of Romanism would have been ineffectual-in fact, unheard. But every man listened when the new preachers denounced the lazy friars of the next convent, the vices of the proud sensual prelates, the whole body of the clergy living in open violation of the vows of their order. Burgher and yeoman pricked up their ears when they were told-These are the men who revel on the tithes, the produce of your toil, who make rich out of your forced purchase of indulgences and dispensations, who tax your marriages, your christenings, all the rites you consider needful for salvation; suck you like leeches while in health, and beset your deathbeds to extort donations; who strip orphans and widows bare, rather than the Church should go without her burial-dues; who live a life of riot and luxury; who debauch your wives, and take your daughters for concubines!' Those were the topics that effectively stirred the popular mind. Knox himself continually mixes and confounds the doctrines of the Church and the prac tice of the churchmen. Describing the effect of Patrick Hamilton's martyrdom, he says,

And so within short space many began to call in doubt that which before they held for a certain verity; insomuch that the University of St. Andrews and St. Leonard's College, principally by the labours of Mr. Gawin Logy, and the novices of the Abbey by the superior (Wynrame), began to smell somewhat of the verity and to espy the vanity of the received superstitions. Yea, within few years after, began both black and grey friars publicly to preach against the pride and idle life of bishops, and against the abuses of the whole ecclesiastical estate.'- Knox, p. 36.

On the other hand, we find some of the first agitators of Reform by no means prepared to overturn the ancient faith. One of the keenest preachers against the clerical irregularities was Friar William Airth, a bold man, after Knox's own heart, who dwells with much delight upon his sermons, and, lamenting that he remained a papist, observes, 'But so it pleaseth God to open up the mouth of Balaam's own ass, to cry out against the vicious lives of the clergy of that age.' Airth was preaching at St. Andrews before all the doctors and masters of the University. The 'theme' of his sermon was-Veritie is the strongest of all things.' discourse was of 'cursing'-the dread excommunication of the Church

His

'how, if it was rightly used, it was the most fearful thing upon the face of the earth, for it was the very separation of man from God. But now,' said he, the avarice of priests and the ignorance of their office has caused it altogether to be vilipended. For the priest, whose duty and office it is to pray for the people, stands up on Sunday, and eries,-"One has lost a spurtill [a porridge-stick]; there is a flail stolen from beyond the burne; the goodwife has lost a horn-spoon.

God's

God's malison and mine I give to them that knows of this gear and restores it not!"

To show how the people mocked their cursings, he told a 'merry tale' of some gossips over their Sunday drink, who asked in jest, 'What servant will serve a man best on least expenses?' and solved the riddle thus:-'Know ye not how the bishops and their officials serve us husbandmen? Will not they give us a letter of cursing for a plack, to last for a year, to curse all that look over our dyke? and that keeps our corn better nor the sleeping boy that will have three shillings of fee, a shirt, and a pair of shoon in the year. Again, the friar-having, as Knox reports, declared what diligence the ancients took to try true miracles from false—” proceeded thus:

Now the greediness of priests not only receives false miracles, but also they cherish and fee knaves for that purpose, that their chapels may be the better renowned, and their offerings may be augmented. And thereupon are many chapels founded; as that Our Lady were mightier and that she took more pleasure in one place than another; as of late Our Lady of Carsegrange has hopped from one green hillock to another. But, honest men of Saint Andrews! if ye love your wives and your daughters, hold them at home, or else send them in honest company: for if ye knew what miracles were shown there, ye would neither thank God nor our Lady!'

