commanded us to watch carefully for the sheep's clothings under
which the wolves hide themselves.

Neither silver, gold, precious stones, nor any rare thing has
such manifold alloys and flaws as have good works, which ought
to have a single simple goodness, and without it are mere color,
show and deceit.

And although I know and daily hear many people, who think
slightingly of my poverty, and say that I write only little
pamphletst and German sermons for the unlearned laity, this shall
not disturb me. Would to God I had in all my life, with all the
ability I have, helped one layman to be better! I would be
satisfied, thank God, and be quite willing then to let all my
little books perish.

Whether the making of many great books is an art and a benefit
to the Church, I leave others to judge. But I believe that if I
were minded to make great books according to their art, I could,
with God's help, do it more readily perhaps than they could
prepare a little discourse after my fashion. If accomplishment
were as easy as persecution, Christ would long since have been
cast out of heaven again, and God's throne itself overturned.
Although we cannot all be writers, we all want to be critics.

I will most gladly leave to any one else the honor of greater
things, and not be at all ashamed to preach and to write in
German for the unlearned laymen. Although I too have little skill
in it, I believe that if we had hitherto done, and should
henceforth do more of it, Christendom would have reaped no small