the brother, and Catherine, the sister, of Patrick Hamilton escaped from threatened death-the one to England, the other to France. From Edinburgh and St. Andrew's several whose names are recorded, and doubtless many obscurer men, found it necessary to flee. One or two received hospitality among Protestants abroad, but many proved that exile meant destitution. Such was the state of Scotland up to the

no agreement with the King of England "in the opinions_concerning the authority of the Pope and kirkmen." The envoy was not, however, withdrawn, but instructed still to press for a personal conference between the two Kings-an event which, of all others, the Scotch clergy dreaded, knowing the weakness of James and the commanding character of Henry. The negotiations dragged on their slow

ness or supposed success, the persecutors for a while paused in their work.

On

The leaders of the Church had, indeed, at this time their attention engrossed by the negotiations and intrigues that were going on at the Court to attach King James either to the English or French interest. The young prince was as yet unmarried, and the envoys of Henry VIII. offered him the hand of an English princess, but only as the pledge of a hearty alliance with the political and religious schemes of her father. The brilliant prospect of undivided rule over Britain was held out to James, or at least to his successors, as the price of attachment to the Tudor cause. the other hand, the priestly party represented the advantages of French or Imperial support, the merit of loyalty to the Church of his fathers, which other princes were deserting, and the hope of the English crown as the supplanter rather than the successor of the apostate King. These arguments prevailed; Barlow, the clerical ambassador of Henry, was graciously received, but the books he brought with him were unread, and an answer was returned to Secretary Cromwell that no means would be neglected to strengthen the friendship between the two Sovereigns, but that in Scotland there could be

extant among the State papers, describe his fluctuations of hope and despondency. At last the bishops dispatched a message to Rome, beseeching the Pope to forbid the King of Scotland to hold intercourse with his uncle. The secret intrigues were revealed to Margaret, the Queen-mother, who, by her vehement rebukes, provoked her son to ungovernable passion. A fierce quarrel ensued: the Queen declared herself determined to return to her brother in London; the envoys hastily departed, and the King threw himself into the arms of the Romish party, and determined to seek a bride at the French Court. The adversaries of the Reformation were triumphant; but it is a curious illustration of the irony of facts, that the English princess, so much dreaded, was dreaded, was the future Queen Mary; while the French consort whom James brought back with him Scotland was Madeleine de Valois, who survived her marriage just long enough to let it be known that she was piously, though unsuspectedly, devoted to the evangelical doctrines. Her early death was a heavy blow to the friends and a relief to the enemies of the Gospel. Her place was shortly supplied by Mary of Guise, in whom the priests were sure of an apt pupil and a powerful ally.

to

The principal promoter both of

the first and the later French marriage was David Beatoun, nephew of the Archbishop, a man who had been steadily gaining power, which for eight years he was to wield for the depression of the nobles and the defence of the Roman Church. Created Cardinal in 1538 and Primate of Scotland in 1539, he infused his resolute and unscrupulous spirit into the body of Scotch clergy, and established an ascendancy which, rebelled against by the nobles and hated by the citizens, was broken only by his death. He was of immoral life, and, by all accounts, of no deep religious conviction. The object of his fanaticism was the domination of hierarchical authority over all men, King and noble no less than priest and people. For this he laboured unceasingly, with a zeal into which personal ambition may have entered, but which was pure at least from covetousness or the desire of vulgar aggrandise

ment.

Under his rule persecution revived. It was not generally bloody. For the most part fines, exile and confiscation were Beatoun's favourite weapons; for by striking at the rich and noble he gratified at once his enmity against Protestantism and the aristocracy, and was able at the same time to maintain his hold upon the King by replenishing his empty exchequer. A general terror prevailed amongst the evangelicals. Many were in prison; wealthy families were ruined, and fugitives passed every day into England, persuaded that if they fell into the Cardinal's hands they would be sent to execution. Yet the martyrs who actually perished were not numerous. the beginning of 1539-so we read in Buchanan's History - many suspected of Lutheranism were arrested; five were burnt in the presence of the King. The most

