But he does not do that,
and we are thankless scoundrels." He reflected seriously about where
the food comes from for so many people. Old Hans Luther had asserted
that there were more people than sheaves of grain. The Doctor believed
that more sheaves are grown than there are people, but still more
people than stacks of grain. "But a stack of grain yields hardly a
bushel, and a man cannot live a whole year on that." Even a dunghill
invited him to deep reflection. "God has as much to clear away as to
create. If He were not continually carrying things off, men would have
filled the world with rubbish long ago." And if God often punishes
those who fear Him worse than those who have no religion, he appears
to Luther to be like a strict householder who punishes his son oftener
than his good-for-nothing servant, but who secretly is laying up an
inheritance for his son; while he finally dismisses the servant. And
merrily he draws the conclusion, "If our Lord can pardon me for having
annoyed Him for twenty years by reading masses, He can put it to my
credit also that at times I have taken a good drink in His honor. The
world may interpret it as it will."
He is also greatly surprised that God should be so angry with the
Jews. "They have prayed anxiously for fifteen hundred years with
seriousness and great zeal, as their prayer-books show, and He has not
for the whole time noticed them with a word. If I could pray as they
do I would give books worth two hundred florins for the gift.
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