The young bride was as warm in her affection as the young professor was cold. Ever full of anxiety for her husband, Catharine took the alarm the moment she saw him threatened with even the semblance of danger. If Melancthon proposed to take any step which might compromise him, she urged and entreated him to abandon it. "On one of these occasions," wrote Melancthon, "I was obliged to yield to her weakness.... It is our lot." How much unfaithfulness in the Church has had a similar origin. To the influence of Catharine ought, perhaps, to be attributed the timidity and fears with which her husband has often been reproached. Catharine was as fond a mother as a wife. She gave liberally to the poor. "O God, leave me not in my old age, when my hair shall begin to turn grey!" Such was the frequent prayer of this pious and timorous soul. Melancthon was soon won by the affection of his wife. When he had tasted the pleasures of domestic society he felt how sweet they were, for he was of a nature to feel them. His happiest moments were beside his Catharine and her children. A French traveller having one day found the "preceptor of Germany" rocking his infant with one hand, and with a book in the other, started back in surprise; but Melancthon, without being discomposed, so warmly explained to him the value of children in the sight of God, that the stranger left the house, (to use his own words,) "wiser than he had entered it." [Sidenote: MELANCTHON'S VISIT TO HIS MOTHER.] The marriage of Melancthon gave a domestic hearth to the Reformation. There was, thenceforth, in Wittemberg, a family whose house was open to all those whom the principle of a new life now animated. The concourse of strangers was immense.[230] Melancthon was waited on for a thousand different affairs, and his rule was never to deny himself to any body.[231] The young professor was particularly skilful in concealing his own good deeds. If he had no more money he secretly carried his silver plate to some merchant, never hesitating to part with it, provided he had the means of assisting those who were in distress. "Hence," says his friend, Camerarius, "it would have been impossible for him to provide for his own wants and those of his family had not a divine and hidden blessing from time to time furnished him with the means." He carried his good nature to an extreme. He had some antique medals of gold and silver, which were extremely curious. One day when showing them to a stranger who was visiting him, Melancthon said, "Take any one of them you wish." "I wish them all," replied the stranger." "I confess," says Philip, "I was at first offended at the selfishness of the request; however I gave them to him."[232] Melancthon's writings had a savour of antiquity. This, however, did not prevent them from exhaling the sweet savour of Christ, while it gave them an inexpressible charm. There is not one of his letters to his friends which does not contain some very