Church of Edinburgh was for a time dissolved, while disorder reigned in the city, and what was virtually a civil war was raging in the country. [1] "History," vol. vii. pp. 345-7. [2] Vol. vii. p. 340. [3] Vol. iii. p. 355. {191} CHAPTER XIII. LAST DAYS, 1570-1572. At St. Andrews Knox was free from personal danger, and resumed the work of preaching. In the pulpit of the parish church he discoursed almost regularly, with a vigour which triumphed for the time over his physical weakness. We have a most graphic portrait of him at this time from the pen of James Melville who was then a student at the University, and who writes thus in his diary: (We are constrained to modernize the words that they may be generally understood by English and American readers, but we know how much they must lose thereby in expressiveness, to those who understand the vernacular) "Of all the benefits that I had that year (1571), was the coming of that most notable prophet and apostle of our nation, Mr. John Knox, to St. Andrews, who by the faction of the Queen occupying the castle and town of Edinburgh, was compelled to remove therefrom, with a number of the best, and chose to come to St. Andrews. I heard him teach there the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the winter following. I had my pen and my little {192} book, and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderate for the space of half an hour; but when he entered on application, he made me so to shudder (_scottice_, 'grue') and tremble, that I could not hold my pen to write. He was very weak. I saw him every day of his teaching, go slowly and warily, with a fur of martens about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good, godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant, holding up the other armpit (_scottice_, 'oxter'), from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by the said Robert and another servant lifted up to the pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entrance; but before he had done with his sermon, he was so active and vigorous, that it seemed as if he would beat the pulpit in pieces (_scottice_, 'ding the pulpit in blads') and fly out of it." Nor must we omit this other trait, evincing as it does the interest taken by the aged warrior in the young soldiers who were then just girding on their armour. "He would sometimes come in and rest in our college yard, and call us scholars unto him, and bless us, and exhort us to know God, and His work in our country, and stand by the good cause, to use our time well, and learn the good instructions and follow the good example of our masters."