John Knox : the hero of the Scottish Reformation . to suppressProtestantism. II. Meanwhile, a further development of theconflict took place at Perth. A sermon vehe-ment against idolatry, i. e., against the mass,had been preached by Knox on the nth of Mayin the ancient Church of St. John the Baptist,2immediately after the news of the outlawry hadbeen received. The congregation had not dis-persed when a priest proceeded to celebrate massat the high altar. A youth, who expressed thesentiments of persons older than himself,—Knoxdescribes him as standing among certain godlymen,—exclaimed, This is i
John Knox : the hero of the Scottish Reformation . to suppressProtestantism. II. Meanwhile, a further development of theconflict took place at Perth. A sermon vehe-ment against idolatry, i. e., against the mass,had been preached by Knox on the nth of Mayin the ancient Church of St. John the Baptist,2immediately after the news of the outlawry hadbeen received. The congregation had not dis-persed when a priest proceeded to celebrate massat the high altar. A youth, who expressed thesentiments of persons older than himself,—Knoxdescribes him as standing among certain godlymen,—exclaimed, This is intolerable that, whenGod by His Word has plainly damned idolatry, weshall stand and see it used in despite. The irri-tated priest struck the boy, who retaliated bythrowing a stone. The stone missed the priest,but broke an image. It was as if a lighted match 1 Hume Brown, H. of Sc, ii., 58. 2 The Church was divided into the East and the WestChurch early in the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenthcentury a third or Mid Church was W oa -au > o55 >. d S ?a x d<u a, x o u C/} 1560] Final Return to Scotland 199 had been applied to a heap of combustibles. Thewhole multitude that was about began to caststones, and to destroy with their hands othermonuments of idolatry. The report of thedisorder brought many more on the scene—not gentlemen or earnest professors of Re-formed doctrine, as Knox is careful to record, buta rascal multitude. These undisciplined sup-porters of the cause, finding the work of destruc-tion sufficiently accomplished in the Church ofSt. John, proceeded to deal similarly, and evenmore violently, with the Franciscan, Dominican,and Carthusian monasteries, until only the wallsof the buildings Knox and those associated with him were con-scious that the doings of the rascal multitudewere not creditable, and might alienate influentialsympathy from the Reform cause. He remained,accordingly, in Perth, as he himself naively ex-presses
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