this came prayer for the congregation and for the sovereign.

At this point the fragment which we have been following breaks off, but there is every reason to believe that the remainder of the service was the same as that afterwards adopted in Scotland; and any one at all conversant with the ecclesiastical ritual of the Presbyterian churches in that country may see in the portion which we have given the origin of the "action" sermon, the "fencing of the tables;" and the frequent if not invariable use of the passage from first Corinthians as the "warrant" for the observance of the Supper, which characterize a communion "occasion" in that country. But the singular thing about the matter is that this Puritan and Presbyterian form of administering the ordinance of the Lord's Supper was observed in England by John Knox when he was labouring at Berwick as a recognised minister of the Church of England, and acting under the authority, or perhaps, to put it more correctly, with the permission, of the government. This was at a date anterior by ten years to the time when it was introduced into Scotland with the sanction of its Parliament.

But it deserves notice that although Knox was thus conscientiously opposed to kneeling at the Lord's Table, he was not so intolerant as to declare that the taking of that posture at that table was necessarily sinful. The reader of the letter addressed to the congregation at Berwick cannot fail to be struck with the broad Pauline spirit manifested by the Reformer in his treatment of this subject. He is advising his friends as to what they should do if, now that he had ceased to have the oversight of them, the practice of kneeling at the communion table should be insisted upon; and he affirms that he neither recants nor repents his former teaching, but still prefers sitting to any other posture; yet he adds[7] "because I am but one having in my contrair, magistrates, common order, and judgments of many learned, I am not minded for maintenance of that one thing to gainstand the magistrates in all and other chief points of religion agreeing with Christ, and His true doctrine, nor yet to break nor trouble common Order, thought meet to be kept for unity and peace in the congregations for a time. And least of all do I intend to condemn or lightly regard the grave judgments of such men as unfeignedly I fear (reverence), love and will obey, in all things judged expedient to promote God's glory, these subsequents granted to me." Then follow three conditions which may be summarized thus,—first, that the magistrates make known that kneeling is not required for any superstitious reasons or for any adoration of Christ's natural body believed to be there present, but only for the sake of uniform Order and that for a time; second, that kneeling is not imposed as a thing essential to the right observance of the ordinance, or required by Christ, but enjoined only as a ceremony thought seemly by men; and third, that the brethren shall have regard to his conscience, and not bring any uncharitable accusation against him, because he seeks to follow what Christ has commanded rather than what men have required. With these concessions granted, he declares that he would be satisfied; and that there may be no breach of charity, he recommends his former flock, should these conditions be complied with, to conform to the requirements of the Prayer-Book if those in authority should insist on their so doing. We have been the more particular in bringing out this fact at this particular time, because of its bearing on his conduct in connection with the issue of the revised Prayer-Book in 1552, of which we shall have to speak more particularly by-and-by.

So much for the Reformer's public work in Berwick; but before we accompany him to Newcastle, we must pause to mention that it was during his residence at this time in the border town that he made the acquaintance of and was engaged to the lady who afterwards became his wife. Her name was Marjory Bowes, and she was the daughter of Richard Bowes, youngest son of Sir Ralph Bowes, of Streatham. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Aske, of Aske. The father, probably on account of Knox's religious opinions, was opposed to the marriage, and so the union was deferred for some years. But the mother was friendly to the Reformer, and with her he kept up a constant correspondence in which many of the softer traits of his character come beautifully out. Mrs. Bowes was subject to religious melancholy, and the tender manner in which he often seeks in his letters to bind up her bruised spirit shows that, when occasion needed, he could be a "son of consolation" as well as a "son of thunder." Sometimes too, as when his heart was stirred with solicitude for the spiritual interests of those among whom he had laboured, or when he was required to confront the possible issue of his uncompromising adherence to what he believed to be right, he rises to a strain of heroism which reminds us of the greatest of the apostles. One example of this occurs in his letter to his Berwick friends, and we may fitly close this chapter by reproducing it here. "If any man be offended with me that I, willing to avoid God's wrath and vengeance threatened against such as having no necessity despise His ordinances, do purpose and intend to obey God, embracing such as He has offered unto me (rather) than to please and flatter man that unjustly held the same from me; if any, I say, for this cause be offended and will seek my displeasure or trouble, let the same understand, that as I have a body, which only they may hurt, and not unless God so permit; so have they bodies and souls which both shall God punish in fire inextinguishably with the devil and his angels, unless suddenly they repent and cease to malign against God and His holy ordinance. With life and death, dear brethren, I am at point,—they before me in equal balances. Transitory life is not so sweet to me that for defence thereof I will jeopard to lose the life everlasting. Nor yet is corporeal death to me so fearful that albeit most certainly I understood the same shortly to follow my godly purpose, I would therefore depone myself to die in God's wrath and anger for ever and ever, which no doubt I should do, if for man's pleasure I refused God's perfect ordinance."[8] There is no mistaking the ring of such words as these; and lie who wrote them takes his place in the honourable company of the heroes of conscience to whom the world no less than the Church has owed so much.

[1] Lorimer, p. 17.

[2] Lorimer, p. 18

[3] Lorimer, pp. 257-8.

[4] Lorimer, p. 16.

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