to hear the form and substance of doctrine which is propounded in public to the Churches of this realm, I will most gladly await upon your grace's pleasure, time, and place. But to wait upon your chamber door, or elsewhere, and then to have no further liberty but to whisper my mind into your grace's ear, or to tell you what others think and speak of you, neither will my conscience, nor the vocation whereto God hath called me, suffer it. For albeit, at your grace's commandment I am here now, yet cannot I tell what other men shall judge of me, that at this time of day am absent from my book, and waiting upon the Court.'

"You will not always,' said she, "be at your book,' and so turned her back."

Knox's third interview with Mary took place in May, 1563. The Popish priests, reckoning upon the favour with which the queen regarded them, had publicly celebrated mass in several parts of Scotland. This was against This was against the law; and some zealous Protestants, determined that the law should not become a dead letter, laid hands on several of the priests, and apprehended them. The queen at once communicated with the Reformer on the subject, who writes as follows :~~

"She sent for John Knox to come unto her, where she lay at Lochlevin. She travailed with him earnestly two hours before her supper, that he would be the instrument to persuade the people, and principally the gentlemen of the west, not to put hands to punish any man for the using of themselves in their religion as pleased them. The other, perceiving her craft, willed her grace to punish malefactors ac

cording to the laws, and he durst promise quietness upon the part of all them that professed the Lord Jesus in Scotland. But if her majesty thought to delude the laws, he said, he feared that some would let the Papists understand that without punishment, they should not be suffered so manifestly to offend God's Majesty. "Will ye,' quoth she, allow that they shall take my sword in their hand?'

"The sword of justice,' quoth he, madam, is God's, and is given to princes and rulers for an end which, if they transgress, sparing the wicked, and oppressing innocents, they that in the fear of God execute judgment, where God has commanded, offend not God, though kings do it not. Neither yet sin they that bridle kings to strike innocent men in their rage. The examples are evident; for Samuel feared not to slay Agag, the fat and delicate King of Amalek, whom King Saul had saved. . And so, madam, your grace may see that others than chief magistrates may lawfully punish, and have punished, the vices and crimes that God commands to be punished. And in this case, I would earnestly pray your majesty to take good advisement, and that your grace should let the Papists understand that their attempts will not be suffered unpunished. For power by act of parliament is given to all judges within their own bounds to search mass-mongers, or the hearers of the same, and to punish them according to the law. And therefore it shall be profitable to your majesty to consider what is the thing your grace's subjects look to receive of your majesty, and what it is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual

contract. They are bound to obey ycu, and that not but in God. Ye are bound to keep laws unto them. Y crave of them service, they crave of you protection and defence against wiked doers. Now, madam, if ye shall deny your duty unto them, (which especially craves that ye shall punish malefactors) think ye to receve full obedience of them? I fear, mdam, ye shall not.'

"Herewith she, being somewhat ofended, passed to her supper."

The fourth interview took place on the following morning, and the tone

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manner of the queen were so affble and condescending, and contrated so much with the displeasure she had exhibited the night before, tha, as Knox quaintly says, "whether it as the night's sleep, or a deep disimulation locked in her breast, tha made her to forget her former angr, wise men may doubt." She begn to talk with him quite confidetially and familiarly about a numer of topics concerning herself, and detained him much longer than he ished, for he was anxious to get backto Edinburgh.

"nd now," said the queen, after a longossip which took the Reformer comptely aback, by the display which it ga of the queen's friendliness and exeem, 66 as touching our reasoning yeternight, I promise to do as ye requirt, I shall cause all offenders [to be]ummoned, and ye shall know that I all minister justice."

The fifth interview between Knox and the queen took place later in the year 1563, and this again was in consequence of a sermon which Knox had preached. Parliament had met, but such was the lukewarmness of the leading Protestants, and so great the influence Mary had acquired, that no measures were taken for the preservation of the Protestant religion. Knox indignantly and eloquently protested against this "betrayal of Christ's cause," and in the same sermon referred in strong terms to the undesirability of Mary's marriage with Darnley (who, if he was anything, was a Papist), which it was reported would soon take place. After this sermon Knox was instantly summoned to the presence of the queen. The following is his own account of the interview:

"The queen, in a vehement fume, began to cry out that never prince was handled as she was. 'I have,' said she, borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favour by all possible means. I offered unto you presence and audience whensoever it pleased you to admonish me; and yet I cannot be quit of you. I avow to God I will be once revenged.' Here followed a loud and passionate fit of weeping.

"The said John did patiently abide all the first fume, and at opportunity answered-True it is, madam, your grace and I have been at divers controversies, in the which I never perceived your grace to be offended at me. But when it shall please God to deliver you from that bondage of darkness and error in the which ye have been nourished, for the lack of

true doctrine, your majesty will find the liberty of my tongue nothing offensive. Without the preaching place, madam, I think few have occasion to be offended at me; and there, madam, I am not master of myself, but must obey Him who commands me to speak plain, and to flatter no flesh upon the face of the earth.'

"But what have ye to do,' said she, with my marriage ?'

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"If it please your majesty,' said he, patiently to hear me, I shall show the truth in plain words. I grant your grace offered unto me more than ever I required; but my answer was then, as it is now, that God hath not sent me to await upon the courts of princesses, nor upon the chambers of ladies; but I am sent to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to such as please to hear it; and it hath two parts, Repentance and Faith. And now, madam, in preaching Repentance, of necessity it is that the sins of men be so noted that they may know wherein they offend; but so it is that the most part of your nobility are so addicted to your affections that neither God, His Word, nor yet their commonwealth, are rightly regarded. And, therefore, it becomes me so to speak that they may know their duty.'

