e Kirk came to him, by his desire; and he
protested that he had never hated any man personally, but only their
errors, nor had he made merchandise of the Word. He sent a message to
Kirkcaldy bidding him repent, or the threatenings should fall on him and
the Castle. His exertions increased his illness. There had been a final
quarrel with the dying Lethington, who complained that Knox, in sermons
and otherwise, charged him with saying there is "neither heaven nor
hell," an atheistic position of which (see his eloquent prayer before
Corrichie fight, wherein Huntly died {272a}) he was incapable. On the
16th he told "the Kirk" that Lethington's conduct proved that he really
did disbelieve in God, and a future of rewards and punishments. That was
not the question. The question was--Did Knox, publicly and privately, as
Lethington complained, attribute to him words which he denied having
spoken, asking that the witnesses should be produced. We wish that Knox
had either produced good evidences, or explained why he could not produce
them, or had apologised, or had denied that he spoke in the terms
reported to Lethington.

James Melville says that the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, of Leith, told him that
Knox bade him carry a message to Kirkcaldy in the Castle. After
compliments, it ran: "He shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to
punishment, and hung on a gallows before the face of the sun, unless he
speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God." Knox added:
"That man's soul is dear to me, and I would not have it perish, if I
could save it." Kirkcaldy consulted Maitland, and returned with a reply
which contained Lethington's last scoff at the prophet. However, Morton,
when he had the chance, did hang Kirkcaldy, as in the play acted before
Knox at St. Andrews, "according to Mr. Knox's doctrine." "The preachers
clamoured for blood to cleanse blood." {272b}

As to a secret conference with Morton on the 17th, the Earl, before his
execution, confessed that the dying man asked him, "if he knew anything
of the King's (Darnley's) murder?" "I answered, indeed, I knew nothing
of it"--perhaps a pardonable falsehood in the circumstances. Morton said
that the people who had suffered from Kirkcaldy and the preachers daily
demanded the soldier's death.

Other sayings of the Reformer are reported. He repressed a lady who, he
thought, wished to flatter him: "Lady, lady, the black ox has never
trodden yet upon your foot!" "I