ut by simple discretion, by benefits, by
gentleness and tolerance.' Towards the close of his life, he prays: 'If
Thou, O God, deignst to renew that Holy Spirit in the hearts of all,
then also will those external disasters cease.... Bring order to this
chaos, Lord Jesus, let Thy Spirit spread over these waters of sadly
troubled dogmas.'

Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all valued highly by
Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them realized in practical life. He becomes
disillusioned. After the short spell of political optimism he never
speaks of the times any more but in bitter terms--a most criminal age,
he says--and again, the most unhappy and most depraved age imaginable.
In vain had he always written in the cause of peace: _Querela pacis_,
the complaint of peace, the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, war is
sweet to those who have not known it, _Oratio de pace et discordia_, and
more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his pacifistic labours:
'that polygraph, who never leaves off persecuting war by means of his
pen', thus he makes a character of the _Colloquies_ designate himself.
According to a tradition noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is said to
have called him before him in connection with his advice about the war
with Venice,[18] and to have remarked to him angrily that he should stop
writing on the concerns of princes: 'You do not understand those
things!'

Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, a wholly
non-political mind. He lived too much outside of practical reality, and
thought too naively of the corrigibility of mankind, to realize the
difficulties and necessities of government. His ideas about a good
administration were extremely primitive, and, as is often the case with
scholars of a strong ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though
he never dreamed of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship
with political and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and Zasius, had
not changed him. Questions of forms of government, law or right, did not
exist for him. Economic problems he saw in idyllic simplicity. The
prince should reign gratuitously and impose as few taxes as possible.
'The good prince has all that loving citizens possess.' The unemployed
should be simply driven away. We feel in closer contact with the world
of facts when he enumerates the works of peace for the prince: the
cleaning of towns, building of bridges, halls, and streets, draining of
pools, shifti