After asking Milton how he can face these flat contradictions of his charges, not from mere individuals, but from important public bodies, and saying that “one favourable nod from any one of the persons concerned would be worth more than the vociferations of a thousand Miltons to all eternity,” Morus corrects Milton’s mistake as to the nature of his Professorship.  It is not a Professorship of Greek, but of Sacred History, involving Greek only in so far as one might refer in one’s lectures to Josephus or the Greek Fathers.  But he had been a Professor of Greek—­in Geneva, to wit, when little over twenty years of age.  Nor, in spite of all Milton’s facetiousness on the subject of Greek, and his puns on Morus in Greek, was he ashamed of the fact.  “For all learning whatever is Greek, so that whoever despises Greek Literature, or professors of the same, must necessarily be a sciolist.”  And here he detects the reason of Milton’s incessant onslaughts on Salmasius.  Milton was evidently most ambitious of the fame of scholarship, as appeared from his anticipations of immortality in his Latin poems; and, though he might be a fair Latinist—­not immaculate in Latin either, as he might hear some time or other from Salmasius himself, though that was a secret yet—­he knew that he could never snatch away from Salmasius the palm of the highest, i.e. of Greek, scholarship.  Morus does not claim for himself the title of a perfect classic; he is content with his present position and its duties.  Admirable lessons in life are to be obtained from the study of Church History.  Of these not the least is the verification of the words in the Gospel, “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.”  What calumnies had been borne by Jerome, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and others of the best of men!  With such examples before one, why should an insignificant person, like the writer, conscious too of many faults and weaknesses, take calumny too much to heart?  This pathetic strain, attained towards the close of the book, is maintained most skilfully in the peroration.

“But, if credit enough is not given to my own solemn affirmation, nor to this Public Testimony, Thee, Lord God, I make finally my witness, who explorest the inmost recesses of the spirit, who triest the reins, and knowest the secret motives of the breast, a Searcher of hearts to whom, as if by thorough dissection, all things are bare.  Thee, God, Thee I call as my witness, who shalt one day be my Judge and the Judge of all, whether it is not the case that men see in this heart of mine what Thou seest not.  Would that Thou didst not also see in the same heart what they do not see!  But ah me!  I am far baser in reality than they feign.  Suppliantly I adore the will of Thy Providence that permits me to be falsely accused among men on account of so many hidden faults of which I am truly guilty in Thy sight.  Thou, Lord, saidst