March - the Free Presbyterian church of Scotland

74The Free Presbyterian MagazineThe Early Scottish Reformation 13. Patrick Hamilton – Evangelising in St AndrewsJ H Merle d’Aubignén August 1527, it had been decreed that Scots who circulated the ScripturesIshould be subject to the same penalties as people from abroad. If a vesselarrived at Leith, Dundee, St Andrews or Aberdeen, the king’s officers immediatelywent on board, and if any copies of the New Testament were found,the ship and its cargo were confiscated and the captain imprisoned. About theend of 1527, the ship which carried Hamilton reached port, and although thisyoung Christian always had his New Testament in his pocket, he landedwithout being arrested and went home to Kincavil.Patrick loved his mother and his sister; everybody appreciated his amiablecharacter; the servants and all his neighbours were his friends. This gentlenessmade his work easier. But his strength lay above all in the depth andsincerity of his Christian spirit. “Christ bore our sins on His back and boughtus with His blood”; this was the master chord which vibrated in his soul. Insetting forth any subject he silenced his own reasoning and let the Bible speak.No one had a clearer perception of the analogies and contrasts which characteriseevangelical doctrine. Besides he practised with immovable fidelitythe principles which he held to be true; he taught them with a touching charity;he defended them with energetic decision. Whether he approached a labourer,a monk or a noble, it was with a desire to do him good, to lead him to God.He taxed his ingenuity to devise means of bearing witness to the truth. Hiscourage was firm, and in his dignified seriousness his youth was forgotten.His social position added weight to his influence. It would have seemedstrange to the Scots for a man of the people to meddle with the reform of theChurch; but if the man that spoke to them belonged to an illustrious family,his position appeared legitimate and they were inclined to listen. Such wasthe reformer God gave to Scotland.Hamilton opened his heart to all his family; he made known to them thepeace which he had found in the gospel, and by degrees his relations werebrought to the faith. The zeal which consumed him could not long be confinedwithin his family. His love for the gospel silenced within him all fear and, fullof courage, he was ready to endure the insults which his faith might bring onhim. Hamilton went about the surrounding country, his name securing a heartywelcome for him everywhere. When the young laird was seen approaching,1 Abridged from The History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vol 6. The previoussection, “Patrick Hamilton in Germany – a Time of Preparation”, appeared last month.