That time of conflict contained within it an element of special and
peculiar meaning to myself. It brought before me my past life in its
many various stages of development; and especially the chief events
which had formed and influenced it, with their causes and their effects.
And it always seemed to me of particular importance to go back upon the
very earliest occurrences in my life. But of the actual matters of fact
of my earliest years very few traces now remained; for my mother, who
could have kept them in her memory for me, and from whom I could now
have learnt them, had died even before my life had really awakened.
Amongst the few relics remaining to me was a written address from my
godmother (the so-called Baptismal Letter), which she had sent me
immediately after my baptism, according to the Thuringian custom of the
time, as a sort of portion or dowry for my entrance into life. It had
come into my possession after the death of my father. This letter, of a
simple, Christian, tenderly religious, womanly soul, expressed in plain
and affecting terms the true relation of the young Christian to that to
which by his baptism he had become bound.
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