The historian of the Reformation thus describes him.[22] “In the result Erasmus knew not on which side to range himself. None pleased him, and he dreaded all. ‘It is dangerous to speak,’ said he, ‘and dangerous to be silent.’ In all great religious movements there are such undecided characters—respectable in some things, but hindering the truth, and who, from a desire to displease no one, displease all.” Erasmus, though a clever and learned man, lacked the wisdom and sagacity necessary to penetrate the future. He could criticize a Greek historian, and correct the Greek Testament, but he could not discern the signs of the times. Timid and retiring by nature, he feared to fail in the contest with the spirits of darkness; he had no confidence in the righteousness of the cause of the Reformation, and, knowing his constitutional weakness, shrunk from the penalties of failure. A sagacity and power of penetration equal to that of his more cogitative brother-Reformers would have cured his cowardice by shewing him its causelessness. Luther, on the other hand, feared nothing; he knew that the truth, if energetically urged, must prevail,—though it would be crushed, if permitted to lie quietly dormant. Truth will not conquer of its own force; it must be promulgated, insisted on, and brought home to men’s minds. They will not seek it, preferring rather to enjoy the peaceable stagnation of error. While Luther was respected and admired even by his bitterest enemies, Erasmus was despised by all parties. His vacillation was aptly hit off by a cotemporary, who, in one of his works depicting two heavens, the Papal and the Christian, says, “I find Erasmus in neither; but perceive him incessantly wheeling, in never-ending eddies between both.” Certainly a fitting destination for the man who advises his friend to dissemble his opinions, as a certain dying man eluded the devil. The devil asked him what he believed? The dying man, fearing to be surprised into some heresy, answered, “What the Church believes.” “What does the Church believe?” persisted his Satanic enemy. “What I believe,” replied the cautious man. Again, the devil, “And what do you believe?” “What the Church believes.” Whereupon the devil, being unable to convict him of lax Churchism, left him to the mercy of the Pope, who, he knew, would deal with him after his—gifts for _pious uses_.