"He very nearly disgusted me with study, treating me with special harshness, from not understanding my ardent mind; meanwhile from this bitter my nature drew forth honey. I had often suffered injustice, from hence arose the feeling of justice in my soul. 'It is better to suffer wrong than to do it!' often said our nurse to me. And out of this sprang forth my zeal against oppression, violence, and injustice of all kinds. The very depths of my soul were stirred when, being innocent, I was ill-treated; suffering seemed more deeply-wounding when inflicted by unfeeling arrogance. My brother and I respected the guilty, if they repented. Thus it was wholesome to bear undeserved severity! And yet,—so forgiving is the pure soul of childhood—that we only hated the man for the moment. A friendly word, or one of praise from him, and all was forgotten.
"As the Pietism of the other had not quite suited my father, the new tutor, in the beginning, was more thought of by him. But he soon learnt to know his man; and God knows how my father himself could for five long years have borne the misconduct of this man, for he wrote him insolent letters if he ever ventured to blame anything. We never dared complain, for our father did not stand in very confidential relations with us. So we suffered in silence, and often not a little. Often have I, in the truest sense of the words, eaten my bread with bitter tears.
"I must here mention, that my first resolution to become a preacher was extinguished by this man. 'Law, law,' he often exclaimed to me. What that meant was very mysterious to me. At last, however, when I heard that there were law professors, I understood it. It was now settled; but what attracted me in the Professorship was the opportunity of speaking in public. If there was a vocation that suited me it was this.
"Thus passed the years from 1782 to 1786. In the beginning of 1787, my brother, still not fourteen years old, was put into a counting-house at Chemnitz. Inexpressibly sorrowful was our parting. We loved each other as brothers, and if we had small quarrels, in which I was more to blame than he, we never let the sun set without being reconciled. But now follows an important chapter in my juvenile life.
"The picture of a perfect tutor is indeed charming. More than father and mother can do, can be effected by a noble, pious teacher, of simple life, full of judgment and moral power; only that scarcely one out of a hundred can be found to realise this ideal.'
"A heavy load was lifted from my breast when I felt myself free from this tutor's discipline! A feeling I had never experienced before stirred in me! I was already half-grown up! Was it an impulse to unrestrained roving? or a longing for dissipation? or youthful presumption which fancied it needed no guide? In truth no thoughts of this kind entered my mind! It was the pure consciousness of having suffered injustice; it was the honest feeling that I was not so bad, as he in his frantic humour had often said I was; it was the glad prospect of being able to strive independently; it was the desire to show that I no longer needed leading-strings. Still do I remember the evening of the 5th of April, 1787,—Maunday Thursday,—how beautiful the sunset was, and I spoke with open heart to my playfellows of the new life that was opening to me.
"My father put me under the teaching of the Conrector Müller, and his old friend the Subrector Jary, and in this he did well.
"To the Conrector Müller I owe most thanks. I passed from tyrannical oppression to his liberal intellectual sway. His kindliness and his noble open countenance, speaking of pure goodness of heart, attracted me to him when first we spoke together. He understood how to elevate my feeling for learning. He knew everything thoroughly. He was strong in Latin, not unversed in Greek; the history of the German Empire, and political history—but above all, literary history,—together with geography, were his favourite studies. He had not one enemy.
"Jary was not born to be a teacher, but he was not without knowledge, which he had acquired by industry. His method was defective, but he meant to deal faithfully by his scholars, and looked after them. His religious opinions were strictly orthodox; and I wept when he expressed doubts as to the eternal happiness of Cicero! Yet I owe him also thanks; he treated me with earnest kindness, and when he dismissed me in 1791, the old man said weeping: 'Fare you well! I shall not see you again; fare you well, you are almost the only one who has not vexed me!'
"In August, 1788, I partook for the first time of the Lord's Supper. I looked up fervently and repeated to myself Kretzschmar's ode: 'Let us rejoicing fill the holy vaults of thy temple with hymns of praise. Invisibly though perceptibly, does God's grace hover round us!' Joyfully, with heaven in my heart, did I approach the altar! Nevertheless, when in the afternoon I examined myself during a solitary walk, I was dissatisfied with myself. What I had been taught concerning the merits of Christ, appeared to me unintelligible; my groping in the dark about this, weakened the impression of that day. I worried myself with the idea of the atonement by death, and no ray of light entered my soul. Besides I loved the old heathens, Cicero, Pliny, Socrates, &c., more than many Christians, together with the Apostles, more than all the Jews of the Old Testament, as the people of God did not particularly please me. And yet it was doubtful whether God would receive Socrates as a child of light. How in the world, I thought, could my poor Socrates help not having been born later, not having lived in Judea?