Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

flock, he protested, in the presence of Him to
whom he expected soon to give an account, that he
had walked among them with a good conscience,
preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all
sincerity, and he exhorted and charged them to
adhere steadfastly to the faith which they had
professed. The services at an end, he descended the
pulpit-stairs, with exhausted yet cheerful look, and
walked slowly down the High Street leaning on the
arm of his servant, Richard Bannatyne; his
congregation lining the way, reverently anxious to
have their last look of their beloved pastor. He
entered his house never again to pass over its
threshold,[4] was meet he should now depart, for
the shadows were falling thickly, not around
himself only, but around Christendom.
While the events we have so rapidly narrated
were in progress, Mary Stuart, the other great
figure of the time, was pursuing her career, and it is
necessary that we should follow -- not in their
detail, for that is not necessary for our object, but
in their outline and issue -- a series of events of
which she was the center, and which were acting
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