an irritable Deity, is for the smaller minority to alter the prayer book,
resist the Queen, if she wishes to retain it unaltered, and force the
English people into the "discipline" of a Swiss Protestant town.

Dr. Lorimer, a most industrious and judicious writer, adds that, in these
matters of "discipline," and of intolerance, Knox "went to a tragical
extreme of opinion, of which none of the other leading reformers had set
an example;" also that what he demanded was substantially demanded by the
Puritans all through the reign of Elizabeth. But Knox averred publicly,
and in his "History," that for everything he affirmed in Scotland he had
heard the judgments "of the most godly and learned that be known in
Europe . . . and for my assurance I have the handwritings of many." Now
he had affirmed frequently, in Scotland, the very doctrines of discipline
and persecution "of which none of the other leading Reformers had set an
example," according to Dr. Lorimer. Therefore, either they agreed with
Knox, or what Knox told the Lords in June 1564 was not strictly accurate.
{105} In any case Knox gave to his country the most extreme of
Reformations.

The death of Mary Tudor, and the course of events at home, were now to
afford our Reformer the opportunity of promulgating, in Scotland, those
ideas which we and his learned Presbyterian student alike regret and
condemn. These persecuting ideas "were only a mistaken theory of
Christian duty, and nothing worse," says Dr. Lorimer. Nothing could
possibly be worse than a doctrine contrary in the highest degree to the
teaching of Our Lord, whether the doctrine was proclaimed by Pope,
Prelate, or Calvinist.

Here it must be observed that a most important fact in Knox's career, a
most important element in his methods, has been little remarked upon by