Life of Luther Part 18

Under such circ.u.mstances, and starting with such views, Luther now urged the Elector to take in hand a comprehensive regulation of the Church. As soon as he had discharged his duties at the university and completed his new Church Service in German, he turned his efforts to a general 'Reform of parishes.' This, as he said in a letter at the end of September, was now the stumbling-block before him. On October 31, 1525, the anniversary of his ninety-five theses, he represented to the Elector that, now that the reorganisation of the university and the regulation of public wors.h.i.+p had been completed, there still remained two points which demanded the attention and care of his Highness, as the supreme temporal authority in his country. One of these was the miserable condition of the parishes in general; the other was the proposal that the Elector, as Luther had already advised him at Wittenberg, should inst.i.tute an inspection also of the civil administration of his councillors and officials, about which there were everywhere complaints both in the towns and country districts. With regard to the first point, he went on to explain, on receiving a gracious reply from the Elector, that the people who wished to have an evangelical preacher should themselves be made to contribute the additional income required; and he proposed that the country should be divided into four or five districts, each of which should be visited by two commissioners appointed by the prince. He then proceeded to consider the external maintenance of the parochial clergy, and the means necessary for that purpose. He suggested further that ministers advanced in years, or unfit to preach, but otherwise of pious life and conduct, should be instructed to read aloud, in person or by deputy, the Gospel, together with the Postills or short homilies. With regard to those parishes where the appointment of an evangelical preacher was a matter of indifference or of actual repugnance, he expressed at present no opinion; but in his later proposals he a.s.sumed the establishment of evangelical preachers throughout the country. He expresses his conviction that the Elector will give his services to G.o.d in these reforms of the Church, as a faithful instrument in His hands, 'because,' as he says, 'your Highness is entreated and demanded to do so by us, and by the pressing need itself, and, therefore, a.s.suredly by G.o.d.'

Readily as the Elector John listened to Luther's words and exhortations, he found it difficult, nevertheless, to initiate at once so vast an undertaking as was imposed upon him. Luther was well aware, as he himself told John, that matters of importance might easily be delayed at court, 'through the overwhelming press of business;' and that princely households had much to do, and it was necessary to importune them perseveringly. He knew his prince--that with the best will possible, he was not energetic enough with those about him; and among the latter he suspected that many were indifferent and selfish with regard to matters of religion and the Church. The task, however, that now lay before him, was even more difficult and involved than Luther himself had imagined when first shaping and propounding his idea.

A whole year went by before the project was taken up comprehensively. Only in the district of Borna, in January 1526, was an inspection of parishes effected by Spalatin and a civil official of the prince; and another one was held during Lent in the Thuringian district of Tenneberg, in which Luther's friend Myconius of Gotha, afterwards one of the most prominent Reformers in Thuringia, took an active part. Meantime, however, the clergy in general received directions from the Elector to perform public wors.h.i.+p in the manner prescribed by Luther's 'German Ma.s.s.'

In the course of the summer the development of the general affairs of the Empire enabled the desired co-operation of the civil authorities in the work of Reformation to be established on a basis of law. And yet, just now, the situation, as regards the Evangelical cause, had become more critical than at any previous time since the Diet of Worms. For the Emperor Charles had terminated, by a brilliant victory, the war with France, which had compelled him to let his Edict remain dormant; and the peace concluded with the captured King Francis, in January 1526, at Madrid, was designated by the two monarchs as being intended to enable them to take up their Christian arms in common for the expulsion of the infidels and the extirpation the Lutheran and other heresies. The Emperor issued an admonition to certain princes of Germany, bidding them take measures accordingly, and a number of them held a conference together on the subject. Against the danger thus threatening, the Evangelical party formed the League of Torgau. But no sooner was King Francis at liberty and back in France, than he broke the peace so solemnly contracted. Pope Clement, to whom this peace had offered such a splendid prospect of purifying and uniting Christendom, set more store by his political interests and temporal possessions in Italy, which formed a subject of such jealous rivalry and contention between himself, the Emperor, and the King. Terrified at the overwhelming power of the Emperor, the Holy Father made use of his Divine credentials to absolve the French king from his oath, and himself concluded a warlike alliance with him against Charles, which went by the name of the 'Holy League.' Myconius remarked of this compact that 'whatever Popes do must be called most holy, for so holy are they that even G.o.d, the Gospel, and all the world, must lie at their feet.' Meanwhile, the Turks from the East were advancing on Germany. Thus it came to pa.s.s that a Diet at Spires, which seemed originally to have been summoned for the final execution of the Edict of Worms, led to the Imperial Recess of August 27, 1526, wherein it was declared that until the General, or at least National Council of the Church, which was prayed for, should be convoked, each State should, in all matters appertaining to the Edict of Worms, 'so live, rule, and bear itself as it thought it could answer it to G.o.d and the Emperor.'

