“Twenty years after Luther had been at the Castle Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg, Mathaeus Ratzeberger, Luther’s physician, visited there. He made a point of inspecting the room Luther had used as a study and meticulously noted down the verses which Luther had written on the wall.
One was Ps. 118:17, ‘I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.’ To the verse Luther had added musical notes for singing. Other psalm verses were also marked on the wall.
It was Luther’s custom to write down verses and words where he could have them before his eyes. When the news of his father’s death reached him at the Coburg, Luther took his Psalter, went to his room, and was not seen the rest of the day.”
–Martin Luther, “Sayings in Which Luther Found Comfort” in Luther’s Works, Vol. 43: Devotional Writings II (ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 43: 169.
Reblogged this on The Three R's Blog and commented:
I appreciated this post today at “Tolle Lege”, and re-post it here for your benefit. Luther’s example teaches us to stay close to the Psalms, God’s Psalter of comfort and hope for every life circumstance and every believer’s experience.