was an answer to the question he had asked himself: Why should
not this land be made to bring forth the kind of willow used by
basket-weavers, and why should not basket-weavers be induced to gather
into a community of some sort, and so importers be beaten in the
market by domestic productions? The aim thus clearly defined Spener
had accomplished. His Moravians furnished him with a willow-ware
which was always quoted at a high figure, and the patriotic pride
the manufacturer felt in the enterprise was abundantly rewarded: no
foreign mark was ever found on his home-made goods.

But _his_ Moravians: where did these people come from, and how came
they to be known as his?

The question brings us to Frederick Loretz. In those days he was a
porter in the establishment where Spener was a clerk. He had filled
this situation only one month, however, when he was attacked with a
fever which was scourging the neighborhood, and taken to the hospital.
Albert followed him thither with kindly words and care, for the poor
fellow was a stranger in the town, and he had already told Spener his
dismal story. Afar from wife and child, among strangers and a pauper,
his doom, he believed, was to die. How he bemoaned his wasted life
then, and the husks which he had eaten!

In his delirium Loretz would have put an end to his life. Spener
talked him out of this horror of himself, and showed him that there
was always opportunity, while life lasted, for wanderers to seek again
the fold they had strayed from; for when the delirium passed the man's
conscience remained, and he confessed that he had lived away from
the brethren of his faith, and was an outcast. Oh, if he could but
be transported to Herrnhut and set down there a well man in that