One day another speaker came to Hamilton. This was a young ecclesiastic, Alexander Campbell, prior of the Dominicans, who like Alesius had a fine genius, great learning,[83] and a kindly disposition.[84] The archbishop, who knew his superiority, begged him to visit Hamilton frequently, and to spare no efforts to win him back to the Roman doctrine. Campbell obeyed his chief; but while certain priests or monks craftily questioned the young doctor with the intention of destroying him, the prior of the Dominicans had it in mind to save him. It is a mistake to attribute to him from the first any other intention. Campbell, like Alesius, was open to the truth, but the love of the world and its favors prevailed in him, and therein lay his danger. He frequently conversed with Hamilton on the true sense of the Scriptures, and acknowledged the truth of Patrick’s words. ‘Yes,’ said the prior, ‘the Church is in need of reformation in many ways.’[85] Hamilton, pleased with this admission, hoped to bring him to the faith, like Alesius, and having no fear of a friend whom he already looked on almost as a brother, he kept back none of his thoughts, and attached himself to him with all sincerity. But after several interviews, Campbell received orders from the archbishop to go to him to give an account of the result of his proceedings. This request astonished and disturbed the prior; and when he stood before Beatoun and his councillors, he was intimidated, overpowered by fear at the thought of offending the primate, and of incurring the censures of the Church. He would fain have obeyed at the same time both the Lord and the bishop,--he would fain have served God and _sucked-in_ honors; but he saw no means of reconciling the Gospel and the world. When he saw all looks turned on him he was agitated, he wavered, and told everything which the young noble of Kincavil had said to him in the freedom of brotherly confidence. He appeared to condemn him, and even consented to become one of his judges. Choosing ease, reputation, and life rather than persecution, opprobrium, and death, Campbell turned his back on the truth and abandoned Hamilton. When the young reformer heard of Campbell’s treachery, it was a great sorrow to him; but he was not disheartened. On the contrary, he went on teaching with redoubled zeal, both at his own lodging and in the university. He bore witness, ‘with hand and with foot,’ as used to be said at that time (that is to say, with all his heart and with all his might), to the Word of God. For making a beginning of the work of reformation there was no place in the kingdom more important than St. Andrews. Hamilton found there students and professors, priests, monks of the orders of St. Augustine, St. Francis, and St. Dominic, canons, deans, members of the ecclesiastical courts, nobles, jurisconsults, and laymen of all classes. This was the wide and apparently favorable field on which for one month he scattered plentifully the divine seed.[86]