Hermann was three years old, his father was summoned to Gotha as privy councillor to the ducal court, but four years after he died there. His sister Anna, who was three years his senior, at that time exercised great influence over the susceptible mind of her brother Augustus Hermann. She early gave him a taste for religion, so that the boy earnestly implored his mother to let him have a room to himself, where he could study and pray, undisturbed. Here he once prayed, "Oh! good God, there must be all sorts of trades and professions which all contribute in the end to Thy honour. But I implore Thee to grant that my whole life may be solely and alone directed to Thy service and to Thine honour." Death, alas, early snatched away the beloved sister from him.

Augustus Hermann was at this time instructed by private tutors, and showed such an extraordinary zeal and such excellent talents, that in his thirteenth year he was received into the highest class of the gymnasium (or high school) at Gotha. A year later he was ready for the university. But his mother was wise enough not to allow her son to enter it at the early age of fourteen, and kept him at home for two years, during which time he continued to study Latin and Greek under one of his former masters. In his sixteenth year, he went to the neighbouring university of Erfurt, and he began to study theology, but six months after repaired to Kiel, where, through his uncle Gloxin, he received a considerable family stipend. Together with his theological and philo

sophical studies he also found here an opportunity of learning English, but in Hebrew he had hitherto made little progress. He went therefore in the third year of his residence at Kiel to Hamburg, where, under the direction of the celebrated Ezra Edzardi, he occupied himself exclusively with that language. Then at his mother's wish he returned to Gotha, where he perfected himself in those branches of knowledge he had already acquired, zealously devoted himself to the study of modern languages, and read the Old Testament through in the original several times.

In his one and twentieth year, Francke proceeded to Leipzig to instruct a young student there in Hebrew; a year later he took his M.A. degree, and began to give lectures, which were eagerly and regularly attended by the students. He acquired, however, still more honour through the establishment of a union of young theological students, who undertook to meet on Sunday afternoons, that they might read the Scripture together, and endeavour to understand its right meaning. So much interest was excited by these meetings, and so many attended them, that Professor Alberti had to give up his large hall for them to be held in.

The celebrated theologian Spener, who just at that time was appointed court preacher at Dresden, took the deepest interest in this new and unprecedented kind of theological study; encouragement and good advice on his part were not wanting. Hitherto all

had prospered according to the wishes of the young student. He had learned much, and employed so successfully what he had learned, that he enjoyed an almost universal esteem and respect. Others would perhaps have been content with this, but Francke was too severe towards himself, too different from the rest of the world, to feel at ease. His pious humble disposition began to inquire of himself, "What with all your outward successes have you obtained for your inward man ?” "As concerns my Christianity," he wrote afterwards, "during the first years I was at Leipzig, it was especially imperfect and lukewarm. My intention was to become a learned and respectedman; to be rich and to live in comfort would not have been unacceptable to me, although I did not wish it to appear, that such was my aim. The designs of my heart were vain, and directed to temporal matters only in the future. I was striving more to please men, and to place myself in their good graces, than to please the living God in heaven. In short, I was outwardly and inwardly, a man of the world, who was increasing in sin."

The man who is striving after perfection finds himself on the road thitherward as soon as he rightly understands what is still lacking in him. When Francke put the above questions to himself, he felt a deep longing for the attainment of real faith in God. Outward circumstances which pointed to a change of life now came to his aid, while trouble and sorrow were not wanting, so that the pure metal might be cleansed

from the dross, and proved in the fiery furnace of affliction.

By the wish of his uncle Gloxin, who still continued the annual stipend, Francke went to complete his theological studies at Luneburg, under the superintendent Sandhagen. It was here, far away from the noisy, busy life of Leipzig, in his solitary room, while preparing a sermon on true faith, that Francke came to the conviction that real Christianity was not yet alive in him; it was here that his true relation to God and his Redeemer came vividly before his eyes. At this date, he himself fixes his conversion.

From Luneburg, Francke went again to Hamburg, where he remained some time. Here, besides continuing his theological studies, he first began to teach young children, and it was here undoubtedly where his inclination to devote all his love and attention to the young, struck its first roots. Before returning to Leipzig, he went for a few months to Dresden. Here he formed a friendship with Spener, which lasted through their lives. On arriving at Leipzig he recommenced his lectures; more solemnly and plainly did he now urge on his hearers the necessity for the expression of a more living Christianity, which must show itself in the renewal of the heart, and in a pure life. The number of his listeners and disciples daily increased, but thereby envy and jealousy were excited. Francke's opponents, with Professor Carpzow at their head, calumniated and ridiculed the honest man, called him and his disciples, by the nickname of Pietists; and so far did

they carry their opposition, that at last they succeeded in causing Francke's Biblical lectures to be prohibited.

Meanwhile Francke was invited to preach in the church of St Augustine at Erfurt. He went, and was received with such approval, that he was chosen as diaconus or deacon (much the same office as that of curate with us), but among the town council and the clergy many votes were given against him. The style of preaching in those days was very different from what it is now. The words employed in the pulpit were chosen with great care, expressed in the most learned language, and in the most elegant style; frequently it was quite unintelligible to the listeners, and could not in the least tend to their edification. Long passages from the fathers, or from classical heathen writers, often read in Greek or Latin, wearisome refutations of old heresies and errors- of which their hearers had probably never heard, and understood nothing about— such was for the most part the spiritual food which the preachers of that age, offered to their hearers. As Francke tried to substitute for these, plain simple discourses, easy to be understood, directed to improvement of life and edification of heart, it was no wonder that his jealous opponents were more embittered than ever against him. They accused him of wishing to form a new sect, and so far managed to gain over to their cause the ruler of the country, the Elector of Mainz, that they succeeded in getting Francke dismissed from his post and banished from the town.

Many of the citizens took his side and petitioned