It it easy for us, looking back--superfluously easy--to see the fundamental mistake in Knox's legislation. But taking that first step of intolerant establishment as fixed, I see nothing in his proposed superstructure which was not admirable and heroic, and also--as heroic things so often are--sane and even practicable. And it was all conceived in the interest of the people--of those 'poor brethren' of land and burgh, with whom Knox increasingly identified himself. No doubt the Kirk had no right to claim administration, even as trustee, of the tenth of the yearly fruits of all Scottish industry. But when we think of the objects to which these fruits were to be applied, we shall not be disposed to deal hardly with such a claim. It is not the divided and disinherited Churches of Scotland alone--it is, even more, the 'poor labourers of the ground'--who have reason, in these later days, to join in the death-bed denunciation by Knox of the 'merciless devourers of the patrimony of the Kirk.' * * * * * Knox's statesmanship may have failed--partly because an unjust and unchristian principle was unawares imbedded in its foundation, and partly because the hereditary legislators of Scotland could not rise to the level of its peasant-reformer. But Knox's churchmanship did not fail. It might well have been contended that the freedom of the Church had been compromised by the legislation which was granted or petitioned for. But that was not the Church's view, and the internal organisation which nobles and politicians refused to sanction, the Church, claiming to be free, instantly took up as its own work. In each town or parish the elders and deacons met weekly with the pastor for the care of the congregation. And these 'particular Kirks' now met half-yearly representatively as the 'Universal Kirk' of Scotland. From its first meeting in December 1560 onwards, the General Assembly or Supreme Court of the Church was convened by the authority of the Church itself, and year by year laid the deep foundations of the social and religious future of Scotland. It was a great work--nothing less than organising a rude nation into a self-governing Church. And there were difficulties and dangers in plenty, some of them unforeseen. The nobles were rapacious, the people were divided, the ministers leaned to dogmatism, the lawyers leaned to Erastianism, the Lowlands were menaced by Episcopacy, the Highlands were emerging from heathenism, and between them both there stretched a broad belt of unreformed Popery. There were a hundred difficulties like these, but they were all accepted as in the long day's work. For in Scotland the dayspring was now risen upon men!