use, not counting camp-followers
and maid-servants. It is not to be described what I and my wife had to
suffer and endure for a length of time. At last I could no longer feel
secure on account of them; I ran away sick and came to Mitwitz and
Mupperg, where I had as little rest as at Heldburg. My stepmother
especially tormented me (she had been struck by lightning), she would
not let me remain in my exile with my old father. I was obliged to go
to Neistadt to the rector, M. Val. Hoffmann, now superintendent. But I
was not only very poor; but became daily more ailing, therefore I only
thought how I could return to Poppenhausen or Heldburg and die there,
for I was weary of my life.

"It is miraculous how I passed along the roads and through the villages
in the darkness of night, for it was still unsafe everywhere; at last I
reached Poppenhausen. There my poor parishioners and schoolmaster were
as joyful at sight of me, as if our Lord God had himself appeared among
them. But we were all in such great weakness and want, that we looked
more dead than alive. Many died of hunger; and we were frequently, each
day, obliged to take to our heels and conceal ourselves. And although
we hid our lentils, corn, and poor food in the ditches and old coffins,
nay, under the skulls of the dead, yet all was taken away from us.

"Then were the survivors obliged to leave house and home, or die of
hunger. At Poppenhausen most of the inhabitants were in their graves;
there remained only eight or nine souls, who fled from it in the year
1636. The same circumstances occurred at Lindenau, the cure of which
was committed to me vicariously in 1636, by the Royal Consistory. I
could obtain no income; apples, pears, cabbage, turnips, &c., were my
only pay. Thus I was pastor at Lindenau from 1636 to 1641. I had the
parsonage arranged, but could not, on account of the insecurity and
turmoil, dwell constantly there, and performed the duties from
Heldburg. I have still the testimony of the Lindenauers, wherein they
acknowledge that I did not in five years get ten gulden in money; but
they have since honestly paid me the arrears in wood and apples.

"In the year 1640, between Easter and Whitsuntide, the Imperial and
Swedish armies fought a battle at Saalfeld; and Franconia and Thuringia
were devastated far and wide. At four o'clock in the morning of the
Sunday before Whitsunday, strong bodies of Imperialists fell upon
Heldburg, when most of the citizens we