to accommodations for the House-Father and his family of twelve boys,
several of the Brothers of the Mission reside here, and there are also
rooms for a probationary department for new pupils.

"Here," said the Doctor, "we began the experiment whose results you see
around you. When, with my mother and sister and three of the worst boys
to be found in Hamburg, I removed to this house in 1833, there was need
of strong faith to foresee the results which God has wrought since that
day."

"What were the means you found most successful in bringing these
turbulent and intractable spirits into subjection?" I inquired.

"Love, the affection of a parent for his children," was his reply.
"These wild, hardened boys were inaccessible to any emotion of fear;
they had never been treated with kindness or tenderness; and when they
found that there was no opportunity for the exercise of the defiant
spirit they had summoned to their aid, when they were told that all the
past of their lives was to be forgotten and never brought up against
them, and that here, away from temptation, they might enter upon a new
life, their sullen and intractable natures yielded, and they became
almost immediately docile and amiable."

"But," I asked, "is there not danger, that, when removed from these
comfortable homes, and subjected again to the iron gripe of poverty,
they will resume their old habits?"

"None of us know," replied Dr. Wichern, solemnly, "what we may be left
to do in the hour of temptation; but the danger is, nevertheless, not so
great as you think. Our children are fed and clothed like other peasant