'Your dear son Magister Johannes has made known to me with touching lament, my dear friend, how you have abstained from the Sacrament for so many years, giving a scandalous example to others, and he has begged me to exhort you to give up such a dangerous practice, as we are not sure of life for a moment. So his filial, faithful care for you his father has moved me to write to you, and I give you my brotherly and Christian exhortation (such as we owe to one another in Christ) to desist from such a practice, and to consider that the Son of God suffered far more and forgave his crucifiers. And finally, when your hour comes, you will have to forgive as does a thief on the gallows. If your cause before the court lingers on, let it proceed, and wait for your right. Such things do not prevent us from going to the Sacrament, else we and also our princes could not attend, as the cause betwixt us and the Papists still lingers on. Commit your cause to justice, and meanwhile make your conscience free, and say, "Whoever shall be judged in the right, let him be considered so, in the mean time I will forgive those who have done the wrong, and go to the Sacrament." Thus you will go not unworthily, because you desire justice and are willing to suffer wrong, however the judge's sentence may fall. Take kindly this exhortation which your son has so earnestly begged from me. Herewith I commend you to God. Amen. Wednesday, after Miser., A.D. 1540. 'Martinus Luther.' "My children will find the original of this letter in its place with other important documents, and will no less carefully than myself preserve it as an autograph of that highly enlightened, holy, dear, and of the whole world praiseworthy man, and will love, and value, and keep it as a pleasant remembrance for their children and children's children. "This letter my brother brought home to my father, and in order that his parents might see that their money had not been spent in vain, he brought with him also some of his Latin poems which had been printed. In the following years he applied himself with industry at home to his private studies. For besides other poems at Rostock, he published at Lubeck an elegy on the Christian martyr Dr. _Robert Barns_,[51] which had a tragical result for both the printer and himself. For the poem came to the knowledge of the king of England, who sent an envoy to the city of Lubeck with bitter complaints and threatenings, as the poem had been published by their printer Johann Balhorn. The dignitaries of Lubeck made excuses for the author, although he did not dwell there nor belong to their jurisdiction, as he was only a young fellow who wished to give proof of his learning; but the publisher, Johann Balhorn, was sent out of the city, and had to leave it by break of day. They thereby appeased the king's anger, and after some months allowed Balhorn to return to the city.