus were punishable 
 by death ; that he instituted proceedings against Ser- 
 vetus in Geneva ; that he anticipated and desired a 
 capital sentence ; and that he held the decision of the 
 Council to be just, though he could not approve of the 
 manner in which death was inflicted. And this, be it 
 owned, is a heavy enough indictment. 
 
 Nine years yet remained to Calvin after the expul- 
 sion of the Libertines, and this was the period of the 
 triumph of his principles. More than ever, acting on 
 1 Letter to Bullinger, 1553. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 283 
 
 his conviction that the State has one sphere and the 
 Church another, he withdrew from political business, 
 and devoted himself to spiritual labours. The distrust 
 of him by the Council seems soon to have cleared 
 away, and people and Senate cordially supported him 
 in his efforts. Many tokens exist of the high respect 
 in which Calvin was held in his later years. The 
 work he got through during this period, considering 
 his weak physical constitution, and the numerous 
 maladies which incessantly preyed on him, was enor- 
 mous. He preached two or three times a week, 
 lectured every third day, presided in the Consistory on 
 Thursdays, and fulfilled the other duties of his pastoral 
 office. His pen was unceasingly busy, writing new 
 books, revising old ones, conducting an extensive cor- 
 respondence, taking part in the controversies of the 
 time. 1 His abode was in Geneva, but his heart was 
 in the Church of God everywhere. His reputation in 
 Europe was yearly rising. His commentaries and 
 theological writings gained for him renown as an 
 author ; among his correspondents were kings, nobles, 
 and persons of highest position in all countries ; 
 his advice was sought on matters small and great, 
 His name was a familiar one in courts and conclaves. 
 His letters were prized as literary treasures, as well as 
 for the worth of their contents. Not a Church was in 
 difficulty, hardly a martyr went to the stake, but 
 received from him some message of guidance or con- 
 solation. 
 
 Under his influence, Geneva became an asylum for 
 the persecuted, and numbers of persons of rank, learn- 
 
 1 Of these the chief were the Sacramentarian controversies 
 with the Lutherans. 
 
284 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ing, and piety, found refuge within its walls, many of 
 whom were admitted to the rights of citizens. One 
 such refugee was John Knox, who resided in Geneva 
 at intervals between 1554 and 1559. He became 
 intimate with Calvin, and throughout life revered 
 him as a father. As the city opened its gates to the 
 distressed, so out of it again, in bands of Evangelical 
 labourers, trained by Calvin, and despatched to spread 
 the Gospel in neighbouring kingdoms, went forth a 
 renewing power on other countries. Specially did he 
 interest himself in the progress of the Church of 
 France, which, from a single congregation in 1556, 
 had, notwithstanding furious persecutions, increased by 
 1561 to 2150. Calvin had the satisfaction of seeing 
 this Church consolidated, and his polity set up in it in 
 an even purer form than at Geneva. He strongly 
 deprecated the religious wars, telling the leaders that 
 " if they wished to establish their rights by the sword, 
 they would prevent God from helping them." " One 
 single drop of blood," he said, " shed by you will over- 
 flow all France." l 
 
 One work on which Calvin had long set his heart 
 was the founding of an Academy in Geneva, which, 
 uniting the interest of letters with that of religion, 
 would make the city still further a centre of enlighten- 
 ment. This work, in 1559, he saw accomplished. A 
 1 milding was reared dedicated to learning ; Theodore 
 Beza was appointed Eector ; and provision was made 
 for instruction in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, philosophy, 
 and even law, in addition to divinity. This institute 
 gave new glory to Geneva. In the train of culture, 
 and pure moral living, came the arts. The city had 
 1 Quoted by Henry, vol. ii. p. 409. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 285 
 
 trials, but frugality and industry enabled it to sur- 
 mount these, and it steadily rose to influence. The 
 citizens, too, had learned to trust and honour the man 
 through whom this greatness had come to them — who, 
 to apply the boast of Augustus about Rome, had found 
 their city brick, and left it marble. In the midst of 
 all, Calvin was sometimes very poor. His expenses 
 were great, exercising hospitality, assisting refugees, 
 aiding churches abroad, relieving the necessitous at 
 home, and he had often little left for himself. " That 
 which made the strength of that heretic," said Pius 
 IV., after his death, " was that money was nothing to 
 him." 
 
 The time now approached that Calvin should lay down 
 the weapons of his earthly warfare. His body, the seat 
 of many disorders, some of them inflicting on him ex- 
 cruciating agony, was rapidly breaking up. For years, 
 Beza says, he took only one meal a day, and that a 
 very sparing one. Only his indomitable will carried 
 him through the multitudinous labours, from which, in 
 spite of exhausting physical weakness, he could not 
 be persuaded to desist. In 1558, he was prostrated by 
 the quartan-ague, and never afterwards was free from 
 pain. In his sorest anguish he was often heard to 
 murmur, "0 Lord, how long!" His last sermon was 
 preached on 6th February, 1564. The delivery of it 
 was interrupted by violent coughing and spitting of 
 blood. After this, he caused himself to be carried on 
 several occasions to Church, and on Easter 1 )ay partook 
 for the last time of the Sacrament, joining with 
 trembling voice in the concluding hymn, " Lord, let 
 thy servant depart in peace." On 27th March, he 
 was borne to the Council Chamber, and took an 
 
280 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 affectionate farewell of the members ; and a month 
 later, on 30 th April, he received a deputation from the 
 Council in his own chamber, and, solemnly addressing 
 them on their duties, bade them a yet more formal 
 adieu. Two days previously, he had summoned and 
 taken farewell of the ministers of the city. On 19th 
 May, when the ministers met in his house at a com- 
 mon meal, he had himself carried into the chamber 
 where they were, and ate a little food with them, but 
 he had to leave before the meal was concluded. The 
 few days that remained to him were spent almost 
 wholly in prayer. His form was so wasted that it 
 seemed as if only the spirit were left ; but his eyes, 
 witnesses tell us, burned with their old lustre till the 
 close. He had made his will in due form, and on 27th 
 May, peacefully breathed his last. Great was the mourn- 
 ing at Geneva, and intense the excitement which the 
 news of his death thrilled through the Christian world. 
 Professors, clergy, citizens, all classes of the population, 
 many of them in tears, followed his dust to its quiet 
 resting-place in the city church-yard. It was Calvin's 
 own wish that he should be buried without pomp, and 
 that no stone should be raised to his memory. The 
 exact spot where he sleeps is accordingly unknown. 1 
 
 The intellectual and moral qualities of the dis- 
 tinguished man who, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, 
 was thus called to his repose, will be sufficiently ap- 
 parent from the review we have given of the events of 
 his chequered career. Calvin's intellectual and moral 
 build is entirely different from Luther's. The contrast 
 of the two men is seen in their portraits — the one, 
 
 1 A small stone, marked with the simple letters " J.C.," has for 
 about twenty years marked the supposed place of his interment, 
 but the identification is conjectural. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 287 
 
 spare, neshless, thin and refined in feature ; the other, 
 sturdy, strong, masculine, almost coarse in face and 
 form. Calvin wants Luther's geniality, his rich, over- 
 flowing humour, his human many-sidedness. But he is 
 Luther's equal in unbending loyalty to conscience, and 
 in grandeur of intellect is incontestable his superior. 
 The three powers that appear in him in almost naked 
 severity are intellect, conscience, and will. To a mind 
 calm, lofty, and comprehensive in its views of truth ; 
 clear and logical in its processes of thought ; endowed 
 with singular penetration into men's characters and 
 motives ; and statesmanlike in its grasp of the complex 
 features of an involved situation, he united a strength 
 of moral conviction, a straightforwardness of aim, and 
 an inflexibility of purpose, which, whatever the sphere 
 of his action, made him a force in that sphere. Calvin 
 has been compared with the Apostle Paul in his early 
 struggles of conscience, his experiences of sin and grace, 
 and his soaring habit of contemplating all things in the 
 light of the Divine counsel. They may be compared 
 also in the purity of their motives and the singleness 
 of their aims. But, above all, Beformer and Apostle 
 are alike in the union they present of logical, argu- 
 mentative powers of mind, with intense fervour of 
 practical piety. Perhaps, after Paul, Calvin is the 
 greatest example of this union. 
 
 Calvin was not without faults. His disposition 
 tended to severity. He specially blames himself for 
 impetuosity of temper, and begs forgiveness of those 
 whom he may have wounded by harsh and uncharitable 
 expressions. Like every man of strong convictions 
 and decided will, he was apt to have little sympathy 
 with those who set themselves in opposition to his 
 
288 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 views and wishes. Upright in motive himself, he felt 
 only scorn for duplicity or meanness in others. When 
 roused, he could express himself with great vehemence. 
 His writings contain passages of keen sarcasm, of 
 biting, caustic wit. His character, as has been said, 
 had in it more of the Old Testament than of the !STew T , 
 reflected more the holiness than the love of God. 
 
 Yet Calvin was not cold. Those who speak of him 
 in this way have not gone far down into his inner life. 
 His letters show that beneath the reserved exterior, 
 there beat a warm, true, loving heart. His intimate 
 friends loved him as few men are loved. On the death 
 of his infant son he writes : — " The Lord has indeed 
 inflicted a grievous wound on us by the death of our 
 little son, and we feel it bitterly. But He is a Father, 
 and knows what is necessary for His children." When 
 his wife was removed from his side, he tells — " If I 
 had not exercised the whole force of my spirit to soften 
 my agony, I could not have borne it." " I do what I 
 can not to sink under the weight of this misfortune." 
 His spirit went on mellowing as years advanced. How 
 touchino- his sigh for rest on hearing of the death of 
 Melancthon — " Philip Melancthon, for I apjDeal to 
 thee who art now living in the bosom of God, where 
 thou waitest for us till we be gathered together with thee 
 to a holy rest ! A hundred times hast thou said, when, 
 wearied with labour and oppressed with sadness, thou 
 didst lay thyself familiarly on my breast, ' Would that 
 I could die on this breast ! ' Since then I have a 
 thousand times wished that it had been our lot to be 
 together." * 
 
 1 Henry, vols. i. pp. 265-7 ; ii. p. 296. • Tulloch, " Leaders of 
 the Reformation," p. 188. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 289 
 
 In truth, these letters of the Keformer, admitting us 
 to the inmost recesses of his soul, reveal to the reader 
 a very different man from the Calvin of traditional 
 opinion. Accused of pride, we find in these letters a 
 man of very humble heart ; accused of arrogance, we 
 find that the terms Calvin most constantly applies to 
 himself are shy, timid, bashful, pusillanimous ; accused 
 of tyranny, he was able to write — "How groundless 
 the slander is that I am a tyrannical ruler, I leave my 
 colleagues to judge, for they certainly have never com- 
 plained that they felt themselves oppressed by my 
 power; on the contrary, they frequently object to me 
 that I am too shy, and do not act freely enough when 
 there is need of the exercise of my authority, which all 
 regard as beneficial." 1 Stern where the honour of God 
 was involved, he was quick to forgive where the 
 injury was personal ; prone to anger, he was ready to 
 confess his fault, and ask pardon for it. Still, he 
 had not the genial, popular qualities of Luther ; his 
 manners were those of the well-bred gentleman, 
 grave and courtly, rather than those of the man of 
 the people ; his interests and work naturally with- 
 drew his affections from the ordinary channels, and 
 absorbed them in the good of the Church at large ; 
 so that it is not wonderful that those outside 
 his immediate circle admired him at a respectful 
 distance rather than regarded him with warm love. 
 This is not, however, the want of sympathy, but a 
 cosmopolitan sympathy swallowing up the personal 
 and local. 
 
 Calvin has been blamed for want of love of nature. 
 Nature's fairest scenes were stretched around him, yet 
 1 Henry, vol. i. p. 347. 
 
290 THE REFORMERS, 
 
 his letters take no more notice of them than if he had 
 lived in a desert. The same objection has been taken 
 to the letters of the Apostle Paul. Of both men it 
 may be said that with their hands full of the work they 
 had to do, they were not likely to get much time to 
 sestheticise. Yet passages might be quoted to show 
 that Calvin was far from insensible to the grandeur of 
 God's works in the natural world. "Whither could 
 men turn," he wrote, " without hearing vocal testimonies 
 to the existence and glory of the Great Architect in the 
 admirable mechanism of the universe, proclaiming all 
 around with loud and swelling voice the majesty of the 
 One Supreme. There were as many heralds of His 
 boundless glory as there were beings He had made, 
 and even those creatures which were dumb had in this 
 respect a tongue for man. The birds in their warblings 
 sang of God, and the lowing steers more loudly told of 
 Him, while the heavenly bodies moved on in silent 
 adoration ; the mountain resounded His praise, and 
 fountain and flood pointed to Him with their glance, 
 and every herb and flower seemed to woo man to His 
 maker." 1 Whatever may be said of the feeling for 
 natural beauty — which is a modern taste — Calvin does 
 not fall under the reproach of the man " that hath not 
 music in himself," and " is not moved with concord of 
 sweet sounds," for he had a genuine appreciation of 
 both poetry and music. He promoted a metrical version 
 of the Psalms, had appropriate tunes composed for 
 them, introduced congregational singing at Geneva, and 
 himself wrote a few pieces, including a hymn of praise 
 to Christ, which, says Schaff, " are worthy of Clement 
 
 1 Preface to Olivetan's New Testament, 1535. See also " Insti- 
 tutes," Book I., sect. 5. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 291 
 
 Marot, and reveal an unexpected vein of poetic fervour 
 and tenderness." 1 
 
 The Eeformer has been called narrow. But Calvin's 
 mind, whatever its defects, was not a narrow one. 
 While not free from the inevitable limitations of his 
 age, it was vast, capacious, comprehensive. It was not 
 narrow as despising culture. What could breathe a 
 juster spirit than the following remarks on heathen 
 wisdom — " It is granted by all that truth, of what 
 kind soever it is, is precious. But as the Deity is the 
 fountain of all that is good, you should think with 
 yourself that you incur the charge of deep ingratitude 
 if you do not welcome every portion of truth, in what- 
 ever channel it may come to you, as proceeding from 
 God, and receive it as if it were spoken to you by 
 a voice from heaven. For if it is criminal to despise 
 the gifts of God, to ascribe to men what properly be- 
 longs to God is flagrant impiety. Wherefore philosophy 
 is to be viewed as a rare gift from heaven, and those 
 wise men who have appeared in every age were raised 
 up by God to point the world to the knowledge of 
 truth." 2 It was not narrow as overridden by dogma. 
 This is shown by the Commentaries, which anticipate 
 the best modern works of their class in their freedom 
 from dogmatic prejudice, and honest desire to discover 
 the exact sense of Scripture. It was not narrow as 
 unable to stretch across wide gulphs and embrace men 
 of very different opinions. The Eeformer had a friend- 
 ship with Laslius Socinus, and wrote of Luther that 
 though the latter should call him a devil, he would 
 
 1 Creeds of Christendom, p. 440, and Guizot's St. Louis and 
 Calvin, p. 264. 
 
 2 Quoted by M'Crie, p. 23. 
 
202 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 still regard him as a chosen minister of God. Luther, 
 however, had a high respect for Calvin. Finally, it 
 was not narrow as stickling for trifles and accessories. 
 Himself favouring a particular form of government, he 
 freely recognized the advantages of other forms ; a 
 Presbyterian in Church polity, he was not hostile to 
 Episcopacy ; he withheld the Sacrament from the 
 Libertines, but he defended charity in judging of men's 
 characters, as against the narrowness of the Ana- 
 baptists ; he had his own opinion of holidays and 
 ceremonies, but he constantly held such things to be 
 indifferent ; the Lord's Day was strictly observed at 
 Geneva, but Calvin's views on the Sunday question are 
 what would be called broad. His austerity was not 
 such, that of an evening he could not unbend to a 
 quiet game with the Magistrates at the pastime of "the 
 Key," or permit himself the gentle exhilaration of the 
 bowling green. 
 
 Calvin's system is the reflection of his mind — severe, 
 grand, logical, daring in the heights to which it ascends, 
 yet humble in its constant reversion to Scripture as 
 its basis. Mounting to the throne of God, Calvin 
 reads everything in the light of the eternal Divine 
 decree. Man in his state of sin has lost his spiritual free- 
 dom, and the power to do anything truly good, though 
 Calvin freely admits the existence of natural virtue, 
 and attributes it to a working of Divine grace, even in 
 the unregenerate. God's providence is all-governing 
 and all-embracing, taking up into itself every act of 
 man, and every event, natural and spiritual. Every- 
 thing that happens is thus the bringing to light of part 
 of an eternal counsel. Whoever is brought into the 
 kingdom of salvation is brought there by a free act of 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 293 
 
 grace, and even the passing by of the unsaved, how- 
 ever mysterious, must be traced back to an origin in 
 the eternal Divine will. The will of God thus con- 
 tains in itself the ultimate reasons of all that is. It is 
 not an arbitrary, but a holy and good will, though the 
 reasons for what actually takes place in the government 
 of the world are to us inscrutable. We will not ask 
 how much in this grand scheme belongs to Paul, how 
 much to Augustine, how much to Calvin himself. It 
 contains great truths, but it may be questioned whether, 
 in carrying his theology to such heights, following 
 
 " Knowledge like a sinking star 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought," 1 
 
 Calvin has not placed these truths in a light which 
 seriously imperils the plain Scripture doctrine of the love 
 of God to humanity at large. A system, however, to 
 be criticised, must be understood, and many popular 
 objections apply, not to the theology of Calvin, but to 
 unintelligent caricatures of it, and have their origin in 
 failure to rise to Calvin's own point of view. The 
 difficulty in every doctrine of predestination is, how to 
 reconcile it with free-will and responsibility; but the 
 problem is as much a philosophical as a theological one. 
 Much depends on how we define freedom on the one hand, 
 and on how we connect predestination with the free act 
 on the other. The real knot of the difficulty lies farther 
 back— how a free act can even be foreknown. A free 
 act, in the sense of the objector, is one which springs 
 solely from the will of the creature ; it has no causes 
 beyond that will ; it rests with the agent alone to say 
 what it shall be. This raises the difficulty of sup- 
 posing it to be foreknown what an action shall be 
 1 Tennyson's Ulysses. 
 
294 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 before even the creature who is to determine what it 
 shall be has so much as been brought into existence. 
 On the other hand, granted unerring foreknowledge of 
 how the individual will act in any position in which 
 he may be placed, and it is not difficult to see that a 
 plan may be formed consistently with freedom, yet 
 shaping the course of the world's history down even to 
 its minutest details ; taking up free action into itself 
 as the means of realizing its purposes; and so giving 
 actuality to the free actions of men, otherwise regarded 
 as bare possibilities. One thing is certain, that neither 
 the materialist nor the idealist of our day can logically 
 take up the stone against Calvin. Not the school of 
 Huxley, Tyndall, Maudsley, or Galton, who deny free 
 agency from the physical side ; not the school of Mr. 
 Spencer or Mr. Bain, who are necessitarian on the 
 metaphysical side ; not even the Hegelian school, 
 which, with a higher aim, yet sees in all things the 
 working out of an eternal necessity. 
 
 We have not left ourselves space to speak as 
 we would have wished of the influence of Calvin. 
 His Church polity extended itself to may countries. 
 His system, passing like iron into the blood of the 
 nations which received it, raised up in the French 
 Huguenots, the English Puritans, the Scotch, the 
 Dutch, the New Englanders, brave, free, God-fearing 
 peoples. Abasing man before God, but exalting him 
 again in the consciousness of a new-born liberty in 
 Christ, teaching him his slavery through sin, yet 
 restoring to him his freedom through grace, leading 
 him to regard all things in the light of eternity, it 
 contributed to form a grave, but very noble and 
 elevated type of character, reared a race not afraid 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 295 
 
 to lift up the head before kings. Mr. Froude may 
 well ask " how it came to pass that if Calvinism is 
 indeed the hard and unreasonable creed which modern 
 enlightenment declares it to be, it has possessed such 
 singular attractions in past times for some of the 
 greatest men that ever lived; how — being, as we are 
 told, fatal to morality, because it denies free-will — 
 the first symptom of its operation, wherever it estab- 
 lished itself, was to obliterate the distinction between 
 sins and crimes, and to make the moral law the rule of 
 life for States as well as persons ; why, if it be a creed 
 of intellectual servitude, it was able to inspire and 
 sustain the bravest efforts ever made by man to break 
 the yoke of unjust authority." 1 Since Calvin's day, 
 the world has not stood still. Men's thoughts have 
 widened. Other forms of society have taken the place 
 of those with which he was familiar ; new questions 
 are agitating the Church ; infidelity has extended its 
 line, and is showing a different front. Scripture 
 itself is cast into the crucible, and is being tried by pro- 
 cesses the Eeformer would have shrunk from. Yet was 
 his battle essentially the same as ours — the battle with 
 moral disorder, the battle with Antichristian error, the 
 battle with Atheistic unbelief. His work will stand 
 the scrutiny of the ages. To the end it will be 
 testified of him — " He served his generation by the 
 will of God." 
 
 1 " Calvinism " in Short Studies, 2nd Series, p. 6. Mr. 
 Froude, however, is wrong in saying that Calvinism denies free- 
 will. See " Calvinism and the Doctrine of Philosophical Neces- 
 sity " in Cunningham's Reformers and the Theology of the 
 .Reformation, p. 471. 
 
ICoIlarbs n£ girdc- anfo other precursors a£ the 
 (Scottish JUformatton. 
 
 No picture of the Scottish Reformation can be com- 
 plete in which the three great figures — Hamilton, 
 Wishart, and Knox — are represented only as standing 
 out against the common background of the conventional 
 portrait-painter. History demands more. They must 
 be set in the midst of their times. The distance and 
 the middle-distance must be rubbed in with breadth 
 and boldness, so as to bring out the historical per- 
 spective of events. The salient features of the past 
 must be restored upon the canvas, so as to intensify the 
 interest which must necessarily be focused on the three 
 principal figures of the foreground. 
 
 Our duty is simply to sketch the background of 
 the historical picture, and to introduce into the middle 
 distance the few, though by no means unimportant, 
 Reformers who assisted in preparing the times for the 
 Reformation. Others will paint in the three great 
 figures who lived in " the fulness of the time " and 
 stamped it with their personality. 
 
 The Reformers of whom we treat appeared for the 
 most part in the fifteenth century. That century, 
 however, was the resultant of forces long in opera- 
 tion, and can only be understood by tracing these 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 297 
 
 forces to their origin. The history of the Scottish 
 Church dates back at least a thousand years from the 
 Eeformation, and is divided almost equally into two 
 epochs — the Columban and the Eoman. From the 
 sixth till the sixteenth century, from Columba to 
 Knox, there is a historical development which neces- 
 sitates at least a brief reference to the remoter and 
 nearer past. 
 
 Let us look for a moment to the sixth century. 
 In 563, when Columba set his foot on the shore of 
 lona, the dawn broke over Scotland, and the Scottish 
 Church may be said to have been born. Against the 
 horizon only a few figures are discernible other than 
 by name ; and even these few seem for the most part 
 only like " men as trees, walking." They are majestic 
 and real, however, in spite of the mist of tradition in 
 which they move. We see Columba austere and ener- 
 getic, as visionary as a crusader, but as practical as 
 a politician — a preacher and organizer, busy, ubiquitous, 
 full of that contagious enthusiasm which made his 
 numerous monasteries brilliant light-centres that smote 
 the darkness of the age ; St. Mungo, Columba's con- 
 temporary, sweetening the rude life of Pict and Briton 
 with the amiability of his own character ; St. Aidan, 
 of Lindisfarne, redeeming the fortunes of Northumbria ; 
 and St. Cuthbert, the gentle-hearted Prior of Melrose, 
 the Chrysostom of the early Scottish Church, preaching 
 to the rude chieftains and the cheerless peasantry of 
 the Cheviots. The lives of these early saints cover a 
 memorable century, the golden age of the Church. As 
 yet the Church was poor and pious, fired with the un- 
 selfish zeal of youth. The Bible was venerated and 
 put to use. The monks were missionaries, whose 
 
298 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 spirituality was not yet crushed out by machinery nor 
 emasculated by luxury. The influence of that age 
 never wholly died out. Columba reappeared in John 
 Knox. 
 
 " Every, beginning is cheerful ; the threshold is the 
 place of expectation." The golden age of the early 
 saints soon degenerated into brass. The expectation 
 perished almost at the threshold of the new era. The 
 next four hundred years, during which the Culdee 
 Church feebly existed, are almost a historical blank. 
 The monasteries became religious only in name. The 
 ashes of young enthusiasm lay cold upon the altars. 
 The offices of the Church became hereditary, and the 
 wives and children of the priests claimed a share in 
 the offerings made to God, whilst the abbots not in- 
 frequently were laymen who plundered the endowments 
 of the monasteries. 1 Eeform soon became imperative. 
 
 In the middle of the eleventh century a brilliant 
 though superficial reformation was inaugurated. But 
 in the very effort to reform, the seeds of a worse de- 
 formation were sown. It is here we find the nearer 
 beginning of the evils that called for the thorough, 
 radical, evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 If Ireland gave us Columba, England gave us Mar- 
 garet, In 1066 she sailed up the Eorth an exile, but 
 remained a queen and a conqueror. The influence of 
 Margaret can scarcely be overestimated. Like Columba, 
 she introduced a century of brilliant reform, which may 
 be said to have culminated in the reign of her son, the 
 " Sair Sanct," David I. During that century Teutonic 
 and Norman influences did much to civilize the wild 
 1 Laing's Liiidores Abbey, p. 30. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 299 
 
 Celt and to develop both his individuality and his patriot- 
 ism. With the south wind there appeared signs of re- 
 turning spring. The old Culdee Church was peaceably 
 supplanted by the Eoman. That of England was taken 
 as the model for the Scottish reconstruction. The 
 Culdee monasteries were restored and gradually filled 
 with monks, native and foreign. The various orders 
 were imported according to the fashion of the day. The 
 rudimentary parochial system of the Culdees was per- 
 fected, and parochial clergy were stationed over the 
 country. New bishoprics were founded. Cathedrals, 
 abbeys, and monastic houses beautified the wild land- 
 scape. It was an age of crusades, of beautiful fanati- 
 cism and visionary romance, effectual in this at least, 
 that men's purses opened wide as their hearts, and un- 
 told treasures were poured, not without great and in- 
 creasing injury, into the monasteries and other ecclesi- 
 astical foundations. 
 
 Although Margaret's Eeformation was not the best, it 
 was the best possible. The times were not ready for 
 radical remedies and internal upheavals. The revival 
 of learning, printing, maritime discovery, and democracy 
 had to appear before a radical doctrinal reformation 
 could be attempted with the hope of success. Mean- 
 while the reconstruction offered a temporary remedy to 
 many of the national grievances. Vast tracts of soil 
 were brought under monastic government. The pea- 
 sants, who had been alternately plunderers and 
 plundered, could till the ecclesiastical lands with 
 security and in peace. Agriculture was encouraged, 
 and the fields around the monasteries were browned by 
 the plough rather than reddened by battle. " Eepose 
 was the one thing most wanted, and the people found 
 
300 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 it under the protection of the crosier." x Learning, too, 
 was fostered, and men who, many of them, loved the 
 pagan classic lore more than their Bibles, were content 
 to tolerate the grossest superstitions in order to secure 
 an asylum for study not elsewhere to be found. 2 Yet 
 the Eeformation of Margaret and her sons was super- 
 ficial, spite of all its regal splendour. It was only a 
 reorganization of the effete Culdee Church. " The 
 Church had risen from its Culdee tomb with more 
 than Columban vigour." 3 There was " more than 
 Columban vigour," but it lacked Columban spirituality. 
 The Columban movement was essentially dynamical, 
 as Carlyle would term it. In the sixth century 
 religion " was spread abroad by the ' preaching of 
 the Word,' by simple, altogether natural and indi- 
 vidual efforts ; and flew, like hallowed fire, from 
 heart to heart." 4 In the eleventh and twelfth cen- 
 turies the Reformation was mechanical, external, 
 superficially splendid. The Church got a new suit 
 of costly armour, but she eventually fell beneath its 
 resplendent weight. 
 
 When James Eesby, the protomartyr of Scotland, 
 ventured across the Border into our country at the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, he found the people 
 labouring under political and ecclesiastical oppression. 
 Scotland was just recovering, under the House of 
 Stuart, from the effects of its long struggle for inde- 
 pendence. Wallace and Bruce had bought our 
 nationality at an immense price. It took a long 
 
 1 Cosmo limes, quoted in Laing's Lindores Abbey, p. 32. 
 
 2 Pinkerton's History, vol. i. bk. v. 
 
 3 Eoss's Scottish History and Literature, p. 39. 
 
 4 Carlyle's Signs of the Times. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 301 
 
 time to liquidate the account. But even after our 
 nationality was won against the English it had to 
 be preserved against the barons, whose power soon 
 increased to a dangerous enormity. The people felt 
 
 " The anger, na the wretched doom 
 That is coupled to foul thraldom." x 
 
 Froissart, 2 who visited Scotland about ten years before 
 Eesby, shudders at the penury and barbarity of 
 the country. The handicrafts were so little known 
 that the Scots could not make a horse-shoe nor a 
 saddle. Nor did the Church do much to alleviate the 
 people's thraldom. Europe was scandalized by the 
 exasperating intrigues and shameless vices of a long- 
 series of Popes. When the fifteenth century opened 
 two rival successors of Peter — a Eoman and a French 
 — were entertaining the Christian world with their 
 conflicting claims and their reciprocal anathemas. A 
 locust-plague of monks infested Europe. Scotland, too, 
 was visited and eaten up. Indulgences for sins committed, 
 and for sins contemplated, were hawked about by the 
 friars and sold to the highest bidder. Eepentance was 
 not requisite. The Pope was needy, his emissaries 
 were willing, and the consciences of the people de- 
 manded the only relief which money could buy. Nor 
 is it surprising that in such an age the grossest super- 
 stition should prevail. Even the sober, voluminous 
 Bower of Inchcolm devotes a chapter to a miracle 
 wrought by the mass. Through having previously cele- 
 brated the mass, three of his brother monks were 
 saved from shipwreck in a storm which overtook them 
 in Aberdour Bay when returning from the shore with a 
 
 1 Barbour's Bruce. 
 
 2 Pinkerton's History, vol. i. p. 148. 
 
302 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 comfortable cargo of barrels of beer. 1 Eelics were vended 
 at the market-places. Bands of pilgrims set out to Whit- 
 horn marching to the bagpipes, the wild music of which 
 was varied by the most wanton songs. 2 Salvation was 
 bought and sold. But the price was works — money, 
 pilgrimages, adoration of relics, and almost every form 
 of self-redemption. Faith and grace were unknown 
 terms. Christ — the Christ of the Bible — had become 
 stranger to priest and people " and he could there do 
 no more mighty work." 
 
 James Besby was only the local exponent of a move- 
 ment which soon became European. The Councils at 
 Pisa, Constance, and Basle had failed in their attempts 
 at mechanical reform. The correction of abuses would 
 no longer suffice. What was wanted was not new 
 machinery but new motive power. The appear- 
 ance of Wyclif on the scene was epoch-making. He 
 was not the first, but the first great, Beformer. Two 
 things characterized his efforts. He attacked doctrinal 
 error and appealed to the common people. 3 This he 
 did by emphasizing the need of faith and by translat- 
 ing the Bible into the people's language. Wyclif died 
 in 1384. "Inspiration/' says Alexander Smith, "not 
 unfrequently has travelled, like summer, from south 
 northward." The breath of reform blew gently over 
 Scotland and gave it the first quickening of hopeful 
 spring 
 
 It was probably about six years after Wyclif 's death 
 when James Besby came to Scotland. In the year 
 1400, Henry IV., son of that Duke of Lancaster 
 
 1 Scotichronicon a Goodall, lib. xv. cap. xxxviii. 
 
 2 Pict. Hist. Scot., vol. i. p. 275. 
 
 3 Kurtz, Church Hist., vol. i. p. 476. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 303 
 
 who had so often befriended Wyclif, bought the 
 favour of the Church by renouncing his father's 
 policy and polluting the English statute-book for 
 the first time with an Act " De Haeretico Com- 
 burendo." Eesby, who was probably one of Wyclif's 
 " Poor Priests/' may have come north to escape 
 persecution ; but he remained to preach the Gospel 
 and suffer for it. Little is known of this protomartyr 
 save what is found in Walter Bower's continuation 
 of Fordoun's Scotichronicon. " Tradition tells us that 
 Eesby was extremely tall, spare, of commanding aspect, 
 and with an eye which burned with earnestness and 
 enthusiasm." 1 But Bower is so overcome with the 
 horror of heresy that he does not even give us a side- 
 glimpse of the noble heretic's personality. That he was 
 not an unlettered man is, however, evident. His writ- 
 ings were long cherished during these dark times in 
 many a Scottish home, " at the instigation of the 
 devil," says the orthodox Bower, who adds with 
 pathetic naivete, that to these Lollards " stolen waters 
 are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." 
 
 But Besby's power was in his preaching. At last 
 a dynamic force was at work. The Word of God 
 was brought out of the dull, damp monasteries, and 
 carried over the breezy Scottish heather to speak in 
 the rucle vernacular in the turf-huts of the people. 
 Eesby made his appearance at a favourable time. 
 England and Scotland were at peace. The Border 
 was quiet. The peasant had laid down his well-used 
 sword and battle-axe, and was ready to listen. When 
 we picture in our imagination the tall, spare priest 
 
 2 Laing's Lindores Abbey, p. 104. The source of the tradition 
 is not indicated. 
 
304 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 in russet gown and with bare feet, gathering the 
 crowds around him in the fields of Kyle or in the 
 little burghs of Perth or Fife, exposing the festering 
 sores of the Church, the wounded Body of Christ, and 
 pouring into them the forgotten balm of the Gospel, 
 we can understand how Eesby merited the sneering 
 commendation of the chronicler, " for his preaching 
 he enjoyed a very high repute among the simple." It 
 was a new thing in Scotland to appeal to the people 
 as the Church of Christ. Hitherto the clergy were 
 the Church. The people were only the source whence 
 the priesthood derived its wealth. The shepherds pas- 
 tured the sheep for the sake of the wool. When reform 
 was attempted, the voice of the people was not heard. 
 Deputations to Koine, a change of order of monks, an 
 episcopal remonstrance, were the extremest measures 
 adopted. But Besby, like Wyclif, appealed to the 
 people and preached the radical doctrine of salvation 
 by grace, and thus became the first precursor of the 
 Beformation of John Knox. 
 
 Had James Besby only thundered against the clergy 
 the minor charges of simony, laziness, and uncleanness, 
 he might have passed through Scotland unnoticed. 
 These were small matters. But when he ventured 
 upon doctrinal reform, he had touched the Ark of the 
 Covenant, and must die. Besby was heard by the 
 common people gladly. " Enough for the disciple to 
 be as his Master." The old history was repeated 
 in miniature. The chief priests and Bharisees held a 
 council and said among themselves, " Berceive ye how 
 ye prevail nothing ? Behold, the world is gone after 
 him ! " Lawrence of Lindores, " a most solid and 
 famous ecclesiastic, especially blessed for the sanctity 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 305 
 
 of his life/' 1 played the role of Caiaphas and counselled 
 death. "The Inquisitor of Heretical depravity," as 
 Lawrence was called, found a willing coadjutor in the 
 Duke of Albany, who acted then as Eegent during the 
 exile of young King James I. Much less could a 
 Regent than a hereditary king dispense with the favour 
 of the Church when he found himself surrounded by 
 a host of " Butcher-Barons." Arundel's coronation- 
 whisper to Henry IV. seems to have reached Albany's 
 ear — " To consolidate your throne, conciliate the clergy 
 and sacrifice the Lollards." Perhaps instinct taught 
 Albany what Arundel learned by experience. Albany, 
 at least, was not unwilling to make the purchase 
 at any price — even the life of an English " Poor 
 Priest." Lindores, whose sympathies went with France 
 rather than with England,' 2 and who feared the new 
 dangerous light of Wyclif that had sent this stray 
 flash piercing through the Scottish darkness, was will- 
 ing to negotiate. James Eesby escaped the fires of 
 Smithfield, which Archbishop Arundel fed so assidu- 
 ously with English Lollards, but he met a like fate 
 in the land of his exile. Being consigned, along with 
 his writings, to the flames at Perth in the year 140 7, 3 
 he attained the proud distinction of dying as Scotland's 
 first martyr for the cause of Christ. 
 
 Lawrence's refutation of Eesby affords an interesting- 
 glimpse into the theology and logic of the age. Eesby 
 
 1 Scotichronicon, lib. xv. cap. xx. 
 
 2 Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 282. 
 
 3 The date is uncertain. The Scotichronicon reads — " Eodem 
 
 anno die combustus est Jacobus Eesby," etc. The same 
 
 year may refer to 1406 or 1407, cited at the close of the pre- 
 ceding chapter. Spotiswood gives 1407. 
 
 u 
 
306 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was accused of forty heretical conclusions, against which 
 Lawrence of Lindores tried his dialectic skill. If the 
 patient, prosy monk of Inchcolm has faithfully reported 
 Lawrence's refutations in the two folio pages devoted 
 to that purpose, they reveal a wonderful zeal without 
 knowledge. The only two heretical tenets cited are 
 these — " That the Pope is not dc facto the Vicar of 
 Christ," and " that no one can be Pope or Vicar of 
 Christ unless he be holy," — two theses which gained 
 pungency from the Papal scandals of Eesby's times. 
 The refutation begins with a pathetic remark upon 
 the hopelessness of the heretic. " They who are im- 
 bued with and rooted in the teaching of this most 
 pernicious doctrine seldom or never reach the unity 
 of the faith. Earely also, or never, do I remember 
 to have seen such fall asleep in the Lord in a Christian 
 manner." The Lollards are then described in a series 
 of curious pictorial epithets, which Lawrence or Bower 
 seems to have mistaken for arguments. AVe can only 
 give a few. They are, "Gog and Magog," "worshippers 
 of Antichrist," " dragons," " the seed of Canaan," 
 " wicked, lying, inveterate children, wavering from the 
 paths of the law." The epithets being exhausted, the 
 artillery of Scripture and of the saints is made to 
 do duty. Lawrence, however, was more telling in epi- 
 thet than in quotation. One almost fancies he sees a 
 smile pass over the face of the tall, pale heretic as 
 he hears such fatal verses as these made to do 
 service in Eesby's condemnation — " So I sware in my 
 wrath they shall not enter into my rest." " I know 
 thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot ; I would 
 thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art 
 lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 307 
 
 out of my mouth." " In the latter times, some shall 
 depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits 
 and doctrines of devils." The Inquisitor then, by 
 describing a series of logical circles, in which we can- 
 not hope to follow him, proves to his own satisfaction, 
 and evidently to that of the Council, that the Pope is 
 the Vicar of Christ ; and closes triumphantly with a 
 quotation from the Eevelations of St. Bridget, the 
 Eoyal Swedish Nun, which are warranted to confute 
 the Lollards and all such. We should like to 
 have heard something of James Eesby's reply. But 
 the chronicler is silent. Who was Eesby in com- 
 parison with the mighty Lawrence that his words 
 should be chronicled ? We suspect that the only 
 argument which told effectually was that to which the 
 others offered only an ingenious pretext — the argument 
 of the fire at Perth. 
 
