(1) The godly women of the metropolis made much of him; once
he writes to Mrs. Bowes that her last letter had found him

closeted with three, and he and the three women were all in
tears. (2) Out of all, however, he had chosen two. "GOD," he

writes to them, "BROUGHT US IN SUCH FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCE,
THAT YOUR HEARTS WERE INCENSED AND KINDLED WITH A SPECIAL

CARE OVER ME, AS A MOTHER USETH TO BE OVER HER NATURAL CHILD;
and my heart was opened and compelled in your presence to be

more plain than ever I was to any." (3) And out of the two
even he had chosen one, Mrs. Anne Locke, wife to Mr. Harry

Locke, merchant, nigh to Bow Kirk, Cheapside, in London, as
the address runs. If one may venture to judge upon such

imperfect evidence, this was the woman he loved best. I have
a difficulty in quite forming to myself an idea of her

character. She may have been one of the three tearful
visitors before alluded to; she may even have been that one

of them who was so profoundly" target="_blank" title="ad.深深地">profoundly moved by some passages of Mrs.
Bowes's letter, which the Reformer opened, and read aloud to

them before they went. "O would to God," cried this
impressionable matron, "would to God that I might speak with

that person, for I perceive there are more tempted than I."
(4) This may have been Mrs. Locke, as I say; but even if it

were, we must not conclude from this one fact that she was
such another as Mrs. Bowes. All the evidence tends the other

way. She was a woman of understanding, plainly, who followed
political events with interest, and to whom Knox thought it

worth while to write, in detail, the history of his trials
and successes. She was religious, but without that morbid

perversity of spirit that made religion so heavy a burden for
the poor-hearted Mrs. Bowes. More of her I do not find, save

testimony to the profoundaffection that united her to the
Reformer. So we find him writing to her from Geneva, in such

terms as these:- "You write that your desire is earnest to
see me. DEAR SISTER, IF I SHOULD EXPRESS THE THIRST AND

LANGUOR WHICH I HAVE HAD FOR YOUR PRESENCE, I SHOULD APPEAR
TO PASS MEASURE. . . YEA, I WEEP AND REJOICE IN REMEMBRANCE

OF YOU; but that would evanish by the comfort of your
presence, which I assure you is so dear to me, that if the

charge of this little flock here, gathered together in
Christ's name, did not impede me, my coming should prevent my

letter." (5) I say that this was written from Geneva; and
yet you will observe that it is no consideration for his wife

or mother-in-law, only the charge of his little flock, that
keeps him from setting out forthwith for London, to comfort

himself with the dear presence of Mrs. Locke. Remember that
was a certain plausible enough pretext for Mrs. Locke to come

to Geneva - "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was
on earth since the days of the Apostles" - for we are now

under the reign of that "horrible monster Jezebel of
England," when a lady of good orthodox sentiments was better

out of London. It was doubtful, however, whether this was to
be. She was detained in England, partly by circumstances

unknown, "partly by empire of her head," Mr. Harry Locke, the
Cheapside merchant. It is somewhat humorous to see Knox

struggling for resignation, now that he has to do with a
faithful husband (for Mr. Harry Locke was faithful). Had it

been otherwise, "in my heart," he says, "I could have wished
- yea," here he breaks out, "yea, and cannot cease to wish -

that God would guide you to this place." (6) And after all,
he had not long to wait, for, whether Mr. Harry Locke died in

the interval, or was wearied, he too, into giving permission,
five months after the date of the letter last quoted, "Mrs.

Anne Locke, Harry her son, and Anne her daughter, and
Katherine her maid," arrived in that perfect school of

Christ, the Presbyterian paradise, Geneva. So now, and for
the next two years, the cup of Knox's happiness was surely

full. Of an afternoon, when the bells rang out for the
sermon, the shops closed, and the good folk gathered to the

churches, psalm-book in hand, we can imagine him drawing near
to the English chapel in quite patriarchal fashion, with Mrs.

Knox and Mrs. Bowes and Mrs. Locke, James his servant,
Patrick his pupil, and a due following of children and maids.

He might be alone at work all morning in his study, for he
wrote much during these two years; but at night, you may be

sure there was a circle of admiring women, eager to hear the
new paragraph, and not sparing of applause. And what work,

among others, was he elaborating at this time, but the
notorious "First Blast"? So that he may have rolled out in

his big pulpit voice, how women were weak, frail, impatient,
feeble, foolish, inconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the

spirit of counsel, and how men were above them, even as God
is above the angels, in the ears of his own wife, and the two

dearest friends he had on earth. But he had lost the sense
of incongruity, and continued to despise in theory the sex he

honoured so much in practice, of whom he chose his most
intimate associates, and whose courage he was compelled to

wonder at, when his own heart was faint.
(1) Works, iv. 220.

(2) IB. iii. 380.
(3) IB. iv. 220.

(4) Works, iii. 380.
(5) Works, iv. 238.

(6) Works, iv. 240.
We may say that such a man was not worthy of his fortune; and

so, as he would not learn, he was taken away from that
agreeable school, and his fellowship of women was broken up,

not to be reunited. Called into Scotland to take at last
that strange position in history which is his best claim to

commemoration, he was followed thither by his wife and his
mother-in-law. The wife soon died. The death of her

daughter did not altogether separate Mrs. Bowes from Knox,
but she seems to have come and gone between his house and

England. In 1562, however, we find him characterised as "a
sole man by reason of the absence of his mother-in-law, Mrs.

Bowes," and a passport is got for her, her man, a maid, and
"three horses, whereof two shall return," as well as liberty

to take all her own money with her into Scotland. This looks
like a definitearrangement; but whether she died at

Edinburgh, or went back to England yet again, I cannot find.
With that great family of hers, unless in leaving her husband

she had quarrelled with them all, there must have been
frequent occasion for her presence, one would think. Knox at

least survived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long
intimacy, given to the world by him in an appendix to his

latest publication. I have said in a former paper that Knox
was not shy of personal revelations in his published works.

And the trick seems to have grown on him. To this last
tract, a controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he

prefixed a prayer, not very pertinent to the matter in hand,
and containing references to his family which were the

occasion of some wit in his adversary's answer; and appended
what seems equally irrelevant, one of his devout letters to

Mrs. Bowes, with an explanatory preface. To say truth, I
believe he had always felt uneasily that the circumstances of

this intimacy were very capable of misconstruction; and now,
when he was an old man, taking "his good night of all the

faithful in both realms," and only desirous "that without any
notable sclander to the evangel of Jesus Christ, he might end

his battle; for as the world was weary of him, so was he of
it;" - in such a spirit it was not, perhaps, unnatural that

he should return to this old story, and seek to put it right
in the eyes of all men, ere he died. "Because that God," he

says, "because that God now in His mercy hath put an end to