Here, then, was a point upon which Erasmus might safely attack Luther without compromising himself. His essay on the Freedom of the Will[152] was announced some time before its appearance. In the course of the year 1523 he sent a rough draft to King Henry VIII., promising, if this seemed worth while to the king "and other learned men," to finish it as soon as his health and certain engagements would permit. A letter of Luther to Erasmus in 1524 suggests that he had heard of his intention to attack in some way the doctrines of the Reformation, though he nowhere alludes to the subject of free will. This letter is interesting as showing the lofty tone of a man who believes himself to be the spokesman of a cause higher than any human considerations. He, like Hutten, sees in Erasmus an ally who, after the measure of the gift of God, is fighting the same battle. Only he feels the limitations of that gift. [152] _De libero arbitrio Διατρίβη sive collatio_, ix., 1215-1247. "I see that God has not yet granted you the courage and the insight to join freely and confidently with me in fighting those monsters. Nor am I the man to demand of you what goes beyond my own strength and my own limitations. But weakness like my own and a measure of the gift of God I have borne with in you and have respected it. For this plainly the whole world cannot deny: that learning flourishes and prevails, whereby men have come to the true understanding of Scripture and this is a great and splendid gift of God in you. In truth I have never wished that you should go beyond your own limitations and mingle in our camp, for though you might help us greatly with your genius and eloquence, yet since your heart is not in it it would be safer to serve within your own gift. The only thing to be feared was that you would sometime be persuaded by our enemies to publish some attack upon our _doctrine_, and then necessity would compel me to answer you to your face. I have restrained others who were trying to draw you into the arena with things they had already written, and that was the reason why I wished Hutten's _Expostulatio_ had never been published,--and still more your _Spongia_, through which, if I am not mistaken, you now see how easy it is to write about moderation and to accuse Luther of lacking it, but how difficult, nay, impossible it is to practice it except through a singular gift of the Spirit. "Believe me, then, or not, yet Christ is my witness that I pity you from my heart, because the hatred and the active efforts of so many and so great men are stirred up against you. I cannot believe that you are not disturbed by these things, since your human virtue is unequal to such a burden. And yet perchance they too are moved by a justifiable warmth, because they feel themselves attacked by you with unworthy methods....