versions; and, above all, the Genevan Bible, prepared by the members of Knox's congregation at the very time he was their minister, continued for three-quarters of a century thereafter to be 'the household book of the English-speaking nations.' It is called the happiest and most peaceful time of Knox's life. But it was a time of incessant preparation for still greater things, and in this short biography we must confine ourselves to what bears either on the man himself or on his supreme work for his native country. For during all Knox's life on the Continent he seems to have kept in view the problem of how the Evangel could be set free in Scotland. He never had any doubt as to the duty of the individual to confess it in the teeth of the Magistrate and of the law. But how could men combine together to do so, against authority otherwise lawful? On this and similar points he proposed questions on his first arrival in Switzerland to the leading theologians. Bullinger, with the approval of Calvin, gave an answer which may have suggested to Knox the idea that a people (the Armenians are specially instanced) may revolt against 'their legitimate magistrate' who persecutes the truth, provided they have an inferior magistrate to lead them.[64] And next year, 1555, Knox made a memorable visit to Scotland. There James the Fifth's widow, Mary of Lorraine, was now Regent, and so chief 'Magistrate.' She was during all those years not disposed to be intolerant, and the prospect was everywhere encouraging. From Edinburgh Knox writes to Mrs Bowes (still in Northumberland), thanking her for being 'the instrument to draw me from the den of my own ease (you alone did draw me from the rest of quiet study) to contemplate and behold the fervent thirst of our brethren, night and day sobbing and groaning for the bread of life. If I had not seen it with my eyes in my own country, I could not have believed it. Depart I cannot, unto such time as God quench their thirst a little.' And accordingly later on he adds, 'The trumpet blew the old sound three days together, till private houses of indifferent largeness could not contain the voice of it. God for Christ his Son's sake grant me to be mindful that the sobs of my heart have not been in vain, nor neglected in the presence of his Majesty. O sweet were the death that should follow such forty days in Edinburgh as here I have had three!'[65]