The affectionate sympathy, faithful watching, and tender nursing which he received from his wife, not only on these occasions, but always when bowed down under the immense weight of his other cares, moved him deeply. He frequently alluded to it in the most touching language. On his sick bed at Gotha, on Feb. 28, 1537, he commended Catharine, who had enlivened twelve years of his life, to Bugenhagen, and bore this favorable testimony to her character: “She has served me not only as a wife, but with all the fidelity and industry of a servant.” Afterwards, he said, “I inconsiderately look to Catharine and Melanchthon for greater benefits than to Christ, and yet I know that neither they nor any human being on earth can or will ever suffer for me as he has done.” Soon after, he said, “How intensely I longed after my family when I was lying at Smalcald, almost dead! I thought I should never see them again. How painful the idea of separation was! I now believe that this natural inclination and love which a man has for his wife, and children for their parents, are most intense in dying persons.” In his last will, (Jan. 6, 1542,) he said of her “that she had always been a pious and faithful wife, and she always conducted herself handsomely and worthily, as became a pious and faithful spouse.”[11] But Catharine’s love for her husband was extended also to his parents. The most striking proof of this she gave, when, in Feb., 1530, Luther’s father was lying very sick. She most heartily wished that he might be conveyed to Wittenberg, where she could nurse him. “Dear Father,” wrote Luther to him, “my brother Jacob has informed me that you are dangerously sick. I wished most eagerly to go and see you, but my friends dissuaded me from my purpose, fearing the danger to which I would expose myself, for you know that the Peasants are so violently opposed to me.[12] But it would rejoice me greatly if it were possible for you and mother to come to us. My wife also, with tears, expresses her desire that you should come. We will here nurse you most tenderly.” But the father was unable to go, and died in a few months after, whilst Luther was residing at Coburg, where he had concealed himself during the diet of Augsburg. As soon as Catharine heard of the event, she was very solicitous about the effect of the intelligence on her absent husband, of whose affectionate attachment to his father she was well aware. She wrote to him a letter full of consolation, and in order more effectually to calm his troubled heart, she sent him a likeness of his favorite child, Magdalena, at that time an infant of a year old. She was not disappointed in her hopes. His secretary, Veit Dietrich, answered the letter, and said, “You have done a good work in sending the likeness to the doctor; he forgets many troublesome things in looking at it. He has hung it on the wall opposite the table at which we dine. When he first saw it, he did not recognize it. ‘Why,’ said he ‘Lena’s complexion is