Excerpt from The Three Chancellors: Or Sketches of the Lives of William of Wykeham, William of Waynflete, and Sir Thomas More

We hope that in the following sketches we have shown that they meant much, and that education in the minds of these great men was understood in even a larger sense than it has been in later times. With them it was considered as the train ing of the entire being, as the perfect formation and develop ment of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature of man. Their aim was to introduce a system which should elevate every part of that nature to its highest Christian ideal; and whilst all things were kept in harmony and proportion under the control and governance of the faith, Science and Piety went hand in hand, and Learning and Humility were made to embrace one another. The lives of these great Prelates are useful also as affording evidence of the manner in which the ecclesiastical revenues were expended by them, and, we may add, by hun dreds like them. How constantly do we hear of the overgrown riches of the Church in the ages immediately preceding the Reformation! How little are we ever told of the objects on which those riches were lavished, and that, moreover, during the life time of their owners! Yet when we come to know the real extent of their munificence, we are forced to own, that in this point at least they have found no imitators in later centuries. Not without some purpose, however, have their memorials, as we fondly trust, been hitherto preserved among us. The stranger who wanders through the desecrated aisles of Winches ter passes from the chantry of Wykeham to that of Fox, and a little further on finds himself standing between the tombs of Waynflete and Beaufort. Eloquent are the lessons which they preach to his heart; and as he gazes at the marvellous beauty of those rich and canopied chapels, the memories of Winton, and Corpus Christi, and Magdalen, and St. Cross rush upon his soul, filling him with great thoughts of charity to man, and boundless generosity to God.

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