anifest in the image over the
gate. It was neither Erkenwald nor Uncumber: it was not the Virgin or
even St. Paul himself, but the Child Jesus with the simple and
pregnant inscription, "Hear ye Him." The severity of his discipline,
although a Pauline parent or pupil would now resent it, was adapted to
those rough and hardy times, when people rose early and worked hard,
and when corporal punishment was general and often, and irrespective
of sex or age. William Lyly, an Oxford student who had studied in the
East, was his first high master. As the original St. Paul's School
became eventually absorbed in Colet's, this latter--now removed from
its old home to stately buildings on the Hammersmith Road, and
possessing (1899), as a high master, a worthy successor of
Lyly[23]--is in one sense a new foundation of Colet's, yet in another
is also a continuation of that venerable foundation under the charge
of the Chancellor. Looked at in this latter aspect, it may assert an
antiquity almost as great as St. Peter's, York, which claims--and not
without reason--to be the senior boys' school in the country. Colet so
looked forward to the different requirements of different ages that
his statutes did not tie his school down to any cut and dried course
of study; but let us hope place will always be found for the Greek
Testament. What are we to think of the preacher who, while denouncing
war, so pricked the conscience of Henry VIII. that the king sent to
consult him? What of the Bible student who thought that the story of
Creation was an allegory, and intended to teach the ignorant
Israelites that the one God had created everybody and everything? What
of the reformer who went beyond Erasmus in denouncing the profane
excesses perpetrated in the name of religion at the shrine of Becket
at Canterbury? Colet died of the "sweating sickness" at the early age
of fifty-three, in 1519; and it is idle to speculate on his action had
he lived until the breach with Rome. His monument in the south aisle
of the choir perished in the Fire; and in the new Renaissance
cathedral a second might well be erected to the memory of this great
leader of the Renaissance in theology and learning, the greatest among
many great occupants of the Dean's stall.

[Illustration: TOMB OF JOHN COLET, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.
_After Hollar._]

=Reformation Principles Opposed.=--The still smouldering doctrines of
Wycliffe were now fanned into a flame; and Wolsey endea