It was no small thing to brave an opinion which would, one knew, be very hard upon one, and to live on for long years an arduous life leading to one knew not what; but the sacrifice was not then consummated.  God enjoins me to pierce with my own hand a heart upon which all the affection there is in my own has been poured out.  Filial love had absorbed in me all the other affections of which I was capable, and which God did not bring into play within me.  Moreover, there existed between my mother and myself many ties arising from a thousand impalpable details which can be better felt than described.  This was the most painful part of the sacrifice which God required of me.  I have hitherto only spoken to her about Germany, and that is enough to make her very unhappy.  I tremble to think of what will happen when she knows all.  Her tender caresses go to my very heart, as do her plans for my future, of which she is ever talking to me, and in which I have not the courage to disappoint her.  She is standing close to me as I write this to you.  Did she but know!  I would sacrifice everything to her except my duty and my conscience.  Yes, if God exacted of me, in order to spare her this pain, that I should extinguish my thought and condemn myself to a plodding, vulgar existence, I would submit.  Many a time I have endeavoured to deceive myself, but it is not in human power to believe or not to believe at will.  I wish that I could stifle within me the faculty of self-examination, for it is this which has caused all my unhappiness.  Fortunate are the children who all their life long do but sleep and dream!  I see around me men of pure and simple lives whom Christianity has had the power to make virtuous and happy.  But I have noticed that none of them have the critical faculty; for which let them bless God!

I cannot tell you to what an extent I am spoilt and made much of here, and it is this which grieves me so.  Did they but know what is passing in my heart!  I am fearful at times lest my conduct may be hypocritical, but I have satisfied my conscience in this respect.  God forbid that I should be a cause of scandal to these simple souls!

When I see in what an inextricable net God has involved me while I was asleep, I am unable to resist fatalistic thoughts, and I may often have sinned in that respect; yet I never have doubted my Father which is in Heaven or His goodness.  Upon the contrary, I have always given Him thanks, and have never felt myself nearer to Him than at moments like those.  The heart learns only by suffering, and I believe with Kant that God is only to be known through the heart.  Then too I was a Christian, and resolved ever to remain one.  But can orthodoxy be critical?  Had I but been born a German Protestant, for then I should have been in my proper place!  Herder ended his days a bishop, and he was only just a Christian; but in the Catholic religion you must be orthodox.  Catholicism is a bar of iron, and will not admit anything like reasoning.