and over
again, his opinion of her, and of the punishment which, had there been
justice in the world or faith in Zion, she must have undergone. Knox's
failing life was assailed at this agitated period by a kind of
persecution much more trying to him than anything he had undergone in
the past. He was assailed by anonymous libels, placards affixed to the
church doors, and thrown into the Assembly, charging him over again with
railing against the Queen, refusing to pray for her, seeking the support
of England against his native country, and so forth. These accusations
had no doubt a foundation of truth. But whatever one may think of the
matter as a question of fact, there can be no doubt that the very air
must have rung with the old man's words when he got up under those lofty
vaults of St. Giles's, and, with his grey hair streaming and his deep
eyes, deeper sunk with age and care than nature, blazing from under
their shaggy eyebrows, gave "the lie in his throat to him that either
dare or will say that ever I sought support against my native country."
"What I have been to my country," he went on, with a courage and dignity
that calls forth all our sympathies, "albeit this unthankful age will
not know, yet the ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the
truth. And thus I cease, requiring of all men that have to oppose
anything against me that he will do it so plainly as I make myself and
all my doings manifest to the world; for to me it seems a thing most
unreasonable that in my decrepit age I should be compelled to fight
against shadows and howlets that dare not abide the light."

These flying accusations against him, to which, however, he was well
accustomed, were followed, it is said, by more startling warnings, such
as that of a musket ball which came through his window one evening, and
had he been seated in his usual place would have killed him; a thing
which might have been accidental, though no one believed so. He was
persuaded at last to leave Edinburgh only by the representations of the
citizens that were he attacked they were resolved to defend him, and
their blood would consequently be on his head. On this argument he moved
to St. Andrews, the scene of his first ministry, and always a place
beloved; leaving Edinburgh at the darkest moment of her history, the
Church silenced with him, and all the order and peace of ordinary life
suspended. At this crisis of the struggle, when Kirkaldy's garrison was
rein