Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/400

 mostly on account of the title, in which they speak of a ''re- cantation."^ These blasphemies, tricks and villainies of the devil and those that are his are my meat, and I am getting fat on them. This is the food of which Christ boasts in John iv,* "My meat is to do the will of my Father," that, is, to die and be blasphemed. It is right that we, too, should be nour- ished with the same food. It is incredible how Satan rages everywhere and against everything. Perhaps he feels the ap- proach of the last day. But thanks be to God, Who strength- ens us so that we despise him.

I have almost supported this young man Martin for some months in the hope that I might get him a position or a place as a servant, but seeing that every place here is filled, he has decided to go elsewhere. You know many people and are known to many; perhaps you can put him into some service or get him some work somewhere. He is a good man and a poor man, but marvelously simple-minded, a monk who fled from Alt-Zelle. I commend him to you. You will be doing Christ a service if you find some place for him. Farewell to you and your chain.* Martin Luther.

755. ARCHDUKE FERDINAND TO QUEEN MARY OF

HUNGARY.

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, iv, no. 3054.

Olmutz^ April 19, 1S27.

Mary, a sister of Charles V and Ferdinand, was born 1505, and, as a child, betrodied to Louis of Hungary (bom 1506), whom she mar- ried on January 13, 1522. Left a widow at the age of 21 1^ his death at the battle of Mohacs, August 29, 1526, she never married again. In 1 53 1 she was made Regent of the Netherlands by Charles. Erasmus dedicated his "Christian Widow" to her. ADB., and many letters in Oldh Miklds Levelesise: kosli Ipolyi Arnold, Monumewta Hungariae Diplomatica xxv. Budapest, 1875.

I have received your letter in answer to mine, sent with

<- The letter of Heniy VIII, supra, no. 737, was pabHsbed in Gemian by Emser and Cochlaeus with a title in which lyUther'a letter of September i, 1525, is spoken of as "ofiFering a recantation." "The short letter" of reply is Auf des kdnigs in (Weimar, xxiii, a6«.) Cf. Smith, xgjff. and Weimar U. 17S. BngUsh Historical Riview, 191 o, p. 663.

•John iv, 34.


 * Cottna. Spalatin's wife, like I«uther's was named CatiMrine.

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