field
for intriguing, ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God trampled
underfoot of falsehoods, formulas, and the Devil's Cause, had no method
of making himself agreeable! "Better that women weep," said Morton,
"than that bearded men be forced to weep." Knox was the constitutional
opposition party in Scotland: the Nobles of the country, called by their
station to take that post, were not found in it; Knox had to go, or no
one. The hapless Queen; but the still more hapless Country, if _she_
were made happy! Mary herself was not without sharpness enough, among
her other qualities: "Who are you," said she once, "that presume to
school the nobles and sovereign of this realm?" "Madam, a subject born
within the same," answered he. Reasonably answered! If the "subject"
have truth to speak, it is not the "subject's" footing that will fail
him here.

We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each of
us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk there
is and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance has to tolerate
the _un_essential; and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to
be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can tolerate no
longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to tolerate!
We are here to resist, to control, and vanquish withal. We do not
"tolerate" Falsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on us;
we say to them, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are here to
extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise way! I will
not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing is our great
concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.

A man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike, for teaching the
Truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humor! I am not
prepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he had
what we call an ill temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not. Kind,
honest affections dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-worn, ever-battling
man. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight among those
proud, turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they were; and could
maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and Sovereignty in that
wild realm, he who was only "a subject born within the same": this of
itself will prove to us that he was found, close at hand, to be no mean,
acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man. Such alone
can