The persuasive ingenuity which would suggest to the Lady of Norham that she was a source not only of comfort but of strength to those troubled like herself, turns out much to our advantage. For Knox puts _himself_, first of all, in the place of those whom he would either advise or console. And in the earliest dated letter of his which we possess there is a vivid picture of what took place between two people who were much in earnest, three and a half centuries ago, about this life and the next. Knox has written fully to Mrs Bowes, and adds-- 'After the writing of these preceding, your brother and mine, Harry Wycliffe, did advertise me by writing that your adversary took occasion to trouble you, because that _I did start back from you_ rehearsing your infirmities. I remember myself to have so done, and _that is my common consuetude when anything pierceth or toucheth my heart_. Call to your mind what I did standing at the cupboard at Alnwick: in very deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I was. And when that I heard proceed from your mouth the very words that he troubles me with, I did wonder and from my heart lament your sore trouble, knowing in myself the dolour thereof.'[43] What was the temptation which Knox thought no creature shared with him, but which he found, as he stood at the cupboard at Alnwick, had come to Mrs Bowes in the same form, and even in the same words? As it happens, we can answer with great certainty. It was a temptation to infidelity or 'incredulity': the adversary 'would cause you abhor that, and hate it, wherein stands only salvation and life,' viz., the name, as well as the whole message, of Jesus Christ. So it is put in this letter; and in others, apparently later, we read-- 'That ye are of that foolish sort of men that say in their heart, "There is no God," I wonder that the Devil shames not to allege that contrary [to] you; but he is a liar, and father of the same. For if in your heart ye said there is no God, why then should ye suffer anguish and care by reason that the enemy troubles you with that thought? Who can be afraid, day and night, for that which is not?'[44] Again-- 'He would persuade you that God's Word is of no effect, but that it is a vain tale invented by man, and so all that is spoken of Jesus, the Son of God, is but a vain fable.... He says the Scriptures of God are but a tale, and no credit is to be given to them....[45] Before he troubled you that there is not a Saviour, and now he affirms that ye shall be like to Francis Spira, who denied Christ's doctrine.'[46]