should spend ten gulden for you, but where shall I get them ? You know my household expenses are very heavy, and, more- over, by my imprudence^ I have this year contracted a debt of about a hundred gulden. But the Lord, who thus punishes my imprudence, will free me again. I have even given three cups as a pledge for a loan of fifty gulden. But the Lord, who thus punishes my imprudence, will free me again. Cranach and Doring' will no longer take my simple endorsement as surety for my friends, so I recently gave them a fourth cup as a pledge for a loan made to Hermann.' Why should I alone be thus sucked dry and also thrown into debt? If I gave a present now it would not be from my own money but from that of others. I trust no one can call me miserly, who am so prodigal even of borrowed money. Therefore I shall speak to them * and see if I can placate them and then do as Reiner says. In the meantime if I get the money I shall send it to you without delay. I wish you would come back and see about renting your house,* for why should it stand empty when it might have made some money for you this year? Farewell in the Lord. Martin Luther.
754. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, vi, 17. (WrrrENBEBc), February i, 1527.
Grace and peace. Let your priests of Baal * boast and hope ; nay, let them conquer; what then? Ours is the cross and salvation; their lot is perdition. Can we live at all without the cross? I shall answer the King of England — ^who is thought to be merely a mask for Erasmus — with a short letter,
1 Luther had very recently bought a garden from Balthasar Hayn, which he sold back to Hayn's daughter, March 7, 1527. Th. St Kr., 191 3, pp. s^af.
'These were the goldsmiths who then acted as bankers. I<itcai Cranach, be- sides this business, also kept a drug store.
- This may have been Hermann Tullich (x 486-1 540) at this time yrofcator at
Wittenberg, see ARC. xii. 4off.: or the "poor Hermann" spoken of ia 1530 In a letter from Wittenberg. G. Buchwald: Wittenhergtr Britfe, p^ 84.
- Cranach and Doring.
■When all the monks had left the cloister exc^ Lather and Briager, they begged the Elector to take over the property, December, 1524, supra, no. 653. He gave Luther the cloister itself and Brisger a small house b^onging to the Augustinians. One other house belonging to the Order was given up by a docu- ment dated December 2, 1525, signed by Brisger in Luther's name, f[r8t pnblished in Th. St Kr., 1913* pp. S^ii*
- The canons of Altenburg.
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