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 lest from this spark an evil spirit of the Lord should make a conflagration. Small things are not to be despised, especially when Satan is their author.

I send news from Rome. I learned more from him^ than I read in this broadside. Agricola^ noted this down as he spoke and gave it to Melchior Lotther. When he gives it to you please return it to us. Farewell and remember that we must suffer for the Word. Since Sylvester von Schaum- burg and Francis von Sickingen made me secure from the fear of men, the fury of the devils must needs take its place. It will be the last, for I shall be severe with myself. Thus is the will of God. Martin Luther, Augustinian,

279. LUTHER TO WENZEL LINK AT NUREMBERG. Enders, ii. 443. Wittenberg, July 20, 1520.

Greeting. I am sending my little essay,* a stumbling-block to hypocrites. I think Der abgehobelte Eck has reached you. They say the wild ass of Leipsic is braying against me again, but we shall see.

Recently we almost experienced a schism and rebellion here,* but with Christ's aid Satan has been beaten down.

Sylvester von Schaumburg, a Franconian noble, has written to ask me not to flee to Bohemia or elsewhere, but to him, should the Roman furies wax hot. He promises the splendid protection of a hundred Franconian knights. So the rage of Rome is at length despised even by the Germans. Francis von Sickingen has also written to the same purpose.

My enemies wrote the elector against me from Rome,* as did a certain court in Germany. I have in press a book in the vernacular against the Pope : To the Nobility of Germany

^John yon Wick of Munster, who had been an attorney in Reuchlin's affair at Rome. In 1538 he became Syndic at Bremen, and took part in the intro- duction of the Reformation in Munster. In 1533 he was captured by the Bishop of Munster and put to death. The information he brought Luther at this time on his way back from Rome was a chief source for the Address to the German NohUity.

«John Agricola.

"the wild ass." Augustine Alfeld.
 * 0/ the Papacy at Rome against the Romanist of Leipsic. The Romanist was

^The student riots spoken of above, no. 277.

^Supra, nos. 275, 276. The German court was probably that of Duke George.

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