l,' quoth he, 'Madam, is no reason; neither doth your
thought make that Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate
spouse of Jesus Christ.'...

'My conscience,' said she, 'is not so.'

'Conscience, Madam, requires knowledge, and I fear that right
knowledge ye have none.'

'But,' said she, 'I have both heard and read.'

... 'Have ye heard,' said he, 'any teach, but such as the Pope
and his Cardinals have allowed?'

The Queen avoided a direct answer,[106] but took the next point
with unfailing acuteness.

'Ye interpret the Scriptures,' said she, 'in one manner, and
they interpret in another; whom shall I believe? and who shall
be judge?'

And Knox's answer is from his side perfect--

'Ye shall believe God, that plainly speaketh in His word; and
farther than the word teacheth you, ye neither shall believe the
one nor the other. The word of God is plain in itself; and if
there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, who is
never contrarious to Himself, explains the same more clearly in
other places.'

The conference was long, and was ended with mutual courtesies. Both
parties in the country suspected that the new sovereign might be
gradually coming round to the new faith. No triumph could have been more
glorious for Knox, and at the opening of the interview he had used every
method of conciliation. But he never henceforth deceived himself as to
the chances in this case. Outwardly, the Queen remained friendly, and he
remained loyal; but his opinion as expressed privately, immediately
after this first meeting, was recorded later on.

'If there be not in her a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an
indurate heart against God and His truth, my judgment faileth
me.'

Induration of heart was not a charitable judgment to pass against a
young woman brought up in the worst school of morals in Europe, but whom
the speaker held never to have met 'God and his truth' till that
forenoon. Yet, as usual, Knox's judgment was by no means wholly wrong.
There is a certain brilliant hardness about the charm of Mary Queen of
Scots, even with posterity; and as to religion, whatever may have been
the case in the later years of her sad imprisonment, there is no
evidence in her early days in Scotland of personal or earnest interest
in the religion even of her own church.[107] And a tender and serious
interest in religion was held by the wh