 The cause of evangelical truth suffered little by 
 this first martyrdom. The Scottish peasantry had 
 tasted the new wine, and, spite of all the specious 
 attempts to demonstrate that the old was better, an 
 indestructible remnant of the people held to their 
 conviction. The enemies of the new heresy them- 
 selves did much to prepare the soil for the detested 
 seed. Henry Wardlaw, Bishop of St. Andrews, upon 
 whose memory, otherwise blameless, the death of 
 Eesby, says Spotiswoocl, "lieth heavily," has the un- 
 dying honour of founding the first university in Scot- 
 land. He had studied at Oxford, where Baliol College 
 had been founded about a hundred and fifty years 
 before this time. Three years after Eesby's martyrdom, 
 he provided lectures at St. Andrews on various subjects 
 for the Scottish youth — a venture which received the 
 
308 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Papal confirmation in 1413 amidst great rejoicings. 1 
 Nor is Lawrence of Lindores without a merited meed 
 of praise. He helped the Eeformation in other ways 
 than by martyr-making. He encouraged that genuine 
 love of learning which is the iconoclast of all priestly 
 superstition. That "great theologian and man of 
 venerable life," 2 being the first to assist Wardlaw in 
 his memorable undertaking, like a faithful "inquisitor 
 of heretical depravity," lectured upon Peter Lombard's 
 " Sentences," which formed, during the close of the 
 middle ages, the supreme standard of orthodoxy. 
 Lawrence's zeal for orthodoxy seems, however, not to 
 have entirely accomplished its end. Lollardism had 
 evidently become a popular phase of belief. In 1416, 
 rumours of the great Bohemian movement being abroad 
 in the land, his hand is seen at work in the records 
 of the new university enacting that all Masters of 
 Arts should swear the following : — " You shall defend 
 the Church against the assaults of the Lollards, and, 
 according to your ability, shall resist all those who 
 adhere to that sect." 3 
 
 But the movement indicated by this oath was not 
 confined to the East. Outside the university and in 
 the West of Scotland, where Lawrence's influence could 
 scarcely be felt, Lollardism was agitating the mind 
 of the people. It seems to have become necessary in 
 these quarters to make another public example of the 
 detested sect. A heretic, whose name even is unre- 
 corded in the martyr-roll of our country, and of whom 
 absolutely nothing but his death is known, was com- 
 
 1 Scoticlironicon, lib. xv. cap. xxii. 
 
 2 Idem. 
 
 3 Knox's Hist, of the Eeformation, Ed. Laing, append, vol. ii. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 309 
 
 mitted to the flames at Glasgow in 1422. 1 Two years 
 after this event, which is the only indication of the 
 progress of the new opinions in the West, James I. 
 returned from his long exile, and a new era began in 
 the history of Scotland. 
 
 It has been well said by one of the old historians 2 
 that " James was one of the worthiest of all the Kings 
 of Scotland till his Times. Of the former Kings it 
 might have been said the Nation made them Kings, but 
 this King made that People a Nation." The thirteen 
 years of his active reign fill one of the brightest pages 
 in Scottish history. He was a man of Protean accom- 
 plishments — statesman, philosopher, musician, linguist, 
 poet — "much obliged to the gifts of nature." He left 
 an impression upon Scotland which neither the minor- 
 ities of future sovereigns nor the baronial feuds 
 ever wholly extinguished. James had a great work 
 before him, and he set about it with more than 
 royal earnestness. Whether to begin with Church 
 or State must have been the question that presented 
 itself to such a king. There was little to choose 
 between them. The one was as corrupt as the other. 
 The barons, however, were politically the more 
 troublesome. During his exile they had risen into 
 dangerous power ; but during his exile he had by his 
 character and education accumulated a force that would 
 hold them in check at least during his lifetime. To 
 reform the State became the object of James, and for 
 that purpose he had to become the patron of the Church. 
 But he did more good by elevating the material condi- 
 tion of the people than he would have done by reform- 
 
 1 Laing's Edition of Knox, vol. i. p. 5. 
 
 2 Drummond of Hawthornden. 
 
.310 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 ing the corruption of the clergy. He did for democracy 
 what Wardlaw and Lawrence had done for learning-. 
 The state of civilization which he found on his arrival 
 in Scotland was deplorable. Scotland was far behind 
 the land of his fortunate exile. Enea Silvio, who became 
 afterwards Pious II., gives an interesting glimpse into 
 the domestic history of the land. " The towns are 
 unwalled," he writes, " the houses commonly built with- 
 out lime, and in villages roofed with turf, while a cow's 
 hide supplies the place of a door. The commonalty are 
 poor and uneducated, have abundance of flesh and fish, 
 but eat bread as a dainty." 1 Sorners, beggars, fools, and 
 jesters vied with the friars in amusing and plundering 
 the people. " Everywhere we behold a barbarous scorn of 
 law, savaQ-e insolence, sanguinary feuds, and cruel tra2,e- 
 dies." 2 James ventured to crush these evils. He encour- 
 aged honest labour by laying a strong hand upon the beg- 
 gar. He attempted to make property more secure. The 
 statute-books were rapidly filled with laws, which, had it 
 been possible to enforce them, would have prevented a 
 hundred years of fruitless national struggle. 
 
 But James was more than an iron-handed legislator. 
 He loved and encouraged good society ; and his queen, 
 so romantically wooed and won, " turned new-fangle the 
 Court " with English fashions and the foibles of the 
 day. Even the Church began to rebuke the king. The 
 good Henry Wardlaw and " the severer sort of the clergy 
 began to carp," and forbade furs and ermine, gold and 
 silver lace, pearls, jesters and buffoons. 3 But we may 
 still follow the King in his lighter moods, and enjoy his 
 
 1 Quoted in Pinkerton's Hist. Scot., vol. i. book v. 
 
 2 Ross's History and Literature of Scotland, p. 110. 
 
 3 Drummond of Hawtlioriiden, Hist, of James I. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 311 
 
 homely, humane interest in the common people of his 
 day. We can accompany him in his journeys amongst 
 the simple folk, and can see him laugh at their follies, 
 and take notes of their rollicking amusements. We 
 can go with the royal poet to " Peblis to the play," and 
 admire " the wenches of the West," with their curches 
 and hoods and tippets ; and the men of Tweeddale, with 
 " birken hats " on their heads, dancing to the shrill 
 music of the bagpipe. We meet on the road the typical 
 fish-cadger and his wife, with their creels and their 
 "great grey mare"; or we can go with them to "Christ's 
 Kirk on the Green," the antitype of Burns' Holy Fair, 
 and learn more of the flesh and blood of the history of 
 his reign than we will find in all the learned chronicles. 
 There we see the priest-ridden, baron-ridden peasantry 
 enjoying themselves in their own rude fashion. We 
 meet Tarn Lutar the minstrel, and Eobin Boy, and the 
 " hasty hensure " * Harry, and Lowry the arrowmaker, 
 and the town soutar with " full gowden " hair, and the 
 miller " of manly mak'," and the sturdy herdsmen of 
 the Cheviots. 2 We cannot but rejoice in their wild 
 horse-play. The indomitable spirit of the Scotchman 
 was not to be crushed out by adversity. Here are the 
 men who made history, or helped to make it — if history 
 be more than a game at backgammon between kings 
 and nobility. 
 
 But James had no favour, or at least showed none, 
 for the new light. He had seen the rosy dawn of 
 letters in England, but he was blind to the parallel 
 
 1 Giddy fellow. 
 
 2 In the text we have accepted the tradition which ascribes to 
 the author of the King's Quhair the minor poems referred to, 
 though their authorship is disputed. 
 
312 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 awakening in religion. He introduced Chaucer to his 
 countrymen, but not Wyclif. His training under 
 Henry IV. and Henry V., whose statecraft he made 
 the model of his own, was fatal to the Lollard 
 cause. The English kings had adopted a policy of 
 extermination, and James found it easy and politic to do 
 likewise. Accordingly in his first Parliament, in 1424, 
 seventeen years after Kesby's martyrdom, a law was 
 passed "Anentis Heretikis and Lollardis," to the effect 
 that every bishop, wherever any heretics be found, 
 should cause inquiry to be made by the inquisition of 
 heresy, and that the heretics be punished as the law of 
 the Holy Kirk requires ; and, if necessary, that the 
 secular power be called in for the support and help of 
 the Holy Kirk. 1 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, that James was 
 wholly blind to the evils of the Church, which policy, 
 if not inclination, induced him to conciliate. He was 
 too keen-sighted to imagine that the State could be 
 healthy when the Church was corrupt. Bower 2 has 
 preserved a characteristic letter of the King to the 
 Benedictine and Augustinian monks, in which the King 
 uses " great plainness of speech." He complains of the 
 " rapid decay and threatening ruin of holy religion," 
 which, he says, is daily degenerating from its ancient 
 foundation, and feels constrained to arouse somewhat 
 sharply their " torpid minds," and to awaken them out 
 of the " sloth of their drowsiness," that they might live 
 more consistently with their profession. In order to 
 set before the other Orders in Scotland an example 
 
 1 Acta Pari. Scotire, vol. ii. p. 7 Quoted in Laing's Appendix 
 to Knox. Cf. Tytler, vol. iii. p. 231. 
 
 2 Scotichronicon a Goodall, lib. xvi. cap. xxxii. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 313 
 
 in preciseness of living, he introduced the Carthusian 
 monks, for whom he built and endowed a beautiful 
 monastery at Perth. 1 
 
 But a fresh impulse was given to evangelical reform 
 by the appearance in Scotland of another martyr — 
 Paul Crawar. Little is known of the personal history 
 of this adventurous Reformer, save that he was a 
 Bohemian and a physician. Our imagination, how- 
 ever, can without historical anachronism picture him as 
 a boy listening in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague to 
 John Hits, of "pale and meagre countenance," 2 whilst 
 the pious orator preached the old Gospel which was new 
 to Prague, both to its priests and its people, or as a 
 youth catching a holy zeal for Christ from the martyr- 
 pile of the same dauntless Reformer. At any rate he 
 had drunk the new wine of Bohemia, and, driven 
 thence by persecution or by the impulse to head a 
 new movement in Scotland, he had set himself to 
 evangelize our country. 
 
 It is not known when Paul Crawar came to Scot- 
 land. In 1433, however, a new zeal for orthodoxy had 
 sprung up in the Church. Columba Dunbar, Bishop 
 of Moray, and John Cameron, 8 Bishop of Glasgow, had 
 been sent to Basle as delegates from the Scottish 
 Church to the Council held there that year. One of 
 the exciting questions of the Council was that of the 
 Hussite doctrine. The four Calixtine Articles — the 
 Eucharist under both forms, the free preaching of the 
 Gospel in the vernacular, strict discipline among the 
 
 1 Spotiswood's Hist., p. 57 (ed. 1655). 
 
 2 Mosheim. 
 
 3 Vid. Dr. Gordon's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 499, and Tytler 
 Hist. Scot, vol. iii. p. 286. 
 
314 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 clergy, and that the clergy should not possess secular 
 property — were discussed for fifty days, and at 
 last nominally conceded to be afterwards ignored. 1 
 The Taborites, another sect of the Hussites, stood 
 out against this temporizing policy of the Calix- 
 tines and argued for a thorough and Scriptural 
 reform. Feeling ran high, and we may justly suppose 
 that the Scottish bishops caught the contagion of the 
 persecuting policy and brought it home. It was not 
 difficult for them to induce the doughty Lawrence of 
 Lindores, " inquisitor of heretical depravity," to buckle 
 on his armour once again for the fray, and all the less 
 difficult when it was known that the Scottish move- 
 ment was being headed by one of these turbulent 
 Hussite Bohemians, 2 Paul Crawar, the heretical 
 physician. 
 
 We may tell the story of the only day of the 
 martyr's life of which anything is known in the quaint 
 vernacular of Bellenden's translation of Hector Boece. 
 " Nocht lang efter was tane in Sanct Androis ane man 
 of Beum namit Paule Craw, precheand new and vane 
 superstitionis to the pepyl, specially aganis the sacra- 
 ment of the alter, veneration of Sanctis, and confession 
 to be maid to Priestis. At last he was brocht afore 
 the Theologis, and al his opinionis condampnit. And 
 because he perseuerit obstinatly to the end of his pley, 
 he was condampnit and brint. He confessit afore his 
 death that he was send out of Beum to preiche to 
 Scottis the heresyis of Hus and Wiccleif. The King 
 
 1 Kurtz, vol. i. p. 488. Cf. Scotichronicon a Goodall, lib. xvi. 
 cap. xx. 
 
 2 " Qui nunc in maleficiis murium praevalebant." Scotichr., 
 lib. xvi. cap. xx. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 315 
 
 commendit mekyl this punition." Y A few suggestive 
 touches may be added to this narrative of the scholarly 
 Principal of Aberdeen from the earliest record of the 
 event — that of Bower. The very title of the chapter 
 in the Scotichronicon which records the martyr's death 
 is indicative in itself of the prominent part which 
 (Jrawar has played in Scottish religious history. Eesby 
 was entitled a heretic, Crawar an " arch-heretic." 2 
 Besby was said to be held in high repute for his 
 preaching by the simple. Crawar is recognized as a 
 man of learning worthy of Lawrence's steel, " prompt 
 and practised ln sacred letters and in adducing the 
 Scriptures." He had come, it is added, with com- 
 mendatory letters from Prague to practise the art of 
 medicine, in which he excelled. But Lindores, "who," 
 says the admiring Bower, " never gave rest to the 
 heretics or Lollards within the kingdom," discovered 
 him and brought him to bay, and confuted him by 
 much invective and a bonfire in St. Andrews on the 
 23rd July, 1433. 
 
 To which of the Hussite sects Crawar belonged is 
 not certainly known. From the minute description 
 which Bower gives of the Taborites, we may imagine 
 that Crawar was a follower of that party which was led 
 by Procopius the Great. The Taborites were demo- 
 cratic. They had adopted the policy of no surrender, 
 and despised the Calixtines for their compromise with 
 the Church, which they considered rotten, root and 
 branch. At once the strength and weakness of the 
 sect was its severe spirituality which rejected forms 
 
 1 Laing's Knox, Append, ii. 
 
 2 "DeCombustione Pauli Crawar arch-haeretici, et deLolardis," 
 lib. xvi. cap. xx. 
 
316 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 and human aids of every kind. They threw off all 
 the fetters of rule and ordinance, cleared away images, 
 indulgences, relics, saint worship, pilgrimages ; advocated 
 the abolition of ecclesiastical possession of secular pro- 
 perty, and gave the people the sacrament in both kinds. 
 Bower, 1 whose vivid description argues that he had his 
 information from the records of an eye-witness — pro- 
 bably of one of the delegates to Basle — tells with 
 horror how Procopius, dressed in a long tunic with 
 sleeves, marched with his followers to celebrate the 
 mass without being furnished with the holy vestments, 
 the Epistles, or Gospels, or any of the usual adjuncts of 
 that occasion ; and how, after a stirring Dominican ora- 
 tion, he served the company of common people with 
 wine out of a common bowl and with common bread 
 cum magna quantitate. But the strength of the Taborites 
 was their weakness. They became visionary, and for- 
 got that the Church was still militant. They cleared the 
 deck and the hold of the ship not only of the ecclesias- 
 tical rubbish, but of the needed ballast and steering 
 gear and other necessary appliances ; and so in the 
 end out-puritaned the Puritans and "virtually con- 
 demned all the literature, education, offices, and law as 
 then existing." 2 To this democratic and radical sect 
 it is very probable that Paul Crawar belonged. Bower's 
 description of Procopius becomes significant only when 
 we apply it to the Bohemian Taborite in Scotland. 
 
 In what manner Paul Crawar was tried and con- 
 demned is not known. Knox, indeed (upon what 
 authority we do not know), gives one interesting and 
 graphic detail of the scene. It is said that the martyr 
 
 1 Scotichronicon, lib. xvi. cap. xx. 
 
 2 Kurtz, vol. i. p. 498. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 317 
 
 was delivered over to the secular judge by the Bishops, 
 who followed Pilate, " who both did condemn and also 
 wash his hands." " To declare themselves to be the 
 generation of Satan, who, from the beginning, hath 
 been enemy to the truth and he that desireth the same 
 to be hid from the knowledge of men, they put a ball 
 of brass in his mouth, to the end that he should not 
 give confession of his faith to the people, neither yet 
 that they should understand the defence which he had 
 against their unjust accusation and condemnation." * 
 In the Scotichronieon there are two folio pages of 
 allegorical abuse in which heaven and earth are almost 
 exhausted of all evil imagery by way of refutation. 
 We need only cull a few of the choice phrases. These 
 Lollards are " wolves in sheep's clothing," " foxes of 
 Samson," " a brood of vipers," " horned serpents," 
 " pigmies," " erratic stars moving against the motion 
 of the firmament," " hypocritical Pharisees," " Sad- 
 ducees," " Stoics and Epicureans," " clouds without 
 water," " walkers in the way of Cain and the errors of 
 Balaam," " horned owls," " sowers of the devil's seed," 
 " apostates from the faith," " shameless dog flies and 
 locusts with long spikes and winged locusts whose end 
 is the destruction of the fruit of the Church," 2 etc. 
 But enough. The chronicler might have enriched the 
 martyr ology of our country had he condescended to 
 write ten lines of plain history in lieu of these folio 
 pages of harmless vituperation. Yet there is historical 
 value even in all this invective. The chronicler im- 
 mortalizes the intellectual condition of his time. He 
 takes us into the monastery and lets us hear the 
 
 1 Laing's Knox, vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 2 Scotichronicon, lib. xvi. cap. xxi. xxii. 
 
318 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 monks speaking- of the new light that was breaking 
 so slowly and so intermittently over the land. We 
 hear their exclamations of horror, their hopeless 
 attempts at refutation by inappropriate texts and 
 garbled Scripture and uncharitable jargon, and we 
 understand somewhat whence the lire came that 
 kindled the martyr-pile at St. Andrews for the adven- 
 turous Bohemian. 
 
 The murder of James I. in 1437 was the greatest 
 national calamity of the century. The hopes of polit- 
 ical and social reform were suddenly crushed under the 
 feet of the assassins ; and, although the King's influ- 
 ence was never effaced from the annals of our country, 
 the evils of the minorities and the unpatriotic ambi- 
 tion of the nobles did much to hinder the progress of 
 civilization so happily begun. James II. was only six 
 years old at the death of his father. One needs only 
 glance over the mournful pages of Lindsay of Pit- 
 scottie's Chronicles to learn what a tragic calamity a 
 minority was to Scotland in these days. The wild 
 hunt for power began. Murder became the chief pas- 
 time of the nobles. Laws were haughtily despised. 
 The arm of State authority was paralysed. No regent 
 had sufficient power to enforce a law against a Douglas 
 or a Livingston. The brutality of the times is wit- 
 nessed, for instance, in the bloody encounter between 
 the Ogilvies and the Crawfords at Arbroath in 1445, 
 narrated in such tragic matter-of-fact detail by Pit- 
 scottie, who thereafter makes the naive remark, which 
 he more than justifies in the course of his history — 
 " Efter this thair followed nothing but slauchter in this 
 realme. In everie pairt ilk ane laid wait for otheris, 
 as they had been settand themselffis for slauchter of 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 319 
 
 wyld beastis." l The House of Douglas especially be- 
 came the scourge of Scotland, and we see how hope- 
 less the struggle for progress must have been when it 
 could be said of the most powerful noble of the realm, 
 " to theife and traytour he was ane sicker targe, and 
 be the contrair, ane plaine enemy to good men." 2 Nor 
 was this lawlessness confined to the minority of James 
 II. The battle of the kites and crows revived during 
 the minorities of the next three kino-s, and during the 
 majority of each was only varied, more or less, by the 
 monarch himself becoming a new party in the struggle. 
 Eespect for property had almost died out. Burning 
 became the fashionable revenge of the nobility. Within 
 a few years Stirling, Strathbogie, Forres, and Inver- 
 ness were laid waste by fire in the rude settle- 
 tlement of private feuds. The voice of justice was 
 smothered ; her arm, which was partially released by 
 James I., was again bound by the lawless nobility. 
 " Even so late as Mary's reign," says Pinkerton, " the 
 balance of justice was commonly used in weighing 
 which bribe was heaviest." How grievously these 
 calamities oppressed the commonalty and exhausted 
 the resources of the country may be seen from the old 
 chronicle at the end of Wyntoun. Against the year 
 1482 we find the following suggestive entry, which 
 gives the other side of the picture — how it fared with 
 the commons whilst the nobles were playing at knightly 
 murder: — "Thar was ane gret hungyr and deid in 
 Scotland, for the boll of meill was for four pounds; for 
 thar was blak cunye (coinage) in the realm, strikkin 
 and ordinyt be King James the Three! And 
 
 1 Pitscottie's Chronicles, vol. i. p. 55 (Ed. Edinburgh, 1814). 
 
 2 Idem, p. 68. 
 
320 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 als was gret wer (war) betwix Scotland and Ingland, 
 and gret distructioun throw the weris (wars) was of 
 corne and catell. And thai twa thyngs causyt bayth 
 hungar and derth, and niony pur folk deit of hungar." 1 
 
 Under such political and social conditions it is not 
 to be expected that the cause of religion could thrive. 
 The commonalty had not leisure to lead or be led in 
 any new religious movement. The priests had the 
 leisure but not the desire to advance the claims of 
 truth and righteousness in times which demanded 
 them both. So lazy became the habits, so base the 
 lives, so shameless the extortion of the rank and file of 
 the clergy, that the censure and excommunication of 
 the Church were despised by the common people, and 
 had to be enforced by the secular power. But its 
 enormous wealth was the Church's curse. The world 
 was too much with it. So vastly had its endowments 
 increased that its property was equal to that in the 
 hands of the whole laity. 2 But this princely affluence 
 exposed the Church to the intrigues of avarice, sacred 
 and secular. Its prizes were vehemently competed for 
 by the Pope and the King. Bishoprics had long been 
 sold to the highest bidder by the Pope, who would not 
 give his coveted bull for nothing. But in 1471 
 James III. enacted that it was treasonable to purchase 
 a benefice or other office at Pome, and gradually 
 assumed to himself the right of nomination to all 
 vacant offices in the Church. 
 
 The effect of this unwise legislation, which simply 
 transferred the evils of simony from the Tope to the 
 King, was to fill the parishes and the monasteries 
 
 1 Vide Pinkerton, vol. i. Append, xxi. 
 
 2 Pinkerton's Hist., vol. i. p. 414. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 321 
 
 with royal hirelings, who loved leisure and the larder 
 more than the cure of souls. When the recruits 
 among the clergy were enlisted from a nobility which 
 was as infamous in its crimes as notorious for its 
 ignorance, we must grant that the Church, when it 
 escaped the plunder of the Pope, suffered much at the 
 hands of the avaricious King. Many of the rich 
 livings were held by mere boys, some even by infants, 
 and not a few by men imbecile in mind. 1 The evils of 
 simony were felt even by the clergy themselves, who, 
 however, would rather have been fleeced by the Pope 
 than by the King, and find expression in the lines of a 
 poem of the times, The Three Priests of Peebles, in 
 which the royal simony is blamed for the loss of the 
 Church's spirituality — 
 
 For now on days, is neither rich nor poor 
 Shall get ane kirk, all through his literature . 
 For science, for virtue or for blood, 
 Gets nane the Kirk, but baith for gold and good. 
 Thus, great excellent King ! the holy Ghaist 
 Out of your men of good away is chast. . . . 
 Sic wickedness there is this world within, 
 That simony is counted now nae sin. 
 
 Between the martyrdom of Paul Crawar and the 
 trial of the Lollards of Kyle there elapsed a period of 
 sixty years. During that long period of baronial feuds, 
 ecclesiastical lethargy, and national adversity, the evan- 
 gelical reforming spirit was quiescent, if not quenched. 
 If there was a noble remnant left it was hidden. The 
 times were too insecure to admit of agitation in favour 
 of evangelical reform. Yet it must not be understood 
 that nothing was done to remedy the abuses of the 
 clergy. If the Church as a whole was corrupt, there 
 
 1 Vide Laing's Lindores Abbey, p. 111. 
 X 
 
322 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 were within its pale a few conspicuous exceptions, 
 whose probity, purity, and patriotism redeem it from 
 sweeping obloquy. 
 
 Lawrence of Linclores, even, " the inquisitor of heret- 
 ical depravity," was in his own way a reformer, and 
 stands out from the common priesthood with unstained 
 character, and disinterested, though misdirected zeal for 
 the welfare of the Church and the glory of God. One 
 would rather remember him gratefully as one of the 
 founders of the first university than for his martyr- 
 making. Bishop Henry Wardlaw, too, the first of 
 three successive Bishops of St. Andrews who attempted 
 to allay the worst symptoms, if not to cure the disease 
 of the Church, must not be forgotten in speaking of 
 the Church's internal reformers. Though so unhappily 
 associated with the death of Eesby and Crawar, he is 
 to be patriotically remembered as the founder of our 
 first university, who, by his learning, unselfish gener- 
 osity, and faithfulness to the duties of his distinguished 
 office, adorned for thirty-five years the ancient see of 
 St. Andrews, and did much to banish ignorance and 
 evil from the Church. 
 
 But Bishop James Kennedy stands without an equal 
 in Church or State during his times, and has left an 
 indelible impression upon both. During the reign of 
 James II., and part of the reign of James III., he stood 
 at the helm in the height of the storm — almost the 
 only man of his day for whom history has a word of 
 enthusiastic praise. As a Churchman he did not 
 attempt to destroy the germs of the Church's disease, 
 but he closed, at least for the time, her putrid sores. 
 Historians have only good to say of Kennedy. He re- 
 paired with some success the broken-down ecclesiastical 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 323 
 
 machinery, and set the Church somewhat in order. 
 Spotiswood says that " upon his translation to S. 
 Andrews he did put all things in such order as no man 
 then living did remember to have seen the Church in 
 so good an estate." 1 But we have to turn to the pages 
 of Pitscottie to know the nature of the good Bishop's 
 work. The historian's magnificent eulogy is invaluable 
 not only as a portrait of a noble historical figure, but, 
 by implication, as a suggestive picture of the average 
 clerical life of the times, to which Kennedy was at once 
 an exception and an exanrple. " This bischop Ken- 
 nedie was vondrous godlie and wyse, and was weill 
 learned in divine sciences, and practised the same to 
 the glorie of God, and weill of his Church ; for he 
 caused all persones and vicares to remaine at thair 
 paroche kirkis, for the instructions and eclifieing of thair 
 flock, and caused thame preach the Word of God to the 
 people, and visit thame that war seik ; and also the said 
 bischope visited every kirk within the diocie, four tymes 
 in the yeir, and preached to the said parochin him selfe 
 the word of God, and incjuyrecl of thame if they war 
 dewlie instructed be thair persone and viccar, and if the 
 poore war susteaned, and the youth brought vp, and 
 learned according to the ordour that was taine in the 
 kirk of God ; and quhair he found not this ordour 
 keipit, he maid great punischment, to the effect that 
 Godis glorie might shyne in his diocie ; leiving guid 
 example to all archbischopis and kirk men to caus the 
 patrimonie of God's word to be vsed to his awin glorie, 
 and to the commoun weill of the poore." 2 
 
 Bishop Kennedy died in 1466, having been Bishop 
 
 1 Spotiswood, p. 57. 
 
 2 Pitscottie' s Chronicles, vol. i. p. 170. 
 
324 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 of St. Andrews for twenty-two years. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his half-brother, Patrick Graham, who inher- 
 ited many of the qualities which distinguished Ken- 
 nedy. Patrick Graham may rank also among the 
 Reformers and, in certain respects, as a heretic and a 
 martyr. He suffered much by Kennedy's greatness. 
 Such a man as Kennedy, on account of his probity, 
 made many enemies among the nobles, and they, in the 
 fashion of the times, determined to avenge themselves 
 upon his kinsman Graham. Graham's appointment 
 as first Archbishop of St. Andrews was received with 
 much disfavour. It excited the spite of the bishops, 
 who refused to tolerate a superior whom they were not 
 prepared to imitate. " He came among them with the 
 odious commission of an Apostolic Nuncio, to extort a 
 tithe of their benefices for a war against the Turks. 
 In their indignation they taxed themselves in 12,000 
 marks, and, making common cause with the King and 
 the Court, precipitated a conflict which proved fatal to 
 Archbishop Patrick Graham." 1 Nor was the Papal 
 appointment acceptable to the common clergy, who be- 
 came alarmed at the well-known reforming propensities 
 of the new Archbishop. His commission from Piome 
 authorized him to reform the abuses in the Church 
 ami to correct the dissoluteness of the clergy. It was 
 not difficult for the clerical party to enlist the sympa- 
 thies of the nobles, who themselves had a. large interest 
 in the ecclesiastical maladministration. Graham's spirit 
 was foreign to the Church and the nobility. Few, if 
 any, desired reform. The abuses were too splendid 
 and profitable to be so lightly remedied. Graham was 
 accused of heresy, schism, and, among other things, of 
 1 Gordon's Seotichronicon, vol. i. p. 224. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 325 
 
 saying three masses in the day, " whereas in those times 
 it was difficile to find a Bishop that in three months 
 did say one mass." x The noble and pious Graham be- 
 came the subject of a tedious persecution. He was 
 stripped of his honours, imprisoned in various places, 
 and at last, his reason having given way, he died in 
 St. Serf's and was buried there, and with him passed 
 away a brilliant but abortive attempt at reform from 
 within the Church itself. Although these bishops can- 
 not be classed among the Evangelical Eeformers of our 
 country, no account of pre-Eeformation Eeformers could 
 be complete which ignored their noble services on be- 
 half of Church and State. 
 
 On the death of Patrick Graham the Church went 
 " daily from ill to worse." The few internal Eeformers 
 whom he represented retired hopelessly into private 
 life. But the leaven of reform began to work in 
 another sphere, outside the universities and the ecclesi- 
 astical circles — among the common people of the West, 
 who became known as the Lollards of Kyle. The fire 
 of Lollarclism had never been quite quenched ; but 
 how it suddenly burst into flame in 1494 remains still 
 a mystery. There was at this time no outstanding 
 movement in England nor on the Continent. In the 
 Low Countries John Euchrath and John Wessel, the 
 " lux mundi " so much admired by Luther, had been 
 advocating a reform which was mainly theological, 
 quiet and local. Savonarola had begun to illuminate 
 Florence with his bold enthusiastic oratory. But his 
 appearance was meteoric, strange, brilliant, evanescent. 
 None of the contemporaneous movements spread 
 beyond the localities in which they originated. The 
 1 Spotiswood, p. 59. 
 
326 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Kyle movement seems to have been indebted to no 
 foreign influence. One little incident, indeed, may be 
 supposed to throw a thin ray of light upon the subject. 
 About this time the study of the Bible in the verna- 
 cular in manuscript seems to have been not uncommon 
 in the Ayrshire district. This is evident from a letter 
 which was written sometime afterwards to James V. 
 by Alexander Alesius. 1 In that letter, in which it is 
 argued that the Scriptures should be read in families 
 at home, the pious example of John Campbell of Cess- 
 nock is cited. He, it is said, had a priest in his own 
 house who read to the family, to their great edifica- 
 tion, the New Testament in the vernacular. Being a 
 hospitable and tolerant gentleman he entertained the 
 monks to dinner and to after-dinner dissertations on 
 theology. But the monks, "passing by the eating- 
 table and the salt," reported to the bishop, and 
 Campbell and his lady were accused of heresy. 
 Campbell being a very modest man, and, like Moses, of 
 " uncircumcised lips," found a vigorous advocate in his 
 wife, who by appropriate Scripture and sound mother- 
 wit so successfully disposed of the monkish vagaries 
 that King James IV., before whose tribunal they were 
 summoned, "rising up, caressed the woman, and extolled 
 her diligence in Christian doctrine." To this custom 
 of reading the Scriptures, probably introduced long 
 before this time by followers of Wyclif, may be traced 
 the effort at reform made by the Lollards of Kyle. 
 The Kyle movement was not confined to any one family. 
 It seems to have been popular over the greater part of 
 Ayrshire. The leaders in the movement were drawn 
 neither from the nobles nor from the common people, 
 1 Annals of the English Bible, vol. ii. quoted Pict. His. of Scot. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 327 
 
 whose wars and feudal relations gave them little leisure, 
 but from the intermediate class, the comparatively inde- 
 pendent gentry of the shire. That the movement was 
 carried on with some success and determination is seen 
 from the fact that no less than thirty of the leaders 
 were summoned by the Archbishop of Glasgow to 
 appear before the Great Council of the King. The 
 names of six of these are given by Knox and are 
 worthy of remembrance — George Campbell of Cessnock, 
 Adam Eeicl of Barskimming, John Campbell of New- 
 milns, Andrew Shaw of Polkemmet, Helen Chalmours 
 lady Polkellie, and Marion Chalmours lady Stair. 1 
 
 The trial was conducted in the presence of King 
 James IV., who was then in the sixth year of his reign. 
 James was a gifted monarch, beloved of nobles and 
 commons, not hated by priests. He had much of the 
 brilliant talent of James I., but little of his earnestness 
 and love of learning. By turns he was a sensualist 
 and an ascetic, a humble pilgrim and a reckless free- 
 liver. His curiously mixed character may be summed 
 up in the couplet of a poet and the epigram of a 
 historian — 
 
 " For lie was myrrour of humilitie, 
 Lode sterne and lamp of liberalitie ; " 2 
 
 " A monarch whose faults were few but fatal, whose 
 virtues were many but useless." 3 But James was not 
 by any means priest-ridden. Notwithstanding all his- 
 own spasmodic penances and eccentric pilgrimages he 
 knew the hollowness of the priestly life and the insin- 
 cerity of much of their doctrine. To him the trial of these 
 
 1 Vide Knox's Eef. by Laing, vol. i. pp. 6-12. 
 
 2 Sir David Lindsay. 
 
 3 Pinkerton. 
 
328 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Lollards had little gravity. He treated it in the Gallic 
 fashion. Eobert Blacader, who acted as inquisitor, had 
 only lately won for Glasgow the honour of an arch- 
 
 bishopric. 1 He is said to have been noble and wise, a 
 good diplomatist in State affairs, superstitious, however, 
 and morose, known during his fatal pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Land as the " rich Scottish bishop." But in his 
 attempt to signalize his archiepiscopal zeal by perse- 
 cution, he incurred alike the ridicule of the witty 
 heretics and the laughter of the good-natured king. 
 
 The articles of which the Lollards were accused by 
 Blacader are interesting as an indictment against the 
 life of the clergy and the policy of the Church. Knox, 
 who copied them from the Glasgow records, which are 
 not known to be now extant, enumerates thirty-four, of 
 which the following are the most important: — That 
 images are not to be had nor yet to be worshipped; 
 that the relics of saints are not to be worshipped ; that 
 Christ gave power to Peter only, and not to his succes- 
 sors, to bind and loose within the kirk ; that after the 
 consecration in the mass there remains bread, and 
 that there is not the natural body of Christ ; that 
 tithes might not be given to ecclesiastical men ; that 
 every faithful man or woman is a priest ; that the 
 Pope is not the successor of Peter, but where He said, 
 '* Go behind me, Satan " ; that the Pope deceives the 
 people by his bulls and indulgences ; that the Pope 
 cannot remit the pains of purgatory ; that the priests 
 might have wives according to the constitution of the 
 law ; that the Pope forgives not sins, but only God. 
 
 In these sweeping accusations it is not difficult to 
 perceive the influence of Wyclif and his followers, the 
 1 In 1491, vide Scotichronicon by Dr. Gordon, vol. ii. p. 515. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 329 
 
 English Lollards. Almost every one of these charges 
 could have been quoted against the Keformers across 
 the Border. But they were not aimed by the Lollards 
 of Kyle against imaginary evils. Scotland knew more 
 of priestly pride, imposition, and scandal than even Eng- 
 land. As regards the evil of the worship of images 
 and of relics, the extent to which it had developed may 
 be seen by glancing over an inventory, made in the 
 middle of the fifteenth century, of the ornaments, relics, 
 and jewels in the church of Glasgow. 1 Among other 
 things we notice — " Four Precious Clasps for Copes, 
 bearing the embroidered Image of the Annunciation of 
 the Blessed Virgin ; another, more precious, represent- 
 ing her coronation ; a third with the image of the 
 crucifix ; a fourth with the image of our Lord seated 
 on a Throne with the Four Evangelists, one or either in 
 the four corners : all of silver richly gilt. A cross, or 
 the image of the crucifix, with two collateral Figures of 
 good size, of Silver." The vestments of the bishop and 
 his ministers are of brown velvet, white silk or red 
 silk ornamented with flowers of gold and images of 
 silk. There are several altar cloths with golden 
 images. In fact images are represented as appearing 
 on almost everything under the care of the sacristan. 
 But the list of relics in the inventory reveals a still 
 grosser credulity and superstition. There is, of course, 
 " a small piece of the true cross of our Lord" ; a phial 
 with the hair of the blessed Virgin ; portions of the 
 hair shirts of Saints Kentigern and Thomas of Canter- 
 bury ; a particle of the skin of St. Bartholomew the 
 Apostle ; a bone of St. Mnian ; " a small portion of 
 the girdle of the blessed Virgin Mary" ; a small por- 
 1 Scotichronicon, by Dr. Gordon, vol. ii. pp. 451-457. 
 