'Thus' (adds Knox) 'he merrily taunted their trysts of whoredom and adultery. Another bourd' in a sermon on the Abbot of Unreason could not be transferred to any modern page. 'But here follows,' says Knox, 'the most merry of all.' During the imprisonment of Sandie Furrour, Sir John Dingwall, according to the charity of churchmen, entertained his wife. For the which cause, at his returning, he spake more liberally of priests than they could bear, and so was he denounced to be accused of heresy and called to his answer to St. Andrews.' The man understood nothing of religion,' and met the charges against him with an onslaught on his judges. The first article was that he despised the Mass. His answer, 'I hear mo masses in eight days than three bishops there sitting say in a year.' Accused, secondly, of contempt of Sacraments: The priests,' quoth he, are the most common contemners of Sacraments, and especially of matrimony; and that he witnessed by any of the priests there present, and named the men's wives with whom they had meddled-but especially Dingwall, who had seven years together abused his own wife and consumed his substance; adding, 'For God's sake, will ye take wives of your own, that I and others whose wives ye have abused may be revenged upon you?' Then the 'old Bishop of Aberdeen, thinking to justify himself

6

before

before the people, said-Carl, thou shalt not know my wife. Alexander answered-My lord, ye are too old; but with the grace of God I will drink with your daughter ere I depart. And thereat was smiling of the best, and loud laughter of some; for the Bishop had a daughter married with Andrew Balfour in that same town' (pp. 36-44).

As we may not have another opportunity, let us here give a fair specimen of Knox's narrative, which, partly from the uncouth spelling-for the language is almost English-is not known in England so much as it deserves. We could not select a more characteristic passage than the picture of the tumult at Edinburgh on St. Giles's day 1558:

'Yet would not the priests and friars cease to have that great solemnity and manifest abomination which they accustomably had upon Saint Giles's day ;-to wit, they would have that idol borne, and therefore was all preparation necessary duly made. A marmoset idol was borrowed from the Gray friars (a silver piece of James Carmichael was laid in pledge). It was fixed with iron nails upon a barrow called their fertour. There assembled priests, friars, canons, and rotten papists with tabours and trumpets, banners and bagpipes; and who was there to lead the ring but the Queen Regent herself with all her shavelings for honour of that feast! West about goes it, and comes down the High-street and down to the Canon-cross. The Queen Regent dined that day in Sandie Carpetyne's house, betwixt the Bows, and so, when the idol returned back again, she left it and passed in to her dinner. The hearts of the Brethren were wondrously inflamed, and, seeing such abomination so maintained, were decreed to be revenged. They were divided into several companies, whereof not one knew of another. There were some temporisers that day, who, fearing the chance to be done as it fell, laboured to stay the Brethren. But that could not be ; for immediately after that the Queen was entered in the lodging, some of those that were of the enterprise drew nigh to the idol, as willing to help to bear him; and, getting the fertour upon their shoulders, began to shudder, thinking that thereby the idol should have fallen. But that was provided and prevented by the iron nails, as we have said; and so began one to cry, Down with the idol! down with it! and so without delay it was pulled down. Some brag made the Priests patrons at the first, but when they saw the feebleness of their God-for one took him by the heels, and, dashing his head to the causeway, left Dagon without head or hands, and said, "Fie upon thee, thou young Saint Giles, thy father would have tarried four such!"this considered, we say, the Priests and Friars fled faster than they did at Pinkie Cleuch. There might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the cross; off goes the surplice; round caps corner with the crowns. The Grey friars gaped; the Black friars blew; the Priests panted; for such a sudden fray came never among the generation of

Antichrist

Antichrist within this realm before. By chance there lay upon a stair a merry Englishman, and seeing the discomfiture to be without blood, thought he would add some merriness to the matter, and so cried he over a stair, "Fy upon you, whoresons, why have you broken order? Down the street ye passed in array and with great mirth. Why flee ye, villains, now, without order? Turn and strike every one a stroke for the honour of his God! Fy, cowards, fy! ye shall never be judged worthy of your wages again!" But exhortations were then unprofitable, for after that Bel had broken his neck there was no comfort to his confused army.

