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Show JOHN KNOX, TERMER AND PATRIOT. This week the Presbyterians of the United States concluded their very successful convention, held in Kansas City. One-of the reverend speakers went out of his way to sing the praises of John Knox, the founder of Anglo-Saxon and Scotch Presbyter-ianisin. Presbyter-ianisin. lauding him as one of Scotland's greatest sons, and one of the noblest patriots of whom the world can boast. Seeing that this same John Knox was the fautor and encourager of murderers, the avowed eulogist eulo-gist of assassins, one who approvingly spoke of the murder of Rizzio, "as if it had been an innocent or commendable deed." (Robertson's History of Scotland, K iv), who allied himself with the band of ruffians who in cold blood murdered Cardinal Beaton; and who was at last captured in St. Andrew's An-drew's castle, together with many of -his rascally accomplices, and was sent to the galleys as a punishment punish-ment one would think it a hard task, even for a Kansas City preacher, to wash this moral blackamoor black-amoor white. Yet the reverend gentleman gallantly attempted the feat, and no doubt imagined that he had accomplished it, "by the simple process of suppressing sup-pressing the truth the truth even as told by Protestant Prot-estant historians, whose sympathies are all with the reformers, and church robbers of the sixteenth century. cen-tury. We give an instance. Professing to give a rapid sketch of the main features of Knox's career, and having mentioned the fact that at "thirty-seven years of age he openly professed himself a Protestant," the reverend gen tleman continued: "A man of Knox's temperament and ability could not but speedily come in those times into prominence. promi-nence. In 1"47 he was taken prisoner, and for two years endured all the nameless horrors of service in the French galleys." Xot a word of the how, "or the where, he was taken prisoner, or of the why he was sent to the galleys as a felon. These were prudently omitted, though these are the main points in the case; and trusting to the ignorance of his audience, and the contempt for truth of many in the seats, the speaker speak-er left his hearers to suppose that it was because of his prominence as a Protestant reformer that Knox was sent to the galleys. When the facts are known, every honest and dispassionate man will admit ad-mit that Knox was righteously dealt with. He was accessory after, if not before the deed, to the brutal murder of Cardinal Beaton. After the consummation consumma-tion of the crime with the moral character of the" victim wc have noihing to do Knox and the actual act-ual murderers took refuge in the castle, which he and his accomplices held for many months against the lawful government of his country. At last, with the co-operation of a French fleet, the castle was taken, the murderers made prisoners and punished for their crimes that is, murder and rebellion. On this the Protestant historian Buckle remarks that: "It is with a certain sense of satisfied justice jus-tice that we learn that in 1547, the castle being taken by the French, Knox was treated with great severity and was made to work at the galleys, from which ho was not liberated till 1549." (Vol. 11, p, 177.) ' These are ugly facts in'thc life of a saint, but still they are facts, and the preacher perhaps did well to suppres them. For the rest, what one good or Christian-like thing can be predicated of Knox? He approved of. as we have seen from Protestant testimonythe cowardly murder of Rizzio; he allied himself with the assassins of Cardinal Beaton, whose murder he applauded, and called a "godly fact," writes Buckle; he gave proofs of his manliness, manli-ness, and of his being imbued with the spirit of that Christian charity without which the most noisy professors pro-fessors are according, to St. Paul but "as sounding sound-ing brass or a 'tinkling 'cymbal;" by his foul abuse of his queen, of whose head one hair was worth more than his whole carcass. In short, frqm first to la' Knox approved himself spiritually akin to him ;vhom it has been said that ""he was a murderer mur-derer from the beginning." And this is the man whose character was presented to the Kansas City people as without spot or blemish. |