harsh epithets. But is it not the old house, and that alone, in which
the martyrs shed their blood for Christianity? Where did it fulfil its
lofty task of saturating the heart of mankind with love, softening the
customs of rude pagans, clearing away forests, transforming barren wastes
into cultivated fields, planting the cross on chapels and churches,
summoning men with the consecrated voice of the bell to the sermon which
proclaims love and peace? Where did it open the doors of the school
which prepares the intellect to satisfy its true destiny, and first
qualifies man to become the image of God? By the old mansion this
country, covered with marshes, moors; and impenetrable forests, was
rendered what it now is; from it proceeded that fostering of science
and the arts of which as yet I have seen little in your circles."

"Give us time," cried the theologian, "and perhaps in our home their
flowering will attain an unsurpassed richness of development. With what
loose bonds the humanists are still united to you!"

"And the finest intellect of all, the great scholar whose name you bear,
though he deemed many things in our old home deserving of improvement,
remained with us until his death. Jesus Christ is one, and so his Church
must also remain. The only question is, What the Saviour still is to you
Protestants, what he is to you, my friend?"

"Before how many saints, and many another whom your Church desires to
honour, do you bow the knee?" Erasmus fervidly answered; "but we do so
only to the august Trinity. And do you wish to know what Jesus Christ,
the Son, is to me? All, and more than all, is the answer; I live and
breathe in my Saviour Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and
throughout eternity."