Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/352

 ^12 LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER 1535 Doubtless a house or two is infected, but the atmosphere is not yet poisoned. For since Tuesday there has neither been a corpse nor a sick person. But as the dog-days are at hand and the young boys are frightened, I have allowed them to go out walking, to tranquillise their minds till we see how things turn out. But I notice that the young folks like to hear this outcry about the pestilence, for some are tired of sitting on the hard benches ; some think they get cramp from the books, while others declare scurvy is secreted among the pens and paper. And there are those who devour their mothers' letters, which makes them home-sick and long for the fatherland, and perhaps there are many more weaknesses than I am able to recount. If parents and guardians do not try to stem the tide of these evils, perhaps we shall not be able to get pastors and schoolmasters, till at length swine and dogs will be the best animals remaining to us, towards which end the Papists are steadily working. But may Christ our Lord endue your Electoral Grace, as He has hitherto done, along with the Christian authorities, with grace and mercy, to His honour and the annoyance of Satan, so that you may know what stringent remedies to apply to this sick- ness. Your Electoral Grace's obedient Martin Luther. (De Wette.) P.S. — I humbly beg your Grace not to forget my poor Hieronymus Weller. CCCXXVII To THE Clergy in Augsburg The Augsburg people sent an embassy to Wittenberg to prove their desire for unanimity in the matter of the sacrament. Jidv 20, 1535. Grace and peace in Christ ! I would like you to learn with what pleasure I received your letter, dear brethren, from the living letters, viz. your Dr. Gereon Seller and Caspar Huber, rather than from these dead letters, for nothing has been a greater joy to me in the course of