Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/69

 which Luther composed during the month of November, but which was not published until February, 1522. It is included here because of the personal allusions which it contains, though it is not properly a letter, except in form.

This book, dear father, I wish to dedicate to jrou, not to make your name famous in the world, for fame pufFeth up the flesh, according to the teaching of St. Paul, but that I might seize the occasion that has arisen between you and me to indi- cate to pious readers in a short preface the argument and the contents of this book, together with an example.

To begin at the beginning, I wish you to know that your son has got so far as to be altogether persuaded that there is noth- ing holier, nothing more important, nothing more scrupulously to be observed, than God's commandment. But here you will say. Have you been so unfortunate as ever to doubt this, and have you only now learned that this is so? Most un- fortimately indeed I not only doubted it, but did not even know at all that it was so, and if you will permit me, I am ready to show you that this ignorance was common to both of us.

/ It is now sixteen years since I became a monk, taking the vow without your knowledge and against your will. In your paternal love you were fearful about my weakness because I was a youth, just entering my twenty-second year ; that is, to use St. Augustine's words,* I was still "clothed in hot youth," and you had learned from numerous examples that this way of life turned out sadly for many. You were determined to tie me down with an honorable and wealthy marriage. This fear of yours, this care, this indignation against me was, for a time, implacable, and your friends tried in vain to persuade you that if you wished to offer something to God, you ought to give your dearest and your best./ The Lord, meanwhile, was dinning in your ears that Psalm-verse,* "God knoweth the thoughts of men that they are vanity," but you were deaf. At last you desisted and bowed to the will of God, but your fears for me were never laid aside. For you remember very well that after we were reconciled and you were talking with

>Atignstine, Confessions, ii, 3.
 * Psftlm xciv, II.

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