Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/75

 Alas, I hear no word of Luther's coming. . ..

Here you would see a treasury for poor relief founded by the magistrates at Luther's advice. It daily grows in riches, for what was formerly spent for altars and for instituting vigils is now turned into it. O apostolic deed ! To-day in the hearts of the Wittenbergers a warm love of God and neigh- bors is burning, so that they rejoice to suffer anything for Christ's truth. . ..

515. LUTHER TO ALBERT OF MAYENCE. De Wette, ii, 112. German.

The Wilderness (Wartburg), December i, 1521.

Your Grace doubtless remembers vividly that I have written you twice before, the first time at the beginning of the in- dulgence fraud* protected by your Grace's name. In that letter I faithfully warned your Grace, and from Christian love set myself against the deceitful, seducing, greedy preach- ers thereof, and against their heretical, infidel books. Had I not preferred to act with moderation I might have driven the whole storm on your Grace as the one who aided and abetted the traders, and I might have written expressly against their heretical books, but, instead, I spared your Grace and the house of Brandenburg, thinking that your Grace might have acted through ignorance, led astray by false whisperers, so I only attacked them, and with how much trouble and danger your Grace knows.

But as this my true admonition was mocked by your Grace, obtaining ingratitude instead of thanks, I wrote you a second time,* humbly asking for information. To this I got a hard, improper, unepiscopal, unchristian answer,' referring me to higher powers for information. As these two letters did no good, I am now sending your Grace a third warning, according to the Gospel, this time in German, hoping that such admonition and prayer, which ought to be superfluous and unnecessary, may help-

> October 31, xsi7« Translated entire in Phila., i, asflF.; excerpts in SmMi, pp. 4»i.

'Pebmsry 4, 1520 (Vol. I, p. 281).
 * February 26, 1520 (Vol. I, p. a^j).

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