a certain circle of interests, touching his own ideas or his person, his
perceptions are vague and weak. If he still meddles occasionally with
questions of the day, he does so in the moralizing manner, by means of
generalities, without emphasis: his 'Advice about declaring war on the
Turks' (March 1530) is written in the form of an interpretation of Psalm
28, and so vague that, at the close, he himself anticipates that the
reader may exclaim: 'But now say clearly: do you think that war should
be declared or not?'

In the summer of 1530 the Diet met again at Augsburg under the auspices
of the Emperor himself to try once more 'to attain to a good peace and
Christian truth'. The Augsburg Confession, defended all too weakly by
Melanchthon, was read here, disputed, and declared refuted by the
Emperor.

Erasmus had no share in all this. Many had exhorted him in letters to
come to Augsburg; but he had in vain expected a summons from the
Emperor. At the instance of the Emperor's counsellors he had postponed
his proposed removal to Brabant in that autumn till after the decision
of the Diet. But his services were not needed for the drastic resolution
of repression with which the Emperor closed the session in November.

The great struggle in Germany seemed to be approaching: the resolutions
of Augsburg were followed by the formation of the League of Schmalkalden
uniting all Protestant territories and towns of Germany in their
opposition to the Emperor. In the same year (1531) Zwingli was killed in
the battle of Kappel against the Catholic cantons, soon to be followed
by Oecolampadius, who died at Basle. 'It is right', writes Erasmus,
'that those two leaders have perished. If Mars had been favourable to
them, we should now have been done for.'

In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any rate matters had
come to a standstill; in Germany the inevitable struggle was postponed
for many years. The Emperor had understood that, to combat the German
Protestants effectively, he should first get the Pope to hold the
Council which would abolish the acknowledged abuses of the Church. The
religious peace of Nuremberg (1532) put the seal upon this turn of
imperial policy.

It might seem as if before long the advocates of moderate reform and of
a compromise might after all get a chance of being heard. But Erasmus
had become too old to actively participate in the decisions (if he had
ever seriously considered such participation