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 338 LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER 1536 Priest Albrecht in Halle has taken away the Abbot's staff at Zinna and the Monstrance hi Jutterbock with other vessels, with all due ceremony, leaving behind the written and sealed certificates testifying they were once there. The staff and the Monstrance will bring in great sums. He is in very deed worthy of the rank of Cardinal, one who in cunning might successfully vie with and speedily surpass all other Cardinals if the reins were only left in his hands. For even thus they plundered the churches and stole altar trappings, mass money, and precious stones in Rome and over Italy, and they continue to do so. You perhaps fancy when you read Cicero that Verres and Dionysius were greedy vultures. But nowadays one highly esteemed Cardinal of the Holy Catholic Church is possessed by a hundred Verreses and a thousand Dionysiuses, not only in heart, but he openly perpetrates such rascality, as these deeds testify. We look for your return, and if an unpleasant rumour reaches you, pay no attention to it. We hope that even if an epidemic should spread abroad we shall have moderately pure air for our little bit of sky. Things would look otherwise if it were really an epidemic. Everywhere on the face of this earth men are liable to decay. We cannot all remain alive here upon earth or we would never reach yonder. My wife sends you greetings, and often thinks of you. Beware that you do not make me jealous, in case I might revenge myself upon you in a similar manner. Farewell in the Lord, and greet Caspar Cruciger and all our people, and pray for me. Martin Luther. (Sclitltze.) 1537 The Protestants held their congress in Schmalkalden in February 1537, where Luther was very ill. It was resolved to restate the articles of the Augsburg Confession, which was considered too mild for the times, and for this it was not Melanchthon's smooth pen which was called into requisition, but that of Luther. This was the origin of the so-called Schmalkaldischen articles, which were an elucidation and supplement of the Augsburg Confession, and strengthened the Evangelicals in tlieir faith.