Tolerance has to
be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can tolerate no
longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to tolerate!
We are here to resist, to control, and vanquish withal. We do not
"tolerate" Falsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on us;
we say to them, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are here to
extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise way! I will
not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing is our great
concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.
A man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike, for teaching the
Truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humor! I am not
prepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he had
what we call an ill temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not. Kind,
honest affections dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-worn, ever-battling
man. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight among those
proud, turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they were; and could
maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and Sovereignty in that
wild realm, he who was only "a subject born within the same": this of
itself will prove to us that he was found, close at hand, to be no mean,
acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man.
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