Luther now turned again, on November 22, 1526, to John, 'not having laid for a long while any supplication before his Electoral Highness.' The peasants, he said, were so unruly, and so ungrateful for the Word of G.o.d, that he had almost a mind to let them go on living like pigs, without a preacher, only their poor young children, at any rate, must be cared for. He laid down in this letter some important principles concerning the duty of the civil power and the State. The prince, he declared, was the supreme guardian of the young, and of all who required his protection. All towns and villages that could afford the means, should be compelled to keep schools and preachers, just as they were compelled to pay taxes for bridges, roads, and other local requirements. In support of this demand, he appealed to the direct command of G.o.d, and to the universal state of dest.i.tution prevailing. If that duty were neglected, the country would be full of vagrant savages. With regard to the convents and other religious foundations, he stated that, as soon as the Papal yoke had been removed from the land, they would pa.s.s over to the prince as the supreme head; and it would then become his duty, however onerous, to regulate such matters, since no one else would have the power to do so. He particularly warned the Elector not to allow the n.o.bles to appropriate the property of the convents, 'as is talked of already, and as some of them are actually doing.' They were founded, he said, for the service of G.o.d: whatever was superfluous might be applied by the Elector to the exigencies of the state or the relief of the poor. To his friends Luther complained with grief and bitterness of some courtiers of the Elector, who after having always shut their ears to religion and the gospel, were now chuckling over the rich spoils in prospect, and laughing at evangelical liberty.

The work now commenced in real earnest. The Elector had the necessary regulations prepared at Wittenberg, at a conference between his chancellor Bruck, Luther, and others. In February 1527 visitors were appointed, and among them was Melancthon. They began their labours at once in the district to which Wittenberg belonged, but of their proceedings here nothing further is known. In July the first visitation on a large scale took place in Thuringia.

Just at this time, however, Luther was overtaken by severe bodily suffering and also by troubles at home, while the visitation and the academical life at Wittenberg had to experience an interruption.

Luther's first year of married life had been one of happiness.

Symptoms of a physical disorder, the stone, had appeared, however, even then, and in after years became extremely painful and dangerous.

On June 7, 1526, as he announced to his friend Ruhel, his 'dear Kate brought him, by the great mercy of G.o.d, a little Hans Luther,'--her firstborn. With joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter, they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the Pope and his creatures were not worthy.

Amidst all his various labours in theology and for the Church, and in preparing for the visitation, he took his share in the cares of his household, laid out the garden attached to his quarters at the convent, had a well made, and ordered seeds from Nuremberg through his friend Link, and radishes from Erfurt. He wrote at the same time to Link for tools for turning, which he wished to practise with his servant Wolf or Wolfgang Sieberger, as the 'Wittenberg barbarians'

were too much behind in the art; and he was anxious, in case the world should no longer care to maintain him as a minister of the Word, to learn how to gain a livelihood by his handiwork.

Early in January 1527 he was seized with a sudden rush of blood to the heart. It nearly proved fatal at the moment, but fortunately soon pa.s.sed away. An attack of illness, accompanied by deep oppression and anxiety of mind, and the effects of which long remained, followed on July 6. On the morning of that day, being seized with anguish of the soul, he sent for his faithful friend and confessor Bugenhagen, listened to his words of comfort from the Bible, and with persevering prayer commended himself and his beloved ones to G.o.d. At Bugenhagen's advice, he then went to a breakfast, to which the Elector's hereditary marshal, Hans Loser, had invited him.

