Professor Jebb delivered a very interesting " Rae Lecture" at
Cambridge on Wednesday in the Senate House on Erasmus, whom he endeavoured to clear from the charge of having been something of a Laodicean in his religion. According to Professor Jebb, Erasmus was an ardent friend to the new learning and a great foe to the cor- ruptions of the Church, but was not an adherent of the Lutheran theology, and did not wish to strike a blow at the authority of Rome. He earnestly wished to see the Scriptures translated into every language, and put into the hands of all. " I long," he said, " that the husbandman shall sing them to himself as he follows his plough, that the weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller shall beguile with them the weariness of his journey." Dr. Jebb strenuously denied that Erasmus's ambiguous attitude was due to worldliness. When Paul M. wished to make him a Cardinal, and to give him the means of keeping up the state of a Cardinal, he declined. He held that his right place was in his study. " I would rather work for a month in expounding St. Paul," he said, " than waste a day in quarrelling." He was not a theologian; but he was, Dr. Jebb thinks, in his heart a sincere Christian and a hearty foe of lifeless formalism Dr. Jebb's apologia for Erasmus contained, at all events, a vivid and impressive sketch of his own conception of the great humanist.
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