written, he most loved and admired those of St. Paul; CHAP. II. and he added, in a politely flattering tone, that it was A.D. 1497. Colet's lectures during the recent term, which had chiefly excited in him this affection for the apostle. Colet turned a searching eye upon his guest, and finding that he was truly in earnest, replied with warmth, 'Then, brother, I love you for loving St. Paul, for I, 'too, dearly love and admire him.' In the course of conversation, which now turned upon the object which the priest had at heart, Colet happened to remark how pregnant with both matter and thought were the Epistles of St. Paul, so that almost every word might be made the subject of a discourse. This was just what Colet's guest wanted. Comparing Colet's lectures with those of the scholastic divines, who, as we have heard, were accustomed out of an antitheme of half an inch to draw a thread of nine days long' upon some useless topic, he may well have been struck with the richness of the vein of ore which Colet had been working, and he had come that he might gather some hints as to his method of study. Then,' said he, stirred up by this remark of Colet's, 'I ask you now, as we sit here at 'our ease, to extract and bring to light from this hidden 'treasure, which you say is so rich, some of these truths, 'so that I may gain from this our talk whilst sitting together something to store up in the memory, and at the 'same time catch some hints as to how, following your 'example, I may seize hold of the main points in the epistles when I read St. Paul by myself.'

taken as an example.

My good friend,' replied Colet, I will do as you Romans i. 'wish. Open your book, and we will see how many and 'what golden truths we can gather from the first chapter only of the Epistle to the Romans.'

СНАР. ІІ.

6

'But,' added the priest, 'lest my memory should fail A.D. 1497. me, I should like to write them down as you say them.' Colet assented, and thereupon dictated to his guest a string of the most important points which struck him as he read through the chapter. They were, as Colet said, only like detached rings, carelessly cut from the golden ore of St. Paul, as they sat over the winter fire, but they would serve as examples of what might be gathered from a single chapter of the apostle's writings.

Letter to an Abbot.

The priest departed, fully satisfied with the result of his visit; and from the evident pleasure with which Colet told this story in a letter to Kidderminster, Abbot of Winchcombe,1 we may learn how his own spirits were cheered by the proof it gave, that he had not laboured altogether in vain.

The letter itself, too, apart from the story which it tells, may give some insight into his feelings during these months of solitary labour. It reads, I think, like the letter of a man deeply in earnest, engaged in what he feels to be a great work; whose sense of the greatness of the work suggests a natural and noble anxiety, that though he himself should not live to finish it, it may yet be carried forward by others; whose ambition it is to die working at his post, leaving behind him, at least, the first stones laid of a building which others greater than he may carry on to completion.

After telling the story of the priest's visit, Colet writes thus:

1 Cambridge University Library, | printed in Knight's Life of Colet, MSS. Gg. 4, 26, p. 62, et seq., and | App. p. 311.

'so

Colet to the Abbot of Winchcombe.

'Thus, Reverend Father, what he [the priest] wrote 'down at my dictation I have wished to detail to you, so that you too, so ardent in your love of all sacred 'wisdom, may see what we, sitting over the winter fire, 'noted off-hand in our St. Paul.

CHAP. II.

A.D. 1497.

In the first chapter only of the Epistle to the Romans, 'we found all the following truths. [Here follows a 'long list.] . . . These we extracted, and noted, vene'rable father, as I said, offhand, in this one chapter only. 'Nor are these all we might have noted. For even in 'the very address one might discover that Christ was 'promised by the prophets, that Christ is both God and 'man, that Christ sanctifies men, that through Christ 'there is a resurrection, both of the soul and of the 'body. And besides these there are numberless others 'contained in this chapter, which anyone with lynx eyes 'could easily find and dig out, if he wished, for himself. Paul, of all others, seems to me to be a fathomless ocean of wisdom and piety. But these few, thus hastily picked ' out, were enough for our good priest, who wanted some 'thoughts struck off roundly, and fashioned like rings, 'from the gold of St. Paul. These, as you see, I have 'written out for you with my own hand, most worthy Colet father, that your mind, in its golden goodness, might recognise, as from a specimen, how much gold lies "treasured up in St. Paul.

'I want Master Guardianus also to read this over with 'you, for his cultivated taste and love of everything good

wants his

friend to see why

he admires St. Paul's writings.

CHAP. II. is such that I think he will be very much pleased with 'whatever of good it may contain.

A.D. 1497.

'When you have read what is contained on this sheet ' of paper, let me have it again, for I have no copy of it; and, although I am not in the habit of keeping my ' letters, and cannot do so, as I send them off just as I 'write them, without keeping a copy; yet if any of them 'contain anything instructive (aliquid doctrina), I do 'not like to lose them entirely. Not that they are in 'themselves worth preserving, but that, left behind me, they may serve as little memorials of me. And if

there be any other reason why I should wish to preserve 'my letters to you, this is one, and a chief one-that I 'should be glad for them to remain as permanent 'witnesses of my regard for you.

'Again, farewell!'

The sole survivor of a family of twenty-two, though himself but thirty, Colet might well keep always in view the possibility of an early death.

III. COLET ON THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION

(1497 ?).

6

It would seem that one of Colet's friends, named Radulphus, had been attempting to expound the dark 'places of Scripture,' and that in doing so he had commenced with the words of Lamech in the fourth chapter of Genesis, as though this were the first 'dark place' to be found in the Bible!

Colet on

account of

Out of this circumstance arose a correspondence on the meaning of the first chapter of Genesis, which Colet A.D. 1497. thought required explanation as much as any other Letters of portion of Scripture. Four of Colet's letters to Radul- the Mosaic phus, containing his views on the Mosaic account of the creation. creation, have fortunately been preserved, bound up with a copy of his manuscript exposition on the Epistle to the Romans, in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.1 Colet seems to have thought them worth preserving, as he did the letter to the Abbot of Winchcombe; and as any attempt to realise the position and feelings of Colet, when commencing his lectures at Oxford on St. Paul's epistles, would have been very imperfect without the story of the priest's visit, so these letters to Radulphus, apart from their intrinsic interest, are especially valuable as giving another practical illustration of the position which Colet had assumed upon the question of the inspiration and interpretation of the Scriptures; as showing, perhaps, more clearly than anything else could have done, that the principles and method which he had applied to St. Paul's writings, were not hastily adopted, but the result of mature conviction, -that Colet was ready to apply them consistently to the Old Testament as well as to the New, to the first chapter of Genesis as well as to the Epistle to the Romans.

to Radul

Colet begins his first letter by telling Radulphus how First letter surprised he was that, whilst professing to expound the phus. 'dark places of Scripture,' he should, as already mentioned, have commenced with the words of Lamech, leaving the first three chapters of Genesis untouched;

1 In the volume of manuscripts marked 355.