At noon we visited Mons. de La Grange, who was
busily employed in his little shop, packing and marking a parcel of
ribbons which he was going to send to Barbados, because, as he said,
he could not dispose of them here to advantage, that is, with
sufficient profit. We let him first finish his work, and after that he
took us to his counting room, where his wife was. We did not fail to
converse kindly with him and his wife in relation to those matters in
which we believed they were sinning, notwithstanding all the little
reasons which pious people of that description are accustomed to
advance in extenuation of their sin and avarice. As there were plenty
of books around, my comrade inquired of him what book he liked or
esteemed the most. Upon this he brought forward two of the elder
Brakel, one of which was, _De Trappen des Geestelycken Levens_.[133]
He also took down another written by a Scotchman, of whom my comrade
had some knowledge, and translated by Domine Koelman. On my return
home, the son of our old people asked me if I would not go to their
usual catechizing, which they held once a week at the house of Abraham
Lanoy, schoolmaster, and brother of the clerk in the custom
house.[134] I accompanied him there and found a company of about
twenty-five persons, male and female, but mostly young people. It
looked like a school, as indeed it was, more than an assembly of
persons who were seeking after true godliness; where the schoolmaster,
who instructed them, handled the subject more like a schoolmaster in
the midst of his scholars than a person who knew and loved God, and
sought to make him known and loved. They sang some verses from the
Psalms, made a prayer, and questioned from the catechism, at the
conclusion of which they prayed and sang some verses from the Psalms
again. It was all performed without respect or reverence, very
literally, and mixed up with much obscurity and error. He played,
however, the part of a learned and pious man, _enfin le suffisant et
le petit precheur_. After their departure, I had an opportunity of
speaking to him and telling him what I thought was good for him. He
acknowledged that I convinced him of several things; and thus leaving
him I returned home.

[Footnote 133: "The Gradations of the Spiritual Life," by Theodorus a
Brakel (1608-1699), an orthodox clergyman of note in the Reformed
Church of Holland. Jacobus Koelman was originally a minister of the
same church, in Zeeland, but becam