When the evidence collected from the sources is sifted, it will be found that the religious life of the people at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries is full of discordant elements, and makes what must appear to us a very incongruous mosaic. If classification be permissible, which it scarcely is (for religious types always refuse to be kept distinct, and always tend to run into each other), one would be disposed to speak of the simple homely piety of the family circle—the religion taught at the mother’s knee, the _Kinderlehre_, as Luther called it; of a certain flamboyant religion which inspired the crowds; of a calm anti-clerical religion which grew and spread silently throughout Germany; of the piety of the praying-circles, the descendants of the fourteenth century Mystics. § 4. The Family Religious Life. The biographies of some of the leaders of the Reformation, when they relate the childish reminiscences of the writers, bear unconscious witness to the kind of religion which was taught to the children in pious burgher and peasant families. We know that Luther learned the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. He knew such simple evangelical hymns as “Ein kindelein so lobelich,”(74) “Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist,” and “Crist ist erstanden.” Children were rocked to sleep while the mothers sang: “Ach lieber Heere Jhesu Christ Sid Du ein Kind gewesen bist, So gib ouch disem Kindelin Din Gnod und ouch den Segen den. Ach Jhesu, Heere min, Behüt diz Kindelin. Nun sloff, nun sloff, min Kindelin, Jhesus der sol din bülli sin, Der well, daz dir getroume wol Und werdest aller Tugent vol. Ach Jhesus, Heere min, Behüt diz Kindelin.”(75) These songs or hymns, common before the Reformation, were sung as frequently after the break with Rome. The continuity in the private devotional life before and after the advent of the Reformation is a thing to be noted. Few hymns were more popular during the last decade of the fifteenth century than the “In dulci Jubilo” in which Latin and German mingled. The first and last verses were: “In dulci jubilo, Nun singet und seid froh! Unsers Herzens Wonne Leit in præsepio, Und leuchtet als die Sonne Matris in gremio. Alpha es et O, Alpha es et O! Ubi sunt gaudia? Nirgends mehr denn da, Da die Engel singen Nova cantica, Und die Schellen klingen In regis curia. Eya, wär’n wir da, Eya, wär’n wir da!” This hymn continued to enjoy a wonderful popularity in the German Protestant churches and families until quite recently, and during the times of the Reformation it spread far beyond Germany.(76) In the fifteenth-century version it contained one verse in praise of the Virgin: