Oh! how shall we sing them the song they de mand, Now captive, forlorn, in a barbarous land. No! if I forget, my dear Zion, thy fate, If my heart cease to sigh for thee early and late, This harp, my delight, be for ever unstrung, And the sweet song of pleasure grow strange to my tongue! Remember these children of Edom, O Lord! Remember and give them their dreadful reward; How they cried in the day of Jerusalem's sighs, Destroy her, destroy her, she never shall rise.' TO CORRESPONDENTS. THE Comparisons of R. M. are not suf ficiently accurate and striking to justify our inserting them. A Series of Essays on the Sabbath will be commenced, in our next number. We have received several communica tions, both in poetry and prose, on which we have not had sufficient leisure to form an ultimate opinion. DURING two years he resided at Geneva, happy in the friendship of Calvin and of the other ministers. But nothing could extinguish his regard to Scotland, and his desire of promoting there. the establishment of the reformation. Being requested by some of the nobility to return to Edinburgh, he bade adieu to his congregation and repaired to Dieppe. At this place, discourag ing letters from Scotland reached him, which, together with a reluctance to occasion such scenes of discord and bloodshed as he expected, induced him to relinquish his journey. By his letters, however, he still advanced the reformation. In one of them, speaking of the doctrine of predestination, he says, "If there be any thing, which God did not predestinate and appoint, then lacked he wisdom and free regimen; [or government;] or if any thing was ever done, or yet after shall be done in heaven or in earth, which he might not have impeded (if so had been his godly pleasure,) then is he VOL. X. VOL. X. not omnipotent; which three properties, to wit, wisdom, free regimen, and power denied to be in God, I pray you what rests in his Godhead? The wisdom of our God we acknowledge to be such, that it compelleth the very malice of Satan, and the horrible iniquity of such as be drowned in sin, to serve to his glory and to the profit of his elect.' Knox returned to Geneva in the end of 1557, and in the following year was engagad in making a new translation of the Bible into English, which is called the Geneva Bible. He also wrote several treatises, of which the one, that made the greatest noise, was The first Blast of the trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women, in which he assailed the practice of entrusting the reins of government in nations to females. The first sentence is "To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally it is the subversion of all equity and justice." It was undoubtedly the cruelty of queen Mary of England towards the protestants 25 194 which incited him to blow this blast. It was his intention to sound his trumpet thrice; but on the accession of queen Elizabeth, who favored the protestant cause, he was induced to abandon his design, although his opinion remained unaltered. terest. His letters to Scotland had the effect of encouraging the protestant lords, and they soon renewed their invitation to him. Bidding adieu for the last time to Geneva he went to Dieppe, and thence sailed to Leith, where he landed in May 1559. In the preceding year an aged priest was committed to the flames on a charge of heresy;-an event, which awakened the general indignation of the people, and strengthened the protestant inOn his arrival he found, that the queen regent was determined to suppress the reformed religion, all the preachers of which she summoned to trial at Stirling on the 10th of May. In reference to this order he says in a letter, "Satan rageth even to the uttermost, and I am come, I praise my God, even in the brunt of the battle. For my fellow preachers have a day appointed to answer before the queen regent, when I intend (if God impede not) also to be present; by life, by death, or else by both, to glorify his godly name, who thus mercifully hath heard my long with your cries. Assist prayers, that now I shrink not, when the battle approacheth." As a large number of the protestants were preparing to assemble at Stirling, the queen by a profligate promise to put a stop to the trial induced them to reBut on Turn to their homes. the day of trial the accused were me outlawed for not appearing. When the news of this treachery came to Perth, where Knox had just preached a sermon against the idolatry of the mass, and image worship, the people in their indignation, not withstanding his efforts to restrain them, destroyed all the ornaments of the church and demolished the monasteries of the grey and black friars and of the Carthusian monks. The evident disposition of the queen to maintain with the sword the Catholic religion induced the protestant lords to enter into a close bond of union, and they determined, where their authority extended, to abolish the popSt. Andrews ish superstition. was thought the fittest place for beginning the reformation. Accordingly Knox went thither in June, and proposing to preach in the cathedral the archbishop assembled an armed force and dcclared, that if he appeared in the. pulpit he would give orders to the soldiers to fire upon him. The noblemen on consultation to desist from advised him preaching, as their retinue was small, and the queen was near at hand with an army, ready to support the bishop. But he replied in the heroic spirit of the Christian, that he was determined to preach. I of "As for the fear of danger, that may come to me, let no man be solicitous," said he, "for my life is in the custody of Him, whose glory I seek. desire the band nor weapon no man to defend me." The next day and for the three successive days he preached to a numerous assembly without the slightest opposition or interrup tion. Such was his influence, that