y things, and was very black indeed. So that Seckendorf and Grumkow
began to be alarmed. It is several months ago he had Franke the Halle
Methodist giving ghostly counsel; his Majesty ceased to have the
Newspapers read at dinner; and listened to lugubrious Franke's
exhortations instead. Did English readers ever hear of Franke? Let them
make a momentary acquaintance with this famous German Saint. August
Hermann Franke, a Lubeck man, born 1663; Professor of Theology, of
Hebrew, Lecturer on the Bible; a wandering, persecuted, pious man.
Founder of the "Pietists," a kind of German Methodists, who are still
a famed Sect in that country; and of the WAISENHAUS, at Halle, grand
Orphan-house, built by charitable beggings of Franke, which also still
subsists. A reverend gentleman, very mournful of visage, now sixty-four;
and for the present, at Berlin, discoursing of things eternal, in what
Wilhelmina thinks a very lugubrious manner. Well; but surely in a
very serious manner! The shadows of death were already round this poor
Franke; and in a few weeks more, he had himself departed. [Died 8th
June, 1727.] But hear Wilhelmina, what account she gives of her own
and the young Grenadier-Major's behavior on these mournful occasions.
Seckendorf's dinners she considers to be the cause; all spiritual,
sorrows only an adjunct not worth mentioning. It is certain enough.

"His Majesty began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria which
tormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. Monsieur Franke,
the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphan-house at Halle University,
contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This reverend
gentleman entertained the King by raising scruples of conscience about
the most innocent matters. He condemned all pleasures; damnable all of
them, he said, even hunting and music. You were to speak of nothing
but the Word of God only; all other conversation was forbidden. It was
always he that carried on the improving talk at table; where he did
the office of reader, as if it had been a refectory of monks. The King
treated us to a sermon every afternoon; his valet-de-chambre gave out a
psalm, which we all sang; you had to listen to this sermon with as much
devout attention as if it had been an apostle's. My Brother and I had
all the mind in the world to laugh; we tried hard to keep from laughing;
but often we burst out. Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemas
of the Church hurled out on us; which w