"What have ye to do,' said she, 'with my marriage, or what are ye in this commonwealth ?'

"A subject born within the same,' said he, 'madam. And albeit I neither be earl, lord, nor baron within it, yet has God made me (how abject soever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same; yea, madam, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it

does to any of the nobility; for both my vocation and conscience craves plainness of me. And therefore, madam, to yourself I say that which I spake in public place: Whensoever that the nobility of this realm shill consent that ye be subject to an mfaithful husband, they do as much as in them lieth to renounce Christ, to banish His truth from them, to betay the freedom of this realm, and, perchance, shall in the end do small comfort to yourself."

"At these words Mary began to wep and sob with great bitterness. But the said John stood still without any alteration of countenance for a ling season, while that the queen ave place to her inordinate passion; and in the end he said, 'Madam, in God's presence I speak I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures; yea, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys wom my own hand corrects, much less can I rejoice in your majesty's weeing. But seeing that I have offered unto you no great occasion to be offaded, but have spoken the truth a my vocation craves of me, I must sstain (albeit unwillingly) your masty's tears, rather than I dare hut my conscience, or betray my comonwealth through my silence.'

"Herewith was the queer more offended;" and "the said John was ordered instantly to leave her prsence."

In December, 1568, Kno: had his sixth and last interview with the queen. He was put on hiştrial before the members of the pry council and other noblemen, on acharge of treason, brought against im on account of a circular lette which he had addressed to some Protestant

gentlemen, urging them to be present at the trial of two men who had broken into the queen's chapel at Edinburgh, during her absence, and interrupted the priest in the celebration of mass. Mary had evidently seized on this pretext against Knox in the hope that she would thus gain her revenge. She was present when Knox was brought in for examination, and could not conceal her exultation at the prospect before her. At the sight of Knox she burst into unseemly laughter, and exclaimed, "that man made me weep, and never shed a tear himself. I will see if I can make him weep."

She frequently interrupted the examination, and herself addressed questions to Knox, It is unnecessary to give the replies of Knox in full as the queen herself admitted the propriety and respectfulness of their tone..

"Well," said she, "ye speak fair enough here before my lords; but the last time I spake with you secretly you caused me to weep many salt tears, and said to me, stubbornly, ‘Ye set not by my weeping.'"

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"Madam," said the other, "because now the second time your grace has burdened me with that crime I must answer, lest for my silence I be held guilty." After recapitulating the conversation, he thus concluded:"But while that nothing was able to stay your weeping, I was compelled to say, I take God to record, that I never took pleasure to see any creature weep, much less can I rejoice to see your grace make such regret. But seeing I have offered your grace no such occasion, I must rather suffer your grace to take your own pleasure, or that I dare conceal the truth, and so betray both the Church of God

the most extreme words that I spake that day."

After that the secretary had conferred with the queen, he said, "Mr. Knox, ye may return to your house for the night."

"I thank God and the queen's majesty," said the other. "And, madam, I pray God to purge your heart from Popery, and to preserve you from the counsel of flatterers, for how pleasant soever they appear to your ear and corrupt affection for the time, experience has told us in what perplexity they have brought famous princes."

The result of the trial is well known. The assembly decided, greatly to the queen's vexation, that the charge of treason against Knox could not be sustained.

These interviews give us but glimpses of a character the full proportion and strength of which can only be clearly perceived when the entire history of those perilous and troubled days has been diligently studied; but surely these glimpses are sufficient to suggest the true majesty and greatness of that character as a whole. The conduct and words of Knox on these occasions seem to us to bear the stamp of the man of whom the eloquent historian of the times of Queen Elizabeth (Froude) has said:"No grander figure can be found in the entire history of the Reformation in this island than that of Knox. spirit which Knox created saved Scotland; and if Scotland had been Catholic again neither the wisdom of Elizabeth's ministers, nor the teaching of her bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would have preserved

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England from revolution. His was the voice which taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers. He was the one antagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland deceive; he it was that raised the poor commons of his country into a

stern and rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious, and fanatical, but who, nevertheless, were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force again to submit to tyranny. And his reward has been the ingratitude of those who should have done most honour to his me mory."

THE same evidence produces widely different impressions upon different minds. Some men are convinced by methods of proof which only rouse in others the spirit of antagonism. One man feels an argument to be conclusive; while another even fails to see the connection between it and the point to be proved. The reason of this lies, of course, in the dissimilarity of mental constitution and habits.

It is well then that in support of such a truth as the Incarnation all possible kinds of evidence should be accumulated. In addition to arguments addressed to the intellect, appeals, upon such a subject as this, may be made to the moral sense. Such appeals often unlock deep places of the soul where positive proof has knocked for admittance in vain. In answer to such appeals, the heart, weary at last of its own doubting, sometimes springs up in glad thankfulness, and

the Incarnation of the Son of God, some of us rejoice to find it so abundant and various. We examine the historical reliability of the Gospel narratives, and find that that may be unanswerably established. Then we consider the miraculous works of Christ, and are not afraid to take our stand upon the argument which is based upon them. Or we listen to the teaching of Christ, and perceiving its heavenly characteristics its originality and intelligibility, its comprehensiveness and harmony, its tenderness and wisdom, its vigour and authority-we boldly say, "Never man spake like this man." Or we observe the character of Christ. We watch Him emerging from the obscurity of His Galilean home, and with sublimé and Divine composure taking His place as the Teacher of the world, the Healer of its sorrows, and the Giver of its life-and we mark His deep humility, His perfect patience, His spotless purity, His matchless simplicity. We take such facts as these and follow out the inferences from them, until we can scarcely understand the incredulity which still continues to disbelieve.

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