em he has been the enlightener of an age
from whom a broad stream of culture emanated.

[Illustration: XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY, 1530]

As historic investigation of the French Revolution is becoming more and
more aware that the true history of France during that period should be
looked for in those groups which as 'Centre' or 'Marais' seemed for a
long time but a drove of supernumeraries, and understands that it should
occasionally protect its eyes a little from the lightning flashes of the
Gironde and Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Reformation
period should pay attention--and it has done so for a long time--to the
broad central sphere permeated by the Erasmian spirit. One of his
opponents said: 'Luther has drawn a large part of the Church to himself,
Zwingli and Oecolampadius also some part, but Erasmus the largest'.
Erasmus's public was numerous and of high culture. He was the only one
of the Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that is to say, for
all educated people. He accustomed a whole world to another and more
fluent mode of expression: he shifted the interest, he influenced by his
perfect clarity of exposition, even through the medium of Latin, the
style of the vernacular languages, apart from the numberless
translations of his works. For his contemporaries Erasmus put on many
new stops, one might say, of the great organ of human expression, as
Rousseau was to do two centuries later.

He might well think with some complacency of the influence he had
exerted on the world. 'From all parts of the world'--he writes towards
the close of his life--'I am daily thanked by many, because they have
been kindled by my works, whatever may be their merit, into zeal for a
good disposition and sacred literature; and they who have never seen
Erasmus, yet know and love him from his books.' He was glad that his
translations from the Greek had become superfluous; he had everywhere
led many to take up Greek and Holy Scripture, 'which otherwise they
would never have read'. He had been an introducer and an initiator. He
might leave the stage after having said his say.

His word signified something beyond a classical sense and biblical
disposition. It was at the same time the first enunciation of the creed
of education and perfectibility, of warm social feeling and of faith in
human nature, of peaceful kindliness and toleration. 'Christ dwells
everywhere; piety is practised under every garment