The more talents children have received from God, the greater are their obligations to make use of those talents for the amelioration of their own and their parents’ circumstances, to assist their parents and to take heed for their own advancement and for the future. The gospels teach us thus to put our talents out at interest. I therefore, in conscience, owe it to God to be grateful to my father who spends untiringly his every hour on my education; to lighten his burthen; and to care for my sister; for it would pain me greatly if, after spending so many hours at the piano, she should not be able to turn what she has so laboriously learned to account. Your illustrious grace will, therefore, most graciously allow me to ask most humbly for my dismissal from your grace’s service, as I am forced to make use of the month of September this fall which is just beginning, so that I may not be exposed to the inclemency of the severe weather of the cold months which follow so soon upon it. Your illustrious grace will not take this most humble petition of mine ungraciously, as your grace most graciously pronounced against me three years ago, when I asked leave to travel to Vienna, told me that I had nothing to hope for, and that I would do better to seek my fortune in some other place. Most humbly do I thank your illustrious grace for all the high favors I have received from your grace, and with the flattering hope of being able to serve your illustrious grace with greater approval when I shall have reached man’s estate, I commend myself to the favor and grace of Your most illustrious Grace, My most gracious liege-lord and _Herr Herr_. Most humbly and obediently, WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. [_Addressed_] TO HIS ILLUSTRIOUS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF SALZBURG, etc., etc.; The most humble and obedient petition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”