gsburg Confession; I will live by it
and die true to it. It is well known that I have directed my teaching
according to its truths. _I die the avowed enemy of all innovation and
Syncretistic error!_"

The licentiousness of life, not less than of faith, was deplorable in
the German courts. Dancing was carried to great excess and indecorum;
and though there were edicts issued against it during the Thirty Years'
War, the custom seems to have undergone but little abatement.
Drunkenness was very common, and even the highest dignitaries set but a
sorry example in this respect. The Court of Ludwig of Wuertemberg
established six glasses of wine as the minimum evidence of good
breeding; one to quench the thirst; the second for the King's health;
the third for those present; the fourth for the feast-giver and his
wife; the fifth for the permanence of the government, and the last for
absent friends. The example of all nations proves that when the nobility
thus indulge themselves, and become the devotees of passion and luxury,
they do not need to wait long for imitators among the lower and poorer
classes. The poor looked to the rich and their rulers as standards of
fashion and religion. They esteemed it not less an honor than a
privilege to follow in the footsteps of their acknowledged chiefs. The
governing and the governed stood but a short distance from each other,
both in faith and in morals.

There was great display and extravagance in the ordinary ceremonies of
matrimony and baptism. It was quite common for the wedding festival to
last three days, and the baptismal feast two days. The expenses were not
at all justified by the means of the feast-makers; for the humblest
mechanics indulged themselves to an excessive extent. Even funeral
occasions were made to subserve the dissipating spirit of these times;
they were the signal for hilarity and feasting. Distant friends were
invited to be present; and the whole scene was at once repulsive to a
healthy taste and pure religion. A writer from the very midst of the
Thirty Years' War gives us the following item: "The number of courses
served at funerals frequently amounted to as many as two hundred and
thirty-four. The tables were furnished with expensive luxuries and
costly wines, and the people gave themselves up to feasting and rioting
until far into the night." The common people became more habituated to
drinking strong liquors. New breweries arose in various localities, and
dru