will fall away from us like dry leaves in the wind. But God, who can
hold up and throw down Prussia, and the world, knows why these things
must be, and we will not embitter ourselves against the land in which
we were born, and against the authorities for whose enlightenment we
pray. After thirty years, perhaps much sooner, it will be a small
matter to us how things stand with Prussia and Austria, if only the
mercy of God and the deserving of Christ remain to our souls. I opened
the Scriptures last evening, at random, so as to rid my anxious heart
of politics, and my eye lighted immediately on the 5th verse of the
110th Psalm. As God wills--it is all, to be sure, only a question of
time, nations and people, folly and wisdom, war and peace; they come
and go like waves of water, and the sea remains. What are our states
and their power and honor before God, except as ant-hills and
bee-hives which the hoof of an ox tramples down, or fate, in the form
of a honey-farmer, overtakes? * * * Farewell, my sweetheart, and learn
to experience life's folly in sadness; there is nothing in this world
but hypocrisy and jugglery, and whether fever or grape-shot shall bear
away this mass of flesh, fall it must, sooner or later, and then such
a resemblance will appear between a Prussian and an Austrian, if they
are of the same size, like Schrech and Rechberg, for example, that it
will be difficult to distinguish between them; the stupid and the
clever, too, properly reduced to the skeleton state, look a good deal
like each other. Patriotism for a particular country is destroyed by
this reflection, but we should have to despair in any case, even now,
were it linked with our salvation. Farewell once more, with love to
parents and children. How impatient I am to see them! As soon as
_Vriendschap_--so our vessel is called--is in sight, I shall
telegraph. With love, as always,

Your most faithful VON B.