In effect, this mild yet firm man (says Zwingle) spread around him the sweet savour of Christ, and all those who crowded about him grew in truth.[556] Often, indeed, a rumour was circulated that he would be forced to leave Basle and recommence his perilous pilgrimage. His friends, Zwingle in particular, were alarmed; but erelong the tidings of fresh victories gained by Œcolampadius scattered their fears and raised their hopes. The renown of his lectures extended even to Wittemberg, and delighted Luther, who talked with Melancthon about him every day. And yet the Saxon reformer was not without anxiety. Erasmus was at Basle, and Erasmus was the friend of Œcolampadius......Luther thought it his duty to put the man whom he loved on his guard. "I much fear," wrote he, "that Erasmus, like Moses, will die in the country of Moab, and never lead us into the land of promise."[557]
Erasmus had taken refuge at Basle, as in a quiet city, lying in the centre of the literary movement, and from the bosom of which he could, by means of the press of Frobenius, act upon France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and England. But did not like men to come and trouble him there; and if he looked upon Œcolampadius with suspicion, another man inspired him with still greater apprehension. Ulrich Hütten had followed Œcolampadius to Basle. For a long while he had been attacking the pope, as one knight engages with another. "The axe," said he, "is already laid at the root of the tree. Germans! faint not in the heat of the battle; the die is cast; the work is begun......Liberty for ever!" He had abandoned Latin, and now wrote only in German; for it was the people he wished to address.
LAST EFFORT OF CHIVALRY.
His views were noble and generous. It was his idea that there should be an annual meeting of the bishops to regulate the interests of the Church. A christian constitution, and above all a christian spirit, was to go forth from Germany, as from Judea in other times, and spread through the whole world. Charles V. was to be the youthful hero appointed to realize this golden age; but Hütten, having seen the failure of his hopes in this quarter, had turned towards Sickingen, and sought from knighthood what the empire had refused him. Sickingen, at the head of the feudal nobility, had played a distinguished part in Germany; but the princes had besieged him in his castle of Landstein, and the new invention of cannons had crushed those aged walls, accustomed to other attacks.[558] The taking of Landstein had proved the final defeat of chivalry,—the decisive victory of artillery over shields and lances,—the triumph of modern times over the middle ages. Thus the last exploit of the knights was destined to be in favour of the Reformation; the first effort of these new arms and system of warfare was to be against it. The mailed warriors that fell beneath the unlooked for storm of balls, and lay among the ruins of Landstein, gave way to other soldiers. Other conflicts were about to begin; a spiritual chivalry succeeded to that of the Du Guesclins and Bayards. And those old and ruined battlements, those battered walls, these dying heroes, proclaimed with greater energy than even Luther could have done, that not by such allies or such arms would the Gospel of the Prince of peace obtain the victory.
The fall of Landstein and of chivalry had blasted all Hütten's hopes. Standing beside the corpse of Sickingen, he bade farewell to those brighter days which his imagination had conjured up before him, and losing all confidence in man, he sought only for seclusion and repose. In search of these he visited Erasmus in Switzerland. These two men had long been friends; but the unpolished and turbulent knight, braving the opinions of others, ever ready to lay his hand upon the sword, dealing his blows right and left on all whom he met, could scarcely live in harmony with the squeamish and timid Dutchman, with his refined manners, his mild and polished language, his love of approbation, and his readiness to sacrifice everything for its sake, and fearing nothing in the world so much as a dispute. On arriving at Basle, Hütten, poor, sick, and a fugitive, immediately inquired for his old friend. But Erasmus trembled at the thought of receiving at his table a person under the ban of the pope and the emperor, who would spare no one, who would borrow money of him, and would no doubt be dragging after him a crowd of those "Gospellers" whom Erasmus dreaded more and more.[559] He refused to see him, and shortly after, the magistrates of Basle desired Hütten to leave the city. Wounded to the quick, and exasperated against his timid friend, Hütten repaired to Mulhausen, and there published a violent pamphlet against Erasmus, to which the latter replied in a paper overflowing with wit. The knight had grasped his sword with both hands, and aimed a crushing blow at his antagonist; the scholar, adroitly stepping aside, pecked the soldier smartly in return.[560]
DEATH OF HUTTEN.
Hütten was again compelled to flee; he reached Zurich, and there met with a generous reception from the noble-hearted Zwingle. But intrigues again compelled him to leave that city; and after passing some time at the baths of Pfeffers, he repaired with a letter from the Swiss reformer to the pastor John Schnepp, who inhabited the small island of Ufnau in the lake of Zurich. This poor minister entertained the sick and fugitive knight with the most touching charity. It was in this peaceful and obscure retreat that Ulrich Hütten, one of the most remarkable men of the sixteenth century, died obscurely about the end of August 1523, after a most agitated life, expelled by one party, persecuted by another, deserted by nearly all, and having always contended against superstition, but, as it would seem, without having ever possessed the truth. The poor pastor, who had some skill in the healing art, had vainly lavished on him all his cares. With him chivalry expired. He left neither money, nor furniture, nor books;—nothing in the world but a pen.[561] Thus was broken the arm of iron that had presumed to support the ark of God.