Page:Life of John Knox (3).pdf/2



narrating the principal actions in the life of this extraordinary character, it may be useful to prefix some account of the state of religion in Scotland previous to the Reformation.

After the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, religion was one of the first objects wisich attracted the attention of mankind, and long before Luther published his theses against the doctrines of the church of Rome, science had laid open the absurdity of the established superstition to many of the natives of Italy.

The ignorance of the inhabitants of the north was favourable to the introduction of Popery in its grossest form among them; and, accordingly, that established in Scotland was illiberal and bigotted in the extreme. Doctrines and legends the most apt to shock the understanding were proposed without any disguise, and their truth or reasonableness were never called in question by the people.