and prayed for her redemption. As she lay in her coffin, he exclaimed, "Ah! my darling Lena, thou
wilt rise again, and shine like a star,—yea, as a sun. I am happy in the spirit, but very sorrowful in
the flesh." He wrote to his friend Jonas: "You will have heard that my dearest child is born again
into the eternal kingdom of God. We ought to be glad at her departure, for she is taken away from
the world, the flesh, and the devil; but so strong is natural love, that we cannot bear it without
anguish of heart, without the sense of death in ourselves." On her tomb he inscribed these lines: —
"Here do I Lena, Luther’s daughter, rest,
Sleep in my little bed with all the blessed.
In sin and trespass was I born;
Forever would I be forlorn,
But yet I live, and all is good —
Thou, Christ, didst save me with thy blood."
Luther was simple, regular, and temperate in his habits. The reports to the contrary are
slanders of enemies. The famous and much-abused adage, —
"Who does not love wife, wine, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long,"^592 -
is not found in his works, nor in any contemporary writing, but seems to have originated in the
last century, on the basis of some mediaeval saying.^593 He used beer^594 and common wine according
to the general custom of his age and country; but he abhorred intemperance, and justly complained
of the drink-devil (Saufteufel) of the Germans.^595 Melanchthon, his daily companion, often wondered
(as he reports after Luther’s death) how a man with such a portly frame could live on so meager a
diet; for he observed that Luther sometimes fasted for four days when in good health, and was often
contented for a whole day with a herring and a piece of bread. He preferred "pure, good, common,
homely fare." Occasionally he received a present of game from the Elector, and enjoyed it with his
friends.
He had a powerful constitution, but suffered much of the stone, of headache, and attacks
of giddiness, and fainting; especially in the fatal year 1527, which brought him to the brink of the
grave. He did not despise physicians, indifferent as they were in those days, and called them "God’s
menders (Flicker) of our bodies; "but he preferred simple remedies, and said, "My best medical
prescription is written in John 3: ’God so loved the world.’ " He was too poor to keep horse and(^592) "Wer nicht liebt Weib, Wein und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang."
(^593) The lines appeared first in the present form in the Wandsbecker Bote for 1775, No. 75, p. 300, and then in 1777 in the Musenalmanach
of J. H. Voss (the poet, and translator of Homer), who was supposed to be the author, and to have foisted them upon Luther. Herder gave
them a place among his Volkslieder, 1778, I. 12. Seidemann, in Schnorr’s "Archiv," vol. VIII. (1879), p. 440, has shown that the sentiment
is substantially pre-Lutheran, and quotes from Luther’s Table Talk, Ser. IV., a sentence somewhat analogous, but involving a reproach
to the Germans for drunkenness: "Wie wollt ihr jetzt anders einen Deutschen vorthun dennEbrietate, praesertim talem qui non diligit
MusicametMulieres?" See Köstlin, II. 678 sq. Another similar sentence has since been found by L. Schulze in the "Reformatorium viae
clericorum " of 1494: "Absque Venere et mero rite laetabitur nemo."
(^594) He liked the beer of Eimbeck and Naumburg. In one of his last letters (Feb. 7. 1546) to his wife from Eisleben, where he was treated
like a prince by the counts of Mansfeld, he gives her this piece of information: "We live here very well, and the town-council gives me
for each meal half a pint of ’Rheinfall’ (Rhine wine), which is very good. Sometimes I drink it with my friends. The wine of the country
here is also good, and Naumburger beer is very good, though I fancy its pitch fills my chest with phlegm. The Devil has spoilt all the beer
in the world with pitch, and the wine with brimstone. But here the wine is pure, such as the country gives." De Wette, V. 788.
(^595) He preached some strong sermons against intemperance, and commends the Italians and Turks for sobriety. See Colloquia, ed.
Bindseil, I. 195 sqq.