alk,' 4: "I have again preached a sharp sermon at court against
drinking, but it does no good. Taubenheim and Minkwitz say that it
cannot be otherwise at court; for music and all knightly amusements
have passed away, and nothing is thought of now but drinking. And truly
our most gracious sovereign and Elector, John Frederic, is a gentleman
of much strength, who can well stand a good drink; what he can bear
would make another drunk. But when I return to him I will only beg of
him to command his subjects and courtiers, on pain of severe
punishment, to get very drunk; perhaps when it is commanded, they may
do the contrary."]

[Footnote 40: The passage following the one just quoted is remarkable:
"The nobles wish to govern, but have not the power, and understand
nothing about it; but the Pope not only understands how, but has the
power to govern: the weakest pope has more power to govern than ten
nobles of the court."]

[Footnote 41: Luther's 'Table Talk.']

[Footnote 42: For instance, in the year 1527, Luther could not lend
eight gulden to his old prior and friend Briesger. He writes to him
sorrowfully: "Three silver cups, marriage presents, have been mortgaged
for fifty gulden, the fourth has been sold, and the year has produced a
hundred gulden of debts. Lucas Cranach will no longer accept my
security, that I may not be quite ruined."

Luther often refused presents, even such as were offered to him by his
sovereign; but it appears that consideration for wife or children gave
him in later times somewhat more of a household feeling. What he left
at his death amounted to about eight or nine thousand gulden; it
consisted partly of a small landed property, a large garden and two
houses, which undoubtedly he must chiefly have owed to Frau Kate.]

[Footnote 43: It is in Timothy v. 11, and has no reference to this
question.]

[Footnote 44: Thus he speaks in many parts of the 'Table Talk.' His
last conversation at the supper-table of Mansfelder, in Eisleben, a few
hours before his death, was on the subject of meeting again with
father, mother, and friends in the next life.]

[Footnote 45: This discourse was spoken in Latin, and immediately
afterwards translated into German by Gasper Creutzinger.]

[Footnote 46: Christopher von Carlowitz, the confidant of the Elector
Maurice of Saxony, whose counsels he secretly guided, was at that time,
with good reason, the favourite of the Emperor, for it was he who
directed the polit