Is not money what we make it? Dust in the miser's chests; canker in the proud man's heart; but golden sunbeams, streams of blessing earned by a child's labour and comforting a parent's heart, or lovingly poured from rich men's hands into poor men's homes.
April 20.
Better days seem dawning at last. Dr. Martin, who preaches now at the elector's new university of Wittemberg, must, we think, have spoken to the elector for us, and our father is appointed to superintend the printing-press especially for Latin books, which is to be set up there.
And sweeter even than this, it must be from Fritz that this boon comes to us. Fritz, dear, unselfish Fritz, is the benefactor of the family after all. It must have been he who asked Dr. Martin Luther to speak for us. There, in his lonely cell at Erfurt, he thinks then of us! And he prays for us. He will never forget us. His new name will not alter his heart. And, perhaps, one day, when the novitiate is over, we may see him again. But to see him as no more our Fritz, but Brother Sebastian!—his home, the Augustinian cloister!—his mother, the church!—his sisters, all holy women!—would it not be almost worse than not seeing him at all?
We are all to move to Wittemberg in a month, except Pollux, who is to remain with Cousin Conrad Cotta, to learn to be a merchant.
Christopher begins to help about the printing.
There was another thing also in my visit to the Wartburg, which gives me many a gleam of joy when I think of it. If the elector whose presence I so trembled to enter, proved so much more condescending and accessible than his courtiers,—oh, if it could only be possible that we are making some mistake about God, and that He after all may be more gracious and ready to listen to us than His priests, or even than the saints who wait on Him in His palace in heaven!