that they are full of holy spirits. God's mercy eternally strengthen and preserve your Graces. Amen.
Your Graces* obedient Dr. Martin Luther/
632. LUTHER TO BARTHOLOMEW VON STARENBERG.
Enders, v, 10. German. Whtenberg, September i, 1524.
Weimar, xviii, i£F.
Starenberg (1460-1531} an Austrian noble, 1507 regent of Lower Austria, 1 5 19 ambassador of the Estates to Charles V and Ferdinand in Spain. He was a zealous Lutheran. His wife, here mentioned, was Magdalene von Lofenstein. De Wette (ii, 397) and Erlangen (liii, 202) date this letter 1523, but cf, Enders, v, 13, n. x.
Grace and peace in Christ. Honored Sir! Vincent Wems- dorfer, moved by Christian fidelity, has urged me to write this letter to you who are personally unknown to me. Wherefore I first beg pardon for the liberty I am taking. He told me that you, grieved by the departure of your dear wife, greatly exercise yourself with service to God and sundry works, particularly with masses and vigils for her soul. This, he said, she richly deserved by her love and loyalty to you during her life, and he begged me to write you a letter on the subject, hoping that it might be profitable to you. I should not have written without his request, and so I again htmibly b^ you to take this letter in good part.
Let me first remind you of what Job says : "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord so hath He done." You should sing the same song to a true, dear God who gave you a true, dear wife, and has now taken her away. She was His before He gave her, she was His after He had g^ven her, and she is still His now that He has taken her away, as we all are at all times. Wherefore, if it does grieve us that He has taken His own from us, yet should His good will comfort our hearts more than all His gifts. His will should be esteemed better than the best and noblest wife. Our weakness cannot feel it so, but faith feels it. God grant you joy in this rich, immeasurable gain, that instead of a dear, tender wife, you have the dear, tender
^An elaborate discussion of this letter, partlcalarly of Luther's sources of in- fonnation about Munzer, will be found in Beitr&ge Mur ReformaHonsgtschich$€ KMKn gewidmet, 1S96, O. Albrecht. Luther's Brief wechstl im Jahrg 1594,
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