And as the Bible was not
decisive, he thought the subject should be let alone,
because, "by custom and public consent and long practice, it
has been established that realms and principalities may
descend to females by hereditary right, and it would not be
lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by the
peculiar providence of God." I imagine Knox's ears must have
burned during this interview. Think of him listening
dutifully to all this - how it would not do to meddle with
anointed kings - how there was a peculiar providence in these
great affairs; and then think of his own peroration, and the
"noble heart" whom he looks for "to vindicate the liberty of
his country;" or his answer to Queen Mary, when she asked him
who he was, to interfere in the affairs of Scotland:- "Madam,
a subject born within the same!" Indeed, the two doctors who
differed at this private conversation represented, at the
moment, two principles of enormous import in the subsequent
history of Europe. In Calvin we have represented that
passive obedience, that toleration of injustice and
absurdity, that holding back of the hand from political
affairs as from something unclean, which lost France, if we
are to believe M. Michelet, for the Reformation; a spirit
necessarily fatal in the long run to the existence of any
sect that may profess it; a suicidal doctrine that survives
among us to this day in narrow views of personal duty, and
the low political morality of many virtuous men.
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