oreign influence, which issuing from Rome well nigh
overwhelmed those who had once been the conquerors of the Roman Empire.

From this life-and-death struggle of three hundred years, Germany
passed from the bondage of the middle ages into freedom. But though the
spirit of the people became free, the reality of a German state was
lost to them. The nation was almost annihilated by this unnatural
condition. After a deathlike exhaustion it recovered itself slowly; the
resuscitated spirit was helpless, its form weak and sickly; it was
seeking unity of government. By a powerful development of strength, the
foundation of it was laid in the beginning of this century.

Henceforth German Protestantism became a living, sound, and manly
acquisition, a great national principle, the expression of the German
popular mind, the peculiar German characteristic in every domain of
ideal and practical life.

We all still feel how deficient and unfinished is the development of
this, the highest principle of life in the German nation. But it is
this feeling which gives us courage and leads us to struggle onwards.

What are here given from the old records are narratives of individuals
of past generations. They are some of them unimportant passages from
the lives of insignificant persons. But, as the outward appearance of
any stranger we meet, his mode of greeting, and his first words, give
us an impression of his individuality, an imperfect, an unfinished
impression, but still a whole; so, if we are not mistaken, does each
record, in which the impulses of individuals and their peculiar working
are portrayed, give us with rapid distinctness a vivid picture of the
life of the people; a very imperfect and unfinished picture, but yet,
also a whole, round which a large portion of our knowledge and
intuitive perceptions rapidly concentrate, like the radii round the
centre of a crystal.

If every such picture gives us an impression, that in the soul of each
man a miniature picture may be found of the characteristics of his
nation; something will be learnt from a succession of these narratives,
arranged according to their periods, however much there may be in them
that is incidental and arbitrary. We shall discover the stirring and
gradual development of a higher intellectual unity, which likewise
meets us here in the shape of a distinct individuality; and therefore,
these little sketches will perhaps help us to a more lively
comprehension, of wha