rupture took place, Archie determined to leave his uncle, and had been in Edinburgh making arrangements for going to a situation in New Zealand, when his visit to the Exhibition of Paintings had produced a revolution in his ideas.

"And now, Miss Home," he exclaimed, as he concluded his story, 66 you are not to stir from this till I return with my uncle, to convince him of what I know he longs to believe;" and, as he spoke, my mercurial visitor rose and darted from the house, leaving all doors open behind him.

I confess I was a little disappointed at the prosaic nature of the alibi I was called upon to prove. I had expected a murder or forgery, at least, but merely a family dispute! Well, I had no time for discontent. Judging from the rapidity of his movements, my visitor would soon be back, and my room was in a sad state of confusion. I had scarcely completed a hurried tidy-up, and removed my hat and smoothed my hair, before I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Archie Dunbar re-entered with his uncle, a finelooking, elderly gentleman, and, as his nephew prophesied, only too well pleased to be convinced that he had been in the wrong. He examined my sketch, questioned me closely, took down the address of my friends in Fife (who had taken a great interest in my picture), and was engaged in expressing his gratitude to me when Archie broke in

"Do make haste, uncle; come and see the real picture before it grows too dark, and buy it before somebody else snaps it up-come!"

So Mr. Dunbar hastened away, saying his daughter would call on me to-morrow, and, if convenient for me, bring me to his house to spend the day.

NEXT day came frosty and fine. It was Saturday, so I was at liberty to go with Miss Dunbar when she should appear. Never had I regretted my want of personal beauty so much as I did this morning, as I stood before the small unflattering looking-glass, trying to make the best of myself and my shabby black silk. It was the time when pockets here, there, and everywhere were the fashion, and several worn places I had skilfully covered with an ornamental pocket, but there are limits to everything, even fashion freaks, and I could not see my way to placing a pocket under my arm. However, after it had been well brushed and trimmed up with crimped muslin, the old silk looked, in spite of several undeniable darns, much better than I had expected; and I pronounced the same criticism on the owner thereof when duly attired. But my self-satisfaction was short-lived, for soon Miss Dunbar drove to the door in a pony carriage, and made her appearance, so fashionable and so handsome, that I quite shrank from putting myself in comparison with her. However, I was soon seated by her side, rapidly driving toward the

fashionable suburb where her father had his residence.

Miss Dunbar was very like her cousin in features, and also resembled him in her frank, confiding manners; somehow I felt happier after she had told me that "Father and Archie clearing up this misunderstanding was such a relief to her, as she was going to be married, and it had been such a distress to think that Archie would be leaving her father also; however, now he would stay on, and father would not be so lonely when she was gone."

Miss Dunbar then passed on to my affairs questioning me about my paintings, my pupils, and particularly about my last painting, which, she said, she had gone to see that morning.

"You should turn portrait-painter, Miss Home," she said, "the likeness of Archie is really excellent. But here we are at home-let

me help you out-this way. Will you take off your bonnet and cloak? Now, come downstairs; see, those are some of the pictures father thinks so much of; I am no great judge of these things. I like flowers and bric-a-brac better. Ah! there is the bell for afternoon tea; this way, please."

Talking without stopping, Miss Dunbar performed the duties of hostess kindly and gracefully, and she now conducted me into a drawing-room with one or two fine paintings on the walls, and a great deal of her favourite bric-a-brac lying about. Here we were soon joined by the two gentlemen. The elder Mr. Dunbar was a silent man, but the tongues of his daughter and nephew ran a lively race during tea, and returned to the charge with unflagging velocity during dinner. To one condemned continually to her own society, there was an unspeakable charm in their untiring vivacity, and when the evening came to an end, I returned to my lonely lodgings happier than I had been for years.

From the Magdalene Chapel, when he had recovered the mastery of his mother tongue, Craig was transferred to the Abbey Church of Holyrood, which served both as the parish church of the Canongate, and the place of worship for the Palace.

The arrival of Mary at Holyrood, on 19th August, 1561, stopped his officiating there, as she insisted on introducing the Catholic ritual, to the horror of Knox and his friends, who beheld the very source and fountain of authority thus defying the law which banned the mass. The Queen, for the time, had her own way; and one good result of it was that Craig, in consequence, became Knox's colleague in St. Giles', who though preaching thrice during the week, and twice on the Sunday-had never had any assistance except such as he got from his reader, John Cairns. The General Assembly, of which Craig was for the first time a member in June, 1562, confirmed his appointment, but delay arose from the want of a stipend for him. A year later, the "trades" of the city offer to pay a fifth of such amount as the Town Council might agree to give for the support of Knox, Craig, and the reader; but subsequent "collections among "the faithful” for “John Craig and John Cairns, who had received nothing for a long time," suggest that the Council's provision was inadequate.

