is to be put away from us, as we recall the fashion of these old intimacies; so that we may only remember Knox as one who was very long-suffering with women, kind to them in his own way, loving them in his own way--and that not the worst way, if it was not the best--and once at least, if not twice, moved to his heart of hearts by a woman, and giving expression to the yearning he had for her society in words that none of us need be ashamed to borrow. And let us bear in mind always that the period I have gone over in this essay begins when the Reformer was already beyond the middle age, and already broken in bodily health: it has been the story of an old man's friendships. This it is that makes Knox enviable. Unknown until past forty, he had then before him five-and-twenty years of splendid and influential life, passed through uncommon hardships to an uncommon degree of power, lived in his own country as a sort of king, and did what he would with the sound of his voice out of the pulpit. And besides all this, such a following of faithful women! One would take the first forty-two years gladly, if one could be sure of the last twenty-five. Most of us, even if, by reason of great strength and the dignity of grey hairs, we retain some degree of public respect in the latter days of our existence, will find a falling away of friends, and a solitude making itself round about us day by day, until we are left alone with the hired sick-nurse. For the attraction of a man's character is apt to be outlived, like the attraction of his body; and the power to love grows feeble in its turn, as well as the power to inspire love in others. It is only with a few rare natures that friendship is added to friendship, love to love, and the man keeps growing richer in affection--richer, I mean, as a bank maybe said to grow richer, both giving and receiving more--after his head is white and his back weary, and he prepares to go down into the dust of death. FOOTNOTES: [60] Gaberel's "Eglise de Geneve," i. 88. [61] "La Democratie chez les Predicateurs de la Ligue." [62] "Historia affectuum se immiscentium controversiae de gynaecocratia." It is in his collected prefaces; Leipsic, 1683. [63] "OEuvres de d'Aubigne," i. 449. [64] "Dames Illustres," pp. 358-360. [65] Works of John Knox, iv. 349. [66] M'Crie's "Life of Knox," ii. 41. [67] Described by Calvin in a letter to Cecil, Knox's Works, vol. iv. [68] It was anonymously published, but no one seems to have been in doubt about its authorship; he might as well have set his name to it, for all the good he got by holding it back. [69] Knox's Works, iv. 358. [70] Strype's "Aylmer," p. 16. [71] It may interest the reader to know that these (so says Thomasius) are the "ipsissima verba Schlusselburgii." [72] I am indebted for a sight of this book to the kindness of Mr. David Laing, the editor of Knox's Works. [73] "Social Statics," p. 64, etc.