it came to his turn. He went forward, however, and being
interrogated as the others had been whether the smell of the den was
disagreeable, he replied modestly that he could not express any opinion
on the point, as he was labouring under a cold in the head." Alesius
waited to hear from his host the moral or application of the apologue,
but this was not given by him. He preferred to leave it to his own good
sense, merely counselling him to be cautious of engaging in such
discussions for the present. Ultimately, however, both came to see that
there is a time to speak as well as a time to keep silence; and it is
interesting to note that to the last both observed similar moderation in
their statements of doctrine, both evinced the same desire, by
conciliation to gain opponents, rather than to provoke them,
notwithstanding all the hard usage they both met with from their secular
and ecclesiastical superiors.

[Sidenote: Befriended by Melanchthon.]

Soon after this Alesius appears to have passed on from Cologne to
Wittenberg, and there for a time to have resumed the study of theology,
as well as of Greek and Hebrew, under Melanchthon and the other gifted
teachers in that university. Luther he does not seem to have met for a
time, or to have been acquainted with his writings when he published his
_first_[297] treatises. Melanchthon cherished a special affection for
Alesius and the Scottish exiles who soon after followed him to
Wittenberg, believing that they were the descendants of those Scoti who
had sent the early Christian missionaries to Germany, and that it became
him to repay to them the great kindness the heathen Germans had received
from their forefathers in the distant past.[298]

It was while he was thus occupied that Alesius heard of the cruel edict
of the Scottish bishops, and it hardly admits of doubt that he submitted
to Melanchthon, and got corrected by him, his little treatise against
their decree, forbidding the New Testament Scriptures to be used by the
laity in the vernacular. It is a very pithy and forcible bit of
pleading for the right of the Christian laity to possess and study the
Scriptures in their own tongue. This remarkable treatise struck the true
key-note in the contest it ushered in, and helped it on to victory--a
victory which was substantially to be gained ere Knox had taken his
place among the combatants on the side of the Reformation at all.[299]

To this epistle Cochlaeus replied without