ed. In idolaters nothing can surprise us; when persecuted
they, in their unchristian fashion, may retort with the dagger or the
bowl. But that Knox should have frequently maintained the doctrine of
death to religious opponents is a strange and deplorable circumstance. In
reforming the Church of Christ he omitted some elements of Christianity.

Suppose, for a moment, that in deference to the teaching of the Gospel,
Knox had never called for a Jehu, but had ever denounced, by voice and
pen, those murderous deeds of his own party which he celebrates as "godly
facts," he would have raised Protestantism to a moral pre-eminence. Dark
pages of Scottish history might never have been written: the consciences
of men might have been touched, and the cruelties of the religious
conflict might have been abated. Many of them sprang from the fear of
assassination.

But Knox in some of his writings identified his cause with the palace
revolutions of an ancient Oriental people. Not that he was a man of
blood; when in France he dissuaded Kirkcaldy of Grange and others from
stabbing the gaolers in making their escape from prison. Where idolaters
in official position were concerned, and with a pen in his hand, he had
no such scruples. He was a child of the old pre-Christian scriptures; of
the earlier, not of the later prophets.

CHAPTER VI: KNOX IN THE ENGLISH PURITAN TROUBLES AT FRANKFORT: 1554-1555

The consequences of the "Admonition" came home to Knox when English
refugees in Frankfort, impeded by him and others in the use of their
Liturgy, accused him of high treason against Philip and Mary, and the
Emperor, whom he had compared to Nero as an enemy of Christ.

The affair of "The Troubles at Frankfort" brought into view the great
gulf for ever fixed between Puritanism and the Church of England. It was
made plain that Knox and the Anglican community were of incompatible
temperaments, ideas, and, we may almost say, instincts. To Anglicans
like Cranmer, Knox, from the first, was as antipathetic as they were to
him. "We can assure you," wrote some English exiles for religion's sake
to Calvin, "that that outrageous pamphlet of Knox's" (his "Admonition")
"added much oil to the flame of persecution in England. For before the
publication of that book not one of our brethren had suffered death; but
as soon as it came forth we doubt not but you are well aware of the
number of excellent men who have perished in the flames; t