Hammes Castle, where another unpleasant surprise
was waiting for him. He was still a monk at large
from his convent under the temporary dispensation
which the Bishop of Cambray had obtained for him
nearly thirty years before. He was then an insignifi-
cant boy. He was now a dangerous spiritual force.
To reduce Erasmus under a rule which he had de-
serted and ridiculed would be a triumph worth hav-
ing in the contest which was now raging. A letter
reached him at Hammes from Father Servatius, the
prior of the convent from which he had been rescued,
putting various questions prescribed by the rules of
the order, as to how he had been employed in his
absence, how he had lived, what sins he had com-
mitted, and inviting him to return. Erasmus replied
with a courteous but peremptory refusal. ¹

HAMMES CASTLE, July, 1514.

Your letter, after following me about England, has
just reached my hands. I have nothing to reproach
myself with. Age and experience have corrected my
early follies. I left my profession not because I had
any fault to find with it, but because I would not be
a scandal to the order. You know that I was forced
into it by interested guardians. My constitution was
too weak to bear your rule. I had a passion for liter-
ature. I knew that I could be happy and useful as a
man of letters. But to break the vow was held a
crime, and I endeavored to bear my misery. My
profession was a mistake. You will say that there
was the year of probation, and that I might have
known my own mind. What can a boy of seventeen
brought up on books know of his mind? I was re-
leased. I was left to my own will to choose such
form of life as would suit me, and I was lucky enough
to find friends who saved me from falling into mis-
chief.

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