A.D. 1515. not elect their own Christian priests in like manner, CHAP. XII. and qualify them to perform all priestly offices, without any apostolic succession or authority from the Pope.1 Their priests were, in fact, rather conductors of the Utopian priests. public worship, inspectors of the public morals, and ministers of education, than 'priests' in any sacerdotal sense of the word. Thus whilst representing Confession as in common use amongst the Utopians, More significantly described them as confessing not to the priests but to the heads of families. Whilst also, as in Europe, such was the respect shown them, that they were not amenable to the civil tribunals, it was said to be on account of the extreme fewness of their number, and the high character secured by their mode of election, that no great inconvenience resulted from this exemption in Utopian practice. 2 If the diversity of religions in Utopia made it more difficult to suppose perfect toleration, and thus made the contrast between Utopian and European practice in this respect all the more telling, so also was this the case in respect to the conduct of public worship. Utopia. The hatred of the Oxford Reformers for the endless Public worship in dissensions of European Christians; the advice Colet was wont to give to theological students, ' to keep to 'the Bible and the Apostles' Creed, and let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest;' the appeal of Erasmus to Servatius, whether it would not be better for all Christendom to be regarded as one monastery, and all Christians as belonging to the same religious brotherhood,'--all pointed, if directed to the practical question of public worship, to a mode of worship in which all of every shade of sentiment could unite. CHAP. XII. This might be a dream even then, while as yet ChrisA.D. 1515. tendom was nominally united in one Catholic Church; and still more practically impossible in a country like Utopia, where men worshipped the Supreme Being under different symbols and different names, as it might be now even in a Protestant country like England, where religion seems to be the source of social divisions and castes rather than a tie of brotherhood, separating men in their education, in their social life, and even in their graves, by the hard line of sectarian difference. It might be a dream, but it was one worth a place in the dream-land of More's ideal commonwealth. All sects unite in public Temples, nobly built and spacious, in whose solemn twilight men of all sects meet, in spite of their distincworship. tions, to unite in a public worship avowedly so arranged that nothing may be seen or heard which shall jar with the feelings of any class of the worshippers-nothing in which all cannot unite (for every sect performs its own peculiar rites in private);—no images, so that every one may represent the Deity to his own thoughts in his own way; no forms of prayer, but such as every one may use without prejudice to his own private opinion; a service so expressive of their common brotherhood that they think it a great impiety to enter upon it with a consciousness of anger or hatred to any one, without having first purified their hearts and reconciled every difference; incense and other sweet odours and waxen lights burned, not from any notion that they can confer any benefit on God, which even prayers cannot, but because they are useful aids to the worshippers; the men occupying one side of the men's 1 It is impossible not to see in | sian, than of the modern, sacerdotal this a ritualism rather of the Diony- type. A.D. 1516. temple, the women the other, and all clothed in white; CHAP. XII. the whole people rising as the priest who conducts the worship enters the temple in his beautiful vestments, wonderfully wrought of birds' plumage, to join in hymns of praise, accompanied by music; then priest and people uniting in solemn prayer to God in a set form of words, so composed that each can apply its meaning to himself, offering thanks for the blessings which surround them, for the happiness of their commonwealth, for their having embraced a religious persuasion which they hope is the most true one; praying that if they are mistaken they may be led to what is really the true one, so that all may be brought to unity of faith and practice, unless in his inscrutable will the Almighty should otherwise ordain; and concluding with a prayer that, as soon as it may please Him, He may take them to Himself; lastly, this prayer concluded, the whole congregation bowing solemnly to the ground, and then, after a short pause, separating to spend the remainder of the day in innocent amusement,-this was More's ideal of public worship!1 Such was the second book of the 'Utopia,' probably written by More whilst on the embassy, towards the close of 1515, or soon after his return. Well might he conclude with the words, 'I freely confess that many things in the commonwealth of Utopia I rather • wish than hope to see adopted in our own!' IV. THE INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI' OF ERASMUS Some months before More began to write his 1 Utopia, 1st ed. De Religionibus Vtopiensium.' CHAP. XII. with a very similar object. In the spring of 1515, A.D. 1516. while staying with More in London, he had mentioned, in a letter to Cardinal Grimanus' at Rome, that he was already at work on his Institutes of the Christian 'Prince,' designed for the benefit of Prince Charles, into whose honorary service he had recently been drawn. Connec tion be The similarity in the sentiments expressed in this tween the little treatise and in the 'Utopia' would lead to the conclusion that they were written in concert by the two Christian friends, as their imitations of Lucian had been under and the Prince.' similar circumstances. Political events must have often formed the topic of their conversation when together in the spring; and the connection of the one with the Court of Henry VIII. and the other with that of Prince Charles, would be likely to give their thoughts a practical direction. Possibly they may have parted with the understanding that, independently of each other, both works should be written on the common subject, and expressing their common views. Be this as it may, while More went on his embassy to Flanders, and returned to write his 'Utopia,' Erasmus went to Basle to correct the proof-sheets of the Novum Instrumentum,' and to finish the In'stitutio Principis Christiani.' On his return from Basle in the spring of the following year, Erasmus brought his manuscript with him and left it under the care of the Chancellor of Prince Charles, to be printed by Thierry Martins, the 1 Epist. clxvii. Eras. Op. iii. p. clxxvi. June 1, 1516. Brewer, 144, A. 1976. 2 Erasmus to Savage: Epist. A.D. 1516. printer of Louvain, whilst he himself proceeded to CHAP. XII. England. Thus it was being printed while Erasmus was in England in August 1516, and while the manuscript of the second book of More's Utopia' was still lying unpublished, waiting until More should find leisure to write the Introductory Book which he was intending to prefix to it. 6 The publication by Erasmus of the Christian Prince' so soon after the Novum Instrumentum' that the two came before the public together, was not without its significance. It gave to the public expression of the views of Erasmus that wideness and completeness of range which More had given to his views by embracing both religious and political subjects in his as yet unpublished 'Utopia.' tianity and By laying hold of the truth that the laws of nature Chrisand Christianity owe their origin to the same great the laws Founder, More had adopted the one standpoint from of nature. which alone, in the long run, the Christian in an age of rapid progress can look calmly on the discoveries of science and philosophy without fears for his faith. He had trusted his bark to the current, because he was sure it must lead into the ocean of truth; while other men, for lack of that faith, were hugging the shore, mistaking forsooth, in their idle dreams, the shallow bay in which they had moored their craft for the fathomless ocean itself! This faith of More's had been shared by Colet-nay, most probably More had caught it from him. It was Colet who had been the first of the little group of Oxford Reformers to proclaim that Christianity had nothing to fear from the new learning,'witness his school, and the tone and spirit of his Oxford 6 |