From this theory of the Kirk arose more than a century of unrest.
On August 24, the practical consequences of the Confession were set forth in an Act, by which all hearers or celebrants of the Mass are doomed, for the first offence, to mere confiscation of all their goods and to corporal punishment: exile rewards a repetition of the offence: the third is punished by death.

"Freedom from a persecuting spirit is one of the noblest features of Knox's character," says Laing; "neither led away by enthusiasm nor party feelings nor success, to retaliate the oppressions and atrocities that disgraced the adherents of popery." {174c} This is an amazing remark! Though we do not know that Knox was ever "accessory to the death of a single individual for his religious opinions," we do know that he had not the chance; the Government, at most, and years later, put one priest to death.

But Knox always insisted, vainly, that idolaters "must die the death." To the carnal mind these rules appear to savour of harshness.

The carnal mind would not gather exactly what the new penal laws were, if it confined its study to the learned Dr.M'Crie's Life of Knox.

This erudite man, a pillar of the early Free Kirk, mildly remarks, "The Parliament.