“ ‘Oh! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou?’ said Albert Dürer. ‘See what the unjust tyranny of earthly power, the power of darkness, can do. Hear, thou knight of Christ! Ride forth by the side of the Lord Christ; defend the truth, gain the martyr’s crown! As it is, thou art but an old man. I have heard thee say that thou hast given thyself but a couple more years of active service; spend them, I pray, to the profit of the gospel and the true Christian faith, and believe me the gates of Hell, the See of Rome, as Christ has said, will not prevail against thee.’ ”(129) The Reformation needed a man who had himself felt that commanding need of pardon which was sending his fellows travelling from shrine to shrine, who could tell them in plain homely words, which the common man could understand, how each one of them could win that pardon for himself, who could deliver them from the fear of the priest, and show them the way to the peace of God. The Reformation needed Luther. BOOK II. THE REFORMATION. Chapter I. Luther to the Beginning of the Controversy About Indulgences.(130) § 1. Why Luther was successful as the Leader in a Reformation. Reformation had been attempted in various ways. Learned ecclesiastical Jurists had sought to bring it about in the fifteenth century by what was called _Conciliar Reform_. The sincerity and ability of the leaders of the movement are unquestioned; but they had failed ignominiously, and the Papacy with all its abuses had never been so powerful ecclesiastically as when its superior diplomacy had vanquished the endeavour to hold it in tutelage to a council. The Christian Humanists had made their attempt—preaching a moral renovation and the application of the existing laws of the Church to punish ecclesiastical wrong-doers. Colet eloquently assured the Anglican Convocation that the Church possessed laws which, if only enforced, contained provisions ample enough to curb and master the ills which all felt to be rampant. Erasmus had held up to scorn the debased religious life of the times, and had denounced its Judaism and Paganism. Both were men of scholarship and genius; but they had never been able to move society to its depths, and awaken a new religious life, which was the one thing needful.