Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/230

 However, with time, it appears inclined to run. I thank you warmly for it, but, being a poor man, can make no return. For the books which came out lately you must already have, and they are of such a nature that they cannot be called gifts. They are only old things brought out afresh.

God has given me a little daughter Magdalena, and the mother is very well.

The Diet is at an end, and almost without result, except that the persecutors of Christ, the tyrants of souls, could not vent their fury on us as they desired, and we could expect no more from God.

There is talk of a Council, but it will be fruitless. There is a Venetian here just now, and he says that in the last French war against the Pope there were eight hundred Turks, of whom three hundred were uninjured, and being tired of the war returned home. I thought you did not know these dreadful things, as you took no notice of them. Soon midnight will come, when the cry will be heard, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.” Pray for me. Greet our friends. MARTIN LUTHER.

CLXXXIV
TO THE ELECTOR JOHN

Luther begs the Elector to recall Bugenhagen from Hamburg.

May 12, 1529.

Grace and peace! Serene High-born Prince. Herr John Pommer has written from Hamburg that he has arranged to return, but the people are holding him so fast that he cannot get away, and he says they intend writing your Grace to let him remain always. I have written him to resist such action, and hope they will not thus requite our goodness in lending him to them. So he now writes, begging that your Electoral Grace would write demanding his presence in Wittenberg, to prove his hurrying home is not his own wish. Therefore we humbly request your Grace would furnish us with such a