In his treatise on the True Way of Prayer, 1523, Erasmus sums up his attitude on the question of relic-worship in a few words[99]:
"In England they expose to be kissed the shoe of St. Thomas, once bishop of Canterbury, which is, perchance, the shoe of some harlequin; and in any case what could be more foolish than to worship the shoe of a man! I have myself seen them showing the linen rags on which he is said to have wiped his nose. When the shrine was opened the Abbot and the rest fell on their knees in worship, raised their hands to heaven, and showed their reverence by their actions. All this seemed to John Colet, who was with me, an unworthy display; I thought it was a thing we must put up with until an opportunity should come to reform it without disturbance."
This is the key-note of the "Erasmian Reform," and we shall hear it sounded many times again before the moment of action arrives.
CHAPTER VII
BASEL AND LOUVAIN—THE "INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI"
1515-1518
Erasmus left England in early summer, 1514, on good terms with his English friends but without making such connections as could have served to keep him permanently in the country. He was bound to have explanations ready for any emergency, but we need not trouble ourselves to seek other reasons for his leaving England than that he did not wish to stay. He had accumulated a considerable stock of manuscripts and knew that he could get them into print better at Basel than in London. If we may trust a letter[100] sent back to Ammonius from the castle of Ham, in Picardy, of which Lord Mountjoy was governor, he came near losing these precious papers through what he always fancied to be the special malice of the English customs officials; but happily they were safely restored to him.
The short stay at Ham is memorable for a famous letter written from there to Prior Servatius of the monastery at Steyn, where, we remember, Erasmus had passed the few years of his monastic experience. We gather from this letter that Servatius, a former companion of his at Steyn, had written to offer him a residence there where he might pass the remnant of his days in peace. Erasmus, in respectful and serious language, reminds Servatius that he had never really felt any calling to the life of seclusion, and goes over the familiar ground of his bodily and mental unfitness for it, the absurdity of supposing that a boy of seventeen could know himself well enough to decide once for all so momentous and complicated a question, and the compelling attraction of a free life devoted to intercourse with the highest things. He shows that his life has been, humanly speaking, a worthy one: he has cultivated virtue and avoided vice; he has had a delicate body to take care of and knows that Holland would be death to him. As to the conventual life itself, Erasmus lets himself go in sweeping condemnation, yet preserving still a certain dignity that is far more convincing than any extravagant abuse.[101]
"You, perhaps, would think it the highest felicity to die among the brethren. In fact not only you but almost everyone is deceived and imposed upon by this notion that Christ and true piety are to be found in certain places, in dress, in food, in prescribed ceremonies. We fancy a man is ruined, if he put on a black gown instead of a white one, if he change a cowl for a hat, if he from time to time change his residence. But I dare say the opposite, that great injury to Christian piety has come from those so-called 'religious' acts, although they were, perhaps, first introduced with a pious purpose. Gradually they have increased and broken up into six thousand diversities. The approval of the supreme pontiffs has been given to them, but in many ways quite too easily and indulgently; for what is more corrupt and impious than those loose religious practices? Why, if you speak only of praiseworthy, even of the most praiseworthy ones, I know not what image of Christ you will find in them beyond certain chilling and Judaising ceremonies. By these things they please themselves and condemn others,—although it is the teaching of Christ that all the world is as one great house, or as it were one monastery, and all men are its canons and its brethren; that the sacrament of baptism is the supreme act of religion and that we are to consider, not where we live, but how we live."
He justifies his wandering life by the good character he has everywhere maintained.