For his own exoneration Knox printed the sermon for the preaching of which he was thus condemned, and it remains the only specimen of his pulpit work proper which has come down to us. It is founded on Isaiah xxvi. 13-21, and is of the nature of an expository discourse, bringing out the primary signification and reference of the words, and making application of the principles evolved by that process to the characters and circumstances of his hearers. It gives evidence of considerable scholarship, of immense familiarity with Scripture, of good acquaintance with ancient history, and of great fervour of spirit. It is neither a hasty nor ill digested production, and it impresses us a good deal more by its solidity than by its invective. Indeed, there are in it no passages that one could put into comparison for that with others which have been already mentioned by us; and it is a little difficult for the modern reader to wed in his imagination a style so calm and weighty as that which he finds here, with a manner so vehement as the Reformer's is usually described to have been. But no printer can reproduce the man, or the surroundings; here are the wood and the lamb indeed; but in these {182} others were the fire--from heaven too in a sense--which flamed forth with its energizing and consuming power, and made his discourse a thing of might. Such difference as there is between a bugle, and a bugle blown by a living martial musician, there is between a printed sermon and the same discourse preached by its author with the glow of spiritual enthusiasm in his heart and on his face. The one is a thing of curious study to the professional man, the other is a trumpet call which puts heart and heroism into hundreds in a moment. Knox showed his law-abiding spirit by obeying the injunction of the authorities. His biographer, indeed, says that "it does not appear that he continued any time suspended from preaching," but Dr. Laing believes that he did not resume his usual ministrations at Edinburgh, unless at occasional intervals, until after Queen Mary had been deprived of her authority. He was not idle, however, in those months, for he was employed not only in the preparation of his "History of the Reformation in Scotland," but also in the visitation of churches in the south of Scotland, and in a journey into England, specially undertaken to look after his two boys whom he had sent thither for education.