uch as it was.
Many good, but easy, men had thought it best, for the reputation of
the Christian ministry, not to rake too deeply into such an
unpleasant business. Especially in the Synod the proceedings had been
a farce. When Riverius, the moderator of the Synod, at the close of
the proceedings, had said to Morus, "_Never was a Moor so
whitewashed as you have been to-day_," could not everybody, with
any sense of humour, perceive that the Reverend gentleman had been
joking? Then, what had been the formal decision of the Synod?
"_That nothing had been found in the papers of weight to take away
from the Churches their wonted liberty of inviting M. Morus to preach
when there was occasion_." Was that a whitewashing with which to
be content? No wonder that Morus had taken refuge among his paper
testimonials. About the whole system of Testimonials Milton is
considerably dubious. He does not deny that a public testimonial may
be an honour, and that there may be proper occasion for such things;
but, real discernment of merit being rare, and those who give and
those who seek testimonials being but a jumble of the good and the
bad together, the abuses of the system bring it into discredit. "The
man of highest quality needs another's testimonial the least; nor
does any good man ever do anything merely to make himself known."
Waiving that general question, however, one may _examine_
Morus's testimonials.

This examination of the testimonials is begun in the first or main
part of Milton's _Pro Se Defensio_; but, as Morus had only
entered on his testimonials in the _Fides Publica_ as originally
published, and presented most of them in his _Supplementum_ to
that book, so Milton prolongs this branch of his criticism into an
appendix entitled separately _Authoris ad Aleasandri Mori
Supplementum Responsio_ ("The Author's Answer to Alexander More's
Supplement.") Prom the first sentences of this Appendix we learn that
the preceding part of Milton's book had been written two months
before the _Supplementum_ had come into his hands.

Morus's published Testimonials divide themselves chronologically, it
may have been observed, into three sets--(1) those given him at
Geneva early in the year 1648, and brought by him into Holland on his
removal thither, (2) those given him at Middleburg between Nov. 1649
and Aug. 1652, and (3) the three given him at Amsterdam in July 1654,
after Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ had appeared, and in
contradiction