“You interpret the scriptures in one way,” said the queen evasively, “and they in another; whom shall I believe, and who shall be judge?”――“You shall believe God, who plainly speaketh in his word,” replied the Reformer; “and farther than the word teacheth you, you shall believe neither the one nor the other. The word of God is plain in itself; and {38} if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, who is never contrary to himself, explains the same more clearly in other places, so that there can remain no doubt, but unto such as are obstinately ignorant.” As an example, he selected one of the articles in controversy between the church of Rome and the protestants, and was proceeding to show, that the popish doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass was destitute of all foundation in scripture; but the queen, who was determined to avoid all discussion of the articles of her creed, interrupted him, by saying, that she was unable to contend with him in argument, but if she had those present whom she had heard, they would answer him. “Madam,” replied the Reformer, fervently, “would to God that the learnedest papist in Europe, and he whom you would best believe, were present with your grace to sustain the argument, and that you would wait patiently to hear the matter reasoned to the end! For then, I doubt not, madam, but you would hear the vanity of the papistical religion, and how little ground it hath in the word of God.”――“Well,” said she, “you may perchance get that sooner than you believe.”――“Assuredly, if ever I get that in my life, I get it sooner than I believe; for the ignorant papist cannot patiently reason, and the learned and crafty papist will never come, in your audience, madam, to have the ground of their religion searched out. When you shall let me see the contrary, I shall grant myself to have been deceived in that point.” The hour of dinner afforded an occasion for breaking {39} off this singular conversation. At taking leave of her majesty, the Reformer said, “I pray God, madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland, as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”[48] I have been the more minute in the narrative of this curious conference, because it affords the most satisfactory refutation of the charge, that Knox treated Mary with rudeness and disrespect. For the same reason I shall lay before the reader a circumstantial account of the subsequent interviews between them, from which we shall perceive that, though the Reformer addressed her with a plainness to which crowned heads are seldom accustomed, he never lost sight of that respect which was due to the person of his sovereign, nor of that decorum which became his own character.