He ate little at the meal, but was as cheerful as possible to his companions. After it was over, he sought to refresh himself with conversation with Jonas in his garden, and invited him and his wife to spend the evening at his home. On their arrival, however, he complained of a rus.h.i.+ng and singing noise, like the waves of the sea, in his left ear, and which afterwards shot through his head with intolerable pain, like a tremendous gust of wind. He wished to go to bed, but fainted away by the door of his bedroom, after calling aloud for water. Cold water having been poured upon him, he revived. He began to pray aloud, and talked earnestly of spiritual things, although a short swoon came over him in the interval. The physician Augustin Schurf, who was called in, ordered his body, now quite cold, to be warmed. Bugenhagen too was sent for again. Luther thanked the Lord for having vouchsafed to him the knowledge of His holy Name; G.o.d's will be done, whether He would let him die, which would be a gain to himself, or allow him to live on still longer in the flesh, and work. He called his friends to witness that up to his end he was certain of having taught the truth according to the command of G.o.d. He a.s.sured his wife, with words of comfort, that in spite of all the gossip of the blind world she was his wife, and he exhorted her to rest solely on G.o.d's Word. He then asked, 'Where is my darling little Hans?' The child smiled at his father, who commended him with his mother to the G.o.d who is the Father of the fatherless and judges the cause of the widow. He pointed to some silver cups which had been given him, and which he wished to leave his wife. 'You know,' he added, 'we have nothing else.' After a profuse perspiration he grew better, and the next day he was able to get up to meals. He said afterwards that he thought he was dying, in the hands of his wife and his friends, but that the spiritual paroxysm which had preceded had been something far more difficult for him to bear.

Luther, after recovering from this attack, still complained of weakness in the head, and his inward oppression and spiritual anguish was renewed and became intensified. On August 2 he told Melancthon, who was then busy with his visitation in Thuringia, that he had been tossed about for more than a week in the agonies of death and h.e.l.l, and that his limbs still trembled in consequence.

Whilst he was still in this state of suffering, news came that the plague was approaching Wittenberg, nay, had actually broken out in the town. It is well known how this fearful scourge had repeatedly raged in Germany, and how ruinous it had been, from the panic which preceded and accompanied it. The university, from fear of the epidemic, was now removed to Jena.

Luther resolved, however, together with Bugenhagen, whom he was a.s.sisting as preacher, to remain loyally with the congregation, who now more than ever required his spiritual aid; although his Elector wrote in person to him saying, 'We should for many reasons, as well as for your own good, be loth to see you separated from the university.... Do us then the favour.' He wrote to a friend, 'We are not alone here; but Christ, and your prayers, and the prayers of all the saints, together with the holy angels, are with us.'

The plague had really broken out, though not with that violence which the universal panic would have led one to suppose. Luther soon counted eighteen corpses, which were buried near his house at the Elster Gate. The epidemic advanced from the Fishers' suburb into the centre of the town: here the first victim carried off by it, died almost in Luther's arms--the wife of the burgomaster Tilo Denes. To his friends elsewhere Luther sent comforting reports, and repressed all exaggerated accounts. His friend Hess at Breslau asked him 'if it was befitting a Christian man to fly when death threatened him.'

Luther answered him in a public letter, setting forth the whole duty of Christians in this respect. Of the students, a few at any rate remained at Wittenberg. For these he now began a new course of lectures.

Luther's spiritual sufferings continued to afflict him for several months, and until the close of the year. Though he had known them, he said, from his youth, he could never have expected that they would prove so severe. He found them very similar to those attacks and struggles which he had had to endure in early life. The invasion of the plague, and the parting from all his intimate friends except Bugenhagen, must have contributed to increase them.

He was just now deeply shocked and agitated by the news of the death of a faithful companion in the faith, the Bavarian minister Leonard Kaser or Kaiser, who was publicly burnt on August 16, 1527, in the town of Scherding. Luther broke out, as he had done after Henry of Zutphen's martyrdom, into a lamentation of his own unworthiness compared with such heroes. He published an account of Leonard and his end, which had been sent him by Michael Stiefel, adding a preface and conclusion of his own. About the same time he composed a consolatory tract for the Evangelical congregation at Halle-on-the-Saale, whose minister Winkler had been murdered in the previous April.

In the autumn a new controversial treatise was published against him by Erasmus, which he rightly described as a product of snakes; and he now stood in the midst of the contest between Zwingli and Oecolampadius. He exclaimed once in a letter to Jonas, 'O that Erasmus and the Sacramentarians (Zwingli and his friends) could only for a quarter of an hour know the misery of my heart. I am certain that they would then honestly be converted. Now my enemies live, and are mighty, and heap sorrow on sorrow upon me, whom G.o.d has already crushed to the earth.'

The pestilence soon reached his friends. The wife of the physician Schurf, who was then living in the same house with him, was attacked by it, and only recovered slowly towards the beginning of November.

