comes home from a death-bed, wearied to death himself, and finds his house full of Russians, as General Langeron had just fixed his quarters in it, and his wife weeping by the cradle, where her baby lies in mortal convulsions. But he cannot comfort her; he is so fatigued that he must lie down; and when the morning comes, and the poor mother has closed her infant's eyes, she finds her husband struck down by the fever. But the wild soldiers pay no heed to their trouble. Day by day fourteen trumpeters station themselves in the courtyard to serenade the general, and the officers even compel the two eldest daughters, now just growing up, to dance with them, while their father is wrestling with death. At last the Russians prepare for their departure, but first they plunder barn and store-room, and the officers do not interfere. Theodore had watched it all with such intense indignation, that it scarcely left room for grief. Just as the troop was marching off, one laggard came back for another look at the store-room; discovered the last of the hams which had been carefully concealed in a corner, and carried it off in triumph. This was more than Theodore could stand; he hastily snatched up the largest block he could lift from the wood-heap, and as the plunderer dashed past on horseback, he flung it with all his force after him.

At last the poor father was left in peace; but there was not much time remaining to him on earth: on

December 13, 1813, he closed his eyes, leaving his widow with eleven children unprovided for. But she was not forsaken. Fliedner tells us, 'My elder brother Louis and I were to be the supports of the family, and were ourselves mere children, who must go to the grammar-school before we could begin our studies. And how was this to be done without money? The Lord stretched out his mighty hand, and caused the open-hearted hospitality of my father, which he had practised almost beyond his means, to bear interest for his children. A generous velvet-manufacturer, Peter Denninger, of Idstein, offered substantial help towards sending us both to the grammar-school. A subscrip

tion was set on foot for my mother in Frankfort, and as my father had often received Frankfort visitors to our lovely valleys, it prospered beyond our expectations.' The head master of the school at Idstein also gave his assistance, and thus the death of the father became in God's hands the means of opening to the son the path to his cherished ideal, the pastor's office.

CHAPTER II.

FLIEDNER'S STUDIES.

AT the New Year, 1814, Theodore went to Idstein. Denninger took him and his brother into his house, and lodging was thus provided; but from the first the boy had to earn his daily bread by teaching others, and to supply his own little wants. Often enough he used to make his own bed, cut up his firewood, clean his boots, and mend his stockings, and when his knees were coming through his trousers, he sewed up the hole with white thread, and resorted to the ink bottle to make all right. Such occupations absorbed all the time that he could spare from his books. For here, as at home, study was his great delight, and when his school tasks were ready—which mere awe of the stern, though kind old rector, would have kept him from neglecting-he learnt Italian with his brothers, or read, but not as once every book that fell into his hands. Travels, and above all, lives of great men, were his favourite reading, and his most ardent desire was one day to be like them. At Easter, 1817, he was ready for the university, and he

and his brothers went to Giessen. Here again he had free lodging in the house of an uncle, but for the rest of his support had to trust to his own endeavours. He dined in various houses in return for lessons he gave there, and did copying work in the evenings. When his hardly-earned money would not hold out, help always came from friends, known or unknown, at the time of need, and he learnt by experience now in small things, as hereafter in great ones, that the treasures of the earth are in God's hands. But he was taught too to be willing to take the lowest place, and thus was spared many of the follies of youth, yet without losing its fresh, frank power of enjoyment. He contrived to accomplish a foot journey of two hundred miles, with but two gulden in his pocket, through Wurzburg, to beautiful old Nuremberg. No extravagances, of course, were possible out of two gulden, especially as he was cheated of a third of his fortune on the first day. For the most part he contrived to lodge at the houses of friends or acquaintance; when he could not, he dined on brown bread and plums, which he procured for a halfpenny or two, or sometimes for the asking. Still his money did not quite hold out, and he was obliged to get a boatman, who gave him a passage down the Maine, to wait for his payment until he could get it from his sisters at Frankfort.

At Giessen he practised gymnastics zealously, and

joined for a time the Society of Gymnasts there. When, however, they began to try to initiate him into the projects for setting the world to rights which formed the mystery of their order, he met them with the reply, 'Let each one mend one, and the world will soon mend itself;' an answer which persuaded them that it would be better to let him alone, as far as these schemes were concerned. His studies were still carried on with redoubled ardour, especially all that would qualify him for the pastoral office to which he aspired. But there was no one to point out the best way to him; none of the professors then at Giessen had discerned that to love Christ is better than all mere learning; on the contrary, almost all of them sought to rob our Lord of His divine glory, and the narratives of His miracles and His resurrection were to them mere legends. It was no wonder, therefore, that Fliedner found their teaching unsatisfying; but it was a wonder, wrought by our faithful God, that a spark of true faith was still kept alive in his heart. 'This one thing,' he said, 'I held fast through all; I never denied the miracles or resurrection of Christ. If I had, I must have looked upon Christ Himself as a deceiver or a dupe, and against either alternative my whole moral sense revolted.' But he had not as yet perceived that this very Christ must be formed in us, and in Giessen no one was brought into his path