CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX.

From M'Crie's Life of Knox.

TH

HAT he possessed strong natural talents is unquestionable. Inquisitive, ardent, acute; vigorous and bold in his conceptions; he entered into all the subtleties of the scholastic science then in vogue, yet, disgusted with its barren results, sought out a new course of study, which gradually led to a complete revolution in his sentiments. In his early years he had not access to that finished education which many of his contemporaries obtained in foreign universities, and he was afterwards prevented, by his unsettled and active mode of life, from prosecuting his studies with leisure; but his abilities and application enabled him in a great measure to surmount these disadvantages, and he remained a stranger to none of the branches of learning cultivated in that age by persons of his profession. He united in a high degree the love of study with a disposition to active employment. The truths which he discovered he felt an irresistible impulse to impart to others, for which he was qualified by a bold, fervid,

and impetuous eloquence, singularly adapted to arrest the attention, and govern the minds of a fierce and unpolished people.

From the time that he embraced the reformed doctrines, the desire of propagating them, and of delivering his countrymen from the delusions and corruptions of popery, became his ruling passion, to which he was always ready to sacrifice his ease, his interest, his reputation, and his life. An ardent attachment to civil liberty held the next place in his breast to love of the reformed religion. That the zeal with which he la boured to advance these was of the most disinterested kind, no candid person who has paid attention to his life can doubt for a moment, whatever opinion he may entertain of some of the means which he employed for that pur. pose. "In fact, he thought only of advancing the glory of God, and promoting the welfare of his country." Intrepidity, independence and elevation of mind, indefatigable activity, and constancy which no disappointments could shake, eminently qualified him for the hazardous and difficult post which he occupied. His integrity was above the suspicion of cor

ruption;

ruption; his firmness proof equally against the solicitations of friends, and the threats of enemies. Though his impetuosity and courage led him frequently to expose himself to danger, we never find him neglecting to take prudent precautions for his safety. The confidence reposed in him by his countrymen shews the bigh opinion which they entertained of his sagacity as well as of his honesty. The measures taken for advancing the reformation were either adopted at his suggestion, or submitted to his advice; and we must pronounce them to have been as wise ly planned, as they were boldly executed.

The most disinterested of the nobility, who were embarked with him in the same cause, sacrificed on some occasions the public good to their private interests, and disappointed the hopes which he had formed of them. The most upright of his associates in the ministry relaxed their exertions, or suffered themselves at times to be drawn into measures that were unsuitable to their station, and hurtful to the reformed religion. Goodman, after being adopted by the church of Scotland, and ranked among her reformers, yielded so far to the love of his native country as to desert a people who were warmJy attached to him, and return to the bosom of a less pure church which received him with coldness and distrust. Willock, after acquitting himself honourably from the commencement of the interesting conflict, withdrew before the victory was completely secured, and, wearied out with the successive troubles in which his country was involved, sought a retreat for

himself in England. Craig, being left without the assistance of his colleague, and placed between two conflicting parties, betrayed his fears by having recourse to tempo rizing measures. Douglas, in his old age, became the dupe of persons whose rapacity had impove rished the protestant church. And each of the superintendents was, at one time or another, complained of for neglect or for partiality, in the discharge of his functions. But from the time that the standard of truth was first raised by Knox in his native country, till it dropped from his hands at death, he never shrunk from danger, never consulted his own ease or advantage, never entered into any compromise with the enemy, never was bribed or frightened into cowardly silence; but keeping his eye singly and steadily fixed on the advancement of religion and of liberty,-supported throughout the character of the Reformer of Scotland.

No

His ministerial functions were discharged with the greatest assiduity, fidelity, and fervour. avocation or infirinity prevented him from appearing in the pulpit. Preaching was an employment in which he delighted, and for which he was qualified, by an extensive acquaintance with the scriptures, and by the happy art of applying them, in the most striking manner, to the existing circumstances of the church and of his hearers. His powers of alarming the conscience, and arousing the passions, have been frequently mentioned; but he also excelled in unfolding the consolations of the gospel, and in calming the breasts of those who were either agitated by a sense of guilt, or suffering under the ordi

nary

nary affictions of life. When he discoursed of the griefs and joys, the conflicts and triumphs of genuine Christians, he declared what he himself had known and experienced. The letters which he wrote to his familiar acquaintances breathe the most ardent piety. The religious meditations in which he spent his last sickness were not confined to that period of his life; they had been his habitual employment from the time that he was brought to the knowledge of the truth, and his solace amidst all the hardships and perils through which he had passed.

With his brethren in the ministry he lived in the utmost cordiality. We never read of the slightest variance between him and any of his colleagues. While he was dreaded and hated by the licentious and profane, whose vices he never spared, the religious and sober part of his countrymen felt a veneration for him, which was founded on his unblemished reputation, as well as his popular talents as a preacher. In private life, he was both beloved and revered by his friends and domestics. He was subject to the occasional illapses of melancholy and depression of spirits, arising partly from natural constitution, and partly from the maladies which had long preyed upon his health; which made him (to use his own expression) churlish, and less capable of pleasing and gratifying his friends than he was otherwise disposed to be. This he confessed, and requested them to excuse but his friendship was sincere, affectionate, and steady. When free from this morose affec tion, he relished the pleasures of

society, and, among his acquaint-.. ances, was accustomed to unbend his mind, by indulging in innocent recreation, and in the sallies of wit and humour, to which he had a strong propensity, notwithstanding the graveness of his general deportment. Although in the course of his public life, the se. verer virtues of his character were more frequently called into action, yet have we met with repeated instances of his acute sensibility; and the unaffected tenderness which occasionally breaks forth in his private letters shews that he was not a stranger to "all the charities" of human life, and that he could " rejoice with them that rejoiced, and weep with them that wept."

