We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanchthon--who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of his thoughts at that time--“did not rightly understand the motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a moment.” Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood. Luther’s intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies at defiance by his marriage and to show them “that he would pay less attention to them than ever”; being apprehensive of his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act. Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciate this “great motive,” or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage in Luther’s case seem to have weighed more heavily with them than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reformation. This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our author that he does not insist further upon another reason which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora “was unkindly disposed to Melanchthon,” and that he much feared she would alienate his friend’s heart from him. The same writer mildly remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by Camerarius: “it was not with the intention of falsifying, that he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedification.” Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first time of man’s natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius adds the word _αὐτόν_, thus referring directly to Luther what the writer intended for men in general: “I believe _he_ was forced by nature to marry,” which, following immediately upon the passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable impression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage, and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas he is comprised in it only indirectly. According to what we have seen, the circumstance of Luther’s sudden marriage occurring just at the time of the panic of the Peasant War, made an especially deep impression on Melanchthon, who was ever inclined to circumspection and prudence. In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagration raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes, formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.