From this comparatively recent work, the student can most readily obtain a general idea of Popery, as described by one who was a devout Catholic, but not a blind, servile papist. Erasmus was practically an orphan boy, of somewhat uncertain parentage, whose life mystery and romance inspired Charles Read to write the greatest of all novels, "The Cloister and the Hearth." Mr. Froude tells the painful story of the forcing of Erasmus into monastic vows; and then follows him as he develops into the most learned and brilliant scholar of Europe. Never a robust man, always more or less an invalid, Erasmus remained inside the Roman pale, but abhorred the inherent vices of _the system_, denounced those vices with a pen of fire, endured the terrors and agonies of persecution within his church, was bitterly abused by the vile priesthood whose putrid lives he uncovered, was menaced by the dread Inquisition, and really suffered more keenly the penalties than Luther did, _for telling the truth on popery_. Luther, a bull-necked, fearless _Man_, broke out, and fought popery from the outside. Erasmus, like many of his predecessors, tried to reform it _from within_, and he discovered at last that he might as well have been trying to reform hell. The enraged monks and monkesses did not murder Erasmus, as they had murdered Savonarola, Huss, Jerome, &c.; but it was because the Pope had his hands full of other matters, and the time was not favorable for burning the most illustrious scholar of Christendom. What did Erasmus say and write and publish against the vast parasitical growth of paganism, fraud and imposture that had overgrown Christianity under the pope? Read his "Praise of Folly," which has been translated into English and can be had through any book-dealer. When you read it, remember that Erasmus was never answered, save by _abuse and threats_. In his letters to the Prothonotary of the Pope, letters written for the Pope to read, and which the Pope did read, Erasmus arraigns the unmarried clergy of Rome, her monks and her nuns, her monasteries and her convents, in the same terms that are used by the Preamble to the Act of the British Parliament which stated that reasons for the dissolution of these Romish hell-holes. The accusations fathered by Erasmus and laid before the Pope, agree in every essential particular with the revelations of Blanco White, of S. J. Mahoney, William Hogan, Joseph McCabe, Bishop Manuel Ferrando, Margaret Shepherd, Maria Monk, and every other witness who has had the courage to uncover these papal dens of infamy, torture, vice and crime. I have not the space to quote at any length from the Letters of Erasmus: get the book and read it for yourself. But weigh this passage-- "Men are threatened or tempted into vows of celibacy. _They can have license to go with harlots_, but they must not marry wives. They may keep concubines and remain priests. If they take wives, they are thrown to the flames.