Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/262

 and places of education. But the Lords, who had seized the revenues of the Church, were determined not to part with the spoil they had obtained; and those whom the preachers had found most active in destroying Popery, were wonderfully cold when it was proposed to them to surrender the lands they had seized upon for their own use. The plan of John Knox was, they said, a 'devout imagination,' a visionary scheme, which showed the goodness of the preacher's intentions, but which it was impossible to carry into practice. In short, they retained by force the greater part of the Church revenues for their own advantage."

"Ay," said the minister, "John Knox's scheme was a good and honest one, though the Lords who had gotten the Church lands might call it visionary."

"I quite agree with you. The conduct of John Knox in this was that of a wise statesman as well as of an honest man; the conduct of those Lords was the conduct of a band of robbers. A pack of greater ruffians, I believe, never appeared upon earth, in any age or country. The persons who got hold of the Church lands in England were mean men of the grade of lackeys and cooks. But the Scotch plunderers were to a man pre-eminent,