Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/112

 II Kings. They kept killing the prophets until God gave them up and there was no more help for them. So I fear He will at last give the German nation its due. At Constance they first denied the Go^el and shed the innocent blood of John Huss and Jerome ; afterwards at Worms and at Heidel- berg they slew Dramsdorf ; * thus they acted also at Mayence and at Cologne; the whole Rhine is bloody' and will not be cleansed from its blood or cease to make heroes of those Christ- killers, the inquisitors, until God steps in, and there is no more help for them. The nation has tempted God too often. And now again it has condemned me at Worms, and though it has not shed my blood, the will to do so has not been lack- ing, and they are murdering me incessantly in their hearts. Oh, unhappy nation! Must you be antichrist's executioner for God's saints and prophets ?

See how I have overflowed with words. It has been done by the faith of Christ, which has poured itself out in joy over your faith and your glad confession of it. John had to leap in his mother's womb when Christ came to him, and you see that in your letter He has come to me. Would to God that He might come to you also in this letter of mine, and make not only your John, but Elizabeth and the whole family joyful and full of the Spirit, and stay not for three months only, but forever. May God, the Father of all mercy, grant it. Amen.

About myself I have no special news to tell you, except that I have now come back to Wittenberg, to see whether I can show the devil a thing or two. How long I shall remain I do not know. I have also undertaken to put the Bible into German. I had to do it ; otherwise I might have died with the mistaken idea that I was a scholar. All those who think themselves learned ought to do some such work. I have dedi- cated the book on Confession to Francis von Sickingen, and hope that it, and everything that has come out since, has reached you, for I have not been able to send it. A part of the Postils on the Gospels and Epistles is now appearing;

ijohn Draendorf. who was condemned as a Hussite and executed in 142$ at Heidelberf* Cf, Realencyk, t. 17. sTke Rhineland was the chief center of the Inquisition in Germany.

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