Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/60

 48 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE 1503 : 'I know that we have a good God, and I wish to die confiding in His mercy, not in my own works.' Nowhere, however, do we find the doc- trine of the salvation of man depending on the merits of Christ more strongly insisted upon than in the book entitled ' The Treasure of the Soul,' which appeared in 1491. 'Our strength and safety, our weapon and victory,' says the author, ' depend on our faith. If it be strong in us, then we are strong against the enemy ; if, however, we are weak in faith, which God forbid, we lose our defence and are in danger. ' So long as our faith is unshaken, our enemy has no power. Therefore, let him who is determined to over- come stand fast by the faith. When the devil attacks you through your pride, suggesting that you have nothing to fear from the justice of God because of the many good works you have performed, reply to him, " No, it would be impossible to merit salvation by my poor works. Christ has merited it for me, by His sufferings under Pontius Pilate, by His crucifixion and death. In His merits I hope. Christ has merited it for me. In Him I hope. To Him I cry for mercy and grace through the intercession of all the saints." ' ' You observe,' says the author in his preface, ' what the faithful mother of all Christendom advises, what she teaches, whom she points and leads us to. The all-wise, faithful mother, the Eoman Catholic Church, places her highest and greatest hopes in the sufferings of Christ, and she directs her children to the same, as the surest refuge in their necessities.' The ' Seelenflihrer,' from which we have so often quoted, is particularly explicit in its instructions on the sacraments and on the veneration of the saints :