330 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 tion of the crib of our Lord ; and four bags of bones of 
 various saints. There is little wonder that the en- 
 lightened people of Kyle revolted against the image 
 and relic worship which had grown to such dimensions 
 in the diocese of the very bishop who was now their 
 accuser. 
 
 Nor were the other Articles framed against vices 
 and superstitions that would shock only fanatics. The 
 monks and priests winked at the vows of their order. 1 
 Their richly dowered daughters competed more than 
 favourably with the daughters of the nobles in securing 
 the prizes of matrimony. Indulgences were sold like 
 common merchandise at markets and fares. Goods and 
 lands were bequeathed by almost every one who had 
 property for founding altars, in order to " assuage and 
 terminate the pains of purgatory" for the donor. 2 The 
 Pope had made himself so hateful by the practices to 
 which he resorted in order to extract money from the 
 people, that his pardon and blessing and excommunica- 
 tion were despised. But the Lollards of Kyle, with 
 their Bible in their heart, met the arrogance and pomp 
 of the priests by advocating the priesthood of the 
 faithful people, and cut themselves adrift from work- 
 righteousness and fictitious remedies by proclaiming 
 with Lutheran boldness " that the Pope forgives not 
 sins, but only God." 
 
 But turn for a moment to the scene in the Great 
 Council. The heretics were more than a match for 
 their accusers. There is an enjoyable Scotch pawki- 
 ness in the manner in which Adam Pveid of Barskim- 
 
 1 Cf. Begister of the Collegiate Church of Crail, by Dr. 
 Kogers, p. 23. Boss's Hist, and Lit., pp. 401, 402. 
 2 Begister of the Coll. Ch. of Crail, p. 31 . 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 331 
 
 ming defended the cause of himself and his comrades. 
 Knox's narrative of the trial is too happy to be 
 improved upon. " Albeit that the accusation of the 
 bishop, and his accomplices, was very grievous, yet God 
 so assisted His servants, partly by inclining the King's 
 heart to gentleness (for divers of them were his great 
 familiars), and partly by giving bold and godly answers 
 to their accusators, that the enemies in the end were 
 frustrate of their purpose. For, while the bishop, in 
 mockage, said to Adam Eeicl of Barskyming, ' Eeid, 
 believe ye that God is in heaven ? ' He answered, 
 ' Not as I do the sacraments seven.' Whereat the 
 bishop, thinking to have triumphed, said, ' Sir, lo, he 
 denies that God is in heaven.' Whereat the King, 
 wondering, said, ' Adam Eeid, what say ye ? ' The 
 other answered, ' Pleaseth your Majesty to hear the 
 end betwixt the churl and me.' And therewith he 
 turned to the bishop, and said, ' I neither think nor 
 believe as thou thinkest that God is in heaven ; but I 
 am most assured that He is not only in heaven but 
 also in the earth. But thou and thy faction declare 
 by your works, that either ye think that there is no 
 God at all, or else that He is so set up in heaven that 
 He regards not what is done upon the earth ; for, if 
 thou firmly believedest that God were in heaven, thou 
 shouldest not make thyself checkmate to the King, and 
 altogether forget the charge that Jesus Christ the Son 
 of God gave to His Apostles, which was to preach His 
 Gospel, and not to play the proud prelates, as all the 
 rabble of you do this day. And now, Sir,' said he to 
 the King, 'judge ye whether the bishop or I believe 
 best that God is in heaven.' While the bishop and 
 his band could not well revenge themselves, and while 
 
332 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 many taunts were given them in their teeth, the King, 
 willing to put an end to further reasoning, said to the 
 said Adam Reicl, 'Wilt thou burn thy bill?' He 
 answered, ' Sir, and the bishop, an ye will.' With 
 these and the like scoffs the bishop and his band were 
 so dashed out of countenance that the greatest part of 
 the accusation was turned to laughter." 1 
 
 The trial, which under a more fanatic or less indepen- 
 dent king might have ended in martyrdom, was hushed 
 up in mockery. The Lollards returned home, but we 
 hear no more of the progress of their agitation. Knox 
 says that " after that diet, we find almost no question 
 for matters of religion, the space of nearly thirty 
 years." The reason may be found in the fact that the 
 attempts at reform were yet, to a great extent, only 
 negative. They were made against abuses rather than 
 in favour of the great truths of the Christian religion. 
 What was needed to give vitality to the movement 
 was a few cardinal truths to fight for. But the doc- 
 trines of justification by faith alone, and of redemption 
 by the merits of Christ, not having been fully dis- 
 covered, were not fully and freely insisted upon. Till 
 the radical Reformation inaugurated by Luther gave a 
 new direction and a fresh force to the movement in 
 Scotland, Christ did not receive His position as chief 
 corner-stone in the doctrinal edifice. There is a great 
 advance even from the thirty-four articles of the 
 Lollards of Kyle to the Brief Treatise of Mr. Pat- 
 rike Hamelton, called Patrike's Places. In the latter 
 " Christ is all and in all," and the Gospel receives at 
 last a distinct evangelical utterance. Yet, till Hamil- 
 ton and Knox came, there was work to be done — 
 1 Knox's History, vol. i. (Paisley: David Gardner. 1791.) 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 333 
 
 the work of still further demolition preparatory to 
 reform. 
 
 The work of demolition was to a great extent 
 effected by two men, William Dunbar and Sir David 
 Lyndsay, the former of whom, at least, manifested no 
 sympathy with the evangelical movements of the past 
 nor of his own day. If they cannot be called Keformers, 
 they certainly were forerunners of reform. They did 
 much to make the rough places smooth for the more posi- 
 tive work of John Knox by rendering the priests ridiculous 
 and the Church suspected by the common people. Dun- 
 bar and Lyndsay were, however, assisted in their work of 
 demolition by the circumstances of their times. Edu- 
 cation was at last being looked upon as something- 
 more than a monkish accomplishment. On the very 
 year in which the Lollards of Kyle were tried, a 
 third university was founded in Scotland. Two years 
 after that, the first compulsory education Act was 
 passed, to the effect that the eldest sons of barons 
 be sent to school when they were nine years of age. 
 The reign of James IV., spite of its licentiousness, was 
 one of prosperity. Scotland began now to feel the 
 impulse of the so-called revival of learning, which in 
 Western Europe was maturing vast changes, in which 
 Scotland also was destined to participate. Quite a 
 galaxy of poets had suddenly appeared. Dunbar's 
 Lament of the Makaris makes the patriotic Scotchman 
 both proud and sorrowful. Only one of the number 
 for whom the bard laments is well known — the gen- 
 tle-hearted, sententious schoolmaster of Dunfermline, 
 "good Maister Eobert Henrisoun." The others have 
 disappeared, or have left behind them only fragments 
 which are indicative of the great works we have lost. 
 
334 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 But the beginning of the century witnessed a re- 
 vival of letters unprecedented in Scotland. The classic 
 Bishop of Dunkeld, Gavin Douglas, who forfeited a 
 larger fame as a poet by his notoriety as a political 
 prelate, had introduced Virgil to his countrymen in a 
 translation in which the Eenaissance first finds distinct 
 expression in the Scottish tongue. Hector Boece, the 
 studious Principal of Aberdeen, whom Pinkerton so 
 unceremoniously dismissed as " one of the most egregi- 
 ous impostors that ever appeared in any country," was 
 busy with his Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen, in which 
 we have a pleasing proof of his own quiet industry, 
 and a noble tribute to the otherwise scarcely known 
 virtues and excellencies of the godly remnant of the 
 clergy. Joannes Major, the far-seeing radical professor 
 of theology, teacher of Hamilton and Knox, was un- 
 consciously leavening the youth of the country with 
 new ideas about democracy, divine right of kings, and 
 excommunication, 1 which could not but bear fruit in 
 the hour of action when the hour and the man had 
 come. He did for the Scottish religion what Socrates 
 did for the Greek mythology, superseded it without 
 open opposition. In this, like Socrates, he became a 
 corrupter of the youth. " Although not a heretic 
 himself," says Dr. Eoss, " he was singularly successful 
 in breeding heretics." 2 
 
 But in commerce as in letters there were vast 
 changes at work prophetic of some still vaster. The 
 passion for maritime discovery, which between 1492 
 and 1497 led to the discovery of America by Colum- 
 bus, the doubling of the Cape by De Gama, and the 
 
 1 Of. Boss's History and Literature, 233, etc. 
 * Id., p. 237. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 335 
 
 discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot, was felt in Scot- 
 land, and led to the building of the " Great Michael " 
 and the "Flower" and the "Yellow Carvel." In Sir 
 Andrew Wood of Largo, and Sir Andrew Barton, the 
 spirit of maritime adventure found a chivalrous expres- 
 sion, which made Scotland a formidable rival to all 
 others on the sea. Commerce now began to nourish. 
 Seaports rose into importance, and towns gradually 
 attained an independence which helped to check the 
 presumptuous selfishness of the nobles. The spirit of 
 democracy was being nourished by healthy remunera- 
 tive labour. Intercourse with other nations broadened 
 men's sympathies. The old feudal relations were being 
 rudely questioned, and men began to look with be- 
 wilderment and disgust upon the childish fables and 
 the shamefaced imposture of the Church which they 
 had so long tolerated. 
 
 It was in the midst of these times that Dunbar 
 appeared to assist Lyndsay in exposing the spiritual 
 corruption which overshadowed this material prosperity. 
 Having been clerk to some of the numerous embassies 
 employed by James IV., he knew the world, and he 
 did not hate it. He was a keen-sighted man, with a 
 warm love for nature and a penetrative insight into 
 humanity, but not moral enough to detest the pleasures 
 of the clergy which providence did not permit him to 
 enjoy. When we read the Golden Targe, or The Thistle 
 and the Kose, we feel at once that we are walking 
 through well-known Scottish scenes with a companion 
 who intensely loves the landscape which his genius has 
 painted with an artist's colouring and a poet's insight. 
 Had he written no more than these two healthy alle- 
 gories we might have called him the pure, the gentle- 
 
336 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 hearted, the refined. But Dunbar had been a 
 Dominican monk. He knew the insincerity and in- 
 delicacy of his order. He was versed in the spiritual 
 anatomy of the priests, whom he dissected unmerci- 
 fully but without disgust. He was a courtier but also 
 a place-hunter, hungering hopelessly for a good fat 
 benefice that would take the satiric sting out of his 
 mouth and make him comfortable like others. Dis- 
 appointment made him a satirist and kept him so ; but 
 his love of natural scenery, combined with his misan- 
 thropic indifference to the foibles and vices of humanity, 
 saved him from becoming a pessimist. He certainly 
 deserved a benefice, if not for his own virtues, for his 
 exposure of the vices of others. In him, as in Lyndsay, 
 we get the history of the times presented to us in flesh 
 and blood. We are introduced to veritable priests and 
 people by a humorist who, with dismal realism and 
 tierce wit, smote the vices of both without mercy or 
 without indignation. 
 
 But the priests are the special object of ridicule to 
 this unintentional reformer of abuses. We need only 
 turn for proof to one of his poems. The Dance of the 
 Seven Deadly Sins is a weird, grotesque, and somewhat 
 ghastly satire upon the priestly vices of the age. The 
 poet has a dream in which he sees " baith heaven and 
 hell." In the latter region " Mahoun gart cry ane 
 dance " of the wretches " that were never shriven." 
 We see the " holy harlots " trooping in haughtily 
 " with mony sundry guise," yet there is never a smile 
 upon the face of the fiendish master of ceremonies as 
 they prepare for the dance. But immediately " the 
 priests come in with bare shaven necks " to be 
 spectators of the infernal scene, there is a wild chorus 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 337 
 
 of laughter and mockery that fills the nameless place 
 with impious joy. The fact that a poet, who was 
 himself a priest, could venture to offer to his country- 
 men a satire in which their religious instructors were 
 brought into such irreverent juxtaposition with harlots 
 and in such a place, argues that the priests were doubly- 
 dyed in guilt, the Church blind to her vices, the people 
 prepared either to laugh or weep over the tragic farce 
 of religion. 
 
 Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, though not so 
 great a poet, was a more popular and more humane 
 satirist than Dunbar. He was a lover of righteousness 
 and of men, and hated cant and vice with a fierce 
 hatred that burst through all the canons of delicacy 
 and aestheticism in its irresistible expression. The 
 blunt but kindly squire was the poet of the people. 
 He created and expressed their opinions in popular 
 language and memorable form with a plainness which 
 the people could enjoy, and for which we marvel that 
 he escaped the bonfire or the axe. But Lyndsay was 
 in earnest : so earnest that he did not shrink from 
 exposing the obscenities of his times with a coarse 
 vehemence which itself is only redeemed from the 
 charge of obscenity by its healthy scorn. Dryden 
 says he " lashed vice into reformation." We certainly 
 could not expect such work to be done by a kid-gloved 
 philosopher. It needed one who was not afraid of the 
 dirt he would encounter in his ungenial task. Such 
 was Lyndsay, who did so much for the cause of reform, 
 but withal pure-souled, righteous, "a man of unsuspected 
 probity and veracity," says Buchanan, not to be judged 
 by any modern standard of taste but by that of his 
 own age. 
 
 Y 
 
338 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 No man, till Knox and his coadjutors appeared on 
 the scene, did more for the Eeformation than this 
 honest country squire, the Lyon King of Arms. " If 
 vve do not reckon him as one of the Protestant 
 Reformers," says Laing, " it would be a greater mistake 
 should we hesitate for one moment in asserting that 
 his satirical writings had a powerful effect in preparing 
 the minds of his countrymen, by his exposure of the 
 manifold corruption and errors of Popery, for the final 
 triumph of the Reformation, accomplished mainly by the 
 dauntless energy of our great Reformer, John Knox." 1 
 Lyndsay's picture of his times is sadder because more 
 serious than that of Dunbar. The times of James Y. 
 seem to have waxed worse than those of his chivalrous 
 father who fell at the fatal Plodden. Although the Act 
 passed in 1525 against the Lutheran heresy boasted 
 that the country had ever been " clene of all sic filth 
 and vice," there were " filth and vice " as of an Augean 
 stable to be cleaned out of the Church so soon as 
 a Hercules was found. Before the Hercules came 
 Lyndsay created the needed popular disgust which 
 made the cleansing imperative. This he did by his 
 satires, which were the popular literature of his times. 
 
 We may examine briefly the chief of these historical 
 
 pictures of Scotland in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 
 century. In The Dreme which he addressed with such 
 
 pathos to James V., whom, as a child, he had carried 
 
 in his arms and amused with the lute and fairy-like 
 
 dances and ghost-stories and improvised farces, he gives 
 
 a vision of the infernal regions as hideous if not so 
 
 extensive as that of Dante : — 
 
 1 Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, by Laing, vol. i. 
 p. 50. Cf. the exquisite chapter on Lyndsay in Ross's History 
 and Literature. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 339 
 
 " The men of kirk lay boimden into bings ; 
 There saw we many careful cardinal, 
 And archbishops, in their pontifical ; 
 Proud and perversed prelates out of number, 
 Priors, abbots, and false flatterand friers." 1 
 
 The " lady of portraiture periite," who acts as Beatrice 
 to this Scottish Dante, reveals the cause of their 
 " punitioii" generally as " covetice, lust, and ambition." 
 But more specific charges are brought against them. 
 His gentle guide informs him that they are in " this 
 painful poisoned pit " 
 
 " Als they did not instruct the ignorant, 
 Provocant them to penitence by preaching." 
 
 But still worse sins than those of neglect were laid to 
 their charge. They had abused and squandered the 
 " Holy Kirkis patrimony " on " cards and dice, on 
 harlotry," content to see 
 
 " Their kirkis riven, their ladies cleanly cled." 
 
 In The Complaynt, so tender and fearless, the King 
 is exhorted to reform the spirituality, which is the only 
 thing in the land " without good order." Lyndsay had 
 a deep concern in the education of the poor, and looked 
 to the Church for that help which in later times it did 
 not withhold. The terms of his appeal are as radical 
 and even more evangelical than any used by the 
 Lollards, whose work he was indirectly carrying on. 
 There is a ring of Lutheran doctrine in the lines in 
 which he urges the duty of the priests — 
 
 " To preach with unfeigned intents, 
 And truly use the Sacraments, 
 After Christ's institutions, 
 Leaving their vain traditions, 
 Which do the silly sheep illude, 
 
 1 The quotations are given in somewhat modernized spelling. 
 
340 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 For whom Christ Jesus shed His blood : 
 As superstitious pilgrimages, 
 Praying to graven images, 
 Express against the Lord's command." 
 
 But another phase of shame-faced priestcraft is ex- 
 posed with a delicate humour that casts a lurid light 
 upon many a death-bed scene of the times, in The 
 Testament and Complaynt of our Soverane Lordis Pa- 
 pyngo. The Papyngo, the king's favourite parrot, is dying 
 and holds a communing with her " holy executors," 
 the Pye, the Eaven, and the Gled — a canon regular, a 
 black monk, and a holy friar. They are deeply anxious 
 about her " goodis natural," that she may dispone 
 her gear to them who have the power to bring her 
 " quite to heaven." The poor parrot listens to the 
 counsels and promises of the pious plunderers to this 
 effect : — 
 
 " And we shall sing about your sepulture 
 
 Sanct Mungo's matins, and the meikle creed ; 
 And syne devoutly say, I you assure, 
 
 The auld Placebo backwards and the beid ; 
 And we shall wear, for you, the mourning weed. 
 And, though your sp'rit with Pluto was professed, 
 Devoutly shall your Diregie be addressed." 
 
 But the pawky parrot, though dying, is quite a match 
 for them. Not without humour does she remind them, 
 in the midst of their priestly offices for her eternal 
 welfare, that she saw them one day 
 
 "pyke 
 
 Ane chicken from ane hen under ane dyke," 
 
 but she receives the unabashed reply, which confirms 
 her suspicion that their conscience " be nocht gude " : — 
 
 " I grant, said he, that hen was my gude friend, 
 And I the chicken took but for my teind." 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 341 
 
 The whole picture is painted from life under the thin 
 guise of allegory. One almost sees the figures in flesh 
 and blood becking and whispering around the bedside 
 of their wealthy victim. At last the Papyngo tells 
 into their ears the history of the decline and fall of the 
 priesthood, and dies, and the clerical harpies pounce 
 upon her and part her body among them while the 
 poor parrot is still hot. 
 
 But if The Papyngo introduces us to the death-bed, 
 The Monarchy takes us to church, where 
 
 " Unlearned people on the holy day 
 
 Solemnedly they hear the Evangel sung, 
 Not knowing what the priest doth sing or say, 
 But as a bell when that they hear it rung." 
 
 The sight of the simple folks listening to the Gospel 
 in a foreign language made Lyndsay a brave advocate 
 for the use of his mother-tongue in church. He loved 
 his own language and knew its power. People knew 
 more of Lyndsay than of any of the Apostles. He 
 wonders why the " heavenly wark " should be unknown 
 to common men, and he argues well that it had been a 
 " savourless jest " had God given the law to the 
 Jews in Greek or Latin ; and adds with homely 
 pathos — 
 
 " He gave the law on tables hard of stone 
 
 In their own vulgar tongue, Hebrew, 
 
 That all the bairns of Israel, every one, 
 
 Might know the law and so the same pursue." 
 
 It is, however, in the Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie 
 Estaitis that the vices of nobles, clergy, and commons 
 are most severely impugned. It was acted for the 
 
 1 Vide Laing's Memoir of Lyndsay. 
 
342 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 first time in Linlithgow 1 in 1539-40 before the King, 
 Queen, ladies of the Court, and nobility, between nine 
 in the morning and six in the evening. It is here 
 that the state of the Church is revealed at its worst. 
 It is, indeed, a sickly revelation, almost unbelievable. 
 The Church has scarcely a rag of virtue left to cover 
 its nakedness. We cannot quote. Nuns, monks, friars, 
 priors, and prelates monopolize the cardinal vices and 
 relate their shameless practices with a matter-of-fact 
 indifference that shocks every finer feeling and makes 
 us stand aghast at the corruption. It seems as if a 
 thousand voices became, at the bidding of Lyndsay, 
 clamant for reformation. 
 
 But let us leave his works and look at the man. 
 He is not a Eeformer in the common acceptation of 
 the term ; but we may question if John Knox's work 
 would have been so successful if Sir David Lyndsay 
 had not lived before him. He did much by his 
 negative work of demolition to make Knox's work 
 of construction possible. The people knew from Lynd- 
 say the disease and were ready to accept the remedy 
 from Knox. He did not live to see the full day of 
 the Eeformation. He saw only the first glimmerings 
 of the dawn. His work was that of the iconoclast. 
 He was a redresser of wrongs. Spite of all his honest 
 coarseness, Scotland shall never liquidate her debt to 
 the fearless righteous Sir David Lyndsay, from whose 
 godly heart shot 
 
 " The flash of that satiric rage, 
 Which, bursting on the early stage, 
 Branded the vices of the age 
 
 And broke the keys of Rome." l 
 
 1 Scott's Marmion. 
 
LOLLARDS OF KYLE, ETC. 343 
 
 But our work is done. We have filled in roughly 
 the historical background of the picture of the Scottish 
 Reformation. We leave the unfinished canvas for 
 others to complete it by painting in the three great 
 figures of the foreground — Hamilton, Wishart, and 
 Knox. 
 
JJatrick Hamilton anb (gsorge SBishart. 
 
 What Lollardism attempted in the fifteenth century 
 John Knox achieved in the latter part of the sixteenth. 
 Between the attempt and the achievement, linking them 
 together as parts of one great movement, stand Patrick 
 Hamilton and George "Wishart. There were others, 
 indeed not a few, who during the intervening period 
 laboured strenuously and suffered nobly for the truth, 
 but these, so far as history is concerned, must take a 
 subordinate place. The prominent parts in that act of 
 the drama were played by Hamilton and Wishart. On 
 them the historian necessarily fixes his thoughts, for 
 round them the figures and incidents of the time 
 naturally group themselves. Like the loftiest peaks of 
 a mountain range, they arrest the eye and cast the 
 shadow of their commanding altitude on the lower 
 heights. In them the Eeformation succession was 
 continued ; through them the Eeformation force 
 moved onward, deepening and expanding as it 
 moved ; by them the Eeformation impulse, weak 
 and wavering at first, but becoming ever stronger 
 and more intense, was transmitted to that shrewd, 
 vigorous, brave man who, by the strength of God, 
 was to complete the overthrow of the kingdom of 
 
PA TRICK HA MIL TON. 345 
 
 error, and to secure the establishment of the kingdom 
 of truth in our country. 
 
 Unfortunately, we know little of the history of either 
 Hamilton or Wishart. Much we should have been 
 glad to know has been lost, apparently beyond recovery; 
 while not a little has come down to us in a form so 
 vague and fragmentary as to leave room for opinions 
 the most diverse regarding its value and bearing. This 
 is disappointing and oftentimes perplexing. We can 
 only endeavour by careful investigation to arrive at 
 the actual facts and to gain a just estimate of their 
 importance. 
 
 Patrick Hamilton was born about the year 1504. 
 More definitely than this we cannot fix the date. For 
 this approximation to it we are indebted to Francis 
 Lambert, who tells us that in 1527, when attending 
 the University of Marburg, his young friend was twenty- 
 three years of age. The place of his birth is as uncertain 
 as the date. In the records of the University of Paris 
 he is designated " Glasguensis," which seems to imply 
 that he was born within the diocese of Glasgow ; and 
 as Stonehouse, near Hamilton, was the only property 
 belonging to his father in that diocese, it has been 
 fixed upon by some writers as the scene of the event. 
 But in the album of the University of Marburg he 
 entered himself " Litgoviensis," and this points to the 
 parish of Linlithgow as his native district, and gives 
 support to the view that at Kincavel, which was near 
 the town of Linlithgow, and was also owned by his 
 father, the future martyr first saw the light. With 
 the information which we at present possess it is 
 impossible to decide between those two places. 
 
 Happily we are in no doubt as to his descent ; it was 
 
346 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 noble, even royal. His father was Sir Patrick Hamil- 
 ton of Stonehouse and Kincavel, who was the eldest of 
 three illegitimate sons home by Miss Witherspoon of Brig- 
 house, to James, first Lord Hamilton, before he married 
 Princess Mary, sister of James III. and Countess of 
 Arran, by whom he had one son, James, afterwards 
 second Lord Hamilton and first Earl of Arran. His 
 mother was Catherine Stewart, daughter of Alexander 
 Duke of Albany, second son of James II., and Catherine 
 Sinclair, daughter of William Earl of Orkney. Though 
 of high parentage, Catherine was, like her husband, 
 illegitimate ; this was the result of a divorce obtained 
 by Alexander on the ground of propinquity, though 
 only of the fourth degree. Her maternal grandmother 
 was Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Archibald, 
 fourth Earl of Angus, and Margaret Stewart, eldest 
 daughter of Eobert III., and therefore aunt of the 
 famous Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Thus in 
 the veins of the first Scottish martyr there flowed royal 
 blood, and round him there fell a faint reflection of the 
 light that " beats upon the throne " ; he was the great- 
 great-grandson of Ptobert III., the great-grandson of 
 James II., and by his grandfather's marriage he was 
 virtually related to James IV., who was King at the 
 time of his birth. 
 
 Eegarcling his early education no information has 
 come down to us, but that it would be carefully 
 attended to admits of no doubt. From his infancy, 
 indeed, he would breathe a cultured atmosphere. 
 Among his relatives, both paternal and maternal, there 
 were many who were remarkable for their refinement 
 and courtesy, for their polish and accomplishments, for 
 their love and pursuit of learning. Whether he was 
 
PA TRICK HA MIL TON. 347 
 
 sent to one of the grammar schools that were then 
 making their appearance in Scotland or committed to 
 the care of his friends, we cannot say, but that every- 
 thing was done that could be done to secure for him 
 the best possible instruction we may be sure : nay, 
 that this was the case we have proof in the ability and 
 attainments by which he was distinguished in after 
 years. 
 
 The school is not, however, the only educating 
 influence under which a youth comes. He has other 
 teachers than those that guide him in his studies. The 
 events of the time, his social and political surroundings, 
 these do their part, often a very important part, in 
 moulding his character and fitting him for the work 
 that lies before him ; and the general character of the 
 events witnessed by Hamilton and of the surroundings 
 amidst which he grew up we can easily discover. 
 The times were troublous ; the political sky was often 
 overcast; violent storms frequently swept across the 
 country, and to these the Hamilton family could not 
 remain indifferent : in the issue they had not seldom 
 the deepest interest. In 1513, when Patrick was a 
 boy of ten years of age, the battle of Flodden, with its 
 crushing defeat, filled the land with woe and lamentation ; 
 in that fell disaster many of the wisest and bravest and 
 best of Scotland's sons were smitten and slain by the 
 side of their King. The minority that followed gave 
 ample opportunity for intrigue and treachery on 
 one hand, and for honour and patriotism on the 
 other. The French and English parties in Scottish 
 politics were then taking shape. The houses of 
 Hamilton and of Douglas, too, were settling down into 
 mutual jealousy and hate. Stirring times they were ; 
 
348 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 and to all that was being said and done the young 
 Patrick must have been fully alive ; in every incident 
 he must have taken a keen interest. It was 
 indeed impossible for him to act otherwise. The 
 fortunes, the very existence of the family, often 
 depended on the result of struggle and negotiation. 
 Sir Patrick was more than once in imminent 
 danger, and did eventually lose his life in the well- 
 known encounter in the High Street of Edinburgh 
 with Angus and his followers, called " Cleanse the 
 Causeway." Thus, inheriting his father's brave and 
 chivalrous spirit, he was reared in circumstances the 
 most congenial for its development, and, by the experi- 
 ences of his boyhood and youth he was prepared for 
 exhibiting a bravery and a chivalry that would win for 
 him fame and glory greater far than had been won 
 by his father in the tournament and in the battle- 
 field. 
 
 Of the domestic circle and the spirit that reigned 
 there we are ignorant. Concerning his mother only one 
 item of information has reached us, but it is most valu- 
 able, supplying, as it does, strong and touching testi- 
 mony to the purity of her character and the beneficial 
 infiuence exercised by her on her children. When 
 bound to the stake, and face to face with death, her 
 son spoke of her with tenderness and affection, recalling, 
 doubtless, not only the care with which she had nursed 
 and tended him in early years, but also, and most of 
 all, the high principles she had inculcated, the spiritual 
 truths with which she had familiarized and impressed 
 his young mind, and the noble, holy life she had led, 
 confirming and illustrating by her example the lessons 
 she taught. 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON, 34,$ 
 
 He was early directed by his parents to the Church 
 as the sphere within which he must seek place and 
 promotion. At that time there were many rich and 
 enviable ecclesiastical appointments, and these were 
 eagerly sought after and easily gained by the sons of 
 the nobility. Such appointments, while in themselves 
 honourable and lucrative, did not demand the exclusive 
 attention and effort of those who held them ; they in no 
 way interfered with activity, either in politics or in war. 
 The ecclesiastic might take his full share — often took 
 more than his share — in the government of the 
 country ; he also might, and often did, exchange the 
 mitre and the crosier for the helmet and the sword, and 
 not a few Church dignitaries signalized themselves more 
 by their martial skill and valour than by their evan- 
 gelical fervour and activity, by their exploits in the 
 field of battle than by their proclamation of the Gospel 
 of Peace. At the very time when young Hamilton's 
 mind was directed to it, the Church was betraying 
 marked signs of weakness and corruption. Worldliness 
 was blighting its spirituality, vice was stifling its morality, 
 hypocrisy was discrediting the truth, of which it pro- 
 claimed itself the repository and the teacher. The 
 most shameful devices were resorted to to gain rich 
 benefices, and the revenues thus gained were diverted 
 to the most shameful uses. Bishops stooped to any 
 artifice in order to secure an archbishopric. The quali- 
 fications demanded or appealed to were not those of the 
 New Testament — they were power to bribe a superior, 
 skill to outwit or force to crush an opponent. With 
 carnal weapons men fought for spiritual positions, and, 
 having secured them, they employed them for carnal 
 ends. 
 
350 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Of the precise state of affairs Patrick cannot have 
 been ignorant. The disgraceful scramble and struggle 
 for the Archbishopric of St. Andrews, rendered vacant 
 by the death of Alexander Stewart at Floclden, he must 
 have watched closely. Like most such transactions, it 
 w r as as much political as ecclesiastical in its bearings. 
 On the one side or the other the nobles ranged them- 
 selves, according as the leanings of the candidate were 
 towards them or their opponents in the State. One of 
 the candidates was Gavin Douglas, his mother's cousin; 
 but with their relative the members of the Kincavel 
 household could show little sympathy, for he belonged 
 to the Angus party, with which, at this time, the Arran 
 party, to which the Hamiltons belonged, were at vari- 
 ance. Of the feelings with which the future martyr 
 watched the contest we have no record, but, if the boy 
 w r as father to the man, he must have been deeply 
 wounded and greatly scandalized. In harmony, though 
 it unhappily was, with the ideas of the age, the glaring 
 inconsistency it presented must have struck — and struck 
 forcibly and painfully — the youth who in a few years 
 was to display an acute intellect touched by a pure 
 morality and a high spirituality. 
 
 Shortly after the settlement of this dispute he him- 
 self received an appointment in connection with the 
 Church : he was named titular Abbot of Feme, in Ross- 
 shire. This appointment was received in 1517 — pro- 
 bably the summer of 1517, as his predecessor died on 
 17th June of that year. It appears as if this office 
 was sought in order that the emoluments attached to it 
 might enable him to prosecute his study in a manner 
 that would qualify him for the highest offices and 
 honours in the ecclesiastical sphere. Nor did his duties 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. 351 
 
 as abbot interfere with his study; it was not needful 
 that he should at once attend at the abbey, and we do 
 not know that he ever even saw the religious house 
 whence he took his title and gained his income. Indeed 
 there is good ground for believing that at this period 
 the abbey was in a dilapidated state, so that the ap- 
 pointment was in the fullest sense a sinecure. 
 
 In this same year he went to Paris, attracted by the 
 fame of its university. In all probability he attached 
 himself to the Scots' College, which had been founded 
 there in the time of Eobert the Bruce for the benefit of 
 those going from this country to France to complete 
 their education. But whatever college he entered, the 
 transition from Scotland to Paris would be, in an intel- 
 lectual respect, great and important. The university 
 of the French capital was then the most illustrious 
 school of philosophy and theology in Europe. More 
 valuable, however, than the lectures delivered by its 
 professors was the spirit of inquiry and investigation 
 that was abroad in this centre of learning and culture. 
 At once the student, who took up his residence there, 
 experienced the quickening influence of the new life 
 that was pulsing in every member of the body intellec- 
 tual of the civilized world. The dreary night of Schol- 
 asticism had begun to yield slowly and reluctantly to 
 the dawn of free and vigorous thought that was heralded 
 by the Eenaissance, and on Paris the first beams of the 
 coming day had fallen with a brightness that gladdened 
 some, while it startled and terrified others. The voice 
 of Erasmus had been heard, and had awakened a sympa- 
 thetic response. The result of his appeal was distinctly 
 seen in a deepening dissatisfaction with the barren 
 subtleties of the old systems, and a deepening desire for 
 
352 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the living and life-giving fruits of past civilization. 
 Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas were being- 
 forsaken for Plato and Aristotle. The " Sentences " 
 ceased to prove attractive when the " Dialogues " were 
 exposed to view and offered to all. 
 
 But another voice besides that of Erasmus had been 
 heard in Paris ; another appeal, more vigorous and 
 thrilling even than that of the gentle, timid humanist 
 had been addressed to the thoughtful and the devout in 
 that city as elsewhere. That same year in which 
 Hamilton went abroad, Luther nailed his theses to the 
 door of the church at Wittenberg, and the strokes of 
 his hammer were echoed in the French capital. Much 
 consternation, too, did those echoes cause ; much dis- 
 putation did they occasion. For a whole year the 
 Sorbonne was occupied considering the writings of the 
 Saxon monk ; and in their work the liveliest interest 
 was manifested. Luther's reply, hurled at the learned 
 doctors of this famous school, quickened this interest, 
 and impelled those in whom it had been excited to 
 investigation — investigation for which they had been 
 prepared by Erasmus, but of which Erasmus was not 
 always ready to approve. Under such influences as 
 these the young Scotchman came — he could not escape 
 them, nor did he desire to do so. His open, candid 
 mind, thirsting for truth, received communications 
 from every quarter, and accepted whatever was valu- 
 able, by whomsoever offered. The ordinary course of 
 study pursued by him was such as he would have 
 followed had he gone to Glasgow or St. Andrews, but 
 this was a less fruitful element in his education at the 
 French capital than his contact with the spirit of the 
 age. Indeed, the prescribed curriculum yielded him 
 
PA TRICK HA MIL TON. 353 
 
 negative rather than positive gain. It revealed to him 
 the poverty of the systems and the teaching that were 
 offered in the name of philosophy and theology, and 
 convinced him that, if satisfaction were to be enjoyed, 
 he must turn to the new treasures that were being dis- 
 covered and unsealed. 
 
 In 1520 he took his degree. On 30th April of 
 that year his father was killed, but this event did not 
 hasten his return home. After his graduation he went 
 to Louvain. There Erasmus was living, and there the 
 Trilingual College had been founded. His object in 
 going thither was doubtless to see and hear Erasmus, 
 and to reap the fruit of the new learning as that was 
 presented in the college. While there, therefore, his 
 Erasmian tendencies must have been confirmed ; his 
 thirst for truth would be intensified, and his deter- 
 mination to reach the fountain at which alone it could 
 be quenched would be strengthened. 
 
 We next meet with him at St. Andrews. When he 
 returned home we cannot tell ; we only know that 
 on the 9th June, 1523, he was incorporated in the 
 University of that ancient city. This act made him a 
 member without admitting him to any of the Faculties : 
 but on 3rd October, 1524, he gained admission to the 
 Faculty of Arts. We need not be surprised that he 
 should have resolved to settle for a time in St. 
 Andrews. For a youth of his tastes and attainments 
 no spot in the country could present stronger attrac- 
 tions. It was the ecclesiastical capital of the kingdom, 
 the seat of the oldest university, and the centre of learn- 
 ing. Connected with its cathedral, its colleges, and its 
 monasteries, there were many men of elevated tastes 
 and wide culture. There more than anywhere else in 
 
 z 
 
354 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 his native land was the graduate of Paris, " ingenio 
 summo et eruditions singulari" likely to find congenial 
 society and to experience quickening impulses. 
 
 With which of its three colleges he connected him- 
 self we have no certain knowledge. His leanings, 
 however, were most in accord with the spirit that 
 animated the heads of St. Leonard's. Not that in it 
 the new systems had been adopted and the new learning 
 gladly received. Though founded in 1512, only twelve 
 years before Hamilton's admission, it had in its arrange- 
 ments more affinity with the old than with the new 
 methods and pursuits. But in St. Andrews, as in 
 Paris, there was a movement outside the recognized 
 course which was stirred and sustained by the intel- 
 lectual revival that was now affecting: even the " Ultima 
 Thule " ; and that movement found ampler scope 
 amongst the members of this institution than amongst 
 the members of the Pedagogy or of St. Salva- 
 tor's. To it, then, rather than to either of the 
 other two he would go. And this conclusion, drawn 
 from a general view of the circumstances, is confirmed 
 by some facts that are known to us. While at St. 
 Andrews he composed a mass, arranged in parts for 
 nine voices, which was sung in the cathedral under his 
 leadership. This is a proof of his refinement and 
 accomplishment ; it also indicates the high respect in 
 which he was held by those in authority. But most 
 important of all in the present reference, it points to 
 connection with St. Leonard's, for the Canons of the 
 Priory with which St. Leonard's was associated were 
 the Canons of the Cathedral, and singing was one 
 of the regular prescribed exercises in that college 
 for those who displayed an aptitude for music. On 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 355 
 
 those connected with the Priory, indeed, seems to have 
 devolved the care of the choral part of the service in 
 the cathedral ; only, therefore, in all probability, to a 
 member of the Priory College would permission have 
 been granted to superintend the execution of his own 
 composition. Amongst those, too, who were Canons of 
 the Priory and members of St. Leonard's, Hamilton 
 found in after years his warmest friends, and more 
 than one became conspicuous by their profession of and 
 adherence amidst difficulties to Keformation principles. 
 
