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    334 GERMAN MTERATUBE.

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    -E> A Short Time Since We Had Occasion T...

    deserted , or the population was reduced to a few inhabitants . The . cruelty of the game laws was such , that the peasants were not

    allowe of interfering d to trap 1 with the the wolves profits who of carried their lords off their . Still children darker , for is fear the

    sketch drawn hy Herr Freytag of the condition of the minor nobility , who wandered about in rags , as " princes bereft of their

    coronets , " treating the landed aristocracy and the starving peasantry with _equal animosity and contempt . The ignorance and filth of

    these " _edelgeborene " were equalled only by their pride of caste . suffering Many of boors these Junkers by whom - were they scarcel were surrounded y distinguishable , except amongst by their wild the

    and dissolute habits , and their contempt of all manual occupation . The manners of their wives and . children were low , their language

    was coarse , and these " genuine old . nobles " were known , in their gipsy-like wanderings , by their hard swearing and their love for

    _xaw rye spirits . Herr Freytag gives a curious extract from the life of one of these noblemen , which was published by Paul "Winekler ,

    at _ISTuremburg , 1697—eleven years after the writer ' s death . In accordance with our author's method , these subjects are

    Illustrated dramatically by anecdotes and stories from the lives of those who lived and acted in the different periods . In keeping

    with this plan , the next chapter , which describes the gradual increase of religious feeling during the pietistic revival at the

    commencement of the eighteenth century , is principally occupied by a long autobiography , from the hand of Joanna Eleanora Petersen , the wife

    of Dr . John William Petersen , a mystical and enthusiastic theologian .

    These two persons united themselves in marriage in obedience , as they supposed , to a special intimation of Providence , and imagined

    that they led a peculiar spiritual existence , soaring upon wings of faith far above the earthly atmosphere which was breathed by their

    fellow men . The wife , who was the senior by several years , seems to have been the sterner and more zealous of the two , and relates

    her _exjDeriences , glorying in misfortune and delighting in persecution , in a tone which sometimes reminds us of the history of

    Madame Guyon . "We have no space to dwell on the peculiarities of a mystical form of pietismwhich has sometimes been

    , designated as the " romance of religion . " It was often unpractical in its characterbut its influence in Germany was valuable at this

    , particular epoch , in breaking away prejudices of caste , and causing the higher class by birth , to reconcile itself to the fancied

    degradation The of intermarry " ¦ C ollegia in Pietatis g with p was lebeians founded . by one Philip Speneran

    , earnest , though somewhat narrow-minded man , who , at the latter < end of the seventeenth century , directed his suffering countrymen to

    look heavenward for that happiness which they could no longer obtain on earth . This community was principally composed of women ,

    and a sphere of great usefulness was thus opened to the female

    334 German Mteratube.

    334 GERMAN MTERATUBE .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1863, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011863/page/46/