STUDENT LIFE ]N GERMANY, 65 



the emblems from his hands and passing on towards the right of the 

 preacher stood until all had partaken, awaiting his hencdiction. Thus 

 ended the ceremony. 



The next day, happening to drop in at my friend Keller's, (a student 

 from Ham, in Westphalia,) I found him walking rapidly up and down 

 the room, wringing his hands, as if in agony, with the tears chasing 

 each other down his cheeks. " Ach, main Gott ! ungliicklicher Mensch ! 

 Ach, was soil ich machen r" He was evidently in great distress, and 

 seemed so completely overcome that I scarcely knew how to begin to 

 comfort him. But I soon found out the cause of his grief. He had 

 gone to Professor Marks, according to the statute, on the day after the 

 communion season, to obtain a certificate from him of the fact that he 

 had been there. (Such a certificate, signed by the University preacher, 

 must be presented by the applicant for licensure !) But the Professor 

 had refused to give him one, and now, what in the world was he to do ? 

 The end of the session was at hand, he was about to leave Halle, and 

 would not have another opportunity of communing. "But why did he 

 refuse, my dear Keller, you certainly were there.?" "He asked me 

 what the text was, and I could not tell him ; he asked for the divisions 

 of the sermon, and I could not give them. "Es war auch solch eine 

 erbarmliche Predigt, wie Du wohl weisst, ich habe wenig darauf geach- 

 tet." "But you ought to have been able to tell him something about 

 it." " Oh, I was so scared at the very idea of losing my certificate that 

 I scarcely knew where I was, and I could not answer him a word." 

 " Well, there's no use in your crying about it; I know that you were 

 there, and 1 will prove it to him. Stop — Ker was there, too, and Scott, 

 and Creak. Get your hat — we will hunt them up and soon set the 

 matter straight." With this, Plitt, (a Moravian from Herrnhut, Keller's 

 Stubenbursch,) came in, and finding us just about as well warmed up as 

 we could be without being uncontrollable, begged us to wait until the 

 Professor's Sprechstunde arrived, suggesting that he would receive us 

 more graciously then, but thinking, no doubt, that we would be some- 

 what cooled oft' by that time. We consented, and in the evening Ker 

 and Scott called with us at his house. We were conducted up the long, 

 dark, narrow stairway, and left to wait awhile in the diminutive study, 

 with the old earthen stove lifting itself up nearly to the ceiling in one 

 corner, the indispensable sofa and sofa table, and the prospect of dilap- 

 idated walls and tiled roofs extending a few rods from the windows. 

 Atlengtli the old gentleman appeared with a bland smile upon his coun- 

 tenance. He appeared so courteous that my wrath began to ooze out 

 of my finger ends; but 1, as rather the better German of the three 

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