eece and Rome, and now an apple of discord had been
flung out into Europe.

The monks who had fought against enlightenment could point to the
confusion as a fulfilment of their prophecies; and he, and all that he
had done, was brought to disrepute.

To protect himself from the Dominicans, he was forced to pretend to an
orthodoxy which he did not possess. Were all true which Luther had
written, he pretended that it ought not to have been said, or should
have been addressed in a learned language to the refined and educated.

He doubted whether it was not better on the whole to teach the people
lies for their good, when truth was beyond their comprehension. Yet he
could not for all that wish the Church to be successful.

'I fear for that miserable Luther,' he said; 'the popes and princes are
furious with him. His own destruction would be no great matter, but if
the monks triumph there will be no bearing them. They will never rest
till they have rooted learning out of the land. The Pope expects _me_ to
write against Luther. The orthodox, it appears, can call him names--call
him blockhead, fool, heretic, toadstool, schismatic, and Antichrist--but
they must come to me to answer his arguments.'

'Oh! that this had never been,' he wrote to our own Archbishop Warham.
'Now there is no hope for any good. It is all over with quiet learning,
thought, piety, and progress; violence is on one side and folly on the
other; and they accuse me of having caused it all. If I joined Luther I
could only perish with him, and I do not mean to run my neck into a
halter. Popes and emperors must decide matters. I will accept what is
good, and do as I can with the rest. Peace on any terms is better than
the justest war.'

Erasmus never stooped to real baseness. He was too clever, too
genuine--he had too great a contempt for worldly greatness. They offered
him a bishopric if he would attack Luther. He only laughed at them. What
was a bishopric to him? He preferred a quiet life among his books at
Louvaine.

But there was no more quiet for Erasmus at Louvaine or anywhere. Here is
a scene between him and the Prior of the Dominicans in the presence of
the Rector of the University.

The Dominican had preached at Erasmus in the University pulpit. Erasmus
complained to the rector, and the rector invited the Dominican to defend
himself. Erasmus tells the story.

'I sate on one side and the monk on the other, the rector between us to
prevent our sc