236 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT 



sinful, and almost as ruinous, as drinking too much. 

 Watch and ward were therefore kept over the eating. 

 By attending to such things I was able to work, with- 

 out weariness, .for sixteen hours a day. 



With my Stiefelwichser I was soon at war. It was 

 not a " declared war." It was not a " war of reprisals." 

 It was not even a struggle for supremacy, but a modest 

 contest on my part for mere equality. Preferring 

 working in the early morning to working late at 

 night, I thought five o'clock a fair hour at which to 

 begin the day. But my Stiefelwichser chose to come 

 at four. For a time I allowed him so to come, without 

 changing my hour; but shame soon began to take pos- 

 session of me. I considered his case, and compared 

 his aims and inducements with my own. For the serv- 

 ices he rendered me I allowed him the usual pay a 

 few thalers for the Semester, or term. The thaler was 

 three shillings. I asked myself what my aims and as- 

 pirations were worth if they were unable to furnish a 

 motive power equal to that which this poor fellow ex- 

 tracted from his scanty wage. I tried to take refuge 

 in a text of Scripture, and said to myself soothingly, 

 " The children of this world are always in their gene- 

 ration wiser than the children of light." It was very 

 comforting for the moment to think of poor Steinmetz 

 as a child of this world, and of his employer as a child 

 of light. But in those days there existed under the 

 same skin two John Tyndalls, one of whom called the 

 other a humbug, accompanying this descriptive noun 

 by a moral kick which, in the matter of getting up, 

 effectually converted into a child of this world the 

 child of light. For a long time I was always in a con- 

 dition to look Steinmetz in the face, and return his 

 " Guten Morgen " when he arrived. We afterwards re- 

 laxed, and made our hour of meeting five; and for the 



