Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia" BOOK VIII.
Page: 7

plucked as brand from the burning? "God, the Most High, give His
blessing on it, then!" concludes the paternal Majesty: "And as He
often, by wondrous guidances, strange paths and thorny steps, will
bring men into the Kingdom of Christ, so may our Divine Redeemer
help that this prodigal son be brought into His communion.
That his godless heart be beaten till it is softened and changed;
and so he be snatched from the claws of Satan. This grant us the
Almighty God and Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ and His passion
and death's sake! Amen!--I am, for the rest, your well-affectioned
King, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (WUSTERHAUSEN, 8th NOVEMBER, 1730)."
[Forster, i. 379.]


CROWN-PRINCE BEGINS A NEW COURSE.

It was Monday, 6th November, when poor Katte died. Within a
fortnight, on the second Sunday after, there has a Select
Commission, Grumkow, Borck, Buddenbrock, with three other
Soldiers, and the Privy Councillor Thulmeyer, come out to Custrin:
there and then, Sunday, November 19th, [Nicolai, exactest of men,
only that Documents were occasionally less accessible in his time,
gives (ANEKDOTEN, vi. 187), "Saturday, November 25th," as the day
of the Oath; but, no doubt, the later inquirers, Preuss (i. 56)
and others, have found him wrong in this small instance.] these
Seven, with due solemnity, administer the Oath (terms of Oath
conceivable by readers); Friedrich being found ready. He signs the
Oath, as well as audibly swears it: whereupon his sword is
restored to him, and his prison-door opened. He steps forth to the
Town Church with his Commissioners; takes the sacrament;
listens, with all Custrin, to an illusive Sermon on the subject;
"text happily chosen, preacher handling it well." Text was Psalm
Seventy-seventh, verse eleventh (tenth of our English version),
And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember the
years of the right hand of the Host High; or, as
Luther's version more intelligibly gives it, This I have
to suffer; the right hand of the Most High can change all. italic> Preacher (not Muller but another) rose gradually into
didactic pathos; Prince, and all Custrin, were weeping, or near