 Hamilton doubtless sought admission to this univer- 
 sity in order that he might study theology. As an 
 aspirant to ecclesiastical honours this subject would 
 demand attention, and his residence at Paris, tend- 
 ing, as it evidently did, to give him a high idea of the 
 work of a priest, would urge him to seek the best 
 guidance in his study that was available. At St. 
 Andrews there was at this period one who had already 
 acquired fame as a teacher in this department — viz., 
 John Major, who was a Doctor of the Sorbonne. He 
 was lecturing in Paris during the first year at least of 
 Hamilton's stay there, so that in all likelihood the two 
 had met in Prance. It is interesting, also, to note 
 that both were incorporated in the University of St. 
 Andrews on the same day ; and it is at least permis- 
 sible to suppose that the incorporation of the student 
 was due so far to the incorporation of the professor. 
 After leaving the French capital, Major had gone to 
 Glasgow, and thither his name had drawn students from 
 all quarters. Among those who sat at his feet in the 
 West was John Knox ; and now in the East Patrick 
 Hamilton was to listen to his prelections. Soon both 
 were to outstrip their leader in the search for truth — 
 
356 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the one to die in its defence, and the other to suffer 
 and at length to conquer in its name. 
 
 John Frith, in his preface to "Patrick's Places," 
 tells us that Hamilton became a priest when at St. 
 Andrews : his statement is, " To testifie the truth, 
 he sought all meanes and tooke upon him priesthode 
 (even as Paule circumcised Timothy to wynne the 
 weake Jews) that he might be admitted to preache the 
 pure Word of God." Could this statement be accepted 
 by us as true, it would be most valuable and instruc- 
 tive ; it would indicate the point which the future 
 martyr had reached, and would illustrate the gradual 
 nature of his advance to Reformation ground. But 
 there are several weighty objections to its accept- 
 ance. In the first place, at the time referred to 
 Hamilton was too young to be admitted in ordinary 
 course to the priesthood, and there was no reason why, 
 in his case, the ecclesiastics should take advantage of 
 the permission granted them to set aside the rules, 
 when by so doing the interests of the Church would be 
 served ; there was indeed very good reason why they 
 should refuse so to act, considering the foreign and 
 pernicious influences under which the applicant had 
 come. In the second place, there is no reference what- 
 ever to his ordination in the documents relating to 
 his trial. He is called magister, but not presbyter, in 
 the summons issued and in the sentence pronounced ; 
 and he was not, as were the law and practice of the 
 Church, divested of his sacerdotal authority and dignity 
 before he was handed over to the secular power to be 
 punished. Laxity and haste might, as has been urged, 
 account for the latter omission, but not for the former. 
 In the third place, Alexander Alesius, to whom we 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 357 
 
 are indebted for nearly all the trustworthy informa- 
 tion we possess regarding him at this period, does not 
 mention his taking upon himself the priesthood. This 
 silence is all the more significant since he is careful to 
 tell us that " such was his hatred to monkish hypocrisy 
 that he never assumed the monkish habit." Preference 
 to his attitude toward the abbacy would naturally, we 
 may even say certainly, have led to a reference to his 
 attitude toward the priesthood, had he taken orders. 
 And of the step Alesius could not possibly have been 
 ignorant, as he was in St. Andrews throughout 
 Hamilton's residence at St. Leonard's, and was evidently 
 on terms of the closest intimacy with him. For these 
 among other reasons the assertion made by Frith must 
 be looked upon as at least doubtful — in all probability a 
 mistaken inference on the writer's part from the Eefor- 
 mer's general position. Could we be certain that Frith, 
 as is alleged, met Hamilton at Marburg and enjoyed his 
 fellowship for some months, his testimony would gain 
 in value, but evidence on this point is wanting; authori- 
 ties, indeed, seem to point in the opposite direction. 
 
 Whether ordained or not, he did not conceal his 
 views on religious matters. Before the beginning of 
 1527 he had made his theological position quite clear 
 to those with whom he came into contact. That it 
 was a position that exposed him to danger he knew 
 full well. In 1525 an Act was passed by Parliament 
 condemning Lutheranism, and forbidding strangers to 
 " bring with them any books or works of Luther or his 
 disciples," or " to rehearse his opinions unless it be to 
 the confusion thereof." This Act was due to the exer- 
 tions of the bishops, due especially to David Beaton, 
 who had lately come from France to Arbroath, and 
 
358 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 who from the date of his arrival till his death controlled 
 in a large measure the action of the Church. But 
 despite the condemnation and the warning, which it 
 published, the new opinions and the heretical books 
 found their way into the country, and with them came, 
 in large quantities, Tyndale's New Testament. And 
 the way was prepared for these by the state of the 
 Church. Those who filled its offices and wore its titles 
 did not preserve its purity or commend its truths ; 
 they were often ignorant of the Scriptures, stained by 
 profligacy, more deeply concerned with politics than 
 with religion. So rapidly did the proscribed volumes 
 and pernicious doctrines spread that in 1527 it was 
 found needful to extend the provisions of the Act of 
 1525 so as to embrace the King's lieges ; they were to 
 be punished in the same way as strangers, should they 
 be proved to be " assisters to such opinions," and only 
 " clerks in schools " were granted permission to dispute. 
 Before this, however, the Archbishop had dealt with 
 Hamilton. While in residence at St. Leonard's he did not 
 attempt to hide his liking for the truths proclaimed by 
 Luther : in discussion and in conversation he declared 
 his approval of them with all the energy and fervour 
 of one who had experienced their power. This was 
 more than the Church dignitaries could permit ; what- 
 ever else they did or failed to do, they must show 
 themselves zealous for the truth as that had been 
 defined by the Fathers and the Councils. For some 
 time, indeed, Hamilton was left free to set forth his 
 opinions and to argue in their defence. This liberty 
 of speech was due to the civil complications in which 
 Beaton was involved. These diverted his attention 
 from the events that were taking place in his diocese ; 
 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 359 
 
 they even brought him into disgrace and exposed 
 him to dano-er, so that he deemed it needful to seek 
 safety in disguise. In the garb of a shepherd he 
 tended sheep on the hills of Fife until his money and 
 the efforts of his friends secured his return to power. 
 During that period no action could be taken against 
 heresy or heretic ; and thus, notwithstanding the con- 
 demnation and the penalty proclaimed by authority of 
 Parliament, the heresy spread and the heretic laboured. 
 But the restoration of the Archbishop to place and 
 favour was the signal for vigorous effort. During Lent, 
 1527, that effort was directed against Hamilton. 
 Beaton, having made inquiry, found him " infamed 
 with the heresy of Luther," and summoned him to 
 appear and answer the charges that were to be brought 
 against him. Hearing of the danger that threatened 
 him, Patrick left St. Andrews and betook himself to 
 Germany. He was not yet fully qualified for the 
 martyr's work and the martyr's crown. He must have 
 a firmer grasp, a clearer view, a richer experience of 
 Divine truth than he yet had before he could suffer for 
 its sake. And he went where he was likely to gain 
 these — to the land of Luther. 
 
 Apparently his destination was Wittenberg. Thither 
 he was attracted by the fame of the great Eeformer 
 and of those who had gathered round him in the uni- 
 versity ; from their lips he was desirous of hearing the 
 words of Life. But his desire was not to be gratified. 
 At that time the plague was raging violently in the 
 town, and he either, on hearing this, turned aside before 
 reaching it, or else, because of the danger, left it earlier 
 than he had intended. Certainly he did not enrol 
 himself as a student. 
 
360 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 At Marburg lie settled. The University there had 
 just been founded by the Landgrave of Hesse. Among 
 the distinguished teachers who had joined it was 
 Francis Lambert, the famous theologian. For the young 
 Scotchman he would have special attraction, and to 
 him he would afford much help. Listening to his 
 lectures, Hamilton's convictions would be deepened and 
 his zeal would be quickened. The whole surroundings, 
 indeed, would contribute to this result ; the air was 
 charged with Eeformation principles and Eeformation 
 fervour. That he reaped much benefit, and made con- 
 siderable progress, we have conclusive proof in the only 
 work from his pen that has come down to us. It was 
 written during his stay in Marburg, and contains theses 
 put forth and defended by him at the university. It 
 was published at the request of Lambert, and thus 
 testifies to the high esteem in which the student was 
 held by the professor. 
 
 At this university he remained only one session. 
 That short period sufficed so to expand his views of 
 Divine truth, and to strengthen his devotion to his 
 " good and gentle Lord," that he felt himself prepared 
 to meet the difficulties and dangers from which he had 
 fled. He was persuaded that it was his duty to do 
 what lay within his power to enlighten his countrymen, 
 and he resolved, at whatever cost, to discharge that 
 duty. Leaving the two companions who had travelled 
 with him to Marburg, he returned to Scotland. On 
 his arrival he went to Kincavel, now the property and 
 residence of his brother, James, Sheriff of Linlithgow. 
 There he remained for some time. At once he began 
 to preach " alse weal in publict as in secreat," and he 
 continued to do so until prevented by the action of the 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 361 
 
 Archbishop. His preaching was much appreciated and 
 highly beneficial not only to the members of his 
 brother's household, but also to the inhabitants of the 
 adjoining districts. He had " a great following," and 
 those who listened to his fervent presentation of evan- 
 gelical truth, experienced quickening, enlightenment 
 and comfort. 
 
 Shortly after his return he married. Who the lady 
 was who became his bride we do not know : indeed 
 the fact of his marriage was only lately discovered. It 
 was known that he had left a daughter, but it was 
 supposed that she was illegitimate, and the supposition 
 cast a shadow on his otherwise pure and noble char- 
 acter. That the supposition was incorrect we learn 
 from Alesius, who states distinctly that Hamilton 
 " shortly before his death married a young lady of 
 noble rank." 
 
 Not long did the pair enjoy the happiness and the 
 comforts of married life ; not long was Hamilton per- 
 mitted to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His 
 return and his activity in disseminating heresy were 
 duly reported to Beaton. Of these the Archbishop 
 must take account ; even if he were willing to treat 
 them lightly, there were those by his side, notably his 
 nephew David, who were determined to proceed to the 
 extremest measures in order to stamp out the evil. 
 And by his conduct the Eeformer had thrown down a 
 challenge which the ecclesiastics must take up if they 
 wished to retain their hold on the people. When 
 summoned to appear before the Court of the Primate 
 and meet grave accusations of doctrinal error, he had 
 made his escape, and, after a few months' absence in that 
 country the very atmosphere of which was tainted with 
 
362 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 heresy, he had come back to set himself even more 
 openly and more distinctly than before in opposition to 
 the authorities. In his utterances he did not after his 
 return confine himself to the statement of evangelical 
 principles ; he did more than preach salvation by faith ; 
 he attacked the institutions, denied the authority, and 
 defied the power of the Church. Once more, then, he 
 is cited to appear at St. Andrews. The terms of the 
 citation are important, shedding light, as they do, on 
 the position taken up by the Reformer. He is charged 
 with teaching that neither the laws, the canons, the 
 ordinances and decrees of the Fathers, nor human in- 
 stitutions are to be obeyed ; that the keys and censures 
 of the Church are to be despised ; that no reliance is 
 to be placed on the Sacraments of the same ; that 
 churches are not to be attended ; that images are not 
 to be worshipped ; that prayers are not to be offered 
 for the souls of the dead ; that tithes are not to be 
 paid to God and the Church ; that good works do not 
 of merit secure salvation, and that evil deeds do not of 
 desert entail punishment ; that our ancestors, trusting 
 in the Church of God and in the Sacraments of the 
 same, died in a corrupt and false faith and were buried 
 in hell. 1 
 
 It was easy for Beaton to issue his summons ; it 
 was not so easy for him to carry it into effect ; he 
 must act with the utmost caution. The heretic had 
 many powerful relatives who were ready to defend him. 
 The Hamiltons and the Douglases, too, were then on 
 
 1 Citatio Patricii Hamilton e Formulari Vetere Andreano. This 
 document was recently discovered in the library of St. Andrews 
 University by Prof. Mitchell, to whom I am indebted for a 
 copy. On its issue I base my arrangement of the events con- 
 nected with his apprehension. 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 363 
 
 friendly terms, so that if the Archbishop acted hastily 
 and carelessly he might array against himself their com- 
 bined opposition. Most important of all, the young 
 King was interested in the young preacher, and might 
 exercise his authority on his behalf. The two must 
 have met frequently. In the palace of Linlithgow, 
 " the Versailles of the period," James often lived, and 
 at Kincavel, in its vicinity, Hamilton resided with his 
 brother when not attending the university ; the two 
 families were also closely connected. It is therefore im- 
 possible to suppose that they were not acquainted with 
 each other, even though no definite statement to this 
 effect remains. In any case James might be ap- 
 proached either by the Eeformer or by his friends \ 
 and he was. When the citation was issued, an appeal 
 was made to him. And anxious to shelter one for 
 whom he had a high regard, but unwilling to offend 
 the clergy by taking a decided stand, he recommended 
 Patrick to endeavour to come to terms with the Arch- 
 bishop, and with the view of helping on this result 
 he suggested a conference. To this suggestion Beaton 
 readily agreed ; in all probability it was his own. At 
 any rate, since the conference was to be held at St. 
 Andrews, it would further his plan, for it would 
 bring his victim within his power, so that should he 
 refuse to recant he could be easily seized ; it would 
 also afford him and those associated with him longer 
 time to negotiate with Angus, and in this way to 
 secure not only his favour, but also that of the King, 
 who was practically under his control. Knox says 
 that the Archbishop " so travailled with Maister 
 Patrick that he gat him to Sanctandrosse." And this 
 would be true if, as is likely, he strove to give to the 
 
361 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 conference a plausible look, and to hold out hope 
 that by means of it a reconciliation might be effected. 
 In harmony with this view was the conduct of the 
 Primate. For the suspected preacher he provided 
 lodgings ; after his arrival he met with him more than 
 once, discussed the need for certain changes, and even 
 professed agreement with many of the points urged by 
 him. Indeed, his whole bearing toward him had at 
 first the appearance at least of friendship. He allowed 
 him to enjoy perfect freedom ; he permitted him to 
 receive at his lodgings all who visited him, and to 
 move about amongst his former acquaintances without 
 let or hindrance. 
 
 But Hamilton was not deceived by the conduct of 
 Beaton. He yielded to the King's wish, and expressed 
 himself willing to confer with the Primate. But he 
 entertained not the faintest hope of either securing his 
 own release, or bringing about reform. He saw pre- 
 cisely how matters stood in the civil sphere. The 
 recommendation of James, to seek peace with the 
 Archbishop, taught him that neither he nor Angus 
 could or would shield him from harm. This they 
 could only do at the risk of breaking with the clergy, 
 and that was a step neither was prepared to take. 
 Each was anxious to retain the favour of the Church, 
 and so to ensure its aid when that might prove 
 helpful ; hence the King's reluctance to interfere, and 
 Angus's readiness to acquiesce. Fully aware of the 
 state of the case, Hamilton left Kincavel convinced 
 that he was going to his doom. While still at liberty 
 in St. Andrews he was urged both by his friends and 
 opponents to flee ; he was even assured on the best 
 authority that the Archbishop would be pleased if lie 
 
PA TRICK HAMILTON. 365 
 
 accepted the advice offered. But he steadily refused 
 to do so; he as steadily sought to dissuade his friends 
 from having recourse to physical force on his behalf. 
 He had fled before, but he would not do so again; he 
 would remain at his post, and, if need be, by his death 
 prove the sincerity of his profession and the power 
 of Divine truth to strengthen for duty and sustain 
 under trial. 
 
 For a month he was allowed to enjoy perfect freedom. 
 That interval he employed in presenting Eeformation 
 doctrines to all whom he met. The conviction that 
 had taken possession of him that his time was short 
 influenced his teaching. It not only rendered him 
 more ardent in his endeavours to impress his hearers, 
 but it led him to confine himself more particularly to 
 the exhibition of saving truth. While at Kincavel he 
 had dealt with the externals of the Catholic system, as 
 well as with the great essential doctrines of Christianity ; 
 at St. Andrews he followed a different course ; he was 
 anxious to teach men and bring them within the benign 
 and vivifying influence of the Gospel, feeling assured 
 that if he succeeded in thus affecting them he would 
 prepare efficient instruments for accomplishing the work 
 which he had been compelled to abandon. And his 
 efforts were not altogether fruitless ; some who came to 
 converse with him in the hope that they might bring 
 him back to the orthodox faith were, by his cogent 
 reasoning, themselves drawn away and led to accept 
 the new system. This was strikingly the case 
 with Alexander Alane, afterwards called Alesius, 
 who conceived a strong affection for Hamilton, an 
 affection that led him, a few years after his death, to 
 embody in his Commentary on the 37th Psalm a brief 
 
366 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 narrative of the martyr, which contains much informa- 
 tion not to be found in any other volume. And the 
 depth of his affection for the Reformer was an indica- 
 tion of the depth of the impression made on his heart 
 by the Reformer's utterances ; though he escaped death, 
 he passed through much suffering because of his attach- 
 ment to the Lutheran doctrines taught him by Hamilton, 
 and he only preserved his life by flight. 
 
 Not a few, however, sought an audience with him 
 from another and entirely different motive. They came 
 as emissaries from the " chief priests " to catch him in 
 his words, or rather, to extract from him his opinions, 
 and report them to those that sent them, in order that 
 material for weighty accusations might be gathered 
 and witnesses might be secured to prove the charges 
 made. 
 
 At length all was ready. It was notified to Hamil- 
 ton that, in terms of the citation served upon him, he 
 must attend on the day named therein to explain his 
 position with regard to certain statements contrary to 
 the orthodox faith, said to have been made by him. 
 He did attend ; he even anticipated the hour of meet- 
 ing, so eager was he to face his accusers and declare in 
 their presence his convictions. Thirteen articles of 
 heresy were read over, and these he was charged with 
 having taught and defended. Six of the thirteen he 
 admitted to be disputable, but he refused to condemn 
 them until stronger reasons against them than he had 
 yet heard had been adduced. The remaining seven he 
 confessed having taught and defended ; and he declared 
 himself prepared to defend them still further, absolutely 
 refusing to recant or modify his utterances. These 
 charges, with the arguments advanced by him in sup- 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. 367 
 
 port of them, were referred to a body of theologians for 
 examination. The result was, as might have been 
 expected, that they were condemned ; all the points 
 submitted were declared to be at variance with the 
 teaching of the Church. It was arranged that this 
 condemnation should be presented to an ecclesiastical 
 court, to be held in the cathedral on the last day of 
 February, and by it ratified. 
 
 After his examination, Hamilton was permitted to 
 return to his lodgings, and, pending the report of the 
 theologians, he was to be allowed to enjoy the freedom 
 hitherto accorded. Such at least was the intention of 
 the Archbishop, but he saw cause to alter his plans. 
 Hamilton's friends had determined to accomplish his 
 release, and for this purpose they decided to call out 
 and arm all the men at their command. Patrick's 
 brother, the Sheriff of Linlithgow, did gather his forces 
 together, and was only prevented marching on St. 
 Andrews by a violent storm that rendered the passage 
 of the Firth of Forth impossible until too late. Duncan, 
 of Airdrie, also collected his few retainers, and was on 
 the way to attack the Primate when he was met and 
 overpowered by the Primate's soldiers. 
 
 Learning that such attempts at a rescue were being 
 contemplated, Beaton deemed it desirable to secure his 
 victim, and gave orders for his apprehension. His 
 orders were at once carried out. At night the captain 
 of the Castle drew a body of armed men round the 
 house in which Hamilton was living. He at once 
 surrendered himself, beseeching the friends who were 
 with him to offer no resistance. He was conveyed to 
 the Castle, and kept there till the day fixed for the 
 trial. On the clay appointed a vast concourse of 
 
368 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Church dignitaries assembled in the cathedral. To 
 Friar Campbell was assigned the task of conducting the 
 case. This task he greatly disliked ; secretly, as 
 Hamilton reminded him, he sympathized with the 
 heretical opinions which he had to denounce. In pri- 
 vate he had often acquiesced in the views expressed by 
 the Eeformer, and it required not a little effrontery to 
 accuse in public the man with whom he had agreed in 
 private. Campbell first read over the written charges 
 which Hamilton had already admitted, and which had 
 been adjudged heretical. These the accused met so 
 firmly and defended so ably that it was thought need- 
 ful to add others in order that those present might be 
 convinced that he was indeed worthy of heavy punish- 
 ment. Campbell being instructed to do so, took up 
 points which, though of minor importance, were more 
 serviceable than the others, because they were within 
 the comprehension of the audience. These concerned 
 the lawfulness of reading the Word of God, of worship- 
 ing images, of praying to saints, and in particular to 
 the Virgin Mary, and the existence of purgatory. 
 With regard to these matters the accused stated his 
 opinions clearly and courageously ; and those opinions 
 were distinctly at variance alike with the views of the 
 judges and the beliefs of the people. Knowing this, 
 Campbell turned triumphantly to the tribunal and said, 
 " My Lord Archbishop, you hear he denies the institu- 
 tions of the holy Kirk and the authority of our holy 
 Father the Pope. I need not to accuse him any more." 
 Unanimously he was condemned, and sentenced to be 
 delivered to the secular power for punishment. His 
 condemnation seemed to rest on " trifles," but it really 
 rested on the weightiest matters of the law, though for 
 
PA TRICK HA MIL TON. 369 
 
 the sake of gaining popular approval the former were 
 emphasized. 
 
 The sentence was carried out that very day. The only 
 civil warrant obtained was one signed by the Archbishop's 
 own bailiff. No time was allowed for an appeal to the 
 King ; indeed such an appeal would have been useless. 
 The King, as we have already seen, had been approached 
 when the citation was issued, but without success ; and, 
 lest any subsequent application might be successful, 
 the Church authorities had arranged with Angus that 
 James, who was under his control, should visit the 
 shrine of St. Duthac in Boss-shire. When the sentence 
 was pronounced, then, he was far beyond the reach of 
 Hamilton or of his friends ; and that no opportunity 
 of reaching him might be afforded them, the sentence 
 was executed with most unseemly haste. 
 
 At noon the stake was prepared in the area in 
 front of St. Salvator's College. Hamilton calmly awaited 
 the fatal hour in one of the rooms of the Castle, and 
 when the captain intimated that the pile was ready he 
 walked forth with a quick, firm step. To a friend he 
 gave his copy of the Evangelists, and to his servant 
 his cap and gown, and other upper garments. He was 
 urged to recant, but refused to do so. Having been 
 bound by a chain to the stake, he sought in prayer 
 strength for himself and enlightenment for his country. 
 His sufferings were severe and prolonged. The fire 
 when first applied only exploded the gunpowder, but 
 did not ignite the faggots ; partly burned, he asked 
 them to fetch more gunpowder and wood. While 
 waiting for these his agony was intense, but he showed 
 no sign of impatience ; on the contrary, he spoke com- 
 forting words to those who were present. At length 
 
 2 A 
 
370 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the flames kindled round him, but so slowly did they 
 do their work that it was six o'clock before his body 
 was consumed. Thus for six hours the execution lasted, 
 but during all this time, says Alesius, who was an eye- 
 witness of the scene, " the martyr never gave one sign 
 of impatience or anger, nor ever called to heaven for 
 vengeance upon his persecutors, so great was his faith, 
 so strong his confidence in God." 
 
 Of Hamilton's theological position we have a clear 
 indication in " Patrick's Places." This work is in- 
 teresting as the first statement of doctrine that was 
 called forth in connection with the Scottish Eeforma- 
 tion. It is distinctly evangelical in tone and scope. 
 It has been called Lutheran, but that term, suggestive 
 as it is of the later peculiarities of German theology, 
 is somewhat misleading when applied to Hamilton's 
 theses. They present a lucid and pointed summary 
 of the vital truths that the Wittenberg monk had, by 
 his own experience, been led to set before his fellow- 
 countrymen. They deal with such fundamental ques- 
 tions as the difference between the law and the gospel, 
 faith and works, justification and holiness. And the 
 ease and maturity with which he discusses these matters 
 is truly remarkable when his circumstances are fairly 
 considered. With a steady hand he traces the dividing 
 line between truth and error ; with singular precision 
 he marks off the respective spheres of law r and gospel ; 
 with striking accuracy and rare felicity he expounds 
 and illustrates the relation between faith and works. 
 The key-note of the whole is faith ; faith as the ground 
 of justification and sanctification ; faith as the root 
 whence spring hope and charity ; faith as the bond 
 linking us to Christ, and so enabling us to keep the 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. 371 
 
 Commandments. These were the doctrines he pro- 
 claimed in his preaching and upheld in his discussions : 
 doctrines that were vastly different from those to which 
 the people had been so long accustomed ; that were 
 instinct with life, aglow with love, and bright with 
 hope ; that struck a death-blow at the system of empty 
 rites and dead ceremonies with which the country had 
 hitherto had to be satisfied ; that, by setting forth the 
 possibility of salvation apart from sacerdotal instru- 
 mentality, undermined the pretensions of priest and of 
 Pope ; that, by proving the necessary connection be- 
 tween a Christian profession and purity of life, brought 
 out into striking prominence the inconsistencies that 
 marked the lives of the clergy. When we appreciate 
 aright the nature of Hamilton's teaching, and remember 
 the condition of the country and the Church, we shall 
 not wonder that when he spoke men listened and re- 
 sponded to his appeal, and the Cardinal trembled and 
 felt compelled to silence his voice. 
 
 When we read " Patrick's Places " we perceive the 
 distinction between Hamilton and the Lollards. The 
 latter dealt with the fruits, the former went down to 
 the root. John Eesby and those who followed him 
 pointed out and attacked many evils and errors, setting 
 forth at the same time the truth as it bore upon the 
 matters referred to ; but they failed to reach, or at least 
 to see distinctly, the ground and source of all these evils 
 and errors. This, Hamilton, following Luther, did. 
 Seizing firmly the spiritual aspect of religion, discerning 
 clearly that the act by which we become Christian is a 
 movement of the heart, he understood fully the fallacy 
 on which the Church of Eome had reared its system. 
 If justification was by faith, and by faith alone, then 
 
372 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 it was folly, worse than folly, to identify salvation with 
 external processes, to permit any man to intervene be- 
 tween the individual soul and God, to believe that one 
 who was vicious in life was, or could be, the channel 
 of Divine grace. "When this doctrine was distinctly ap- 
 prehended and emphatically declared, the pretensions 
 of Rome were proved to be unfounded, arrogant, aye 
 blasphemous. 
 
 " The reik of Maister Patrick Hamilton has infected 
 as many as it blew upon : " so said Johnnie Lynclsay to 
 James Beaton, and there was more truth in the saying 
 than the Archbishop was ready to admit. The extreme 
 measures resorted to, so far from arresting the spread 
 of the new doctrines, as was intended, gave them a 
 wider currency. Men of all classes felt constrained to 
 ask why one so pure and gentle, so noble and good, 
 should have suffered martyrdom, and the inquiry 
 wrought in them the belief that the martyr was right 
 and that his persecutors were wrong. Thus he exercised 
 a more powerful influence by his death than by his 
 life : many were affected by the pains he endured who 
 would have paid little heed to the words he uttered. 
 Indeed, until Wishart began his work, the teaching of 
 Hamilton continued the moving spring of the Reforma- 
 tion in Scotland ; so far as we can gather, those who, 
 in the intervening period stood forth to bear witness to 
 the truth, and, if called upon to seal their testimony 
 with their blood, assumed substantially his doctrinal 
 position. 
 
 Naturally the first and most decided effects of 
 Hamilton's influence appeared in St. Andrews — the 
 scene of his earlier and later teaching and the place of 
 his martyrdom. Those living in that ancient city ad 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. 373 
 
 seen the man, had listened to his words, had felt the 
 charm of his sweet and beautiful character, had been 
 impressed by the calm heroism with which he met 
 his late. This was specially true of the canons of the 
 priory, many of whom, both when he was in residence at 
 St. Leonard's and when he moved amongst them under 
 suspicion, had recognized and admitted the force of his 
 appeals and arguments. Of these, several now ranged 
 themselves on the side of Lutheranism. 
 
 But the leaven was not confined in its working to 
 St. Andrews ; it spread throughout the land, making 
 its presence and operation manifest in many directions 
 and in many forms. In the circumstances it could not 
 well be otherwise. On St. Andrews no fewer than 
 twenty-eight religious houses were dependent ; between 
 these institutions and their head there was frequent 
 communication ; a movement at the centre could not 
 fail to make itself felt at every point in the circum- 
 ference. These religious houses again had their de- 
 pendencies — their members doing parochial work in 
 connection with the churches of the surrounding dis- 
 tricts. In this way the light that had been kindled by 
 Hamilton and fanned into bright glow by the fury of 
 his adversaries shed its guiding and cheering radiance 
 far and wide. 
 
 Nor was its diffusion limited to the monasteries; it 
 touched also the laity, and especially those occupying high 
 positions in the social and intellectual spheres. Many of 
 the sons of the nobility were studying at the University 
 of St. Andrews when the Church pronounced and carried 
 out its cruel sentence, and, like the others who were in 
 the city, they turned their attention to the matters in 
 dispute, with the result that some accepted the heresy 
 
374 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 of Luther as the truth of God. 'When they visited 
 their homes they carried with them the doctrines they 
 had received and commended them to their friends. 
 Apart from this, however, the death of Patrick Hamil- 
 ton would have excited interest amongst the titled 
 classes. He was related to those who bore honourable 
 names; he could claim kinship with some of the noblest 
 in the land, even with the King himself. It was there- 
 fore impossible that his death could be passed by 
 without notice or comment. The prelates did not desire 
 that it should; it was designed to act as a warning to 
 those who were tempted to stray from the path of 
 orthodoxy. In many cases, even amongst the nobility, 
 it had the very opposite effect. Men thought, and 
 thought rightly, that if one so devout and holy as 
 Patrick Hamilton had been, had not walked in the 
 path of orthodoxy that path could not be the way of 
 righteousness. 
 
 Thus, despite the death of the Reformer, the Refor- 
 mation went on, taking an ever-wider sweep and an 
 ever-stronger hold on the nation. It is, however, no 
 easy task to mark accurately the course it took or the 
 extent of its operation during the period that elapsed 
 between the martyrdom of Hamilton and the preaching 
 of Wishart. That it was advancing there is abundant 
 evidence — evidence frequently of a sad and painful 
 kind, but the advance itself we cannot trace or estimate 
 with certainty. This is due in great measure to the 
 political troubles and complications of that epoch, and 
 to the relations, oftentimes subtle and intricate, between 
 the two parties in the civil and the two parties in the 
 religious sphere. The maintenance of the Church 
 became associated with one faction in the State, its 
 
PA TRICK HA MIL TON. 375 
 
 reformation with another ; and it is well-nigh impossible 
 to unravel the web and set forth accurately what was 
 due to zeal for the truth and what to baser and less 
 worthy motives. 
 
 The main features of the period may, however, with- 
 out difficulty be briefly sketched. It runs practically 
 parallel with the reign of James V., from his escape 
 from the power of Angus till his death. His flight 
 from Falkland to Stirling took place a few months 
 after Hamilton was burned, and he died in December, 
 1542. 
 
 As a result of the restraints imposed on him during his 
 minority the King entertained feelings of keen enmity 
 toward the barons and of bitter hatred toward the 
 Douglases. He thought that the nobility had been 
 growing in importance, and had been invading the 
 possessions and the prerogatives of the Crown, and he 
 determined to humble them and to regain what he had 
 lost. But if he separated himself from the aristocracy, 
 to whom could he look for support ? There was but 
 one party — the clergy, and into their arms he threw 
 himself. James had no special love for the Church or her 
 ministers. He was fully aware that there was need for 
 reform in the manners of the clergy, and he often urged 
 them to mend their ways ; but he required their aid in 
 order to oppose the nobility, whom he reckoned his 
 enemies, and consequently he could not deal hardly 
 with them, or compel them to make the changes which 
 he saw clearly were necessary. Thus the two parties 
 in the State became more sharply defined than they 
 had been before. Behind each stood a foreign power ; 
 behind the Church, France, and sometimes the Emperor ; 
 behind the nobility, England. France was ready to 
 
S7G THE REFORMERS. 
 
 support tlie Church, always because of its devotion to 
 the Pope, and sometimes because of its opposition to 
 England. England, on the other hand, anxious for 
 political reasons to gain a share in the management of 
 Scottish affairs, and perceiving that the clergy were its 
 most determined opponents, offered support to those 
 who were willing, for whatever reason, to crush the 
 ecclesiastics, at the same time pressing upon James the 
 desirability of carrying forward without delay the work 
 of reform. It is easy to understand how difficulties 
 and complications arose ; easy to understand, too, the 
 vacillations of the King — at one moment showing 
 himself determined to suppress the heresy, at another 
 appearing altogether indifferent on the subject. He 
 was being wooed by two different suitors, and he was 
 dazzled in turn by the charms and possessions of 
 each. But on the whole the Church was able to offer 
 the strongest attractions ; not only could she confer 
 high titles and bestow rich gifts, she could also promise 
 military aid from France in cases of emergency. To 
 the Scottish Court there came a Papal legate ; with 
 him he brought a cap and a sword that had been 
 consecrated by the Pope on the anniversary of the 
 Nativity, and as he laid them at the feet of the 
 King he addressed him as " Defender of the Faith " — 
 a title that had been conferred upon Henry VIII., but 
 of which he had proved himself altogether unworthy. 
 His illegitimate sons also, infants though they were 
 received from His Holiness permission to hold offices in 
 the Church, and the revenues drawn from these sources 
 were to be augmented by a year's revenue, which he 
 was authorized to demand from all vacant benefices. 
 Considering the efforts and sacrifices which the Church 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. Til 
 
 was ready to make, we need not wonder that the power 
 of the clergy increased, and that James felt himself 
 drawn to them in ever closer union. His French mar- 
 riages also added new links to the chains that bound 
 him to the ecclesiastical faction. He had sold himself 
 to the Church that he might gain independence. For 
 a time he apparently deluded himself with the idea 
 that he had gained what he sought. Now and again he 
 stood apart and thought and acted for himself, and he 
 mistook this for liberty : his delusion was soon to be 
 rudely dispelled. 
 
 Turning from the political to the religious aspect of 
 events, we discover that notwithstanding the general 
 confusion and strife of parties it is possible to note a 
 definite advance in the dissemination of Eeformation 
 principles. Of this we have proof in the Acts that 
 were passed for the purpose of suppressing the heresy 
 and in the martyrdoms that took place at different 
 times during this period. In 1532 the sale, possession, 
 or use of the Scriptures was prohibited by the bishops ; in 
 1535 the enactment of 1525 was made more stringent, 
 all who had heretical books being required to deliver 
 them up within forty days ; and in 15-11 all religious 
 discussion was forbidden. In 1534 and 1539 there 
 were numerous instances of persecutions, and in each 
 <>f these years men and women suffered for their 
 attachment to " the truth as it is in Jesus." This last 
 date is important, as it marks the accession to full 
 power of David Beaton, who had been acting for a few 
 months as colleague to his uncle. Previous to this, 
 as we have seen, his hand may be detected in the 
 government of the country, but for the next seven years 
 he becomes the chief actor in Scottish affairs. A deadly 
 
378 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 foe to Henry, because of his apostacy, the Archbishop 
 exerted his extraordinary powers to frustrate all endea- 
 vours to bring Scotland under English rule, to outwit 
 the supporters and agents of the King, and to crush 
 those who, because of their desire for Church reform, 
 might lend him their countenance. 
 
 James had Ions found it difficult to maintain his 
 position between the two parties in the State, and at 
 length he fell a victim to the division. The defeat 
 of Solway filled him with despair, under which he 
 sank and to which he speedily succumbed. After his 
 death there was found in his pocket a list of one 
 hundred noblemen, all friendly to the Reformation, 
 whom the Cardinal had advised him to put to death. 
 The roll had been offered to him once before by 
 Beaton ; he had rejected it then with scorn and anger, 
 but the necessities of the case had later become too 
 strong for him, and he had yielded. This diabolical 
 plan, had the King lived to execute it, would at once 
 have been a death-blow to the English influence in 
 Scotland, and have rendered the Church safe from 
 spoliation. More than once Henry, through his 
 ambassadors, had advised James to follow his example 
 in the destruction of the monasteries and the appropria- 
 tion of their wealth, and more than once when his 
 treasury was empty James had been tempted to follow 
 his advice. The design of the Archbishop was intended 
 to deprive such a suggestion of all force by supplying 
 the King with riches sufficient to gratify even his 
 extravagant tastes. 
 
 Immediately after the King's death, Beaton claimed 
 the regency in virtue of a testament which he pro- 
 duced bearing the King's signature. The claim was 
 
PA TRICK HAMIL TON. 37D 
 
 refused, the testament being declared a forgery, and 
 Arran was appointed. His appointment gave much 
 satisfaction to the Reformers, for he was understood 
 to be favourable to the new doctrines. Indeed, he 
 had attached to his household Rough and Williams, 
 two preachers of Lutheran views. The satisfaction 
 was, however, of short duration. Influenced by his half- 
 brother, the Abbot of Paisley, Arran recanted at Stirling 
 on 3rd Sept., 1543, and became reconciled to Beaton, 
 whom a few months before he had cast into prison. 
 This act carried with it the most serious consequences 
 for the country ; it was a violation of the treaty con- 
 cluded with Henry regarding the marriage of Edward 
 and Mary, and Henry was not slow to take revenge, 
 ravaging the land with fire and sword. 
 
