me by the hair, recall me to myself just as I was drawing my sword.25

In another letter written on the same day to Sir Henry Guildford, who was at this period King Henry's confidant and bosom friend, he lauds the king even more, not without the hope, we may be allowed to believe, that his sentiments would reach the king's ears. He apostrophizes him thus:

Oh, marvelous vicissitudes of human affairs! Formerly the ardor for learning was almost entirely confined to the Religious Orders; now, since they have given themselves up to their stomachs, to luxury, and to money-getting, the love for learning is migrating to worldly princes and court nobility. For what university, what monastery, ever possessed so many persons endowed with eminent probity and learning as your court now holds? Are we clerics not most rightly ashamed of ourselves? The feasts of the priests and theologians are flowing with wine, they are replete with scurrilous jests, they are clamorous with drunken tumult, they abound in virulent detraction; while at the tables of kings they modestly dispute about the things which make for erudition and piety. It is not to be wondered at that all hasten to follow the example of this best of kings, whose gifts which he has in common with other kings, surpassing many, inferior to none, I pass over. But who is there more dexterous in debate than he, who happier in invention, sounder in judgment, apter in expression?

Formerly, captivated by the attractiveness of literary leisure, I shrank from the courts of kings; but to such a court as that of yours I would not hesitate to cast my lot with all my belongings, which consist of writing paper mostly, did not my poor health and impending age dissuade me. Where now are they who boast that the possession of learning diminishes the vigor of kings? Who is more able in war, more prudent in maintaining the law, more circumspect in council, more vigilant in repressing crime and license, more diligent in the selection of magistrates and officials, more energetic in bringing about treaties between monarchs than Henry VIII? Truly I see that something of a golden age is about to arise, which perchance I may not live to enjoy, since I am approaching the end of my tale; but I congratulate the world thereon, and I congratulate the young men in whose memories Erasmus will somehow survive by reason of his services to them."

26

As we have to discount considerably Erasmus' language when praising the personal chastity and conjugal fidelity of King Henry, so too we are moved to hesitate about accepting his estimate of the table conversation of the court officials on the one hand, and the clergy on the other. The picture of the priests overcome with wine, and bandying ribald jests, forms such a striking antithesis to his other picture of the abstemious and temperate Henry discoursing on pious topics with his courtiers. Eras. Ep. 966.

* Eras. Ep. 965 ad fin. Cf. Iliad, I, 193 sqq.

that we who have read stories of that amorous king are forced to the conclusion that either Erasmus was woefully misinformed about the personal habits of the king, or the historians of the time have conspired to defame that royal Tudor. It is fortunate for us that Erasmus never tried to write history, since his personal likes and dislikes would have always served to distort the facts.

He did not trust alone to this appeal to Henry, but also wrote a very direct and adjuring letter to Wolsey, Henry's alter ego, in which he seeks to set himself right with the Cardinal as regards his relations with Luther, and then goes on to tell him how much England is indebted to his Eminence for the freedom from crime which it enjoys, as also for his fostering care of literature. Since we have already quoted parts of this letter, which had the same object in view as that to Henry himself, we need not trouble the reader further with it. We may, however, sum up the result of his various appeals to his English friends by saying that, although they appreciated his learning and literary ability, there was no longer any individual or concerted action in the direction of securing him permanently for England. In this year of 1519 England was entirely and solidly Catholic, and had not the slightest quarrel, or desire for a quarrel, with Rome. We may go further and say that there was not any of the strong anti-Roman, or anti-papal feeling, which was so strongly manifest in Germany as the result of the Reuchlin controversy. Erasmus probably realized that England was becoming colder towards him, a result that Edward Lee must have powerfully contributed to bring about.

