d at greater length in Holy
Scripture, and is necessary for a Christian man to know for his
salvation." (777, 5.)

116. Enemies and Friends of Small Catechism.

In recent times liberal German theologians, pastors, and teachers have
endeavored to dislodge Luther's Small Catechism from its position in
church, school, and home. As a rule, these attacks were made in the name
of pedagogy; the real cause, however, were their liberal dogmatical
views. The form was mentioned and assailed, but the contents were meant.
As a sample of this hostility we quote the pedagog, philologian, and
historian Dr. Ludwig Gurlitt (_Die Zukunft,_ Vol. 17, No. 6, p.222): "At
the beginning of the sixteenth century," he says, "a monk eloped from a
cloister and wrote a religious book of instruction for the German
children. At the time it was a bold innovation, the delight of all
freethinkers and men of progress, of all who desired to serve the
future. This book, which will soon celebrate its five-[four-]hundredth
anniversary, is still the chief book of instruction for German children.
True, its contents already are so antiquated that parents reject almost
every sentence of it for themselves; true, the man of today understands
its language only with difficulty--what of it, the children must gulp
down the moldy, musty food. How we would scoff and jeer if a similar
report were made about the school system of China! To this Lutheran
Catechism, which I would best like to see in state libraries only, are
added many antiquated hymns of mystical turgidity, which a simple youth,
even with the best will does not know how to use. All outlived! Faith in
the Bible owes its existence only to the tough power and law of inertia.
It is purely mechanical thinking and speaking which the schoolmaster
preaches to them and pounds into them. We continue thus because we are
too indolent to fight, or because we fear an enlightened people."

The best refutation of such and similar aspersions is a reference to the
enormous circulation which Luther's Small Catechism has enjoyed, to its
countless editions, translations, elaborations, and its universal use in
church, school, and home for four centuries. Thirty-seven years after
the publication of Luther's Catechisms, Mathesius wrote: "Praise God it
is said that in our times over one hundred thousand copies have been
printed and used in great numbers in all kinds of languages in foreign
lands and in all Latin and German schools