printed; probably because during the melancholy period of the “Interim” so called, which commenced about that time, the energies of the Protestants were in some measure paralyzed.  Towards the end of the century Luther’s smaller Catechism, and several other religious and doctrinal tracts, were translated from the German, mostly by clergymen, and introduced into the schools; chiefly the village schools; for the cities were steadily becoming more and more Germanized.

The neglect and decline of the Sorabian population was however always painfully felt by some patriotic individuals; and the very injudicious and tyrannic attempts of their German rulers, during the seventeenth century, to eradicate the language and supplant it by the German, found in all places only a reluctant and forced submission.  But the effect of appointing every where German magistrates and German pastors was irresistible.  The language was gradually forgotten by the rising generation; and hardly a Vendish book was printed during the first three quarters of the seventeenth century.  Indeed hardly any one knew how to write in a language, the orthography and grammar of which had not yet been subjected to any rules or principles.

In 1679 the Jesuit Jacob Ticinus, a native of Lusatia, in a little Latin pamphlet, advised his countrymen to adopt the rules of orthography current in the Bohemian language, so nearly related to their own.[5] But the Protestants among them, who constituted the principal part in number and respectability, rejected his advice; and preferred to adopt the rules established shortly afterwards by a German clergyman, Z.J.  Bierling.[6] This was a system between the Bohemian and the German, and is still observed.  It was probably a sense of the approaching danger of an ultimate total extirpation of their language, that roused the slumbering Vendes again to some efforts.  Parts of the Gospels were published towards the close of the same century by Michael Frenzel; and in 1706 the whole New Testament appeared in a Vendish translation, conformed to Luther’s German one.

A translation of the whole Bible, made by several Protestant clergymen, was first published in 1729; and has been twice reprinted.  A version for Catholics, by A. Swotlik, is extant in manuscript.  A German hymn-book for the latter already existed in 1696; and in 1710 the Protestants were likewise supplied with one.  In the former the orthography of Ticinus was followed; while the latter was printed according to the system of Bierling.  Thus this handful of people, surrounded by German adversaries and underminers of their nationality, and who would have had hard work enough even if they had stood as one man in their own defence, were split into parties, even in things the most indifferent; and thus made their own weakness still weaker.