Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/28

 tainly deserve well of me, but I dare not burden them with

much asking, for I am persuaded that it would not be suitable

to their order and rank for me to invite them to my humble

affair, and molest them with the wishes of a monk now dead

to the world. Nevertheless I am in doubt whether they would

be pleased or annoyed by an invitation. Wherefore kindly

do not mention it, but when occasion offers, tell them how

grateful I am to them.

«. LUTHER TO JOHN BRAUN IN EISENACH.

Enders, L 4- WiTnmBERG, March 17, 1509.

Luther was called to the university of Wittenberg (founded 1502) to teadi Aristotle's Ethics and Dialectic at the beginning of the winter term (circa November i), 1508, and remained there about a year.

Brother Martin Luther sends you greeting and wishes you salvation and the Saviour himself, Jesus Christ.

Cease, master and father, even more loved than revered, cease, I pray, to wonder, as you have been doing, that I left you secretly and silently, or at least would have so left you, were therej not still a tie between us, or as if the power of ingratitude, like a north wind, had chilled our love and wiped the memory of your kindness from my heart. Indeed, no! I have not acted thus, or rather I meant not to act thus, al- though I may have been forced to act so as unintentionally to give you occasion to think evil of me.

I went, I confess, and yet I did not go, but left my greater and better part with you still. I can only persuade you that this is so by your own faith in me. As you conceived it of your own kindness and favor only, I hope you will never suffer it to be slain or diminished without my fault, as you have never done before. So I have gone farther from you in body but come nearer to you in mind, provided you are not unwilling, which I hope you are not at all.

To come to the point, that I be not longer compelled to sus- pect that your friendship doubts my constancy (would that the suspicion were false I) behold how hard I have tried to

tended aekool at Eisenach, was a Schalbe by birtb, and it may hare been throngb her that he met the monks.

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