Promises are given to the just man's labour, and John Luther experienced the reality of them. Having become somewhat more easy in his circumstances, he established two smelting furnaces at Mansfeld. Around these furnaces young Martin grew up; and the return which they yielded enabled his father, at a later period, to provide for his studies. "The spiritual founder of Christendom," says worthy Mathesius, "was to come forth from a family of miners, an image of what God purposed, when he employed him to cleanse the sons of Levi, and purify them in his furnaces like gold."[125] Universally respected for his integrity, his blameless life, and good sense, John Luther was made a counsellor of Mansfeld, the capital of the county of that name. Too great wretchedness might have weighed down the spirit of the child, but the easy circumstances of the paternal roof expanded his heart, and elevated his character. [125] "Drumb musste diese geistliche Schmelzer...." (Mathesius, Historien, 1565, p. 3.) John availed himself of his new situation to cultivate the society which he preferred. He set great value on educated men, and often invited the clergymen and teachers of the place to his table. His house presented an example of one of those societies of simple citizens which did honour to Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and, as a mirror, reflected the numerous images which succeeded each other on the troubled stage of that time. It was not lost on the child. The sight of men to whom so much respect was shown in his father's house must, doubtless, on more than one occasion, have awakened in young Martin's heart an ambitious desire one day to become a school-master or a man of learning. As soon as he was of an age to receive some instruction, his parents sought to give him the knowledge and inspire him with the fear of God, and train him in Christian virtues. Their utmost care was devoted to his primary domestic education.[126] This, however, was not the sole object of their tender solicitude. [126] "Ad agnitionem et timorem Dei, ... domestica institutione diligenter assuefecerunt." (Melancth. Vit. Luth.) By domestic instruction, they carefully trained him into the knowledge and fear of God. His father, desirous of seeing him acquire the elements of knowledge for which he himself had so much esteem, invoked the Divine blessing on his head, and sent him to school. As Martin was still a very little boy, his father or Nicolas Emler, a young man of Mansfeld, often carried him in their arms to the house of George Emilius, and went again to fetch him. Emler afterwards married one of Luther's sisters.