the inhabitants agreed to set up the reformed worship, and the church was stripped of images and pictures, and the monaster ies pulled down. In a few weeks the houses of the monks were destroyed in other parts of the kingdom,even at Stirling and Edinburgh. Knox entirely ap proved of the destruction of the monasteries, for he observed, that "the best way to keep the rooks from returning was to pull down their nests.” At the end of June, he went to Edinburgh, and was chosen the protestant minister in that city. But he soon was sent on a tour of preaching through the kingdoin, and in less than two months travelled over the great er part of Scotland, and was the means of opening the eyes of the nation to the abomina tions of popery. He was also at this period much employed in some negociations with the English court, to persuade to an effectual support of the protestant cause in Scotland against the queen regent, and the French soldiers sent from France to her aid. His exertions at this time were incredible; and although the papists publicly offered a reward to the person who should seize or kill him, he was not deterred from the discharge of any duty. The protestants, thinking it necessary to effect a revolution in the government, met at Edinburgh in a large assembly consisting of nobles, barons, and representatives of boroughs, and it being proposed to depose the queen regent, the opinion of Knox respecting the lawfulness of that measure being required, he gave his opinion, that it was lawful She was ac and necessary. cordingly deprived of her authority. He was of opinion, that that there was a mutual compact, implied if no explicit, between rulers and their subjects, and that if the former became tyrants and oppressors, the latter have a right to depose them from office, and to elect others in their stead. An English army entering Scotland in April 1560, the French troops retired to Leith, and a treaty was made with France, by which it was provided, that the troops should be removed from the kingdom, and that a free parliament should be called. This treaty was fatal to popery in Scotland, which was supported by force only, and the reformed worship was every where set up. In 1560 Knox had a principal hand in organizing the national church of Scotland. At the first General Assembly, Dec. 20th, he was one of the six ministers present. About this time he was called to a heavy afflic tion by the death of his wife, and the care of his two young children was devolved upon him. In Mary, queen of Scots, who had been educated in France, and who came to Scotland and assumed the reigns of govern ment August 19, 1561, the pro testants found a most determin. ed and artful enemy. As she immediately set up the Roman Catholic worship in the chapel of Holyrood house, Knox took occasion to observe the next Sunday in a sermon against idolatry, that "one mass was more fearful to him, than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm on purpose to suppress the holy religion." The queen was very much incensed, and had several interviews with hi, in which he conducted himself with great skill and firmness. "Think you," said the queen, "that subjects, baving the power, may resist their princes?" "If princes excced their bounds, madam," replied he, "no doubt they may be resisted even by power. For no greater honor or greater obedience is to be given to kings and princes, than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a phrenzy, in which he would slay his chil dren. Now, madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till the phrenzy be over, think you, madam, that the children do any wrong?" At an interview, occa sioned by his predicting in the pulpit, that great evils would be the consequence, if she should marry a papist, the queen was dissolved in tears, but he remained firm to his purpose. As an apology be protested, "that he took no delight in the distress of any creature; that it was with great difficulty that he could see his own boys wcep, when he corrected them for their faults; far less could he rejoice in her majesty's tears;" an apology, which so enraged the proud queen, that she order. ed him immediately from her presence. In an adjoining room he addressed himself to the court ladies, "O fair ladies, how pleasing were this life of yours, if it should ever abide, and then in the end, that we might pass to heaven with all this gay gear!" Mary soon afterwards caused him to be brought to trial on the charge of treason; but he was honorably acquitted. "That night," says Knox, "there was neither dancing nor fiddling in the court, for madam was disappointed of her purpose, which was to have had John Knox in her will, by vote of her nobility." In the church of Edinburgh he preached twice every Sab bath, and thrice on other days of the week, besides attending to much ecclesiastical business. In 1563 John Craig was estab lished as his colleague. In March 1564 he married, for his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of lord Ochiltree. In 1566 he was induced to take a journey to England, partly, from regard to his personal safe. ty, and partly from affection to his two sons, who were at one of the English seminaries. While he was absent, the king, queen Mary's husband, was mur dered, Feb. 9, 1567, and she soon afterwards married Bothwell, generally supposed to be the chief agent in the murder; a circumstance, which, in connexion with others, left no doubt on the mind of Knox, that Mary was accessary to the crime. She was obliged to resign the government, and the Reformer, on the 29th of July, preached the sermon at the coronation of King James VI. While Mary was held in confinement he publicly maintained, that as she charged with murder and adultery, she ought to be brought to trial, and if guilty to be punished with death. At the close was |