was so reduced by illness that his life was despaired of, the same companion bidding him look to the land, asked him if he knew it, whereupon he made reply, "Yes, I know it well, for I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth to His glory, and I am fully persuaded, how weak soever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify His holy name in the same place." He tells this almost as if he believed that the Spirit of prophecy spoke through him at the moment; but it is not necessary for us, while admitting the full truth of the narrative, to accept any such explanation. If his anticipation had not been verified, his words might have been entirely forgotten; and the probability is that his conviction rested rather upon his general apprehension of the principles of the Divine administration, than upon any supernatural communication of a special sort. The Psalmist writes that "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him;" and this gracious illumination, which is the heritage of all in the proportion in which they possess the character with which it is associated, is sufficient to account for the correctness of his impression, without having recourse to the theory of prophetic inspiration. That even Knox himself would have thus regarded this matter, seems clear from a passage in {28} his "Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God's Truth in England," which Dr. Lorimer thinks is of standard authority as giving the principle of interpretation for all those places in which he speaks in what may be called a prophetic tone and manner; and in which it has sometimes been thought that he spoke not without some endowment of supernatural insight and foreknowledge. We quote the following sentences: "But ye would know the grounds of my certitude. God grant that hearing them, ye may understand and steadfastly believe the same. My assurances are not marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophecies; but (1) the plain truth of God's word, (2) the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and (3) the ordinary course of His punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my assurances and grounds" (p. 85). But however we may account for the assurance which he felt, his forecast of the future was certainly remarkably fulfilled; and there are few contrasts in history more striking and suggestive than that between the weak and apparently dying galley-slave looking longingly on the shores of his native land; and the energetic Reformer of a later date, of whom the English ambassador wrote to Cecil saying: "I assure you the voice of one man is able in an hour to put more life in us than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears." {29} CHAPTER III. MINISTRY IN BERWICK-ON-TWEED, 1549-1550.