cry out, "A holy Christian church!" Not a place in the world is so dear to me as the church, my beloved church. I have no paternal mansion; for I am the son of a pastor, and pastors leave no inheritance for their children; and yet I have a Father's house, the best there is in the world, my beloved church; truly that is God's house, and God is my Father, and so it is justly and truly my home. "'And how wonderfully God has guarded this house of His. What wars have raged since this house has been standing, and it has remained uninjured. Since the Thirty Years' War, Hermannsburg has been four times burned down; this house has remained standing. Twice lightning has struck the tower, and so shattered the foundations that only a little turret stands now upon the riven walls instead of the slender one hundred and eighty feet high spire which was there before; but the church remained untouched. The interior has been altered; the many-coloured paintings on the arched vault of the ceiling are gone; the many-coloured galleries have disappeared; in the body of the church itself gallery over gallery mounts up to the vaulted ceiling, to give accommodation for the hearers, but the church itself has remained unchanged. And when I think of the blessings that have gone forth from this house, what churches, chapels, and cloisters have sprung from here, in Bergen, in Wiezendorf, in Munster, in Müden, and the chronicle mentions many more; yes, when I remember how from the castles founded by Hermann on the Oerze and Wieze, the castellans of Oerze and Wiezendorf marched out so early as with Duke Bernhard, to help bring the heathen people of Lauenburg and Mechlenburg to Christianity; must not then the zeal of my forefathers kindle my own zeal to bring the Lord's blessing, His Word and His sacraments, to the heathen, to the very ends of the earth? And now that seems no longer strange to me which seems strange to so many, that we from this place should have undertaken to send out a peasant mission. It has not been our own doing; it has come from our church and our history. Did the peasant's son Hermann become Duke of Saxony? Was the blessing of Christianity carried from here into all the region round about, even into the countries on the other side of the Elbe? Why should not Hermann's peasant church preach among the heathen the Saviour who has been their own so long? May such a primeval blessing only make us right thankful, right humble, right kind and loving, only zealous and fervent in spirit. We see well enough that the Lord can use little things; therefore let nobody despise us because we are small, and let us have the joy of serving the Lord with our insignificant gifts and strength, as well as we can. It is written in the Scriptures, "Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it!"'"