30 JULY 1602. MAGDALENE BRAHE TO ESGE BILLE

My most friendly greetings now and always sent with Our Lord.

Dear Esge Bille, trustworthy, especially good friend,

My most friendly and great thanks for all the manifold goodness you have shown my dear mother, brothers and sisters, and me, for which we are obligated to you all of our days and will be found right willing and full ready with our small fortune in all ways to do whatever we can to your honor and service.

This is to inform you most cordially that I could not burden you with this my humble letter but that my dear mother, my brothers and sister, and I long so much to know how you and your dear wife are. God in heaven grant that all things go fortunately and well for you always, to the glory of God, and to your own and our gladness. We wish you this with all our hearts.

My dear mother, brothers and sisters, praise be to God, are all healthy and sound, may God in Heaven continue to help with His spirit and grace. But that our greatest joy and pleasure after God is now gone from this earth, in that God in Heaven has called home our dearest father, now blessed in God, places us in the hands of God, who rules over us all. God grant us to be found again in the realm of God, in the eternal joy which never ends.