"'How long they lay there I do not know. At last, when the Dukes came back from Augsburg, the hour of their freedom struck; they were let go, and returned to their homes shedding thankful tears; the church was again opened to them too, and the heroic Grünhagen preached the gospel to his people anew with fresh power. Then also struck the warden's hour of grace; he grew tender, and was overcome by the might of the blessed gospel; and whereas he had formerly been a zealot for the mistaken service of God, now he became one of the strongest friends of the pure Lutheran doctrine in all the community. Out of gratitude the parish gave to its beloved watcher for souls this Tiefenthal with the wooded hill here, to be for all time the property of the parsonage, which it still is to the present day. My beloved, we have come here to-day for pleasure; are we to come here again perhaps some day in distress? You answer possibly, "No, that is not to be apprehended; our times are too humane." Yes! they are humane towards all that is _human_; _i.e._, towards banqueting and drinking, dissolute living and deceit. But that our times are not too humane towards what is _godly_, is testified by the persecutions directed against the Lutherans in Baden and Nassau, where various Lutheran preachers have had to pay fine after fine, and lie in the common prison, because they preach and baptize and observe the communion in the Lutheran manner, and whereto the preaching must often be held in mountains and clefts of the rocks to be had in peace. And besides, the kingdom of Antichrist is advancing with constantly quicker and more decided steps. Even now it everywhere rains words of abuse upon the saints, the praying people, the hypocrites, the enthusiasts, the mad folk, and by whatever other names beside they may call them. And who knows how soon the time may come when the word will again be true,--"They will put you out of their synagogues," and "whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." I could if I would read you letters that have come from many cities and villages, filled with such threatenings and cursings and coarse words against me that they would fill you with astonishment. Therefore ask yourselves again seriously the question, would you also be ready to give money and blood, body and life, for the Lord Jesus and for your faith? would you also be ready to suffer bonds and imprisonment for the Lord's sake? If it be so that you could not or would not do that, then you are not worthy to bear the name of Jesus Christ; for whoever hateth not father and mother, wife and child, farm and farm stock, and his own life also, for Jesus's sake, he is not worthy of me, the Lord says. To confess Christ in peace and in pleasant times, that is easy enough; but to do it through distress and death, to stand fast in the baptism of fire, that is another thing. Christians of nowadays are accustomed to easy living;