indignation. This provoked the priest to strike him "a great blow," and he retaliated "in anger" by throwing a stone at the priest, which hit the altar and broke one of the images. This was the spark to which the people were {121} as tow, and in the course of a few minutes everything in the church that savoured of idolatry--altar, images, ornaments and the like--was thrown down and demolished. The report of this outbreak soon gathered a mob described by Knox as "not of the gentlemen, neither of them that were earnest professors, but of the rascal multitude," who finding nothing more to be done in the church rushed to the monasteries of the Black and Grey Friars and to the Charterhouse and laid them all in ruins. This was the beginning of that demolition of Roman Catholic edifices for which Knox has been so grievously assailed. But, without entering minutely into the merits of the question, and cheerfully admitting that--owing to human imperfection--a work like that in which our Reformer was engaged could not be carried through without the doing of some things of which men in less troublous times must disapprove, we must be permitted to advance the following considerations. First, the outbreak at Perth was in a manner accidental, and was not either premeditated or instigated by Knox. Second, when the work of purifying the churches was systematically entered upon, special instructions were given to those entrusted with it to guard against any injury to the fabrics themselves; for in a document enjoining the purgation of the Cathedral of Dunkeld and subscribed by Argyle and Ruthven on the 12th August, 1560, the parties commissioned are thus addressed: "Fail not ye, but that ye take good heed that neither the desks, {122} windows, nor doors be anywise burnt or broken, either glass-work or iron-work." Third, the work of absolute destruction was reserved for the monasteries. Now we can clearly see the reason for such a distinction. The churches were the property of the people, and after being cleansed were preserved for the people's use; but the monasteries, as Burton candidly admits, were in a manner "fortresses of the enemy," and as such were demolished. Yet even for the destruction of them Knox and his brethren are not solely to be blamed; for as the historian just named has said[1]: "In the history of the invasions directed by King Henry and Somerset we have seen enough to account for large items in the ruin that overcame ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland. For Melrose, Kelso, Jedburgh, and the many other buildings torn down in these inroads, the Scots Reformers have no censure beyond that of neutrality or passiveness. The ruined edifices were not restored as they naturally would have been had the old Church remained predominant." When all these things are taken into account, it will be seen that there is very little foundation for the common outcry against Knox in this matter.