en. I was greatly pitied. Some friends also gave me now
as much money as I pretended to have lost, and the circumstance afforded
me a ground upon which to ask my creditors to wait longer. But this matter
turned out bitterly; for the director, having ground to suspect me, though
he could not prove anything, never fully restored me to his confidence.

As it regards my own feeling, though I was very wicked, yet this
desperate act of depravity was too much, even for my hardened conscience;
for it never afterwards allowed me to feel easy in the presence of the
director's wife, who, like a kind mother, had waited on me in my illness,
and on whom I had now so willfully brought trouble. How long-suffering was
God at this time, not to destroy me at once! And how merciful that he did
not suffer me to be tried before the police, who easily would have
detected that the whole was a fabrication! I was heartily glad for many
reasons, but particularly on account of this latter circumstance, to be
able soon after to exchange the school for the university.

I had now obtained what I had fondly looked forward to. I became a member
of the university, and that with very honourable testimonials. I had thus
obtained permission to preach in the Lutheran Establishment, but I was as
truly unhappy, and as far from God as ever. I had made strong resolutions,
now at last, to change my course of life, for two reasons: first, because,
without it, I thought no parish would choose me as their pastor; and
secondly, that without a considerable knowledge of divinity I should never
get a good living, as the obtaining of a valuable cure, in Prussia,
generally depends upon the degree which the candidates of the ministry
obtain in passing the examination. But the moment I entered Halle, the
university town, all my resolutions came to nothing.--Being now more than
ever my own master, and without any control as long as I did not fight a
duel, molest the people in the streets, &c., I renewed my profligate life
afresh, though now a student of divinity. When my money was spent, I
pawned my watch and a part of my linen and clothes, or borrowed in other
ways. Yet in the midst of it all I had a desire to renounce this wretched
life, for I had no enjoyment in it, and had sense enough left to see, that
the end one day or other would be miserable; for I should never get a
living. But I had no sorrow of heart on account of offending God.

One day when I was in a tavern w