"All the powers of resistance were roused to the utmost by the ultramontane party; publicly by the press, privately by every possible means. A heretic to be the only teacher in a Roman Catholic school--that was unheard of! The government, the common council, and I myself, were overwhelmed with abuse; the ecclesiastics in Grenchen were severely blamed for having allowed a wolf to break into the fold, and it was set before them as a duty (not only by the newspapers) to use their utmost efforts to stifle the devil's brood in the germ. "The pastor of the place was a stately, fine man,--a favourite of the ladies, which gave him influence. But he was not fond of controversy; he loved repose and playing on the violin, and would therefore rather not have taken a part. As far as his influence went he hindered the boys from going to school, and never set his foot in it, so that no religious instruction was given, and the hours appointed for it were filled up with instruction on other subjects. Personally I was on a tolerably good footing with him. It would have given him pleasure if I would have allowed him to baptise my little daughter, who was born two months before at the Grenchen baths, and he would have taken the opportunity of making a quiet effort to convert me, by giving me a book to read, pretending to be written by a Protestant, for the glorification of the Roman Catholic church. Still less than the pastor could his chaplain be used as a battering-ram against the school. He had become a theologian at Wuerzburg, and knew that Leipzig was a nest of books. He was a good husbandman and rearers of bees, and had about the same amount of education as the people; they, however, did not remain stationary. He did not always succeed in preserving his clerical dignity and avoiding blame from the authorities. He had never felt it necessary to extend his theological knowledge beyond what was absolutely necessary, and I was sometimes astonished at the chaos in his memory; as when, for example, he related how St. Louis had defended Rome against the Huns. If the conversation fell upon books he never ceased to praise a narrative of a mission to Otaheite, and I soon discovered that this volume was very nearly his whole library. In spite of all this he was a good man, and it will not injure him now if I relate why I loved him. We were speaking one day of eternal happiness and the reverse. I told him how impossible I considered it, that the good God could be so cruel as to burn me eternally in hell. It is the Lord's fault, not mine, that I was baptised a Calvinist, and had thus been instructed and confirmed. Our teacher had told us that we were to love our fellow-creatures, and do good to them; and I endeavoured, according to the best of my ability, to follow this teaching, and yet I was to be eternally condemned! This gave the chaplain pain, and he found a theological answer: 'I hope God will deal with you as with one