At the parsonage the wife of the chaplain or deacon George Rorer succ.u.mbed to it on November 2, whereupon Luther took Bugenhagen and his family from the panic-stricken house into his own dwelling. But soon after dangerous symptoms showed themselves with a friend, Margaret Mocha, who was then staying with Luther's family, and she was actually ill unto death. His own wife was then near her confinement. Luther was the more concerned about her, as Rorer's wife, when in the same condition, had sickened and died. But Frau Luther remained, as he says, firm in the faith, and retained her health. Finally, towards the end of October his little son Hans fell ill, and for twelve whole days would not eat. When the anniversary of the ninety-five theses came round again, Luther wrote to Amsdorf telling him of these troubles and anxieties, and concluded with the words: 'So now there are struggles without and terror within.... It is a comfort which we must set against the malice of Satan, that we have the Word of G.o.d, whereby to save the souls of the faithful, even though the devil devour their bodies.... Pray for us, that we may endure bravely the hand of the Lord, and overcome the power and craft of the devil, whether it be through death or life. Amen.

Wittenberg: All Saints' Day, the tenth anniversary of the death-blow to indulgences, in thankful remembrance whereof we are now drinking a toast.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 36.--LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1528, at Berlin.)]

A short time afterwards Luther was able to send Jonas somewhat better news about the sickness at home, though he was still sighing with deep inward oppression; 'I suffer,' he said, 'the wrath of G.o.d, because I have sinned in His sight. Pope, Emperor, princes, bishops, and all the world hate me, and, as if that were not enough, my brethren too (he means the Sacramentarians) must needs afflict me.

My sins, death, Satan with all his angels--all rage unceasingly; and what could comfort me if Christ were to forsake me, for Whose sake they hate me? But He will never forsake the poor sinner.' Then follow the words above quoted about Erasmus and the Sacramentarians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 37.--LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1528, at Berlin.)]

Towards the middle of December the plague gradually abated. Luther writes from home on the tenth of that month: 'My little boy is well and happy again. Schurf's wife has recovered, Margaret has escaped death in a marvellous manner. We have offered up five pigs, which have died, on behalf of the sick.' And on his return home this day to dinner from his lecture, his wife was safely delivered of a little daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth.

To his own inward sufferings Luther rose superior by the strengthening power of the conviction that even in these his Lord and Saviour was with him, and that G.o.d had sent them for his own good and that of others; that is to say, for his own discipline and humbling. He applied to himself the words of St. Paul, 'As dying, and behold we live;' nay, he wished not to be freed of his burden, should his G.o.d and Saviour be glorified thereby.

Luther's famous hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_, appeared for the first time, as has been recently proved, in a little hymn-book, about the beginning of the following year. We can see in it indeed a proof how anxious was that time for Luther. It corresponds with his words, already quoted, on the anniversary of the Reformation.

With the cessation of the pestilence and the return of his friends, the new year seems to have brought him also a salutary change in his physical condition; for his sufferings, which were caused by impeded circulation, became sensibly diminished.

Since the outbreak, and during the continuance of the plague, the work of Church visitation had been suspended. Melancthon, however, who had followed the university to Jena, was commissioned meanwhile to prepare provisionally some regulations and instructions for further action in this matter, and in August Luther received the articles which he had drafted for his examination and approval.

These articles or instructions comprised the fundamental principles of Evangelical doctrine, as they were henceforth to be accepted by the congregations. They were drawn up with especial regard to the 'rough common man,' who too often seemed deficient in the first rudiments of Christian faith and life, and with regard also to many of those confessing the new teaching, who, as Melancthon perceived, were not unfairly accused of allowing the word of saving faith to be made a 'cloak of maliciousness,' and who filled their sermons rather with attacks against the Pope than with words of edifying purport.

Melancthon said on this point, 'those who fancy they have conquered the Pope, have not really conquered the Pope.' And whilst teaching that those who were troubled about their sins had only to have faith in their forgiveness for the merits of Christ, to be justified in the sight of G.o.d and to find comfort and peace, nevertheless, he would have the people earnestly and specially reminded that this faith could not exist without true repentance and the fear of G.o.d; that such comfort could only be felt where such fear was present, and that to achieve this end G.o.d's law, with its demands and threats of punishment, would effectually operate upon the soul.

