part the foundation of the hymns which we owe to his own poetical
genius. Thus for Christmas we still have the carol of those times,
_Ein Kindelein so lobelich_; and the first verse of Luther's
Whitsun hymn, _Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist_, is taken, he
tells us, from one of those old-fashioned melodies. Of the portions
of Scripture read in church, the Gospels and Epistles were given in
the mother-tongue. Sermons, also, had long been preached in German,
and there were printed collections of them for the use of the
clergy.

The places where Luther grew up were certainly better off in this
respect than many others. For, in the main, very much was still
wanting to realise what had been recommended and striven for by
pious Churchmen, and writers and religious fraternities, or even
enjoined by the Church herself. The Reformers had, indeed, a heavy
and an irrefutable indictment to bring against the Catholic Church
system of their time. The grossest ignorance and shortcomings were
exposed by the Visitations which they undertook, and from these we
may fairly judge of the actual state of things existing for many
years before. It appeared, that even where these portions of the
catechism were taught by parents and schoolmasters, they never
formed the subject of clerical instruction to the young. It was
precisely one of the charges brought against the enemies of the
Reformation, that, notwithstanding the injunctions of their Church,
they habitually neglected this instruction, and preferred teaching
the children such things as carrying banners in processions and holy
tapers. Priests were found, in the course of these visitations, who
had scarcely any knowledge of the chief articles of the faith. His
own personal experience of this neglect, when young, is not noticed
by Luther in his later complaints on the subject.