ed. "Could any one then have
whispered in the ear of the disconsolate exile that he was on the road
to far more extensive usefulness" and freedom; that he would gain many
friends in foreign lands, and would not only be spared to labour there
for more than thirty years, but would also be honoured to be the first
to plead by his writings for the free circulation of the Scriptures in
his native Scotland, and one of the first to help on Cranmer in England,
and Hermann von Wied, the reforming Archbishop of Cologne, in Germany;
that he would be privileged to attend, as one of the Protestant
representatives, many of the most important colloquies of the leaders of
the old and the new church on the Continent, to be the intimate friend
of Luther and Melanchthon, to labour as a professor of theology in two
German universities, and to live and die in the greatest honour and
respect among those with whom he laboured,--"how incredible would it all
have seemed to him!" Yet it was thus God meant it, and thus He brought
it to pass; and if there was one among the Scottish exiles of those
times who was less embittered towards his persecutors than another, or
more ready to yield to them in things indifferent or of minor
importance, if only he could gain their hearts for Christ and His cause
in matters of highest moment, it was he.

[Sidenote: Driven by the Tempest to Malmoe.]

[Sidenote: Hermann von Wied's Apologue.]

The ship in which Alesius sailed was bound for France, probably for
Dieppe or Rouen, with which towns the trade of Scotland was carried on,
and where many Scottish merchants resided or had factors; but she had
not gone far on her way from port when a violent westerly gale carried
her across the German Ocean, drove her into the Sound, and made it
necessary to get her into the harbour at Malmoe in Scania, in order to
refit her. There, as well as at the French ports named, there was a
community of Scottish merchants, probably by this time enjoying the
ministrations of John Gaw or Gall, another St Andrews _alumnus_, early
won over to the cause of the Reformation. The community of Malmoe, a year
or two before, had given its adhesion to the same cause, and its leading
ministers, as well as the Scottish chaplain, were, therefore, prepared
to welcome and treat with all kindness their exiled co-religionist, as
he himself, twenty-five years after, feelingly narrates.[296] After
being refitted at Malmoe, the vessel proceeded on her vo