Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/56

 ===XIV=== TO GEORGE SPALATIN, AT THE SCHLOSS

Salvation! See that you, with the father confessor and his friend, come about nine o’clock. If Herr Christopher, the ambassador, is with you, bring him also, for I have given orders to invite him. Farewell, but see that you procure wine for us, as you are aware that you are coming from the court to the cloister, and not from the cloister to the court.

MARTIN LUTHER.

XV
TO CHRISTOPH SCHEURL

September 11, 1517.

To my highly esteemed Herr Christoph Scheurl, my greeting. Although I have no pretext for writing to such an excellent man as you, still I think the fact of having recently acquired such a warm, upright friend is reason enough for doing so. And even should one, once in a while, have to complain of getting no letters, surely even this silence would merit a few jocular lines, and how much more a regular correspondence to maintain the friendship, not to say rivet it closer. Even the holy Hieronymus begged his friend that he would at least write to say he knew of nothing to write about. Therefore I determined to talk nonsense, rather than be silent. But, dear God, how seldom does this Brother Martin, who has been falsely called a great theologian, take up the pen without prating? But it seems as if I would write a book instead of a letter. My object in addressing you was to show how highly I esteemed you, and not to cause you to express a similar opinion of me, but only to convince you that you might trust me as you would yourself.

It just occurs to me, that in sending me the writings of our Vicar-General through Ulrich Pindar, I owed you two ducats; I have partly sold them, and given some to the esteemed friends of this good man.