him with saying there is “neither heaven nor hell,” an atheistic position of which (see his eloquent prayer before Corrichie fight, wherein Huntly died {272a}) he was incapable.  On the 16th he told “the Kirk” that Lethington’s conduct proved that he really did disbelieve in God, and a future of rewards and punishments.  That was not the question.  The question was—­Did Knox, publicly and privately, as Lethington complained, attribute to him words which he denied having spoken, asking that the witnesses should be produced.  We wish that Knox had either produced good evidences, or explained why he could not produce them, or had apologised, or had denied that he spoke in the terms reported to Lethington.

James Melville says that the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, of Leith, told him that Knox bade him carry a message to Kirkcaldy in the Castle.  After compliments, it ran:  “He shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment, and hung on a gallows before the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God.”  Knox added:  “That man’s soul is dear to me, and I would not have it perish, if I could save it.”  Kirkcaldy consulted Maitland, and returned with a reply which contained Lethington’s last scoff at the prophet.  However, Morton, when he had the chance, did hang Kirkcaldy, as in the play acted before Knox at St. Andrews, “according to Mr. Knox’s doctrine.”  “The preachers clamoured for blood to cleanse blood.” {272b}

As to a secret conference with Morton on the 17th, the Earl, before his execution, confessed that the dying man asked him, “if he knew anything of the King’s (Darnley’s) murder?” “I answered, indeed, I knew nothing of it”—­perhaps a pardonable falsehood in the circumstances.  Morton said that the people who had suffered from Kirkcaldy and the preachers daily demanded the soldier’s death.

Other sayings of the Reformer are reported.  He repressed a lady who, he thought, wished to flatter him:  “Lady, lady, the black ox has never trodden yet upon your foot!” “I have been in heaven and have possession, and I have tasted of these heavenly joys where presently I am,” he said, after long meditation, beholding, as in Bunyan’s allegory, the hills of Beulah.  He said the Creed, which soon vanished from Scottish services; and in saying “Our Father,” broke off to murmur, “Who can pronounce so holy words?” On November 24 he rose and dressed, but soon returned to bed.  His wife read to him the text, “where I cast my first anchor,” St. John’s Gospel, chapter xvii.  About half-past ten he said, “Now it is come!” and being asked for a sign of his steadfast faith, he lifted up one hand, “and so slept away without any pain.” {273}