“The devil is the ruler of the world,” Luther continues. “He it is who has caused the married state to be so shamefully calumniated and yet permits adulterers, feminine whores and masculine scamps to be held in great honour; verily it would be right to marry, were it only to bid defiance to the devil and his world.” In the closing sentence he aims his last bolt at the monk’s sense of honour: “It is merely a question of one little hour of shame to be succeeded by years of honour. May Christ, our Lord, impart His grace so that this letter ... may bring forth fruit to the glory of His name and word, Amen.” The letter was not intended merely for the unimportant person to whom it was addressed, and whose subsequent marriage with the daughter of a poor tailor’s widow in Torgau did not render him any the more famous. Publicity was the object aimed at in this writing, which was at once printed in German and Latin and distributed that it might “bear fruit.” The lengthier “_Epistola gratulatoria_ to one about to marry,” immediately reprinted in German, was despatched by Luther’s Wittenberg friend Bugenhagen at the time of Reissenbusch’s wedding. It had been agreed upon to utilise the action of Reissenbusch for all it was worth in the propaganda in favour of the breaking of vows and priestly celibacy. Luther was then in the habit of employing the strongest and most extravagant language in order to show the need of marriage in opposition to the celibacy practised by the priests and monks. It is only with repulsion that one can follow him here. “It is quite true,” he says, in 1522, to the German people, “that whoever does not marry must misconduct himself ... for God created man and woman to be fruitful and multiply. But why is not fornication obviated by marriage? For where no extraordinary grace is vouchsafed, nature must needs be fruitful and multiply, and if not in marriage, where will it find its satisfaction save in harlotry or even worse sins?”[297] Luther carefully refrained from mentioning the countless number who were able to control the impulses of nature without in any way touching the moral filth to which, in his cynicism, he is so fond of referring. What he said filled with indignation those who were zealous for the Church, and called forth angry rejoinders, especially in view of the countless numbers, particularly of women, to whom marriage was denied owing to social conditions.