At

distinguished of these was Thomas Forrest a man who had more than once attracted the notice and experienced the lenity of the Church authorities. He had been an Augustinian canon in the Abbey of St. Colme. Incidentally led to study the writings of St. Augustine, he had by them been directed to the New Testament. He spoke freely of the truth which he discovered there, so as to disturb the peace of the brethren and cause them to complain to the Abbot. "Look after your own salvation," said he to Forrest, "but talk as other men do." The ardent convert professed himself ready sooner to be burned, but his superior, anxious only for quietness, dismissed him to the charge of the parish of Dollar. Here his activity in preaching, visiting and reading the Scriptures caused him speedily to be brought before the Bishop of Dunkeld. "I'm told, Dean Thomas," said his lordship, "that you preach every Sunday. That is too much; take my advice and don't preach unless you find any good gospel or good epistle that setteth forth the liberty of holy Church." Forrest

replied by wishing that the Bishop too would preach every Sunday, and would tell him which were the bad gospels and epistles, that he might preach only from the others. "Thank God," said the Bishop, "I never knew what the Old and New Testament was, and I will to know nothing but my portesse and my pontifical;" and with that sent the Dean back to his parish. At last he attended with others at the marriage of a priest, celebrated openly, and, as if merely to defy the Church authority, in Lent, and that with a plentifully-loaded table for the wedding feast. The guests were seized and tried before the Cardinal and the Bishops of Glas

gow and Dunkeld, the trial as usual was violent and unfair, and sentence of death was passed and speedily executed.

A more distinguished victim was then in prison, George Buchanan, already known through Europe as a most skilful and vigorous writer of Latin poetry. Various biting satires upon the Franciscans had drawn down on him the vengeance of the Church. The martyrdom of the five Lutherans warned him to expect no mercy, so finding one night that his guards were all asleep-possibly drugged by the friends of the prisoner-he succeeded with great difficulty in escaping through a window, and betook himself to France, where his fame greatly increased, and his faith was confirmed into full personal conviction. For previously he seems to have been rather a literary than a religious ally of the Reformation.

Another group of martyrs, punished at Perth by Beatoun's orders in 1544, furnish a valuable illustration of the way in which incautious and extravagant words and deeds disgraced the cause of the Gospel, and, at least in the opinion of that sanguinary age, might go far to justify the penalty of death. Robert Lamb, William Anderson and James Raveleson had signified their opposition to the monks by dressing up an image of St. Francis to represent the devil, and then hanging it in the street; nor was this the only outrage of which they had been guilty. Along with them a woman named Helen Stirke was condemned for language capable of conveying a meaning which, doubtless, she never intended. Speaking of the Virgin as but an ordinary though a highly-favoured woman, she had said, "Had I been alive at that time, God might as likely have chosen me to be the mother of the Lord."

To

her was assigned the milder death of drowning. One thing that must have tended greatly to the detriment of the Protestant cause was its association with English intrigue, and the treasonable plans of a party among the nobles. Beatoun was constantly struggling against the unremitting efforts of Henry to cajole or frighten the Scotch court. into supporting his own policy. There is no need to follow the weary succession of diplomatic and treacherous propositions; it suffices to remember the existence of such influences and to note the inability even of great national calamities to shake more than briefly the ascendancy of the Cardinal. James at last, vainly confident in the revenues of the Church and the alliance of Catholic powers, rushed rashly into a war which there was neither force nor genius in his kingdom to conduct. The shameful defeat of his incompetent general and panicstricken army, at the Solway, was a disaster that he had no strength of mind to bear. His reason wandered; his constitution gave way, and he died bewailing what he supposed the inevitable extinction of the kingdom of Scotland. No children survived him except the too famous Mary Queen of Scots, whose birth was announced to her father on his death-bed.

Beatoun had hoped to rule during the long minority of the infant Queen, and had got himself appointed head of the Council of Regency. But his credit was shaken by the disgraceful failure of his policy: the faction of the nobles had the support of the victorious English, and many lords made prisoners in the battle had been dismissed without ransom on pledge to promote the schemes of Henry. The Earl of Arran, a favourer of the Reformation, was declared sole

Regent, and Beatoun's rivals felt themselves strong enough to override his opposition and order his imprisonment. For a few days the Tudor policy in Church and State seemed about to prevail. A treaty was actually entered into for the betrothal of Mary to the child Prince Edward, that thus the union of the two crowns might be brought about.

