Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

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a revised edition of Despauter, which continued to
be commonly used in schools till it was superseded
by Ruddiman's Rudiments. Kirkwood was a man
of wit and fancy, as well as of learning; and having
fallen into an unfortunate quarrel with his patrons
the magistrates, which ended in his dismission, he
took revenge by publishing a satirical pamphlet, en-
titled The Twenty-seven Gods of Linlithgow, meaning
thereby the twenty-seven members of the town-
council. He appears to have afterwards been chosen
schoolmaster at Kelso, where he probably died.
KNOX, JOHN, the most eminent promoter of the
Reformation in Scotland, was born at Haddington
in the year 1505. His father, though himself a man
of no note, was descended from the ancient house
of Ranfurly in the shire of Renfrew. Of the mother
of the great reformer nothing farther is known than
that her name was Sinclair�a name which he fre-
quently used in after-life, when to have subscribed
his own would have exposed him to danger: thus
many of his letters in times of trouble are signed
"John Sinclair." Though a man of no rank in
society, his father would yet seem to have been
possessed of a competency beyond that of the ordin-
ary class of the peasantry of the times, if such an
inference be permitted from the circumstance of his
having given his son an education which was then
attainable only by a very few. This is a point, how-
ever, on which there has been also much dispute;
some representing his parents as in a "mean condi-
tion," others as persons of extensive property. What-
ever may have been the condition of his parents�
a matter of little moment�there is no doubt regard-
ing the only circumstance of any importance con-
nected with the question, namely, that he received
a liberal education.
His course of learning began at the grammar-
school of Haddington, where he acquired the ele-
ments of the Latin language. He was afterwards,
about the year 1524, sent to the university of St.
Andrews. From the circumstance of the name
"John Knox" appearing on the list of matriculated
students for the year 1520, in the Glasgow College,
it has been presumed that he studied there also, and
this, as appears by the dates, four years previous to
his going to St. Andrews; but the supposition that
this John Knox was the reformer is much weakened
by the fact that many of the Knoxes of Ranfurly,
the house from which his father was descended,
were educated at the university of Glasgow. Amongst
the last of these of any note were Andrew Knox,
Bishop of the Isles, and, after him, his son and suc-
cessor, Sir Thomas Knox. In the absence, there-
fore, of all other evidence, this circumstance in the
life of the reformer must be held as extremely doubt-
ful, especially as no allusion is made to it, either by
himself, his contemporaries, or any of the earlier
writers who have spoken of him. Knox, when he
went to St. Andrews, was in the nineteenth year of
his age, and was yet undistinguished by any indica-
tions of that peculiar character and temper, or that
talent, which afterwards made him so conspicuous.
His literary pursuits had hitherto been limited to
the acquisition of the Latin language, Greek and
Hebrew being almost unknown in Scotland, although
at an after period of life Knox acquired them both.
His removal to St. Andrews, however, opened up
new sources of learning and of knowledge. John
Mair, a celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, who had
studied at the colleges of England and Paris, was
then principal of St. Salvator's College, St. An-
drews. He was a man of no great strength of mind,
nor of very high attainments; but he had while in
Paris imbibed, and he now boldly inculcated, civil
and religious principles directly at variance with the
opinions and practices of the times. He denied the
supremacy of the pope, and held that he was amen-
able to a general council, which might not only re-
buke and restrain him, but even depose him from
his dignity. He held that papal excommunications
were of no force, unless pronounced on just and
valid grounds, and that tithes were not of divine
origin. He, besides, fearlessly censured the avarice
and ambition of the clergy. And with regard to
civil matters, his opinions were no less daring, and
not less boldly inculcated. He taught his pupils to
consider kings as having no other right to their eleva-
tion but what proceeded from their people, to whom
they were amenable for their conduct, and by whom
they might be judicially proceeded against. Such
were some of the doctrines taught by Mair; and that
they had taken a strong hold of Knox, who was one
of his pupils, his after-life sufficiently shows. For
we find him, with the courage which belonged to
his character, practising himself, and showing others
how to practise, that which his preceptor only
taught.
In the studies of the times Knox now made rapid
progress. He was created Master of Arts, and or-
dained a priest before he had attained the age (twenty-
five) appointed by the canon-law for receiving ordina-
tion. It will not perhaps be lost time to pause
for a moment at this period of his life, since it pre-
sents us with the interesting sight of a great mind
slumbering in its strength, and unconscious at once
of the darkness with which it was surrounded, and
of there being a brighter and a better world beyond
the narrow precincts which it had been taught to
consider as the utmost limits of its range. Here we
find the great reformer, passively and without re-
mark or objection, becoming a minister of that
church which he was afterwards to overturn and
erase from his native soil; becoming a minister of
that religion which he was afterwards to drive from
the land, with a violence which shook both the
kingdom and the throne. A little longer, however,
and we find this mighty mind emerging gradually
but majestically into the light of day. The discovery
had been made that there lay a wider and a fairer
region beyond the bounds of the prison-house, and
Knox hastened himself to seek and to point out the
way to others.
He soon betook himself to the study of the writ-
ings of the fathers of the Christian church; and, in
the works of Jerome and Augustine, found the doc-
trines and tenets which effected that revolution in
his religious sentiments, afterwards productive of
such important results. He was now in the thirtieth
year of his age, but he did not either publicly avow
the change which had taken place in his religious
creed, or attempt to impress it upon others, for
several years afterwards. In the meantime the work
of reformation had been making irregular but rapid
progress. Patrick Hamilton had already preached
the new faith in Scotland, and had fallen a martyr
to its doctrines, and several others of not less zeal,
but of less note, had shared a similar fate. Copies
of the Scriptures were now surreptitiously introduced
into the kingdom, and eagerly read by those into
whose hands they fell. Poets employed their fascin-
ating powers in bringing the Church of Rome and
its ministers into contempt. The effect of all this
was a violent agitation of the public mind. The
reformed doctrines were everywhere spoken of and
discussed. They became the topics of common con-
versation, and were the themes of disquisition amongst
the learned. It was at this critical period, about