After indulging in sundry pious invocations and reflections to the extent of two or three pages, Durer thus proceeds to lament the supposed death of Luther, and to invoke Erasmus to put his hand to the work from which he believed that Luther had been removed. “And is Luther dead? Who henceforth will so clearly explain to us the Gospel? Alas! what might he not have written for us in ten or twenty years? Aid me, all pious Christians, to bewail this man of heavenly mind, and to pray that God may send us another as divinely enlightened. Where, O Erasmus, wilt thou remain? Behold, now, how the tyranny of might and the power of darkness prevail. Hear, thou champion of Christ! Ride forward, defend the truth, and deserve the martyr’s crown, for thou art already an old man.[V-48] I have heard from thy own mouth that thou hast allotted to thyself two years yet of labour in which thou mightst still be able to produce something good; employ these well for the benefit of the Gospel and the true Christian faith: let then thy voice be heard, and so shall not the see of Rome, the gates of Hell, as Christ saith, prevail against thee. And though, like thy master, thou shouldst bear the scorn of the liars, and even die a short time earlier than thou otherwise mightst, yet wilt thou therefore pass earlier from death unto eternal life and be glorified through Christ. If thou drinkest of the cup of which he drank, so wilt thou reign with him and pronounce judgment on those who have acted unrighteously.”[V-49] [Footnote V-48: This inducement for Erasmus to stand forth as a candidate for the honour of martyrdom is, in the original, as simple in expression as it is novel in conception: “Du bist doch sonst ein altes Menniken.” Literally: For thou art already an old _mannikin_. Erasmus, however, was not a spirit to be charmed to enter such a circle by such an invocation. As he said of himself, “his gift did not lie that way,” and he had as little taste for martyrdom as he had for fish.--In one or two other passages in Durer’s Journal there is an allusion to the diminutive stature of Erasmus.]