John Knox

John Knox (1505, 1513 or 1514 – 1572) was a Scottish religious reformer who played the lead part in reforming the Church in Scotland in a Presbyterian manner. He died in Edinburgh on November 24, 1572.

Testimonies to his character

John Knox died as he had lived— full of faith, but always ready for conflict. He found a devoted nurse in his young wife; and all the noblest and best men of Scotland hung about his house for tidings of the progress of his malady, in the vain hope of his being longer spared. His servant, Richard Ballantyne, after detailing the incidents of his last hours, says of him:

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:"Of this manner departit this man of God, the lycht of Scotland, the comfort of the Kirke within the same, the mirrour of Godliness, and patrone and exemple to all trew ministeris, in puritie of lyfe, soundness in doctrine, and in bauldness in reproving of wicketness, and one that caired not the favore of men (how great soever they were) to reprove thair abuses and synes . . .

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:"What dexteritie in teiching, bauldness in reproving, and hatred of wickedness was in him, my ignorant dulness is not able to declair."

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A higher testimony to the worth of a man not without faults was pronounced at his grave in the churchyard of St. Giles by the Earl of Mortoun, the regent of Scotland, in the presence of an immense concourse, who had followed the body to its last resting-place:

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:"Here lyeth a man who in his life never feared the face of man, who hath been often threatened with dagge and dagger, but yet hath ended his dayes in peace and honour."

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