{120} Having ascertained that his friends were not mistaken in the apprehensions which they felt for his safety, and that he could not hope to elude the pursuit of his enemies, if he remained in England, he procured a vessel, which landed him safely at Dieppe, a port of Normandy in France, on the 20th of January, 1554.[179] {121} PERIOD IV. FROM THE YEAR 1554, WHEN HE LEFT ENGLAND, TO THE YEAR 1556, WHEN HE RETURNED TO GENEVA, AFTER VISITING SCOTLAND. PROVIDENCE, having more important services in reserve for Knox, made use of the urgent importunities of his friends to hurry him away from those dangers, to which, had he been left to the determination of his own mind, his zeal and fearlessness would have prompted him to expose himself. No sooner did he reach a foreign shore, than he began to regret the course which he had been induced to take. When he thought upon his fellow‑preachers, whom he had left behind him immured in dungeons, and the people lately under his charge, now scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd, he felt an indescribable pang, and an almost irresistible desire to return and share in the hazardous but honourable conflict. Although he had only complied with the divine direction, “when they persecute you in one city, flee ye unto another,” and although in his own breast he stood acquitted of cowardice, yet he found it difficult to divest his conduct of the appearance of that weakness, and was afraid that it might operate as a discouragement to his brethren in England, and induce {122} them to make sinful compliances with a view of saving their lives.