Row left Rome on the 20th of May, and arrived in Scotland on the 29th of September, 1558. The following is the account of his conversion from popery given by his son. Being in Cleish, the house of the gentleman who had detected the imposture at Musselburgh,(see vol. i. [p. 322],) the young man who was said to have been cured of blindness, was brought into his presence, where he “played his pavie,” by “flyping up the lid of his eyes, and casting up the white.” While Row was confounded at this discovery, the gentleman addressed him very seriously: “Weill, Mr John Row, ye are a great clergyman, and a great linguist and lawyer, but I charge you, as you must answer to the great God at the last day, that ye do not now hold out any light that God offers you, but that ye will, as soon as ye come to your study, close the door upon you, and take your Bible, and seriously pray to God that ye may understand the scriptures.—Read the 2d ch. of the 2d epistle to the Thessalonians; and if ye do not see your master, the pope, to be the great antichrist who comes with lying wonders to deceive the people of God, (as now he and his deceiving rabble of clergy in Scotland have done lately at Musselburgh,) ye shall say Squire Meldrum has no skill.” Row, Historie of the Kirk, p. 356; copy of the MS. transcribed in 1726. After conference with several of the reformed ministers, and particularly Knox, he made formal abjuration of popery. “Ipse Nuncius,” says his grandson, “nassa evangelii irretitus, ejus pura, pia, pathetica prædicatione inescatus, pontificiis syrtibus, famigerati Knoxi opera, extractus est.” Hebreæ linguæ Institutiones, a M. Joa. Row, epist. dedic. A 3, b. Glasguæ, 1644. In the beginning of the year 1560 he was admitted minister of Kinneuchar in Fife, where he married Margaret Beatoun, a daughter of the laird of Balfour. Row’s Historie, ut supra. Before the end of that year he was translated to Perth. Knox, 236. Keith, 498. His son informs us that he was born at Row, a place situated between Stirling and Dumblane, and which belonged to the family. That he was an author appears from the testament of Thomas Bassinden, printer in Edinburgh, who died on the 18th of October, 1577, and the inventory of whose goods contains the following lines:—“Item, ane M. Johne Rowis signes of the sacramentis, price xijd.”
During his residence in Italy, Row had acquired the knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages. The latter was at that time almost entirely unknown in Scotland, and he immediately began, at the recommendation of his brethren, to teach it. The grammar‑school of Perth was then the most celebrated in the kingdom, andnoblemen and gentlemen were accustomed to send their children thither for their education. Many of these were boarded with Row, who instructed them in Greek and Hebrew. As nothing but Latin was spoken by the boys in the school and in the fields, so nothing was spoken in Row’s house but French. The passages of scripture read in the family before and after meals, if in the Old Testament, were read in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and English; if in the New Testament, they were read in Greek, &c. His son John, when he was between four and five years old, was taught the Hebrew characters, before he knew the English letters; and at eight years of age he read the Hebrew chapter in the family. When he went to the newly‑erected university of Edinburgh, his uncommon acquaintance with the Hebrew language attracted the particular notice of the learned and amiable principal Rollock. Row’s Historie, 372–375. Hebreæ Ling. Institut. ut supra. Row gave instructions to the master of the grammar‑school in the Greek tongue, by which means it came to be afterwards taught in Perth. And in 1637 his grandson John Row became rector of that school, in which he taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. This produced the following encomiastic verses by John Adamson, principal of the college of Edinburgh.
Perthana quondam Latialis linguæ schola
Laude cluebat, fueratque unius labri;
Nunc est trilinguis, Latio jungens Græciam,
Et huic Palæstinam; omnium linguis loquens.
O ter beatam te nunc Perthanam scholam!
O ter beatum Rollum rectorem tuum!
Per quem juventus, barbariæ procul habitu,
Rudis et tenella primulis labellulis