prayers are not in vain. Out of forty-eight patients Bohmer has lost only eight, and in the hospital there have been only fifteen deaths during the whole time of the plague, though more than a hundred cases have been treated there, including those who were taken there and those who went of themselves. Thus you see that Christ hears us when we pray. These things are certain and true. Hans Weber has now been five days speechless and his life is despaired of, but his Dorothea, who went down at the same time with less hope of recovery, has b^^n to improve and will live. Greet your Katie and all the rest. Martin Luther.
778. LUTHER TO MELANCHTHON IN JENA. Enders, vi, 108. (WrrTENBERc), October t:^^ 1527.
Grace and peace in the Lord. The lack of a messenger has kept this letter in hiding here, my dear Philip, until now it will be brought to you by Dr. George.* I am sorry that you suflFer with colic, and pray to Christ with all my might that He will restore you and keep you well. For it is my earnest wish that you survive me, among these great disturbances in the Church, so that there will be some left who will oppose themselves as a wall for the house of Israel ' against the incon- ceivable rage of Satan in this day of the fury of the Lord, Who is visiting our ingratitude upon us as it deserves. O Christ, what will the future be, when the beginning is so ter- rible?
Carlstadt has been away from his place ' for some months. He has gone to his own people, and it is thought that he is seeking a nest there. Truly he is going to his own place,* for no kindness can recall him.
You write that somebody is chastising you because you have taught in your Visitation Articles that penitence begins with fear of God. Agricola has written me almost the very same thing, but I think little of this war of words, especially as it affects the common people. For the diflFerence between fear
1 Possibly George Major. C/. De Wette^Sddemann, vi, 668. ' Ezekiel xxii, 30.
- /.#., from Kemberg, where he had been living under surveillance. C/. tnpr%,
nos. 742. 743.
- C/. Acts i, 25.
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