 The Acts passed from time to time, the martyrdoms 
 that took place, the roll of condemned reforming nobles 
 drawn up by Beaton, and the temporary favour shown 
 by Arran to the movement, all furnish evidence that 
 the Reformation was gaining ground in the country, 
 and that the number of its adherents was increasing. 
 The most signal proof, however, of its advance is 
 offered by an Act passed in March, 1543, which 
 provided that " all men and women should be free to 
 read the Holy Scriptures in their own tongue or in 
 the English tongue, and that all Acts passed to the 
 contrary should be abolished." Well might the Arch- 
 bishop of Glasgow protest against this enactment, for 
 by it the way was paved for the overthrow of Papal 
 authority and the downfall of the Catholic Church. 
 
 But this brings us almost to the time when Wishart 
 began his labours ; we must therefore pause, that we 
 may trace his early career. 
 
380 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 George Wishart was the only son of James Wish- 
 art of Pitarrow, and Elizabeth Learmont, his second 
 wife. Of the place and date of his birth no record 
 remains. It seems, however, fair to conclude that he 
 was born at Pitarrow, the family seat, which is situated 
 fifteen miles from Montrose, and an inscription on 
 what is said to be a painting of the Eeformer fixes 
 1513 as the year in which the event occurred. The 
 testimony of the inscription harmonizes with what we 
 gather from two legal documents connected with the 
 family: the one is dated 28th Oct., 1510, and is in 
 favour of James Wishart and Janet Lindsay, his spouse : 
 the other is dated :30th April, 1512, and is in favour 
 of James Wishart and Elizabeth Learmont, his spouse. 
 As it follows from these dates that James Wishart 
 must have married Elizabeth Learmont shortly before 
 30th April, 1512, we may, without hesitation, accept 
 1513 as the year in which their only son was born. 
 
 The Wisharts were an ancient and distinguished 
 family. In the affairs of their country they had 
 always taken a deep interest, and more than one of 
 their number had filled places of honour and import- 
 ance in the State. George's father was no exception 
 to the rule ; he was appointed, by James IV., Justice 
 Clerk and King's Advocate, and was a member of the 
 Council that assembled at Perth in November, 1513, to 
 meet the ambassadors from Louis XII. 
 
 Elizabeth Learmont was the daughter of Learmont 
 of Balcomie, in Eifeshire, who was descended from the 
 Learnionts of Ercildoune or Earlston, of which house 
 Thomas the Rhymer was the most illustrious member. 
 Her brother was James Learmont, who played a some- 
 what prominent part in civil affairs about the time 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 381 
 
 when Wishart came to the front ; lie was Master of 
 the Household in the reign of James V., and was one 
 of the Commissioners who went to England to treat 
 with Henry about the marriage of Mary and Edward ;. 
 he was also Provost of St. Andrews when Beaton was 
 murdered. 
 
 Regarding George Wishart's childhood and youth, 
 no information has reached us. Not until he is twenty- 
 three years of age do we meet with any authentic 
 references to him. These tell us that he taught Greek 
 in a school that had been founded in Montrose by 
 J ohn Erskine of Dun when Provost of that burgh ; 
 they also tell us that not only did he teach Greek, he 
 also supplied his pupils with a text-book — the best 
 of all text-books, the New Testament. Of his doings, 
 John Hepburn, Bishop of Brechin, heard, but did not 
 in the least approve. So far from being pleased with 
 the attempt being made to spread culture in his 
 diocese, he was angry, and resolved to put a stop to 
 it at once. He summoned Wishart to appear before 
 his court. But Wishart did not obey the summons ; 
 he fled. He was not yet ready to take his stand and 
 suffer for the truth ; he was only groping his way out 
 into the light, guided by his study of the sacred 
 volume. 
 
 We next catch a glimpse of him at Bristol, where 
 he has been preaching. How he came to be there, 
 and there in the capacity of a preacher, is involved in 
 mystery. It would seem as if in some way he had 
 been introduced to Latimer, who was then Bishop of 
 Worcester, and by him had been sent to that part of 
 his diocese to labour ; but in what way that intro- 
 duction was brought about we cannot say. The sug- 
 
382 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 g'estion has been made that he went to Cambridge and 
 there came under the notice of the Bishop, but of his 
 residence in Cambridge at this period of his history we 
 have no notice. 
 
 In letters written in connection with his visit to 
 Bristol he is called " the reader," and by Bishop Lesley, 
 who was a contemporary, he is referred to as " a clerk." 
 These statements appear to imply that he had been 
 admitted, by Latimer probably, to one of the inferior 
 orders, and thus furnished with authority to preach. 
 In any case he did preach, and in the course of his 
 preaching he gave expression to erroneous views. 
 While officiating in the Church of St. Nicolas he de- 
 clared that " Christ nother hathe nor coulde merite for 
 him nor yett for " his hearers. It has been contended 
 that in this sentence we should read " mother " for 
 " nother," and understand that Wishart was attacking 
 Mariolatry, but this cannot be allowed ; the statement 
 is plain and definite, and all the circumstances of the 
 case go to prove that he had accepted and was teaching 
 mistaken opinions regarding the Atonement. His 
 heretical utterances were made the subject of complaint 
 by the clergy. In consequence of this he was arrested 
 by the Mayor, and subsequently sent to London to be 
 tried by a court over which Cranmer presided. He 
 was condemned, and was sentenced to burn his faggot. 
 This he did in St. Nicholas' Church on Sunday, 13th 
 July, and in Christ's Church on Sunday, 20th July, 
 1539. His conduct in this matter was in every way 
 creditable to him, and foreshadowed the noble course 
 lie was to pursue later. His love of truth compelled 
 him at once to recant, when convinced of his error, 
 despite the humiliation entailed by doing so ; that 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 383 
 
 same love of truth was in after years to preserve him 
 from recanting, when no such conviction was produced, 
 although by his refusal to do so he had to face not 
 only humiliation but also suffering — even death itself. 
 
 After burning his faggot he went to Germany and 
 Switzerland. On the Continent he remained two or 
 three years, but no account of his journey or his resid- 
 ence abroad has been preserved. Returning to England, 
 he entered Bennet's or Christ's College, Cambridge, 
 intending both to study and to teach. Emery Tylney, 
 one of his pupils, who knew him well and loved him 
 intensely, has supplied us with a simple but graphic 
 description of his appearance and character. By him 
 he is represented as earnest, sober, at times even stern, 
 yet tender, amiable, charitable ; a man of simple habits 
 and elevated tastes ; longing to grow in knowledge and 
 willing to impart to others what he had himself ac- 
 quired ; devout in tone, pure and gentle and good. 
 
 From Cambridge he came to Scotland. The state- 
 ments regarding the date of his return which w T e possess 
 are, unfortunately, indefinite, and capable of more than 
 one interpretation. As the point is of prime import- 
 ance, because of its bearing on other questions regard- 
 ins the conduct and character of the Eeformer, it 
 demands close attention and careful treatment. 
 
 Our two authorities on the subject are John Knox 
 and Emery Tylney. The former says : " In the 
 myddest of all the calamities that came upoun the 
 realme after the defectioun of the Governour from 
 Christ Jesus came in Scotland that blissed martyre of 
 God, Maister George Wisharte, in company of the Com- 
 missionaris before mentionat, in the year of God 1544." 
 In this statement there are three notes of time: (1) 
 
384 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the calamities, (2) the return of the Commissioners, (3) 
 the year of God 1544. Of these, the first and third 
 agree with each other, but from both the second appears 
 to differ. Let us look at each, that we may understand 
 both the agreement and the apparent difference. 
 
 Knox speaks first of all of certain " calamities." 
 What these calamities were there can be no doubt, 
 He has just given a long account of them. Their 
 beginning and cause, indeed, he marks very distinctly 
 in the passage quoted : " They came," he says, " after 
 the defectioun of the Governour from Christ Jesus." 
 That defection took place, as we have already seen, in 
 September, 1543. Knox, having written fully regard- 
 ing it, proceeds to narrate the invasion of Scotland by 
 Henry in May, 1544, adding, " This was a parte of the 
 punishment which God took upoun the realme for infi- 
 delitie of the Governour and for the violatioun of his 
 solempned oath." He then relates the arrival of the 
 French troops in June, 1545, and only after having 
 done so does he speak of Wishart's return. From this 
 it is clear that in the sentence under review he points 
 to a period not earlier than May, 1544. In conform- 
 ity with this reference is the third note, " The year 
 of God 1544." And in dealing with this, as with other 
 dates, we have to remember that the year began then 
 on 25 th March, and not as now on 1st January. 
 
 From these we turn to the second clause, "in 
 company with the Commissionaris before mentionat." 
 The only " Commissionaris before mentionat " are those 
 that were appointed to negotiate with Henry about the 
 marriage of Edward and Mary, and these left Scotland 
 in March and returned in July, 1543. This statement, 
 then, seems to contradict the other two, and that there 
 
GEORGE WISH ART. 385 
 
 is a difficulty occasioned by it cannot be denied. The 
 question naturally suggests itself, Were there any 
 Commissioners sent to England at a later date with 
 whom Wishart might return, and with whom Knox 
 might confound those " mentionat " by him ? The 
 answer is, that there were none of precisely the same 
 kind, but that there were others who went on a 
 different footing and for a different purpose. By the 
 English faction in Scotland, at the head of which were 
 Lennox and Glencairn, representatives were sent across 
 the Border in 1544, and in connection with their visit 
 a treaty was concluded with Henry on 17th May of 
 that year. It is quite possible that Knox might be 
 thinking of these Commissioners, and might through 
 ignorance or inadvertency identify them with those to 
 whom he had previously referred. And there are two 
 considerations that favour this view. First, those who 
 went up in March, 1543, representing the Governor 
 and Parliament are called in the State papers 
 " Ambassadors," while those who went up from the 
 English party are called "Commissioners." Second,, 
 the former were sent on a purely political errand ; the 
 points in the treaty concluded bore solely on civil 
 affairs, but the latter demanded and secured as one of the 
 heads of the arrangement entered into that the people 
 should be left free to read the Bible in their own 
 tongue : they had thus a religious side to their 
 negotiations. And the presumption is surely in favour 
 of Wishart's returning with those who dealt with the 
 ecclesiastical as well as with the political affairs of the 
 country, rather than with those who dealt solely with 
 the political. 
 
 It is true that in support of the earlier date it may 
 2 B 
 
386 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 be urged that when the Commissioners from Parliament 
 set out for England Arran was professedly favourable 
 to the Keformation, so that circumstances seemed to 
 invite the exiled Eeformer to come north and render 
 help to the cause he had so much at heart ; also, that 
 Wishart's uncle, Sir James Learmont, was one of the 
 Commissioners, and that he, as a supporter of the 
 Reformation, would doubtless emphasize the invitation 
 presented by the circumstances and endeavour to 
 persuade his nephew to accompany him to Scotland. 
 But these contentions imply that Wishart would only 
 return to his native country when there were no dangers 
 to be faced, and this is not in accord with his conduct 
 at other times. 
 
 Knox has certainly run into error ; and in deciding 
 where the error lies we must consider in what direction 
 he was most likely to err. Taking his statement as it 
 stands, the balance is in favour of a late date, since two 
 clauses point to 1544, while only one points to 1543. 
 And looking at the matter generally we reach the same 
 conclusion. We may present the matter thus — If 
 Wishart returned with "the Commissionaris before 
 mentionat," then he neither came in the " myddest of 
 the calamities " nor in 1544; but if he came in "the 
 myddest of the calamities" then he might come in 1544. 
 Putting it thus, we perceive that the question which 
 we have to answer is : Regarding which point was 
 Knox most likely to make a mistake, regarding the Com- 
 missioners with whom Wishart returned, the condition 
 of the country at the time of his return, or the year in 
 which he returned. In discussing the question we 
 must remember that Knox was brought into close 
 contact with Wishart in the end of 1545, and that he 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 387 
 
 had therefore ample opportunity of gaining information 
 regarding his earlier movements. He wrote, too, only 
 twenty years after the event he was recording took 
 place, and wrote with a distinctly religious aim, dealing 
 with political matters, as he constantly tells us, only 
 in so far as these touched closely the history of the 
 Church. In such circumstances he was surely much 
 more likely to err regarding the people with whom the 
 Reformer returned than regarding the date of his return 
 or the state of the country at the moment. What 
 would fix itself in his memory would be the defec- 
 tion of the Governor, with the evils following, all 
 of which had for him a religious significance, and 
 the sudden illumination of the darkness that had 
 settled on the land by the appearance of a bright and 
 shining light. He might readily forget in whose 
 company Wishart travelled north, especially as there 
 were then frequent deputations passing between England 
 and Scotland; he might even forget the year, though 
 this is not likely, seeing that it was a year that was 
 eventful in the history of the nation ; but he would not 
 readily forget the circumstances of the time — circum- 
 stances so sad and painful that they must have indelibly 
 impressed themselves on the mind of one who was alike 
 an ardent patriot and a fervent Reformer. 
 
 In so far as the statement of Tylney bears on the 
 subject, it confirms the conclusion reached. He says, 
 "About the year of our Lord a thousand five hundredth 
 fortie and three there was in the Universitie of Cam- 
 bridge one Maister George Wishart." He speaks of 
 " the whole year of my being with him" ; and he states 
 " that he went into Scotland with diuers of the nobilitie 
 that came for a treaty to King Henry the Eight." The 
 
388 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 phrase " about the year a thousand five hundredth fortie 
 and three," taken in connection with the expression, 
 " the whole year of my being with him," suggests that 
 1543 was the year in which the pupil enjoyed the 
 benefit of this tutor's friendship and instruction — the 
 year, therefore, with which he most naturally associated 
 his stay at Cambridge. Had he left in July, 1543, he 
 would have lived in Cambridge only one quarter of that 
 year, according to the reckoning then in use, and, had 
 this been so, Tylney would scarcely have written as he 
 has done. 
 
 Once more, the terms in which he refers to those 
 with whom he went away suggest rather the represen- 
 tatives of the Enolish faction than the ambassadors from 
 
 o 
 
 the Governor and Parliament : " He went into Scotland 
 with diuers of the nobilitie that came for a treaty with 
 Henrv the Eight." 
 
 Despite, then, the difficulty occasioned by Knox's 
 statement as to the " Commissionaris," we seem forced 
 to accept the later date, and to understand that 
 Wishart returned either in May, 1544, or subsequent 
 thereto. 
 
 This is not the general opinion. Tytler says, "All 
 are agreed that Wishart arrived with the Commissioners, 
 and they certainly arrived in the interval between 16 th 
 and 31st July, 1543;" he says, further, that the date 
 " has been mistaken by Knox and all our ecclesiastical 
 historians." That Knox has made a mistake is clear ; 
 but that the ecclesiastical historians, who accept a later 
 date than July, 1543, have not made such a serious 
 mistake as Tytler's statement implies, is as clear. He 
 himself is at fault in the matter. He takes one part 
 of a statement and rejects two, although, as has been 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 389 
 
 shown, the two are more reliable than the one, and must 
 be allowed to a certain extent to interpret it. 
 
 After his return from England Wishart taught 
 for a time in Montrose in a house hired by him 
 for the purpose. Thence he went to Dundee, where 
 he expounded the " Epistle to the Komans " to large 
 audiences, drawn together by his fame as a preacher. 
 There he continued to labour till forbidden to do 
 so by the municipal authorities. Prior to their 
 interference, two attempts had been made to in- 
 timidate him and bring his expositions to a close. 
 The Governor, instigated doubtless by the Primate, had 
 charged him to cease holding public meetings, but this 
 charge he had refused to obey. In order to compel obedi- 
 •ence, the Church lent the force of its censures to the 
 menaces of the civil power. Because of. his refusal 
 the Bishop of Brechin cursed 1 him and delivered him 
 into the Devil's hands, and gave him commandment 
 that he should preach no more. But the ecclesiastical 
 malediction proved as powerless to arrest him as the 
 civil injunction had done ; notwithstanding, he did 
 " continew obstinatlye." Frustrated in their attempts 
 to terrify into silence the preacher of righteousness and 
 grace, the clergy sought to work on the fears of the 
 magistrates, who had hitherto afforded him protec- 
 tion and enabled him to defy all the threats hurled at 
 him. At length they succeeded. And, at the close of 
 one of his services, Wishart was inhibited from address- 
 ing congregations in the burgh. This inhibition was 
 delivered to him by Bobert My In, a magistrate, who 
 had formerly professed attachment to Lutheranism, and 
 had even suffered because of his profession. Wishart 
 
 1 i.e., excommunicated. 
 
390 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was much affected when he heard the proclama- 
 tion, but it would have been folly for him to disre- 
 gard it. He had not hesitated, as he reminded them, 
 to remain amongst them, even at the hazard of his life, 
 so long as they had been willing to listen to his words, 
 but now that they were forsaking him and withdrawing 
 from him their countenance he must leave them and 
 seek opportunities of usefulness elsewhere. He, how- 
 ever, warned them that since they were rejecting God's 
 message, afraid of the trouble its proclamation might 
 bring upon them, God would send upon them other 
 troubles that would be unaffected by " horning and 
 cursing." 
 
 Driven out of Dundee by priestly machinations, he 
 betook himself to Kyle, " that ancient receptacle of. 
 God's people." The efforts of Lollardism in that dis- 
 trict had not been altogether fruitless ; there were still 
 some who had come under its quickening influence, 
 and who were yearning for fuller and clearer views of 
 Divine truth. Aware of this, Wishart felt sure that in 
 the West he would find many willing to listen to him. 
 He also knew that in Ayrshire there were several 
 gentlemen of position who sympathized heartily with 
 his views, and would be ready to defend him if he were 
 attacked. 
 
 In Ayr he preached at the Cross ; this he did because 
 he was prevented entering the church by Dunbar, 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, who was alarmed by this evan- 
 gelical invasion of his diocese. At Mauchline, where 
 the church was also closed against him, lest the crowds 
 that assembled to hear him should destroy a valuable 
 shrine which it contained, he preached from a dyke, 
 and preached with great power and effect. Galston, 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 391 
 
 however, was the chief scene of his labours. There he 
 remained for some weeks, under the protection of John 
 Lockhart, of Ban, and during his stay he preached 
 regularly in the surrounding districts. Wherever he 
 went crowds gathered to hear him, and of those who 
 came not a few by their profession and conduct testified 
 to his success in presenting the truth so as to touch the 
 heart and influence the life. 
 
 But, inviting though this sphere was, the time came, 
 and came soon, when he must leave it. In Dundee 
 the plague was raging ; it had begun four days after 
 his departure, and its ravages were so terrible that " it 
 almost passed creclibilitie to hear what number departed 
 everie foure-and-twenty houris." The information which 
 he received regarding the condition of the people, in 
 whom, despite their harsh treatment of him, he had still 
 a deep interest, seemed a call to return and resume 
 amongst them the work that had been so suddenly 
 brought to a close ; and this call he obeyed without 
 hesitation or delay, "to the regreate of many." His 
 appearance in the plague-stricken city was hailed 
 with joy by the "faythful." At once he addressed 
 himself to the work that lay to his hand, minister- 
 ing in many ways to the comfort of the diseased. 
 Shortly after his arrival he preached from the East 
 Gate. This place was resorted to on account of 
 the pestilence, enabling as it did the preacher to 
 address two congregations at the same time; " the whole 
 sat or stood within, the seik and suspected without the 
 porte." His text on the occasion was, " He sent His 
 word and healed them," from which he discoursed in a 
 manner fitted to comfort and guide the inhabitants in 
 their peculiar circumstances. And the place selected 
 
392 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 as a pulpit gave point to the words chosen as a text, 
 for in its immediate vicinity was the monastery of St. 
 Roque, the saint who was invoked in times of sickness. 
 Thus by implication, if not by actual statement, the 
 preacher turned the thoughts of his hearers from the 
 false to the true source of health and healing. 
 
 Wishart remained in Dundee till the pestilence had 
 almost passed away, and was unwearied in his en- 
 deavours to aid, both in things temporal and in things 
 spiritual, those who were in affliction. But he was 
 not permitted to continue undisturbed his labour of 
 love. The Cardinal had heard of his return, and had 
 determined to silence him. He however knew well that, 
 in the circumstances, it would be folly to attack him 
 directly, since the people would defend him from any 
 force sent to take him, and would be estranged from the 
 Church by any attempt made to arrest him. But what 
 he feared to do openly he sought to do secretly. He 
 employed a priest, John Wightone by name, to carry 
 out his design. Stationed at the foot of the stair, with 
 " his whinger drawin into his hand under his gown," 
 he intended to stab Wishart as he came down from the 
 pulpit, but Wishart, who was " most scharpe of eie and 
 judgment," suspecting him of some foul purpose, seized 
 him by the hand that held the dagger. When he saw 
 that he was discovered and overpowered he made full 
 confession. The crowd were so enraged that they 
 would fain have taken summary vengeance on him, but 
 Wishart embracing him, cried out, " Who troubles him 
 troubles me/' and so saved him from the danger to 
 which he had exposed himself. 
 
 When the plague had well nigh ceased, Wishart went 
 
 J. o o * 
 
 for a short time to Montrose. His aim in going thither 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 393 
 
 was to secure rest and leisure for meditation. He had 
 been invited to Edinburgh by the Earls Glencairn and 
 Cassilis, who had promised him that at a meeting of 
 the Provincial Synod to be held in January he should 
 have an opportunity of discussing publicly with the 
 bishops various matters requiring reformation ; and for 
 this he was anxious to prepare himself fully. 
 
 But the malice of the Cardinal followed him into 
 his retirement. Sending him a message that his friend 
 Kinneir, of Kinneir in Fifeshire, was ill, he sought, 
 by inducing him to travel thither, to bring him 
 within the reach of a body of soldiers which he had 
 placed in ambush. His plan almost succeeded. The 
 Eeformer set out in haste to visit his sick friend, but 
 suddenly he stopped and refused to proceed, declaring 
 that evil was intended by his enemies ; thus he was 
 saved by his " scharpeness and wisdom." 
 
 Thus far I have sketched the career of Wishart 
 after his return from England, without reference to 
 dates. This omission has not been accidental. I have 
 purposely abstained from marking off definitely the 
 several periods embraced in this section of his life be- 
 cause of the acknowledged difficulty that has to be 
 faced in the attempt to do so. To the subject we 
 must, however, now devote our attention. And it may 
 be well to begin by considering the views of those who 
 accept July, 1543, as the date of his arrival in Scot- 
 land ; these are varied and diverse, and demand examin- 
 ation, because of their bearing on the character of the 
 Eeformer. 
 
 One view is that he remained in obsciirity at 
 Pitarrow till the spring of 1545 ; and that consequently 
 his activity on behalf of the Preformation lasted for 
 
394 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 only nine months. His retirement is accounted for by 
 the change that took place in the Eegent's religious 
 convictions, or rather profession. But apart from the 
 fact that nine months is much too brief a period for all 
 that was accomplished, the shrinking from service and 
 danger which such a retirement would imply is alto- 
 gether antagonistic to the character of the Eeformer. 
 He was ever eager to teach, and when prevented from 
 doing so he looked upon himself as " nothing better than 
 a dead man, except that he ate and drank " ; he was also 
 brave, willing to risk his life in the attempt to instruct 
 those who would listen to him. Surely a man ani- 
 mated by such a spirit could not remain quietly in 
 concealment for almost two years, no matter how 
 serious the difficulties to be overcome, and how terrible 
 the dangers to be faced in the discharge of duty. 
 
 Another view is as follows: Immediately on his ar- 
 rival in Scotland he began to preach in Montrose, and 
 shortly thereafter he went to Dundee. Evidence of his 
 early appearance and efforts in the latter town is furnished 
 by the popular demonstrations which took place there 
 in September, 1543, in connection with which most of 
 the monasteries were destroyed. After these demon- 
 strations he continued his labours till the Governor and 
 the Cardinal came thither in January, 1544, to make 
 inquisition and to punish those found guilty of heresy. 
 At their approach he and his congregation tied and re- 
 mained in hiding till the danger was past ; thereafter 
 he returned and continued some months till, in conse- 
 quence of the interference of the magistrates, he was 
 obliged to cease teaching, and to leave the town. He 
 then set out for the West, where he lived and 
 taught till, on hearing that the plague had broken out 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 395 
 
 in Dundee, he felt called upon to return to the East ; 
 and the plague visited Dundee in the summer of 1544. 
 From the date of his return till the autumn of 1545, 
 he continued in that town preaching and comforting 
 the afflicted, ceasing to do so only when his arrangement 
 with Glencairn and Cassilis called him to Edinburgh. 
 
 Now this view is not only at variance with the 
 facts, it does the Eeformer serious injustice ; it makes 
 him responsible for disorderly riots and wanton destruc- 
 tion of property ; and it implies that he was cowardly 
 enough to flee from the Governor and Cardinal when 
 they came to Dundee to hold inquisition. That it is 
 a mistaken view may, however, be easily proved. It 
 can be satisfactorily shown that Wishart had and could 
 have no connection with the disturbances that led to 
 the demolition of the monasteries, even admitting that 
 he reached Scotland in July, 1543; that he was not in 
 Dundee in January, 1544, and therefore did not flee 
 when the Governor and Cardinal visited the town ; and 
 that after his return from Kyle he did not remain so 
 long in Dundee as is required by this theory. 
 
 As to the riots, these took place before 3rd Septem- 
 ber, 1543; a more exact date cannot be given, but this 
 is sufficient for our present purpose. What, then, does 
 this view imply when fully stated ? It implies that within 
 a month Wishart visited his friends, hired a house in 
 Montrose and preached in it, left Montrose and went 
 to Dundee, where he expounded the Epistle to the 
 Romans, and by his exposition so excited the populace 
 that they attacked the sacred buildings. We may truly 
 say that if, in such a brief period, and, it may be added, 
 with such an unpromising theme, Wishart could so in- 
 fluence his audience, he must have been a much greater 
 
390 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 man than the most enthusiastic martyrologist has ever 
 ventured to suggest. But he did not ; his name is not 
 even hinted at by the writers of the period who refer 
 to the disturbances ; and it would undoubtedly have 
 been mentioned had he been the instigator and moving 
 spirit. 
 
 If further proof be required on this point it will be 
 furnished by what we learn regarding his supposed 
 presence in Dundee in the beginning of 1544. One, 
 if not the chief object which Arran and Beaton had in 
 visiting Dundee in January of that year, was to punish 
 those who were responsible for the demonstrations that 
 had proved so disastrous to the monasteries. Where 
 then was Wishart ? We are told that he had tied. 
 We at once reply that this is not the conduct we 
 should have expected from one who was so conscientious 
 and courageous. But, apart from this, we are con- 
 strained to ask, even if he had fled would not the civil 
 power, impelled by the ecclesiastical, have sought him 
 out and brought him to trial ? Would it not, at any 
 rate, on his resumption of work in the town, have ap- 
 prehended and punished him ? In the course of the 
 following month some were cited to answer for their 
 share in the riots, but amongst these we do not find 
 the Reformer, prime mover though he is said to have 
 been. At this very time, too, others were seized be- 
 cause they continued to teach the new doctrines. Of 
 these the most notable was John Bogers, who was taken, 
 imprisoned, thrown from the Castle wall and drowned 
 in the sea at St. Andrews; and his offence was that he 
 persisted in preaching in Angus and Mearns. And 
 yet we are to believe that, while all this was taking 
 place, Wishart was left undisturbed, and permitted to 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 397 
 
 complete his exposition of the " Epistle to the Romans." 
 When all the facts are considered by us, we are forced to 
 the conclusion that wherever he was in the beginning of 
 1544 he was not in Dundee, and his absence from 
 Dundee at this period confirms the result already 
 reached that he was in no sense responsible for the 
 destruction of the religious houses in that town. 
 
 The next point requiring consideration is the asser- 
 tion that, as the plague began in Dundee in the sum- 
 mer of 1544, and as Wishart returned from Kyle imme- 
 diately after its outbreak and continued till the autumn 
 of 1545, he must have been there at this time fully 
 a year. This assertion is not borne out by the terms in 
 which Knox speaks of the subject. He says, " When 
 the plague was ceased that almost thare was none seak, 
 he tooke his leave of them." These words imply 
 that, when he left, the effects of the pestilence had 
 not quite passed away ; there were still some " seak." 
 And this tells against such a lengthened residence as 
 is necessitated by the theory which we are discussing. 
 The promise, too, that Glencairn and Gassilis gave 
 Wishart before he left Ayrshire, that they would 
 arrange a public discussion when the Provincial Synod 
 met in January, points in the same direction. It is 
 not distinctly stated that this Synod was to be held in 
 the January following the date of the promise, but that 
 is the natural inference : it would be strange if the 
 promise had been given in reference to a Synod that 
 was not to meet for eighteen months. Once more, 
 though the exact date is doubtful, there is good autho- 
 rity for saying that the plague visited Dundee in the 
 summer of 1545 and not of 1544. 
 
 And this brings us to the arrangement that suggests 
 
398 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 itself on the supposition that he did not return 
 from England before May, 1544. Going to Mon- 
 trose, he hired a house and taught for a few months, 
 living the while at Pitarrow. Leaving Montrose 
 about the close of the year, he came to Dundee, 
 where he laboured till the following summer. On 
 being prohibited by the magistrates of that burgh, 
 he betook himself to the West. A month or so 
 later, he returned to preach and tend the " seak." 
 When all were nearly recovered — probably in the 
 month of October — he went to Montrose to meditate, 
 so that in November he might be ready to set out for 
 Edinburgh. According to this disposition he would 
 labour in Dundee six or nine months before the inhibi- 
 tion was served upon him by Robert Myln ; and this 
 would leave ample time for the injunction of the 
 Governor, the cursing of the Bishop of Brechin, and 
 the negotiations of the clergy with the municipal 
 authorities, which resulted in his expulsion. He would 
 also spend two months, or thereby, ministering to the 
 diseased after his return from Kyle ; and some such 
 period is in harmony with the statement of Knox. 
 
 In whatever way we deal with the interval between 
 his arrival in Scotland and his journey from Montrose 
 to Edinburgh, it is quite certain that the latter was 
 undertaken in November, 1545. It was undertaken, 
 too, in opposition to the wishes of his friends, especially 
 of his early friend, John Erskine of Dun. Despite 
 their earnest entreaties he was determined to go, and 
 determined to go notwithstanding his firm conviction 
 that troubles awaited him. Duty called him, and the 
 call of duty he dared not disobey. But though his 
 response was willing and immediate, he did not com- 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 399 
 
 ply without a struggle. His frequent references to the 
 shortness of his time, his sleeplessness and midnight 
 walks, his request for the prayers of his friends that he 
 might remain firm to the end, all imply that he ex- 
 perienced the full intensity of his trial, and that only 
 after severe inner conflict and victory through grace 
 was he enabled to pursue his course with joy. 
 
 On his way to Edinburgh he used due precaution ; 
 he did not take the direct route through Fife, since 
 that would have brought him within the power of the 
 Cardinal, but went by Perth, Kinross, and Kinghorn. 
 He reached the Capital before his friends Glencairn 
 and Cassilis, and was advised by those who received 
 him to remain silent till they arrived. For a time he 
 yielded to their wish, but becoming sorrowful in spirit, 
 he was allowed to preach. He did so in Leith on the 
 second Sabbath of December, and afterwards at Inver- 
 esk, Tranent, and Haddington. At Haddington his 
 audiences were small, owing to the influence exercised 
 in the district by the Earl of Bothwell. Before enter- 
 ing the pulpit the second time, he received intimation 
 that Glencairn and Cassilis were not coming to Edin- 
 burgh to meet him. By this he was much troubled, 
 saying to Knox, whom he had met at Longnicldry, and 
 who was constantly with him bearing a sword before 
 him, that he " weryed of the world," for " men begane 
 to weary of God." In his discourse he bewailed the 
 lack of interest on the part of the people in Gospel 
 truth, and prophesied that evil times would come on 
 them because of their indifference. That night he was 
 apprehended in Ormiston House, the residence of 
 Cockburn, who, along with Crichtone and Douglas, 
 had taken him under their protection, by the Earl of 
 
400 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Bothwell, who gave his word that he would preserve him 
 from harm, and in particular that he would hinder the 
 Governor and the Cardinal from having " thare will of 
 him." He was taken to Elphinstone Tower and shortly 
 after, despite the promise given by the Earl, he was 
 delivered over to the Cardinal, who sent him to St. 
 Andrews and confined him in the sea-tower or bottle 
 dungeon of the castle, a dismal cell cut down into the 
 solid rock. Here he was kept for a month. This 
 period was requisite for the needful arrangements. 
 The Cardinal first sought the assistance of the civil 
 power ; he asked " a commissioun and ane judge 
 criminall to give doom on Maister George if the clergy 
 fand him guiltie." This request the Governor refused, 
 in the hope that he might be able to prevent Beaton 
 doing Wishart serious injury ; but Beaton was at the 
 moment too powerful to be hindered by the Governor's 
 refusal ; he resolved to act on his own responsibility. 
 But, before he could proceed, he must surmount 
 another obstacle ; he was not on friendly terms with 
 Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow. Shortly before 
 this an unseemly quarrel had taken place between 
 them at the door of the Cathedral in Glasgow, 
 because each claimed the chief place, and the 
 " enemitie " that resulted " was judged mortal! and 
 without all hope of reconsiliation." But much as the 
 Archbishop of Glasgow disliked the Archbishop of St. 
 Andrews, he disliked heretics still more — disliked this 
 heretic in particular, because he had invaded his diocese. 
 Heartily, therefore, he responded to the invitation sent 
 him, and on the day appointed, 28 th February, he took 
 his place by the side of the Cardinal and gave his voice 
 against the troubler of the Church. 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 401 
 
 Wishart, when brought before the tribunal which 
 had been assembled in the Cathedral, asked that he 
 should be judged by the Governor whose prisoner he 
 was; this request was treated with contempt, and he 
 was bidden answer the charges that were brought 
 against him by Lauder, who acted the part of accuser. 
 These were eighteen in number, and for the most part 
 bore on the Sacraments. Wishart having prayed for 
 guidance, answered sweetly, but his answers only 
 increased the wrath of his judges. He would neither 
 recant nor modify his utterances, unless convinced of 
 their error from the Word of God ; to the Scriptures 
 he made his appeal, and on them he grounded all his 
 statements. But those ecclesiastics had not come 
 together to discuss with a heretic the Scriptural char- 
 acter of the Church's faith ; they had come to condemn, 
 not to convince. When the trial, if trial it could be 
 called, was over, the people were excluded and sentence 
 was pronounced. The prisoner was ordered to be 
 burned on the following day, and the order was carried 
 out in front of the Castle. From a window in the 
 eastern tower, Beaton and Dunbar watched the exe- 
 cution of the sentence they had been in such haste 
 to pronounce ; and lest there should be any attempt 
 at a rescue the ordnance of the Castle was directed to 
 the spot and " the gunnaris ready and standing by 
 thare gunnis." Wishart was first strangled and then 
 burned. His death was in harmony with his life. 
 He willingly forgave his executioner, on being asked 
 to do so ; he spoke kindly and cheerfully to those who 
 were standing by; he submitted bravely and calmly to 
 his fate. Having with childlike trust committed his 
 spirit into his Father's hands, he assured his friends 
 
 2 c 
 
402 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 that he would " sup with Christ " that night, and went 
 home to the " rest that remaineth for the people of 
 God/' and to the reward that awaits those that are 
 " faithful unto death." 
 
 Three months after Wishart was burned, Beaton 
 was murdered. Into the details of the bloody deed we 
 are not called upon to enter, but to the deed itself we 
 must refer, because it has been asserted that the act 
 had been long meditated, and that Wishart was privy 
 to the plot, nay, was largely responsible for it. In 
 order that we may investigate the matter carefully and 
 satisfactorily, we must discover on what ground this 
 assertion is based ; and in order that we may under- 
 stand the ground of the assertion, we must recall the 
 position of affairs in the sphere of politics. At the 
 time with which we are concerned, Henry VIII. 
 was anxious to conclude a marriage between his 
 son Edward and Mary, the infant daughter of James 
 V.; but all his attempts to do so proved futile, and 
 he was fully aware that the chief opponent to his 
 scheme was the Cardinal. jSTaturally he was desir- 
 ous that he should be removed — either apprehended 
 or slain. Sadler, the English ambassador, through 
 whom Henry was negotiating with the Scottish 
 authorities, was compelled in November, 1543, to 
 leave Edinburgh. It was of course necessary that he 
 should have full information of all that was being 
 done if he were to carry out his master's wishes, and, 
 with the view of gaining this, he employed, as his 
 secret agent and spy, Crichtone of Brimstone. In a 
 letter dated 17th April, 1544, from the Earl of 
 Hertford to Henry, that nobleman says, " This daye 
 arryved here with me the Erll of Hertford, a Scottish- 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 403 
 
 man called Wyshert, and brought me a letter from the 
 Larde of Brimstone ; " and then he proceeds to state 
 that the " said Wyshert " has two proposals to lay be- 
 fore His Majesty, one of which is "that the Larde of 
 Grainge, late thresaurer of Scotlande, the mr. of Eothes, 
 the Erl of Eothes' eldest son, and John Charter's eldest 
 son wolde attempt eyther to apprehend or slee the 
 cardynall at some tyme when he shall passe thoronhge 
 the Fyf lancle, as he doth sundry times, to Sanct 
 Andrewes," if they knew His Highness' pleasure. 
 At intervals between this date and the death of the 
 Cardinal letters appear in the State papers which 
 clearly prove that the conspiracy, though delayed, w^as 
 not forgotten : now these letters are from Crichtone, 
 now from Glencairn and Cassilis, but all deal more or 
 less distinctly with the same subject. As in none of 
 them, however, does the name " Wyshert " occur, we 
 have no special concern with them. The point, the 
 one point, requiring consideration is, was the " Scot- 
 tishman called Wyshert " in the Earl of Hertford's 
 letter George Wishart the martyr. This is the ques- 
 tion on the answer to which all turns, for, had this 
 name not appeared in this communication, the martyr 
 would never have been charged with having a share in 
 the plot. Now this question has practically been an- 
 swered in the negative ; it has been shown that Wishart 
 did not return to Scotland before May, 1544, and the 
 letter referred to is dated 17 th April, 1544; it is 
 therefore impossible that he could be the person spoken 
 of. Not being in Scotland, he could not be the bearer 
 of a letter from the " Larde of Brimstone " to the Earl 
 of Hertford. 
 
