Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/74

 “Finish your school-books as quickly as you can,” they said, “and then devote yourself to your clerical duties.” So Comenius set to work once more, and this time in earnest. There was still a good deal to be done. The Janua had to be completely rewritten, in accordance with a new principle of arrangement, and the composition of the grammar and lexicon demanded patience. He had hoped from assistance from Kinner, but for the moment Kinner was detained in Schleswig-Holstein, and, though we find him working with Comenius later on, he seems to have been partly engaged on a Didactic of his own.

De Geer was mollified by Comenius’ letter and by his evident intention to complete his task. At the beginning of 1646 he sent him 500 thaler for himself and the same sum for the Brethren. At the end of the year we find Comenius in Sweden, where a commission of three men examined the school-books, now almost completed, and reported favourably on them. It only remained to put the finishing touches.

But poverty and trouble pursued Comenius relentlessly. Any money that came into his hands soon found its way to the pockets of the needy scholars and exiles who clustered round him. At this time he was especially anxious to aid Ritschel, a former collaborator, now in great distress. Himself in need of assistance, he made urgent applications on Ritschel’s behalf to the Reformed Church in Belgium, and managed to collect the sum of 50 thaler. Importuning for charity, even though he himself was not its object, was greatly against the grain; “Better die than beg,” he wrote to Hartlib.

In former years Hartlib might have helped him, but he had already spent the greater part of his fortune in the promotion of experiments of various kinds, and, though