and the third was the evangelical pastor as he should be in times
of thorough reformation.[244]

One more brief sketch from the Diary of the quaint but graphic
chronicler on whom I have repeatedly drawn may conclude our notice of
these last labours of the reformer, and bring us to his last illness and
death. "The town of Edinbruche recovered againe [out of the hands of the
queen's faction] and the guid and honest men therof retourned to thair
housses,[245] Mr Knox with his familie past hame to Edinbruche." During
the time of his residence in St Andrews he was very weak. "I saw him
everie day of his doctrine," says Melville, "go hulie and fear with a
furring of martriks about his neck, a staff in the an hand, and guid
godlie Richart Ballanden, his servand, halding upe the uther oxtar, from
the abbey to the paroche kirk; and be the said Richart and another
servant lifted upe to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first
entrie; bot or he haid done with his sermont he was sa active and
vigorus that he was lyk to ding that pulpit in blads, and fly out of
it."[246]

[Sidenote: His Message to Charles IX.]

Soon after his return to Edinburgh he found himself quite unable to
preach in the large church which he had formerly occupied, and a smaller
one was fitted up for him in the western part of the nave of St
Giles.[247] But not even so were his services to be long available. On
one occasion only after his return may it be said that the old fire
burst out with all its former fierceness and brilliancy. This was in
September, when tidings reached him of the bloody massacre of St
Bartholomew's day in France. "Being conveyed to the pulpit," Dr M'Crie
tells us, "and summoning up his remaining strength, he thundered the
vengeance of God against 'that cruel murderer and false traitor, the
King of France,' and [borrowing the language of the Old Testament
prophets] desired Le Croc, the French ambassador, to tell his master
that sentence was pronounced against him in Scotland, that the divine
vengeance would never depart from him nor from his house, if repentance
did not ensue; but his name would remain an execration to posterity, and
none proceeding from his loins should enjoy his kingdom in peace."[248]
The only further notice of his work is by Melville, who simply informs
us that after "instituting in his roum, be the ordinar calling of the
kirk and congregation, Mr James Lawsone, a man of singular learning,
zeal, and eloquen