February 17th.
Good news for us all at Wittemberg! Mistress Luther has received a letter from the doctor, dated the 14th February, announcing his speedy return:—
"To my kind dear wife Katharin Lutherin von Bora, at Wittemberg.
"Grace and peace in the Lord, dear Käthe! We hope this week to come home again, if God will. God has shown us great grace; for the lords have arranged all through their referees, except two or three articles—one of which is that Count Gebhard and Count Albrecht should again become brothers, which I undertake to-day, and will invite them to be my guests, that they may speak to each other, for hitherto they have been dumb, and have embittered one another with severe letters.
"The young men are all in the best spirits, make excursions with fools' bells on sledges—the young ladies also—and amuse themselves together; and among them also Count Gebhard's son. So we must understand God is exauditor precum.
"I send to thee some game which the Countess Albrecht has presented to me. She rejoices with all her heart at the peace. Thy sons are still at Mansfeld. Jacob Luther will take good care of them. We have food and drink here like noblemen, and we are waited on well—too well, indeed—so that we might forget you at Wittemberg. I have no ailments.
"This thou canst show to Master Philip, to Doctor Pomer, and to Doctor Creuzer. The report has reached this place that Doctor Martin has been snatched away (i. e., by the devil), as they say at Magdeburg and at Leipzig. Such fictions these countrymen compose, who see as far as their noses. Some say the emperor is thirty miles from this, at Soest, in Westphalia; some that the Frenchman is captive, and also the Landgrave. But let us sing and say, we will wait what God the Lord will do.—Eisleben, on the Sunday Valentini. M. Luther, D."
So the work of peace-making is done, and Dr. Luther is to return to us this week—long, we trust, to enjoy among us the peace-maker's beatitude.
XXXVII.
Fritz's Story.
Eisleben, 1546.
It has been quite a festival day at Eisleben. The child who, sixty-three years since, was born here to John Luther, the miner, returns to-day the greatest man in the empire, to arbitrate in a family dispute of the Counts of Mansfeld.
As Eva and I watched him enter the town to-day from the door of our humble happy home, she said,—