CHAPTER VI. COUNT ZINZENDORF.-UNIVERSITY LIFE. Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.-Ps. cxix. 9. THE Count's grandmother had hitherto had her own way in his education, but this was only by permission of his uncle who was his guardian, and who, though a conscientious man (Acts xxiii. 1), fearing God, appears not yet to have attained to the spiritual knowledge of Him (John iv. 24; xvii. 3), so that he was not able to understand or appreciate a life of devotedness to Him in entire separation from the world. 66 When, therefore, he found what a determined pietist" the Count had become through the training of his grandmother followed up by the teaching of Franké and his fellow-workers at Halle, and how entirely he was bent on obeying in the plain literal meaning such calls of God's word as "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18); he was alarmed at what seemed to him such righteousness over much (Eccl. vii. 16), especially as it threatened to interfere seriously with the plans which he and other relations of the Count had formed for his advancement in political life, to which he seemed naturally directed by the success in it of his father and others of his ancestors as well as of some of his living relations. He accordingly set himself to root out what he considered the mischievous effects in the character of the Count, of the influences to which he had hitherto been subjected. "My uncle," the Count wrote afterwards, " endeavoured, if possible, to procure me another nature, or at least to bring my head into another way of thinking." 66 As the University of Halle, which the Count greatly desired now to enter as a young man, was under the influence of Franké and those like-minded with him as much as the Academy there, in which he had been educated as a boy, his uncle would not listen to his request that he might go there. there. He determined to send him to the older and more celebrated university of Wittenberg, of which the professors and other teachers were looked upon as patterns of orthodoxy as distinguished from what were considered the enthusiastic and dangerous doctrines of those at Halle. He chose for his tutor a learned and accomplished gentleman, but having nothing of the Count's devotedness of heart and life to God, and invested him with full power over him in the hope, no doubt, that his influence and example might win him over to what he thought a more sober and rational state of heart and course of life. He drew up also particular instructions in what manner his whole university life should be directed. These the young Count was fully resolved to obey, and he found afterwards that they were the means of preserving him from some errors into which he might otherwise have fallen. His conduct towards his uncle in all these matters was a beautiful carrying out in practice of the spirit of our Lord's words, "Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things which be Cæsar's; " but he was at least equally set on obeying the other part of his command, "and unto God the things which be God's" (Matt. xxii. 21; Luke xx. 25); and so, instead of having any thought of letting his uncle's desires be fulfilled of winning him back again from God to the world, he determined, in humble dependence on his grace, to be more and more entirely separated from the world and devoted to Him. On the 25th of August, 1716, he arrived with his tutor at Wittenberg, where a lodging suitable to his rank was provided in the house of the burgomaster, Keil. He concludes his entry in his diary on the day of their arrival with the following words:" May God, who hath brought us hither, give us his grace and copious blessing, that our abode here may be to the praise of his holy name; that our whole walk be so conducted that not only He may be glorified, but that we ourselves may reap advantage in time and eternity, and others also by our example be incited to a holy life." As he daily learned to know himself better, and to see more and more of his natural corruptions, he found himself in danger from the schemes. that were laid to draw him off from his zealous endeavours after God. Therefore, he continued on his guard night and day, and practised many strict exercises of devotion. He thought it not too much to spend whole nights in prayer and meditation on the Word of God. He proposed, notwithstanding his bodily weakness, to fast every Friday, which he strictly observed for a considerable time, but finding himself often interrupted by visits and other avocations, he made Sunday his fast-day, on which he declined all visits that he might spend it profitably in acts of devotion. In the first year of his abode there he had many heavy hours, in great part through the various trials which he suffered from those to whom his zeal for godliness gave offence. At the end of the year he writes: "God be praised for all his faithfulness, love, and grace bestowed upon me in the year past! This has been distinguished by sorrows. But if the ensuing one should be of the same stamp, his will be done! I desire no other lot but what falls according to the mind of the Lord. May He me for his service, then I am satisfied." prepare with a He concluded his account of this year hearty prayer, and with the following verse:"My spirit strives invariably T'escape this poor world's vanity, And when my strength and courage sink, After our toil how sweet will be our rest, "I am to be pitied," he writes, "that I am quite alone. I must be my own teacher, monitor, and friend. For here I find nothing but gall; nothing that pleases me. Everybody mocks me on account of my singularity." And again:-"I stand alone without a counsellor and without a friend, and besides the Word of God and my own conscience I have none to consult." "The advantage," he says, "I have gained under my various troubles is this, that I despise the vanities of the world more than ever; and now my chief concern is to become more intimately acquainted with and to be found in Him who commands the universe." CHAPTER VII. UNIVERSITY LIFE CONTINUED. That ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.-Jude 3. Fight the Lord's battles.-1 Sam. xviii. 17. HE was, though so young, yet a ready and powerful debater; but his uncle, to prevent perhaps the danger of his spreading at Wittenberg the mischievous doctrines as they seemed to him of the clergy and professors at Halle, forbade him to take the positive part in any of the public disputations carried on from time to time, but left him at liberty to take the part of an objector to whatever might be advanced by others. And as Franké and the other prominent ones at Halle, and the things which were being carried on there, were constantly being attacked at Wittenberg, this permission gave him many opportunities, of which he did not fail to avail himself, of vigorously defending the preachers at Halle and their doctrines. Looking back afterwards, he admired the kind consideration which the Wittenberg professors showed to him in his youthful zeal for what he felt to be God's cause, but in defending which, he saw he had sometimes allowed himself to be betrayed into a warmth of controversy which was not of God (Luke x. 55). "I found," he said, "many opportunities of exerting myself as an opponent, but the learned |