On the very day on which the news of the regent's
conduct came, Knox preached a sermon on the idolatry of
the mass, and of image-worship. At the close of the ser-
mon, and while the people still lingered under the warm
emotion of the preacher's words,-an encounter took place
between a boy and a priest, who, with a singular deadness
to the signs around him, had uncovered a rich altar-piece,
and was making preparations to celebrate mass. The boy
threw a stone, which overturned and destroyed one of the
images. The act operated like a spark laid to a train. The
suppressed indignation of the multitude burst forth beyond
all control, — the consecrated imagery was broken in pieces,
the holy recesses invaded, the pictures and ornaments torn
from the walls and trampled in the dust ; and, rising with
the agitation, the spirit of disorder spread, and the "rascal



JOHN KNOX. 277

multitude," as Knox afterwards called them, having com-
pleted their work of destruction in the church, proceeded
to the houses of the Gray and Black Friars, and the Char-
ter-house, or Carthusian Monastery, and violently ransacked
them and laid them in ruins.
