- 96 -

noblemen. But few will ascribe it to our sins, that it is God's warning hand. O God, bring us all to a true atonement!" [Voellmy, v 2 p 144]

4th-6th Nov. [...] I must continue to hold forth a little about yesterday's sermon, because I have been much moved by it, in that I too have much misused the good times and have accustomed myself all too much to a easy way of life. For it is very well said, that people have grown soft, they have lived expensively even in the worst beggars' hovels, they have not paid attention to the useful and blessed art of cultivation, they have turned to idleness and everyone has become haughty and puffed up.

And what the good times brought into the country in the way of stinking pride, is not to be described. All manner of new fashions, so that the pedlar can hardly bring enough expensive things, and no tailor can make clothes that are becoming or newfangled enough, so that certainly, as our parson says, our ancestors did not spend so much on expensive clothes in fifty years as we now spend in one. But I think that in no other land has pride risen so high as in our Toggenburg, and in this our parish of Wattwil has the pre-eminence. O stinking pride, God can humble thee!" [Voellmy, v 2 p145]

[It is hard to believe that Bräker was only 34 when he wrote this, he sounds like an old man. I think he was entering on a three-way spiritual struggle, in which traditional teaching was fighting on two fronts against the temptations of the flesh and also against a more liberal mindset which was beginning to establish itself in him. [Chronik, p 47]]

Christmas Day "O noble Child, how Thou dost cast shame on my pride and arrogance, how unlike am I to Thee, in Thy sight I am a poor worm of earth. Thou didst choose for Thyself a pure virgin, but I love impurity, Thou didst choose for Thyself poor and lowly parents, but I should have preferred to be born to rich and respected parents. Thou camest into a poor despised town, but I should have preferred to be in a great rich royal city, Thou camest to a bad lodging, yes, even to a stable, in the rawest time of the year, but I love beauty and comfort, warm rooms and summer weather, Thou hast preferred to be with animals, but I love elegant company, Thou hast lain in a hard crib on the hay, but I prefer to lie in a fine bedchamber, on a soft feather-bed, alas, who could write down all the differences, and yet Thou wast God and I but a poor clod of dust." [Chronik, p 50]

31st Dec. Bräker prays that he may be able to pay off his debts. [Chronik, p 51] He also mentions red lights in the sky again and many comets.

1771 aged 35

Autobiography 69

Two more years (1771 and 1772):

"Now the great winter closed in, the most dreadful that I ever yet endured. I now had five children and no income save for a little spinning. In my little business I was going down from week to week. I had a fair amount of yarn in stock, which I had bought at a high price, and so was bound to lose by it, no matter whether I sold it again as it was, or made it into cloth. I took the latter course, however, and put off the day when I would have to get rid of it, comforting myself continually with my old catchphrase: "Things will go better soon!" But in fact they

Contents