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 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 275 promise with, his future Lords of the Congregation, that on the instant of signal from them he would re- appear there. In 1557, the Scotcli Protestant Lords did give sign ; upon which. Knox, with, sorrowing but hopeful heart, took leave of his congregation at Geneva ; but was met, at Dieppe, by contrary message from Scotland, to bis sore grief and disappointment. As Mr. Laing calculates, be occupied his forced leisure there by writing bis widely offensive First Blast ■against the monstrous Regiment of Women, — of which strange book a word farther presently. Having blown this wild First Blast, and stiU getting negatory answers out of Scotland, he returned to Geneva and his own poor church there ; and did not tiU January 1559, on brighter Scotch tidings coming, quit that city,— straight for Scotland this time, the tug of war now actually come. For the quarrel only a few days after Knox's arrival blazed out into open conflagration, at St. Johnston's Qiodie Perth), with the open fall of Dagon and his temples there ; and no peace was pos- sible henceforth till either Mary of Guise and her Papist soldieries left Scotland or Christ's Congrega- T 2