Elector to espouse the cause of the University.
To my most graciouslord, etc.
Although I with others have entire confidence in your Grace's graciouspromise regardingour University,yet we cannot but see how its fulfilment is being hindered through many needful things,especially the would humbly beg you to send either
Doltzig or some one else,or give directions in writingthat matters here should be inquiredinto " for many classes have gone down, while others are unpaid
" the teachers having gone away, so that it will soon be impossibleto keep those going that remain.
For the treasury is empty, hence longerdelaywill be fatal.
I could not keep your Grace in ignoranceof all this.
Universityintends writingyour What is all this,dear sirs,that one should openly rob and steal what belongs to the other, thus ruining one another
Have you now become street robbers and thieves ?
Or do you really imagine that God will bless and cause you to prosper throughsuch knavery?
I have gone on with the postils up till Easter, when they were secretlyabstracted from the printing-pressby the compositor,who maintains himself by the sweat of our brow, and who himself conveyed my writings to your most estimable town, where they were hurriedlyprintedand sold before the whole was finished,to the great detriment of all concerned.
I would even have put up with all this injury, had they not treated my books as they did " printingthem so hurriedlyand falsely
" that when theyreach my hands I scarcely know them to be mine.
Some bits are leftout, here they are displaced, there falsified, and other parts not corrected.
And they have learned the art of writing Wittenbergon the top of some which have never seen Wittenberg. This is downrightknavery.
So let every one beware of the postilsfor the six Sabbaths,and let them sink into oblivion,for I do not acknowledgethem as mine.
Therefore take warning,my dear printers, who thus steal and rob.
Strassburg,etc., do not do this ; and even if theydid,it would not harm us so ; for their publications do not reach us in the same way as yours do, being so much nearer.
" That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because that the Lord is the avenger of all such."
One day you will experiencethis.
Christian out of brotherly love wait for a month or two before he copieshis work We have put up with this tillit has become unbearable,and has preventedus going on with the printingof the prophets, as we do not wish to see them spoiled, so greed and envy are delayingthe spreadof the Word, and the fault lies at your door.
Indulgeyour greed as much as you will,till we Germans are called brutes,but pray do not do so in the name of God.
The judgmentwill most surelydescend.
May better times soon come.
Luther asks Beier's intercession for a daughter.
Grace and peace in Christ !
Among the other maidens who latelyescapedfrom the cloister, and who are staying with me, is a certain Gertrude von Mylen, whose mother or grandmotherlives beside you in Gaben, to whom she writes by this messenger.
Now it is your duty to