#1956-To the Mayor and Council in Rothenburg on the Tauber

To the honorable and wise lords, Mayor and Council in Rothenburg on the Tauber,my favored lords and friends.
Grace and peace in Christ. Honorable, wise, dear lords and friends. Although I am a stranger to E.W.(your wisdom or you wise ones) and (without your names) not knowing you, I have yet cause to write you for the sake of your city-child,Georg Schnell. in addition he is not appealing not on his own behalf but at the behest of other good people who appreciate him as good. Therefore I request that E.W. will regard this in the best way and here is the opinion:
He is your city-child who has done you no harm, is learned and pious and daily my house and table guest for whom I must give good recommendation and witness. Because he is now poor and has nothing it is my fervent appeal that E.W. would consider how that everywhere there is now a great and lamentable shortage of learned people (to say nothing of what it will be)so that many schools and parishes are suffering and the people without God's Word becoming wild and cattle-like and that one man of good counsel could help many thousand and for sake of God benefit the young people.
Accordingly, also as you are responsible to help one who is your city-child may my appeal be considered appropriate that E.W. would be helpful for his studies with something of a beneficence or something else provided by God. Surely this will not result in anything bad but I know that it will be for the benefit and honor of your city. And if there is no other compensation it pleases the one called Jesus Christ Who well deserves that we further His kingdom and glory.
I hope that E.W. did not require so great an admonition nor a lesser one or greater admonition but that you would have known well on your own how to proceed in a Christian way.Herewith be commended to God, Amen. 1533,26 January. D.Martin Luther.
Note:Visited Rothenburg once. Much the same now with dwellings, walls, churches as in ML's day due to having been abandoned during the plague. Also one of the places of the Peasants'Revolt. Carlstadt hanged around there for a time.