Of such scraps and fragments of evidence as to his private
life and more intimate thoughts as have survived to us from
all the perils that environ written paper, an astonishingly
large proportion is in the shape of letters to women of his
familiarity. He was twice married, but that is not greatly
to the purpose; for the Turk, who thinks even more meanly of
women than John Knox, is none the less given to marrying.
What is really significant is quite apart from marriage. For
the man Knox was a true man, and woman, the EWIG-WEIBLICHE,
was as necessary to him, in spite of all low theories, as
ever she was to Goethe. He came to her in a certain halo of
his own, as the minister of truth, just as Goethe came to her
in a glory of art; he made himself necessary to troubled
hearts and minds exercised in the painful complications that
naturally result from all changes in the world's way of
thinking; and those whom he had thus helped became dear to
him, and were made the chosen companions of his leisure if
they were at hand, or encouraged and comforted by letter if
they were afar.
It must not be forgotten that Knox had been a presbyter of
the old Church, and that the many women whom we shall see
gathering around him, as he goes through life, had probably
been accustomed, while still in the communion of Rome, to
rely much upon some chosen spiritual director, so that the
intimacies of which I propose to offer some account, while
testifying to a good heart in the Reformer, testify also to a
certain survival of the spirit of the confessional in the
Reformed Church, and are not properly to be judged without
this idea.
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