Therefore I entreat every pious Christian to give a
favorable reception to these hymns, and to help forward my
undertaking, according as God hath given him more or less
ability. The world is, alas, not so mindful and diligent to
train and teach our poor youth, but that we ought to be
forward in promoting the same. God grant us his grace. Amen.
Luther's Second Preface.
To the Funeral Hymns: _"Christliche Geseng, Lateinisch und
Deudsch, zum Begrebnis. Wittemberg,_ Anno m. d. xlii."
DR. MARTIN LUTHER TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.
St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, that they should
not sorrow for the dead as others who have no hope, but should
comfort one another with God's word, as they who have a sure
hope of life and of the resurrection of the dead.
For that they should sorrow who have no hope is not to be
wondered at, nor indeed are they to be blamed for it, since,
being shut out from the faith of Christ, they must either
regard and love the present life only, and be loth to lose it,
or after this life look for everlasting death and the wrath of
God in hell, and be unwilling to go thither.
But we Christians who from all this have been redeemed by
the precious blood of the Son of God, should exercise and wont
ourselves in faith to despise death, to look on it as a deep,
sound, sweet sleep, the coffin no other than the bosom of our
Lord Christ, or paradise, the grave nought but a soft couch of
rest; as indeed it is in the sight of God, as he saith in St.
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