bread and salt, that he might, without interruption, pursue the work in hand. This often occurred, and he would not allow himself to be disturbed. On one occasion he had been thus locked up for three days; she sought him everywhere—shed bitter tears—knocked at all the doors and called him, but no one answered. She had the door opened by a locksmith, and found her husband profoundly absorbed in the explanation of the 22d Psalm. She was proceeding to reprimand him for occasioning such painful anxiety, but he was impatient of the interruption to his studies, pointed to the Bible, and said, “Do you think, then, that I am doing anything bad? do you not know that I must work as long as it is day, for the night cometh in which no man can work?” But his tone and look sufficiently indicated to her that he was, after all, not unduly excited. At his social assemblies, his walks for recreation, and short excursions into the country, she was his inseparable companion as often as circumstances permitted. When numerous business calls necessarily compelled him to leave home, he wrote to her the most affectionate and often the most humorous letters. The birth of his first child (June 7, 1526,) afforded him peculiar gratification. He communicated the fact to many of his correspondents in a strain of pleasant humor, and, of course, received their congratulations in return. The child was baptized soon after birth by Dr. Rörer, and named _John_ by the grandfather. Bugenhagen, Jonas, and the painter, Cranach, senior, were his godfathers. From his earliest years this boy excited the liveliest hopes in his parents on account of his uncommon mental qualities, and it was he who gave occasion to the preparation by the father of several excellent books for children. Luther possessed the rare faculty of letting himself down to the capacity of children without himself becoming a child. This son’s name often occurs in the letters of Luther, and he is always mentioned as a lad of uncommon promise and an agreeable plaything to his father and mother. He thus writes to Hausman: “Besides this, there is nothing new, except that my Lord has blessed my Kate and made her a present of a healthy son. Thanks and praise for his unspeakable goodness. Mother and child send their respects to you.” Sometime after he wrote to Spalatin, “My little Hans salutes you. He is now teething, and begins to scold everybody about him with the most amiable reproaches. Kate also wishes you every blessing, and particularly that you also may have a little Spalatin, who may teach you what she boasts of having learned from her boy, viz: the joys of matrimonial life, of which the Pope and his satellites are not worthy.” Luther’s friends were much attached to this child on account of his amiable disposition, and sent him many presents suitable to his age. When the boy was yet but four years old, his father wrote to him the following letter: “Grace and peace in Christ, my dearest little son.