Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/267

Rh great reformer, passively, and without remark or objection, becoming a minister of that church which he was afterwards to overturn and erase from his native soil ; becoming a minister of that religion which he was afterwards to drive from the land, with a violence which shook both the kingdom and the throne. A little longer, however, and we find this mighty mind emerging gradually but majestically into the light of day. The discovery had been made that there lay a wider and a fairer region beyond the bounds of the prison-house, and Knox hastened himself to seek and to point out the way to others.

He soon betook himself to the study of the writings of the fathers of the Christian church ; and, in the works of Jerome and Augustine, found the doctrines and tenets which effected that revolution in his religious sentiments, afterwards productive of such important results. He was now in the thirtieth year of his age, but he did not either publicly avow the change which had taken place in his religious creed, or attempt to impress it upon others, for several years afterwards. In the mean time the work of reformation had been making irregular but rapid progress. Patrick Hamilton had already preached the new faith in Scotland, and had fallen a martyr to its doctrines, and many others of not less zeal, but of less note, had shared a similar fate. Copies of the Scriptures were now surreptitiously introduced into the kingdom, and eagerly read by those into whose hands they fell. Poets employed their fascinating powers in bringing the church of Rome and its ministers into contempt. The effect of all this was a violent agitation of the public mind. The reformed doctrines were every where spoken of and discussed. They became the topics of common conversation, and were the themes of disquisition amongst the learned. It was at this critical period, about the year 1542, in the midst of this feverish excitement of public opinion, that Knox first stepped into the arena as a combatant in the cause of the new faith. He was still a teacher of philosophy in the college of St Andrews, but he availed himself of the opportunities which this appointment afforded, of disseminating his doctrines amongst his pupils, whom he taught to look with abhorrence and contempt on the corruptions and errors of the Romish church. Though such opinions were now spreading widely, and were made matter of ordinary discussion, their abettors were not yet, by any means, safe from the vengeance of the liomish ecclesiastics, who were yet struggling hard to suppress the heresies which were every where springing up in the land, and threatening the speedy ruin of their church. Knox's case was too marked and too conspicuous an instance of defection, to escape for any length of time some proof of that wrath which it was so well calculated to excite. He was degraded from the priesthood, had sentence passed against him as a heretic, and only escaped assassination by flying from St Andrews, that fate having been marked out for him by cardinal Beaton. On leaving St Andrews, Knox found protection in the family of Douglas of Langniddrie, where he acted in the capacity of tutor. Here, Douglas himself being a zealous advocate for the new faith, Knox continued to preach the doctrines which had driven him from St Andrews; and in these doctrines he not only instructed the family with which he lived, but also the people in the neighbourhood, whom he invited to attend his prelections. From the consequences which must infallibly have attended this perseverance in disseminating principles so inimical to the church, Knox was only saved by the death of cardinal Beaton, who was assassinated in the castle of St Andrews, on the 29th of May, 1546. Though, by the death of Beaton, Knox probably escaped the utmost severities which prelacy could inflict; he yet did not escape all visitation from its wrath.

John Hamilton, the successor of Beaton, sought his destruction with as much eagerness as his predecessor had done, compelling him to flee from place to place,