called Luther, can not only appear before the nation in all its monumental greatness, it must, like once when it set aflame the hearts of all the people, be heard by and become the warp and woof of the people. The new complete edition of Luther's works must be accorded a reception among the German people that is in proportion to its work. It is the duty of the German Church and German Science and of her highest dignitaries and her best representatives, to grasp the importance of this edition fully and wherever possible to endorse it warmly to others. It is the duty of Protestant princes and the German government to supply the means, so that this complete edition will never be absent in those places where the treasures of German literature and science are collected and kept. It is the duty of all protestant cities and of their authorities to arrange it so that the writings of Luther in their original form are made accessible to every class. It is the duty of that Christian nobility of the German nation, that Luther once called to his aid in his reformatory labors, to accord its practical co-operation to this national memorial. It is the duty of all the friends of German language and German literature, of German culture and German thought, to work everywhere for the spread of these works of Luther, that will always remain the emblem of the German spirit."
This proclamation was not in vain, as the ever-increasing number of subscriptions testified. The edition has been called the "Weimar Luther Edition," because it was printed by Herman Boehlau at Weimar. Or, it has been called the "Kaiser Edition," because the German Emperor sponsored the undertaking from the very start. Today 52 parts of it are complete in 60 volumes, to which must be added the volumes containing the German Bible and the table-talk (at present five volumes), which are counted separately. It is not free from errors, and at different times the controlling spirits did not prove themselves above bias, but, taken all in all, it marks the completion of a stupendous piece of work, commensurate with the period of the most intensive research in the life
