its wealth, the most powerful of European states; if he could have
realized free Italy with Rome, the Popes without temporal power, and
modern civilisation more than a match for Papal intrigues; if he could
have known that the gospel for which he lived had regenerated the social
life of Great Britain, that it was tha confessed basis of our political
action and the perennial spring of our Christian activities, so that not
merely in physical strength, but in moral, force and mental enlightenment
we are in the van of the nations of the world: if the great Scotch
Reformer had but had a glimpse of this present reality, this tract would
never have been written, and he would willingly have sung the paean of
aged SIMEON and passed out of this life.

But this work was the offspring of the hour of darkness, if not of
despair. Something must be done. A warrior of the pen, he would forge a
general argument against all female rule that would inclusively destroy
the legal right of MARY to continue these atrocities.


II.

The first note of this trumpet blast, "The Kingdom apperteineth to our
GOD," shows us the vast difference between the way in which men regarded
the Almighty Being then and now. Shall we say that the awe of the Deity
has departed! Now so much stress is laid on the Fatherhood of GOD: in
KNOX'S time it was His might to defend His own or to take vengeance on all
their murderers. Both views are true. Nevertheless this age does seem
wanting in a general and thorough reverence for His great name and
character.

KNOX seems like some great Hebrew seer when he thus pronounces the doom of