Alfred A. Knopf

“ Thou hast found it! Yes, you have found it!" he cried, drawing up his trousers; he would have liked to embrace Eric, but he did not venture.
And when Eric told him that he had been drawn to this most simple method by some notes of his father's, Knopf exclaimed, looking up into the free air,—
"Blessings on thy father! Blessings on thee, eternal Spirit! O world, how great and noble thou art! Now we know what one becomes, when one walks in the open air; one grows into a free man, a Benjamin Franklin. Here are two people on a hilltop by the Rhine, and they send a greeting to thee in eternity. ”

“ Only a youth as pure as Dournay could have set the pure virgin free."
He spoke in a kind of low, dreamy mysterious tone, which so touched the Major's heart, that he fell upon the speaker's neck, embraced and kissed him, and cried,—
"You must enter our society. You must speak so there. That is the place for you."
Knopf had come to fulfil Weidmann's commission, and to make some inquiries of Eric about the black man Adams. When the Cooper and his betrothed entered, and the Major gave them his blessing, and Fräulein Milch brought in a bottle of wine, Knopf was the merriest of the company. ”

“ Eric listened to it all patiently.
At last he asked Knopf if Doctor Fritz had said much to him about Herr Sonnenkamp.
Knopf confirmed a part of Weidmann's information; but he did not seem to know everything.
"I take the holy morn to witness," exclaimed Knopf, "you are a man to be honored, Herr Dournay. If I had known at the time the antecedents of Herr Sonnenkamp, I should not have felt so secure when I was teaching Roland. I should always have felt as if there was a loaded pistol at my ear, to go off at any moment. Yes, you are a strong man ”

“ Knox continued at Geneva until the month of January, 1559, when, in response to a request sent to him by those who had signed the "Godly Band," which was backed by letters of a more recent date, informing him of the state of things in Scotland, he left his wife and family behind him and set out for his native land. Mary, the English queen, had now gone to her account, and her sister Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne, so that the Protestant refugees on the continent could safely return to their own country, and it was, therefore, no longer necessary for him to retain his position as pastor. ”

“ Knopf had come to Herr Sonnenkamp likewise as a temporary candidate and temporary teacher; here a longer tarrying seemed to be allotted to him, and a future free from anxiety. Knopf had an enthusiastic love for Roland, and although the boy learned nothing thoroughly with him, Knopf used to say to his crony, the teacher Fassbender,—
"The Gods never learned anything, they had it all in themselves. ”

“ With constantly increasing admiration, Knopf looked at Eric, saying,—and the words sounded like a confession of love,—
"I am glad that you are really a handsome man. Ah, you may smile and shake your head, but that counts a great deal in this family, and especially with Roland. The Spartans had the wise law,—horrible indeed, but embodying a deep principle—that no deformed child should be allowed to live. ”

“ Knox, in return, exhorted her to administer the laws, and reminded her that the sword of justice belonged to God and not to any temporal sovereign. Next morning, before daybreak, she again summoned him to meet her when hawking near Kinross. Without going back on their former conference she started fresh topics—the offer of a ring to her by Ruthven, the appointment of Gordon, bishop of Athens, afterwards of Galloway, as a superintendent, and the quarrel between the Earl of Argyll and his wife, her bastard sister, in which she asked Knox to mediate. ”

“ This Knox cannot live but by facts: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He is an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic; it is the grand gift he has. We find in Knox a good, honest, intellectual talent, no transcendent one; a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared with Luther: but in heartfelt, instinctive adherence to truth, in sincerity, as we say, he has no superior; nay, one might ask, what equal he has? The heart of him is of the true Prophet cast. "He lies there," said the Earl of Morton at his grave, "who never feared the face of man." ”

“ Knox preached that day, and happened to prolong the service beyond his usual time. In one part of the sermon, he quoted these words of scripture, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them,—children are their oppressors, and women rule over them;” and in another part of it, he mentioned that God punished Ahab, because he did not correct his idolatrous wife, Jezabel.154 Though no particular application was made by the preacher, the king applied these passages to himself and the queen, and, returning to the palace in great wrath, refused to taste dinner. ”

“ CHAPTER VII. THE TROUBLES AT FRANKFORT, 1554-1555.
From Dieppe, after having launched across the channel the thunderbolt of the "Faithful Admonition," Knox retired to Geneva, where he enjoyed the friendship of John Calvin and other Swiss divines, and where, though he was now bordering on fifty years of age, he applied himself to the study of Hebrew with all the ardour of youth. But such a man could not long be permitted to enjoy learned leisure. ”

“ But now, in July 1556, letters came to Knox in Edinburgh from his congregation in Geneva, 'commanding him in God's name, as he was their chosen pastor, to repair unto them for their comfort.' He at once complied, sending before him from Norham to Dieppe his wife and her mother. Scotland was not yet ripe. The lay professors of the Evangel indeed were not seriously molested after his departure. But on the other hand Knox himself was at once cited to appear in Edinburgh, condemned in absence as a contumacious heretic, and burned at the Cross in the High Street—in effigy. ”

“ Knox said that the bishop deceived many, if he did not fear God. “Well, do as you will; but that man is a dangerous man.”
Knox wished to take his leave of her majesty, but she pressed him to stay. “I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me, since I came into this realm, to open to you, and I must have your help in it,” said she, with an air of condescension and confidence as enchanting as if she had put a ring on his finger. She then entered into a long discourse with him concerning a domestic difference between the earl and countess of Argyle. ”

