improvement also, to show myself as well as others what manner of men
we should be."

Laughing, the peasant replied: "You put me in mind of the story my poor
mother used to tell of the old minister; he stood up once in the pulpit
and said: 'My dear friends, I speak not only for you, but for myself
also; I, too, have need of it.'"

Christopher laughed outrageously when he had finished, and Gellert
smiled, and said: "Yes, whoever in the darkness lighteth another with
a lamp, lighteth himself also; and the light is not part of
ourselves,--it is put into our hands by Him who hath appointed the suns
their courses."

The peasant stood speechless, and looked upon the ground: there was
something within him which took away the power of looking up; he was
only conscious that it ill became him to laugh so loudly just now, when
he told the story of the old minister.

A longer pause ensued, and Gellert seemed to be lost in reflection upon
this reference to a minister's work, for he said half to himself: "Oh!
how would it fulfil my dearest wish to be a village-pastor! To move
about among my people, and really be one with them; the friend of their
souls my whole life long, never to lose them out of my sight! Yonder
goes one whom I have led into the right way; there another, with whom
I still wrestle, but whom I shall assuredly save; and in them all the
teaching lives which God proclaims by me. Did I not think that I should
be acting against my duty, I would this moment choose a country life for
the remnant of my days. When I look from my window over the country, I
have before me the broad sky, of which we citizens know but little, a