Induration of heart was not a charitable judgment to pass against a young woman brought up in the worst school of morals in Europe, but whom the speaker held never to have met 'God and his truth' till that forenoon. Yet, as usual, Knox's judgment was by no means wholly wrong. There is a certain brilliant hardness about the charm of Mary Queen of Scots, even with posterity; and as to religion, whatever may have been the case in the later years of her sad imprisonment, there is no evidence in her early days in Scotland of personal or earnest interest in the religion even of her own church.[107] And a tender and serious interest in religion was held by the whole Protestantism of that day to be the one gate for the individual into 'God's truth.' Had his Queen shown anything of this spirit of earnest enquiry, our rough Reformer might have been precipitate to help her steps, though they should be as yet on the wrong side of the dividing line. But Mary made no pretences on the subject, and it was her misfortune, and that of all around, that her opinion on religion--a matter in which she took no more interest than was natural to her years--should have been all important to her subjects. They at least were, or professed to be, in earnest about it; and the man who in her presence now represented that earnestness made no pretences either. But we may be sure that Knox's judgment on a 'proud mind' as to the more central and personal truths of religion, would not be mitigated by that keen 'wit' which played so freely round its external parts, and transfixed so easily his own theory of Church and State. We know from himself that Mary, having found the weak point of the intolerant legislation, took care to press upon it. She was 'ever crying conscience, conscience! it is a sore thing to constrain the conscience;'[108] and she selected for her 'flattering words' the best of the men around her, till from the question, 'Why may not the Queen have her own Mass, and the form of her religion? what can that hurt us or our religion?' there came a formal discussion and a vote of the Lords that they were not entitled to constrain her. This state of matters continued during the year 1562. But the real danger, of course, was from abroad, and Knox had intelligence of all that was going on there. In December 1562 a victory of the Guises in France had been followed by dancing at Holyrood; and Knox preached against 'taking pleasure for the displeasure of God's people.' The Queen sent for him, and suggested his speaking to herself privately rather than haranguing publicly upon her domestic proceedings: a proposal which he so promptly rejected that she at once turned her back on him. It was on this occasion that, hearing the whisper as he went out, 'He is not afraid,' he replied, with a 'reasonably merry' countenance, 'Wherefore should the pleasing face of a gentlewoman affray me? I have looked into the faces of many angry men,