Be this as it may, we next see him dedicating a book, The Method of True Theology, to Albert of Brandenburg, whose interests Tetzel was subserving by his way of preaching the Indulgences, and with whom at that time Luther had locked horns. Besides being Archbishop of Mainz, he was also one of the Electors of the Empire, and was in a position to do great things for Erasmus should the fancy strike him. In any case Erasmus deemed him a person worth cultivating. He also wrote flattering letters at this time to many others who were in the way of doing him favors if they felt so disposed, and among these were Antony, the son of John of Bergen and nephew of his old patron the Bishop of Cambrai; James Banisius, one of the ablest diplomatists of the Emperor's court; Gilles, the seigneur of Busleiden, a very wealthy gentleman of Brabant; and others.

CHAPTER VIII

DEATH OF COLET: COLET'S CONVOCATION SERMON

John Colet died at about this period, or to be exact, on September 16, 1519. The friendship between Erasmus and himself dated back twenty years, and, though it had been once imperiled by what Colet regarded as Erasmus' insufferable habit of begging, it continued in the main unbroken until Colet's death. Upon some points their tastes met, but they were less numerous than their points of difference. We have already described Colet's sterling virtues, his spotless purity of life, his asceticism, his abnegation of self, his love for the young, and his zeal for their proper education. When they first met, Colet had just returned from making the grand tour of Italy which had been the dream of Erasmus for many years. From Colet he had learned all the major and minor details of the journey, where to go, what to see, the institutions of learning to be visited, and the famous scholars whose acquaintance was to be made. That this new friend was at this time quite wealthy was not the least of his attractions for Erasmus; but in addition to this there was the fact that they were about of the same age, that St. Paul and St. Jerome were favorites of both, and that in all matters relating to classical learning Colet readily yielded to the superior knowledge of this brilliant monk who had been so highly lauded to him by his good friend Prior Charnock. This last was a subtle though quite unintentional flattery on the part of Colet, who never, as far as we know, was in the habit of flattering anyone; and this marks one of the great differences between himself and Erasmus, who was all his life aware of the power of flattery and made use of it to its full extent. Like all who met him, Colet was fascinated by the polished and witty conversation of Erasmus, and had visions of what this learned and brilliant man might do for the cause of God's Church. But Colet was not impulsive and, as Erasmus said, was accustomed to think before he spoke, but when he spoke what he had to say was well considered. Such impressive utterance is a characteristic of earnest souls. He was a man of decision, and already his life's purposes were fixed while those of Erasmus were yet contingent. He had pursued knowledge only as a means to an end, while Erasmus had pursued knowledge as the end itself. But as Lupton, Colet's biographer, says, and we most cordially agree with him:

His sincerity and earnestness of purpose, and the sense of reality conveyed in his advocacy of any opinion he held to be true, must have done much to steady a mind like that of Erasmus, undecided as yet in its choice of an object of life, and, in particular, averse from the study of theology."

1 Life of Colet, p. 101.

He was slow in taking a position, but when once it was taken, he was not easily moved from it. His mind was too analytic to bend before the impetuosity and vehemence of even a skilled debater like Erasmus; and the reason for this lay in the fact that what would be merely opinions for most men were in his case sure and logical deductions from irrefragable premises.❜

