On the other hand, nothing was farther from his nature than any kind of open rupture with established forms of organisation. His hatred of war extended to the world of institutions. Revolution was abhorrent to him, because he thought its evils were greater than any advantage it might bring. The moment he fancied he saw this spectre of revolution, even in the far distance, he was impelled to modify and explain and warn until he had, for the moment, satisfied his sense of what was wise and prudent. The genius of Erasmus was eminently critical, not constructive. His misfortune was to live at a crisis when the merely critical attitude would no longer serve. The struggle for new construction was beginning, and there was where Erasmus began to fail. Men were looking to him for leadership. Probably he grossly exaggerates the degree to which all the criticism of the day was charged upon him. That exaggeration was nothing more than we might expect from his nervous vanity and his uncontrollable impulse to make literature whenever he took pen in hand. Still it contains just this germ of truth: that the world of scholars felt his power and would have been glad to follow his lead if he had chosen to take a leader's place. How natural the expectation was that Erasmus would do this we may see from an entry in the diary of Albert Dürer.[139] It was the year 1521. Luther on his return from Worms had been spirited away, no one knew whither. Rumours of his death were spread abroad and carried terror to his numerous followers. The simple-hearted painter who the year before had visited Erasmus in the Low Countries was overwhelmed with dismay. In the midst of his prosaic little jottings down of travels, paintings, presents, and petty bargainings he suddenly breaks out into a wail of despair: [139] Albrecht Dürer's _Tagebuch der Reise in die Niederlande_. Ed. Fr. Leitschuh, 1884, pp. 83, 84. "Ah God! is Luther dead; who will henceforth so clearly set forth the Gospel to us? Ah God! what might he not have written in the next ten or twenty years! Oh! all ye pious Christian men, help me earnestly to pray and mourn for this God-inspired man, and pray to God that he send us another enlightened man.