leave their poor child in peace, seeing that nothing did her any good, but
rather made her worse. I was therefore forced to desist, and only
admonished the parents to seek for help, like the Canaanitish woman, in
true repentance and incessant prayer, and with her to sigh in constant
faith, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is
grievously vexed of a devil," Matthew xv.; that the heart of our Lord
would then melt, so that he would have mercy on their child, and command
Satan to depart from her. _Item_, I promised to pray for the little child
on the following Sunday with the whole congregation, and told them to
bring her, if it were any ways possible, to the church, seeing that the
ardent prayer of the whole congregation has power to rise beyond the
clouds. This they promised to do, and I then went home sorely troubled,
where I soon learned that she was somewhat better; thus it still is sure
that Satan hates nothing so much, after the Lord Jesus, as the servants of
the Gospel. But wait, and I shall even yet "bruise thy head with my heel"
(Genesis, chap, iii.); nought shall avail thee.

Howbeit before the blessed Sunday came, I perceived that many of my people
went out of my way, both in the village and elsewhere in the parish, where
I went to visit sundry sick folks. When I went to Uekeritze to see young
Tittlewitz, there even befell me as follows:--Claus Pieper the peasant
stood in his yard chopping wood, and on seeing me he flung the axe out of
his hand so hastily that it stuck in the ground, and he ran towards the
pigsty, making the sign of the cross. I motioned him to stop, and asked
why he thus ran from me, his confessor? Whether, peradventure, he also
believed that my daughter had bewitched her little god-child? "_Ille_.
Yes, he believed it, because the whole parish did. _Ego_. Why, then, had
she been so kind to her formerly, and kept her like a sister through the
worst of the famine? _Ille_. This was not the only mischief she had done.
_Ego_. What, then, had she done besides? _Ille_. That was all one to me.