d; I
should have been once more guilty of great backsliding, and that at the
very time when the hand of God was lying heavily upon me. Oh! how
desperately wicked is the human heart.

It was in this cold state of heart, that I rode with my friend to
Leipsic, at the time of the famous Michaelmas fair. He wished me to go
with him to the Opera. I went, but had not the least enjoyment. After the
first act I took a glass of ice for refreshment. After the second act I
was taken faint in consequence of this, my stomach being in a very weak
state; but I was well enough; after a while, to go to the hotel, where I
passed a tolerable night. On the next morning my friend ordered the
carriage for our return to Halle. This circumstance the Lord graciously
used as a means of arousing me; and on our way home, I freely opened my
mind to my friend about the way in which we had been going on; and he then
told me that he was in a different state of heart, when he left America.
He also told me, when I was taken faint, that he thought it was an awful
place to die in. This was the second and last time, since I have believed
in the Lord Jesus, that I was in a theatre; and but once, in the year
1827, I went to a concert, when I likewise felt, that it was unbecoming
for me, as a child of God, to be in such a place. On my return to Halle I
broke a blood-vessel in my stomach, in consequence of the glass of ice. I
was now exceedingly weak, in which state I continued far several weeks,
and then went for change of air into the country, to the house of a
beloved brother in the Lord, who, up to this day, has continued a kind and
faithful friend to me. My heart was now again in a better state than it
had been before the rupture of the blood-vessel, Thus the Lord, in the
faithful love of His heart, seeing that I was in a backsliding state,
chastised me for my profit; and the chastisement yielded, in a measure at
least, the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Heb. xii. 10, 11.

Whilst I was staying in the country, I received a letter from the
American Professor, who had in the meantime changed Halle for Berlin, and
who wished me to come to Berlin, where, being near the Court, I should be
more likely to obtain an exemption from my military duty; and he
mentioned, at the same time, that all the expenses, connected with my
staying in Berlin, would be fully covered by the remuneration I should
receive for teaching German to himself and two of his friends, for a