The difficulty of rescuing from the robbers of churches, who were enriching themselves with the spoils of the Reformation, even the paltriest pittance for the Reformed clergy, was one of the sorest burdens of Knox's patriotic spirit. He had not waged his warfare against principalities and powers, in order to aggrandise the royal bastards, and fill the purses of the beggarly barons, who had laid their grip on the patrimony of the Kirk. Their coarse indifference to any of those large interests, ecclesiastical, educational, and national, which engrossed his mind, grieved him to the heart. He found, however, help and hearty co-operation in his colleague-whose frankness in denouncing the rapacity of the nobles, and the follies and misdeeds of Mary and her Court, seems to have nearly equalled his own. One of these candid deliverances of Craig, Knox tells us, did so provoke the choler of Mr. Secretary Maitland of Lethington, that in open audience he gave himself to the devil, if after that day he cared what became of the ministers and their stipends, "Let them bark and blow as loud as they list."

The first time Craig is mentioned, as taking a prominent part in the public affairs of Church and State, is in the summer of 1564. The occasion was a conference between certain deputies of the General Assembly and the lords of the Privy Council, who had proposed the meeting, with the object of discussing some matters relating to the Queen, and the Church's conduct thereanent. The chief question was the right of the Queen to have the mass celebrated at Holyrood, and the duty of her subjects to defer to her wish in regard to what

they called "idolatry." The principal speakers were Knox on the one side, and Maitland on the other; not an ill-matched couple, as far as force and skill in tongue fence went. "A man," says Carlyle, "sent to row in French galleys, for teaching the truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humour;" and complaisance to the Queen of Scotland would have been treachery to the nation and cause of Scotland, so we should not blame, too rigidly, the vehemence which made Knox argue that, as the mass was idolatry, the idolater, by the law, should die. But such vehemence and intolerance did not really serve the cause of righteousness and truth, and Craig's more moderate contribution to the debate is more valuable, because more reasonable, than Knox's.

He said nothing, either in defence or repudiation of his colleague's denunciation of Her Majesty's mass; but, on the general question of the submission of the subject to the sovereign, he made a statement so interesting that both Knox and Calderwood have reported it in full. "I was," he said, "in the University of Bononia, in the year of our Lord 1553, where, in the place of the Black Friars of the same town, I saw this conclusion following set forth in their General Assembly reasoned and determined: All rulers, be they supreme or be they inferior, may and ought to be reformed and deposed by those by whom they are chosen, confirmed, or admitted to their office, as oft as they break their promise made by oath to their subjects, because the prince is no less bound to subjects than subjects are to princes. And, therefore, ought it to be keeped and reformed equally according to the law and condition of the oath, which is made of either party.' This proposition, my lords, I heard sustained and concluded, as I have said, in a most notable auditory. The sustainer was a learned man, Thomas de Finola, Rector of the University, a famous man in that country. Magister Vincentius de Vincentius de Placentia affirmed the assertion to be most true and certain, agreeable both with the law of God and man. The occasion of the disputation was a certain disorder and tyranny attempted by the Pope's governors, who began to make innovations in the country against the laws formerly established, alleging themselves not to be subject to such laws, by reason that they were not constituted of the people but by the Pope, who was king of that country; and, therefore, that having full commission and authority from the Pope, they might alter statutes and ordinances of the people without consent of the people. Against this, their usurped tyranny, the learned and the people opposed themselves openly. When all the reasons which the Pope's governors did allege were heard and confuted, the Pope himself was fain to take up the controversy, and to promise that he not only should keep the liberty of the people, but also that he should neither abrogate any law or statute, nor make any new law without their own consent. Therefore, my vote and conscience is that princes

are not only bound to keep laws and promises to their subjects; but also that, if they fail, they may be justly deposed, for the band betwixt the prince and the people is reciprocal."

Here, writes Knox, "a clawback of the corrupt court" interposed: "Ye tell us what was done in Bononia. We are in a kingdom; they are in a commonwealth." To which Craig replied, "That in a kingdom no less care should be taken to prevent the violation of the law than in a commonwealth, and the more so, for the tyranny of the monarchs is often more hurtful to the subjects than the misgovernment of magistrates, who are changed from year to year."

The men who could uphold these principles, in days so perilous to order and freedom, were not only Reformers of the Kirk-they were the nursing fathers of our civil liberties and assertors of the rights of manhood.

