ertions of one
distinguished individual, that it owes its introduction into the
circle of literature. There is nothing more pleasing in the moral
world, than to behold the whole life of a man devoted to one great
cause, his thoughts all bent on one great object, his exertions all
aiming at one great purpose; and so much the more, if that object has
respect to the holiest interests of mankind. Such was the case with
the _primus_ Truber, who may be called the apostle of the Vindes and
Croatians. The direct results of his labours long ago perished in the
lapse of time; but this does not render them less deserving, although
it diminishes his fame. Truber, born A.D. 1508, canon and curate at
several places in Carniola and Carinthia, seems to have been early in
life impressed with the truth of the new doctrines of the Reformation.
His sound judgment taught him, that the surest way of enabling his
flock, and the common people in general, to receive the new light in a
proper spirit, would be the diffusion of useful knowledge among them.
And as the German, which at the present day is almost exclusively the
language of the cities of Stiria, Carniola, and Carinthia, was at that
time far less generally understood, he ventured to commit to paper a
dialect apparently never before written. In the second edition of his
New Testament, A.D. 1582, he states expressly: "Thirty-four years ago,
there was not a letter, not a register, still less a book, to be found
in our language; people regarded the Vindish and Hungarian idioms as
too coarse and barbarous to be written or read."

Truber and his assistants in this great work of reformation and
instruction, among whom we mention only Ungnad von Sonnegg and
Dalmatin, met every where with opposition and persecution; but their
activity and zeal conquered all obstacles, and succeeded in at least
partially performing that at which they aimed. Meantime, Christopher,
duke of Wuertemburg, a truly evangelical prince, had opened in his
dominions an asylum for all those who had to suffer elsewhere on
account of their faith. The translation of the Scriptures every where
into the language of the common people, was regarded by this prince as
a holy duty; and this led him to cause even Slavic printing-offices to
be established in his dominions, Thither Truber went; and after
printing several books for religious instruction, he published the
Gospel of Matthew in a Vindish translation, Tuebingen 1555; and two