It is a pious deed to boast of bringing one's neighbour to piety, but to seek for glory by one's dress or one's food is the part of a Pharisee; it is piety to relieve the want of one's neighbours, and to see to it that they do not abuse the generosity of good men by excess, is good discipline. But to drive your brother by these things into sickness, into madness and death, that is cruelty, that is murder. The intention to kill is perhaps wanting, but the murder is there all the same. What forgiveness shall these men have then? The same as a physician, who, through notable lack of skill, kills a patient. Does anyone say:--"but no one forces them into this mode of life; they come of their own accord; they long to be admitted and are free to leave when they are tired of it"? Ah! An answer worthy of a Scythian. They do ask this, as youths who know what is good for them better than a man of years, full of learning and experience! Thus might one excuse himself to a famished wolf, after he had drawn him into a trap with bait. Can one who has put unwholesome or even poisonous food before a frightfully hungry man excuse himself by saying:--"Nobody compels you to eat; you have willingly and gladly devoured what was set before you"? Would he not properly reply:--"You have given me not food but poison"? Necessity is a mighty weapon; hunger is a terrible torment. So let them do away with that high-sounding phrase:--"the choice was free," for he who uses such torments is really using force. Nor has this cruelty ruined poor men alone; it has carried off many a rich man's son and corrupted many a well-born talent.'" [28] _Colloquia Fam._, i., 806. So Erasmus goes on to tell other details of student-life at Montaigu. In the depths of winter a bit of bread was given out for food and they were obliged to draw water from a polluted well. Some of the sleeping-rooms were on the ground-floor and in such close neighbourhood to the common resort that anyone who lived there was sure to get his death or a dangerous illness. Frightful beatings were inflicted even on the innocent, "in order, as they say, to take the ferocity out of them,--for so they call a noble spirit,--and break it down on purpose to make them fit for monasteries. How many rotten eggs were devoured there! What a quantity of foul wine was drunk!"