"Alack, when shall we see the day when the hope of paradise and
dread of purgatory shall be no longer made the tools of priestly
gain; and hatred of sin taught to these poor folk, instead of
servile dread of punishment."

"Have a care, my Colet," answered the yellow bearded foreigner;
"thou art already in ill odour with those same men in authority; and
though a Dean's stall be fenced from the episcopal crook, yet there
is a rod at Rome which can reach even thither."

"I tell thee, dear Erasmus, thou art too timid; I were well content
to leave house and goods, yea, to go to prison or to death, could I
but bring home to one soul, for which Christ died, the truth and
hope in every one of those prayers and creeds that our poor folk are
taught to patter as a senseless charm."

"These are strange times," returned Erasmus. "Methinks yonder
phantom, be he skeleton or angel, will have snatched both of us away
ere we behold the full issue either of thy preachings, or my Greek
Testament, or of our More's Utopian images. Dost thou not feel as
though we were like children who have set some mighty engine in
motion, like the great water-wheels in my native home, which,
whirled by the flowing streams of time and opinion, may break up the
whole foundations, and destroy the oneness of the edifice?"

"It may be so," returned Colet. "What read we? 'The net brake'
even in the Master's sight, while still afloat on the sea. It was
only on the shore that the hundred and fifty-three, all good and
sound, were drawn to His feet."