wished to
speak with the young lady. She was out. The old dissenter went away
shaking his head. "Nothing is left for me to do, but to try and move
the conscience of the Italian Papist, if he has a conscience. Ha,
it is ringing for the evening worship, which the pious man holds
in the Heiligengeist Church. Perhaps I may there meet the infatuated
girl, in any case the good shepherd, who would lead his own sheep to
destruction. These people are a crying sin and disgrace."

When he reached the market, he entered the Church disdaining the
outward visible signs of worship usually observed in God's house by the
members of the congregation. The Preacher had already begun his sermon.
It was his usual theme, the wickedness of the world. "A fitting subject
for thee, thou scoundrel," thought the Baptist. He looked around for
Lydia. In vain. He examined all the faces from the most backward to the
foremost rows; she was not present. "The lost sheep is in any case
better than the shepherd," he said to himself, "she at all events does
not prepare herself in God's house for an assignation." He now turned
his attention to the Preacher, who began to speak more warmly and more
enthusiastically. He spoke of the punishments of sin, but the iron
mountain and the pecking bird played no longer a part in his rhetoric.
From most intimate knowledge did he that day depict the pangs of an
evil conscience. He described the secret sinner, peering timorously
around or continually looking behind him, whether one was not near who
had seen all; no longer able to look at people straight in the face,
but casting his eyes down before their scrutiny, whose evil conscience
attributed everything to his hidden trespass and who thus on earth
carried Hell about him in his own breast.

"Oho does it seem to thee thus," thought the Baptist, "then perhaps is
there a chance of saving thee." After thinking for a time he tore from
a bill which he had about him a piece of blank paper and wrote on it a
few words. Then he took off his woollen neck-cloth, folded it neatly
together, concealing the note within it. "That is the same post-office
as invented by thee," said he to himself with a grim smile. As the last
psalm was being sung, he left the Church quietly. Keenly did his
piercing eye survey the passing crowd. Finally he beheld a young
maiden, a member of his sect, who would be a suitable messenger. He
quietly went up to her and whispered for a while with her. Silent
m