Erasmus found himself the leader of Humanism as an educational movement. He stated the issue in precisely the terms that gave sincere and intelligent men a new vision of the spiritual life. And he did it with such a wealth of learning, such reasonableness, such unanswerable irony and wit that his name became the symbol of the new scholarship. His books had a larger circulation than those of any other writer of his generation. And as for many years he travelled about Europe, moving from one center of learning to another, his coming was hailed with triumph. Scholars everywhere attended him, sat at his feet, took up the cause he championed. The Humanists were winning victory after victory and could look forward to the triumph of their movement in the education of western Europe. How rapidly the spread and advance of culture might have proceeded or what directions it might have taken if men’s thoughts had not been turned again to theological controversy and to bitter warfare, no one can say. Perhaps the masses were not prepared to accept or tolerate so sudden a change as that for which Erasmus strove, for Humanism was a much more radical departure from the mental habits and standards of value of the Middle Ages than was Protestantism. The leaders of the Renaissance did not accept the Reformation because they regarded it as a backward step. Perhaps they had themselves gone too far ahead. Perhaps the representation of the good man as the intelligent man, an ancient Greek idea which the Humanists revived, will always be offensive to the masses. Erasmus seemed--he still seems to many--to have lacked moral earnestness. He generated light and what mankind wants is heat. At any rate, the masses in the nations where the new scholarship was being carried, showed that they did not want the pagan wisdom. Instead they suddenly became possessed with a longing for the primitive faith of the first Christian century, or what they thought was that faith. They followed the leader who gave them not insight, but a moral issue. Both Luther and Erasmus had visited Rome. Each was impressed by the “sight of antique monuments.” Each saw evidence of the corruption and veniality which along with luxury surrounded the gay Papal court. Luther later spoke of Rome as the “sink of every abomination,” a conviction which doubtless had much to do with determining the course of events which led to his break with Papal authority.