of Israel: 'Lord, thou knowest if we have walked uprightly before thee.'
And we hope to understand that the rewards of justice, in that Life,
will be much more than those of injustice in this.

"We believe that the Most High will, in so far, bless these our honest
purposes and wholesome endeavors, as that the actual fruits thereof will
in time coming, and when Peace now soon expected (which God grant) has
returned to us, be manifest; and that if, in our Office, as is common,
we should rather have thorns of persecution than roses of recompense to
expect, yet to each of us there will at last accrue praise in the Earth
and reward in Heaven. [Hear Spener!]

"Meanwhile we will unite all our wishes, That the Almighty may vouchsafe
to his Royal Majesty, our now All-dearest Duke and Land's-Father, many
long years of life and of happy reign; and maintain this All-highest
Royal-Prussian and Elector-Brandenburgic House in supremest splendor and
prosperity, undisturbed to the end of all Days; and along with it,
our Town-Council, and whole Merchantry and Citizenry, safe under this
Prussian Sceptre, in perpetual blessing, peace and unity [what a
modest prayer!]: to all which may Heaven speak its powerful Amen!"
[_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 416-422.]--

Whereupon solemn waving of hats; indistinct sough of loyal murmur from
the universal Landshut Population; after which, continued to the due
extent, they return to their spindles and shuttles again.

Chapter VII.

FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEIN-SCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF
THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT.

We shall not dwell upon the movements of the French into Germany for the
purpose of overwhelming Austria, and setting up four subordinate little
Sovereignties to take their orders from Louis XV. The plan was of the
mad sort, not recognized by Nature at all; the diplomacy was wide,
expensive, grandiose, but vain and baseless; nor did the soldiering that
followed take permanent hold of men's memory. Human nature cannot afford
to follow out these loud inanities; and, at a certain distance of time,
is bound to forget them, as ephemera of no account in the general
sum. Difficult to say what profit human nature could get out of such
transaction. There was no good soldiering on the part of the French
except by gleams here and there; bad soldiering for the most part, and
the cause was radically bad. Let us be brief with it; try to snatch from
it, huge rotten heap of old exuviae an