Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/407

 terday in his pain to be lost to us, for they were full of the most ardent feeling. I think I have retained them all in my memory, as though they were inscribed and fixed there, and have noted them in this sheet/ I have wished to communicate them to you, my dear friend and brother. If you wish to transcribe them, please send this sheet back, for I have not kept a copy. If this is silly, I am willing to be silly. I do not think that matters of such importance ought to be taken lightly. Farewell in Christ, and do not impart this to anyone else, but keep it hidden. It is enough for us to know it, otherwise it would be published too widely. Please reply.

Yours, Justus Jonas.

76s. JUSTUS JONAS'S ACCOUNT OF LUTHER'S ILLNESS.

Kawerau, IQ3, Wittenberg, Jaly 7» IS?7.

This is what happened to Doctor Martin, our dearest father. Although he Had suffered a grave spiritual trial in the morn- ing, as he himself told us, nevertheless when he had come to himself he was called to the lodgings of the magistrate by certain nobles — Martin Waldefels,' Hans Loser* and Erasmus Spiegel.* After dinner he came to my garden to dispel the trouble and distress of his mind, and sat there talking with me for two hours. When he left my house he invited me and my wife to supper, and so I went up to the monastery about five o'clock. The doctor's wife said that he was resting be- cause of his health, and asked me not to be annoyed by the delay but to pardon it because he was not well. I waited and

^The enclosure infra no. 765.

> The reading Martin Waldef els in Kawerau is corrected to "Marco a Wallefeld" by Vogt, with which Walch agrees. It is almost certain that Matthew von Wal- lenrod is meant. From the year 1536 until the death of John Frederic (isS4)f if not later, he was prominent in the diplomatic service of Electoral Saxony. G. Mentz: Johann Priedrich, 3 vols., x903-8» index.

'John Loser of Pretzsch (a tiny town just across the Elbe from Wittenberg), whom Luther married to Ursula von Porzig in December, 1504 In 1531 he dedi- cated to him his Exposition of the X47th Psalm, Weimar, xxzi,^ 447ff» L6fler was Hereditary Marshal of Saxony. Enders, iv, 199; Smith, 309.

of the "sequestrators" of religious property in 1533, in which position he had some difficulties with Luther. Enders, ix, 283. From the year 1538 we find him one of the marshals of the court He took Luther's body from Bitterfeld to Wittenberg. Ratzeberger says he was a traitor in the Schmalkaldic war, turning to Maurice of Saxony. Enders, xii, 347, xv, 3i3ff.
 * Erasmus, or, as he was commonly called, Asmus Spiegel, was appointed one

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