Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/127

 Give my best love to your dear one, and I hope that she may love you dearly, and that you too may love her.

It is good that your former state of celibacy, with all its accompanying evils, has been replaced by marriage.

Endure all that this condition of God’s appointment brings with it, and thank God. I am daily gaining more insight into the godless lives of the unmarried of both sexes, so that nothing sounds worse to me than the words monk, nun, priest, for I regard a married life of deep poverty as paradise in comparison. Greet Brunsfels, Caspar Urzigereum, and all Evangelicals from me. From my hermitage. MARTIN LUTHER. (Walch, 5:1)

LXIX
TO HANS LUTHER

Luther tells his father that he is now free from his monkish vows, and sends him his book on the Vow.

November 21, 1521.

To his dear father, Hans Luther, from Martin Luther, his son.

My reason for dedicating this book to you was not to honor your name before the world, thus disobeying St. Paul’s admonition, not to seek honor after the flesh, but to explain its contents.

It is almost sixteen years since I took the monk’s vows without your knowledge or consent. You feared the weakness of my flesh, for I was a young fellow (Blut) of 22 (I use Augustine’s word) and full of fire, and you know the monkish life is fatal to many, and you were anxious to arrange a rich marriage for me. And for long this fear and anxiety made you deaf to those who begged you to be reconciled to me, and to give God your dearest and best. But at last you gave way, although you did not lay aside your care; for, I well remember telling you I was called through a terrible apparition from heaven, so that, when face to face with death, I made the vow, and you exclaimed, “God grant it was not an apparition of the Evil One that startled you.” The words sank into my