[53] 'Works,' iii. 362.
[54] 'Works,' iv. 252.
[55] 'Honest' in that age meant something nearly equivalent to 'honourable,' and that they were 'poor women' may refer to troubles which they brought to him, other than want of money.
[56] 'Works,' vi. 104.
[57] 'Works,' iii. 370.
[58] 'Conditions' refers to inward nature, not outward circumstances. It may be explained by a letter written nine years later, also to a friend in England, in which Knox apologises for not having written him for years, during which the Reformer had been 'tossed with many storms,' yet might have sent a letter, 'if that this my churlish nature, for the most part oppressed with melancholy, had not staid tongue and pen from doing of their duty.'—'Works,' vi. 566. Knox in 1553 was suffering severely from gravel and dyspepsia; one of these was already an 'old malady'; and both seem to have clung to him during the rest of his life.
[59] 'Works,' vi. 11.