silence, my dear Amsdorf, for it accords neither with your habit nor with my deserts, especially in this time of trials and perils.* The plague no longer rules us, and yet it comes out every now and then and shows itself in some comer or other. Christ keep you well in the midst of that conflagration. Amen. We are visitators, i.e., bishops, and have found poverty and want everywhere. May the Lord send laborers into His har- vest. Amen. Pray the Lord for me, I beseech you, and fare- well Martin Luther.
813. LUTHER TO A WIDOW,* MARGARET. Dq Wette, ill, 407. German. Wittenbesg, December 15, 1526.
Grace and peace in Christ. Your son has told me of the grief and misfortune that has befallen you in the death of your good husband, and I am moved by Christian love to write you this letter of consolation.
In the first place it should comfort you that in the hard battle that your husband fought Christ finally won the victory, and that your husband died at last in his right mind and in Christian confidence in our Lord This I was exceedingly glad to hear, for thus Christ Himself struggled in the garden, and won the victory at last, and was raised from the dead.
That your husband inflicted injury upon himself may have been because the devil has power over our members, and he may have directed his hand, even against his own will, for if he had done it of his own free will, he would surely not have come to himself and been turned to such a confession of. Christ as he made. How often the devil breaks arms and legs and backs and all the members. He can be master of the body and its members against our will.
Therefore you ought to be content with God's will, and number yourself among those of whom Christ says, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." ■ All the saints have to sing the Psalm, "For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter."*
^The reformation of the city of Magdeburg was bitterly oppoced, especially
by the Archbishop of Mayence and the Catholic princes. Cf, supra, p. 439, n. i.
- Her husband had committed suicide, but liyed long enough to repent the deed.
- Matthew ▼, 4.
- Psalm xUt, 22.
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