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 their temperance the extravagant, by their philanthropy the avaricious. Had their teachings spread as rapidly until now as they did in the beginning when people from the whole country flocked to them; had the Brethren not been exterminated by sword and fire, there would perhaps have been perfect equality among us; there would have been no poor, no forsaken, no wretched; we should have all been brothers and sisters.”

“If your former words were lightning that at once rent asunder a cloud beyond which a harmonious, ideal scene dawned upon me, your words now resemble the aurora which is to me an omen of everlasting light. I have never begged for anything yet, but I beg you now not to stop until you have told me all about the Brethren. Some other time, in return, I will tell you what I suffered, what distressed me, what drove me to this wilderness. Because you have led me to the sacred gates of an ideal world which I had never imagined, and yet the lack of which, I know now, made me grieve, I forgive you the false suspicions