y my books, except perhaps _De Servo Arbitrio_ and
the Catechism." (Enders, 11, 247.) Justus Jonas declares: "The Catechism
is but a small booklet, which can be purchased for six pfennige but six
thousand worlds could not pay for it." He believed that the Holy Ghost
inspired the blessed Luther to write it. Mathesius says "If in his
career Luther had produced and done no other good thing than to give his
two Catechisms to homes, schools, and pulpits, the entire world could
never sufficiently thank or repay him for it." J. Fr. Mayer: "_Tot res
quot verba. Tot utilitates, quot apices complectens. Pagellis brevis,
sed rerum theologicarum amplitudine incomparabilis._ As many thoughts as
words; as many uses as there are characters in the book. Brief in pages,
but incomparable in amplitude of theological thoughts."

In his dedicatory epistle of 1591, to Chemnitz's _Loci,_ Polycarp Leyser
says: "That sainted man, Martin Luther, never took greater pains than
when he drew up into a brief sum those prolix expositions which he
taught most energetically in his various books.... Therefore he composed
the Short Catechism, which is more precious than gold or gems, in which
the pure doctrine of the prophets and apostles (_prophetica et
apostolica doctrinae puritas_) is summed up into one integral doctrinal
body, and set forth in such clear words that it may justly be considered
worthy of the Canon (for everything has been drawn from the canonical
Scriptures). I can truthfully affirm that this very small book contains
such a wealth of so many and so great things that, if all faithful
preachers of the Gospel during their entire lives would do nothing else
in their sermons than explain aright to the common people the secret
wisdom of God comprised in those few words and set forth from the divine
Scriptures the solid ground upon which each word is built they could
never exhaust this immense abyss."

Leopold von Ranke, in his _German History of the Time of the
Reformation,_ 1839, declares: "The Catechism which Luther published in
1529, and of which he said that he, old Doctor though he was, prayed it,
is as childlike as it is deep, as comprehensible as it is unfathomable,
simple, and sublime. Blessed is the man who nourishes his soul with it,
who adheres to it! He has imperishable comfort in every moment: under a
thin shell the kernel of truth, which satisfies the wisest of the wise."

Loehe, another enthusiastic panegyrist of Luther, decla