The main point is the correcting of the words, not of the music.
[Then follow selections of Scripture recommended as suitable
for epitaphs.]
Luther's Third Preface.
To the Hymn-book printed at Wittenberg by Joseph Klug, 1543.
There are certain who, by their additions to our hymns,
have clearly shown that they far excel me in this matter, and
may well be called my masters. But some, on the other hand,
have added little of value. And inasmuch as I see that there
is no limit to this perpetual amending by every one
indiscriminately according to his own liking, so that the
earliest of our hymns are more perverted the more they are
printed, I am fearful that it will fare with this little book
as it has ever fared with good books, that through tampering
by incompetent hands it may get to be so overlaid and spoiled
that the good will be lost out of it, and nothing be kept in
use but the worthless.
We see in the first chapter of St. Luke that in the
beginning every one wanted to write a gospel, until among the
multitude of gospels the true Gospel was well-nigh lost. So
has it been with the works of St. Jerome and St.
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