had ploughed the ground, and sowed the seed, and nurtured the crop, until now it was ready to mature. Soon he was to realize that the seed he had planted was not wholly good. Luther was one of the first fruits; a second was Ulrich Hutten of whom we have already spoken; and a third was Frederick, Elector of Saxony, who was Luther's patron and protector during the stormy times then at hand. A fourth was George Spalatin, the secretary of the aforesaid Frederick, his constant adviser and mentor, and the mutual confidant and intermediary between Luther and his royal patron. To show that the Elector had been exposed to the influence of Erasmus' peculiar and, at this time, unusual sentiments, we will subjoin a letter from Spalatin to Erasmus, from which we learn indubitably that the monarch was an admirer of Erasmus' works:

George Spalatin to Erasmus of Rotterdam, Greeting. I have long been awaiting a letter from you, Erasmus, sole glory of our common fatherland Germany. If my letter has reached your hands there is nothing I less fear than that you will not send me a reply; because I have written to you not so much in a private as in a public capacity, although most willingly too on my own account. For having long ago sought a reason for writing to you, I did not meet with such an occasion, though most desirous, until the present one fell out and compelled me thereto. I began to be wholly yours from the time when I first penetrated into the stores of your manifold erudition and eloquence. I am extremely desirous of knowing where you now are, what you are doing and what meditating, what you are preparing for our own times, and what for the times to come. I hope, therefore, you will grant me this in the name of my best of kings, Duke Frederick of Saxony, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, and send me at length a reply. Great as he is, he holds you in the highest estimation, and has all your books in his library which he is building up by the acquisition of the very best sort of works. Our Peter Alamirus will tell you the rest. Farewell and be happy. Hastily, from the castle of Aldenburg. November 13, 1517.

This letter was lost in transit, so that Erasmus did not receive it, as he says, until about two years afterwards, at about the same period that he had written to the other Elector, Albert Archbishop of Mainz. After excusing himself to Spalatin for his long delay in answering, he dexterously conveys the information that Albert has made him a very rich present, which he values all the more on account of its having been unsolicited. Such a hint could not be passed unnoticed by Spalatin,

So great an admirer of Erasmus was Spalatin that he was already at work in 1520 on a German translation of the great scholar's Institutio principis christiani, presumably for the benefit of his master Frederick the Elector, who is said to have known little or no Latin. I have seen a copy of this now scarce book, which is entitled Erasmus von Rotterdam, Die vnterweysung eines Frummen u. Christlichen Fürsten. . . durch G. Spalatin geteutscht. Augsp. Sig. Grym u. M. Wirsung, 1521.

Eras. Ep. 711.

and in his next letter to Erasmus he announces that the Elector has bestowed on him two medals, one of silver and one of gold, bearing engraved thereon the royal lineaments. This was no inconsiderable present, and for it Erasmus was duly grateful. It is possible that Frederick had made him other gifts previously, since he intimates as much to Spalatin in his letter of thanks, when he says, "I owe him very much privately"; but he was not going to make the same mistake with Frederick that he had made with the Cardinal Albert, of writing him a letter about his protegé Luther that he, or some one for him, might print, to the detriment of Erasmus' standing with the powerful opponents of Luther. So he very guardedly says to Spalatin:

I have written recently to Philip Melancthon, but in such a manner that I feel as if I had written to Luther by that same letter. I pray that Christ the Almighty will so temper the pen and mind of Luther that he will procure for evangelical piety the greatest possible amount of good, and that he will give to certain people a better understanding, people who seek their own glory by the ignominy of Christ, and follow their own profit by abandoning Him. In the camp of those who oppose Luther I perceive many who smack of the world more than of Christ. And yet there are faults on both sides. Would that Hutten, whose talents I much esteem, would moderate his writing! I should prefer Luther to refrain from these contentions for a little while, and to expound the Gospel simply, without admixture of personal feelings: perhaps his undertaking would succeed better. Just now he is exposing even good literature to an ill will which is ruinous to us and unprofitable to himself. And there is danger that the corruption of public morality, which all declare requires a public remedy, may, like a pestilence that is stirred up afresh, wax ever more strongly. Not always is the truth to be put forth. And it makes a wide difference in what manner it is put forth. Farewell, best of men, and commend me to your prince. Louvain, July 6, 1520.*

Here we have the famous axiom by which he ruled his own conduct, that "the truth is not always to be spoken." Luther had now been in open revolt against the Church authorities for almost three years, and Erasmus was beginning to scent real danger ahead. Neither he nor any other man had ever imagined for a moment that Luther would carry things so far or with so high a hand. But it was against him and not Luther that the monks were now collecting ample evidence of destructive influences; influences which he had let loose and for which they were going to hold him responsible. This served to make him. still more careful of his utterances about Luther; besides this, he had long been aware that those who were the staunchest champions of the Church-and they were not solely the monks, but the earnest and zealous minds of all countries-had begun to look askance at the humanists as being men of loose and irreverent sentiments towards the Church. This was an unfortunate but very natural conclusion for them to draw, seeing 7 * Ibid., 1119.

