"In smoky Albertina, on the Pregel, we had a clever man, named Kant. I have read nothing of his, but I know he loved pure reason--and that, too, is my feeling; with pure want of reason I will have nothing to do. And that nourished in Königsberg," added Milbe, as he struck the table with his hand, "and it is infectious as small-pox, and our deputies shall issue an order for quarantine against it. I demand that, as truly as I am Milbe, of Kuhlwangen, and seldom in Kuhlwangen." "It is ten years," replied Blanden, in a firm, calm voice, "since I went astray amidst those sects whose conduct I myself must now repudiate. The charm of something strange and uncommon prompted me; I was an enthusiast. Yet even in those days already I found a shoal where I had sought a haven. That lies far behind me; I have set oceans and hemispheres between myself and my past. Man errs so long as he strives. But in me every trace of enthusiasm is extinguished; my thoughts are no longer fixed upon what is mystery, will no longer seek that boundary line where the ocean, with its dark abyss, touches the sky with its bright planets. Least of all do I lean to that piety which is favoured for State reasons, and that infects the fresh life of the present with the sickly shadow of a romance long since buried. T reject the barriers of faith and conscience that are painted in the colours of the State. That which we then sought erringly was at least our own free action, an outflow of inward light; we put our whole soul into the sect of the Free Elect. It was a community of men of the same mind who were even looked askant upon by the Government. But as I am now, I stand firmly and entirely upon the ground of a Free-thinker; no sentimental extravagance has any more power over me. What Kant and his successors struggled for has become the atmosphere of my mental life, and I am ready for the most resolute defiance, like you all, if a relapse into misty credulity or fettered Government hypocrisy would destroy that which the labour of great thinkers has built up in more than half a century." "Hem, there is something in that," said Milbe, with vigorous eulogy. "Long live reason," cried Wegen, and the glasses were clinked merrily. Oberamtmann Werner, too, shook Blanden heartily by the hand, as he was already in a much affected mood. "Yes, yes, these false saints are the wolves in sheep's clothing, as it says in the Bible. A good breeder of sheep must entertain especial horror of them. And I have it, I have it! Yes, brotherly heart, if you abjure it, that lamb-like pious sanctity of former days, that kissing, love-making and hypocrisy of the pious people--sweet as sugar, from the upper Haberberge--then you may still be worth something. You can represent the province capitally. You have my vote because your sheep are in good condition, and an agriculturist's intelligence is known by the fleece of his sheep. Clink glasses, brotherly heart! Only no future pious giddiness!"