 But it may be maintained that the date of Wishart's 
 
404 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 return has not been conclusively settled ; it may be 
 well, therefore, to deal with the matter generally. 
 And our discussion of the question will be most satis- 
 factory if we begin by asking what those who charge 
 him with complicity have to say in support of their 
 view. 
 
 Hill Burton says, " To the observer from without, 
 Wishart the martyr is part of the group occupied in 
 the affair ; removing him from that group breaks it up 
 almost more than the removal of any other." A more 
 unwarrantable statement it would scarcely be possible 
 to conceive ; though it must be admitted that it is in 
 perfect harmony with Burton's general account of the 
 Eeformer. "What are the facts of the case ? For two 
 years, at intervals, longer or shorter according to cir- 
 cumstances, letters were passing between a party in 
 Scotland and Henry YIII. as to the disposal of the 
 Cardinal ; in only one of these, and that the very first, 
 does the name " Wyshert " occur. He who bore the 
 name, whoever he was, was a trusted agent employed 
 to carry the letter in which the proposal to remove the 
 Cardinal was contained, and to discover the King's 
 mind on the subject ; and that is all. Never again 
 throughout the correspondence is that name even 
 referred to. Now, admitting for the moment that the 
 " Wyshert " mentioned was the Eeformer, what have 
 we ? We have the fact that he was employed to carry 
 a communication from one who had been retained as 
 an English spy — the earliest, too, of many communica- 
 tions that were forwarded on the subject — and we 
 have nothing more ; and yet, because, eighteen months 
 after the date of that communication/ this spy is 
 named, along with Glencairn and Cassilis, as friendly 
 
GEORGE WISHART. -405 
 
 and as affording protection to the martyr, it is declared 
 that the martyr was the central figure of the group, and 
 that on him it depended for existence and cohesion. 
 But it may he replied that all concerned in the plot 
 were professed Reformers, and that Wishart, as the leader 
 for the time being of the Reformation, formed the con- 
 necting link. To speak in this way is to overlook the 
 character of the plot. The Cardinal was to be removed, 
 not because he held fast the old doctrine and ritual, 
 but because he opposed the advance of the English 
 power. The conspiracy was distinctly political in its 
 basis and aim. The death of Wishart undoubtedly 
 gave to the murder something of a religious aspect, 
 but that was by no means the main, certainly not the 
 original reference of the scheme. It is true that while 
 preaching in Ayrshire Wishart met both Glencairn 
 and Cassilis, and enjoyed their protection. What the 
 extent of their intimacy was it is difficult to say. 
 Knox's statement seems to imply that the Reformer 
 went to Kyle of his own free will, and apart altogether 
 from their knowledge. But, if our supposition as to 
 the circumstances in which he came from England be 
 correct, it would follow that he had made their 
 acquaintance at the time of his return. Even if this 
 were the case it would not prove that he was informed 
 of their design. A man may be associated with other 
 men and yet not be privy to all their schemes. In 
 any case, putting Wishart's stay in the West at the 
 earliest possible date, it was two or three months sub- 
 sequent to the despatch of the letter in question, and 
 supplies no evidence whatever that he was involved in, 
 still less that he was the moving spirit of the plot. We 
 may safely say that whatever Wishart the martyr was, 
 
406 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 lie was not the centre of the group occupied in the 
 affair. Intimate with some of the members of the 
 group he unquestionably was, but it is altogether 
 unwarrantable to infer from this that he was the 
 " Scottishman " referred to in Hertford's letter. 
 
 Yet Burton is not alone in thus arguing — Tytler 
 had taken the same line. He asserts that from the date 
 of AVishart's return, Brimstone was his creat friend. 
 This assertion is totally unsupported by evidence. We 
 do not know that Wishart ever even saw Brimstone till 
 within a few weeks of his death. Tytler 's statement, 
 like that of Burton, is a vicious pctitio principii. From 
 the occurrence of the name " Wyshert " in the letter 
 from Brimstone, the early intimacy of the Reformer 
 with Brimstone is inferred, and then by this the identity 
 of George "Wishart with the " Scottishman " is proved. 
 But Brimstone's interest in "Wishart can be sufficiently 
 accounted for without assuming a long and intimate 
 friendship. He was anxious to ingratiate himself with 
 the party who were opposed to the Cardinal, so that, 
 even if we suppose him to have been nothing more than 
 a " dark intriguer," as Tytler calls him, we can easily 
 understand why he should be eager to do a favour to 
 the man whom many were ready to receive with accla- 
 mation and to obey with alacrity. 
 
 It thus appears that, even admitting that he 
 returned in July, 1543, there is no ground for 
 holding that the Reformer was specially intimate 
 with Crichtone and his associates ; that, on the con- 
 trary, the facts support the opposite conclusion. This 
 being so, the only basis that remains for the accusa- 
 tion is the name; the Scottishman was called "Wyshert" 
 and the martyr was called "Wishart," a slender and 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 407 
 
 insufficient basis surely ! Despite Burton's sneer it 
 may with force be urged that there were other 
 " Wisharts," even other " George Wisharts," in Scotland 
 at that period ; and it may be added that the designa- 
 tion of the Eeformer was " Maister " George Wishart, a 
 designation that would scarcely have been omitted in 
 a letter from the " Larde of Brimstone " to the King 
 of England. 
 
 There are, however, other considerations of a positive 
 kind that may be adduced in support of the conten- 
 tion that the Scottishman Wyshert was not the future 
 martyr. 
 
 A man's character may with justice be appealed to 
 in deciding such a point as that under discussion ; and 
 Wishart's character is known to us. It is presented in 
 detail by Tylney, and his portraiture suggests a tempera- 
 ment far enough removed from deeds of violence. But 
 we are not dependent on the warm eulogy of a devoted 
 pupil; we have many indications of his disposition in 
 his conduct. On all occasions he opposed strenuously 
 the use of force either on his own behalf or on behalf 
 of the cause he had at heart. During his stay in 
 Ayrshire, he more than once prevented a riot 
 by dissuading his friends from breaking into the 
 churches that were closed against him. And when 
 the assassin was caught by him in Dundee, and would 
 have been visited with swift and severe punishment 
 by the enraged congregation, he pleaded on his behalf, 
 nay, positively forbade them, to lay hands on him ; 
 and he did so fully aware that this same man might, 
 in a few days, be employed and be willing to act in 
 the same capacity. Indeed, all that we learn of 
 Wishart testifies to a spirit the very opposite of that 
 
4Q8 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 which would be implied in active participation in a 
 conspiracy to commit murder, even according to the 
 ethical code of the sixteenth century ; his whole action 
 and bearing spoke of a tender and peaceable disposi- 
 tion ; alike in word and in deed he breathed the spirit 
 of Him who said, " Put up again thy sword." 
 
 But there is another argument that may to some 
 minds carry greater weight than that just urged. It 
 is, that Wishart was not the kind of man to be used as 
 a confidential messenger in connection with a con- 
 spiracy, not even the kind of man likely to be admitted 
 to the knowledge of a plot by those concerned in 
 it. This is the view that is supported by the 
 record of his career which we possess. What does 
 Hill Burton say of him ? He says, " He had little or 
 none of the political activity and worldly sagacity of 
 John Knox." In this he is right, and yet he does not 
 hesitate to declare that this man, devoid of " political 
 activity and worldly sagacity," was entrusted with a 
 secret and important proposal, nay, was the centre, the 
 1 linding thread, the heart and soul of the group whence 
 the communication emanated ! To my mind it would 
 be much more in harmony with the circumstances to 
 say that, recognizing the simplicity and purity of 
 Wishart's character, the conspirators were careful to 
 hide from him the design they had formed and were 
 seeking encouragement to carry out. 
 
 Another argument on the same side may be drawn 
 from the silence of John Knox on the whole subject. 
 Had Wishart been in East Lothian in April, 1544, as 
 lie must have been if he were the Scottishman called 
 " Wyshert," Knox must have been aware of it, for he 
 was then tutor at Longniddry and Ormiston ; or, had 
 
GEORGE WIS HART. 409 
 
 lie later had anything to do with the plot, Knox could 
 not have been ignorant of it. But he says nothing 
 about it in his History ; and there was no reason at all 
 why he should not have stated everything he knew con- 
 cerning it. He does not think or speak with horror or 
 regret of the murder ; he writes of it with a savage 
 glee that somewhat offends us as we read his recital of 
 the details. Tytler says, and says truly, that " he con- 
 sidered the deed justifiable and praiseworthy." Had 
 he, then, been aware of the plot and of Wishart's 
 alleged connection with it, he would most undoubtedly 
 have mentioned them. His silence proves that he 
 was not, and this ignorance can mean only one or 
 other of two things ; either that Wishart had nothing 
 to do with it, or that he had to do with it but 
 that his connection with it was kept secret from 
 Knox. And the latter supposition seems to me 
 to be a simple impossibility. If Brimstone and 
 his associates felt it needful to conceal the matter 
 from Knox, who, though he had yet taken no part 
 in political matters, was thoroughly capable of under- 
 standing these, how much more needful must they 
 have felt it to be to conceal it from Wishart, who was 
 without guile. Without hesitation I accept the former 
 alternative, and regard the Reformer's innocence as 
 fully and conclusively established. 
 
 Wishart left no original work, and the parts of his 
 sermons that have come down to us are too fragmen- 
 tary to enable us to discover his standing ground. 
 Fortunately, however, when on the Continent, he 
 executed a translation of the Helvetic Confession, 
 and from his having done so we may infer with 
 certainty that in it we have an accurate expression 
 
410 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 of his doctrinal position. A stud)' of it proves him to 
 have been in substantial agreement with Hamilton, 
 in advance of him only in fulness and accuracy of 
 statement. He has considered " the Sacraments," " the 
 Constitution and Power of the Church," " the Chosynge 
 and Duties of Ministers and Officers," and other such 
 matters not dealt with in " Patrick's Places," not 
 raised, indeed, when that work was published. Wish- 
 art has only kept pace with the Protestant Churches 
 abroad in their efforts to develop and apply Scriptural 
 principles, and of the two main lines along which this 
 effort moved he chose the Eeformed rather than the 
 Lutheran. In making this choice lie prepared the 
 way for his great successor, who was to carry forward 
 the work of reform, and to present to Scotland a com- 
 plete and carefully arranged system of Divine truth. 
 
 At Dundee he expounded the " Epistle to the 
 Pomans," and the selection of this part of the New 
 Testament as the subject of exposition confirms the 
 belief that in the " Confession " we have a true reflection 
 of his creed. This being so, we need not be surprised 
 that large congregations flocked to hear him, and that 
 his preaching was with power. For his work the 
 country had been undergoing preparation. Since 
 Hamilton taught, the Scriptures had been widely cir- 
 culated ; men's minds had been directed to the truth ; 
 dissatisfaction with the existing arrangements had been 
 deepening ; the people were ready to listen with joy to 
 the Evangel when it was proclaimed, and proclaimed it 
 was by George Wishart. 
 
 God took the workmen, but He continued the 
 work. Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart were 
 snatched away in the beginning of their days, before, 
 
GEORGE WISH ART. 411 
 
 to human view, they had fully entered on their labours ; 
 but the good cause did not surfer by their removal, it 
 rather benefited. The fires in which they perished kindled 
 enthusiasm for the Gospel in hearts that previously 
 had been cold or lukewarm ; and this enthusiasm 
 proved contagious, touching with its fervour an ever 
 expanding circle, and deepening in intensity as it 
 spread, till it burst forth into fierce flame, and with its 
 glowing heat consumed the falsehood that had been 
 permitted to usurp the place of truth. The results of 
 this refining process we enjoy. Recognizing their 
 value, we should honour highly those who, when there 
 were few to applaud or sympathize with their act of 
 self-sacrifice, heroically surrendered themselves, that 
 the spark which was to ignite the mass might be 
 struck, or when well nigh extinguished, be fanned into 
 bright blaze. When we review the past we should 
 not permit ourselves to be so dazzled by the glare 
 of the great conflagration by which the Church was 
 purified, as to forget the feeble flickerings from which 
 it grew. And while we recall and revere those who 
 struggled and suffered, we should emulate them in 
 their determination to hold fast only " the faith once 
 delivered to the saints." Animated by this spirit we 
 shall prove ourselves worthy of such noble ancestors 
 as Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart. 
 
John gin ox. 
 
 To the east of the White Cart, and about a mile to the 
 north of Paisley, the level plain which skirts the Clyde 
 is broken by a rising ground near the summit of which 
 stands a farmhouse called to this day the Knock. Here 
 in former times was a lairdship, and the owners, as the 
 custom was, took the name of their lairdship, and were the 
 Knocks of that ilk. 1 This, we believe, is the origin of 
 the surname Knox, so illustrious in our Scottish annals ; 
 for it is a long-received tradition that the Reformer's 
 " father was a brother's son of the house of Eanfurlie" 2 
 — a neighbouring estate in possession of the proprietors 
 of the Knock. There is nothing inconsistent with the 
 tradition in the Keformer's statement to the Earl of 
 Bothwell that his " grandfather, goodsher, and father " 
 had served under his lordship's predecessors, and some 
 of them had died under their standards ; 3 nay, the 
 statement rather confirms the tradition, for it seems to 
 
 1 A History of the Shire of Renfrew, by George ( Vawford 
 (1710), pp. 41 and 68. 
 
 -Life, by David Buchanan, prefixed to his edition of Knox's 
 History (1644). 
 
 3 Knox's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 323. This 
 and all subsequent references to the History and to Knox's other 
 works are to Lamp's edition. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 413 
 
 indicate that it was only in the time of the Reformer's 
 grandfather that his family had settled in the Lothians. 
 
 The district of which the Knock is the centre is thus 
 of singular interest. At Elderslie, about two miles to 
 the south-west, William Wallace was born; and King's 
 Inch, about two miles to the north-east, was the home of 
 the Stewards of Scotland, who became the Royal Family. 
 The three great rivers of southern Scotland, the Clyde, 
 the Annan, and the Tweed, all rise on the same hill ; 
 and we have a parallel to this in the fact that three of 
 the greatest forces in our history had their springs within 
 a circuit of a few miles. It is specially striking that 
 the ancestors of John Knox and of Mary Stuart should 
 have been so near neighbours. Doubtless there were 
 old contendings between the sturdy lairds of the Knock 
 and the powerful founders of Paisley Abbey, to fore- 
 shadow the conflicts of a later day between their re- 
 spective descendants, the preacher and the Queen, at 
 Holyrood. 
 
 Thoug'h Knox came of a western stock, he was born 
 in East Lothian — not indeed at the village of Gifford 
 — though Beza styles him Giffordiensis — for that vil- 
 lage did not exist till the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century; 1 but at Giffordgate, a suburb of Haddington, 
 connected with the county -town by the old stone 
 bridge across the Tyne. There, in a house opposite 
 the eastern end of the Abbey Church, Knox first saw 
 the light in 1505 — the year in which Luther entered 
 the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. His mother's 
 name was Sinclair, and often in troublous times he 
 used that name in signing his letters. 
 
 He received a liberal education in the ancient 
 1 Laing. Knox's Works, vol. vi., Preface, p. xviii. 
 
/ 
 
 -U4 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 grammar school of Haddington ; and we may proLa- 
 1 >ly recognize his sense of indebtedness to that foim ela- 
 tion, in the provision of the First Book of Discipline, 
 that the schoolmaster be " suche a one as is able, at 
 least, to teache grammar and the Latine tonng, yf the 
 toun be of any reputatioun." 1 
 
 At the age of seventeen Knox entered the University 
 of Glasgow, in the " Annates " of which his name appears 
 among the " Ineorporati " for the year 1522. 2 It is 
 possible that his choice of this University, instead of 
 that of St. Andrews, to which a native of Haddington 
 would naturally have gone (Edinburgh not having 
 been founded till sixty years later), is due to his family 
 connection with the West ; but it is more probable that 
 lie was attracted by the fame of John Major, who was 
 then Principal and Professor of Philosophy and 
 Theology at Glasgow. If, as some have supposed, he 
 followed Major to St. Andrews, when the Professor 
 was transferred to the older seat of learning in 1523, 
 there is no direct evidence of the fact. But whether 
 lie was a longer or shorter time under him, it hardly 
 admits of doubt that he was powerfully influenced by 
 his teaching. Major was a disciple of Gerson, of the 
 University of Paris, the able defender of the liberties 
 of the Gallican Church against the absolute authority 
 of the Popes ; and in his Commentaries on Petrus 
 Lombardus, Ms Exposition of St. Matthew, and his 
 History of the Scottish Nation, Major conies to the 
 same conclusion with regard to the Bishop of Pome's 
 claim to supremacy and the validity of Papal excom- 
 munications as those of which Knox was the vehement 
 
 1 History, vol. ii. p. 209. 
 
 2 M'Crie's Life of Knox, Note B. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 415 
 
 assertor ; he speaks of the rapacity, ambition, and 
 worldliness of popes, cardinals, and bishops in terms 
 that might have been used by the Keformer himself; 
 and he asserts the right of a people to " depose a king 
 f < >r his offences and exclude his family from the throne " 
 with a boldness which his pupil hardly snr-passed. 1 
 
 No evidence can be found that Knox took his 
 degree at the University. Indeed, there is evidence to 
 the contrary in the fact that when he was a priest he 
 was designated " Schir" John Knox — a title given to 
 the priesthood as knights of the Pope, but given only 
 to those of them who had not the right to the then 
 exclusively academic title of " Mr." 2 Since he had 
 no degree it is certain that he could not have taught 
 philosophy at St. Andrews and improved on the dia- 
 lectic of his master, as Beza and Melchior Adam 
 say he did.' The fact is that, after we see him as an 
 entrant at Glasgow in 1522, he disappears from view 
 till we have glimpses of him in the garb of the priest- 
 hood at the market-cross of Haddington, acting on 
 behalf of James Ker in Samuelston, December 13th, 
 1540 ; again two years later as one of two umpires in 
 
 1 See M'Crie's Life, Period I. and Note D ; and Ross's Scottish 
 History and Literature to the period of the Reformation, pp. 
 227-239. 
 
 2 We have his own testimony in 1550 to the fact that he was 
 ignorant of Hebrew — "Vindication," Works, vol. hi. p. 47 — though 
 he then avows " a fervent thrist to have sum entrance thairin." 
 Whether he acquired this language in middle-life, when it is 
 believed he learned Greek, we cannot tell. From the many 
 references to, and long quotations from, the Hebrew prophets in 
 his writings during his exile at Dieppe and Geneva, when he 
 had abundant leisure, we are disposed to conclude that he did. 
 A refereuce to the original in his Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. 13 
 (Works, vol. vi. p. 221), preached in 1565, seems to point to this 
 conclusion. 
 
41G THE REFORMERS. 
 
 a dispute regarding a chalder of victual ; and yet again 
 on 2 7 th March, 1543, when he signed as notaiy an 
 assignation by Elizabeth Home, Lady Hammilton of 
 Samuelston. 1 In the peculiar attestation which he 
 affixed to his signature on this deed — " Testis per 
 Christum fidelis, cui gloria, Amen " — we have an 
 indication that, though still doing duty as a priest, 
 he had already embraced the Reformed faith; and we 
 have other evidence that it must have been before 
 that date, that he came under the influence of one of 
 the preachers to the governor, the Earl of Arran, who 
 was then professing the Eeformed doctrine. 
 
 This preacher was a Black Friar, named Thomas 
 Gulliaume. Calderwood tells us that " He was the 
 first man from whom Mr. Knox received any taste of 
 the truth." 2 Knox himself testifies that "the man 
 was of solid judgment, reasonable letters (as for that 
 age), and of a prompt and good utterance ; his doctrine 
 was holsome, without great vehemency against super- 
 stition." It would be interesting if we knew more of 
 Knox's spiritual father, and of the nature of the teach- 
 ing which gave the Eeformer a " taste of the truth." 
 We learn from his dying words that it was in the 
 17th chapter of St. John's Gospel that he " first cast 
 anchor " ; and we can believe that the preacher who 
 guided his earliest experiences, being " without great 
 vehemency against superstition," would often choose his 
 themes from those chapters of the fourth Evangelist in 
 which vehemency has given place to gentleness, as 
 of one who lay in Jesus' bosom. Since it was in the 
 
 1 Laing. Knox's "Works, vol. vi. Preface, pp. xxi. and xxii., 
 with fac-simile of deed. 
 
 2 History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol i. p. 156. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 417 
 
 gentleness which pervades the upper room that Knox 
 cast anchor, we must attribute it to the storms he had 
 to ride that he manifested in his life so much of the 
 earlier vehemency of St. John, and resembled the Son 
 of Thunder more than the reclining disciple. The 
 first time we see him openly enlisted on the side of 
 Protestantism, the vehemency which characterized 
 him to the end had already appeared. In 1545, 
 when Wishart came to East Lothian, Knox at- 
 tached himself to the fervid preacher, whose life was 
 known to be in peril, and carried a two-handed sword 
 before him. By this time he had become tutor to two 
 sons of the Laird of Longniddry, and to a son of the 
 Laird of Ormiston ; and when he proposed to go with 
 Wishart on the night on which he was taken, Wishart 
 said to him, " Nay, return to your bairns, and God 
 bless you. One is sufficient for one sacrifice." l 
 
 It will be observed that at this period Knox had 
 reached his fortieth year. We have a noteworthy 
 coincidence in the fact that the destined leader in the 
 exodus of his nation from bondage, had attained that 
 age before he in any public way identified himself with 
 their struggle. These years of obscurity were the best 
 preparation for his peculiar work. It is not without 
 regret that we have been constrained to give up as 
 unhistorical the pictures, drawn by the hands of fond 
 biographers, of the brilliant young teacher of philosophy 
 at St. Andrews, surrounded by admiring students and 
 eclipsing the reputation of his master ; but the less 
 romantic labours of a " Eood Priest," with no univer- 
 sity distinction and belonging to none of the monastic 
 establishments, quietly doing his work according to his 
 1 Knox's History, vol. i. p. 139. 
 
418 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 light — settling disputes about chalders of victual, sign- 
 ing deeds in behalf of high-born ladies to whom the 
 art of writing was unknown, and then, when the new 
 light had dawned upon him, instructing his " bairns," 
 "nourishing them in godliness," he called it, in the 
 chapel of Longnidclry, in presence of eager rustics who 
 came to listen to unaccustomed truth — were after all 
 the best training for the part he had to play, as the 
 stern resister of courtly influences arrayed against the 
 gospel and the liberties of the nation, and as the 
 legislator for a Church which had to set itself to 
 the task of civilizing a rude and barbarous people. He 
 was of the people, and by long intercourse with them 
 he learned their needs. 
 
 His open adherence to Wishart at last brought Knox 
 under the surveillance of those in authority. He tells 
 us that he w T as " wearied of removing from place to 
 place by reason of the persecution that came upon 
 him," and had made up his mind to leave Scotland and 
 visit " the schools of Germany " ; but he yielded to the 
 solicitation of the fathers of his pupils that he would 
 not desert his charge; and so he and the young men, at 
 Easter, 1547, took refuge in the Castle of St. Andrews, 
 which was held by the conspirators who had avenged 
 the martyrdom of Wishart by the slaughter of Cardinal 
 Beaton. He sought this refuge in common with a 
 large number of the more earnest adherents of the 
 Eeformation; because, since the defection of the Eegent, 
 it was the only place in Scotland where they could 
 safely maintain the profession of their faith. Their 
 going there did not necessarily involve approval of the 
 deed which had been done by those who held the 
 stronghold • though it is evident, from the terms in 
 
JOHN KNOX. 419 
 
 which Knox writes of that deed, that he did not reckon 
 it an assassination, but a vindication of outraged law 
 against a notorious offender, who would in ordinary 
 course of justice have been put to death, if he had not 
 himself had control of the executive authority. While 
 fully recognizing the peril of approving such vindica- 
 tions, we are unable to share the " extreme pain and 
 disgust " with which a recent historian of the Scottish 
 Church reads Knox's graphic record of this event. 1 
 Knox could not reasonably be expected to pity Beaton, 
 whose hands were red with innocent blood, and if, as 
 was his wont, he saw the comedy that mingled with 
 the tragedy of the persecutor's death, we cannot greatly 
 blame him. 
 
 Knox's residence in the Castle was very short — less 
 tli an four months ; yet during that time he made his 
 influence powerfully felt in the ecclesiastical capital 
 and beyond it. The prominence he obtained was not 
 of his seeking. He resumed in the chapel of the 
 Castle the instruction of his pupils in the Gospel of St. 
 John at the point he had reached when he left Long- 
 niddry, and the garrison and refugees gathered in to 
 listen to his teaching. Among the listeners were John 
 Bough, who with Gulliaume had been one of the Eegent's 
 chaplains, and was now preacher in the Castle ; Henry 
 Balnaves, a Lord of Session, whose treatise on Justifica- 
 tion was so highly commended by Knox ; and Sir David 
 Lyndsay of the Mount, whose satires had done so much 
 to prepare the Beformer's way. The two first named 
 " perceaving the maner of his doctrin, begane earnestlie 
 to travaill with him, that he wold tack the preaching 
 
 1 Church History of Scotland, by Dr. Cunningham, of Crieff, 
 vol. i. note to page 252. 
 
420 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 place upoun him. But he utterlie refuissecl, alledgeing 
 ' that he wold nott ryne whare God had nott called 
 him/ meanyng that he wold do nothing without a 
 lauchfull vocatioun." 1 In this ground of refusal we 
 recognize the first germ of that principle which has 
 proved so fruitful during all the after history of our 
 Scottish Church — the principle that no one is entitled 
 to assume the preacher's office without the "lawful call" 
 of those to whom he is to minister. 
 
 Rough and Balnaves took steps to provide the 
 necessary call. They consulted with Lyndsay, and in 
 the plan they devised we see the hand of the Lyon 
 King of Arms, accustomed to study dramatic effects. 
 The scene they arranged can be best described by 
 quoting the words of Knox himself, whose dramatic 
 power was hardly inferior to that of his forerunner. 
 " Thei concluded that they wold geve a charge to the 
 said Johnne, and that publictlie by the mouth of thare 
 preachear. And so upoun a certane day, a sermone had 
 of the electioun of ministeris, What power the con- 
 gregatioun (how small that ever it was, passing the 
 nomber of two or three) had above any man, in whome 
 thei supposed and espyed the giftes of God to be, and 
 how dangerous it was to refuise, and not to hear the 
 voce of such as desyre to be instructed. These and 
 other headis (we say) declaired, the said Johnne Rowght, 
 preachear, directed his words to the said Johnne Knox, 
 saying, ' Brother, ye shall nott be offended, albeit that I 
 speak unto yow that which I have in charge, evin from 
 all those that ar hear present, which is this: In the name 
 of God, and of his Sone Jesus Christ, and in the name of 
 these that presentlie calles yow by my mouth, I charge 
 1 History, vol. i. p 186. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 421 
 
 yow, that ye refuise not this holy vocatioun, but that 
 as ye tender the glorie of God, the encrease of Christ 
 his kingdome, the edificatioun of your brethrene, and 
 the conforte of me, whome ye understand weill yneuch 
 to be oppressed by the multitude of labouris, that ye 
 tak upoun yow the publict office and charge of preaching, 
 evin as ye looke to avoid Goddis heavy e displeasur, and 
 disyre that he shall multiplye his graces with yow.' 
 And in the end he said to those that war present, 
 ' Was not this your charge to me ? And do ye not 
 approve this vocatioun ? ' Thei answered, ' It was ; and 
 we approve it.' Whairat the said Johnne, abashed, 
 byrst furth in moist abundand tearis, and withdrew 
 himself to his chalmer. His conteanance and behave- 
 our, fra that day till the day that he was compelled to 
 present himself to the publict place of preaching, did 
 sufficiently declair the greaf and truble of his hearte ; 
 for no man saw any sign of myrth of him, neyther yitt 
 had he pleasur to accumpany any man, many dayis 
 togetther." 1 
 
 The scene is memorable and instructive. It is the 
 way of prophets thus to shrink from the speaking of 
 God's Word, and from the baptism with which they 
 are baptized who speak it faithfully. "Who am I 
 that I should go ? I am not eloquent, but I am slow 
 of speech." " I am a man of unclean lips." " Ah, 
 Lord God ! behold I cannot speak, for I am a child." 2 
 By and by the Word, from speaking which they at 
 first shrink, is in their hearts as a burning fire shut up 
 in their bones, and they are weary with forbearing 
 and they cannot stay. Very soon it was so with John 
 
 i History, vol. i. pp. 186-8. 
 2 Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah. 
 
• 
 
 422 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Knox. " The necessitie that caused him to enter in 
 the publict place, bes) r dis the vocatioun foirsaid," was 
 the position taken up by "Deane Johne Annan (a 
 rottin Papist)." To a man of apostolic spirit, not only 
 a great door and effectual, but many adversaries, are 
 needed to constitute an irresistible call. Annan, 
 Knox tells us, having long troubled Bough in his 
 preaching, and being beaten in argument at last in the 
 parish kirk of St. Andrews, fell back on the authority 
 of the Church, " which authoritie (said he), damned all 
 Lutherianes and heretikes ; and tharefoir he nedith no 
 farther disputatioun." This was more than Knox could 
 bear, and so on the following Sunday he mounted the 
 pulpit and chose his text from the prophecy of Daniel, 
 concerning the other king who should arise, and "speak 
 great words against the Most High and should wear out 
 the saints of the Most High." Having " sufficientlie 
 declared " three heads of positive truth, " he entered to 
 the contrar," and hurled argument and invective against 
 the Papacy — showing that its doctrine and its laws 
 alike are " contrare to Christ," and that therefore it is 
 Antichrist; and he closed by addressing a challenge to his 
 audience, in which were his old master John Major, the 
 University, the sub-prior and many canons, with some 
 friars black and grey, to controvert his argument if 
 they could. p 
 
 The delivery of this, John Knox's first sermon, 
 marks an epoch in the history of Scottish Eeformation. 
 His hearers recognized that it did so, for some of them 
 said, " Otheris sned the branches of the Papistrie, but 
 he strykis at the roote to destroy the hole." It was 
 true. Other leaders of the Eeformation came slowly 
 and sorrowfully to the conclusion that the system of 
 
JOHN KNOX. 423 
 
 Popery, the errors and defects of which they would fain 
 have corrected, was itself essentially evil, and that no 
 reform short of uprootal would avail. The assertion of 
 this was the very first public utterance of our clear- / 
 eyed, practical Scottish Keformer. 
 
 The excitement produced by the sermon culminated 
 in a public disputation, in which Knox held his own 
 against Wynrame, the sub-prior, and Arbuckle, a Fran- 
 ciscan, whom in the end Wynrame found rather an 
 inconvenient ally, for when they were driven from 
 Scripture to Scripture by the remorseless logician, the 
 friar " whill he wanderis about in the myst, he falles in 
 a fowll myre ; for alledgeing that we may nott be so 
 bound to the woord, he affirmed that the Apostles had 
 not receavecl the Holy Ghost, when thei did write thare 
 epistles ; but after thei receaved him, and then thei did 
 orcleyn the Ceremonies." The sub-prior deemed it 
 necessary to wash his hands of that argument ; the 
 friar was fain to flee to the authority of the Church ; and 
 when Knox, summarizing in a sentence the funda- 
 mental position of the Reformation, replied, " That the 
 spouse of Christ had neither power nor authority against 
 the word of God," his opponent exclaimed, "If so ye will 
 leave us no kirk ; " and Knox, with the humour with 
 which this healthful soul never failed to lighten grave 
 debate, answered, "Indead in David I reacl^iat thare is a 
 Church of the malignantis, for he sayis, Ocli ecclesiam 
 malignantmm. That church ye may have without the 
 word." 
 
 Though the authorities took care that Knox should 
 not preach again on a Sunday, but confine his ministra- 
 tions to week-days, the effect of the Eeformer's teaching 
 was such that not only all the refugees in the Castle 
 
424 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 but many of the inhabitants of the town openly pro- 
 fessed the Eeformed faith. Towards the end of July a 
 French fleet cast anchor in the bay, the siege by land 
 was made more stringent, the plague broke out in the 
 garrison, and by the last day of the month the Castle 
 had capitulated, and Knox, in flagrant violation of the 
 terms of capitulation, found himself chained to the oar 
 as a galley-slave. For nineteen weary months, through 
 winter cold and summer heat, now on French rivers 
 and now on the open sea, did he toil on ; but nothing 
 could break his spirit. He and his companions, though 
 " threatened with tormentis yf thei wold not give rever- 
 ence to the Messe," stood firm. When the Salve Begina 
 was sung " the hole Scotishmen putt on thare cappes, 
 thare hoodis, or such thing as thei had to cover thare 
 headis " ; and on one memorable occasion " a paynted 
 brod (which thei called ' Nostre Dame ') was brought in 
 to be kissed, and, amongis otheris, was presented to 
 one of the Scotishmen then cheyned. He gentillye 
 said, ( Truble me nott ; such ane idole is accursed ; and 
 tharefoir I will not tuich it.' The Patron and the 
 Arguesyn, with two omceris, having the cheaf charge 
 of all such materis, said, ' Thow salt handill it ; ' and 
 so they violentlie thrust it to his face, and putt it 
 betwix his handis ; who, seeing the extremitie, took the 
 idole, and advisitlie looking about, he caist it in the 
 rivare, and said, 'Lett our Lady now saif hirself: sche is 
 lycht aneuch; let hir learne to swyme.' After that was 
 no Scotish man urged with that idolatrie." 1 Though 
 Knox modestly conceals his name, no one can doubt 
 that it was he who wrought this happy deliverance for 
 his fellow-captives. By wasting fever he was brought 
 
 1 History, vol. i p. 227. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 425 
 
 to the very gates of death ; yet he never lost heart or 
 hope. Once when the galleys were lying between 
 Dundee and St. Andrews he, though he was "so ex- 
 treamlye sick that few hoped his lyeff," said cheerily, " I 
 see the stepill of that place, whare God first in publict 
 opened my mouth to his glorie, and I am fullie per- 
 suaded, how weak that ever I now appear, that I shall 
 nott departe this lyif till that my toung shall glorifie 
 his godlie name in the same place." He never during 
 the dark days of his servitude forgot his " best beloved 
 brethren of the congregation of the Castle of St. 
 Andrews." His first literary effort, like his first 
 sermon, was for their behoof. It was an essay intro- 
 ductory to a treatise written by Henry Balnaves in 
 his prison at Eouen, on the Eeformation doctrine of 
 Justification, which Knox deemed so valuable that 
 he sent it home to Scotland, accompanied with a 
 summary of it which he made in the form of a 
 Confession of Faith. 
 
 During these months matters were going ill in Scot- 
 land for the cause of reformation. The English Pro- 
 tector, Somerset, who had weakly abandoned the garri- 
 son of St. Andrews to their fate, and thus let the 
 firmest upholders of the English alliance be made exiles 
 and prisoners, resolved on an invasion to enforce the 
 fulfilment of the engagement, into which the Scottish 
 Parliament had entered, for the marriage of their young 
 Queen to King Edward VI. He entered Scotland at 
 the head of a great army, attended by a fleet, and 
 gained at Pinkiecleugh a victory, which proved more 
 disastrous than any defeat to the policy he sought to 
 further. He awakened the spirit of Bannockburn ; and 
 the whole Scottish nation, Catholic and Protestant, 
 
426 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Highlander and Lowlander, united to maintain the 
 independence of their country against their " auld 
 enemies " of England. They were thus thrown into 
 the arms of France ; and finally at the Convention of 
 Haddington, when the Eegent Arran had been bribed 
 by the Duchy of Chatelherault and a pension of twelve 
 thousand crowns, it was arranged that Mary should be 
 at once transferred to France as the affianced bride of 
 the Dauphin. It is of interest to note that the galley, 
 of which Knox was one of the rowers, was in the fleet 
 sent to support the besiegers of Haddington, but whose 
 admiral, whenever the Convention was over, weighed 
 anchor and, sailing by the Orkneys, came to Dumbarton, 
 and taking Mary Stuart on board conveyed her to 
 Brest ; " and so," says Knox, " was she sold to go to 
 France, to the end that in hir youth she should drink 
 of that lycour, that should remane with hir all 
 hir lyfetyme, for a plague to this realme, and for 
 hir finall destructioun." This took place in June, 
 1548. 
 
 Early the following year Knox obtained his liberty ; 
 but the way not being open for his return to Scotland, 
 he sought asylum in England and was appointed 
 preacher at Berwick. There, and over all the North, 
 in which till now the old doctrines had been compara- 
 tively undisturbed, it was speedily recognized that a 
 man whose word was with power had appeared. Ton- 
 stall, Bishop of Durham, took alarm at his bold denun- 
 ciation of the Mass, and summoned him before the 
 Council of the North for Public Affairs in April, 1550. 
 Knox at once obeyed the summons and delivered in 
 presence of the Bishop and his doctors, with the whole 
 Council, his famous " Vindication," beginning with the 
 
JOHN KNOX. 427 
 
 words, " This day I do appeir in your presence, Honour- 
 able Audience, to gif a reasone why so constantlie I do 
 affirme the Mass to be, and at all times to haif been, 
 [dolatrie, and abominatioun befoir God." 1 From the 
 moment these words were spoken it was evident that a 
 new force was about to make itself felt in the English 
 Eeformation. Till now, in the history of that move- 
 ment, men had not been accustomed to so clear and 
 unfaltering utterance. And the speaker, who main- 
 tained his thesis with keen logic, varied scholarship, 
 scathing satire and deep-toned earnestness, was soon 
 transferred to Newcastle, as a wider and more influential 
 sphere. 
 
