a son who, in religious matters, followed a different path from his
mother could allege in his justification.

A short time before, in Brussels, Wolf had seen a superior of the new
Society of Jesus, whose members were now appearing everywhere as
defenders of the violently assailed papacy, seek to win back to
Catholicism the son of evangelical parents with the very same arguments.
He told his friend this, and also expressed the belief that the Jesuit,
too, had spoken in good faith.

Erasmus shrugged his shoulders, saying "Doubtless there are many mansions
in our Father's house, but who will blame us if we left the dilapidated
old one, where our liberty was restricted and our consciences were
burdened, and preferred the new one, in which man is subject to no other
mortal, but only to the plain words of the Bible and to the judge in his
own breast? If we prefer this mansion, which stands open to every one
whose heart the old one oppresses, to the ruinous one of former days----"

"Yet," interrupted Wolf, "you must say to yourselves that you leave
behind in the old one much which the new one lacks, no matter with how
many good things you may equip it. The history of our religion and its
development does not belong to your new home--only to the old one."

"We stand upon it as every newer thing rests on the older," replied
Erasmus eagerly. "What we cast aside and refuse to take into the new
home with us is not the holy faith, but merely its deformity, abasement,
and falsification."

"Call it so," replied Wolf calmly. "I have heard others name and
interpret differently what you probably have in mind while using these