tle cultivated and the harvest was bad. An
unheard-of rise in prices ensued, famine followed, and in the years
1635 and 1636 a pestilence attacked the enfeebled population, more
terrible than had raged for more than a century in Germany. It spread
its pall slowly over the whole of Germany, over the soldier as well as
over the peasant, armies were dissipated under its parching breath,
many places lost half their inhabitants, and in some villages in
Franconia and Thuringia there remained only a few individuals. The
little strength which had remained in one corner of the land was now
broken. The war raged on still twelve long years after this time of
horror, but it had become weaker, the armies were smaller, the
operations without plan or stability, from the want of provisions and
animals, but where the fury of war still blazed, it devoured
mercilessly what remained of life. The people reached the lowest depths
of misfortune; a dull apathetic brooding became general. Of the country
people of this last period there is little to be told; they vegetated,
reckless and hopeless, but few accounts of them are to be found in
village records, parish books, and small chronicles. They had forgotten
in the villages the art of writing, nay even their crying grievances.
Where an army had carried devastation and famine raged, men and dogs
ate of the same corpse, and children were caught and slaughtered. A
time had now come when those who had held out during twenty years of
suffering, laid violent hands on themselves; we read this in the
accounts of ambassadors, who for years worked in vain for peace.

It may be asked how, after such sufferings and utter ruin, the
survivors could still form a German nation, who at the conclusion of
peace could again cultivate the country, pay taxes, and after
vegetating in poverty for a century, again engender energy, enthusiasm,
and a new life in art and science. It is certainly probable that the
country people would have entirely scattered themselves in roving
bands, and that the cities would never have been in a condition to
produce a new national life, if three powerful causes had not
contributed to preserve the German countryman from being altogether
lost,--his love of his paternal acres; the endeavours of the
magistracy; and above all, the zeal of those who had the care of his
soul, the village pastors. The love of the peasant for his own field,
which works inimically against the most benevolent agr