that he had thought beautiful and pleasing in the sight of God; and the
poor, tortured young soul often knew no help in its need.

He could not turn to the dear God and the Saviour, whom he was said to
have blasphemed, for he feared them; but when he could no longer bear his
grief, discouragement, and yearning, he prayed to the Madonna for help.

The image of the unhappy woman, about whom he had heard nothing but ill
words, who had deserted him, and whose faithlessness gave the other boys
a right to jeer at him, floated before his eyes, with that of the pure,
holy Virgin in the church, brought by Father Lukas from Italy.

In spite of all the complaints about him, which were carried to the
abbot, the latter thought him a misguided, but good and promising boy,
an opinion strengthened by the music-teacher and the artist Lukas, whose
best pupil Ulrich was; but they also were enraged against the Jew, who
had lured this nobly-gifted child along the road of destruction; and
often urged the abbot, who was anything but a zealot, to subject him to
an examination by torture.

In November, the chief magistrate was summoned, and informed of the
heresies with which the Hebrew had imperiled the soul of a Christian
child.

The wise abbot wished to avoid anything, that would cause excitement,
during this time of rebellion against the power of the Church, but the
magistrate claimed the right to commence proceedings against the doctor.
Of course, he said, sufficient proof must be brought against the accused.
Father Hieronymus might note down the blasphemous tenets he heard from
the boy's lips before witnesses, and at the Advent season the smith and