'The Queen Regent laid up this amongst her other mementos, till that she might have seen the time proper to have revenged it. Search was made for the doers, but none could be deprehended; for the Brethren assembled themselves in such sort, in companies, singing psalms and praising God, that the proudest of the enemies were astonied.'-p. 259.

Many excellent persons, with a high estimate of the importance of an Episcopal Church, and proportional regret for the result of the Scotch Reformation, are ready to abandon the whole body of regular clergy as indefensible. They give up monk and friar, and would entrench themselves for the defence of the working parsons'-the secular parochial clergy with its due gradations up to the mitred successors of the Apostles. But they do not see how the matter stood. The religious houses had swallowed up the parish livings. In the course of four centuries the monks had engrossed not only the patronage of almost all the churchesthey were not only legally the rectors of them, but they monopolised the vicarage dues in most cases also; and the duties, such as they were, were discharged by an outlying brother of the dominant convent, or by a poor vicar pensioner ground down to the lowest amount of maintenance and a station quite degraded. By this it came to pass that the body of rural clergy was in whole districts non-existing, in the rest inefficient and contemptible.*

How the dignitaries and heads of the seculars filled their high station it may still be not impossible to ascertain. Any candid inquirer will of course discard mere assertions and stories, except where real evidence from some unsuspected quarter corroborates or fills them up.

On this subject the reader will find very copious details in the Origines Parochiales Scotia-a work named in our present list, but which we hope to review in detail when completed. We cannot adopt some of the editor's genealogical views— but, apart from them, the unwearied industry of his research and clear arrangement of its often novel fruits well justify the late Lord Jeffrey's patronage-for the cost of the printing, &c., was that veteran critic's last contribution to the Bannatyne Club. We are glad that they have allowed extra copies to be struck off pro bono publico, and would fain see the example followed by all clubs of this sort whenever they are fortunate enough to produce volumes of solid worth.

Some

Some time before the breaking out of the storm several eminent churchmen were labouring for the improvement of the lives and learning of the body. They did not see the full extent of the evil, nor suspected with what a speedy and complete retribution it was to be visited; but in their own spheres a few, both regular and secular, were anxious to raise the standard and to remove the scandal. Foremost among these were Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney and Abbot of two northern monasteries, known as the founder of libraries, the introducer of foreign schoolmasters and gardeners, the restorer of the buildings as well as of the discipline of the cloister and Alexander Myln, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, and first President of the College of Justice instituted by James V., in imitation of the law courts of France -a rare union of the man of business and man of letters, the lawyer and reformer of learning. These and some others perceived the importance of providing better arms for resisting the new doctrines of England and Germany, and they devoted their revenues and exerted their influence for the restoration of letters. But the morals of the great ecclesiastics were beyond their reach and aim. An attempt at reformation there would have stirred up an opposition too formidable for so small a minority to cope with.

The writings of some whom they employed in the work of education give us a very pleasing impression of these reforming Churchmen, and, at the same time, carry more conviction than all the exaggerations of their enemies, of the absolute decay of instruction among the lower clergy-literarum studium obliteratum penitus (Richardini exegesis, Paris, 1530).

One of the chief and most successful of the opponents of Knox was Ninian Wingate, a priest and schoolmaster of Linlithgow, whose main occupation may account for what seems stilted in his style-not objected to, however, in his own time. In his Tractate addressed to the Queen, Pastors, and Nobility (Edin. 1562) to quote one passage out of many-he thus handles the churchmen:

"Your dumb doctrine in exalting ceremonies only, keeping in silence the true word of God necessary to all men's salvation, and not resisting manifest errors, to the world is known. What part of the true religion by your slothful dominion and princely estate is not corrupted or obscured? Have not many, through lack of teachment, in mad ignorance misknown the duty which we all owe to our Lord God, and so in their perfect belief have sorely stammered? Were not the sacraments of Christ Jesus profaned by ignorants and wicked persons neither able to persuade to godliness by learning nor by living? Of the which number we confess the most part of us of the ecclesiastical state to