"_Abbot._ 'I have sixty-two monks at home, but you will never find a book in my chamber.' _Magdalia._ 'That's a fine lookout for your monks.' _Ab._ 'I can stand books, but not Latin ones.' _Mag._ 'Why so?' _Ab._ 'Because that tongue is not suited to women.' _Mag._ 'I should like to know why.' _Ab._ 'Because it is far from helpful in maintaining their purity.' _Mag._ 'Do those French books, then, full of idle tales, make for purity?' _Ab._ 'Then there is another thing.' _Mag._ 'Well, out with it, whatever it is.' _Ab._ 'They are safer from the priests if they know no Latin.' _Mag._ 'Oh! but there is least danger of all from that quarter according to your practice, for you do all you can to keep from knowing Latin.' _Ab._ 'People in general are of my mind because it is such a rare and unusual thing for a woman to know Latin.' _Mag._ 'Don't talk to me of the people, the very worst source of good actions--nor of custom, the mistress of all evils. Let us accustom ourselves to what is good, then what was formerly unusual will become usual, what was rude will become polished, and what was unbecoming will grow to be fitting.' ... _Mag._ 'What think you of the Virgin Mother?' _Ab._ 'Most highly.' _Mag._ 'Was she not versed in books?' _Ab._ 'Quite so, but not in these books.' _Mag._ 'What, then, did she use to read?' _Ab._ 'The Canonical Hours.' _Mag._ 'According to what form?' _Ab._ 'That of the Benedictine order.'" The Youth and the Harlot brings us to perhaps the best illustration of that freedom of language which was the most common charge against the Colloquies. The argument is one employed previously by the Saxon nun Roswitha in the tenth century in her comedy _Paphnutius_. An edition of Roswitha had been published at Nuremberg in 1501, so that Erasmus may well have taken his model at first-hand. The conversation is of the slipperiest, and yet the impression conveyed is not that of immoral or even of unmoral writing. It is simply the baldest "realism" of treatment, and the issue is distinctly a moral one. As in Roswitha the erring woman is won to virtue by the Christian faith, so here she is reformed by arguments of a more practical sort. The dig at the monks is not lacking. The youth has been on a journey to Rome: