Tauler had pledged his books for thirty gulden. The layman went immediately and redeemed them at his own cost, and by his advice Tauler caused it to be announced that in three days he would preach once more. You have already heard how our good friend Adolf records the unhappy result of this first attempt. Tauler went with his trouble to Nicholas, who comforted him by the assurance that such farther trial was but a sign of the careful love which carried on the work within. There must have been some remnant of self-seeking which was still to be purged away. He advised him to wait awhile, and then apply for permission to deliver a Latin address to the brethren in the school. This he at last received, and a better sermon they never heard. So the next preacher, at the close of his discourse, made the following announcement to the congregation: ‘I am requested to give notice that Doctor Tauler will preach here to-morrow. If he succeeds no better than before, the blame must rest with himself. But this I can say, that he has read us in the school a prelection such as we have not heard for many a day; how he will acquit himself now, I know not, God knoweth.’ Then followed the overpowering discourse, of whose effects you have heard; and from this time forward commenced a new æra in Tauler’s public life. For full eight years he laboured unremittingly, with an earnestness and a practical effect far surpassing his former efforts, and in such esteem with all classes that his fellow-citizens would seem to have thought no step should be taken in spiritual matters, scarcely in temporal, without first seeking counsel of Tauler. LOWESTOFFE. A most singular story. But how have all these minute circumstances come down to us? ATHERTON. When Tauler was on his death-bed he sent for Nicholas, and gave him a manuscript, in which he had written down their conversations, with some account of his own life and God’s dealings towards him, His unworthy servant, requesting him to make thereof a little book. The layman promised to do so. ‘But see to it,’ continued the Doctor, ‘that you can conceal our names. You can easily write ‘The Man and the Doctor’—for the life and words and works which God hath wrought through me, an unworthy, sinful man, are not mine, but belong unto Almighty God for ever. So let it be, for the edifying of our fellow men; but take the writing with thee into thy country, and let no man see it while I live.’ This narrative has been preserved, and there is no difficulty in discerning in the Doctor and the man, Tauler and Nicholas of Basle.[117] You will now let me resume my reading, I suppose. Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein, continued.