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._ Preacher (not Muller but another) rose gradually into didactic pathos; Prince, and all Custrin, were weeping, or near weeping, at the close of the business.

[Preuss, i.

56.] Straight from Church the Prince is conducted, not to the Fortress, but to a certain Town Mansion, which he is to call his own henceforth, under conditions: an erring Prince half liberated, and mercifully put on proof again.

His first act here is to write, of his own composition, or helped by some official hand, this Letter to his All-serenest Papa; which must be introduced, though, except to readers of German who know the "DERE" (TheirO), "ALLERDURCHLAUCHTIGSTER," and strange pipe-clay solemnity of the Court-style, it is like to be in great part lost in any translation:-- "CUSTRIN, 19th November, 1730.
"ALL-SERENEST AND ALL-GRACIOUSEST FATHER,--To your Royal Majesty, my All-graciousest Father, have,"-- I.E.

"I have," if one durst write the "I,"-- "by my disobedience as TheirO [YourO] subject and soldier, not less than by my undutifulness as TheirO Son, given occasion to a just wrath and aversion against me.