There was no sphere of human duty over which he did not constrain his countrymen to meditate. By his numerous sermons and essays he worked on the public; by countless letters in which he gave counsel and comfort to inquirers he worked on individuals. He urged incessantly upon all the necessity of self-examination, and the duty of being well assured what was owing from the father to the child, from the subject to the sovereign, and from the chief magistrate to his community; the progress he thus made was important in this respect, that he freed the consciences of people; and in the place of outward pressure, against which egotism had haughtily rebelled, he substituted everywhere a genial self-control. How beautifully he comprehended the necessity of cultivating the minds of children by school instruction, especially in the old languages! How he recommended his beloved music to be introduced into the schools! How great his views were when he advised the magistrates to establish city libraries; and, again, how conscientiously he endeavoured to secure freedom of choice in matrimony! He had overthrown the old sacrament of marriage; but higher, nobler, and freer, he established the inward relation of man and wife. He had attacked the unwieldy monastic schools; everywhere in village and city, as far as his influence reached, flourished better institutions for the education of youth; he had removed the mass and the Latin chantings; he gave instead, to both disciples and opponents, regular preaching and the German chorale.