breathed forth threatenings against the
saints of God,--though that removal had not been plotted by him, nor
would have been approved by him. The words attributed to him at the
stake by Buchanan and Lindsay of Pitscottie, foreshadowing his
persecutor's approaching fate, are not generally regarded as authentic.
Knox says nothing of them, nor Foxe, nor Spottiswoode; nor does Sir
David Lindsay, in his 'Tragedy of the Cardinal,' make any reference to
them. It seems better authenticated that he made the following general
statement: "I beseech you, brethren and sisters, to exhort your prelates
to the learning of the Word of God, that they at the last may be ashamed
to do evil and learn to do good, and if they will not convert themselves
from their wicked error, there shall hastily come upon them the wrath of
God, which they shall not eschew."[73] It is easy to see--especially
after the events which so speedily occurred--how a statement which
referred to the prelates generally should come to be applied
specifically to their imperious chief, just as the example of Eli had,
in a well-known ballad, been similarly used for warning by the
Reformation poet to the aged James Betoun for his weak indulgence to his
nephew and the younger Prior Hepburn, notwithstanding their scandalous
excesses.[74]

Such was the end of the life and ministry of George Wishart, one of the
most zealous and winning evangelists, and one of the most heroic and
steadfast confessors, that our country has ever produced. The
remembrance of him was fondly cherished, especially in that district
where he chiefly laboured, and where he wrought a work not less
memorable than that which M'Cheyne and Burns were honoured to do in our
own day. His influence was but deepened by his cruel fate, and he "lived
again," as Dr Lorimer has eloquently said, "in John Knox.... The zealous
disciple, who had counted it an honour to be allowed to carry a sword
before his master, stood forth immediately to wield the spiritual sword
which had fallen from the master's grasp, and to wield it with a vigour
and trenchant execution superior even to his."[75]

[Sidenote: Church Organisation.]

It may not be inappropriate to state how far the organisation of the
Reformed Church had by this time advanced in Scotland. Patrick Hamilton
seems to me to have laboured to the last for the revival of Scriptural
teaching and Christian living within the old church rather than apart
from her. Alesius,