“ Hamilton J. Knox had been one of the great men of his day, which was a year or two ago, when in college. He was in the World now. Therefore he was not even a man, it seemed, but a boy learning things about the relative importance of the inhabitants of this planet which all American youths should learn, for those who do not usually live to regret it. ”

“ Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a feeble and futile fluttering. ”

“ In this critical time, John Knox arrived from Geneva, where he had passed some years in banishment, and where he had imbibed, from his commerce with Calvin, the highest fanaticism of his sect, augmented by the native ferocity of his own character. He had been invited back to Scotland by the leaders of the reformation; and mounting the pulpit at Perth, during the present ferment of men’s minds, he declaimed with his usual vehemence against the idolatry and other abominations of the church of Rome, and incited his audience to exert their utmost zeal for its subversion. ”

“ When the war rallied the young men of the country on one or the other side, the most promising in every avocation enlisted, and as a matter of course such a man as Knox entered the Union army. Here he served in two campaigns, was rapidly promoted, and finally received the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on the staff of the Governor of California. That he could write as well as fight was shown by the fact that he became a war correspondent, sending stirring letters from the front to the New York papers. ”

“ And his lady, born Elizabeth Aske, and co-heiress of Aske in Yorkshire (already an elderly woman and mother of fifteen children) , became Knox's chief friend, and after he left Berwick for Newcastle his correspondent, chiefly as to her religious troubles. Most of the letters of Knox to her which are preserved are in the year 1553, and one of the earliest of these acknowledges a communication 'from you and my dearest spouse.' This means that Marjory Bowes, the fifth daughter in that large household, had already been sponsa or betrothed, with her mother's consent, to the Scottish preacher. ”

“ Her {127} mother came with her as far as Northumberland, and after remaining a short time with her friends there, took up her abode in Knox's household, and continued a member of his family, at least till the death of her daughter, though some believe that even after that she remained with him, with but a brief interval, till her own decease. Mrs. Knox was accompanied by Christopher Goodman, who had been the colleague of her husband in Geneva, and who continued to labour in Scotland, first at Ayr and afterwards at St. Andrews, until his return to England in 1565. ”

“ Rough himself perished in the flames at Smithfield; and four months after this vocation Knox was sitting chained and half-naked in the galleys at Rouen, under the lash of a French slave-driver. He did not perhaps himself always remember how the future then appeared to him. Old men looking back upon their past are apt 'to see in their life the story of their life,' and the Reformer, after his later amazing victories, sometimes speaks as if these had been his in hope, or even in promise, from the outset of his career. ”

“ Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; but as a china vase is not necessarily less sound than a stone jug or iron kettle, so delicacy and fragility in man are no proof of disease. ”

“ Knox can be very charming but I doubt that he sincerely admires any of the public men with whom he has been associated, or can call any of them, from the purely personal viewpoint, his friends, with the possible exception of Andrew Mellon, whom he caused to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Of course, he likes many of his colleagues, after a fashion, especially those who admire him, but that is another matter. ”

“ On retiring from Edinburgh, Knox undertook a tour of preaching through the kingdom. The wide field which was before him, the interesting situation in which he was placed, the dangers by which he was surrounded, and the hopes which he cherished, increased the ardour of his zeal, and stimulated him to extraordinary exertions both of body and mind. Within less than two months, he travelled over a great part of Scotland. He visited Kelso, and Jedburgh, and Dumfries, and Ayr, and Stirling, and Perth, and Brechin, and Montrose, and Dundee, and returned to St Andrews. ”

“ We have no details concerning his conversion from the Romish to the Protestant faith. According to one authority it was Thomas Guillaume who was "the first to give Mr. Knox a taste of the truth." That eloquent preacher,—a native of East Lothian, who had risen to a high place in the order of the Dominicans,—had through the influence of the party of progress been appointed chaplain to the Regent Arran at the time when that weak ruler was favouring the Reformers. Knox himself has described him as "a man of solid judgment, reasonable letters (as for that age) , and of prompt and good utterance ”

“ Go to the castle, and tell him: ‘John Knox remains the same man now when he is about to die, that ever he knew him when able in body, and wills him to consider what he was, and the estate in which he now stands, which is a great part of his trouble. Neither the craggy rock in which he miserably confides, nor the carnal prudence of that man [Maitland] whom he esteems a demi‐god, nor the assistance of strangers, shall preserve him ”

“ Certain I am, that it will be difficult to find one in whom the gifts of the Holy Spirit shone so bright, to the comfort of the church of Scotland. None spared himself less in enduring fatigues bodily and mental; none was more intent on discharging the duties of the province assigned to him.” And again, addressing his calumniator Hamilton, he says, “This illustrious, I say illustrious servant of God, John Knox, I shall clear from your feigned accusations and slanders, by the testimony of a venerable assembly rather than by my own denial. ”

“ Knox wanted no pulling-down of stone edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men. Tumult was not his element; it was the tragic feature of his life that he was forced to dwell so much in that. Every such man is the born enemy of Disorder; hates to be in it: but what then? Smooth Falsehood is not Order; it is the general sum total of Disorder. Order is Truth—each thing standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood cannot subsist together. ”