Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/156

 Your Excellency can inform yourself as to all these things by applying to the before — mentioned Wernsdorfer, who has a deep interest in you, impelling me to write you… May Christ illuminate and strengthen you in Christian faith and love towards your neighbors. Your Excellency’s obedient MARTIN LUTHER.

XCV
TO NICOLAS GERBEL

Luther asks if Francis Lambert would be likely to find a living in Strassburg.

December 4, 1523.

Grace and peace! Although this letter may be useless, my beloved Gerbel, I must write, as I heard you were in Strassburg at present. We have a Frenchman with us just now, Francis Lambert, who was a preacher among the apostolic Minorites, as they call them, and he has taken a wife here, and thinks he would be better off nearer France, and will not be advised, being so full of his own affairs.

I believe there are many with you not too prosperous, who feel more inclined to come here, than we have people wishing to go to you. But if I am to have any peace I must do him this favor.

Therefore pray say if there is any prospect of him earning sufficient to live upon. He is already pretty well versed in the Bible, although not up to our Barnabas and Paul. He hopes later to put my writings into French in order to make money on French soil.

Our Prince often presents him with silver money, and this year he has fleeced him of forty ducats.

If you do not reply, neither of us shall have any peace.

So you can see what I suffer from such people who, through me, become a burden to my good friends.

May you live prosperously with your wife. MARTIN LUTHER.