was earnest in his
desire for the reform of abuses in the Church. He disliked
contention, and desired to avoid offence; but he made enemies in all
parts of Europe, and was vehemently denounced by the theologians of
Paris and Louvain, by the Spanish friars, by Archbishop Lee, by
Zuniga, the Count of Carpi, and especially by the very learned
Steuchus of Gubbio. In later days he was one of the first writers put
on the Index. But throughout his career as a divine, that is, for the
last quarter of a century that he lived, he was consistently
protected, defended, consulted by Popes, until Paul III offered him a
Cardinal's hat and desired that he would settle at Rome. He told Leo X
that he thought it a mistake to censure Luther, with whom he agreed as
to many of the matters calling for reform. But whilst Luther
attributed the prevailing demoralisation to false dogmas and a faulty
constitution, Erasmus sought the cause in ignorance and
misgovernment. What came from this division of opinion pertains to the
next lecture. Erasmus belonged, intellectually, to a later and more
scientific or rational age. The work which he had initiated, and which
was interrupted by the Reformation troubles, was resumed at a more
acceptable time by the scholarship of the seventeenth century.

IV

LUTHER

DURING THE latter part of the Middle Ages, the desire for reform
of the Church was constant. It was strongest and most apparent among
laymen, for a famous monastic writer of the fourteenth century
testified that the laity led better lives than the clergy. To the
bulk of ordinary Christians reform meant morality in the priesthood.
It became intolerable to them to see the Sacrament administered
habitually by sacrilegious hands, or to let their daughters go to
confession to an unclean priest. The discontent was deepest where men
were best. They felt that the organisation provided for the salvation
of souls was serving for their destruction, and that the more people
sought the means of grace in the manner provided, the greater risk
they incurred of imbibing corruption. In the days when celibacy was
imposed under Gregory VII, it was argued that the validity of orders
depended on conduct; and that idea of forfeiture by sin, essentially
fatal to the whole hierarchical system, was not yet extinct. People
learnt to think of virtue apart from the institutions of the Church,
and the way was paved for a change which should reduce the part of