I chose theology as my profession, because I felt a strong leaning towards teaching, for the gratification of which the holy calling appeared to me peculiarly suited. I somewhat feared its formalism, but was not then acquainted, as I now am, with the compulsory and hypocritical system of the Romish hierarchy. Although several of my friends endeavoured to dissuade me from the choice, I fancied myself possessed of such strength of character as would enable me not only to meet the danger, but to turn it to account. My father, who made me so ample an allowance, that beyond a small bursary, I needed no further assistance, left me free to choose. As I perceived, however, that his means of providing for my brothers and sisters were straitened by his liberality to me, and feeling desirous, also, not to diminish their fortune, I deemed it my duty to relieve my father, as soon as possible, from the sacrifice which I knew he made on my account. This was an external reason, and one, I do not blush to own, for determining to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. And how many of the clergy are there who can say, that in their choice of a profession, they have not been influenced by similar motives? While I was at the University I also fulfilled my period of military service at Breslau, in the corps of sharpshooters, under Major von Firk. THE SEMINARY. In the month of December 1839, I was received into the Seminary, and entered on a period of mournful and painful conflict. The confidence I had hitherto reposed in our spiritual teachers was soon expelled from my breast by a nearer survey of their mode of life, and replaced by the deepest horror and loathing, which seized me when I became aware how shamefully they abused religion, for the purpose of degrading and subjecting the people to their will; when I saw by what a fearful veil of hypocrisy deceitful Rome surrounds us from our cradles to our graves; when I saw how the holiest ordinances are insultingly misused, to crush the dignity of human nature. The disgraceful fetters galled me, which, till now, I had not felt, and I perceived what many of my fellow sufferers endured, and all the more severely, the less they dared _avow_ the causes of their suffering. For the policy of Rome knows how to entwine in bonds from which there is no escape, all Christians who profess its creed, and more skilfully than Moses, who once drew water from the barren rock, can conjure money from the impoverished people; but their principal care and most consummate skill are constantly directed towards their servants, that is to say, to the inferior clergy and _their_ education. The inferior clergy are so securely bound in spiritual and external fetters, that for the greater number it is almost impossible to escape. The peculiar and appropriate armoury for these degrading bonds is the College or Seminary for priests. It is there that the youth, who wishes to devote himself to the teaching of the people,