That this was in no way the doing of Knox and his colleagues is evident; but it is equally evident that they treated it as a mere accident and outrage of the mob, without consequence so far as the greater question was concerned. When the Queen, exasperated, threatened in her anger on the receipt of the news to destroy St. Johnstone, and began to collect an army to march upon the offenders, the Congregation assembled in Perth professed astonishment and incredulity, treating her threats as the mere utterances of passion, and thinking "such cruelty" impossible. There is not a word in the letters to the Queen's Majestie, to the Nobilitie of Scotland, and the fierce address to the priests in which they afterwards stated their case, of any wrong on their own side or provocation given. The Congregation takes at once the highest tone. They declare that, faithful servants of the realm as they have always been, if this unjust tyranny is carried out they will be constrained to take up the sword of just defence, notifying at the same time their innocence not only to "the King of France, to our Mistress and to her husband, but also to the Princes and Council of everie Christian realm, declaring unto them that this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murther intended against towns and multitudes, was and is the only cause of our revolt from our accustomed obedience." Thus they treat the threatened attack throughout as wholly directed against their religion and religious freedom, without the least reference to the just cause of offence given by riots so alarming and destructive, and by the ruin of a national monument so important as the Charterhouse. All these are as completely ignored as if the population of St. Johnstone had been the most tranquil and law-abiding in the world. And they do this with such evident good faith that it is impossible not to believe that what had happened was to themselves an unimportant incident: though it was something like what the destruction of Westminster Abbey would have been in England. In these respects, however, the state of feeling produced by the Reformation followed no ordinary laws; the fervour of hatred and contempt which the priesthood called forth in Scotland being beyond all example or comparison, except, indeed, in some parts of France, where Farel and his followers had set the example of destruction.