Apparently his fault was the general one, of having miseducated the Prince, and introduced these French Literatures, foreign poisonous elements of thought and practice into the mind of his Pupil, which have ruined the young man.

For his Majesty perceives that there lies the source of it; that only total perversion of the heart and judgment, first of all, can have brought about these dreadful issues of conduct.

And indeed his Majesty understands, on credible information, that Deserter Fritz entertains very heterodox opinions; opinion on Predestination, for one;--which is itself calculated to be the very mother of mischief, in a young mind inclined to evil.

The heresy about Predestination, or the "FREIE GNADENWAHL (Election by Free Grace)," as his Majesty terms it, according to which a man is preappointed from all Eternity either to salvation or the opposite (which is Fritz's notion, and indeed is Calvin's, and that of many benighted creatures, this Editor among them), appears to his Majesty an altogether shocking one; nor would the whole Synod of Dort, or Calvin, or St.Augustine in person, aided by a Thirty-Editor power, reconcile his Majesty's practical judgment to such a tenet.

What! May not Deserter Fritz say to himself, even now, or in whatever other deeps of sin he may fall into, "I was foredoomed to it: how could I, or how can I, help it ?" The mind of his Majesty shudders, as if looking over the edge of an abyss.