God, who renews the greenness of our pastures, who makes the corn come forth out of the bosom of the earth, and covers the trees with blossoms and with fruit, does not abandon the souls of men. The God of the whole visible creation is much more the light and the strength of souls, for one of these is more precious in his sight than all the universe. The Creator, who every spring brings forth out of the winter’s ice and cold a nature full of life, smiling with light and adorned with flowers, can assuredly produce, when it pleases Him, a spiritual springtide in the heart of a torpid and frozen humanity. The Divine Spirit is the sap which infuses into barren souls the vivifying juices of heaven. The world has not seldom been like a desert in which all life seemed to be extinct; and yet, in those periods apparently so arid, subterranean currents were yielding sustenance here and there to solitary plants; and at the hour fixed by Divine providence the living water has gushed forth abundantly to reanimate perishing humanity. Such was the case in the two greatest ages of history, that of the Gospel and that of the Reformation. [Sidenote: THE SPIRITUAL SPRINGTIDE.] Such epochs, the most important in human history, are for that reason the worthiest to be studied. The new life which sprang up in the 16th century was everywhere the same, but nevertheless it bore a certain special character in each of the countries in which it appeared; in Germany, in Switzerland, in England, in Scotland, in France, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in other lands. At Wittenberg it was to man that Christian thought especially attached itself, to man fallen, but regenerated and justified by faith. At Geneva it was to God, to His sovereignty and His grace. In Scotland it was to Christ--Christ as expiatory victim, but above all Christ as king, who governs and keeps his people independently of human power. Scotland is peopled by a vigorous race, vigorous in their virtues and vigorous, we may add, in their faults. Vigor is also one of the distinguishing features of Scottish Christianity, and it is this quality perhaps which led Scotland to attach itself particularly to Christ as to the king of the Church, the idea of power being always involved in the idea of king. This country is now to be the subject of our narrative. It deserves to be so; for although of small extent and situated on the confines of the West, it has by nature and by faith a motive force which makes itself felt to the ends of the earth. Two periods are to be noted in the Scottish Reformation, that of Hamilton and that of Knox. It is of the first of these only that we are now to treat. The study of the beginnings of things attracts and interests the mind in the highest degree. Faithful to our plan, we shall ascend to the generative epoch of Caledonian reform, an epoch which Scotland herself has perhaps too much slighted, and we shall exhibit its simple beauty.