with especial approval of my new plans. He told me of projects which had
allured him in his youth, and still allured, but which he had lacked
the strength of mind to speak of. His father's advice and authority
had overawed him in youth, and now the chain of a settled position in
life held him fast. To follow the inward voice faithfully and without
swerving was the advice he offered me, and he wrote this memorandum
in my album when I left him, as a life motto:--"The task of man is a
struggle towards an end. Do your duty as a man, dear brother, with
firmness and resolution, fight against the difficulties which will
thrust themselves in your path, and be assured you will attain the end."

Thus cheered by sympathy and approval, I went my way from my brother's,
strengthened and confirmed in my determination. My road lay over the
Wartburg.[36] Luther's life and fame were then not nearly so well
appreciated and so generally understood as now, after the Tercentenary
festival of the Reformation.[37] My early education had not been of the
kind to give me a complete survey of Luther's life and its struggle; I
was hardly thoroughly acquainted indeed with the separate events of it.
Yet I had learnt in some sort to appreciate this fighter for the truth,
by having in my last years at school to read aloud the Augsburg
Confession to the assembled congregation during the afternoon service on
certain specified Sundays, according to an old-fashioned Church
custom.[38] I was filled with a deep sense of reverence as I climbed
"Luther's path," thinking at the same time that Luther had left much
behind still to be done, to be rooted out, or to be built up.

Shortly before Midsummer Day, as I had arranged with my friend, I
reached Frankfurt. During my many weeks' journey in the lovely
springtime, my thoughts had had time to grow calm and collected. My
friend, too, was true to his word; and we at once set to work together