However, they still remained the chosen people of God, and passed, no matter how it came about, as a memorial of the most ancient times.  Besides, they also were men, active and obliging; and, even to the tenacity with which they clung to their peculiar customs, one could not refuse one’s respect.  The girls, moreover, were pretty, and were far from displeased when a Christian lad, meeting them on the sabbath in the Fischerfeld, showed himself kindly and attentive.  I was consequently extremely curious to become acquainted with their ceremonies.  I did not desist until I had frequently visited their school, had assisted at a circumcision and a wedding, and formed a notion of the Feast of the Tabernacles.  Everywhere I was well received, pleasantly entertained, and invited to come again; for it was through persons of influence that I had been either introduced or recommended.

Thus, as a young resident in a large city, I was thrown about from one object to another; and horrible scenes were not wanting in the midst of the municipal quiet and security.  Sometimes a more or less remote fire aroused us from our domestic peace:  sometimes the discovery of a great crime, with its investigation and punishment, set the whole city in an uproar for many weeks.  We were forced to be witnesses of different executions; and it is worth remembering, that I was also once present at the burning of a book.  The publication was a French comic romance, which indeed spared the State, but not religion and manners.  There was really something dreadful in seeing punishment inflicted on a lifeless thing.  The packages burst asunder in the fire, and were raked apart by an oven-fork, to be brought in closer contact with the flames.  It was not long before the kindled sheets were wafted about in the air, and the crowd caught at them with eagerness.  Nor could we rest until we had hunted up a copy, while not a few managed likewise to procure the forbidden pleasure.  Nay, if it had been done to give the author publicity, he could not himself have made a more effectual provision.

But there were also more peaceable inducements which took me about in every part of the city.  My father had early accustomed me to manage for him his little affairs of business.  He charged me particularly to stir up the laborers whom he set to work, as they commonly kept him waiting longer than was proper; because he wished every thing done accurately, and was used in the end to lower the price for a prompt payment.  In this way, I gained access to all the workshops:  and as it was natural to me to enter into the condition of others, to feel every species of human existence, and sympathize in it with pleasure, these commissions were to me the occasion of many most delightful hours; and I learned to know every one’s method of proceeding, and what joy and sorrow, what advantages and hardships, were incident to the indispensable conditions of this or that mode of life.  I was thus brought nearer to that active