its in a foreign land
to lead the assault after he was silenced in death.

Such, however, I hardly need to assure you was not the end of the
restorer of a really holy church in Scotland, if aught of credit is to
be given to the unanimous testimony of those who attended him during his
last illness and witnessed its closing scene, though it may have been
the end which Popish controversialists in the sixteenth century deemed
meet for him--as well as for Luther and Calvin and many more of whom the
world was not worthy--as it is in one of the foulest legends with which
their successors in the nineteenth century think it fair to supplement
the legends of their predecessors in the sixteenth. According to them
Luther was the child of a demon, not figuratively but literally; Calvin
was eaten up of worms, like Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem and
was smitten by the judgment of God, because (though apparently in this
they confound him with a later Herod) he affected divine honours. To
mention such slanders, as the sceptical Bayle has said with special
reference to the case of Knox, is all that is needed to refute them.
They are the product of malignity so evident that it defeats itself. I
know but one parallel to them in our literature, and it has the excuse
that it has come down to us from the dark ages.[251] Some would
persuade us that the time has come when we might afford to forget old
controversies and to shake hands with our former antagonists, but such
occurrences as these tend to show that such forgetfulness and
affectation of cordiality is likely to be all on one side.

And now let me simply set over against these fables, in as abridged form
as I can, the unvarnished statements of Bannatyne and Smeton, the latter
of which was published in reply to Hamilton who first gave shape to
these charges, and which hitherto has been deemed a conclusive
refutation of them.[252]

[Sidenote: His last Illness.]

[Sidenote: His Dying Exhortations.]

On the 10th of November, the day after he inducted Lawson as his
colleague, he was seized with a violent cough and began to breathe with
difficulty. Many, who desired ardently, if it were possible, to detain
him a little longer here, advised him to call in the assistance of
skilful physicians. He readily complied with their advice, though he
felt that the end of his warfare was now nigh at hand. Next day he
caused the wages of all his servants to be paid, and earnestly exhorted