Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/21

 others away on the Visitations and at Diets, Cruciger was the only theologian in the town. In 1533 he was rector of the University for six months. Luther loved him for his learning, piety, and modesty. Cruciger was also the most versatile of the Reformers. He was always delicate, and died after an illness of three months in 1548. The day before he died Cruciger finished Luther’s Last Words of David. Cruciger’s daughter married Luther’s son Johannes.

Two of Luther’s lifelong friends were Link, with whom he was at school in Magdeburg, and John Lange, Luther’s fellow-student in Erfurt. In Lange’s church in Erfurt, still standing, the first Evangelical sermon was preached.

Some of Luther’s most interesting letters in 1516-17 are to Lange, in one of which he says that he is cloister preacher, inspector of Leitzkau fishpond, daily lecturer in parish church, eleven times prior, expounder of St. Paul, lecturer on the Psalms, besides having most of his time taken up with letter-writing. But one has only to peruse Luther’s letters in order to see the number of his correspondents. He numbered Albrecht Durer and Erasmus, that monarch in the realm of letters, among them.

In Luther’s letters the Reformer too is to be seen in all his moods; for, it has been truly said that Luther’s heart is seen in his letters, which he did not dream would see the light of day, while his talents may be seen from his other works. But these letters do not hide his faults, as those to Herzog George, of whom he said he would enter Leipzig if it rained Herzog Georges nine days running, and to the Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, the prime mover in the Indulgences, also to Charles V., testify, but these all belong to history.