Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-10-01
Mutes ou fureign gands.
SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND.
Written for the Yorkville Enquirer.]
BY REV. r. LATHAM.

BY REV. r. LATHAM.
Written for the Yorkville Enquirer.l
In the history of Professionalism in Scot
land, the name St. Giles Cathedral is inter-
woven with that of John Knox. By the
the one suggests the other. John Knox was
born either in Haddington or Clifford. Both
these towns claim to be his native place, but
DR.. M'Crie, who is authority in everything
pertaining to the history of Knox, thinks
he was born in Clifford. Haddington is east
of Edinburgh about twenty-five miles, and
Clifford is south of Haddington about five
miles. After sore fight Knox died on the
years old. Such being the case he was born
some time during the year 1906, but in what
month, or what day of the month, is, be-
lieve, not known.
Very little is certainly known concerning
the parentage of John Knox. His enemies
claim that he sprung oflow and obscure par
ents, while his friends assert that he was
closely allied to nobility. The strong prob
ability, amounting to a moral certainty, is
that John Knox sprung from the middle class
of society. 1t is evident that his parents
were not squalidly poor, because they sent
their son to college, first, about 1920, to Glas-
Cow, and about 1924, to st. Andrews, the
most celebrated institution Of learning, at
that time, in the kingdom. tits barely pos
sible, scarcely probable, that John Knox
was sprung of mobiles, in the usual accepta-
ton of that word. God very seldom, if
ever, selects reformers out of the ranks of
the nobility. We have better authority on
this point than we have as to where John
Knox was born. "Not many wise men
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble are called" to do what John Wickliffe,
John Huss, John Calvin, John Knox and
John Wesley did.
"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as breath has made"
but those men who turn the world upside
down are called of God, generally, from the
middle class in society. In 1868 Knox was
married to Marjory Bowes, an English lady.
She died in 1860, leaving two sons, Nathan
iel and Eleazar. He afterwards was mar
ried to Margaret Stewart, by whom he had
three daughters. One of these daughters
was married to Rev. Robert Pont, another
to Rev. James Flemming, and the third to
John Welch. The sons both died soon after
completing their collegiate course, Nathan
iel in 1880, and Eleazar in 1891.
In 1860, John Knox became pastor of St.
Giles Cathedral Church. This Office he con-
tinued to hold until the time of his DEATH
At that time there was no other church in
Edinburgh, but we are told that Knox often
preached to three thousand hearers. St.
Giles has undergone so many, and so great
changes, that the present edifce has not
single resemblance of that in which Knox
preached. When Knox became pastor eve
ry vestige of Popery was taken out and de-
stroyed nothing was left but the old pulpit,
and that is now in the Museum of Antiqui-
ties. Partition walls were torn down and
room was made for the Worshipers, who
either stood or sat on stools of their own
providing. This seems to have continued
to be the state of things for more than half a
century. The stool which Jenny Geddes
hurled, in 1887 at the head of James Han
ma, Dean of Edinburgh, was her own pri-
vate property.
John Knox died at eleven o'clock on Mon
day, the oath of November, 1872. On the
Goth his body was inferred in St. Giles
Church yard, but the exact spot is not GER
tainly known. What was once the burial
ground in connection with st. Giles Church,
is now Parliamentary square. The grave
stones were all removed and the dust of the
recently dead taken up and buried else
where. The spot where John Knox is sup
posed to have been Inferred is marked only
by aninsignifcant stone, which cost nothing
except to engrave on it's narrow face the let
ters I. K. The house in which Knox lived
while pastor of st. Giles and in which he
died. is still standing, as it was at that time.
It is on the north side of High street, about
midway between the Castle and HolyrOod
Palace, and about aquarter of mile farther
from the Castle than St. Giles Church.
About this house in which Knox lived and
died there is nothing very remarkable. 1t
is old and the style is antiquated, but there
are several such in the same neighborhood.
On his study table is his Bible and an old
commentary. l neglected to examine the
Bible, and cannot say by whom the transla-
tion was made. ISuppOse it is what is called
Geneva Bible. This is only supposition.
1 am sorry did not examine it more care
fully. The houseis low, yet is threestory
building. One is a cellar, and one is a gar
ret, and the middle story is very low. In
net the servants slept, and in the rooms in
the middle story the family lived.
1t is not my purpose to write biograph-
ical sketch of John Knox. An admirable
life of him has been written by his country
man, Rev. Thomas McCrie. All propose
to undertake to do is to show that John
Knox began, in certain sense, q refOrma-
ton which, in about two hundred years,
resulted in the American constitution.
John Knox was born of Catholic parents
and received Catholic education. His ed
ucation, however, was, in the providence of
God, so directed that he, as was the case of
many others, began toquestion many things
which, for centuries, had been taken for
granted At the time of Knox, Scotland, as
we'll as the whole world, was under the heel
of the Pope of Rome. In Scotland, the
masses were degradedly ignorant and amaz-
ingly superstitious. The clergy, by avarice
and religious fraud had grown rich, while
the people were reduced to the merest me-
malls. One half of the wealth of the nation
was in the hands of the church and the gov
ernment of the kingdom wholly in the
hands of the minons of the Pope. Igno-
rance and superstition hung like black
cloud over the world. In the schools and
university nothing was studied which was
calculated to develop the intellect, refine the
In the providence of God, an intimacy
sprang up between Knox and George Wish
art, who suffered martyrdom on the 1st of
March, 1916. Less than three months after
the murder of Wishart-for such it really
was-Cardinal Beatour was, by the reforma-
tion party and friends of Wishart, surprised
and put to death in the Castle of st. Andrews.
This aroused the Popish party and it became
clamorous for blood. The Reformation par
ty, or the leaders Of it, were forced to shut
themselves up in the Castle of st. Andrews.
Since Knox had joined the RefOrmerS, he
likewise, took refuge in the Castle. While
resisting the siege by the Earl of Arran, at
that time Regent of Scotland, Knox was So
licited to become the preacher to the besieg
ed. This office he accepted with some de-
gree of reluctance. Not because of any
doubts about the principles of the Reforma-
ton, but, in his own language, "lest that he
would run where God had not called him."
This took place in 1917 and may be regarded
as the first public act of John Knox on the