All this gives an effect of pettiness to Erasmus' attitude towards the Reformation and tends to obscure his actual service. So far as one can get at his real meaning, it is something like this: the real authors of the present troubles are the mysterious people whom he here continually refers to as "certain persons" or "those men," and whom he occasionally defines more specifically as the monks or the enemies of sound learning. Luther is right in calling attention to the evils of church life; he is not the first to do it, and Erasmus heartily agrees with him. "Those people" are attacking Luther because they feel, as well they may, that their rights and privileges are in danger, if men are going to listen to his criticism. They are catching, therefore, at every excuse to charge him with heresy. Erasmus affects to believe that pope, cardinals, and all good and reasonable men will see through these attempts and will hasten to save the Church by accepting what is valuable in this Lutheran criticism and acting upon it at once. But,--and here is the line of distinction,--there was also in Luther's appeal an element of doctrine, an implication at least that the Church was false to its own teaching as to the direct relation between God and the soul of man. The consequences of this doctrinal implication were, as Erasmus must have felt at once, of the most far-reaching sort, and he was not prepared to follow them up. An unconditional declaration in Luther's favour would have seemed to commit him to the doctrinal as well as to the practical conclusions from Luther's premises. This gives at least a shadow of reasonableness to his refinement of distinction between merely reading over the works of Luther and making such careful study of them as would enable him to attempt a reply. On the 23rd of September, 1521, he writes to Bombasius in Bologna[131]: [131] iii.¹, 665-B. "I am wholly occupied with revising my New Testament and some other works, trying like the bears gradually to lick into shape the crude product of my talents. But soon I hope to have more leisure. I have been trying hard to persuade Aleander to give me permission to read Luther's writings; for nowadays the world is full of sycophants and prize-fighters. He said emphatically he could not do this without a special permit from the pope; so I wish you would get this for me in the form of some kind of a brief. For I do not want to give a handle to these knaves, who would like nothing better."