that Erasmus, the greatest scholar of all these, was, either consciously or unconsciously, leading a large number of the humanists into the most pronounced latitudinarianism in matters of religious belief. But the strange part of it all is that he did not yet perceive that he was largely responsible for the tragedy that was being enacted before his very eyes. And so, in the following letter to Reuchlin, he looks for a consolation which he has not earned:

When I was dining recently with the reverend Cardinal of Sion, he informed me that you were dead. I did not choose to believe it because it had not been verified by letter. But soon others brought me more joyous tidings, for which I pray a continuance, my best and most learned of friends. You see the fatal tragedy which is now being enacted and of which the end is uncertain. Whatever may be the outcome, I pray that it may be to the glory of Christ and the benefit of evangelical truth. I prefer to be a spectator of this affair rather than an actor therein; not that I would refuse to endure any trial for the work of Christ, but that I perceive the affair to be beyond my poor abilities. . . It was ever my care to keep your cause and the cause of polite literature separate from that of Luther, for the reason that such a confusing of aims would invite hostility towards us, and help him not at all. . . . If our Germans had only practiced politeness, for which I have always striven, the matter might perhaps never have ended in such tumults. November 8, 1520.

His every letter of this time is full of mournful apprehension for what may happen to the cause of learning; but as to the havoc that was being wrought in men's religious convictions, we look in vain for the slightest expression of regret. But, if he was blind to the results of his many years of scoffing and irreverence, others were not; and he began to observe an unwonted coldness even amongst his German friends. Something of this feeling prompted him to send the letter to Reuchlin from which we have just quoted, in order to reinstate himself at least in that great scholar's regard. Reuchlin had fallen out with his nephew Melancthon on account of Luther, and it is just probable that Erasmus' conscience did not entirely acquit him of a share in the responsibility for Melancthon's going over to the Wittemberg monk. Whether or not this surmise is correct, the fact remains that Reuchlin chose to ignore the letter, so far as we can see, nor was there any further correspondence between them until Reuchlin's death, which occurred three years later.

Brilliant as was the mind of Erasmus in many ways, his was not an analytical mind, or he would have been better able to relate cause with effect. Writing to Gerard Geldenhauer as to how the troubles with Luther had arisen, he gives this most lame and impotent conclusion, "This tragedy first arose from hatred to good literature, and from the stupidity of the monks." That is his sole explanation of the Reformation, and is as usual purely personal and subjective. That this stupendous • Ibid., 1155. Ibid, 1141. (September 9, 1520.)

9

movement originated in any causes unconnected with his favorite obsessions was evidently never considered possible by him. It was very gratifying for him to see, as a result more of his efforts than of those of anyone else, that the monastic institution had been shaken to its very centre; but his satisfaction thereat was somewhat diminished by the knowledge that advanced scholarship was being made to suffer for this vicariously. And though this was unjust, as we now perceive, it seems very natural when we reflect that almost all these attacks on the monastic institution were being made by the leading exponents of the New Learning. But there was injustice on both sides, for we must remember that, had it not been for the monastic institution in the first place, all the stores of classic antiquity on which the New Learning was expending its energy and acumen would have perished utterly from the world.

The Elector Frederick "the Wise," defender of Luther' against his enemies, entertained, as we have previously said, a high regard for the opinions of Erasmus. At times he must have had his doubts as to the wisdom of supporting his turbulent and truculent protégé against the constituted Church authorities; and we get a glimpse of his mental anxiety in his famous meeting with Erasmus at Cologne about this time. Spalatin, who was present at the interview between the monarch and the great scholar, relates that Frederick asked Erasmus if he considered Luther to have erred in his published opinions. What a glorious chance was there offered to Erasmus to settle matters amicably by assisting the Elector to orient himself! Probably no other man then living could have done what he might have done with a few earnest and thoughtful words. What tremendous consequences rested on his answer only the future could disclose-the Church of God rent asunder, the peasant uprising in Germany, the torrents of blood shed under Henry, Mary, and Elizabeth, in England, the baleful fires of Smithfield and Geneva, the day of St. Bartholomew in France, the hatreds of kindred, the fearful injustices everywhere perpetrated in the name of the new liberty, and worst of all, the Thirty Years' War, of that duration merely because it left Europe too flatly prostrate to fight longer. Had Erasmus only risen to the occasion with the warnings which he boasted in later years he so often gave at this period! But Erasmus was not the man for such a decisive position. As a constructive thinker he was humanly impregnable only when he hypnotized by the awe of his ivory tower; and only those held his opinions on contemporary affairs in high account who confused erudition with original thinkinga not uncommon confusion at that period. Quotations from the classics are not oracles: they are quotations from the classics. When Erasmus attempted serious counsel, he was often platitudinous and banal, as witness the plan he with preliminary trumpetings offered to Pope Adrian VI; on the other hand, his nearest approach to brilliant thinking was usually a sparkling but little helpful epigram. In this case he acted in the latter way. The man who had so eagerly and so ardently pleaded for peace at all times and on every occasion, sacrificed the peace of Europe for a witticism. We translate the account of this famous