“ The elector could have chosen no better men, young as they were, for the task in hand. As a first step each drew up a catechism of his own composition, that of Ursinus being naturally of a more grave and academic turn than the freer production of Olevianus, while each made full use of the earlier catechisms already in use. ”

“ HEIDELBERG CATECHISM, THE, the most attractive of all the catechisms of the Reformation, was drawn up at the bidding of Frederick III., elector of the Palatinate, and published on Tuesday the 19th of January 1563. The new religion in the Palatinate had been largely under the guidance of Philip Melanchthon, who had revived the old university of Heidelberg and staffed it with sympathetic teachers. ”

“ A conference was held at Maulbronn in April 1564, and a personal attack was made on the elector at the diet of Augsburg in 1566, but the defence was well sustained, and the Heidelberg book rapidly passed beyond the bounds of the Palatinate (where indeed it suffered eclipse from 1576 to 1583, during the electorate of Louis) , and gained an abundant success not only in Germany (Hesse, Anhalt, Brandenburg and Bremen) but also in the Netherlands (1588) , and in the Reformed churches of Hungary, Transylvania and Poland. ”