less idolatrous than their Popish or Pagan predecessors, they would consign
whole nations to ignorance or perdition." Sentiments thus inspired, and
researches so conducted, were not allowed to lie idle; and accordingly, from
1802 to 1806, he was a contributor to the "Christian Magazine," the pages of
which he enriched with several valuable historical and biographical sketches.
The titles of these sufficiently indicated the nature of his present studies, while
their excellence gave promise of what might yet be accomplished. The chief
of them were an "Account of the concluding part of the Life and the Death of
that illustrious man, John Knox, the most faithful Restorer of the Church of
Scotland," being a translation from the work of Principal Smeton; a "Memoir of Mr. John Murray," minister of Leith and Dunfermline, in the beginning of the 17th century; a "Sketch of the Progress of the Reformation in Spain, with an account of the Spanish Protestant Martyrs;" "The Suppression of the
Reformation in Spain;" the "Life of Dr. Andrew Rivet," the French Protestant minister; the "Life of Patrick Hamilton;" the "Life of Francis Lambert, of Avignon ;" and the "Life of Alexander Henderson." The journal in which they appeared was of but limited circulation, and its literary merits
were little appreciated, so that these admirable articles were scarcely known beyond the small circle of subscribers to the "Christian Magazine," most of
whom were Seceders. But it was better, perhaps, that it should be so. These were only prelusive efforts, and preparations for great achievements, that are
generally best conducted in silence, and which the gaze of the public will only interrupt or impede.
In this way the mind of the author had been imbued with the subject of the Reformation at large; and he had been thus led to study its developments, not only in Scotland, but in Spain, France, and Italy. But in which of these important departments was his first great attempt in historical authorship to be made? Happily, his mind was not out at sea upon this conclusive question, for by the close of 1803 his choice had been decided. It was that of a leal-hearted Scotsman and zealous Covenanter, and on the proposal that had been made to him of writing a separate work instead of unconnected articles, he thus replies : " As you have suggested this, I shall use the freedom of mentioning to you a floating idea which has sometimes passed through my mind, without ever assuming the formality of a resolution or design; namely, a selection of lives of Scottish reformers, in some such order as to embrace the most important periods of the history of the Church of Scotland; in which a number of facts which are reckoned too minute and trivial for general history might be brought to bear upon, and occasionally illustrate it. The order, for instance, might be (I write merely from the recollection of the moment), Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, John Knox, John Craig, Andrew Melvine, Patrick Simpson, Robert Bruce, &c." It is easy to see how this variety, comprising the chief personages of the first and second great movements of the Scottish Reformation, would finally resolve themselves into Knox and Melville, to whom the others were merely subsidiary. With Knox, therefore, he commenced and the task was not an easy one. Obscure authors had to be discovered, and long- forgotten books resuscitated; contending facts had to be weighed, and contradictory statements reconciled; while a mass of manuscripts, such as might have daunted the most zealous antiquary at a period when Scottish antiquarianism was still in infancy, had to be pored over and deciphered, in quest of facts that were already fading away with the ink in which they were
