to her:  for, in the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex; and, secondly, she believed, that, in regard to religious culture, she was very much in advance of me.  My disquiet, my impatience, my striving, my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled God.  Now, I had believed from my youth upwards that I stood on very good terms with my God,—­nay, I even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and I was daring enough to think that I had something to forgive him.  This presumption was grounded on my infinite good will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance.  It may be imagined how often I got into disputes on this subject with my friend, which, however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like my conversations with the old rector, with the remark, “that I was a foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made.”

I was much troubled with the tumor in my neck, as the physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time I had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day.  The physician and surgeon both belonged to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters.  The surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his condition with truly Christian patience, and did not suffer his disease to perplex him in his profession.  The physician was an inexplicable, sly-looking, fair-spoken, and, besides, an abstruse, man, who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle.  Being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions.  With certain powders, which may have been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved, but that powerful salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only mentioned among believers; although no one had yet seen it or traced its effects.  To excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to his patients, and given them to understand, that, by one’s own study of them, one could well attain this treasure for one’s self, which was the more necessary, as the mode of