The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

Keep yourselves from all these books, for they are a plague that attacks the soul. [...] But as for the others which are less harmful, such as Aesop's and other fables, they are also not of much use. As for worldly books, histories, geographies, accounts of travel, accounts of heroes and of states and lives of individual potentates, countries and cities, much controversial and polemical writing and a hundred kinds of that sort of thing, I reckon they are not necessary for salvation. For certain people they might be useful in a worldly fashion. [...]

In former days I had great enjoyment in reading books. But I will tell you, my children, what kind of impression they made on my inner life, and what use they were to me. Immodest, lascivious and godless books I have avoided. When I was yet in single life two such came into my hands, fanciful stories and songs of love. They seemed to me sinful. I wanted to throw them away, but I thought: someone might find them and take great harm by them. Because they belong in the fire, I would rather burn them. So I threw them into the stove and burned them. The author of the same will fare no better, if he has not repented. Worldly books, of them I have indeed read many, but felt little benefit from them except the satisfaction of curiosity. Often I read till I was tired and satiated.

Descriptions of other countries and travel have often awakened in me an inclination to go travelling, and discontent with my class and my fatherland in which God has set me. But all the while the descriptions of the heavenly fatherland have pleased me better... As far as concerns controversial and polemical writing, with them I sometimes became bored. Writings on ethics made their impression on my heart, and also histories in which I could see and admire the wonderful rule of Almighty God, indeed His rule often became quite clear to me." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 139-142]

[This passage shows that Bräker was an avid reader even before he had access to any library, also that in spite of his scanty education he could read and understand scholarly works.]

"As I was making these new plans and forging these projects, the ravening famine years of the seventies drew on, and the first of them burst upon us all unawares, like a thief in the night, for everyone was looking for better times. For indeed, since the year 1760 our part of the world had not had a truly plentiful year. In '68 and '69 the seasons failed us altogether; the summers were wet and the winters long and cold, with heavy snow, so that much of the crop rotted beneath it, and we had to plough all over again in the spring. It appears that those crafty Jews

of corn-merchants had learnt of this, and had conspired to increase the consequent shortage. One could make this out from the fact that there was always bread to be had for money, but money was what was lacking, and not only with the poor people but also with those of some means. So this time was an age of gold for the chandlers, the bakers and the millers, in which many of them made their fortunes, or were at least enabled to put by a pretty sum. The cotton trade, however, fell down almost completely into the dirt, and the profit to be gained thereby was extremely small, so that one might hire any number of workers for no more than their food. But for this the price of victuals might have risen still higher, and the time of dearth never had an end.

It is unlikely that the corn-merchants actually were Jews, or indeed that Bräker had ever met a Jew in person. But this expression, which he uses quite frequently, shows that he shared the general anti-Semitic prejudices of his time. Writing of these profiteers is one of very few contexts in which he expresses real hatred. The famine of which he writes was experienced all over Europe, not only in his homeland.