on books he never
ceased to praise a narrative of a mission to Otaheite, and I soon
discovered that this volume was very nearly his whole library. In spite
of all this he was a good man, and it will not injure him now if I
relate why I loved him. We were speaking one day of eternal happiness
and the reverse. I told him how impossible I considered it, that the
good God could be so cruel as to burn me eternally in hell. It is the
Lord's fault, not mine, that I was baptised a Calvinist, and had thus
been instructed and confirmed. Our teacher had told us that we were to
love our fellow-creatures, and do good to them; and I endeavoured,
according to the best of my ability, to follow this teaching, and yet I
was to be eternally condemned! This gave the chaplain pain, and he
found a theological answer: 'I hope God will deal with you as with one
of the heathen, of whom it is written, that they will be judged
according to their works.' He was not dangerous to the school.

"If the clerical leaders had been more energetic, the supporters they
could have called forth, from out of the population, to oppose the
school were not to be despised. Besides the women, who for the most
part were attached to the pastor, there were men whom the new rule had
deprived of official position in the community. Respectability and
family connections still gave them importance, and they were led by
their old masters to persuade the more energetic youths that the new
constitution would not give them freedom enough; but, on the contrary,
more burdens, and that they had no reason to be contented with a
condition of things which the new leaders would turn exclusively to
their own advantage. These opponents were dangerous. From one of them I
was in the habit of getting milk for my household; the children fell
sick, and became feverish. Then we learnt that the milk of a sick cow
had been given us, and that the seller boasted of it.

"As the party which had just been vanquished in the field of politics
could not openly make head against the common council and the majority
of the citizens; they endeavoured to influence the parents, and were
pleased when, in the beginning, there were only a dozen scholars--a
small number for a great parish, surrounded by other villages, to whose
sons the district school was open. There was only one means of saving
the school from dissolution, and that was, its success. But a
circumstance occurred to help us, before it could be