But
look that you boast not yourself against God, he has been beforehand
with you,--he has taken me out himself." From that time on it seemed
to the old man as if his son were restored to him. Old Hans had once
counted upon having a grandson for whom he would work. He now came
back obstinately to this thought, caring nothing for the rest of the
world, and soon urged his son to marry; his encouragement was not the
least of the influences to which Luther yielded, and when his father,
advanced in years, at last a councillor of Mansfeld, lay in his death
throes and the minister bent over him and asked the dying man if he
wished to die in the purified faith in Christ and the Holy Gospel, old
Hans gathered his strength once more and said curtly, "He is a wretch
who does not believe in it." When Luther told this later he added
admiringly, "Yes that was a man of the old time." The son received the
news of the father's death in the fortress of Coburg. When he read
the letter, in which his wife inclosed a picture of his youngest
daughter Magdalena, he uttered to a companion merely the words, "Well,
my father is dead too," rose, took his psalter, went into his room,
and prayed and wept so hard that, as the faithful Veit Dietrich wrote,
his head was confused the next day; but he came out again with his
soul at peace. The same day he wrote with deep emotion to Melanchthon
of the great love of his father and of his intimate relations with
him. "I have never despised death so much as today.
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