Luther himself had taught very explicitly, and in accordance with his own experience of life, that the faith which saves through G.o.d's joyful message of grace could only arise in a heart already bowed and humbled by the law of G.o.d, and, having arisen, was bound to employ itself actively in fruits of repentance; although, in stating this doctrine, he had not perhaps so equally adjusted the conditions, as Melancthon had here done. An outcry, however, now arose from among the Romanists, that Melancthon no longer ventured to uphold the Lutheran doctrine; of course it suited their interests to fling a stone in this manner at Luther and his teaching. But what was far more important, an attack was raised against Melancthon from the circle of his immediate friends. Agricola of Eisleben, for instance, would not hear of a repentance growing out of such impressions produced by the Law and the fear of punishment. The conversion of the sinner, he declared, must proceed solely and entirely from the comforting knowledge of G.o.d's love and grace, as revealed in His message to man: thence, further, and thence alone, came the proper fear of G.o.d, a fear, not of His punishment, but of Himself. This distinction he had failed to find in Melancthon's Instructions. It was the first time that a dogmatic dispute threatened to break out among those who had hitherto stood really united on the common ground of Lutheran doctrine.

Luther, on the contrary, approved Melancthon's draft, and found little to alter in it. What his opponents said did not disturb him; he quieted the doubts of the Elector on that score. Whoever undertook anything in G.o.d's cause, he said, must leave the devil his tongue to babble and tell lies against it. He was particularly pleased that Melancthon had 'set forth all in such a simple manner for the common people.' Fine distinctions and niceties of doctrine were out of place in such a work. Even Agricola, who wished to be more Lutheran than Luther himself, was silenced.

Melancthon's work, after having been subjected by the Elector to full scrutiny and criticism in several quarters, was published by his command in March 1528, with a preface written by Luther, as 'Instructions of the Visitors to the parish priests in the Electorate of Saxony.' In this preface Luther pointed out how important and necessary for the Church was such a supervision and visitation. He explained, as the reason why the Elector undertook this office and sent out visitors, that since the bishops and archbishops had proved faithless to their duty, no one else had been found whose special business it was, or who had any orders to attend to such matters. Accordingly, the local sovereign, as the temporal authority ordained by G.o.d, had been requested to render this service to the gospel, out of Christian charity, since, in his capacity as civil ruler, he was under no obligation to do so. In like manner, Luther afterwards described the Evangelical sovereigns as 'Makes.h.i.+ft-bishops' (_Nothbischofe_). At the same time the instructions for visitation introduced now in the smaller districts the office of superintendent as one of permanent supervision.

In the course of the summer preparations were made for a visitation on a large scale, embracing the whole country. The original intention had been to deal, by means of one commission, with the various districts in rotation. Such a course would have necessarily entailed, as was admitted, much delay and other inconveniences. A more comprehensive method was accordingly adopted, of letting different commissions work simultaneously in the different districts. Each of these commissions consisted of a theologian and a few laymen, jurists, and councillors of state, or other officials.

Luther was appointed head of the commission for the Electoral district. The work was commenced earlier in some districts than in others. Luther's commission was the first to begin, on October 22, and apparently in the diocese of Wittenberg.

Luther had already, since May 12, voluntarily undertaken a new and onerous labour. Bugenhagen had left Wittenberg that day for the town of Brunswick, where, at the desire of the local magistracy, he carried out the work of reform in the Church, until his departure in October for the same purpose to Hamburg, where he remained until the following June. Luther undertook his pastoral duties in his absence, and preached regularly three or four times in the week.

Nevertheless, he took his share also in the work of visitation; the district a.s.signed to him did not take him very far away from Wittenberg. He remained there, actively engaged in this work, during the following months, and with some few intervals, up to the spring.

From the end of January 1529 he again suffered for some weeks from giddiness and a rus.h.i.+ng noise in his head; he knew not whether it was exhaustion or the buffeting of Satan, and entreated his friends for their prayers on his behalf, that he might continue steadfast in the faith.

