There is a strange resemblance between these journeys through Protestant Germany, and Wesley's journeys, fifty years later, through Protestant England. We have the same stories related of mobs and riots, of peltings with stones and mud, of indignant magistrates and clergy, and of many and true conversions to God.

When the burgomaster at Duisburg desired the chief magistrate to seize the preacher and stop the preaching, the magistrate astonished him by the answer, "It would be better to stop the drinking and reveling and gambling than the preaching of God's Word."

The burgomaster, however, summoned Hochmann to give an account of himself, which he readily did. " This I confess to thee," he said, " that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets, and have hope toward God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust."

A preacher who was present then charged Hochmann with various offenses, amongst them, that he refused to meet any at the Lord's table who were not, according to him, born again; also, that he neglected the services in the churches.

Hochmann answered, "The preachers are in the habit of preaching open blasphemy, falsehoods, and errors, therefore I no longer go to the churches, for if I did, I must stand up and protest."

"The Church," proceeded Hochmann, "can only consist of living members of Christ, and children of God, to be recognized by the mark of love. But no remains of the true worship of God is now to be found, either amongst Lutherans or Reformed. Therefore, according to the epistle to the Corinthians, from such assemblies we must withdraw."

"What religion do you belong to in that case?" asked the preacher.

"We belong to Christ, the Head of the Church," replied Hochmann, "and to no sect."

"The king of Prussia desires to unite the Lutheran and Reformed churches," said some one who was present.

" I desire to belong to those who are united by the Lord Jesus Christ," said Hochmann.

The end of the matter was, that Hochmann was forbidden to preach, and the clergy preached loudly against him. In consequence, crowds came in increasing numbers to hear the preaching of Hochmann.

At Wesel, in the winter of 1709-10, these crowded meetings lasted often a great part of the night. Here again Hochmann was summoned before the town council. He had written a letter to the preachers of Wesel, in which he had said that at the Reformation, Great Babylon had not fallen, but had been divided into three parts-Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed. He had asked the preachers to search and try whether they were the true anointed priests of the Lord-whether God Himself, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorified Head of the Church, had sent them to preach His blessed gospel.

The description already given of the Lutheran and Reformed clergy will prove that there was sufficient need for such questions. The witness of Spener, himself a Lutheran pastor, may also be given in this place.

"The art of preaching," he says, " is taught to the students of theology, as if this were the sum and substance of all that is needed for them. It is as though all were under a spell of enchantment, which blinds them to every thing but the art of elaborate discourse, leaving them perfectly unconcerned as to the matter respecting which they are to speak. They are like people absorbed in the art of making artistic and ornamental shoes, entirely forgetting to inquire where the leather is to come from, or, indeed, whether leather is needed at all, so that for the leather they have to go begging and borrowing, and failing to obtain it, stitch together the most elegant shoes of paper, parchment, or other useless materials."

" It is not to be wondered at," writes Dr. Hoffmann, after thus quoting Spener, "that the Lutheran church at that time, looked at from almost every point of view, presented the appearance of a vast ruin. The schools and universities, devoid of the spirit of piety, intent rather on heathen than on Christian learning, had become the abode of coarse lawlessness and wild extravagance, producing a fair stock of theological prize-fighters, of correct orthodoxy, and of stiff pedants, but few men of Christian piety fit to teach or guide the people committed to their care.

"On the contrary, the ignorance, the coarseness, the disreputable lives of most of the preachers, had an effect disastrous to the last degree, in corrupting society at large, already demoralized enough by the effect of the Thirty Years' War. Drunkenness, rancorous lawsuits, profligacy, and beggary gained ground every where, accompanied by just such a trust in a pharisaical religion of ceremonial works as the Protestants had so loudly condemned in the Roman Catholics.

"To receive the sacrament, quite apart from any effect upon the inner life, was regarded as a means of salvation; and, as one of the most excellent of the earth at that time expressed it, 'Modern Christianity has four dumb idols- the font, the pulpit, the confessional, the altar. Men put their whole trust in an outside Christianity ; that they are baptized, that they go to church, that they get absolution, that they take the sacrament; but as to the inward power, they utterly deny it.' "

It was considered necessary that a preacher should be a theologian. That he should be a Christian in heart and life was of small importance.

"Miserable theology!" wrote Witsius, himself educated as a theologian, "good for nothing but to hide from men the knowledge of their wretchedness, and thereby to keep them at a distance from Christ and from their eternal salvation."

For Hochmann's letter to the preachers he was called to account. He said that in writing these things he had but directed them to Jesus their Savior, exhorting them to believe in Him whilst yet it is called "To-day."

" No one preaches or teaches here without being ordained," said the burgomaster.
Hochmann replied, he could take his orders from none but Christ, and that he was constrained by the Holy Spirit to take every opportunity of bringing souls to Him -if hundreds, or thousands, so much the better. The burgomaster, after consulting with the town council, gave his final sentence :Since Hochmann belonged to no recognized sect, and since he was about to betake himself to the unorthodox territory of Wittgenstein, he must be banished from Wesel.

He wrote from his hermitage to the preachers of Wesel that he was praying earnestly for them, that instead of having their heads filled with theology, they might have their hearts filled with the love of Jesus, and that they might be thoroughly converted ; for it grieved him deeply that they should attempt to teach others the way of salvation, whilst they did not know it themselves, nor see that a man must be born again before he can enter the kingdom of God.

If Hochmann made many enemies during his journeys, he also made many friends, beside the counts of Wittgenstein and their families, who were deeply attached to him.

One friend, with whom he often spent a few days, describes his little visits with love and affection. "Hochmann," he says, " was very simple and retiring in his daily life. When he stayed with friends, he generally remained quietly in his bedroom all the forenoon, unless he was called for. After dinner he devoted himself to any friends who were there, and talked with them about the things of God and heaven, with much blessing to those who heard him. If a stranger came in, it was his custom to hold out his hand and say, in a manner most tender and loving, 'Do you too love the Lord Jesus?'

" Otherwise he spoke very little, and in all his ways and habits he gave the impression that he was living in a holy seclusion, in the continual presence of God. He took little notice of outward things, much less did he interest himself in any thing apart from God, and in worldly news. But he had no appearance of any forced silence or reserve. On the contrary, he always had a cheerful, unburdened spirit, and, at the same time, a perfectly well-bred and loving manner toward all.

"And because his whole inner occupation and object was this, to penetrate by love into the inmost depths of the sweetness and the love of the heart of God, and because his whole soul was so deeply buried, as it were, in that love, embalmed in it, and filled with it, no outward crosses and persecutions seemed to move or disturb him. He was dead to himself, and dependent as a little child upon God.

" And this fountain of the spirit of Christ being thus unsealed to him, the living waters flowed forth from him; and in the watered garden of his heart all manner of pleasant fruits and flowers grew and ripened and blossomed to the glory of God, and to the refreshment and for the sweet perfume of others of the Lord's members.

Such was Hochmann. And as years went by, it seemed the stillness and the rest of his Friedensburg softened and stilled his spirit, and made him seem, it was said, as one already glorified. He spent much time in prayer, and became more deeply humble and loving as he drew nearer to the end of his pilgrimage. For a while we will leave him in his peaceful hermitage, and return to the restless, pleasure-loving, but unsatisfied boy, now sent forth from his home into the busy life of Mulheim.

(From "The Quiet in the Land.")