With this, it seemed to me, my mission in Switzerland was at an end, and I began to long to return to Keilhau; my eldest son was now a year old, and I had never yet seen him. Middendorff left his family, and replaced me at Willisau, living there for four years far away from wife and child.[138] At Keilhau I found things had improved, and the numbers had increased most cheeringly. I determined to throw all my strength into the work of raising the mother institution from her slough of debt. I began by a piece of honourable swindling: and borrowed of Peter to pay Paul, covering one debt with another, but at the same time making it appear that we were paying our way. In this fashion our damaged credit was restored, and as the receipts grew happily greater and greater, I began to gain ground. Eventually I was able to send help to the other branches of our community, to increase my help as time went on, and to prepare a place of refuge for them if anything went wrong elsewhere. In Switzerland our enterprise did not develop as rapidly as we desired, in spite of the sanction of the Council of the Canton. The institution at Willisau gained unlimited confidence there; but the malevolent opposition of the clerical party secretly flourished as before, and succeeded in depriving it of all aid from more distant places. Under these circumstances we could not attain that prosperity which so much activity and self-sacrificing work on the part of our circle must otherwise infallibly have brought.