As Lusatia lies near to the scene of Luther's earliest influence, the
Gospel was preached early to the Slavic inhabitants by some of his
followers; and it had the natural consequence, that the Romish clergy
also began to give some attention to the vernacular language. In 1550,
if not before, a Sorabian translation of the New Testament, the
manuscript and perhaps the autograph of which is preserved in the
library of Berlin, was completed; but it was never 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.
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