 At the close of the year 1551 he was appointed 
 one of the chaplains to King Edward VI. ; and in that 
 high position he exercised large and enduring influence, 
 not only as a royal preacher going from place to place 
 kindling men's hearts by his burning words, but as 
 one officially consulted in the revision of the Prayer 
 Book and in the framing of the Articles of Belief. By 
 his influence an important change was made in the 
 Communion service, as it appeared in the revised edition 
 of the Prayer Book which was issued in 1552, and a 
 rubric was introduced explaining that by the act of 
 kneeling no adoration of the bread or wine was meant, 
 " for that were idolatory to be abhorred of all faithfull 
 Christians." It was unquestionably to Knox that 
 Dr. Weston alluded when, in his disputation with 
 Latimer at Oxford in 1554, he said, "A runnagate 
 Scot dyd take away the adoration or worshipping of 
 Christ in the sacrament ; by whose procurement that 
 heresie was put into the last Communion Booke : so 
 1 Works, vol. iii. p. 33. 
 
428 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 much prevailed that one man's authority at that 
 tyme." x 
 
 We have abundant evidence of " how painfullie and 
 powerfully," as Calderwood expresses it, the Scottish 
 Reformer laboured in England. It was arranged that 
 in addition to their service at the Court, King Edward's 
 chaplains should go among the churches in the various 
 districts of the country. Accordingly we find Knox 
 now a Court preacher and now an itinerating evan- 
 gelist. In the former of those positions he was bold 
 and fearless. He tells us that in his last sermon be- 
 fore the King, " and even to the faces of suche as of 
 whom he ment," when preaching from the text, " He 
 that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel 
 against me," he " made this affirmation, That com- 
 monlye it was sene, that the most godly princes hadde 
 officers and chief counseilours most ungocllye, con- 
 jurned enemies to Goddes true religion and traitours 
 to their princes." After illustrating his affirmation by 
 reference to Achitophel and Shebna, who " had hyghe 
 offices and promotions, with great authoritie, under the 
 moste godly princes David and Ezechias," and to 
 Judas, who "was purse-maister with Christ Jesus," he 
 held the mirror up to three great officers of the State, 
 by adding, "What wonder is it, then, that a yonge 
 and innocent kinge be deceived by craftye, covetouse, 
 wycked and ungodly counselours ? I am greatly afrayd 
 that Achitophel be counsailer, that Judas beare the 
 purse, and that Sobna be scribe, comptroller, and 
 treasurer." Knox has supplied us with the means of 
 knowing that by " Sobna " he meant to indicate the 
 
 1 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. p. 1388, ed. 1576, quoted 
 by Laing. Knox's Works, vol. iii. p. 80. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 429 
 
 Marquess of Winchester (Sir William Paulet), who was 
 successively Comptroller, Secretary, and Lord Treasurer 
 to Edward VI., and that by " Achitophel " he meant 
 the Duke of Northumberland. 1 In looking back on 
 his work in England from amid the gloom of his exile, 
 Knox lamented that he had " in the begynnyng of this 
 battell appeired to play the faynt-heartit and febill 
 souldeour," 2 and that he " was not so fervent in rebuk- 
 ing manifest iniquitie " as it became him to have been. 3 
 But if this be a fair specimen of his style of preaching 
 it is difficult to see any good ground for the self- 
 accusation. 
 
 In the passage we have last quoted he indicates one 
 reason why he was dissatisfied with the retrospect of his 
 work. He says : " In preaching Christes Gospel .... 
 the love of frendes and carnal affection of some men 
 with whom I was most familiar, allured me to make 
 more residence in one place than in another, having more 
 respect to the pleasure of a fewe than to the necessitie 
 of many." It is probable that he here alludes to the 
 fact that even after his appointment to the chaplaincy 
 he spent much of his time in Newcastle, where his 
 ministry was so powerful that large numbers of his 
 fellow-countrymen were drawn across the Border. 4 
 This could not but be pleasing to the exiled Scot, and 
 possibly kept him longer in the north than he would 
 
 1 A Faythfull Admonition — Works, vol. iii. pp. 281-3, and 
 Laing's Note. Froude's History, ch. 29. 
 
 2 An Exposition of the Sixth Psalm. Works, vol. iii. p. 154. 
 
 3 Faythfull Admonition, p. 270. 
 
 4 It seems reasonable to recognize in the strength which the 
 Presbyterian Church has always maintained in Newcastle a 
 result of Knox's ministry there. 
 
430 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 otherwise have remained. But the northern loca- 
 tion had a vet stronger attraction. When he 
 first visited England and was preaching in Berwick, 
 he met Marjory Bowes, daughter of the Captain 
 of Norham Castle, and grand-daughter of Sir Eobert 
 Bowes of Streatlam, and of Sir Bodger Aske of Aske. 
 The motherly kindness of good Mrs. Bowes, and the 
 maidenly love of her daughter, must have been 
 peculiarly sweet to the liberated galley-slave, who for 
 at least nineteen months had known no gentle ministry, 
 and so Marjory won his heart, Newcastle was a 
 convenient base of operations for prosecuting his suit ; 
 and in 1553, in spite of the opposition of her father, 
 Marjory became his affianced bride. 
 
 Whatever was the secret of his preference for 
 Xewcastle, it was not pleasing to the great magnate of 
 the northern shire. The Duke of Northumberland 
 wrote a letter, dated 27th October, 1552, to Secretary 
 Cecil, strongly recommending that Knox should be ap- 
 pointed to the vacant Bishopric of Bochester. While 
 naively hinting " that he would not only be a whetstone 
 to quicken and sharp the Bishop of Canterbury, whereof 
 he hath need ; but he would be a great confounder of 
 the Anabaptists lately sprung up in Kent," the Duke 
 was honest enough to assign as his second reason that 
 "he should not continue the ministration in the North"; 
 and for his third, that " the family of the Scots, now 
 inhabiting in Newcastle chiefly for his fellowship, 
 would not continue there, wherein many resorts unto 
 them out of Scotland, which is not requisite." 1 It does 
 not appear whether Knox was actually offered the 
 vacant bishopric ; it is certain that he would not have 
 
 1 Tytler's Edward VI., etc., vol. ii. p. 142. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 431 
 
 accepted it, for the Duke of Northumberland, who had 
 an interview with him on the subject found him 
 " neither grateful nor pleasable," but a little disposed to 
 indicate an opinion which, as we have seen, he after- 
 wards indicated more publicly, that the Duke was " a 
 dissembler in religion." While gladly serving the 
 Church of England as a preacher, lie did not, on 
 account of his objection to the polity and ritual of that 
 Church, feel free to accept even of an ordinary bene- 
 fice. He was not only offered the living of All-hallows 
 in London, but summoned before the Privy Council 
 and dealt with because he refused it. Among other 
 difficulties in the way, kneeling at the Lord's table was 
 discussed, and the interview between him and the 
 Lords of Council had this characteristic ending ; 
 " They were sorry to know him of a contrary 
 mind to the common Order. He answered that he 
 was more sorry that a common Order should be con- 
 trary to Christ's institution." l 
 
 During the years of Knox's ministry in England the 
 sweating sickness — the records of whose ravages 
 mingle with all the history of the Keformation — was 
 desolating the land. Its presence must have given 
 peculiar power to the words of doom spoken by this 
 Court preacher ; the burden of whose message was the 
 judgment surely coming. His keen grey eye had 
 looked into the face of the young King, and had read 
 the writing there which foretold an early death ; it had 
 looked into the characters of his chief councillors, and 
 had seen that most of them were " dissemblers in 
 religion," who, when Edward was gone, would transfer 
 their allegiance to Mary and turn against the Eefor- 
 1 Calderwood's MS. History, quoted by Laiiig. 
 
432 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 mation ; and so he passed through the land like a 
 prophet, calling on men to regard the time of their 
 merciful visitation and to cast out the evil leaven 
 which remained in the Church. He learnt to love 
 the country which he served so faithfully, and after 
 he was driven from it he writes thus : " My clailie 
 praier is for the sore afflicted in those quarters. Som- 
 tyme I have thought that impossible it had bene, so 
 to have removed my affection from the Eealme of 
 Scotland, that eny Eealme or Nation coulcle have been 
 equall cleare unto me. But God I take to recorde in 
 my conscience, that the troubles present (and appearing 
 to be) in the Eealme of England are double more 
 dolorous unto my hert than ever were the troubles of 
 Scotland." l 
 
 Though he foresaw the changes which would inevit- 
 ably follow the King's death, he still hoped the best. 
 Edward died on 6th July, 1553, but the Reformer 
 continued his labours till October, drawing lame con- 
 gregations, which he exhorted to steadfastness, and 
 using a form of prayer in which these petitions occur: 
 " Illuminate the harte off our Soveraigne Lady Quene 
 Marie with pregnant giftes of thy Holy Ghoste. And 
 inflame the hartes of her Counsayl with thy trew feare 
 and love. Eepresse thou the pryde of those that wold 
 rebelle ; and remove from all hartes the contempte of 
 thy Worde." This form was published, with a "De- 
 claration of the true nature and object of Prayer," 2 
 which gives a clear exposition of the Eeformation doc- 
 trine on the subject, sounds the Protestant watchword 
 that " the haill earthe creatit be God is equallie holie," 
 
 1 An Exposition of the Sixth Psalm. Works, vol. iii. p. 133. 
 
 2 Works, vol. iii. p. 77. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 433 
 
 and yet " condempneth all sic as contempneth the 
 consreffatioun eatherit in his name." At last the 
 preacher was put to silence, and amid the increasing 
 horrors of persecution the prayer for the Queen would 
 have seemed a mockery. Early in 1554, Knox con- 
 sented to seek a refuge abroad and landed at Dieppe, 
 where he lingered for a month, writing his Exposition 
 of the Sixth Psalm and his " Godlie Letter too the 
 fayethfull in London, Newcastell, Barwyke, &c.," both of 
 which had been begun in England. The former was 
 addressed to his future mother-in-law, Mrs. Bowes. Of 
 this good lady Knox says : " Her company to me was 
 comfortable (yea, honorable and profitable, for she 
 was to me and myne a mother) ; but yet it was not 
 without some croce ; for besydes trouble and fasherie 
 of body susteyned for her, my mynde was seldome 
 quyet, for doing somewhat for the comfort of her 
 troubled conscience." 1 She was a woman of a sor- 
 rowful countenance. " Sathan did continually buffette 
 her that remission of shines in Christ Jesus apperteyned 
 nothing unto her." 2 She was haunted with fears that 
 she had sinned the sin unto death for which there is 
 no forgiveness ; 3 and with suspicions lest Knox and 
 others should judge her not to be one of their number. 4 
 The Eeformer was constantly receiving letters from 
 her, "the piteous complayntis whairof pierced his 
 heart," 5 but he was very sympathetic and rarely lost 
 patience. He turned her case to good account for the 
 help of others. He tells her on one occasion that the 
 
 Preface to Letter published in 1572, with his Answer to 
 Tvrie, Works, vol. vi. p. 514. 
 
 2 Ibid. 3 Letters— Works, vol. iii. p. 369. 4 Ibid., p. 370. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 376. 
 2 E 
 
434 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 very instant her letter came he was dealing with " thrie 
 honest pure women " who were similarly afflicted, to 
 whom it was a comfort to hear of her trouble. 1 It is 
 very beautiful to see this man who chid rulers and 
 moulded national histories occupying himself with the 
 doubts and fears and spiritual sorrows of trembling 
 souls. 
 
 The " Godlie Letter," which is subscribed as " From 
 ane sore trubillit heart upon my departure from Dieppe 
 whither God knaweth," is a most urgent appeal to 
 resist the defections of the time and not to shrink from 
 the sufferings involved in faithfulness. After writing- 
 it Knox visited Geneva and the Swiss churches, con- 
 sulting the brethren there as to certain politico-religious 
 questions, 2 of some of which we shall hear presently. 
 His intercourse with like-minded men, and especially 
 with the master-mind of Calvin, seems to have revived 
 his heart, for the " Two Comfortable Epistles " which, 
 after his return to Dieppe in May of the same year, 
 he addressed to the sufferers in England, breathe a very 
 different spirit from the gloom and sadness of the 
 " Godlie Letter." They are full of light, and of antici- 
 pation of victory for the cause which was meanwhile 
 passing through its baptism of blood and fire. These 
 epistles were followed in July by the " Faythfull 
 Admonition," which is based on the Gospel story of 
 the Disciples in the storm and of Christ coming to 
 them. It was written with the double object of strength- 
 ening the English Protestants and of protesting against 
 the marriage of the Queen with Philip of Spain. Its 
 
 1 Letters — Works, vol. iii. p. 379. 
 
 2 Certain Questions concerning Obedience, etc. — Works, vol. 
 iii. p. 217. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 435 
 
 tone is uncompromising, and its language strong against 
 Mary and her creatures, Gardiner, Bonner, and Tonstall; 
 but its tenderness and its faith that all will come right 
 are even more noteworthy than its invective, though 
 that is so strong that it is said to have stung the 
 Queen into frenzy, and thus to have hastened the 
 death of Ridley and Latimer. 
 
 The most interesting feature of all these letters, 
 epistles, and admonitions, is their application of ancient 
 Scripture to the actual world of the writer's time. The 
 long-sealed Book had been opened, no longer to furnish 
 the tiny portions read in strange language and un- 
 natural tone as part of a pompous ritual ; but to be 
 studied as a true guide of life, in which men may find 
 their politics as well as their religion, and to be used 
 as an armoury from which they may draw weapons 
 for the battle of truth and righteousness in whatever 
 land or age it has to be fought. This manner of using 
 Scripture was characteristic of Knox to the close. In 
 the pulpit of St. Giles, in his interviews with the 
 Queen at Holyrood, and in his conferences with the 
 Lords of her Council, he freely quoted the facts of 
 Hebrew history and the burning words of Hebrew 
 prophecy when denouncing Mary and her flatterers. 
 " Thay wer singular motiounis of the Spirit of God," 
 said Maitland of Lethington at one of the conferences, 
 " and appertene nothing to this our aige." To whom 
 Knox replied, " Then lies the Scriptour far dissavit me, 
 for Sanct Paule teichis me that ' whatsoevir is wryttin 
 within the Holie Scriptouris, the same is writtin for our 
 instructioun.' And my Maister said, that ' everie learnit 
 and wyise scribe bringis furth his tresour baith thingis 
 auld and thingis new.' " 
 
436 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 In October, 1554, Knox, who had in the interval 
 gone back to Geneva, accepted an invitation to become 
 the pastor of a congregation of English exiles in Frank- 
 fort. We cannot here enter on the details of the un- 
 happy disputes between him and some zealous ritualists 
 who insisted on the use of those forms which, as we 
 have seen, were so distasteful to him. His opponents in 
 this congregational dispute were so bitter against him 
 that they denounced their pastor to the magistrates as 
 having in his references to the royal marriage in the 
 " Faythfull Admonition " cast reflections on the Em- 
 peror, the father of Philip of Spain. Knox was 
 constrained to leave the city, and in March, 1555, he 
 returned to Geneva. 
 
 Meanwhile the way was being opened for his visit- 
 ing Scotland. Events, in themselves untoward, had 
 been over-ruled for the furtherance of the cause of 
 Eeform in that country. The death of Edward, and 
 the terrors of the Marian persecution had sent into the 
 northern kingdom some of the English refugees, whose 
 teaching, accompanied as it was by stories of the faith- 
 fulness of the martyrs and the cruelty of their perse- 
 cutors, was influential in evoking sympathy with the 
 Eeformed doctrine. The elevation of Mary of Guise to 
 the Eegency was intended by the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 to strengthen the French alliance, and in the end to 
 crush the cause of Protestantism. This intention was 
 clearly discerned by the Protestants. Knox, in record- 
 ing how she had " a croune putt upone hir head," adds 
 that it was " als seimlye a sight (yf men had eis), as 
 to putt a sadill upoun the back of ane unrewly kow." 
 But the first effect of her elevation was in the direction 
 of reliqious liberty. The Duke of Cliatelherault, whom 
 
JOHN KNOX. 437 
 
 she superseded, had been entirely under the influence 
 of his infamous brother the Archbishop of St. Andrews ; 
 and it was Mary's policy to show herself to some ex- 
 tent independent of the clerical party. Knox, who 
 never forgot the land of his birth, and in whom the 
 desire to be more directly identified with the Church 
 that was struggling into existence there, had probably 
 been stirred by his experience of English ritualism at 
 Frankfort, resolved to visit Scotland, and left Geneva 
 in August, 1555. 
 
 In addition to the public motive which at this time 
 drew him to his native country, he had the natural 
 desire to see his afnanced bride and, if circumstances 
 proved favourable, have his marriage consummated. 
 Indeed, in a letter to Mrs. Bowes, he acknowledges 
 that God had made her the instrument to draw him 
 " from the den " of his own ease. " Yow allane," he 
 says, " did draw me from the rest of quyet studie, to con- 
 templat and behald the fervent thrist of our brethrene, 
 nyght and day sobbing and gronying for the breid of 
 
 lyfe." Accordingly, Berwick, which was still the 
 home of Mrs. Bowes and her daughter, was his 
 landing-place. He did not linger long there, but 
 passed on to Edinburgh, where he put himself in com- 
 munication with those who seemed best affected to 
 the Keformed doctrines. Prominent among them were 
 John Erskine of Dun, and William Maitland of Leth- 
 ington, who, attracted by his discourse, brought their 
 acquaintances in ever increasing numbers to his lodg- 
 ing, so that he had to address them in successive assem- 
 blies, and was occupied day and night in dealing with 
 inquiries after truth. 
 
 1 Works, vol. iv. p. 217. 
 
438 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 He found that the adherents of the Reformation 
 had hitherto deemed it expedient to attend the services 
 of the Church of Rome. With this temporizing spirit 
 Knox could have no sympathy, and he set himself 
 " alsweall in privy conference as in doctrine, to schaw 
 the impiete of the Messe, and how dangerous a thing it 
 was to communicat in any sort with idolatrie." His 
 remonstrances led to a discussion at a supper-party in 
 Erskine's lodging, the result of which was that even 
 Maitland said : " I see perfytlye that our schiftis will 
 serve nothing before God, seing that thei stand us in 
 so small stead befoir man." From that time Scottish 
 Protestantism occupied a worthier attitude. 
 
 Knox's ministrations were not confined to the me- 
 tropolis. He spent a month at Dun, in Forfarshire, as 
 the guest of Mr. Erskine, and preached daily to the 
 neighbouring gentry and their followers. He next 
 resided at Calder, the seat of Sir James Sandilands, 
 where such men as Lord Erskine, afterwards Earl of 
 Mar ; Lord Lome, afterwards Earl of Argyle ; and Lord 
 James Stuart, afterwards Earl of Murray, waited on his 
 instructions and approved his doctrine. In mid-winter 
 he returned for a time to Edinburgh, and after Christ- 
 mas passed to Kyle; a great comet, which men named 
 " The fyrie boosome," all the while blazing in the 
 heaven. 1 In the old seat of Lollardism Knox found 
 a specially hearty welcome, and remained for several 
 months, preaching in the town of Ayr and hi the 
 country houses of Barr, Carnell, Kingyeancleuch, 
 
 1 History, vol. i. p. 254. We introduce the comet at this 
 point on Knox's authority, though there seems to be some con- 
 fusion in his notice of contemporaneous events; and it is possible 
 that he assigns to this memorable winter a phenomenon which 
 did not appear till a later date. Vide Laing's note. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 439 
 
 Ochiltree, and Gadgirth. It seems to have been in 
 Ayrshire that he first took the bold step of adminis- 
 tering the Lord's Supper, according to the Genevan order, 
 to those whom he had persuaded no longer to attend 
 mass. 
 
 From Ayrshire he passed into Eenfrewshire — the 
 home of his ancestors — where he was the guest of the 
 Earl of Glencairn at Finlayston. There, under the 
 sombre shadow of a yew tree, amid woods bright with 
 fresh buds — for it was " befoir the Pasche," which in 
 that year fell on the 5 th of April — he administered 
 the Sacrament, giving to the laity the long-forbidden 
 wine in silver cups, which in after years were used in 
 the parish kirk of Kilmalcolm. Besides the Earl and 
 his lady, who was a daughter of the late Eegent, two of 
 his sons and certain of his friends " war parttakaris." It 
 is pleasant to realize the scene, and to picture the guise 
 of that little company of Christ's Sacramental host, 
 seated on the tender grass, with the motions of the 
 spring around them, and the air filled with sounds of 
 the o T een-leaved earth. We can well believe that the 
 worn exile would be glad, and that as the Sacramental 
 hymn was sung, " My saule praise thow the Lord 
 alwyes," * the words of another song would be making 
 music in his heart, " Lo, the winter is past, the rain is 
 over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; the 
 time of the singing of birds is come." 
 
 1 This line does not correspond with any of the known 
 versions of the 103rd Psalm — which, from the first, was the 
 " hymn " they snug iu Scotland before they went out from the 
 table ; but it must have been in use in Knox's time, for in 
 the account of the death of Elizabeth Adamson, which he gives 
 iu his History, the line is quoted as the beginning of the 103rd 
 Psalm, which " a littil befoir hir departuyre " she desired her 
 sister to sing. 
 
440 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Leaving Renfrewshire he returned to Calcler, " whare 
 diverse frome Edinburgh, and frome the countrey about, 
 convened, asweall for the doctrin as for the rycht use 
 of the Lordis Table which befoir thei had never 
 practised." We find him next on a second visit to 
 Dun, where " the moist parte of the gentilmen of the 
 Mernse " whom he taught " in srettar libertie," having 
 asked that they might enjoy the new privilege accorded 
 to their brethren in the South, received the Lord's 
 Supper at his hands. It was from one or other of 
 these places that he wrote to Mrs. Bowes : " The 
 trumpet blew the aid sound thrie dayis together, till 
 privat houssis of indifferent largeness culd not con- 
 teane the voice of it. . . . ! sueit war the death that 
 suld follow sic fourtie dayis in Edinburgh, as heir I 
 have had thrie." 1 
 
 The tidings of the work which the Eeformer was 
 doing, and of the welcome that was given him by high 
 and low in all the districts to which he went, alarmed 
 the bishops ; and they summoned him to appear at their 
 Convocation in the Church of the Greyfnars, on the 1 5th 
 May, 1556. This assembly, if Knox had stood before 
 it, would have at least equalled in interest any subse- 
 quent gathering of the clergy in the month of May at 
 Edinburgh ; and it was not his fault that the " dyet 
 held nott." He welcomed the opportunity of bearing 
 his testimony and prepared to appear. But the bishops 
 took fright and, on the Saturday before the clay ap- 
 pointed, cast their summons. Knox came to the me- 
 tropolis notwithstanding, and for ten days taught morn- 
 ing and afternoon at the Bishop of Dunkeld's lodgings 
 to larger audiences than on his former visit. 
 1 Familiar Letters — Works, vol. iv. p. 218. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 441 
 
 Among those who came to him was the Earl Mari- 
 schal, introduced by the Earl of Glencairn. These 
 two noblemen prevailed on the Eeformer to address a 
 letter to the Queen Eegent, urging her, as she loved 
 her own salvation, to regard and protect the true re- 
 ligion. The letter was written in courtlier style than 
 Knox was wont to use, but in matter it was faithful, 
 and in spirit deeply earnest. Lord Glencairn under- 
 took the delivery of the letter, and it was probably he 
 who reported to Knox that Mary, after running her 
 eye contemptuously clown its pages, handed it to the 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, saying, " Please you, my lord, 
 to read a pasquil." Who was this bold preacher who 
 presumed to lecture her about her soul's salvation and 
 her public policy ? Was she not the sister of a car- 
 dinal, and had she not her high officers whose duty it 
 was to watch for her soul ; and what had the latter 
 subject to do with the former ? She had not been 
 studying the Hebrew prophets like Knox, and had not 
 learned that the eternal destiny of rulers is affected by 
 the manner in which they rule — that Tophet is or- 
 dained of old ; yea, for the king it is prepared : He 
 hath made it deep and large. It was not wonderful, 
 therefore, that she hardly deemed the writing serious 
 that spoke to her, on the one hand, of recompense for 
 righteous government and for protection of the innocent, 
 from Him " who pronounceth mercy to apperteyn to 
 the mercifull, and promiseth that a cuppe of cold water 
 geven for hys name's sake shall not lacke rewarde " ; 
 and on the other hand, of " dejection to torment and 
 payn everlasting," as the result of a " regiment and 
 using of power " after the manner of " the multitude of 
 princes and head rulers." The writing seemed to her 
 
442 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 a pasquil. Her " woordis cuining to the earis of the 
 said Johne," as he tells us in his History, " was the 
 occasion that to his letter he made his additionis." 
 Two years later, when, in Geneva, he had tidings which 
 convinced him that she had not only sneered at, but 
 utterly disregarded his warnings, he expanded and 
 published his letter, kindling his old words as with 
 burning fire. 1 
 
 Yet another of his writings — an exposition of the 
 Temptation of Christ — belongs to the period of this 
 visit to Scotland. It had evidently clone duty in some 
 of his preachings, for it has all the vividness and life 
 of his spoken utterance. It reveals dramatic power. 
 The dialogues between our Lord and the Tempter are 
 as life-like as his records of his own interviews with 
 Queen Mary, or of his reasoning with the Abbot of 
 Orossraguel. 
 
 Knox having received an urgent call to return to the 
 English congregation at Geneva to which he had been 
 ministering, and deeming it wiser to retire and let the 
 leaven work, left Scotland in July, 1556, joining Marjory 
 Bowes, to whom he was now married, and her mother, 
 at Dieppe, whither he had sent them on before him. 
 He left behind him a "Letter of wholesome counsel 
 addressed to his brethren in Scotland." 2 No sooner 
 had he gone than the bishops resumed proceedings 
 against him. He was at a safe distance. In the un- 
 likely event of his obeying their summons, it was open 
 to them as before to execute a retreat on the eve of 
 the conflict. If he did not appear, they could condemn 
 
 1 Letter to the Queen Dowager, Eegent of Scotland ; and the 
 same augmented and explained by the Author. Works, vol. iv. 
 p. 69 and p. 423. 
 
 2 Works, vol. iv. p. 129. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 443 
 
 him as contumacious. It was this easy triumph the}' 
 won. They pronounced sentence of excommunication, 
 depriving him of his priest's orders, delivering his soul 
 to damnation, and his body to the secular power for 
 the punishment of death. The sham sentence was 
 followed by a sham execution. His effigy was burned 
 at the Cross of Edinburgh. Knox tells the story thus : 
 " Me as an heretic and this doctrine as heretical, have 
 your false bishops and ungodly clergy damned, pro- 
 nouncing against me a sentence of death, in testification 
 whereof they have burned a picture." 
 
 After this cowardly action of the clergy, Knox im- 
 mediately addressed " An Appellation to the Nobilitie 
 and Estates of Scotland," in which, having set forth 
 the leading articles of the faith which the clergy had 
 condemned, he urges, from manifold Scripture precept 
 and example, the duty which lies upon rulers and 
 magistrates to protect the upholders of the true faith, 
 and to overturn the idolatrous system of the Papacy. 
 He makes short work of the objections which he sup- 
 poses may be advanced against this use of the secular 
 arm. " Seing," he says, " that Moses was so far pre- 
 ferred to Aaron that the one commaunded and the other 
 did obey ; who dar esteme that the civile power is 
 now becomed so prophane in God's eyes, that it is 
 sequestred from all intromission with the matters of 
 religion ? The Holie Ghost in divers places declareth 
 the contrarie." To Knox the fact that the kingdom 
 from which he took his examples was a theocracy did 
 not in the least diminish their practical value. He 
 held it to be " evident that the Kulers, Magistrats, 
 and Judges, now in Christes kingclome, are no lesse 
 bound to obedience unto God than were those under 
 
444 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the law." 1 The battle of freedom is fought bit by 
 bit, and the full doctrine of civil and religious liberty 
 is only spelled out through the experience of cen- 
 turies. 
 
 Of that doctrine Knox laid the foundation. At the 
 same time as he sent the Appellation to the Nobility 
 and Estates, he addressed " A Letter to the Common- 
 alty of Scotland," 2 in which he pleads with them to 
 realize their responsibility in relation to the work of 
 reformation. His far-seeing instincts taught him that, 
 argue as he might from Hebrew precedents of the duty 
 of rulers to advance the truth by the power of the 
 sword, it is to the sympathy of the people we must 
 look for the furtherance of the righteous cause. It was 
 Knox, as we shall see presently, who made the com- 
 mons of Scotland a power in the land ; and it was by 
 that power that he defeated the machinations of the 
 Court and saved the Eeformation. 3 
 
 In addition to those writings there are other two 
 belonging to this period which specially refer to 
 Scottish affairs — "A Letter to his Brethren," 4 written 
 in May, 1557, in answer to an invitation to return ; 
 and " A Letter to the Professors of the Truth," 5 written 
 in December of the same year, when he had found 
 it expedient to prolong his absence, and exhorting to 
 patience, courage, and obedience meanwhile to the con- 
 stituted authority. During the same time of com- 
 parative rest he prepared a form of service for the 
 
 1 The Appellation. Works, vol. iv. pp. 461-520. 
 
 2 A Letter, etc., Ibid., pp. 521-538. 
 
 3 The Influence of the Reformation on Scottish Character, in 
 Froude's Short Studies, vol. i. p. 154. 
 
 4 Works, vol. iv. p. 261. 5 Ibid., p. 276. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 445 
 
 English Church at Geneva. It became the model 
 from which his Book of Common Order was framed for 
 the Church of Scotland. Knox's fundamental prin- 
 ciple with regard to ritual was that nothing should 
 enter into divine service which has not the authority 
 of Scripture. This principle is recognized in the 
 Genevan Liturgy by the marginal references to 
 Scripture texts in support of each successive clause in 
 the various parts of the service. A translation, with a 
 preface, of an Apology for imprisoned Protestants in 
 France, 1 made when, towards the close of 1557, he 
 had, in response to a letter from the Scottish Lords, 
 gone to Dieppe on his way to Edinburgh, but was 
 arrested by less favourable intelligence ; a long treatise 
 ou Predestination ; 2 an Epistle and Exhortation to the 
 inhabitants of Newcastle and Berwick ; 3 his share in 
 the preparation of the Geneva version of the English 
 Bible ; and his world-famous First Blast of the 
 Trumpet against the Monstrous Eegiment of Women 4 
 — complete the catalogue of his literary labours during 
 his Geneva pastorate. 
 
 We can only refer more particularly to the last- 
 named of these works. It was written in support of 
 the thesis that it is unnatural and unscriptural for a 
 woman to reign. In none of Knox's writings is the 
 style more vigorous, or the evidence clearer that the 
 author's whole soul was in the doctrine he promulgated. 
 The "Blast" was published early in 1558, and there- 
 fore it was probably written when he was in Dieppe 
 at the close of the previous year. We can hardly 
 wonder at the vehemence with which he maintains 
 
 1 Works, vol. iv. p. 287. 2 Ibid., vol. v. p. 7. 3 Ibid., p. 469. 
 4 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 349. 
 
446 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 his thesis. His indignation was stirred by the 
 tidings which reached him of the atrocious cruelties 
 still perpetrated under Mary of England ; and though 
 the Queen Eegent of Scotland was meanwhile restrained 
 by considerations of policy from sanctioning severe 
 persecution, yet her attitude was one of uncompro- 
 mising hostility to the Reformed faith, and Knox knew 
 well that she only bided her time. The massacre and 
 imprisonment of French Protestants, in connection with 
 which the Apology just referred to was written, had 
 taken place under the royal house with which, through 
 the marriage of Mary Stuart, Scotland had been brought 
 into alliance. The risk of alien influence and foreign 
 domination, to which the marriages of female sovereigns 
 exposed the countries they ruled, was one of Knox's 
 chief grounds of opposition to the " regiment " of 
 women. And to a patriotic Protestant it was indeed 
 galling that the liberties of England should be laid at 
 the feet of the Spaniard, and the liberties of Scotland 
 at the feet of the Frenchman. Knox wrote in no 
 honied words, but spoke out in the bitterness of his 
 soul against all " wicked Jesabels." 
 
 Yet withal the publication of the " Blast " was a 
 serious blunder. Its argument is an example of too 
 hasty generalization. For once the keen grey eyes 
 that so often pierced the future were at fault. Knox 
 could not have seen so far down the centuries as to 
 forecast the liberty and peacefulness of the reign of 
 Queen Victoria; but if he had been in more hopeful 
 mood " the spacious times of Great Elizabeth " need 
 not have been wholly hid. That Princess — a Protes- 
 tant and a sufferer for her Protestantism — was the 
 heir to the English throne, and circumstances made it 
 
JOHN KNOX. 447 
 
 even then not improbable that she would soon come to 
 it. Had Knox been able to divine what was to be, and 
 withheld his ill-timed " Blast," his subsequent work in 
 Scotland would have been easier than it proved. As 
 it was, he had to contend with Elizabeth's bitter resent- 
 ment against himself, even when her clear judgment 
 told her that the policy to which he exhorted her was 
 wise. That resentment extended to his associates at 
 Geneva. Calvin, in testimony of his joy at her acces- 
 sion, dedicated some of his Commentaries to the English 
 Queen. He learned that the act of homage was not 
 well received, and had to write to Sir William Cecil 
 disavowing all sympathy with the Scottish Reformer's 
 position. In his letter he naively admits that the 
 government of women " was a deviation from the 
 original and proper order of nature ; it was to be 
 ranked no less than slavery among the punishments 
 consequent upon the fall of man." 1 
 
 In December, 1557, at the very time when Knox 
 was waiting in despondency at Dieppe, the Protestant 
 Lords were subscribing a bond at Edinburgh, and 
 renewing their invitation to the Reformer to come to 
 their aid. The letter they addressed to him did not 
 reach Geneva till November, 1558 — the very month 
 in which Mary of England died. Knox prepared to 
 obey the summons. The times were hopeful. The great 
 door and effectual had been gradually opening, and 
 the many adversaries were more decidedly declaring 
 their hostility. The Protestant Lords had adopted 
 measures for establishing the purer worship in all parish 
 churches, were taking the few available preachers 
 of the Reformed doctrine under their direct pro- 
 1 Ziirich Letters, Second Series, p. 35, quoted by Laing. 
 
448 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 tection, and were boldly laying their demands for 
 reformation before the Government. On the other 
 hand the Queen Eegent was throwing off the 
 mask and encouraging the Primate to do his worst 
 against heretics. He was not slow to take advantage 
 of her changing policy. Having failed to wrest a more 
 prominent teacher from the hands of the Earl of 
 Argyle, who had made him his chaplain, he took his 
 revenge on an old priest named Walter Mill, who 
 had been condemned for heresy in Beaton's time, but 
 escaped execution. Discovering his retreat, the 
 Primate had him arraigned before his Court at St. 
 Andrews. He appeared there bowed with the burden 
 of eighty-two years, and worn with a life of hardship 
 and of fear ; but his grey hairs moved no pity in the 
 churchman's heart, and he was consigned alive to the 
 flames on the 28th August, 1558. The " reik" of this 
 old man's burning proved as infectious as that of young- 
 Patrick Hamilton. The whole nation was moved 
 with horror, thousands crowded to the reformed wor- 
 ship, and the preachers were emboldened to speak 
 God's word and dispense the Sacraments with greater 
 publicity than heretofore. The way was clearly open 
 for the return of the man who alone was able to give 
 coherence to the party of Reform and lead it on to 
 victory. 
 
 Though Knox left Geneva in January, 1559, he did 
 not reach Edinburgh till May. He waited at Dieppe 
 for liberty to pass through England, which Elizabeth 
 refused to the author of the " Blast." But the months 
 he spent in France were not wasted. In troublous times 
 men become quick of hearing, and birds of the air 
 carry matters of highest import. Knox contrived some- 
 
JOHN KNOX. 449 
 
 how to inform himself thoroughly of the plots which were 
 even then being laid to dethrone Elizabeth and destroy 
 the Eeformation, through the Scottish Queen who was 
 heir presumptive of the English Crown. It is one of 
 those strange coincidences of which history is full, 
 that " the ship in which he crossed carried a seal to 
 the Eegent engraved with the arms of England, and 
 carried with it also in himself the person who, above 
 all others, baffled the conspiracy and saved Elizabeth 
 and the Eeformation." 1 
 
 When the Eeformer reached Edinburgh a council of 
 Churchmen was in session. On the morning after his 
 landing some one entered the monastery of the Grey- 
 friars where they sat and announced that John Knox 
 had come. It is said that the panic-stricken clergy 
 stood not upon the order of their going, but dispersed 
 in confusion. Even if this story be in the letter 
 apocryphal, 2 it is in spirit historically true. The 
 advent of this solitary man was at that crisis — and 
 Churchmen knew it well — of more moment than if an 
 English army had crossed the Border. 
 
 Immediately after he landed, Knox learned that 
 the preachers Paul Methven, John Christison, William 
 Harlaw, and John Willock were under summons to 
 appear before the Justiciary Court at Stirling eight 
 days later. He praised God that he had come " even 
 in the brunt of the battell," and at once resolved to 
 stand by the side of his brethren, " be life, be death, 
 or els be both, to glorifie His gocllie name, who thus 
 mercifully hath heard my long cryes." 3 
 
 After his coming, events, each one of which is a 
 
 Fronde's History, ch. 37. 2 See M'Crie's note in loco. 
 3 Letters — Works, vol. vi. p. 21. 
 
 2 F 
 
4o0 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 landmark in the history, followed in rapid succession. 
 At a conference in Dundee to which Knox hurried, it 
 was resolved "that the whole multitude and number of 
 of brethrein soulcl accompanie their preachers " 1 to Stir- 
 ling, as before they had threatened to do when the 
 summons was to St. Andrews. For that purpose they 
 advanced to Perth : and the Laird of Dun went on be- 
 fore to apprise the Queen Kegent that the object of 
 their coming "was onlie to geve confessioun with thare 
 preachearis, and to assist thame in thare just defence." 2 
 The crafty daughter of the House of Guise received him 
 with her most winning smile, and gave promise that if 
 the Congregation would remain in Perth the sum- 
 mons should be " continued till farther advisement." 
 Though not without suspicion of guile, the leaders 
 deemed it best to accept the assurance. They were 
 shamefully deceived. When the 10 th of May 
 arrived and the preachers did not appear they were 
 outlawed and put to the horn : and the gentlemen 
 who had become sureties for their appearance were 
 fined. 
 