Meantime Craig had been taking part in a quieter, and in some respects not less useful, work than the discussion of the limits of a monarch's religious independence, and a people's deference to the royal will. The leaders of the Reformed Church lost no time, after its establishment in 1560, in making provision for the orderly conduct of its public services. The Assembly of December, 1562, ordained that a "uniform order should be kept in the administration of the sacraments, solemnisation of marriages, and burial of the dead, according to the Book of Geneva." This Book of Geneva was virtually the same as the "Book of Common Order," and included some of the metrical Psalms. Metrical versions of the Psalms had, for some time, been current in Scotland; and the people had been exhorted, in the First Book of Discipline, "to exercise themselves in the Psalms," that they might be able to praise God properly in church. Psalmody, however, had not made much progress, if we may trust Brantome's account of the vocalists who sang psalms under Queen Mary's window, on the night of her arrival at Holyrood. "Nothing could be worse sung and worse accompanied "-says he "Hé, quelle musique!" The Church's desire, however, was that her people should know sacred music, and have a Service Book and a Psalter adapted to their public worship; and such a book received the imprimatur of the Assembly of 1564. The basis of it was the Book of Geneva, somewhat altered, and with the addition of the completed Psalter. Every minister, exhorter, and reader was ordered, by the Assembly of 1564, to procure a copy of it, and use "the order contained therein, in Prayer, Marriage, and the ministration of the Sacraments." This was the Book of Common Order, which continued in use for about ninety years. It was from it the prayers were read, in St. Giles, on the morning of that day which saw Jenny Geddes' stool flying at the head of the official, who dared to substitute the Anglican Liturgy for the accustomed prayers. The book owed its final form to the labours of Knox, Pont,

and Craig. To its Psalter, Pont-who afterwards combined the duties of minister of St. Cuthbert's and Senator of the College of Justice-contributed six, and Craig at least fifteen versions of the Psalms. Of these fifteen the 102nd, 136th, 143rd, and 145th were, with some slight changes, adopted into the version of Rous, which, after the days of the Westminster Assembly, supplanted the National collection. The versions of the 102nd and 145th Psalms, that stand second in our Psalm-books, are virtually Craig's; and their sonorous rhythm does credit to his poetical capacity. We may note, in passing, as of interestthat in those days each Psalm had its proper tune printed along with it, and with the harmonic parts; that the doxology, in corresponding metre, was appended to each; and that larger portions were sung than is now common; the whole of the 103rd, for example, being appointed for singing at the Communion, and the whole of the 51st on a Fast-day.

Craig's ministry in St. Giles, like that of all other ministers of the Reformed Kirk in those disordered' times, was not without its painful and hazardous passages. On two occasions, especially, when Knox happened to be absent from Edinburgh, he had to meet the stress of embarrassing emergencies. The first was after Darnley's arrival, in February, 1565, when the Queen's Court became a scene of unparalleled festivity. Balls, banquets, masquerades succeeded each other in a round of reckless gaiety, until sober people shook their heads over such extravagance and vanity, and said the dissolute days of James IV., "that champion of the dames," were coming back again to corrupt society and discredit the pure evangel. Craig felt bound to lift up his testimony, in the pulpit, against the prevailing license; but only with the result of directing the resentment of the Court against himself. That this involved peril of a very immediate kind may be inferred from the fact that his assassination was attempted by one of the Queen's Guards, within the very walls of St. Giles'-happily without effect. After the wretched Darnley's career was closed, and when Mary had resolved to supply his place with Bothwell, Craig was required to proclaim the banns of the ill-fated couple. As Darnley had been slain no longer ago than the 9th of February, and it was the common report that Mary was acting under Bothwell's compulsion-(Bothwell, be it observed, having been divorced from his wife only on the 7th of May)-Craig refused to proclaim the banns unless he had a warrant in the Queen's own handwriting. Even when this was produced, he still held back. Knox was in England; John Cairns, the reader, who usually made the proclamations, had absolutely declined to officiate; and it was only after painful dubiety and anxious consultation with his session, that Craig gave way, and agreed to make the first proclamation on Friday the 9th of May, that being what was called a "preaching-day." He accom