3

It is no wonder that in Erasmus, with his lofty tone, his acute observation of men and things, his brilliant pen, his powers of debate, Colet recognized qualities which he himself would have liked to possess; but when we consider his own special virtues-his unselfishness, his profoundly religious nature, his spotless character, we may even add his sanctity-Colet suffers not at all in any comparison with his more brilliant friend. But if the splendid gifts of Erasmus and the saintliness of Colet could have been combined in any one man, then would have been seen the advent on this earth of another St. Bernard, who would have been to Leo X the guide and monitor that the great Abbot of Clairvaux had been to Innocent II in similar times of stress and disorder within the Church. When Erasmus praises a man, we are always treated to a eulogy in the superlative degree, which sometimes makes us slow in accepting his estimate of his contemporaries; but in the case of Colet we have also the testimony of Sir Thomas More, who was accustomed to indulge in panegyric very sparingly. So when he tells us, in speaking of Colet after his demise, that "none more learned or more holy had lived among them for many ages past," we may receive it as sterling truth. As between Colet and Erasmus, it was the Englishman who more resembled St. Bernard. When he essayed to criticize the unworthiness of some of the clergy, it was with something of the same holy indignation that the divine Master manifested when he drove the money-lenders from the Temple. He had no Lucianic virulence to display, no personal dislike to gratify, no feeling of contempt to express, but only an intense desire to see the worship of God presided over by devout and God-fearing men. For himself he claimed nothing, and was humbleness itself; but he was bold as a lion where the interests of his Master were in peril. This courage of the spirit led him even to differ from and criticize some of the great writers of the Church, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, which yet did not prevent him from recognizing the transcendent merits of both these fathers. Everything about him was genuine. There was no simulation of piety, no ostentation, no bitterness of spirit; but all was sincerity. and manliness, truly indicative of a fine sense of honor. When he was persecuted by Fitzjames, Bishop of London, and stigmatized as a man of heretical leanings, he showed a true Christian spirit, and mentioned his troubles to Erasmus without the least bitterness. He clearly appreciated the fact that the hierarchy differed widely in its make-up, that perhaps the majority were frankly worldly, and the minority were 2 This is very well illustrated by his reply to Erasmus in the debate which they had on the words Transeat a me, Pater, calix iste. (See Eras. Ep. 110.) See Epistolæ aliquot eruditorum, in loco.

See Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, pp. 36, 82. Also Murray's Erasmus and Luther, Their Attitude to Toleration, p. 430.

divided into the sincere and charitable, and the sincere but fanatical; and that Fitzjames was in the latter category. He readily made allowance for the weakness of our common nature; and while recognizing the fanaticism of Fitzjames, who could bring himself to burn his fellow-man alive for what was then deemed an offense against the Divinity, he at the same time realized that the same hierarchy contained noble souls such as the kindly Warham and the high-minded Fisher. He was at one with Erasmus in hating all kinds of imposture, but was more patient with the weaknesses of humanity. On the question of formalism in the Church they were as far apart as the poles, for Erasmus was against all ceremonial, while Colet was in full conformity with his contemporaries on this subject. This would indicate that Colet had a deeper insight into the spiritual needs and limitations of the ordinary man. He realized that the ignorant and illiterate have great difficulty in understanding abstractions, and require concrete representations in order to be able in any measure to grasp abstract ideas. An extreme case will readily show this. Contrast, for instance, the mind of a savage with that of Erasmus, and we can readily see that these two minds must function differently in acquiring a knowledge of a Supreme Being; for while Erasmus can easily lift up his mind to the contemplation of God's power and immensity, the poor savage cannot unaided conceive a Divine Power, working solely on the immaterial. It is beyond him. But show him the idea of the All-Powerful by means of some concrete object which he does understand, and his mind will rise from the material to the immaterial, and eventually he will find "sermons in stones and good in everything." The Church has always recognized this fact and made use of it, knowing as she does that most of her children have not been blest with the higher gifts of the imagination, and that, as a consequence, she must adapt herself to their powers of comprehension and understanding. Herein lies the basic reason for her ceremonial rites, a reason which Colet seems to have accepted naturally, and which Erasmus, with all his wisdom, seems to have failed to grasp.

If we desire to get a true picture of Colet as he appeared to his contemporaries, we shall find it, not in the sketch of his life which Erasmus has left us, representing rather a Colet idealized by Erasmus than the man as he actually was, but in a sermon which has come down to our days, and which was preached by him before the bishops and priests of the archdiocese of Canterbury to the number of over four hundred, on February 6, 1512. This is perhaps the most valuable document that is now available for the use of the historian, whether he be Protestant or Catholic, who desires to draw for us of to-day a picture of the state of Catholicity in England in the days of Colet. And the picture must be true to life for many reasons, principal of which are these two, that it was unflattering to the auditors, and that the preacher was a man whose sanctity of life warranted him in assuming the right to criticize his brethren. The occasion brings to us thoughts of St. Bernard, St. Bernardin of Siena, and Savonarola; for with no less courage * New style.