In the conversation on June 18, Luther adopts a forcedly light view of the matter: “It is only a three-months’ affair, then the whole thing will fizzle out. Would to God Philip would look at it in this light instead of grieving so over it! The Papists are now Demeas and I Mitio”; with these words commences a string of word-for-word quotations from Terence’s play “_Adelphi_,” all concerning the harsh and violent Demeas, whom Luther takes as a figure of the Catholic Church, and the mild and peaceable Mitio, in whom Luther sees himself. In the Notes the sentences are given almost unaltered: “The prostitute and the matron living in one house.” “A son is born.” “Margaret has no dowry.” “I, Mitio, say: ‘May the gods direct all for the best!’” “Man’s life is like a throw of the dice.”[115] “I overlook much worse things than this,” he continues. “If anyone says to me: Are you pleased with what has taken place? I reply: No; oh, would that I could alter it. Since I cannot, I am resolved to bear it with equanimity. I commit it all to our dear God. Let Him preserve His Church as it now stands in order that it may remain in the unity of faith and doctrine and the pure confession of the Word; all I hope for is that it may never grow worse!” “On rising from the table he said cheerfully: I will not give the devil and the Papists the satisfaction of thinking that I am troubled about the matter. God will see to it. To Him we commend the whole.” In thus shifting the responsibility from his own shoulders and putting it on God--Whose chosen instrument, even at the most critical juncture, he would still persuade himself he was--he finds the most convenient escape from anxiety and difficulty. It has all been laid upon us by God: “We must put up with the devil and his filth as long as we live.” Therefore, forward against the Papists, who seek to conceal their “sodomitic vices” behind this bigamy! “We may not and shall not yield. Let them do their dirty work and let us lay odds on.”[116] With these words he is again quite himself. He is again the inspired prophet, oblivious of all save his mission to champion God’s cause; all his difficulties have vanished and even his worst moral faults have disappeared. But in this frame of mind Luther was not always able to persevere. “All I hope for is that it may never grow worse.” The depressing thought implied in these words lingered in the depths of his soul in spite of all his forced merriment and bravado. “Alas, my God, what have we not to put up with from fanatics and scandals! One follows on the heels of the other; when this [the bigamy] has been adjusted, then it is certain that something else will spring up, and many new sects will also arise.... But God will preserve His Christendom.”[117]