A second petition was got up in his favour, in which, in addition to the above guilds, the carpenters, cutlers, armourers, and coppersmiths joined. As this petition also was unfavourably received, the States of the Mark took up the cause of the deposed. "The dismissal of Gerhardt," they informed the Elector, on the 27th of July, 1666, "excited great fear in the country for religion, for this man is recognized by the adherents of both confessions as a pious, exemplary, and, without doubt, a peace-loving theologian, against whom no charge can be brought save his refusal to subscribe the edicts." The Elector yielded at length. After his return from Cleve, he summoned the magistrates to appear before him, on January 9th, 1667, at three o'clock in the afternoon; and through the Lord President, Otto von Schwerin, in presence of several privy councillors, made the desired, but hardly expected announcement, that as there was no complaint against Paul Gerhardt, save that he refused to subscribe the edicts, his Electoral Highness must believe that he has misunderstood the purport of them; he, therefore, restored him to his office, and absolved him from the necessity of subscription. Immediately after the audience, the Elector sent a private secretary to Gerhardt, to convey the intelligence to him, and to say at the same time that his Highness cherished the confident expectation that he would act conformably to the edicts, without subscription, and continue to manifest his known moderation. Next day the magistrates, delighted with the grace of the Prince, hastened to inform Gerhardt of his unconditional restoration to office, and on the 12th of January, the joyous event was announced in the _Sunday Mercury_, a weekly paper very much read in Berlin at that time. But the private message from the Elector threw Gerhardt into fresh distress of mind. He felt hampered by the condition still attached to his restoration to office, and he applied to the magistrates to aid him in discovering the exact terms of his restoration. In his letter to the magistrates, he expressed his earnest desire to spend the remainder of his life among his flock, if he could do so with a good conscience, saying how wretched a thing it was to hold office with an uneasy conscience. He knew the anxieties incident to the faithful discharge of the pastoral office, and said, that he would be the most wretched man on earth if to them were added the reproaches of a guilty conscience. His desire was not in the very least to appear to depart from his previous mode of teaching, and from the customs of his church, which, as a Lutheran clergyman, he had sworn to maintain. Referring to the moderation which had been so commended in him, he said, "I have never understood it, and never can understand it otherwise, than that I shall be permitted to remain faithful to my Lutheran confessions of faith, and especially to the 'Formula Concordiae,' and that I am not required to