ak instruments it was extended,
by what mighty engines attacked, by what manifest aid defended; what
blood and prayers its safety had cost; amid what anger of Satan the
standard of the Cross triumphed; how easily the tares spring up; how
often its light is contracted to a narrow space; what great eclipses,
and how very great and thick an one it suffered under Antichrist; how it
has sometimes emerged from desperate circumstances, and especially in
this our age under the mighty Luther; with what defilement and spots it
is often stained; how much it is conversant with the flesh. Many other
such things they have in store; as also its periodical changes, and the
harmonious vicissitudes of its seasons. They diligently impress them on
the youth that they may learn to trust in God, to mistrust the flesh, to
despise the threats of the world, to endure the darkness of this age.
And this is right, however others may not even dissemble their neglect
of ecclesiastical history; for how little any knowledge of it is now
required even from ecclesiastics, or how, where it is found, it is sold
cheap in comparison with a syllogism or two--it does not belong to this
place to discuss more at length."

The existing state of impiety may be inferred from the low estimate of
childhood. The Roman Catholic Church of that day was not so careful of
the indoctrination of the young as she is at the present time. Mathesius
says that in the twenty-five years he spent within her fold he had seen
no case in which the catechism had been elucidated, and that he had not
once heard it explained from the pulpit. Luther took great pains to have
children and the lowest classes trained in the elements of religious
knowledge. His express language, in reference to the catechetical
instruction of the young and ignorant was, "It is not merely enough that
they should be taught and counselled, but care must be taken that, in
the answers returned, every sentence must be evidently understood." But
like so many other lessons of the great Reformer, this was not
remembered by his successors; and in course of time all that the youth
and laboring classes could boast in favor of their doctrinal training
was a smattering of contemporary controversy. There were sermons and
expository lectures intended for children; but they were often at
unseasonable hours, and of such insufferable dryness as to tax the mind
and patience of maturity. A certain author, in a catalogue of this clas