Luther thanks her for inquiring about his condition and consoles her about the absence of the Elector, who was at the Imperial Diet in Speier.
The original is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. N, pag. 109, No. 42. Printed in the Leipzig Supplement, p. 105, No. 198; in Walch, vol. XXI, 491; in De Wette, vol. V, p. 637 f. and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 56, p. 84.
To the most illustrious, highborn Princess and Lady, Lady Sibylla, née Duchess of Jülich, Eleve 2c., Duchess of Saxony, Electress, Countess of Thuringia, Margravine of Meissen and Countess of Magdeburg, my most gracious wives.
G. and F. in the Lord. Most Serene, Highborn Princess, Most Gracious Lady! I have received E. C. F. G.'s letter and thank E. C. F. G. most humbly for asking so carefully and diligently about my health, and for wishing me well with my wife and children. Praise God, we are well and better off than we deserve before God. But that I am sometimes unfit in my head is no wonder. Age is there, which in itself is old and cold and shapeless, sick and weak. The pitcher goes so lukewarm to water, until it breaks once. I have lived long enough, God grant me a blessed hour, in which the lazy, useless maggot sack comes under the earth to its people, and the worms are granted. I have seen the best that I should have seen on earth. For it seems as if it wants to become evil. God help his own, amen. I can well believe that E. C. F. G. also reports how she is bored because our gracious Lord, E. C. F. G. husband, is absent; but because necessity demands it, and such absence happens for the benefit and good of Christendom and the German nation, we must bear it with patience according to the divine will. If the devil could keep peace, we would have more peace and less to do, especially to suffer so much discontent. But like all this, we have the advantage that we have
We have the dear Word of God, which comforts and sustains us in this life, and promises and brings us that life of blessedness. Thus we also have prayer, which we know (as E. C. F. G. also wrote) will be answered and granted in its time. Such two unspeakable jewels the devil, the Turk, the pope and his own cannot have, and are in this much poorer and more miserable than any beggar on earth. Of this we may certainly boast and take comfort, for which we should also give thanks to God, the Father of all mercies, in Christ Jesus, His dear Son, our Lord, that He has given us such a precious, blessed treasure and called us unworthy ones to such a treasure by His rich grace, that we, on the other hand, should not only see and tolerate temporal evil, but also have mercy on the blind, wretched world, especially on such high and great leaders in the world, that they are deprived of such graces and are not yet worthy to have them. God enlighten them once, so that they may also see, recognize and desire it with us, amen. My Käthe offers her poor Father-Our to E. C. F. G. with all her subservience, and thanks very much that E. C. F. G. so graciously remembers her. Hiemit dem lieben GOtte befohlen, Amen. Judica [March 30] 1544.
E. C. F. G. undersigned Mart. Luther, D.
No. 3105.