mpanied again by
the Hasische trooper, but there was nothing to eat or reap there. What
God had provided me with on my journey, I was obliged to carry to the
town hall and give to the soldiers, and the children were well-nigh
dying of hunger. They had not been able to buy bran enough for bread.
My superintendent, Herr Grams, died from the effects of the Swedish
drink, at the castle four or five weeks after this turbulent time.

"Now as exactions and extortions still continued, I could get no
stipend, and yet had to assist in the superintendence of the parish of
Heldburg, as well as my own, I went _cum testimonio et consilio_ of Dr.
Kesler, and also with letters of recommendation to Duke Albert, to
Eisenach, and represented my poverty in divers ways to the Consistory.
I got a presentment and other recommendations to their Princely
Highnesses, the two brothers, that I might obtain advancement in their
dominions. So I went from Eisenach to Gotha, just as our honoured
prince and lord, Duke Ernest, fixed his residence at the Kaufhaus: for
I was present when they paid him homage at Gotha. The royal Consistory
soon offered to me the parish of Notleben; but as the Notlebers were at
strife with their old pastor, and there was to be a month's delay to
carry on their contest, Dr. Glass persuaded me in the interim to go
with my recommendation to Weimar, and to collect somewhat for my poor
family. My wanderings, however, lasted till the year 1641. I returned
on Tuesday the 18th of January to Gotha, and found the cure of that
parish still vacant for me, which I undertook with the greatest
humility and thankfulness, and preached my first sermon on the parable
of the vineyard, from the 20th of Matthew. But I not only lived in
great insecurity at Notleben, as one had daily to think of flight, but
had also many disputes with the peasantry, who in church and school
affairs had always a hankering after Erfurt, and to whom all royal
ordinances with respect to the catechism were odious. I, the pastor,
had to bear this from the council and peasants, and as all the stipend
was paid in kind, and I was neither a tutor, nor had any other means
whereby I could get on well, I humbly sought for a change of cure.
When, therefore, our honoured lord, after the division of property,
obtained the parish of Erock and the village of Heubach, he offered to
me to become pastor there, which I had expected more than a year
before. Thus in 1647, I in all humili