possible interest to anyone but myself, in order to introduce digressions that may be acceptable, although they hang on to my personal history by slender threads. So—here follow some.
Whilst we were at Dresden there was a dispute carried on between the Materialists and the Pietists relative to a certain peasant who performed wonderful cures. The former insisted that these cures were the result of animal magnetism, whereas the latter would have it that they were due to a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, giving miraculous powers such as were claimed by the Irvingites in England. The former pointed out that the man's mode of operation was that of stroking with the hand precisely as recommended by Mesmer; the latter quoted the promise: "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." They pointed out, what was the fact, that this man spent hours of night and day in prayer, and that he made no charge for the cures he effected. More than this, that he was very poor and yet he opened his house to receive fatherless children, nursed them in sickness, nourished and clothed them out of his poverty.
I do not think that my father concerned himself very much about the question. He put the matter from him bluntly : "Both are asses; let them bray at, and kick one another. Nevertheless, it is interesting to watch them, and wait for the result. Probably the cured are healed by the exercise of their imagination."
At that time, although there was mention made of the man's spiritualistic gifts, and of his commerce with ghosts, no great sensation was caused thereby till later, when the whole of his story was unfolded after that we had left, in fact did not reach its conclusion till 1846. As, however, there has of late been a recrudescence of the same question, Faith cures and Spiritualism, I think that it cannot be without interest and instruction to tell the story of Johann Friedrich Hänel.
Almost due south of Dresden on the fringe of the Erz Gebirge, a little to the east of the road and railway to the great mining town of Freiberg, is the village of Dieppoldiswald, as the crow flies not over twelve miles from the capital, but vastly removed from its inhabitants in culture and intelligence. Here lived a quiet, reserved peasant, named John Frederick Hänel, who was born on the 17th December, 1802. He was in his early days a
