there would have been
some danger--danger to the leaders, if certainty of triumph to the
cause--and Erasmus had no gift for martyrdom.

His first impulse was generous. He encouraged the elector, as we have
seen, to protect Luther from the Pope. 'I looked on Luther,' he wrote to
Duke George of Saxe, 'as a necessary evil in the corruption of the
Church; a medicine, bitter and drastic, from which sounder health would
follow.'

And again, more boldly: 'Luther has taken up the cause of honesty and
good sense against abominations which are no longer tolerable. His
enemies are men under whose worthlessness the Christian world has
groaned too long.'

So to the heads of the Church he wrote, pressing them to be moderate and
careful:--

'I neither approve Luther nor condemn him,' he said to the Archbishop of
Mayence; 'if he is innocent, he ought not to be oppressed by the
factions of the wicked; if he is in error, he should be answered, not
destroyed. The theologians'--observe how true they remain to the
universal type in all times and in all countries--'the theologians do
not try to answer him. They do but raise an insane and senseless
clamour, and shriek and curse. Heresy, heretic, heresiarch, schismatic,
Antichrist--these are the words which are in the mouths of all of them;
and, of course, they condemn without reading. I warned them what they
were doing. I told them to scream less, and to think more. Luther's life
they admit to be innocent and blameless. Such a tragedy I never saw. The
most humane men are thirsting for his blood, and they would rather kill
him than mend him. The Dominicans are the worst, and are more knaves
than fools. In old times, even a heretic was quietly listened to. If he
recanted, he was absolved; if he persisted, he was at worst
excommunicated. Now they will have nothing but blood. Not to agree with
them is heresy. To know Greek is heresy. To speak good Latin is heresy.
Whatever they do not understand is heresy. Learning, they pretend, has
given birth to Luther, though Luther has but little of it. Luther thinks
more of the Gospel than of scholastic divinity, and that is his crime.
This is plain at least, that the best men everywhere are those who are
least offended with him.'

Even to Pope Leo, in the midst of his fury, Erasmus wrote bravely;
separating himself from Luther, yet deprecating violence. 'Nothing,' he
said, 'would so recommend the new teaching as the howling of fools:'
while to a mem