choice and selection for elegance and ornament? The arts and languages, which do us no
harm, nay, which are a greater ornament, benefit, honor, and advantage, both for
understanding Holy Writ, and for managing civil affairs, we are disposed to despise; and
foreign wares, which are neither necessary nor useful to us, and which, moreover, peel us
to the very bone, these we are not willing to forego. Are we not deserving to be called
German fools and beasts? ..."Much as we love the gospel, let us hold fast to the languages. God gave us the
Scriptures in two languages, the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek.
Therefore we should honor them above all other languages. ... And let us remember that
we shall not be able to keep the gospel without the languages. The languages are the sheath
in which this sword of the Spirit is hid. They are the casket in which this treasure is kept.
They are the vessels in which this drink is contained; they are the storehouse in which this
food is laid by; and, as the gospel itself shows, they are the baskets in which these loaves
and fishes and fragments are preserved. Yea, if we should so err as to let the languages
go (which God forbid!), we shall not only lose the gospel, but it will come to pass at length
that we shall not be able to speak or write correctly either Latin or German. ..."Herewith I commend you all to the grace of God. May He soften and kindle your
hearts so that they shall earnestly take the part of these poor, pitiable, forsaken youth, and,
through Divine aid, counsel and help them to a happy and Christian ordering of the German
land as to body and soul with all fullness and overflow, to the praise and honor of God
the Father, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen."
The advice of Luther was not unheeded. Protestant nations are far ahead of the Roman
Catholic in popular education. In Germany and Switzerland there is scarcely a Protestant boy or
girl that cannot read and write; while in some papal countries, even to this day, the majority of the
people are illiterate.^669
§ 84. Reconstruction of Church Government and Discipline.
Aemil Ludw. Richter: Die evangel; Kirchenordnungen des 16 Jahrh., Weimar, 1846, 2 vols. By
the same: Gesch. der evang. Kirchenver-fassung in Deutschland. Leipz., 1851. By the same:
Lehrbuch des kath. und evang. Kirchenrechts, Leipzig, 5th ed., 1858. J. W. F. Höfling:
Grundsätze der evang.-lutherischen Kirchenverfassung. Erlangen, third ed., 1853. Stahl: Die
Kirchenverfassung nach Recht und Lehre der Protestanten. Erlangen, 1862. Mejer: Grundl. des
luth. Kirchenregiments, Rostock, 1864. E. Friedberg: Lehrbuch des kath. u. evang. Kirchenrechts,
Leipz., 1884.
The papal monarchy and visible unity of Western Christendom were destroyed with the burning
of the Pope’s bull and the canon law. The bishops refused to lead the new movement; disorder and
(^669) In Spain, once the richest and proudest monarchy of Europe, sixty per cent of the adult population could not read in 1877, according
to the official census. Compare this with the educational statistics of Prussia, which in the sixteenth century was a poor, semi-barbarous
principality. The contrast between North America and South America in point of popular education is still more striking.