A man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a hunting-field for intriguing, ambitious Guises, and the cause of God trampled under foot of falsehoods, formulas, and the devil’s cause, had no method of making himself agreeable. “Better that women weep,” said Morton, “than that bearded men be forced to weep.” Knox was the constitutional opposition party in Scotland; the nobles of the country, called by their station to take that post, were not found in it; Knox had to go, or no one. The hapless queen--but still the more hapless country, if _she_ were made happy! Mary herself was not without sharpness enough, among her other qualities. “Who are you,” said she once, “that presume to school the nobles and sovereign of this realm?” “Madam, a subject born within the same,” answered he. Reasonably answered! If the “subject” have truth to speak, it is not the “subject’s” footing that will fail him here. We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each of us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk there is and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance is to tolerate the unessential, and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can tolerate no longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to tolerate. We are here to resist, to control, and vanquish withal. We do not “tolerate” falsehoods, thieveries, iniquities, when they fasten on us; we say to them, Thou art false! thou art not tolerable! We are here to extinguish falsehoods, and to put an end to them in some wise way. I will not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing is our great concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.