The abbot wrote to Knox, that he was informed he had come to that quarter of the country “to seik disputation,” which he was so far from refusing that he “earnestlie and effectuouslie covated the samin,” and with that view should meet him next Sunday in any house in Maybole that he choosed, provided not more than twenty persons on each side were allowed to be present. The Reformer replied, that he had come to that quarter for the purpose of preaching the gospel, and not of disputing; that he was under a previous engagement to be in Dumfries on the day mentioned by the abbot, but that he would return with all convenient speed, and fix a time for meeting him. To this letter the abbot sent an answer, to which Knox merely returned a verbal message at the {64} time; but when he afterwards published the correspondence, affixed short notes to it by way of reply. The abbot proposed that they should have “familear, formall, and gentill ressoning.”――“With my whole hart I accept the condition,” replies the Reformer; “for assuredlie, my lord, (so I stile you by reason of blood, and not of office,) chiding and brawling I utterlie abhor.” To Knox’s declaration that he had come to “preach Jesus Christ crucified to be the only Saviour of the world,” the abbot answers, “Praise be to God, that was na newings in this countrie, or ye war borne.”――“I greatlie dout,” replies the Reformer, “if ever Christ Jesus wes truelie preached by a papistical prelat or monk.” As an excuse for his not preaching at Kirkoswald on the day he had promised, the abbot says, that Knox had come to the place convoyed by five or six score strangers. “I lay the night before,” says Knox, “in Mayboil, accompanied with fewer than twentie.” The abbot boasted, that Willock, at a former period, and Hay, more lately, had refused to dispute with him, until they consulted the council and their brethren. “Maister George Hay offered unto you disputation, but ye fled the barrass.” Knox wished the dispute to be conducted publicly in St John’s church, Ayr; for, says he, “I wonder with what conscience ye can require privat conference of those artikles that ye have publicklie proponed. Ye have infected the ears of the simple, ye have wounded the hartes of the godlie, and ye have spoken blasphemie in oppen audience. Let your owne conscience now be judge, if we be bound to answer you in the {65} audience of twenty or forty, of whom the one half are alreadie persuaded in the treuth, and the other perchance so addicted to your error, that they will not be content that light be called light, and darknes, darknes.”――“Ye said ane lytill afore,” answers the abbot, “ye did abhor all chiding and railing, bot nature passis nurtor with yow.”――“I will neither interchange nature nor nurtor with yow, for all the proffets of Crosraguell.”――“Gif the victorie consist in clamor or crying out,” says the abbot, objecting to a public meeting, “I wil quite you the