last-mentioned place, and shot him through the body. The wound having proved mortal, the Regent died on the same evening, and the melancholy intelligence was conveyed to Edinburgh the following morning. It is impossible to describe the feelings of Knox on the occasion. An intimate friendship had long subsisted between them, and of all the Scottish nobility, he had the greatest confidence in Murray's attachment to religion. He looked upon his death as the greatest calamity which could befal the nation, and in his sermon on the following day, he introduced the subject, saying, that God in his mercy raised up godly rulers, and took them away in his displeasure. He thus poured out the sorrows of his heart, “O Lord, in what misery and confusion found he this realm! To what rest and quietness now by his labours suddenly he brought the same, all estates, but especially the poor commons, can witness. Thy image, O Lord, did so clearly shine in that personage, that the devil, and the wicked to whom he is prince, could not abide it; and so to punish our sins and our ingratitude (who did not rightly esteem so precious a gift), thou hast permitted him to fall, to our great grief, in the hands of cruel and traitorous murderers. He is at rest, O Lord: we are left in extreme misery."
Upon the Tuesday after, the Regent's corpsc was conveyed from the palace of Holyrood, and interred in the Collegiate Church of St. Giles. Before the funeral, Knox preached a sermon from these words, “ Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," and while he described the Regent's virtues, and bewailed his loss, upwards of three thousand persons were dissolved in tears. The grief caused by this event preyed
upon his spirits and injured his health. He was struck with apoplexy, which affected his speech to a considerable degree, but he gradually recovered, and was soon able to preach. The confusion which he