Most of his faults may be traced to his natural temperament, and to the character of the age and country in which he lived. His passions were strong; he felt with the utmost keenness on every subject which interested him; and as he felt he expressed himself, without disguise and without affectation. The warmth of his zeal was apt to betray him into intemperate language; his inflexible adherence to his opinions inclined to obstinacy; and his independence of mind occasionally assumed the appearance of haughtiness and disdain. In one solitary instance, the anxiety which he felt for the preservation of the great cause in which he was so deeply interested, betrayed him into an advice which was not more inconsistent with the laws of strict morality, than it was contrary to the stern uprightness, and undis guised sincerity, which characterized the rest of his conduct

A

siranger

stranger to complimentary or smooth language, little concerned about the manner in which his reproofs were received, provided they were merited, too much impressed with the evil of the offence to think of the rank or character of the offender, he often "uttered his admonitions with an acrimony and vehemence more apt to irritate than to reclaim." But he protested, at a time when persons are least in danger of deception, and in a manner which should banish every suspicion of the purity of his motives, that, in his sharpest rebukes, he was influenced by hatred of vice, not of the vicious, that his great aim was to reclaim the guilty, and that, in using those means which were necessary for . this end, he frequently did violence to his own feelings.

Those who have charged him with insensibility and inhumanity, have fallen into a mistake very common with superficial thinkers, who, in judging of the characters of persons who lived in a state of society very different from their own, have pronounced upon their moral qualities from the mere aspect of their exterior manners. He was austere, not unfeeling; stern, not savage; vehement, not vindictive. There is not an instance of his employing his influence to revenge any personal injury which he had received. Rigid as his maxims as to the execution of justice were, there are numerous instances on record of his interceding for the pardon of criminals; and, unless when crimes were atrocious, or when the welfare of the state was in the most imminent danger, he

never exhorted the executive go-. 'vernment to the exercise of severity. The boldness and ardour of his mind, called forth by the peculiar circumstances of the times, led him to push his sentiments on some subjects to an extreme, and no consideration could induce him to retract an opinion of which he continued to be persuaded; but his behaviour after, his publication against female government proves, that he was not disposed to improve them to the disturbance of the public peace. His conduct at Frankfort evinced his moderation in religious differences among brethren of the same faith, and his disposition to make all reasonable allowances for those who could not go the same length with him in reformation, provided they abstained from imposing upon the consciences of others. The liberties which he took in censuring from the pulpit the actions of individuals of the highest rank and station, appear the more strange and intolerable to us, when contrasted with the silence of modern times; but we should recollect that they were then common, and. that they were not without their utility, in an age when the licentiousness and oppression of the great and powerful often set at defiance the ordinary restraints of law.

factor to humanity as St. Vincent. He was the son of a day-labourer in Gascony. When about thirty years of age, he was taken prisoner at sea, and carried to Tunis, where he continued two years a slave. Having escaped into France, he entered into holy orders, and devoted himself to the service of the unhappy persons condemned to the gallies. The reform, which he worked among them, the decent and resigned demeanor which he produced in them, and the alleviations of their sufferings, which his charitable exertions in their fayour obtained for them, were surprising. On one occasion, a poor young man, having, for a single act of smuggling, been condemned to the gallies for three years, complained to him in such moving terms of his misfortunes, and of the distress to which it would reduce his wife and infant children, that St. Vincent substituted himself in his place, and worked in the gallies, during eight months, chained by the leg, to the oar. The fact was then discovered, and he was ransomed. This circumstance was juridically proved, on his canonization, and he always retained, in one of his legs, a soreness from the chain which he had worn.

He established the Foundling Hospital at Paris; and raised, by a single speech, which he made for it, in a moment of its distress, an instant subscription of 40,000 French livres. In the war of the Fronde, several thousand German soldiers, who had been seduced, by great promises, into the army of the Fronde, were placed in Paris and its neighbourhood; and the war proving unsuc

cessful to those who had engaged them, were abandoned by them, and left to perish. St. Vincent stirred up such a general spirit of charity in their behalf, as enabled him to provide for the immediate subsistence of them all, and to send them back, clothed and fed, to their own country. The calamities of the same war were terrible in Champagne, Picardy, Lorraine, and Artois; and a year of great scarcity coming on, famine and pestilence ensued; numbers, perished for hunger, and their bodies lay unburied. Information of this scene of woe being carried to St. Vincent, he raised a subscription of twelve millions of French, money, and applied it for the relief of the wretched objects. These, and a multitude of other acts of beneficence, were juridically prov-. ed, on his canonization, and Bossuet, in his letter of solicitation, dwells on them with great eloquence. St. Vincent was canonized by Pope Clement XII. and his feast fixed for the 19th of July.