LECTURE ON “JOHN KNOX.”

Kumara Times, Issue 2708, 27 May 1885, Page 2

LECTURE ON “JOHN KNOX.”

[communicated. ] On Sabbath evening last in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the Rev. George Hay, by special request, delivered a lecture on “John Knox,” the collection being in aid of the Church Extension Fund. The fact that the great majority of the congregation held Mr Hay to be still the rightful pastor of the church, together with the popularity of the subject announced for lecture, drew together a large concourse of people. The social and religious condition of Scotland at the time of Knox’s birth was briefly described at the outset of the lecture, and the corrupt state of the Romish clergy was depicted in the reverend gentleman’s usual incisive style. The early life of Knox was briefly sketched, as also the struggle in the work to which he devoted his life, his stern and uncompromising attitude towards the Papal power, his reencounter with Queen Mary, and the many vicissitudes of his career, in which he continually displayed the most unflinching adherence to progress and true freedom, and coneluded as follows:—Few men were ever exposed to more dangers or underwent such hardships. From the time that he embraced the reformed religion till he breathed his last seldom did he enjoy a day’s rest. Obliged to flee from bis enemies, banished as an outlaw, an exile in a strange land, at home a constant warrior, often threatened with death, and a price publicly set upon his bead, yet he died in his bed in peace; and when lowered to his last resting place, amid the tears of a nation’s sorrow over him, the Earl of Morton exclaimed—“ There lies he that never feared the face of man.” The character of Knox has, it is true, been drawn with very opposite colours. Indeed it would excite our wonder if it had not. When we reflect that the party he opposed worked upon him as the instrument of their overthrow, we are prepared to hear them charging him as guilty of all the crimes that disgrace the character of mao. But the undenied and undeniable testimony of his contemporaries to his worth and godly character are unassailable. The testimony of Bannantyne, Smeton, Bale, Alymer, and Ridley are bulworks of antiquity to the high esteem in which he was held by men of opposite opinions from himself. That Knox possessed strong natural talents, no one acquainted with his history will deny. Inquisitive, ardent, acute, vigorous and bold in his conceptions, a stranger to none of the branches of learing of his time: a man of bold and fervent eloquence and an ardent attachment to civil liberty, tempered with a true love of God, he devoted his life to advance the cause of the Redeemer on earth and to free his country from spiritual bondage with an energy that crowned his labours with abundant success. In private life he was beloved and revered by his friends and domestics. Sincere as a friend, he was full of wit and humour as a companion. He was stern, not savage; vehement, not vindicative; right, but just; unaffected, but zealous. In contemplating such a character as that of Knox, the reverend lecturer remarked it is not the man so much as the Reformer that ought to engage onr attention. Providence raised him up to do a particular work for the benefit of mankind, and endowed him with qualities fitted for the times in which he lived. Scotland, at the momentous crisis when he appeared, stood in need of some dauntless and intrepid spirit to sway the minds of the people. She needed some bold asserter of her lon® lost rights, in whom the spirit of her Wallace might frown indignant on those who dared to pollute the scene of his deathless triumphs. Such a character they found in the person of John Knox —a man who under God was the instrument at once of redeeming from degradation the political liberties of his native land, and of lifting up the minds of her people to the love and pursuit of true freedom. His name, bright with venerable a*soi;i-«ii< *’>s .-.J id -ntitied with his country’s jniust glories will never be forgotten. In the grateful

and venerating hearts of the patriotic and the pious among his countrymen his services will ever find their best requital, and his labours their noblest shrine. This is the reward of him who was both patriot and saint.