At Haarlem, as it happens, one is peculiarly able to study cause and
effect in this matter of Protestant bleakness, since there stands
before the door of this wonderful church, once a Roman Catholic
temple, drenched, I doubt not, in mystery and colour, a certain
significant statue.
To Erasmus of Rotterdam is generally given the parentage of the
Reformation. Whatever his motives, Erasmus stands as the forerunner
of Luther. But Erasmus had his forerunner too, the discoverer of
printing. For had not a means of rapidly multiplying and cheapening
books been devised, the people, who were after all the back-bone of
the Reformation, would never have had the opportunity of themselves
reading the Bible--either the Vulgate or Erasmus's New Testament--and
thus seeing for themselves how wide was the gulf fixed between Christ
and the Christians. It was the discovery of this discrepancy which
prepared them to stand by the reformers, and, by supporting them and
urging them on, assist them to victory.
Stimulated by the desire to be level with Rome for his own early
fetters, and desiring also an antagonist worthy of his satirical
powers, Erasmus (or so I think) hit independently upon the need for
a revised Bible. But Luther to a large extent was the outcome of his
times and of popular feeling.
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