did. We have three letters of Erasmus to him, all of 1526, and each

more violent than the other. Let us notice only the most decided of these expressions.

"It is my way when I am with learned friends, especially when there are present none of the weaker sort, to discourse freely on all kinds of subjects, for the purpose of making inquiries, sometimes to try them or for mental exercise, and perhaps I am more outspoken in this matter than I ought to be. But I will confess to the charge of murder, if any mortal has ever heard me say in jest or in earnest this word: that in the Eucharist there is merely bread and wine or that it is not the real body and blood of our Lord as some are now maintaining in their books. Nay, I call upon Christ himself to be my enemy, if that opinion ever found a lodgment in my mind. For if ever at any time any flighty thoughts have touched my mind I have easily thrown them off by considering the measureless love of God to me, and by weighing the words of Holy Scripture, which have compelled even Luther, whom you set above all schools, all popes, all men of sound doctrine, and councils, to profess what the Catholic Church professes though he is wont freely to differ from her....

"If I should confess to you as to a friend debauchery or theft, how utterly against all laws of friendship it would be if you were to babble it even to one person, to the peril of your friend. Now, when you are scattering abroad among all men the most dreadful of all charges, of things which my tongue, though a free one, has never uttered, nor my mind ever conceived, how can you be forgiven for what you are doing, my Evangelical friend? Did you think to abuse the authority of my name in order to enforce a belief you have yourself but lately begun to hold? I pray you, in the name of Christ, is that an Evangelical thing, to make so dreadful a charge against a friend in order to drag more persons into a new sect, as if we had not sects enough already? If your doctrine is a truly pious one, have you no other means of persuading men to it except this empty statement, that Erasmus agrees with you? But if my opinion is worth so much to you, why do you hold it of no account on the many points on which I differ from you?...

"If you are convinced that in the Eucharist there is nothing but bread and wine, I would rather be torn limb from limb than profess what you profess and would rather suffer anything than depart this life with such a crime confessed against my own conscience.... I will suffer you to babble out before all men whatever I have said, in intimate discourse, sober or drunk, in jest or in earnest, but I will not suffer you to make me the author or the supporter of that dogma; for it was never either on my tongue or in my heart."

The best summary of the view he wished others to take of his own opinions on this point is found in a letter to his former pupil, the Polish baron John à Lasco.[165]

[165] iii.¹, 917, D-F.

"I seem to read between the lines of Luther's writings, that Pelicanus has given him some hints from our conversations,--the same who has nearly stirred up another disturbance here. He had spread a rumour that he had the same opinions on the Eucharist as I had. I wrote him a letter of remonstrance, but without giving names. This letter of [to?] Pelicanus was shown by Berus and Cantiuncula to a few persons, was even read in the Council, and finally was translated into German and spread far and wide, to my great distress. Pelicanus replied by letter. I wrote him to stop his writing and, if he wanted anything of me, to come to me. He came. I asked the man what he meant by his letters. He tried various evasions, but when I pressed him he finally confessed that he had said he believed the same as I. I asked him what then he did believe that could be in agreement with me? He replied after many attempts at evasion: 'I believe that in the Eucharist are the body and blood of the Lord; isn't that what you believe?' 'Assuredly,' I replied. 'Do you believe they are there by way of a symbol?' 'No,' he said, 'but I believe the _efficacy_ (_virtutem_) of Christ is present.' I went on: 'Don't you believe that the _substance_ of the body is present?' He confessed that he did not believe it. After that I asked him if he had ever professed this opinion in my presence. He confessed what is the truth, that he had never done so. Then I demanded whether he had ever heard this opinion from me. He said he had never heard it and, what was more, he had often heard the opposite. I continued: 'You pretend to others that I agree with you, and when you say this, you understand in your own mind that you agree with me so far as to believe that the body of the Lord is present; while those who hear you understand that I agree with you in accepting the opinion of Œcolampadius.'"

The more Erasmus protested, the less could he convince the advanced reformers that he did not in his heart agree with them. His fate was that of any man who tries to shift and shuffle in a crisis when honest men are forming their opinions and are grouping themselves accordingly. He was left outside all the groups, and could not even persuade the one all-embracing, ever hospitable Church that he belonged heartily within her fold.