me, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again
refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'.
Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks
at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
right to preach.

In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which
Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms,
holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the
Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may
seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his
adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have
endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still
greater detriment of the world.'

The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the
Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be
burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther
was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief
will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had
never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Duerer, on hearing
the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that
passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be?
Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect
the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I
have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of
the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side,
that God may be proud of you.'

It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the
expectation that he will not do all this. Duerer had rightly understood
Erasmus.

The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most
dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most
serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too,
indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's
compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of
Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never