ch servility was, of all things, what would
touch most nearly the republican spirit of Knox. It was not difficult
for him to set aside this weak scruple of loyalty. The lantern of his
analysis did not always shine with a very serviceable light; but he had
the virtue, at least, to carry it into many places of fictitious
holiness, and was not abashed by the tinsel divinity that hedged kings
and queens from his contemporaries. And so he could put the proposition
in the form already mentioned: there was Christ's Gospel persecuted in
the two kingdoms by one anomalous power; plainly, then, the "regiment of
women" was Antichristian. Early in 1558 he communicated this discovery
to the world, by publishing at Geneva his notorious book--"The First
Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women."[65]

As a whole, it is a dull performance; but the preface, as is usual with
Knox, is both interesting and morally fine. Knox was not one of those
who are humble in the hour of triumph; he was aggressive even when
things were at their worst. He had a grim reliance in himself, or rather
in his mission; if he were not sure that he was a great man, he was at
least sure that he was one set apart to do great things. And he judged
simply that whatever passed in his mind, whatever moved him to flee from
persecution instead of constantly facing it out, or, as here, to publish
and withhold his name from the title-page of a critical work, would not
fail to be of interest, perhaps of benefit, to the world. There may be
something more finely sensitive in the modern humour, that tends more
and more to withdraw a man's personality from the lessons he inculcates
or the cause that he has espoused; but there is a loss herewith of
wholesome responsibility; and when we find in the works of Knox, as in
the Epistles of Paul, the man himself standing nakedly forward, courting
and anticipating criticism, putting his character, as it were, in pledge
for the sincerity of his doctrine, we had best waive the question of
delicacy, and make our acknowledgments for a lesson of courage, not
unnecessary in these days of anonymous criticism, and much light,
otherwise unattainable, on the spirit in which great movements were
initiated and carried forward. Knox's personal revelations are always
interesting; and, in the case of the "First Blast," as I have said,
there is no exception to the rule. He begins by stating the solemn
responsibility of all who are wat