Calvin was not a lover by nature, and explained to the world that his marriage was simply a harmless necessary _defi_ to Rome. Happily the venture proved a better scheme than he wist, and after some years, he wrote, "I would have died without the helpmeet God sent me--my wife, who never opposed me in anything." John Knox was married when thirty- eight to the winsome Marjorie Bowes, aged seventeen, the fifth child of Mary Bowes, whom he had ardently wooed in his youth. His boast to the mother that "Providence planned that you should reject me in order that I might do better," was an indelicate slant by the right oblique. Marjorie withered in the cold, keen atmosphere of theological definition, and died in a few years. And then Fate sent a close call for the Reformer in the daring, dashing person of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary's mother was Mary of Guise, a French woman discreetly married to King James of Scotland. Knox always bore a terrible hatred toward Mary of Guise, and all French people for that matter, for his little term in the galleys. Hisbook, "The Monstrous Regiment of Women," had Mary Tudor, Mary of Guise, and Mary, Queen of Scots, in mind. Queen Elizabeth paid a compliment to the worth of the author by outlawing him for "his insult to virtuous womanhood." Men who hate women are simply suffering from an overdose. Knox was a woman-hater who always had one especially attractive woman upon his list, with intent to make of her a Presbyterian. In this he was as steadfast as the leader of a colored camp-meeting. Mary, Queen of Scots, had no more landed on Scottish soil from Catholic France than Knox fled, fearing for his head. Ere long he came back and sought a personal interview with the young queen, just turned twenty, "with intent to bring her heart to Jesus." They seemed to have talked of other themes, for "she was exceeding French and frivolous and stroked my beard when I sought to explain to her the wickedness of profane dancing." Then Mary tried her hand at converting Knox to the "Mother Church." And as a last inducement legend has it that she offered to marry him if he would become a Catholic. Here John Knox coughed and hesitated-- she was getting near his price. He was he saw the devil's tail behind her chair. He rushed from her presence, quaking with fear. Stormy interviews followed, back up by handy epithets in which they both proved expert. It was a pivotal point. Had John Knox married Mary, Queen of Scots, there would have been no Presbyterian Church, no Princeton, no Doctor McCosh, no Grover Cleveland. On March Twentieth, Fifteen Hundred Sixty-three, the banns were read between John Knox and Margaret "Stewart," or Stuart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, and a forebear of our own Tom Ochiltree. The young lady was two months past sixteen years old. The Queen was furious, for the girl, being of Royal blood, "should really have consulted me before renouncing her religion for this praying and braying man with long whiskers."