Last time together we looked at the beginnings of the Reformation in Scotland.

It all started in the 1520s, culminating in the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton on February 29, 1528.

Well, since 1528, George Wisshart had come on the scene. He was martyred in 1546.

And since then, Wisshart's young disciple, John Knox appeared on the scene also.

For Knox's part in the reformation, he was sentenced to the drudgery of rowing on a galley ship in the last few years of the 1540s.

And then Knox spent the 1550s in exile, first in Great Britain and then in Geneva.

But I want to talk to you about an 82 year old minister named Walter Milne.

Milne was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Court

as a heretic, and he was condemned to die at the stake.

His body was racked with illnesses.

Back in the 16th century, folks didn't live very long,

and those who lived into their 80s were very rare and mostly those who lived

into their 80s tended to have a series of diseases and racked with illnesses and

so it is with Walter Milne. He was rather weak and rather frail.

In fact, witnesses speak of his tottering steps as he climbed the steps of the

platform where he was bound to the stake. the I am fourscore and two years old and could not live long by the course of nature.

But a hundred better shall rise out of the ashes of my bones.

And then he was martyred, burned at the stake in 1558.

Well, little did Mill know how quickly those last words of his would become true.

See in 1558, Bloody Mary was on the throne down in England,

and Mary, Queen of Scots, of course, ruled in Scotland.

And it looked like there would be no prevailing of the Reformation that the Roman Catholic

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