opposition, from which a person of a more gentle spirit would have been apt to shrink back.”[320] Viewing his character in this light, those who cannot regard him as an amiable man, may, without hesitation, pronounce him a Great Reformer. The most disinterested of the nobility, who were embarked with him in the same cause, sacrificed on some occasions the public good to their private interests, {259} and disappointed the hopes which he had formed of them. The most upright of his associates in the ministry relaxed their exertions, or suffered themselves at times to be drawn into measures that were unsuitable to their station, and hurtful to the reformed religion. Goodman, after being adopted by the church of Scotland, and ranked among her reformers, yielded so far to the love of country as to desert a people who were warmly attached to him, and return to the bosom of a less pure church, which received him with coldness and distrust. Willock, after acquitting himself honourably from the commencement of the interesting conflict, withdrew before the victory was completely secured, and, wearied out with the successive troubles in which his native country was involved, sought a retreat for himself in England. Craig, being left without the assistance of his colleague, and placed between two conflicting parties, betrayed his fears by having recourse to temporizing measures. Douglas, in his old age, became the dupe of persons whose rapacity impoverished the protestant church. And each of the superintendents was, at one time or another, complained of for neglect or for partiality, in the discharge of his functions. But from the time that the standard of truth was first raised by him in his native country, till it dropped from his hands at death, Knox never shrunk from danger――never consulted his own ease or advantage――never entered into any compromise with the enemy――never was bribed or frightened into cowardly silence; but keeping {260} his eye singly and steadily fixed on the advancement of religion and of liberty, supported throughout the character of the Reformer of Scotland.