Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/213

 1572.] THE MASSACRE OF ST BARTHOLOMEW. 193 was creeping over him, and death was at hand. Banna- tyne, his secretary, sprang to his side. ' Now, Sir/ he said, ' the time ye have long asked for to wit, an end of your battle is come ; and, seeing all natural power fails, remember the promise which oftentimes ye have shown me of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and that we may understand ye hear us make us some sign/ The dying man gently raised his head, and ' incon- tinent thereof, rendered up his spirit.' 1 ' There lies one/ said Morton, as, two days later, he stood to watch the coffin lowered into the grave, ' There lies one who never feared the face of mortal man/ Morton spoke only of what he knew : the full measure of Knox's greatness neither he nor any man could then estimate. It is as we look back over that stormy time, and weigh the actors in it one against the other, that he stands out in his full proportions. No grander figure can be found, in the entire history of the Reformation in this island, than that of Knox. Cromwell and Burgh- ley rank beside him for the work which they effected, but, as politicians and statesmen, they had to labour with instruments which soiled their hands in touch- ing them. In purity, in uprightness, in courage, truth, and stainless honour, the Regent Murray and our English Latimer were perhaps his equals ; but Murray was in- tellectually far below him, and the sphere of Latimer's influence was on a smaller scale. The time has come 1 Narrative of Richard Bannatyne. VOL. x. 13