At the Easter of 1853 M. Laemmer passed from the university of Koenigsberg to that of Leipsic, on a burse founded in the old Catholic times by a Catholic priest of his native town. His departure from Koenigsberg marks the close of the first period of his university career, and it will be interesting to stop and take a comprehensive view of the phases of thought through which he passed during that time. As far as religious opinions are concerned, this first stage of his life may be subdivided into two periods: one of demolition, the other of reconstruction. In the former he lost his belief in Lutheranism and its central doctrine of the _Bible and nothing but the Bible_; that is to say, he lost hold of the only dogmatic principle he held. Being thus deprived of a fixed belief, he was more open to the action of Lessing's principles of universal tolerance, which amounted to the coldest indifferentism and doubt. These principles he made his own for a season. The spectacle of division and discord which was exhibited daily under his eyes at Koenigsberg, helped to complete the work of destruction. Even his very prayer became a dry form, lacking all influence for good. The period of reconstruction commenced with the friendship that bound him to Lehnerdt, by whose influence were sown in his mind the seeds of a reaction, which, by the play of intellectual as well as moral causes, was afterwards developed into the fulness of Catholic belief. The intellectual cause that led to this happy result was, as we said before, the spirit of historical inquiry; the moral cause, under God's grace, was the deep religious sentiment which formed part of his original character, and which, once aroused by Lehnerdt's words about justice and the judgment to come, never allowed any antagonism of feeling to stand long in the way of his acceptance of the truth. Not that the action of these causes was at all times unimpeded. The Hegelianism which he imbibed from Rosenkranz far a long time seriously crippled his mind in its exertions after truth. In these dispositions M. Laemmer came to the University of Leipsic.