What immorality and worldliness prevailed at Rome was reflected in the lives of many lesser churchmen. To one of the popes of the fifteenth century, a distinguished cardinal represented the disorders of the clergy, especially in the Germanics. "These disorders," he said, "excite the hatred of the people against all ecclesiastical order; if it is not corrected, it is to be feared that the laity, following the example of the Hussites, will attack the clergy as they now openly menace us with doing." If the clergy of Germany were not reformed promptly, he predicted that after the Bohemian heresy was crushed another would speedily arise far more dangerous. "For they will say," he continued, "that the clergy is incorrigible and is willing to apply no remedy to its disorders. They will attack us when they no longer have any hope of our correction. Men's minds are waiting for what shall be done; it seems as if shortly something tragic will be brought forth. The venom which they have against us is becoming evident; soon they will believe they are making a sacrifice agreeable to God by maltreating or despoiling the ecclesiastics as people odious to God and man and immersed to the utmost in evil. The little reverence still remaining for the sacred order will be destroyed. Responsibility for all these disorders will be charged upon the Roman Curia, which will be regarded as the cause of all these evils because it has neglected to apply the necessary remedy." To many other thoughtful persons, a moral reformation in the head and members of the Church seemed vitally necessary. Complaints against the evil lives of the clergy as well as against their ignorance and credulity were echoed by most of the great scholars and humanists of the time. The patriotic knight and vagabond scholar, Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), contributed to a clever series of satirical "Letters of Obscure Men," which were read widely, and which poked fun at the lack of learning among the monks and the ease with which the papal court emptied German pockets. [Sidenote: Ulrich von Hutten and Erasmus] Then, too, the great Erasmus (1466-1536) employed all his wit and sarcasm, in his celebrated "Praise of Folly," against the theologians and monks, complaining that the foolish people thought that religion consisted simply in pilgrimages, the invocation of saints, and the veneration of relics. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries, put an end to the domination of the clergy, and swept away scandalous abuses. He wanted Christianity to regain its early spiritual force, and largely for that purpose he published in 1516 the Greek text of the New Testament with a new Latin translation and with notes which mercilessly flayed hair-splitting theologians.