But Colet, in his lectures at Oxford, had laid great stress upon the necessity of that living sacrifice of men's hearts and lives without which all other sacrifices were empty things, and it seems that after he was called to the deanery he gave forth 'A right fruitfull Admonition concerning the Order of a good Christian Man's Life,'[366] which passed through many editions during the sixteenth century, and in which he made use of the following language:--
[Sidenote: Colet on the duty of self-sacrifice.]
'Thou must know that thou hast nothing that good is of thyself, but of God. For the gift of nature and all other temporal gifts of this world ... well considered have come to thee by the infinite goodness and grace of God, and not of thyself.... But in especial is it necessary for thee to know that God of his great grace has made thee his image, having regard to thy memory, understanding, and free will, and that God is thy maker, and thou his wretched creature, and that thou art redeemed of God by the passion of Jesus Christ, and that God is thy helper, thy refuge, and thy deliverance from all evil.... And, therefore, think, and thank God, and utterly despise thyself, ... in that God hath done so much for thee, and thou hast so often offended his highness, and also done Him so little service. And therefore, by his infinite mercy and grace, call unto thy remembrance the degree of dignity which Almighty God hath called thee unto, and according thereunto yield thy debt, and do thy duty.'
Colet was not the man to preach one thing and practise another. No sooner had he been appointed to the deanery of St. Paul's, than he had at once resigned the rich living of Stepney,[367] the residence of his father, and now of his widowed mother. And no sooner had his father's fortune come into his hands, than he earnestly considered how most effectually to devote it to the cause in which he had laboured so unceasingly at Oxford and St. Paul's.
[Sidenote: Colet founds St. Paul's School.]
[Sidenote: Colet's object in founding it.]
After mature deliberation he resolved, whilst living and in health, to devote his patrimony[368] to the foundation of a school in St. Paul's Churchyard, wherein 153 children,[369] without any restriction as to nation or country, who could already read and write, and were of 'good parts and capacities,' should receive a sound Christian education. The 'Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world,' poisoning thereby 'the old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue used in the time of Tully and Sallust, and Virgil and Terence, and learned by St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine,'--all that 'abusion which the later blind world brought in, and which may rather be called Blotterature than Literature,'--should be 'utterly abanished and excluded' out of this school. The children should be taught good literature, both Latin and Greek, 'such authors that have with wisdom joined pure chaste eloquence'--'specially Christian authors who wrote their wisdom in clean and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse; for,' said Colet, '_my intent is by this school specially to increase knowledge, and worshipping of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the children_.'[370]