CHAPTER IV.
I. COLET MADE DOCTOR AND DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S (1500-5.)
Colet, left alone to pursue the even tenor of his way at Oxford, worked steadily at his post. It mattered little to him that for years he toiled on without any official recognition on the part of the University authorities of the value of his work. What if a Doctor’s degree had never during these years been conferred upon him? The want of it had never stopped his teaching. Its possession would have been to him no triumph.
Colet’s work at Oxford.
That young theological students were beginning more and more to study the Scriptures instead of the Schoolmen—for this he cared far more. For this he was casting his bread upon the waters, in full faith that, whether he might live to see it or not, it would return after many days. And in truth—known or unknown to Colet—young Tyndale, and such as he, yet in their teens, were already poring over the Scriptures at Oxford.[228] The leaven, silently but surely, was leavening the surrounding mass. But Colet probably did not see much of the secret results of his work. That it was his duty to do it was reason enough for his doing it; that it bore at least some visible fruit was sufficient encouragement to work on with good heart.
So the years went by; and as often as each term came round, Colet was ready with his gratuitous course of lectures on one or another of St. Paul’s Epistles.[229]
Colet made Doctor and Dean of St. Paul’s.