Already, before his return, the sacred books had arrived in large numbers in the principal ports of the kingdom. Attention had been awakened; but at the same time ignorance, dishonesty, and fanaticism had risen in revolt against the Evangelical Scriptures. The priests said that the _Old_ Testament was the only true one, and pretended that the _New_ had been recently invented by Martin Luther.[60] Consequently, in August 1527, the earl of Angus, at the instigation of Dunbar, bishop of Aberdeen, had confirmed the ordinance of 1525, and had decreed that the king’s subjects who circulated the sacred books should be visited with the same penalties as people from abroad. If, therefore, a vessel arrived at Leith, Dundee, St. Andrews, or Aberdeen, the king’s officers immediately went on board, and if any copies of the _New_ Testament were found there, the ship and the cargo were confiscated and the captain was imprisoned. [Sidenote: HAMILTON’S ZEAL.] Some time after this ordinance, the ship which carried Hamilton reached port, and although this young Christian always had his New Testament in his pocket, he landed without being arrested and went his way to Kincavil. It was about the end of 1527. Patrick tenderly loved his mother and his sister; everybody appreciated his amiable character; the servants and all his neighbors were his friends. This gentleness made his work easier. But his strength lay above all in the depth and the sincerity of his Christian spirit. ‘Christ bare our sins on his back and bought us with his blood’;[61] this was the master chord which vibrated in his soul. In setting forth any subject he silenced his own reasonings and let the Bible speak. No one had a clearer perception of the analogies and the contrasts which characterize the evangelical doctrine. With these intellectual qualities were associated eminent moral virtues; he practised the principles which he held to be true with immovable fidelity; he taught them with a touching charity; he defended them with energetic decision. Whether he approached a laborer, a monk, or a noble, it was with the desire to do him good, to lead him to God. He taxed his ingenuity to devise all means of bearing witness to the truth.[62] His courage was firm, his perseverance unflagging, and in his dignified seriousness his youth was forgotten. His social position added weight to his influence. We have seen that the aristocracy played a far larger part in Scotland than in any other European country. It would have seemed a strange thing to the Scots for a man of the people to meddle with such a matter as reform of the Church; but if the man that spoke to them belonged to an illustrious family, the position which he took appeared to them legitimate, and they were all inclined to listen to his voice. Such was the reformer whom God gave to Scotland.