that if ever a wandering child of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt came to us now or in the future, we should kindly hold out a helping hand to him. Thus did our Heavenly Father recompense us for the unlimited confidence we had reposed in Him.”

One of Falk's pupils, Johannes Denner, has written an autobiography, and described how he was received by Falk as a poor boy in 1822, how afterwards he became a sort of clerk to him, sometimes too, making journeys to collect money for Falk's institution. From his book we learn much of Falk in the later years of his life. Nothing can be more amiable, more confidential, more thoroughly hearty, than the intercourse between the learned, scientific man, the friend of Goethe, and this poor youth. He writes charming letters to his young friend, now full of cheerful humour, now of deep seriousness: "If you come to the Baltic and hear its waves roaring, greet it from me, and tell it that the poor Johannes who belongs to it has indeed stilled many a tear and sigh, but he has shed and heaved many a one himself too. You asked for a long and large letter, and yet you are so small yourself. But I cannot refuse you. May God's blessing be with you, my dear boy, at every step you take. May an invisible guard of angels surround you and hold you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone."

When Denner, in 1825 and 1826, was making his second journey to the Rhine and Holland, Falk could not refrain in his letters from mentioning how his illness afflicted him. "Pray for thy sick father," he

wrote in October 1825, "who watches many a lonely hour awake on his bed, and fervently commends thee to the Almighty's protection ;" and, a week later, “I cannot stand, I cannot walk, I cannot sit, I cannot move or stir, I cannot get a wink of sleep all night; my appetite is quite gone, and at the least movement of my body I feel as if I were suddenly pierced by a thousand knives. This terrible disease, which is more intolerable than death, they call sciatica.

May God, who has lain this heavy cross upon me, help me to bear it with patience and resignation to His will."

The patient cheerfulness with which he endured his sufferings was more forcible than any sermon. He experienced, as he said, the history of Job. But he resisted the tempter. Every hour of relief was full of praise to God, and of work for his family. The pupils came to his bedside to be taught. Till his last day, he gave his orders as usual, and even dictated poetry. Three days before his death he wrote the introduction to his book on Luther, in which he related to the German people, the story of the Reformer in popular rhyme. Then he made his will, and told his daughter to read it to him aloud. When she came to the inscription he had made for his tomb, and burst out crying, he raised his voice once more, and repeated the words himself, then he exclaimed, "Go on, my daughter; be my heroic girl!"

On the 14th February he asked for the Holy Communion. One of his greatest opponents administered

it to him, and became in consequence his greatest admirer. Soon the last struggle came. One could only hear the broken words, "God-for the people -in short-Christ-the point." The victory was won. Carl Reinthaler, who had hastened from Erfurt, and who stood with the widow and four children at the deathbed, closed his friend's eyes with a silent prayer. Three days after, the pupils laid Falk's body to rest in his family vault, where the inscription, on a plain stone, beneath a green lime-tree, marks the spot:

66

Through Christ the Lord from sin set free,

There lies beneath this green lime-tree

Johannes Falk, whose native land
Was by the Baltic's distant strand.
When called by God to Weimar's town,
He left his parents, friends, and home;
Children who come here from afar
Breathe for him a humble prayer :
'Eternal God, to Thee we commend
The soul of him, the children's friend,
Because he them received with love;
Oh! grant him rest with Thee above!'

In the original:

"Unter diesen grünen Linden

Ist durch Christus frei von Sünden
Herr Johannes Falk zu finden.
An der ost see fernem Strande
Liess er Eltern und Verwandte,
Da ihn Gott zur Ilme sandte.
Kinder die aus fremden Städten
Diesen stillen ort betreten

Sollen also fur ihn beten :
Ewger Vater dir befehle
Ich des Vaters arme Seele

Hier in dunkler Grabes höhle !
Weil er Kinder aufgenommen,
Lass ihn ja mit allen Frommen

Als dein kind auch zu dir Kommen."

AUGUSTUS HERMANN FRANCKE.

THE ORPHANS' FRIEND.

UBECK, formerly one of the Hanse towns, and a rich, prosperous, and commercial city, has now greatly fallen from the splendour of its early days. But its quaint old houses, with their lofty ornamented gables, the majestic towers and spires of its cathedral and churches, the picturesque old city gates, and the venerable Rathhaus, all bear witness to the wealth and prosperity of the dull old town in past times.

Here, on the 22d March 1663, the great German philanthropist and divine, Augustus Hermann Francke, was born. His family had originally come from a Thuringian village, his grandfather having settled down as a baker at Lubeck, in which trade he had made a tolerable fortune; his father was a barrister, and owing to his talents and upright character, was held in universal esteem. His mother was the daughter of the Imperial Councillor and Burgermaster of Lubeck, David Gloxin. When little August