n Tetzel came marching into German towns, with the Pope's Bull
borne before him on a cushion, and brandishing indulgences for the
living and the dead, when the coins were tinkling in the box, and the
souls, released by contract, were flying off out of purgatory, the
religious sense of thinking men was outraged by this travesty of the
Day of Judgement; but scarcely less were they angered to see the
tinkling coins, honest German money, flying off as rapidly as the
souls, to build palaces for the supercilious Italians. In the great
struggle of the Reformation the main issue was of course religious;
but even its leader could feel added bitterness in the knowledge that
this shocking traffic was ordained from Italy to benefit an Italian
Pope. If the sympathies of educated Germany had not already been
strongly moved in the same direction, it is conceivable that Luther's
intrepid protest might have lacked the support which carried it to
success.

XI

ERASMUS AND THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN

(A paper read before the third International Historical Congress, in
London, April 1913.)

Whatever may still be the troubles of the great, amongst men of
learning at any rate visits of ceremony are mercifully no longer in
fashion. At first sight one is inclined to find the cause of this in
an improved sense of the value of time. Modern inventions have taught
first the business man and then the world in general that time is
money. Improved communications with time-tables that may be relied
upon enable us to arrange our days in such a way as to be at least
more busy, if not more useful; and we have acquired a wholesome
respect for the time of others. But I do not think we should be right
in accounting for the change in this way. At all ages the scholar,
looking round him at tasks which exceed the capacity of a lifetime,
has been avaricious of the hours--'labuntur anni', 'pereunt et
imputantur' ever in his thoughts: and though the world of old moved
slower, the man of business has rarely belied his name. A more
plausible explanation is that the custom has died of surfeit. As
increased facilities of travel made the world smaller, the circle of
those that might be visited and saluted by the active grew boundless;
so that on both sides limits were desired. Another consideration is
that with new facilities came increased opportunities and hopes.
To-day we live in the happy consciousness that friends, however
distant, may be brought across