Everything seemed settled, when the Cardinal regained his liberty, and almost at once re-established his control in Scotland. During his confinement the clergy had everywhere refused to perform the offices of the Church no mass, no funeral, no wedding or baptism, was witnessed in the whole country, and the popular indignation rose high against the English and their faction. Beatoun, skilfully availing himself of the general feeling, and working on the feebler mind of Arran, persuaded

him at the last to withhold the hostages required by the King of England, and the treaty fell to the ground. A more marked personal triumph was in store for the champion of Rome. Secretly, as he in vain supposed, the leader of the Protestant party, abjured his errors and received absolution from the Cardinal, whose tool for the future he became. Henry was enraged to the uttermost, and his vengeance was prompt and terrible. An English fleet appeared without warning in the Firth of Forth, landed an irresistible army who plundered Edinburgh without opposition, and returned by land to their own country, ravaging and burning towns, villages, castles and fields all the way. But this served more to render the heretics hated than the Cardinal unpopular.

ON the death of Herod, Mary returned to her native village, from which she had unexpectedly been so long absent, and where, in toil, poverty and utter obscurity, the Son of God spent all but about five years of His earthly life. With reference to this period, it is stated in the Apocryphal "History of Joseph the Carpenter," that Mary's husband had four sons and several daughters by a previous marriage, of whom Justus and Simon and Esther and Thamar found for themselves, by marriage, new homes; but concerning the others, Jesus is there represented as saying:

"Judas and James the Less, and the Virgin My mother, remained in the house of Joseph. I also continued along with them not otherwise than if I had been

LOWRY.

one of his sons. I passed all My time without fault. I called Mary My mother and Joseph father; and in all they said was obedient to them; nor did I ever resist them . . . . or return any harsh word or answer to them; on the contrary, I cherished them with immense love as the apple of Mine eye."

There seems to be an enormous preponderance of argument in favour of the natural supposition that, after the miraculous conception of our Lord, Joseph and Mary lived together in the married state, and that James and Joses and Judas and Simon, with daughters whose names are not recorded, were subsequently born to them. Nor is it improbable that, on the death of Joseph, which is supposed to have

Farrar's "Life of Christ." I. P. 96.

taken place when Jesus was about nineteen, our Saviour, as Mary's eldest son, assumed the headship and support of the orphaned family. But be that as it may, the same halo of romance has been thrown around this as around every other portion of the history of the Holy Family; for foolish traditions, intended, indeed, to honour, but in fact grossly dishonouring the Saviour, tell us of His pulling His father's short planks to any requisite length, and sportively turning His playmates into kids, or vindictively striking dead with His curse the boys who dared to offend Him, till such a storm of indignation was raised that Mary was positively afraid to let Him leave the shelter of her house. But of these vain fancies concerning the Virgin's Child the most happily conceived has thus been woven into pleasant verse:

"The young child Jesus had a garden Full of roses rare and red, And thrice a day He watered them, To make a garland for His head. "When they were full blown in the garden,

He called the Jewish children there, And each did pluck himself a rose,

Until they stripped the garden bare. "And now how will you make your garland,

For not a rose your path adorns ? ' 'But you forget,' He answered them, 'That you have left me still the thorns.'

"They took the thorns and made a garland,

And placed it on His shining head; And where the roses should have shown Were little drops of blood instead."

Yet even this in no way adds to the chaste and simple beauty of the Gospel narrative, where the only story of our Saviour's childhood is His visit, with His parents, to the temple, and their sorrowful search for Him when, on returning, they had left Him in the Holy City.

Concerning the next eighteen

years, at the close of which our Saviour's ministry commenced, the Gospels say not a single syllable; and in all the Scriptures Mary is again referred to only four times; for from henceforth, in Gospel and Epistle, "Christ is all and in all."

The first of these four occasions was at Cana's marriage-feast, when by the almost startling words,. "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" He gently withdrew Himself from her authority; and when, at Capernaum, about eighteen months afterwards, she sought, with misguided affection, to draw aside the Son of the Highest from His unresting, self-consuming toil, a second time, in yet more forceful terms, He tenderly but firmly repudiated her right to control Him still; for now He belongs not to Mary, but to God and to the world His all-atoning blood redeemed.

The Gospels next speak of Mary at the foot of the Cross, where was fulfilled but too literally ancient Simeon's prophecy: "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul;" but, amid the anguish and horror of that hour, the dying Redeemer gave to her consoling proof that, though He had long ceased to be "subject" unto her, she had never ceased to be the subject of His filial thought and care.

We have no authentic record of our Saviour's appearing to Mary after His resurrection; but in the next and only other glimpse which the Scriptures afford us of her career, we find this holy woman in the far-famed "upper room," with Mary Magdalene and Salome and the few beside who composed theinfant Church. The Bible narrative thus, with surpassing fitness, leaves the mother of our Lord engaged, not in receiving, but in offering. prayer, in common with other disciples. Of all her after life, every