It may suffice to keep to the dozen pages or so[890] from which the above kindlier samples were extracted, to become acquainted with the wealth of good interspersed amongst so much that is worthless, and at the same time to appreciate how lively his mind and his powers of observation still remained even when increasing years and persistent bad health were becoming a burden to him. As to the way in which his then sayings were handed down, we may state, that, in the winter of 1542-1543, Caspar Heydenreich, who had already officiated as pastor of Joachimstal, was present at Luther’s table and wrote down these and other remarks as they dropped from the speaker’s lips; they were afterwards incorporated in Mathesius’ collection. In the original they are partly in Latin, partly in German, and betray not the slightest attempt at polish. The reason that we thus find Latin passages in reports of German conversations is that the reporter, in order to take down more rapidly what he heard, at times made use of shorthand, then only employed for Latin. Others who reported the Table-Talk had recourse to the same device. The consequence is, that, in the recent German editions of the Table-Talk, we find in one and the same conversation some sentences in the Old German Luther actually used, and others in present-day German, the latter being merely translations from the Latin. After discoursing at length on the fact that schools ought to be carefully cherished for the sake of the coming generation of Church teachers, he says: “The work of the schools is not brilliant in the eyes of the world, but it is of the greatest utility.” (No. 609; then follows the praise of the old schools already recorded.)--“Wealth is the most insignificant thing in the world, the meanest gift in God’s power to bestow on man. What is it compared with the Word of God? Indeed, what is it compared with bodily endowments, or with beauty, or with the gifts of the soul? and yet people fret so much for it. Material, formal, efficient and final causes here fare badly. For this reason the Almighty usually gives riches to rude donkeys upon whom He bestows nothing else” (611). Luther relates incidentally that his father Hans, who died at Mansfeld in 1530, when asked on his death-bed whether he believed in the Apostles’ Creed, replied: “He would indeed be a scoundrel who refused to believe that.” “That,” aptly remarked Luther, “is a voice from the old world”; whereupon Melanchthon chimed in: “Happy those who die in the knowledge of Christ as did your [daughter] Magdalene [† Sep. 20, 1542]; the older we grow the more foolish we become.... When we grow up we begin to dispute and want to be wise, and yet we are the biggest fools” (615).