of statements made in that book.--On the Genevese set
of Testimonials, including that from the venerable Diodati, Milton's
criticism, in substance, is that they were vitiated by their date.
They had been given, or obtained by hard begging, not perhaps before
the Pelletta scandal had been heard of, but before it had been
sufficiently notorious, and while it still seemed credible to many
that Morus was innocent, and others were good-naturedly willing to
stop the investigation by speeding him off to another scene, Theodore
Tronchin, pastor and Professor of Theology, and Mermilliod and
Pittet, two other pastors, had been the first movers, among the
Genevese clergy, for an inquiry into Morus's conduct; the elder
Spanheim had, as Milton believed, been one of those that even then
would have nothing to do with the Testimonials; the aged Diodati had
then for some time ceased to attend the meetings of his brethren, and
might not know all. But, in any case, nearly a year had elapsed
between the date of the last of those Genevese Testimonials which
Morus had published and Morus's actual departure from Geneva. During
that interval there had been a progress of Genevese opinion on the
subject of his character and conduct, and he had been furnished with
fresh papers in the nature of farewell Testimonials. Morus had
suppressed those. Would he venture to produce them?--On the
Middleburg Testimonials the criticism is that they do not matter much
one way or another, but that they show Morus on the whole to have
soon been found a troublesome person in Holland also, some business
about whom was always coming up in the Walloon Synods. In Middleburg
too there had been a progress of opinion about him with farther
experience. His co-pastor there. M. Jean Long, who had been his firm
friend for a while, and had signed some of the testimonials, was now
understood to speak of him with absolute detestation. Morus having
produced some of these testimonials to disprove Milton's assertion
that he had been ejected by the Middleburg church, Milton explains
that he had not said _ejected_, but only _turned adrift_,
and that this was substantially the fact. Now, however, if Durie's
report is correct, not only would the single Middleburg church, but
nearly the whole Walloon Synod also, willingly _eject_
him.--Milton's greatest difficulty is with the three Amsterdam
testimonials of July 1654. He has to admit that they prove him to
have been misinformed when he