king expression to
this aspect of the Scottish Reformation. It was entitled the _Beggars'
Summons_, and purported to come from "all cities, towns, and villages of
Scotland."

On January 1, 1559, this terrible manifesto, breathing the very spirit of
revolution, was found placarded on the gates of every religious
establishment in Scotland. The _Summons_ begins as follows: "The blind,
crooked, lame, widows, orphans, and all other poor visited by the hand of
God as may not work, to the flocks of all friars within this realm, we
wish restitution of wrongs past, and reformation in times coming, for
salutation." It may be sufficient to quote the concluding passage of this
extraordinary effusion, and it is a passage which should never be out of
mind in any estimate of the forces that were about to effect the great
cataclysm in the national life: "Wherefore, seeing our number is so
great, so indigent, and so heavily oppressed by your false means that
none taketh care of our misery, and that it is better to provide for
these our impotent members which God hath given us, to oppose to you in
plain controversy, than to see you hereafter, as ye have done before,
steal from us our lodging, and ourselves in the mean time to perish and
die for want of the same; we have thought good, therefore, ere we enter
in conflict with you, to warn you in the name of the great God by this
public writing, affixed on your gates where ye now dwell, that ye remove
forth of our said hospitals betwixt this and the feast of Whitsunday
next, so that we, the only lawful proprietors thereof, may enter thereto,
and afterward enjoy the commodities of the Church which ye have heretofore
wrongfully holden from us; certifying that if ye fail, we will at the
said term, in whole number and with the help of God and assistance of his
saints on earth, of whose ready support we doubt not, enter and take
possession of our said patrimony, and eject you utterly forth of the
same. Let him, therefore, that before hath stolen, steal no more; but
rather let him work with his hands, that he may be helpful to the poor."

The inflammatory statements of revolutionaries must be taken for what
they are worth; but there is abundant evidence to prove that the above
indictment of the national Church was not without foundation in fact. It
has been computed that one-half of the wealth of the country was in
possession of the clergy; and we have the testimony of unimpeachable
witnesses to