We have omitted a string of commonplaces about moderation and gentleness, which must have helped to make this letter rather cold comfort to Luther. If it meant anything to him, it meant that Erasmus really agreed with his views on indulgences and the state of the Church in general, but was already dreading the effect of putting these views boldly and clearly before the world. What Luther wanted in the spring of 1519 was not pious exhortation to keep his temper, but a grip of the hand and a frank word of approval. Whether Erasmus was going to have a bad time with the men of darkness at Louvain could not interest him. The question was: would Erasmus stand by him,--yes or no? and so far the answer was not encouraging. To one who knew the kind of language Erasmus was wont to apply to his opponents, it must have seemed grotesquely out of place for him to exhort Luther to gentleness of speech. The dread of being charged with the authorship of Luther's works and of others similar in their purpose, seems to have been the one thing uppermost in the mind of Erasmus during these years 1518 and 1519. His correspondence is full of it. He took pains, in a fashion which he had never before shown, to set himself right with all the great persons with whom he had any connection. The earliest in the group of apologetic letters brought out by the charge that Luther was only expressing Erasmus' ideas in somewhat bolder form is one written to Cardinal Wolsey in May, 1518.[124] Here begin the phrases afterwards to become so familiar: [124] This is Leclerc's date. Stichart prefers Dec. 18, 1517. "Luther is as unknown to me as he is to anyone, nor have I had leisure to turn over his books except here and there a page;--not that I shrank from the work, but that other occupations left me no time for it. And yet certain persons, as I hear, are saying that I have been helping him. If he has written well I deserve no praise; if otherwise I merit no blame--since in all his writings not so much as one jot is mine, and anyone can prove this who wishes to investigate it. The man's way of life is approved by all, and this is no slight argument in his favour, that his character is so sound that not even enemies can find anything to criticise. But even if I had ever so much time for reading him I cannot take upon myself to pronounce upon the writings of so great a man, even though nowadays boys are everywhere, with the greatest boldness, declaring this to be false and that to be heretical. At one time indeed I was a little hard upon Luther, fearing that some cause for enmity against sound learning might be given, and desiring not to see that cause burdened any further. For I could not help seeing how much enmity would be aroused if things were to be broken up from which a rich harvest was being reaped by priests and monks.