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224 YORK.
one of the most attractive of those who eagerly and
enthusiastically drank in the New Learning— the
author of " Utopia," the future Chancellor of England,
Sir Thomas More, a name which still commands
the veneration of all who can estimate wit
Md learning, and reverence the memory of one who
would sacrifice his life rather than forego his conscientious
convictions.
There were other things besides decay of morals
and infrequency of preaching which exercised the
minds of thoughtful and serious minded men like
Colet, and which he discussed without reserve in the
unrestrained intercourse of private life. Of that
private life we have a charming picture by the hand
of Erasmus. He brings the very man before us.
His kindly hospitality, his genial talk with his friends,
his personal simplicity of life and his deep religious
feeling are most vividly portrayed. The subjects of
his conversation were many and varied. Auricular
confession, the use of images as aids of devotion,
the compulsory recitation by priests of the lengthened
offices of the breviary, pilgrimages to the
shrines of favourite saints, the adoration of relics of
doubtful authenticity or of absolute falsity — all
afforded matter for discussion and animadversion
when he had a guest like Erasmus at his table, or
when they were journeying together to the shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham or that of St. Thomas of
Canterbury. The contempt with which Colet regarded
the exhibition of St. Thomas' slipper at
Harbledown, and the linen rags at Canterbury \vith
which the martyr was said to have wiped his nose, is