420 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let 78a
779. LUTHER TO NICHOLAS HAUSMANN. Enders, vi, 114. (Wittenberg), November 7, 1527.
Grace and peace in Christ The visitation that has been undertaken will not be given up, so far as I know. Therefore we shall continue to have hc^s of it, let our opponents say what they will. We hope that the plague here is coming to an end, though it is causing us all sorts of trouble. At times it is violent, at other times it becomes milder. Our fears are many, mine coming partly from my own trial,* partly from worry about my wife's approaching confinement. Do you pray for us. I have had the plague in my own house three times. My little son was so ill for more than a week that he ate nothing and took only liquid nourishment, and I de- spaired of his life ; now he has begun to improve. For many months now I have been suffering from restlessness and faint- heartedness; it is Christ's will; pray for me that my faith fail not.* My Katie is sending a little money for the purchase of some linen ; I did not want to bother you with it. Bugenhagen sends you his best regards; he is living with me now, not so much for his own sake — though in his own parish the wife of the deacon * was carried off by the plague — as rather for mine, so that he can keep me company in my loneliness. My Katie, too, greets you, and commends herself to your prayers in Christ Jesus. Farewell, dear brother.
Yours, Martin Luther.
780. LUTHER TO JUSTUS JONAS AT ITORDHAUSEN. Enders, vi, 116. (WrrrENBERC, November 11 ? 1527.)
Grace and peace in the Lord Jesus our Saviour. I thank you, dear Jonas, for your prayers and occasional letters. I suppose my letter of day before yesterday reached you. I have not yet read Erasmus or the sacramentarians except about three-quarters of Zwingli's book. Judases as they are they do well to stamp on my wretched self, making me feel as did Christ when He said: "He persecuted the poor and
1 The continued Ulness, from which his recovety was slow. ' Luke xxii, 32.
- Rorer. His wife was a sister of Bugenhagen. Cf. Buchwald, Witttnbergtr
Brief e, p. 14, n. 2.
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