As there had been no such National Protestant Synod in France for fifteen years, there was an accumulation of business for it, the case of Morus included.

They were to examine that case _de novo_, and to pronounce finally whether Morus was guilty or not guilty, whether he should remain a minister of the French Church or not.[1] [Footnote 1: Bayle, Art.

_Morus_, and Bruce's Life of Morus, 204-226.] Milton's replies to the two letters will now be intelligible.

He writes, it will be observed, in a gloomy mood, on the very day on which Whitlocke, for different reasons, was in a gloomy mood too and "wishing himself out of these daily hazards":-- TO HENRY OLDENBURG.
"That forgiveness which you ask for _your_ silence you will give rather to _mine_; for, if I remember rightly, it was my turn to write to you.

By no means has it been any diminution of my regard for you (of this I would have you fully persuaded) that has been the impediment, but only my employments or domestic cares; or perhaps it is mere sluggishness to the act of writing that makes me guilty of the intermitted duty.