also that the Law must be applied to Christians, in as far as they still
live in, the flesh, and are not become altogether spiritual. Luther's
public activity as a preacher began with a series of sermons on the Ten
Commandments, and this effort to expound the divine norm of
righteousness was repeated several times during Luther's life. Luther's
expositions of the Decalog are among the finest that the world
possesses. Moreover, Luther wrote the Small Catechism. Hand any Catholic
who talks about Luther having abolished the Ten Commandments this little
book. That is a sufficient refutation. What Luther teaches in this book
he has given his life to reduce to practise in himself and others. He
says in a sermon on Easter Monday, 1530: "When rising in the morning, I
pray with my children the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, and some Psalm. I do this because I want to make myself cling to
these truths. I shall not suffer my faith to become mildewed with the
imagination that I am above these things (_dass ich's koenne_)." His
sermon on the First Sunday in Advent in the same year he begins thus:
"Dear friends, I am now an old Doctor, still I find every day that I
must recite with the children the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the
Lord's Prayer, and I have always derived a great benefit and blessing
from this practise." (12, 1611. 1641.)

Luther is charged with mendacity, that is, he is said to have lied. The
reasons that will be given for this charge, when called for, will
probably be these: Luther at various times in his life gave three
different years as the year of his birth, three different years as the
year when he made his journey to Rome, and advised somebody in 1512 to
become a monk when he had already commenced to denounce the monastic
life: It is true that Luther did all these things, but it is also true
that Luther believed himself right in each of his statements. He was
simply mistaken. Other people have misstated the year of their birth