When all was arranged, Lee issued his manifesto. Although a poor Greek scholar,[292] he drew up some _Annotations_ on Erasmus's book, which the latter called "mere abuse and blasphemy;" but which the members of the league regarded as _oracles_. They passed them secretly from hand to hand, and these obscure sheets, by many indirect channels, found their way into every part of England, and met with numerous readers.[293] There was to be no publication--such was the watchword; Lee was too much afraid. "Why did you not publish your work," asked Erasmus, with cutting irony. "Who knows whether the holy father, appointing you the Aristarchus of letters, might not have sent you a birch to keep the whole world in order!"[294] [292] Simon, Hist. crit. du. N. Test. p. 246. [293] Liber volitat inter manus conjuratorum. (Erasm. Ep. p. 746.) The book flitted to and fro among the hands of the conspirators. [294] Tibi tradita virgula totius orbis censuram fuerit mandaturus. Ibid. p. 742. The _Annotations_ having triumphed in the convents, the _conspiracy_ took a new flight. In every place of public resort, at fairs and markets, at the dinner-table and in the council-chamber, in shops, and taverns, and houses of ill-fame, in churches and in the universities, in cottages and in palaces, the league blattered against Erasmus and the Greek Testament.[295] Carmelites, Dominicans, and Sophists, invoked heaven and conjured hell. What need was there of Scripture? Had they not the apostolical succession of the clergy? No hostile landing in England could, in their eyes, be more fatal than that of the New Testament. The whole nation must rise to repel this impudent invasion. There is, perhaps, no country in Europe, where the Reformation was received by so unexpected a storm. [295] Ut nusquam non blaterent in Erasmum, in compotationibus, in foris, in conciliabulis, in pharmacopoliis, in curribus, in tonstrinis, in fornicibus......Ibid. p. 746. CHAPTER II. Effects of the New Testament in the Universities--Conversations--A Cambridge Fellow--Bilney buys the New Testament--The first Passage--His Conversion--Protestantism, the Fruit of the Gospel--The Vale of the Severn--William Tyndale--Evangelization at Oxford--Bilney teaches at Cambridge--Fryth--Is Conversion Possible?--True Consecration--The Reformation has begun. [Sidenote: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE UNIVERSITIES.]