Well, well, is this their duty?  Is this their office?  Is this their calling?  Should we have ministers of the church to be comptrollers of the mints?  Is this a meet office for a priest that hath cure of souls?  Is this his charge?  I would here ask one question:  I would fain know who controlleth the devil at home in his parish, while he controlleth the mint?  If the apostles might not leave the office of preaching to the deacons, shall one leave it for minting?  I cannot tell you; but the saying is, that since priests have been minters, money hath been worse than it was before.  And they say that the evilness of money hath made all things dearer.  And in this behalf I must speak to England.  “Hear, my country, England,” as Paul said in his first epistle to the Corinthians, the sixth chapter; for Paul was no sitting bishop, but a walking and a preaching bishop.  But when he went from them, he left there behind him the plough going still; for he wrote unto them, and rebuked them for going to law, and pleading their causes before heathen judges:  “Is there,” said he, “utterly among you no wise man, to be an arbitrator in matters of judgment?  What, not one of all that can judge between brother and brother; but one brother goeth to law with another, and that under heathen judges? Constituite contemptos qui sunt in ecclesia, &c.  Appoint them judges that are most abject and vile in the congregation.”  Which he speaketh in rebuking them; “For,” saith he, ad erubescentiam vestram dico—­“I speak it to your shame.”  So, England, I speak it to thy shame:  is there never a nobleman to be a lord president, but it must be a prelate?  Is there never a wise man in the realm to be a comptroller of the mint?  I speak it to your shame.  I speak it to your shame.  If there be never a wise man, make a water-bearer, a tinker, a cobbler, a slave, a page, comptroller of the mint:  make a mean gentleman, a groom, a yeoman, or a poor beggar, lord president.

Thus I speak, not that I would have it so; but “to your shame,” if there be never a gentleman meet nor able to be lord president.  For why are not the noblemen and young gentlemen of England so brought up in knowledge of God, and in learning, that they may be able to execute offices in the commonweal?  The king hath a great many of wards, and I trow there is a Court of Wards:  why is there not a school for the wards, as well as there is a Court for their lands?  Why are they not set in schools where they may learn?  Or why are they not sent to the universities, that they may be able to serve the king when they come to age?  If the wards and young gentlemen were well brought up in learning, and in the knowledge of God, they would not when they come to age so much give themselves to other vanities.  And if the nobility be well trained in godly learning, the people would follow the same train.  For truly, such as the noblemen be, such will the people be.  And now, the only cause why noblemen be not made lord presidents, is because they have not been brought up in learning.