itude and meditation
are well in evidence at an early age, and we have no difficulty at all
in seeing that his psychological equilibrium was unstable, and that he
was capable of sudden shifts of inward level.

The first sign of his psychical peculiarity comes to light in an
incident of his early childhood. While he was tending cattle in the
fields one day he climbed alone a neighbouring {157} mountain-peak, and
on the summit he espied among the great red sandstones a kind of
aperture overgrown with bushes. Boy-like he entered the opening, and
there within, in a strange vault, he descried a large portable vessel
full of money. The sight of it made him shudder, and, without touching
the treasure, he made his way out to the world again. To his surprise
he was never able to find the aperture again, though, in company with
the other less imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it. His
friend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had it
from Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was "a sort of
emblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to the
sight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God and
Nature,"[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of the
extraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with his tendency to
hallucination.

When he was in his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to a shoemaker in
Seidenberg, and devoted himself diligently to the mastery of his trade.
It was during this period of apprenticeship, which lasted three years,
that there was granted to him "a kind of secret tinder and glimmer" of
coming fame. One day a stranger, plain and mean in dress, but
otherwise of good presence, came to the shop and asked to buy a pair of
shoes. As the master shoemaker was absent, the uninitiated
prentice-boy did not feel competent to sell the shoes, but the buyer
would not be put off. Thereupon young Jacob set an enormous price upon
them, hoping to stave off the trade. The man, however, without any
demur paid the price, took the shoes, and went out. Just outside the
door the stranger stopped, and in a serious tone called out, "Jacob,
come hither to me!" The man, with shining eyes looking him full in the
face, took his hand and said, "Jacob, thou art little but thou shalt
become great--a man very different from the common cast, so that thou
shalt be a wonder to the world. Be a good lad; fear God and reverence
His Word." With a little more