The shortcomings and requirements brought to light by the visitation corresponded to what Luther had expected. In his own district the state of things was comparatively favourable; happily, a third of the parishes had the Elector for their patron, and in the towns the magistrates had, to some extent at least, fulfilled their duties satisfactorily. The clergy, for the most part, were good enough for the slender demands with which, under existing circ.u.mstances, their paris.h.i.+oners had to be content. But things were worse in many other parts of the country. A gross example of the rude ignorance then prevailing, not only among the country people, but even among the clergy, was found in a village near Torgau, where the old priest was hardly able to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, but was in high reputation far and near as an exorcist, and did a brisk business in that line. Priests had frequently to be ejected for gross immorality, drunkenness, irregular marriages, and such like offences; many of them had to be forbidden to keep beer-houses, and otherwise to practise worldly callings. On the other hand, we hear of scarcely any priests so addicted to the Romish system as to put difficulties in the way of the visitors. Poverty and dest.i.tution, so Luther reports, were found everywhere. The worst feature was the primitive ignorance of the common people, not only in the country but partly also in the towns. We are told of one place where the peasants did not know a single prayer; and of another, where they refused to learn the Lord's Prayer, because it was too long. Village schools were universally rare. The visitors had to be satisfied if the children were taught the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments by the clerk. A knowledge of these at least was required for admission to the Communion.

Luther in the course of his visitations mixed freely with the people, in the practical, energetic, and hearty manner so peculiar to himself.

For the clergy, who needed a model for their preaching, and for the congregations to whom their pastors, owing to their own incompetence, had to preach the sermons of others, nothing more suitable for this purpose could be offered than Luther's Church-Postills. Its use, where necessary, was recommended. It had shortly before been completed; that is to say, after Luther in 1525 had finished the portion for the winter half-year, his friend Roth, of Zwickau, brought out in 1527 a complete edition of sermons for the Sundays of the summer half-year, and all the feast-days and holidays, compiled from printed copies and ma.n.u.scripts of detached sermons.

The most urgent task, however, that Luther now felt himself bound to perform, was the compilation of a Catechism suitable for the people, and, above all, for the young. Four years before, he had endeavoured to encourage friends to write one. His 'German Ma.s.s' of 1526 said: 'The first thing wanted for German public wors.h.i.+p is a rough, simple, good Catechism;' and further on in that treatise he declared that he knew of no better way of imparting such Christian instruction, than by means of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, for they summed up, briefly and simply, almost all that was necessary for a Christian to know.

He now took in hand at once, early in 1529, and amidst all the business of the visitations, a larger work, which was intended to instruct the clergy how to understand and explain those three main articles of the faith, and also the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. This work is his so-called 'Greater Catechism,'

originally ent.i.tled simply the 'German Catechism.'

Shortly afterwards followed the 'Little Catechism,'--called also the 'Enchiridion'--which contains in an abbreviated form, adapted to children and simple understandings, the contents of his larger work, set out here in the form of question and answer. 'I have been induced and compelled,' says Luther in his introduction, 'to compress this Catechism, or Christian teaching, into this modest and simple form, by the wretched and lamentable state of spiritual dest.i.tution which I have recently in my visitations found to prevail among the people. G.o.d help me! how much misery have I seen! The common folk, especially the villagers, know absolutely nothing of Christian doctrine, and alas, many of the parish priests are almost too ignorant or incapable to teach them!' He entreats therefore his brother clergymen to take pity on the people, to a.s.sist in bringing home the Catechism to them, and more particularly to the young; and to this end, if no better way commended itself, to take these forms before them, and explain them word by word.

For the use of the pastors, he added to this Catechism a short tract on Marriage, and in the second edition, which followed immediately after, he subjoined a reprint of his treatise on Baptism, which he had published three years before.

The Catechism met the requirements of simple minds and of a Christian's ordinary daily life, by providing also forms of prayer for rising, going to bed, and eating, and lastly a manual for households, with Scriptural texts for all cla.s.ses. This ends with the words--

Let each his lesson learn to spell, And then his house will prosper well.

To the clergy, in particular, Luther addressed himself, that they might imbue the people in this manner with Christian truth. But he wished also, as he said, to instruct every head of a household how to 'set forth that truth simply and clearly to his servants,' and teach them to pray, and to thank G.o.d for His blessings.

The contents of the Catechism were carefully confined to the highest, simplest, and thoroughly practical truths of Christian teaching, without any trace or feature of polemics. In its composition, as for instance, in his exposition of the Lord's Prayer, and in his small prayers above mentioned, he availed himself of old materials. How excellently this Catechism, with its originality and clearness, its depth and simplicity, responded to the wants not only of his own time, but of after generations, has been proved by its having remained in use for centuries, and amid so many different ranks of life and such various degrees of culture.

Except his translation of the Bible, this little book of Luther is the most important and practically useful legacy which he has bequeathed to his people.