From this time forth, Catharine was totally and forever weaned from the monastic life, and all the anxieties for the future which may have distressed her on her first escape, had now vanished. Though Luther’s worldly circumstances were not the most flourishing, yet he was aided by the liberality of the princes and other noble-minded men to such an extent, at least, that he did not absolutely suffer for the necessaries of life.[8] In this respect, Catharine’s circumstances were much improved. However, many dangers threatened the bold champion of truth, right, and liberty, which were calculated to disturb the happy serenity of his wife. He had several alarming attacks of sickness, which occasioned her painful solicitude. In the first year of his marriage some noblemen conspired against him because he effected the escape of thirteen nuns out of a cloister in the territory of Duke George. He himself acknowledges this in a letter to Stiefel, and says of it, “I have chased away Satan from this booty of Christ.” Hence, with tears, she entreated him not to leave Wittenberg at such a perilous time when he was invited to the wedding of Spalatin, and he yielded. But he was not accustomed to be alarmed at the thunder-clouds which rolled over him. Even as early as 1526, he undertook a journey in company with Catharine, and yet that was the time he had most to fear. But he was never free from danger. In 1530, when his father was lying on his death-bed, he dared not venture to visit him, but wrote an affecting letter, stating that his friends positively forbade his leaving Wittenberg, lest he might be murdered. A Jewish physician of Posen was hired for two thousand golden guilders to poison him. In 1541 he was waylaid by an assassin, but escaped. Notwithstanding his vigorous constitution, which seemed to promise extreme old age, yet from early youth he was subject to frequent severe attacks of sickness, and under such circumstances we may well wonder, that besides his numerous professional labors, he was able to prepare so many theological works, to conduct so extensive a correspondence with men of every class of society, and accomplish so many journeys, which must have consumed much time.[9] His master-piece, The Translation of the Bible, was a work which scarcely any learned man of the present day could have accomplished in the same space of time, under similar circumstances. Let it be remembered that the first time he ever saw the whole of the Bible in the Latin language he was already twenty-two years of age; that he had few of the preliminary aids essential to such a work, and that the German language was at that time still very imperfect. In twenty-eight years the translation of the whole Bible was finished and printed.[10] He suffered most from hæmorrhoidal affections, the treatment of which was little understood at that time. These attacks appeared mysterious to him, and in his depression of mind occasioned by them, and in the