About six weeks after the appearance of the article, I received a note from Dr. Ritter,* in which he called upon me to tell him, on my priestly word of honour, whether I were the author of the article, "Rome and the Chapter of Breslau," or had taken any part in the drawing up or despatching of it. Dr. Ritter, the vicar of the bishopric, a priest, nearly sixty years of age, with grey hair, dared to call me to account for speaking the truth!--me, who, as a priest and proclaimer of the truth, had lately been sent into the world with the commission, "to speak the truth without fear of man,"--Dr. Ritter, who himself had sent me forth, ventured to call me to account for doing so! And is religion thus to be turned to mockery and reproach! Should I not speak the truth? or had I not spoken the truth? I had written down that the Romish priesthood were preeminently the cause of the German Thirty Years' War, and of the Revolutions in France and Spain. Are these not facts of historical notoriety, contained in every manual, and should I not dare to write them? I had also asserted that the calumnies and want of unanimity among the candidates for the bishopric, were probably the reasons for the Pope daring so long to delay the confirmation of Bishop Knauer, and keeping the diocese in confusion. The divisions and quarrels of the candidates for the bishop's mitre were known to all the diocese, and also _who_ had principally contributed to the retiring of the humane Bishop Sedlinitzky--much indignation was felt at the discord occasioned by clerical ambition; and I, forsooth, should not give utterance to the opinions of my fellow-citizens and colleagues! Dr. Ritter, then, placed falsehood and hypocrisy on the altar, and desired that I should honour them, in calling me to a reckoning for my truthfulness. * DR. RITTER'S DECREE. "Public opinion points to you as the author of the article entitled "Rome and the Chapter of Breslau," and signed "A Chaplain," in No. 135 of the Saxon Vaterlands-blatter. I hereby require you, on your word of honour as a priest, distinctly to declare, by return of post, whether you are the author of the above-named article, or the sender of it, or, in fact, whether you had any share in the drawing up or despatching of the same. "Ritter, "Canonical Vicar and General Administrator of the Diocese, "Breslau, December 20, 1842."