it is, we learn that even at this early date, long before he had visited Geneva, or met Calvin, Knox had found his own way by the study of the Scriptures to those views of gospel truth which are now associated with the name of the great Frenchman; and that they formed the chief themes of his public discourse at Berwick is evident from the solemn words with which he has here introduced their enumeration. Nor was his proclamation of them there in vain; for in his vindication of himself, at a later date before Queen Mary of Scotland, from the charge of causing great sedition and slaughter in England, and securing his ends by necromancy, he said among other things, "I shame not further to affirm that God so blessed my weak labours, that in Berwick, where commonly before there used to be slaughter by reason of quarrels that used to arise among the soldiers, there was as great quietness all the time that I remained there, as there is this day in Edinburgh."[4] Besides this, there is in the letter from which we have quoted abundant evidence that his biographer was not wrong when he affirmed that during his two years in Berwick numbers were converted and a visible reformation was produced upon the soldiers of the garrison who had been notorious for turbulence and licentiousness. But his procedure in regard to the Lord's Supper was even more remarkable for its independence, than {36} the tenour of his discourses was for its adherence to the Pauline theology. In the Book of Common Prayer issued by the joint authorization of Convocation and Parliament in 1549, the rubric for the Lord's Supper provided that bread "unleavened and round as it was afore" should be used. But in regard to that Knox took the bold course of ignoring the authoritative rubrics. He substituted common bread for the wafer, and he administered the "elements" to the people while they sat, according to the form still followed in the nonconforming churches of England, and the Presbyterian churches in all parts of the world. It may seem to some that this was a defiance of the law; and perhaps in strictest construction so it was; but it is to be remembered that, as yet, the law had not become operative in the district to which Berwick belonged, and that therefore it was open meanwhile for Knox to take the course which he believed to be best. Thus he writes:[5] "Kneeling at the Lord's Supper I have proved by doctrine (teaching) to be no convenient gesture for a table; (a gesture) which hath been given in that action to such a presence of Christ, as no place of God's Scripture doth teach unto us. And therefore, _kneeling in that action_, appearing to be joined with certain dangers, no less in maintaining superstition than in using Christ's holy institution with other gestures than either He used or commanded to be used, _I thought good amongst you to avoid and to {37} use sitting at the Lord's Table_; which ye did not refuse, but