id their money, and in a
month all would have been forgotten.

But the fight between the men of letters and the monks, the writings of
Erasmus and Reuchlin, the satires of Ulric von Hutten, had created a
silent revolution in the minds of the younger laity.

A generation had grown to manhood of whom the Church authorities knew
nothing; and the whole air of Germany, unsuspected by pope or prelate,
was charged with electricity.

Had Luther stood alone, he, too, would probably have remained silent.
What was he, a poor, friendless, solitary monk, that he should set
himself against the majesty of the triple crown?

However hateful the walls of a dungeon, a man of sense confined alone
there does not dash his hands against the stones.

But Luther knew that his thoughts were the thoughts of thousands. Many
wrong things, as we all know, have to be endured in this world.
Authority is never very angelic; and moderate injustice, a moderate
quantity of lies, is more tolerable than anarchy.

But it is with human things as it is with the great icebergs which drift
southward out of the frozen seas. They swim two-thirds under water, and
one-third above; and so long as the equilibrium is sustained, you would
think that they were as stable as the rocks. But the sea-water is warmer
than the air. Hundreds of fathoms down, the tepid current washes the
base of the berg. Silently in those far deeps the centre of gravity is
changed; and then, in a moment, with one vast roll, the enormous mass
heaves over, and the crystal peaks which had been glancing so proudly in
the sunlight, are buried in the ocean for ever.

Such a process as this had been going on in Germany, and Luther knew it,
and knew that the time was come for him to speak. Fear had not kept him
back. The danger to himself would be none the less because he would have
the people at his side. The fiercer the thunderstorm, the greater peril
to the central figure who stands out above the rest exposed to it. But
he saw that there was hope at last of a change; and for himself--as he
said in the plague--if he died, he died.

Erasmus admitted frankly for himself that he did not like danger.

'As to me,' he wrote to Archbishop Warham, 'I have no inclination to
risk my life for truth. We have not all strength for martyrdom; and if
trouble come, I shall imitate St. Peter. Popes and emperors must settle
the creeds. If they settle them well, so much the better; if ill, I
shall keep on the