nt, and some say he himself was the intellectual
pivot of the Renaissance.

The critics of the times were unanimous in denouncing him--which fact
recommends him to us.

Several Churchmen, high in power, live in letters for no other reason
than because they coupled their names with that of Erasmus by reviling
him. Let the critics take courage--they may outwit oblivion yet, even
though they do nothing but carp. Only let them be wise, and carp, croak,
cough, cat-call and sneeze at some one who is hitching his wagon to a
star. This way immortality lies. Erasmus was a monk who flocked by
himself, and found diversion in ridiculing monkery. Also, he was the
wisest man of his day. Wisdom is the distilled essence of intuition,
corroborated by experience. Learning is something else. Usually, the
learned man is he who has delved deep and soared high. But few there be
who dive, that fish the murex up. Among those who soar, the ones who
come back and tell us of what they have seen, are few. Like Lazarus,
they say nothing.

Erasmus had a sense of humor. Humor is a life-preserver and saves you
from drowning when you jump off into a sea of sermons. A theologian who
can not laugh is apt to explode--he is very dangerous. Erasmus, Luther,
Beecher, Theodore Parker, Roger Williams, Joseph Parker--all could
laugh. Calvin, Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards never gurgled in glee,
nor chortled softly at their own witticisms--or those of others.

Erasmus smiled. He has been called the Voltaire of his day. What
Rousseau was to Voltaire, Luther was to Erasmus. Well did Diderot say
that Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched. Erasmus wrote for the
educated, the refined, the learned--Luther made his appeal to the plain
and common mind.

Luther split the power of the Pope. Erasmus thought it a calamity to do
so, because he believed that strife of sects tended to make men lose
sight of the one essential in religion--harmony--and cause them simply
to struggle for victory. Erasmus wanted to trim the wings of the papal
office and file its claws--Luther would have destroyed it. Erasmus
considered the Church a very useful and needful organization--for social
reasons. It tended to regulate life and conduct and made men
"decentable." It should be a school of ethics, and take a leading part
in every human betterment. Man being a gregarious animal, the
congregation is in the line of natural desire. The excuse for gathering
together is religion--let t