Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

of those concerned in it: but he failed to ward off
the covetous hands that were clutching this rich
booty; and the only arrangement he succeeded in
effecting was, that the revenues of the Popish
Church should be divided into three parts, and that
two of these should be given to the former
incumbents, to revert at their death to the nobility,
and that the third part should be divided between
the court and the Protestant ministers. The latter
had till now been entirely dependent upon the
benevolence of their hearers, or the hospitality of
the noblemen in whose houses some of them
continued to reside. When Knox beheld the
revenues which would have sufficed to plant
Scotland with churches, colleges, and schools, and
suitably provide for the poor, thus swallowed up,
he could not refrain from expressing his
mortification and disgust. "Well," exclaimed he, "if
the end of this order be happy, my judgment fails
me. I see two parts freely given to the devil, and
the third must be divided between God and the
devil. Who would have thought that when Joseph
ruled in Egypt his brethren would have traveled for
victuals, and would have returned with empty
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