e, the rector at Eisfeld, about 1635, was Johann
Otto, a young man who had just married; he had in the worst times kept
the whole school during eight years, with only one teacher, and
provided the choir also gratis. The smallness of his income may be seen
from the notes which the excellent man has written in his Euclid: "2
days thrashing in autumn, 1 day working in the wood in 1646. 2 days
thrashing in January, 1647. 5 days thrashing in February, 1647. 4
marriage letters written. Item, 1/2 day binding oats, and one day
reaping," and so on. He persevered, and administered his office
honourably for forty-two years. His successor, the great Latin scholar,
Johann Schmidt, teacher of the celebrated Cellarius, had become a
soldier, and when on guard at the Royal Castle was reading a Greek
poet; this was perceived by his officer with astonishment, and was
mentioned by him to Ernest the Good, who made him a teacher.

The superintendent at the same place, Andreas Pochmann, was, when an
orphan, carried off with two little brothers by the Croats. He escaped
with his brothers in the night. Later, when a Latin scholar, he was
again taken prisoner by the soldiers, was made an officer's servant,
and then a musketeer. But he continued to study in the garrison, and
found among his comrades students from Paris and London, with whom he
kept up his Latin. Once, when a soldier, he was lying sick by the watch
fire, under his sleeve was the powder pouch, with a pound and a half of
powder, the flames reached the sleeve and burnt half of it; the powder
pouch was unconsumed. When he awoke he found himself alone, the camp
was abandoned, and he had not a penny of money. Then he found two
thalers in the ashes. With this he struck across to Gotha; on the way,
he turned off to Langensalza, to a lonely small house near the walls:
an old woman received the wearied man, and laid him on a bed. It was
the plague nurse, and the bed was a plague bed, for the malady was then
raging in the city; he remained unhurt. His life, like that of most of
his cotemporaries, was full of wonderful escapes, sudden changes, and
unexpected succour, of deadly perils, penury, and frequent changes of
place. These times must be accurately observed, in order to understand
how, just at a period when millions were brought to ruin and
destruction, there was fostered in the survivors a deep belief in that
Divine Providence, which, in a wonderful way, encompassed the lives of
men.