panied it with the announcement that he had objections to the marriage, which he intended to lay before the Privy Council. To the Council he accordingly repaired after service; where, finding the bridegroom-elect among the other lords, he addressed him at large on the law of adultery, the suspicions of his having used criminal violence to the Queen, the suddenness of his recent divorce, and his implication in the murder of her late husband. Producing no effect on the hardened ruffian, he withdrew, protesting to the Council that he should declare his mind publicly to the Kirk. He fulfilled this threat on Sunday the 11th, when he again read the banns, and followed the proclamation with comments on the character of the projected marriage, so exceedingly plain and faithful, that on the Tuesday after he was summoned to the Privy Council, and charged with having exceeded his commission, in speaking as he had done. The bounds of his commission, he replied, were the Word of God, good laws, and natural reason; but, as he proceeded to emphasise and justify his Sunday's strictures, "my Lord Bothwell," says he, "put me to silence, and sent me away." On Wednesday, 14th May, he proclaimed the couple for the third and last time, and renewed his former protests; but the next day the ill-omened marriage was performed by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who, by professing to turn Protestant, had contrived to retain his title, and some at least of its emoluments. The General Assembly of the same year suspended "this base bishop," as Knox calls him; but, after hearing Craig's defence of his conduct in the matter of the proclamation, which had been sharply impugned, acquitted the minister of blame, and ordered his statement to be inserted in the minutes, " to show all persons hereafter Mr. Craig's good judgment and proceedings in that business." Knox would, no doubt, have defied all attempts to coerce or cajole him into such a compliance as Craig's; and as undoubtedly to no purpose, save exasperation of faction and acceleration of the catastrophes which were the Nemesis of this miserable alliance. But Craig's was a calmer reason and a gentler temper than Knox's; and he had seen some of the good that sheltered itself, here and there, under the Romish system, where Knox had found only evil; and, though he had had his own share of ill-usage from the Inquisition, he had never been a galley slave.

That Craig's conduct did not shake public confidence in him, was proved by his being appointed one of the Assembly's standing committee to confer with the Regent Moray upon the affairs of the Kirk, when the realm had its short-lived respite from turmoil, after Mary's abdication at Lochleven in July, 1567.

That respite did not survive the murder of the "Good Regent," in February, 1570. Civil feud recommenced, and the country was torn between the party of the infant King and the faction that

intrigued and fought for Mary, now exiled in England. Kirkcaldy of Grange, with Maitland of Lethington, held Edinburgh Castle for the Queen, against whom and all her works Knox ceased not to testify, in St. Giles', under the very guns of the fortress. On a Sunday forenoon, after the city had been alarmed and disturbed by a noisy sally from the Castle and attack on the Tolbooth, Knox inveighed roundly against Kirkcaldy. In the afternoon, when Craig had entered the pulpit, a paper was put into his hands. It was in Grange's writing, and bore that John Knox having in his sermon, that day, openly called him "a murderer and throat-cutter," he denied the charge in God's name. "And the same God," said he, "I desire, from my heart, to pour out his vengeance suddenly on him or me, whether of us twa has been most desirous of innocent blood. This I desire, now, in God's name, to declare openly to the people." Craig must have felt in an awkward dilemma, between the guns of the Castle and the wrath of Knox; but he evaded the difficulty by referring the complainant to the judicatories of the Church, which alone could deal with Knox's ministerial conduct; and the quarrel was patched up for the time. But it could not fail to break out afresh, and to deepen into sterner hostility, as long as Knox continued to turn his sermons into tirades against the discrowned Queen, and hurled fierce anathemas at her champions. At last his friends, anxious for his safety, and no doubt anxious also to put a stop to this incessant defiance of the Castle, urged Knox to withdraw from the town, which he agreed to do. Before he went, however, he, along with Craig and Winram, as representatives of the Kirk, were admitted to a conference with Grange and Lethington.

to be

The interview had been arranged through the mediation of Craig, and is interesting as the last trial of strength between Knox and Maitland; but it led to no practical result. The Churchmen were not to be persuaded that the King's title was invalid; nor were the "Castilians urged into renouncing the Queen, although Knox and Craig argued with force and skill. Soon after this meeting Knox crossed over to St. Andrews, where James Melville, as we know, saw him going about with his fur tippet, and staff in his hand, and "good godly Richard Bannatyne holding up the other oxter," frail in body, but still martial and vigorous in mind. Craig remained at his post, which it was safer and easier for him to hold, inasmuch as his tongue was not so lacerating a scourge to his opponents as Knox's. A few days after his colleague's departure he preached a sermon, in which he tried to set the cause of peace and the concerns of the Church and country before both parties with an impartial appeal to the consciences of each. As is often the case with those who look beyond the interests of jealous factions, and walk by a higher rule than that of worldly policy or sectarian selfassertion, he failed to influence or satisfy either