Melancthon was touched by these supplications. He thought he heard (as they had told him) the voice of God himself. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘I will go. My friends in France have entertained great expectations and apply to me to fulfil them: I will not disappoint their hopes.’ Melancthon was resolved to maintain the essential truths of Christianity, and hoped to see them accepted by the catholic world. Francis I. and his friends had not rejected Luther’s fundamental article,—justification solely by faith in the merits of Christ, by a living faith, which produces holiness and works. According to the most eminent and most Christian orator of the Roman Church, Melancthon combined learning, gentleness, and elegance of style, with singular moderation, so that he was regarded as the only man fitted to succeed in literature to the reputation of Erasmus.[731] But he was more than that: his convictions were not to be shaken; _he knew where he was_, and, far from seeking all his life for his religion—as Bossuet asserts—he had found it and admirably explained it in his _Theological Commonplaces_.[732] Still he constantly said to his friends: ‘We must contend only for what is great and necessary.’[733] Melancthon, who was full of meekness, was always ready to do what might be agreeable to others. Sincere, open, and exceedingly fond of children, he liked to play with them and tell them little tales. But with all this amiability he had a horror of ambiguous language, especially in matters of faith; and although a man of extreme gentleness, he felt strongly, his anguish could be very bitter, and when his soul was stirred, he would break out with sudden impetuosity, which, however, he would soon repress. His error, in the present case, was in believing that the pope could be received without receiving his doctrines: every true Roman-catholic could have told him that this was impossible. At all events De la Fosse had decided him. For the triumph of unity and truth, this simple-hearted bashful man was resolved to brave the dangers of France and the bitter reproaches of Germany. ‘I will go,’ he said to the envoy of Francis I. It was the language of a Christian ready to sacrifice himself. In history we sometimes meet with characters who enlarge our ideas of moral greatness: Melancthon was one of them.