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 document to forward, with those from the University, ordering his return, for the classes have lain long enough waste, especially as, God be praised, students are daily arriving, principally from Saxony, so Bugenhagen cannot be longer spared. Your Grace will know how to act in the matter. MARTIN LUTHER.

CLXXXV
TO WENZEL LINK

May 25, 1529.

I commend to you this Scotchman, my Wenzel, who has been banished from his fatherland because of the gospel. He begged me to write you, hoping he might get some assistance. He seems of good family, and well grounded in scholastic theology.

Could he speak German we could find plenty for him to do, and, despite our poverty, have kept him with us, but he has reasons for wishing to try his fortune elsewhere.

In Philip’s absence, and during my illness, I translated the book of Wisdom (Proverbs), which Philip had taken in hand. It is in the press. That which Leo Judais of Zurich has translated is miserable in the extreme. Farewell, and pray for me. MARTIN LUTHER.

CLXXXVI
TO JACOB MONTANUS, PREACHER IN HERFORD

About Erasmus of Rotterdam.

May 28, 1529.

Grace and peace! I am well aware, my Jacob, of all you tell me of Erasmus, who rages against us.

I gathered as much from his writings, for in them he displays the soreness of the wound he has received. But I despise him, and do not consider the creature worthy of any other reply, and should I write shall only refer to Erasmus in the third person, and doing this more to condemn his opinions than to refute them, for he is a thought-