e as 1527,
Luther in a dangerous illness took final farewell from her with the
words: "You are my lawful wife, and as such you must surely consider
yourself."

In the same spirit as with his dear ones, Luther consorted with the
high powers of his faith. All the good characters from the Bible were
true friends to him. His vivid imagination had confidently given them
shape, and, with the simplicity of a child, he liked to picture to
himself their conditions. When Veit Deitrich asked him what kind of
person the Apostle Paul was, Luther answered quickly, "He was an
insignificant, slim little fellow like Philip Melanchthon." The Virgin
Mary was a graceful image to him. "She was a fine girl," he said
admiringly; "she must have had a good voice." He liked to think of the
Redeemer as a child with his parents, carrying the dinner to his
father in the lumber yard, and to picture Mary, when he stayed too
long away, as asking--"Darling, where have you been so long?" One
should not think of the Saviour seated on the rainbow in glory, nor as
the fulfiller of the law--this conception is too grand and terrible
for man--but only as a poor sufferer who lives among sinners and dies
for them.

Even his God was to him preeminently the head of a household and a
father. He liked to reflect upon the economy of nature. He lost
himself in wondering consideration of how much wood God was obliged to
create. "Nobody can calculate what God needs to feed the sparrows and
the useless birds alone. These cost him in one year more than the
revenues of the king of France. And then think of the other things!
God understands all trades. In his tailor shop he makes the stag a
coat that lasts a hundred years. As a shoemaker he gives him shoes for
his feet, and through the pleasant sun he is a cook. He might get rich
if he would; he might stop the sun, inclose the air, and threaten the
pope, emperor, bishops and the doctors with death if they did not pay
him on the spot one hundred thousand gulden. 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.