 The tidings of the liegent's perfidy reached the 
 Congregation the following day. We can well believe 
 that Knox would be in his most fervid mood when he 
 entered the pulpit and thundered forth God's curse 
 against idolatry ; but nothing unusual would have hap- 
 pened, for the greater part of the audience had quietly 
 dispersed, had not a priest advanced to the high altar, 
 and, as if in defiance of the doctrine which had just 
 been proclaimed, begun to celebrate mass. A boy cried 
 out, " This is intolerable, that when God by His Worde 
 
 1 Letters — Works, vol. vi. p. 22. 
 
 2 History, vol. i. p. 317. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 451 
 
 hath planelie damned idolatrie, we shall stand and see 
 it used in despyte." The priest struck the boy, who 
 after the manner of his kind threw a stone at his 
 assailant, which missing its mark shattered to pieces an 
 image on the altar. The iconoclastic spirit is infectious, 
 and in a few minutes all the madonnas and saints and 
 angels and crucifixes in the building were lying on the 
 floor broken into a thousand fragments. Some one hav- 
 ing raised the cry, "To the Greyfriars," there was a rush 
 from the dismantled church, and in a very short time, spite 
 of gates and bars, the monasteries of the Grey and Black- 
 friars, and the Charter-house — the burial-place of the 
 first of the Jameses — were completely wrecked ; " the 
 walles onlie did remane of all these great edificationis." 
 
 Though Knox is careful to exculpate the gentlemen 
 and the " earnest professouris " from all share in this 
 outrage, which he attributes to " the raschall multitude," 
 yet it is not without touches of sympathetic glee that 
 he tells, for example, of how " in verray deid the Grey 
 Frieris was a place so weall provided, that oneles 
 honest men had sein the same, we wold have 
 feared to have reported what provisioun thei had. 
 Thare scheittis, blancattis, beddis, and covertouris wer 
 suche, as no Erie in Scotland hath the bettir. Thair 
 naiprie was fyne. Thei wer bot awght personis in 
 convent, and yitt had viii punscheonis of salt bean 
 (considder the tyme of the yeare, the ellevint day of 
 Maii), wyne, beare, and aill, besydis stoare of victuallis 
 effeiring thareto. The lyik haboundance was nott in 
 the Blak Frearis ; and yitt thare was more then becam 
 men professing povertie." 1 
 
 The Queen Begent saw in the riot an opportunity , 
 1 History, vol. i. pp. 322-3. 
 
452 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 for carrying out more boldly than heretofore the French 
 policy. She summoned the foreign troops garrisoned 
 at Leith, and entirely disregarded the counsels of 
 moderation addressed to her by Argyle and Lord 
 James Stuart, who were still with her. The news of 
 her determination to march on Perth spread like wild- 
 tire, and soon Glencairn, at the head of an army of 
 two thousand five hundred Westland men, was on his 
 way to the defence of the menaced city. The Eegent 
 was fain to secure its peaceable surrender by once more 
 making promises which she never meant to keep. 
 
 It is at this point that Knox comes to the front as 
 the avowed leader of the Congregation, We can trace 
 his hand in the series of manifestoes issued from Perth, 
 addressed to the Queen Eegent, to the nobility of Scot- 
 land, and to " the generatioun of Antichrist, the pesti- 
 lent Prelattis and thare schavellingis," which are in a 
 firmer tone and show deeper insight into all the issues 
 involved in the conflict, than the documents which had 
 been drawn up before his return. Nor did he shrink 
 from the responsibilities of leadership. He waited on 
 Argyle, Lord James Stuart, and Lord Sempill, who had 
 come as Commissioners from the Eegent, and he sent 
 to her by them two solemn warnings which, said he, 
 " I require of yow, in the name of the etemall God, as 
 from my mouth, to say unto hir Grace." 
 
 No sooner had the Eegent obtained possession of 
 Perth than the terms on which the ConoTeL>ation had 
 surrendered it were flagrantly violated. The mass was 
 re-established. Knox, who failed not to see the humor- 
 ous side of any incident, tells us that " becaus the 
 altaris war nocht so easy to be repaired agane, thay 
 provided tables, whairof sum befoir used to serve for 
 
JO HA 7 KNOX. 453 
 
 drunkardis, dysaris, and carteris ; hot tliay war holy 
 aneuch for the Preast and his padgean." A garrison, 
 if not of French soldiers, at least of soldiers paid with 
 French money, was placed in the city " to maynteane 
 idolatrie, and to resist the Congregatioun." 
 
 The Earl of Argyle, Lord James Stuart, and others 
 of the nobility who had till now been on the side of 
 the Regent, in the interests, as they supposed, of good 
 order, were so shocked by her violation of the word 
 they had plighted in her name that they withdrew from 
 her standard and joined the Congregation, which at 
 their summons convened at St. Andrews. The Primate 
 in alarm gathered as many followers as he could, 
 and threatened the Lords that if John Knox were 
 allowed to preach in his cathedral church, he should 
 " be saluted with a dosane of culveringis, quherof the 
 most part should lyght upoun his nose." The more 
 timid counselled that some other preacher should 
 occupy the pulpit, but the Reformer was resolute. In 
 this place God had first called him to speak publicly 
 in His name. He had been reft from it by the 
 tyranny of France and by procurement of the bishops ; 
 when he was wasted and weary in the galleys he had 
 seen the steeple of this church through the mist, and 
 there had been given to him then an " assured houp " 
 " in oppin audience, to preache in Sanctandrois befoir 
 he depairted thys lyeff." Since God had brought him 
 to the place, nothing should hinder him from doing 
 his duty. Of what were they afraid ? Is not his 
 " lyef in the custody of Him whose glorie lie seaks." 
 Clearly this is not a man with whom counsels of 
 prudence would much avail ; and so he had his way, 
 and " did entreat of the ejectioun of the byaris and the 
 
454 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 sellaris furth of the Tempill of Jerusalem " to such 
 good purpose, that not by public tumult, but in an 
 orderly manner, and under the sanction of the magis- 
 trates, " all monument-is of idolatrie " in the city were 
 destroyed. 
 
 Then followed the muster on Cupar Moor, at which 
 " men seemed rained from the clouds " ; the withdrawal 
 of the Regent, first to Edinburgh and then to Dunbar ; 
 the relief of Perth from the hated garrison ; the sack 
 of Scone ; the march on Stirling and destruction of its 
 abbeys, till at last the Congregation took possession of 
 Edinburgh on the 29th of June. It was on the 2nd 
 of May that Knox had landed at Leitli. Within the 
 space of two short months the battle had been fought 
 and won ; the mediaeval Church of Scotland was already 
 lying in ruins. Save for the blood of martyrs, it was 
 up to this point an all but bloodless victory. It had 
 cost, indeed, the sacrifice of many a fair abbey, the 
 levelling of many a goodly pillar, and the shattering of 
 many a storied window. We regret these accidents of 
 the war, as in celebrating any triumph we fail not to 
 mourn the thousands slain ; but we venture to assert 
 that the religious and political freedom of Scotland 
 was in these months cheaply purchased. It is not at 
 all certain that Knox ever said that " the best way to 
 keep the rooks from returning was to pull down their 
 nests " ; but if he did he was probably right. 
 
 Before the work of destruction thus accomplished 
 could be pronounced permanent and the work of re- 
 construction begun, costlier sacrifices had to be made. 
 The Reformers were magnanimous in the hour of their 
 triumph, and hastened to the Queen Regent with the 
 assurance that in what they had done they meant no 
 
JOHN KNOX. 455 
 
 disloyalty to her Government. They found her in a 
 conciliatory mood. She was ready to promise to recall 
 the sentence of outlawry that had been pronounced 
 against the preachers, and to concede almost any reason- 
 able demand. All the while she was labouring to 
 disunite the Congregation and to gain time till the 
 multitude which had hurriedly gathered to the stan- 
 dard of Eeform should have dispersed. Her device 
 was so far successful that when at last she marched on 
 Edinburgh, the remnant of the Congregation who held 
 it were fain to come to terms, and give up the city on 
 condition that the Reformed worship should not be 
 disturbed. It was deemed expedient that Knox, who 
 had been already elected minister of Edinburgh, should 
 not remain when the surrender took effect. His place 
 in St. Giles' was filled by John Willock, while he occu- 
 pied himself by preaching in almost all the districts of 
 the Lowlands, thus doing more to extend and consoli- 
 date the Reformation than if he had remained in the 
 metropolis. 
 
 It soon became evident that the Congregation were 
 not, if left unaided, equal to the task of overcoming 
 the Regent. The unfortunate delay which followed 
 their triumphant march to Edinburgh led not only to 
 the dispersion of a large part of their forces, but to an 
 accession of strength to the other side. The peace be- 
 tween France and England concluded at Cambray on 
 March 12th, 1559, enabled the Regent to obtain re-in- 
 forcements of French troops, which entrenched them- 
 selves at Leith. The Castle of Edinburgh was held 
 by Lord Erskine, and maintained a position of 
 neutrality, which, however, might any day be changed 
 into one of hostility to the Congregation. The deposi- 
 
456 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 tion of the Eegent, after consulting Knox and Willock, 
 and obtaining from them a declaration that there was 
 scriptural warrant for the deed, was in the circumstances 
 an empty form. The Duke of Chatelherault was once 
 more on the side of Protestantism, but what could he — 
 a waverer at the best — do against the power of France, 
 guarded by strong fortifications. He had at his back 
 only an undisciplined and ill-armed host, consisting of 
 the barons and their household retainers, with a motley 
 company of civilians who had been attracted to their 
 standard ; and there was no money to provide food for 
 his army, even if it had been otherwise hopeful for that 
 army to attempt a siege. 
 
 All eyes were turned to England, whose Protestant 
 Queen was the natural ally of the Scottish Congrega- 
 tion. But altogether apart from her dislike of Knox, 
 and her queenly disinclination to interfere in behalf of 
 subjects nominally in rebellion against their lawful 
 sovereign, there were acknowledged difficulties in 
 Elizabeth's way. She had just concluded a treaty of 
 peace with France ; and even if she had been disposed 
 to risk the renewal of hostilities with that country, the 
 attitude of Philip of Spain made it very doubtful 
 whether he would not in that event ally himself with 
 her enemies. If she interfered in Scotland she thus 
 ran the risk, for the sake of a cause with which she 
 only half sympathized — for the Scottish Eeformation 
 was taking a form that was not pleasing to her — of 
 having all the Catholic powers arrayed against her. 
 The best evidence that those dangers were not imag- 
 inary, is that even Knox — who of all men loved a 
 straightforward policy — brought himself in the des- 
 perate case to suggest dissimulation. In a letter 
 
JOHN KNOX. 457 
 
 of 25th October, 1559, signed "John Sinclair," 
 and addressed to Sir James Crofts, Governor of Ber- 
 wick, he says: " If you list to craft with thame, the 
 sending of a thousand or mo men to us can breake 
 no league nor point of peace contracted betwix you 
 and Fraunce : For it is free for your subjects to serve 
 in warr any prence or nation for thare wages. And yf 
 ye fear that such excusses shall not prevaile, you may 
 declayr thame rebells to your Eealme when ye shal 
 be assured that tliei be in our company e." 1 
 
 On the other hand it would clearly be in the end 
 fatal for Elizabeth to permit the Protestantism of 
 Scotland to be stamped out under the heel of the 
 Frenchman, and thus to give to those who sought to 
 overturn her throne, and with it the English Kefor- 
 mation, the very fulcrum on which of all others they 
 most wished to rest their lever. This the clear-eyed 
 Cecil, who was in constant communication with Knox, 
 saw well ; but he was only able to obtain the consent 
 of his mistress to unavowed and intermittent help. At 
 length, after the wreck, by a storm as timely as that 
 which scattered the Spanish Armada, of a French fleet 
 which had sailed for Leith ; after the death of Mary of 
 Guise, which took from the French party the chief in- 
 spiration of their courage ; and after Elizabeth had come 
 to see that her devices to conceal the assistance she 
 was rendering were too transparent, and that by half 
 measures she was losing much and gaining little, the 
 beleagured and half-starved Frenchmen in Leith were 
 brought to terms and sent home in English transports. 
 The treaty of peace was proclaimed at the Cross of 
 Edinburgh on the 8th of July, 1560. The deliverance 
 1 Letters, etc., Works, vol. vi. p. 90. 
 
458 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 had come so suddenly at last that the Congregation 
 were like men that dreamed. They gathered in St. 
 Giles', and Knox rendered solemn thanks in their name. 
 The words of thanksgiving, which he lias preserved in 
 his History, are simple, some may think them prosaic ; 
 but surely no Te Deum that ever pealed out the praises 
 of a triumphant nation was the utterance of a more 
 heartfelt gratitude. On August 1st the estates of 
 Parliament that had been adjourned, re-assembled. It 
 was remitted to Knox and his colleagues to prepare the 
 Confession of Faith. They did their work in four days. 
 Creed-making was easy then ; when in revolt against 
 the authority of Popes and Councils, men had laid 
 hold of a few simple truths of Scripture, and the age of 
 speculation had not yet come. It was specially easy 
 in Scotland, where there was one master-mind to guide 
 deliberation. On the 1 7th of August, all necessary pre- 
 liminaries having been gone through, the Confession 
 was ratified and the Reformation was established. 
 
 During the session of Parliament, Knox " taught 
 publiclie the prophet Haggeus" — that part of him 
 clearly in which he chides those who say the time is 
 not come, the time that the Lord's house should be 
 built. He spoke so vehemently of the duty which now 
 devolved on the delivered nation to make provision 
 for the maintenance of the Eeformed Church, that 
 Maitland of Lethington, the ablest, but not the most 
 spiritual of the leaders of the Congregation, exclaimed, 
 " We mon now forget our selffis, and beir the barrow 
 to buyld the housses of God." The rest of Knox's 
 life-work was a contention with the spirit which these 
 words reveal, and which was more or less the spirit of 
 all the barons who had joined the Con°Tegation. With 
 
JOHN KNOX. 459 
 
 some of them the only motive, with many of them a 
 chief motive, of their reforming zeal, was that they 
 might share the spoil of the dispossessed monks. They 
 were ready enough to ratify a Confession of Faith, hut 
 when it came to the Book of Discipline, with its pro- 
 vision for the superintendents, ministers, and readers, 
 and its liberal arrangements for secondary and primary 
 schools, they hesitated and delayed. With them, and 
 with another who is now to come more directly on 
 the scene, Knox had unresting conflict to the close. 
 
 That other was Mary Stuart, who, now a widow, 
 returned to her native country to take the reins of 
 government into her own hands. Knox specifies not 
 only the day when she landed — the 19th August, 
 1561 — hut the hour, " betwix sevin and aught houris 
 befoir noon," and adds, " The verray face of heavin, 
 the time of hir arryvall, did manifestlie speak what 
 confort was brought into this contry with hir, to wit, 
 sorow, dolour, darknes and all impietie. . . . The sun 
 was not seyn to schyne two dayis befoir nor two dayis 
 after." * It was in no churlish spirit that he thus wrote. 
 He did not grudge the cordiality of the welcome she 
 received, or that the Protestants joined in it — " thair- 
 intill thai war not to be blamed." But it was his delibe- 
 rate judgment as a historian — and the verdict of sub- 
 sequent history has confirmed it — that it was a dark 
 day for Scotland that 19th of August, 1561. 
 
 The collision between the preacher and the Queen 
 came very soon. On the first Sunday after her landing, 
 mass was privately celebrated at Holy rood. Great was 
 the commotion among the Congregation at the setting- 
 up of " that idoll " which Parliament had so recently 
 1 History, vol. ii. pp. 268-9. 
 
460 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 banished, making its restoration a capital offence. Loud 
 were the mutterings to the effect that "the idolater 
 preast should dye the death " ; but Lord James Stuart 
 took his stand at the chapel door to secure for the 
 Queen the liberty of worship lie had promised her 
 when he conveyed the invitation to return. One after 
 another of the fiery lords came spurring up to Edin- 
 burgh as the tidings reached them ; but like the riders 
 forth from Jezreel at Jehu's advance, they had hardly 
 put their indignant question when they submissively 
 fell silent. Eobert Campbell of Kingyeancleugh said to 
 his Ayrshire neighbour, Lord Ochiltree, when the latter 
 appeared upon the scene : " My Lord, now ye are come, 
 and almost the last of all the rest ; and I perceave by 
 your anger that the fyre-edge is nott of you yit ; but 
 T fear that after that the holy watter of the Courte be 
 sprinckled upoun you, that ye sail become als tem- 
 perat as the rest : For I have been here now fyve 
 dayis, and at the first I hard everie man say, ' Let 
 us hang the Preast,' but after thai had bene twyse or 
 thrise in the Abbay all that fervency was past. I 
 think thair be some inchantment whareby men ar 
 bewitched." * 
 
 It was even so. The girl-widow of nineteen, with 
 that peculiar beauty which so baffled painters that 
 no two of them gave the same rendering of it, charmed 
 the rough Lords of the Congregation, if not into ap- 
 proval of her ways, at least into sullen acquiescence. 
 And those of them who had seen the world, and were 
 withal too strong to be wheedled out of their prin- 
 ciples by a woman's smile, were no less "bewitched" by 
 the hope of making Mary the instrument of the policy 
 1 History, vol. ii. pp. 275-6. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 461 
 
 of union with England, which sad experience of the "7 
 fruits of the French alliance had now taught them was 1 
 the one true policy for Scotland. Some of them — Mait- 
 land notably — cared nothing for religion, deeming it " a 
 bogle of the nursery," and only worthy the attention of 
 grown men when it could be made an instrument of 
 statecraft. Others of them, such as Lord James Stuart, 
 who were sincere in their attachment to the principles 
 of the Eeformation, believed that by forbearance they 
 could gain the political end they sought without sacri- 
 ficing the liberties they had fought for — nay, they 
 w r ere not without hope that Mary might even be found 
 willing to secure the English succession at the cost of 
 sacrificing her Catholicism. 
 
 There was one man in the land who was proof 
 against either witchery. His keen grey eye could look 
 into Mary's face and not be blinded by her smile ; it 
 could see into her policy and divine the schemes which 
 that smile was meant to conceal. And so, on the very 
 first Sunday he mounted the pulpit of St. Giles', and 
 " inveighing against idolatrie, schew what terrible 
 plagues God had tacken upon realmes and nationis for 
 the same ; " and added, " That one messe (thair war no 
 mair suffered at the first) was more fearful to him then 
 gif ten thousand armed enemyes war landed in any 
 pairte of the realme, of purpose to suppress the hoill 
 religioun." These are not the words of ignorant 
 fanaticism. They express the deliberate conviction of 
 the most enlightened man in the Scotland of that day. 
 Eecent research into long-buried State papers has 
 brought to light the fact that when Mary Stuart 
 resolved to return to Scotland, it was of deliberate 
 purpose to destroy the Eeformation. From the day of 
 
462 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 her landing that purpose was avowed in letters to her 
 uncle, Cardinal Lorraine, and the French ministers, to 
 the Spanish King and the Duke of Alva, and to the 
 Pope himself. At the very time, in 1566, when she 
 issued a proclamation to her subjects assuring them of 
 her determination to uphold the established religion and 
 rebutting as calumnies all assertions to the contrary, 
 we find her writing to Philip of Spain telling him that 
 the hour had come for him to send assistance to restore 
 Scotland to the Catholic Church. 1 
 
 In the same letter she reveals that the ultimate 
 design was on England as well. If that which 
 the Lords of the Congregation, in their zeal for 
 the union of the Crowns, joined with her in impor- 
 tunately asking — the formal recognition of her claim 
 to the English succession — had been conceded, it does 
 not admit of doubt that Elizabeth's throne would very 
 soon have been vacant ; that Mary would have ascended 
 it over the ruins of both the Churches; and that the 
 Smithfield fires would have been once more lighted. 
 Bacon and Cecil saw this and laboured, with a ma- 
 jority of the English Council against them, to prevent 
 even an interview between Elizabeth and the Scottish 
 Queen. Knox alone on the north of the Border had 
 his eyes open to the clanger, and it was therefore that he 
 reckoned one mass at Holyrood to be more fearful than 
 ten thousand armed men. 
 
 The sermon in which the words were used led to 
 the first of his famous interviews with the Queen. In 
 
 1 Labanoff, referred to and quoted in an admirable lecture on 
 the Influence of Knox and the Scottish Reformation on England, 
 delivered in 1860 by the Right Honourable Lord Moncrieff, then 
 the Lord- Advocate for Scotland. See also Froude's History, and 
 Influence of the Reformation, in Short Studies, vol. i. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 463 
 
 that long " ressoning," Mary Stuart heard from the 
 lips of Knox, with an amazement which struck her 
 dumb " more than the quarter of ane hour," words 
 anent the rights of subjects on occasion to resist their 
 princes " even by power " — words which were used 
 in the next century to justify the action of those who 
 brought her grandson to the scaffold. But all is spoken 
 with the truest courtesy, and when they were parting- 
 he said, " I pray God, madam, that ye may be als 
 blessed within the Commounwealth of Scotland, yf it 
 be the pleasur of God, as ever Debora was in the 
 Commounwealth of Israeli." Though in subsequent in- 
 terviews there were stronger words on his part and 
 stormier behaviour on hers, he never forgot the respect 
 due to her sex and to her office. But he, too, had an 
 office which he deemed as sacred as hers. When she 
 sent for him anent his sermon, preached when there 
 had been dancing at the Court, after evil tidings had 
 come from France of successes against the Huguenots, 
 she proposed in conciliatory tone that if he had aught 
 to complain of, he should come to herself and tell her. 
 He replied courteously but firmly that he was " called to 
 to ane publict function within the Kirk of God," that 
 he was " appointed by God to rebuke the sinnes and 
 vices of all." " I am not," said he, " appointed to 
 cum to everie man in particular to schaw him his 
 offense ; for that laubour war infinite." If her Grace 
 would come to the Kirk she would fully understand both 
 what he likes and mislikes, " als weall in your Majistie 
 as in all others." Finally, if she would assign him a 
 day and hour when it would please her to hear "the forme 
 and substance of doctrin " he was publicly teaching, he 
 should wait upon her Grace. " But to waitt upon your 
 
464 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 chalmer-doore or ellis whair, and then to have no farther 
 libertie but to whisper my mynd in your Grace's eare, 
 or to tell you what others think and speak of you, 
 neather will my conscience nor the vocatioun whairto 
 God hath called me suffer it." It was at the close 
 of this interview that he was going out " with a 
 reasonable meary countenance ; whairat some Papistis 
 offended said, ' He is not effrayecl.' Which heard of 
 him he answered, ' Why should the pleasing face of a 
 gentill woman effray me ? I have looked in the faces 
 of many angrie men, and yet have nott been effrayed 
 above measure.' " ] 
 
 At another interview — that following his sermon 
 against the Spanish marriage — when she asked him 
 angrily, " What have ye to do with my mariage ? or 
 what ar ye within this Commounwealth ? " he an- 
 swered, and in his reply we seem to hear the far-off 
 tread of the advancing democracy : " A subject borne 
 within the same, madam. And albeit I be neather 
 Erie, Lord, nor Barroun within it, yitt lies God maid 
 me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profit- 
 able member within the same." At the plain but 
 still courteous words that followed she burst into 
 passionate tears. Good John Erskine of Dun tried 
 to comfort her, as one not over-wise might comfort a 
 petulant child, by giving " unto hir many pleasing 
 wordis of hir beautie, of hir excellence, and how that 
 all the Princes of Europe wold be glaid to seak hir 
 favouris." Not so the other John. It is a fine picture 
 we have given us in the old chronicle. He " stood 
 still, without any alteratioun of countenance for a long 
 seasson, whill that the Quene gave place to hir in- 
 1 History, vol. ii. p. 334. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 465 
 
 ordinat passioim ; and in the end he said ; ' Madam, 
 in Goddis presence I speak : I never delyted in the 
 weaping of any of Goddis creatures; yea I can skarslie 
 weill abyd the tearis of my awin boyes whome my awin 
 hand correctis, much less can I rejoise in your Majestie's 
 weaping. But seeing that I have offered unto you no 
 just occasioun to be offended, but have spocken the 
 trueth, as my vocatioun craves of me, I man sustean 
 (albeit unwillinglie) your Majesties tearis, rather then 
 I dar hurte my conscience, or betray my Commoun- 
 wealth through my silence," I ask you to judge which 
 of these two ways of speaking to the Queen was the 
 more truly respectful ? 
 
 But it was in St. Giles' that Knox's power was 
 felt. He was the uncrowned, but real king of Scot- 
 land, and his pulpit was his throne. Around it he 
 gathered the forces that saved the Beformation — the 
 Commons of Scotland, whom he so taught to see with 
 his own intelligence the issues of the conflict which 
 he was warmer against the Court, and so nerved with 
 his own courage that they stood firm, when the Lords 
 — even those of them who still remained true to Bro- 
 testantism — were tempted to waver. Every one knows 
 that picture drawn for us by James Melville, 1 of the 
 old man " with a furring of martricks about his neck, a 
 staff in the an hand, and guid godlie Bichart Ballan- 
 clen, his servand, halding upe the uther oxtar from the 
 Abbey to the paroche kirk " of St. Andrews, " and 
 be the said Bichart and another servant lifted upe 
 to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first 
 entrie ; hot or he haid done with his sermont, he 
 
 1 Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville ( Woodrow 
 Socy. ed.) p. 33. 
 
 2G 
 
466 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 was sa active and vigor us that he was lyk to ding that 
 pulpit in blads, and fly out of it." It is not so well 
 known that this was at an important crisis, when his 
 voice, " like ten thousand trumpets braying in the 
 ear of Scottish Protestantism," averted a disastrous 
 policy. 
 
 Only one of his sermons has been preserved in full. 
 Its subject is the first nine verses of the 26th chapter 
 of Isaiah. The circumstances in which it was preached 
 are memorable. Poor Darnley, finding that his attend- 
 ance at the Queen's mass was exciting suspicion that 
 he had abjured his Protestantism, resolved to appear 
 at St. Giles' in state. He had a throne set up in 
 the Church on which he sate himself down, doubtlsse 
 expecting that the preacher would be duly grateful 
 for this evidence of his loyalty to the established 
 order in religion. Little did he know that preacher's 
 character. No smooth words nattered the vanity of 
 the poor kingling. Sharp arrows flew about his 
 head — words quoted from the Geneva version of the 
 prophet's oracle, concerning God's dealings with the 
 land, " from whom he taketh away the strong man," 
 and to whom he will appoint " children to be their 
 princes, and babes shall rule over them. Children are 
 extorcyoners of my people and women have rule over 
 them." 1 We do not wonder that Darnley returned to 
 the palace in great wrath, nor that it was deemed 
 advisable that Knox should retire from Edinburgh for 
 -a little after this incident. 
 
 His labours were not confined to the capital, nor did 
 he occupy himself only with politics. We find him in 
 1562, for example, answering a challenge sent him by 
 1 A Sermon, etc., Works, vol. vi. p. 242. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 407 
 
 Abbot Kennedy of Crossraguel, and " ressoning " for 
 three days in the house of the Provost of the Collegiate 
 Church at Maybole, on the doctrine of the Mass. The 
 record of the " ressoning" has been preserved by Knox, 
 and the house in which it took place is standing still, 
 in a steep, narrow street of the old feudal town, so 
 that we are able to realize the scene. In presence of 
 the lords and gentry of the west, who, forty on either 
 .side, were crowded into an upper room, and looked on 
 as at a tournament — for the age of chivalry has given 
 place to the age of "ressoning," and the conflict of 
 ideas has begun — the two combatants, the stern 
 preacher on the one hand, the son of an Earl and of 
 an Earl's daughter, the lordly Abbot on the other, enter 
 the lists. There is all the fine courtesy of the old 
 chivalry. Knox calls his opponent " My Lord," 
 though he is careful to protest that he does so " by 
 reason of blood and not of office." For three days 
 the battle rages round one single point. The Abbot, 
 who opens the debate, contends that Christ could 
 not be a priest after the order of Melchizedek unless 
 he offered a propitiatory sacrifice of bread and wine, in- 
 asmuch as Melchizedek offered such a sacrifice. Knox 
 replies that there is no evidence that the bread and 
 wine brought forth by Melchizedek were offered in 
 propitiatory sacrifice. He suggests, but with true 
 Scotch caution is careful to protest that the sug- 
 gestion is in no wise essential to his arguments, 
 that the bread and wine were brought forth for the 
 refreshment of Abraham and his men. And so on 
 from day to day the contention proceeds between 
 two men who both understand the art of intellectual 
 fencing. At the end of the third day Knox, always 
 
468 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 practical and always human, suggests that " the noble- 
 men here assembled are altogether destitute of all 
 provision both for hors and man," and that the reason- 
 ing might be adjourned to Ayr, " whair that better 
 easment might be had for all estates." But to this 
 Kennedy, who has probably had enough of it, will not 
 agree, and so the battle ends. 
 
 In Knox's record of the debate we have a fine 
 example of his humour, his grim, Semitic humour, as of 
 Elijah mocking the priests of Baal, or Isaiah making 
 mirth of idolaters. He says : "The poore god of bread is 
 most miserable of all other idoles ; for, according to 
 there matter whereof thay are made, they will remane 
 without corruption many yeares. But within one year 
 this god will putrifie, and then he must be burnt ; 
 they can abycle the vehemencie of the wind, frost, rain, 
 or snow. But the wind will blow that god to the sea, 
 the rain or the snow will make it dagh again ; yea, 
 which is most of all to be feared, that god is a pray 
 (if he be not wel kept) to rattes and mise ; for they 
 will desire no better denner than white rounde gods 
 ynew. But O then, what becometh of Christes natu- 
 ral bodie ? By myrackle, it Hies to the heaven 
 againe, if the Papists teach treulie ; for how sone 
 soever the mouse takes hold, so sone flieth Christ 
 away, and letteth hir gnaw the bread. A bold and 
 puissant mouse, but a feble and miserable god : yet 
 wold I ask a question ; whether hath the priest or the 
 mouse greater power ? By his words it is made a god: 
 by hir teeth it ceaseth to be a god : let them avise, 
 and then answer." * Humour such as this — and 
 sometimes of a kindlier type — were an unfailing 
 'Works, vol. vi. pp. 172, 3. 
 
JOHN KNOX. 469 
 
 characteristic of Knox. It served to keep him from 
 becoming morbid amid the stern conflicts of his life. 
 It saved him from being one-sided, and helped to 
 preserve the balance of mind by virtue of which he 
 united to the most burning earnestness, a Scotch 
 caution, and a statesmanlike prudence. 
 
 His humour gives its peculiar charm to his History 
 of the Reformation, with the preparation of which he 
 occupied himself at intervals during the busy years of 
 his Edinburgh ministry. His authorship of this work 
 has been disputed, but the internal evidence that his 
 hand and no other drew those graphic pictures seems 
 to us conclusive. If Knox did not write the first 
 four books of the History, then another man of appar- 
 ently equal intellectual power, but of whose existence 
 we have no other trace, lived in Scotland in the latter 
 part of the sixteenth century. 
 
 But the time came when John Knox must lay down 
 the burden of mortal life. We have pleasant pictures 
 of the closing scenes in that old house in the Canon- 
 gate, where he was lovingly ministered to by his young 
 wife; for Marjory Bowes was dead, her poor mother had 
 also gone out from among the shadows which encom- 
 passed her, and Knox had wedded a daughter of Lord 
 Ochiltree. When some of his old friends came to see 
 him he " caused peirce ane hoggeid of wine " which 
 was in his cellar, that they and he might have happy 
 fellowship before they parted. His dying request to 
 his wife that she should read to him the 17th chapter 
 of St. John, where he "first cast anchor," is very 
 beautiful. That anchor he cast had held, though 
 storms had been loud and long ; and he would cast 
 it anew that he might ride out the last storm of 
 
470 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 all. When the end was at hand, and the voice 
 before which rulers had trembled had gone silent, they 
 asked him to indicate that faith failed not, and he did 
 so by lifting his hand upward. And thus on Monday, 
 24th November, 1572, he entered into rest, of whom 
 Eegent Morton said at his burial, that he never feared 
 the face of man. 
 
 His grave in the courtyard of the Parliament House, 
 under the shadow of his own St. Giles', is not desecrated 
 though the busy crowds pass over it, and hardly note 
 it as they hurry on : 
 
 " Let the sound of those lie wrought for, 
 And the feet of those he fought for, 
 Echo round his boues for evermore." 
 
 If our civil and religious liberties have made our nation 
 great and strong, it is to him we owe them. He is the 
 father of his country. He saw much that was hidden 
 from his generation, and many things he indicated in 
 his Book of Discipline are still unrealized. Shall we 
 complain that the man who won for us our freedom 
 often used rough words ? The complaint is surely un- 
 reasonable — as unreasonable as it would be to detract 
 from the glory of Bannockburn because the men who 
 fought our battle there did not fight it with Armstrong 
 guns and Martini rifles, but with the spears and the 
 battle-axes that were laid to their hands. John Knox 
 spoke the word that was given him to speak; he spoke 
 it in the dialect of his time ; and by speaking it he 
 saved his land. 
 
 GLASGOW: ROBERT MACLEHOSE, PRINTER TO THE l/NIVERSH V 
 
The Second Edition, in Crown Sro., price 7s. Gd. 
 
 THE LIFE OF A SCOTTISH PROBATIONER; 
 
 Being the Memoir of THOMAS DAVIDSON. 
 
 With his POEMS and LETTERS. 
 
 By JAMES BROWN, D.D., St. James's, Paisley. 
 
 Dr. John Brown, 
 
 Author of " Rab and his Friends." 
 "A worthy record of a man of rare genius — dead ere his prime. His 
 poems are as beautiful as flowers or birds, and the letters might have been 
 written by a Scotch U.P. Charles Lamb.'' 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 " This life of an unknown Scotch probationer is equal in interest to 
 anything of the kind we have had since Carlyle's ' Life of Sterling ' was 
 written. Thomas Davidson, as a poet, as a humourist, as a simple, loving, 
 honest, reticent, valiant soul, demands adequate recognition at the hands 
 of the critic — a career kind and unostentatious, glorified, however, in its 
 uneventful homeliness by a rare vein of poetry and a rich vein of humour. 
 The key-note of the character is its sound and healthy but modest manli- 
 ness. The mem sana is a most precious possession. Davidson began to 
 sicken of the disease of which he died before he was eight-and-twenty, 
 but sickness did not unsteady the even balance of his mind. It is after 
 lie is laid aside from active work that his humour is at its best and brightest, 
 and his lyrical faculty in its finest mood. The whole picture is pleasant, 
 
 but the finishing touches make it nearly if not altogether unique 
 
 The poetry is genuine, the humour is genuine, and the character (that 
 which underlies both) as genuine as the poetry and the humour — the 
 humour, indeed, went deep into the life." 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 " A charming little biography. His was one of those rare natures which 
 fascinates all who come in contact with it." 
 
 Nonconformist. 
 
 "It is an unspeakable pleasure to a reviewer weary of wading through 
 piles of commonplace to come unexpectedly on a prize such as this." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 "Davidson's letters and poems prove him incomparably superior in 
 genius, wit, and humour to any Border poet of this century, except, it 
 may be, Thomas Aird. Apart from 'Ariadne," with its exquisitely 
 finished and classical pathos, and the 'Hobgoblinade,' which ranks with 
 Burns's ' Death and Dr. Hornbook,' the lines on ' The Cheviots ' are the 
 finest descant on those famous hills we ever heard, and passes over them 
 like the most delicious and spiritual gleam of a dying autumn day, giving 
 them a lustre not of this earth." 
 
 Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons, Publishers to the University. 
 London : Macmillan k Co. 
 
SCOTTISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 By JOHN M. ROSS, LL.D. 
 Edited, with Memoir, by JAMES BROWN, D.D. 
 
 Demy Svo, 450 pp., 14s. 
 
 Times. 
 "Dr. Ross was deeply versed in Old Scotch Literature; his patriotic 
 enthusiasm is intense, but duly controlled in expression by a sufficient 
 sense of humour. His book is not a dry compendium of facts, but a vivid 
 account of the national life of Scotland viewed now from the political and 
 now from the literary point of view." 
 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 "This volume is 'thorough and honest,' is written in an engaging style, 
 and forms a masterly and complete survey of the periods and subjects 
 with which it deals. The whole work is characterized by a fulness of 
 knowledge, a closeness of study, a breadth of vision, a firmness of grasp, 
 and a shrewdness of observation, together with an elegance and sometimes 
 eloquence of expression that will make it at once pleasant to the common 
 reader and satisfactory to the exacting critic." 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 "Dr. Ross's volume must be pronounced to be a work of quite excep- 
 tional literary and historical value. It fills a place of its own at once in 
 the literary history and in the historical literature of Scotland.'' 
 
 Academy. 
 
 "There is no trace in this volume of mental weai-iness or perfunctory 
 cram. It is nothing short of masterly. The style is full, nervous, per- 
 spicuous, vitalized by an enthusiasm always kept on the safe side by 
 humour and good sense. In the warmth of his patriotic and moral 
 enthusiasm, in his thorough mastery of details, as well as in the glowing 
 energy of his style, he reminds us of Mr. Green." 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 "This is the best manual of the two subjects of which it treats at 
 present in existence. Dr. Ross has evidently had a passion for his sub- 
 ject, and has gone straight to the ancient records, both Scotch and 
 English, as the fountain head of all available knowledge. Dr. Ross is 
 seen at his best when dealing with the legends that have grown round 
 the memories of Scotland's national heroes. He separates the wheat 
 from the chaff in Barbour's Brus; and we have never seen a more masterly 
 exposition than that which he gives of the brutalities and chronological 
 
 absurdities of Blind Harry's Wallace Nothing in northern 
 
 literature shows the intensity of the Scotch national sifirit more clearly 
 than this book." 
 
 British Quarterly Review. 
 
 "The volume is at once popular and descriptive, critical and philo- 
 sophical." 
 
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