"she whom God hath offered unto me, and commanded me to love as my own
flesh,"--after her, Mrs. Bowes is the dearest of mankind to Knox. No
mortal was ever more long-suffering with a spiritual hypochondriac, who
avers that "the sins that reigned in Sodom and Gomore reign in me, and I
have small power or none to resist!" Knox replies, with common sense,
that Mrs. Bowes is obviously ignorant of the nature of these offences.

Writing to his betrothed he says nothing personal: merely reiterates his
lessons of comfort to her mother. Meanwhile the lovers were parted, Knox
going abroad; and it is to be confessed that he was not eager to come
back.




CHAPTER V: EXILE: APPEALS FOR A PHINEHAS, AND A JEHU: 1554


No change of circumstances could be much more bitter than that which
exile brought to Knox. He had been a decently endowed official of State,
engaged in bringing a reluctant country into the ecclesiastical fold
which the State, for the hour, happened to prefer. His task had been
grateful, and his congregations, at least at Berwick and Newcastle, had,
as a rule, been heartily with him. Wherever he preached, affectionate
women had welcomed him and hung upon his words. The King and his
ministers had hearkened unto him--young Edward with approval,
Northumberland with such emotions as we may imagine--while the Primate of
England had challenged him to a competitive ordeal by fire, and had been
defeated, apparently without recourse to the fire-test.