ost Him more than the income of the King of
France; and then think of all that remains." "God understands all
trades: as a tailor He can make a coat for the deer, which might last a
hundred years; as a shoemaker He gives him shoes to his feet, and by
means of the dear sun He is a cook. He could become rich indeed, if He
chose, if He were to withhold the sun and air, and threatened the Pope,
Emperor, bishops, and doctors with death, if they did not pay Him a
hundred thousand gulden on the spot. He does not do this, yet we are
thankless miscreants." He seriously reflected whence came the means of
nourishment for so many men. Old Hans Luther had maintained that there
were more men than sheaves of corn; the doctor indeed thought that
there were more sheaves than men, but that there were more men than
shocks. "A shock of corn, however, hardly yields a bushel, and that
will not nourish one man a whole year." Even a dung-heap was a subject
of pleasant reflection to him. "God is obliged to clear away as well as
to create; if He had not continually done so, the world would long ago
have become too full." "When God chastises the godly more severely than
the godless, He deals with him as a strict father of a family with his
son, whom he more frequently punishes than the bad servant: but he
secretly collects treasures as an inheritance for his son, whilst he
finally casts the servant off." Luther comes joyfully to this
conclusion: "If God can forgive me for having during twenty years
offended Him by saying mass, He can also excuse my having sometimes had
a good drink to his honour--let the world think what it will."

It surprised him much that God should be so very wrath with the Jews.
"For fifteen hundred years they have prayed fervently with great zeal
and earnestness, as their little prayer-books show; and He has not
revealed himself to them during the whole time by the smallest word. I
would give two hundred florins' worth of books if I could pray as they
do. It must be a great and unspeakable anger. Ah! dear Lord, punish me
with pestilence, rather than be thus silent!"

Luther prayed like a child morning and evening, and often during the
day, even indeed, during his meals. He repeated again and again with
fervent devotion those prayers which he knew by heart. His favourite
was the Lord's Prayer, and then he repeated the short catechism; he
always carried the Psalter with him as a little prayer-book. When he
was in extreme tro