Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/56

44 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE of our religion. . . . Fathers and mothers should in these things prepare their children for the school- master.' ' Question your children often,' thus does the ' Seelenfiihrer ' admonish parents, ' as to what they have understood of the Commandments, the Creed, and the explanations they have received in church and at school ; therein depends their salvation and yours. It is not sufficient to know by heart the words of the Com- mandments, the Creed, the seven deadly sins, and the sacraments ; all who have come to years of discretion must also know the meaning of all this doctrine.' Lanzkrana speaks even more strongly in the ' Hymel- strasz ' (' Eoad to Heaven '). ' It is the bounden duty of everyone so soon as he comes to the use of his reason to learn the Commandments of God, not only so as to be able to repeat them word for word as in the text, but so as to understand them and keep them, and to know also what they require him to avoid. In like manner, he must know what are the seven capital sins, and in what consists true penance. Also the significa- tion of the Lord's Prayer, and what we are entitled to hope for from God and to pray to Him to grant. In such manner should all fathers and mothers instruct their children, all teachers their pupils, all superiors their inferiors, according to their position.' ' Parents and schoolmasters,' writes the Lutheran, Mathesius, in allusion to the days of his youth, ' were accustomed to teach their children the Command- ments, the Creed, and the Pater Noster. I learned them myself in my childhood, and, according to the school custom of the time, often rehearsed them to other chil- dren.' The Saxon Prince Johann Friedrich, afterwards