Alesius could not make up his mind to follow this advice. The thought of bidding adieu to Scotland, perhaps for ever, filled him with the keenest sorrow.[147] His dream had been to consecrate all his energies to the salvation of his fellow-citizens, and to do good even to those who wronged him; and now he was to be condemned never again to see Scottish faces, Edinburgh, its valleys, its lofty houses, its narrow streets, its castle, Holyrood, the fertile plains of Caledonia, its low hills covered with pasture, its heaths wrapped in mists, and its marsh-lands, monotonous and yet poetic, which a gloomy sea environs with its waters, now mournful and still, now agitated by the violence of the winds. All these he must quit, though he had loved them from childhood. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed he, ‘what is there more dear to souls happily born than their native land?’[148] But presently he corrected himself. ‘The Church,’ said he, ‘is the Christian’s country far more than the place which gave him birth.[149] Assuredly the name of one’s native land is very dear, but that of the Church is dearer still.’ He perceived that if he did not go away, it was all over with him; and that if he did go away, he might contribute, even from afar, towards the triumph of the truth in the land of his fathers, and possibly might return thither at a later day. ‘Go!’ repeated the noble canons, who would fain save at any cost a life so precious; ‘all honest people desire it.’ ‘Well,’ said Alesius, ‘I bend to the yoke of necessity; I will go.’ The canons, who had everything ready, immediately got him secretly out of the priory, conducted him beyond the city, and gave him the money needful for his voyage. These generous men, less advanced than their friend in knowledge of the Scriptures, perceived that by his departure they would lose an inestimable treasure; but they thought rather of him than of themselves--they strove to dissipate his melancholy, and they called to his recollection the illustrious men and the saints who had been compelled, like him, to fly far from the wrath of tyrants. At length the solemn moment of farewell was come, and all of them, deeply affected at the thought that perhaps they would never meet again, burst into tears.[150] They paid the tribute due to nature; for, as Calvin says, ‘The perfection of the faithful does not lie in throwing off every affection, but in cherishing them for worthy causes.’[151]