- the poor boy of the humbletown of Marbach? Ah, indeed, there was no one who thought or supposed,not even the old church bell which had been the first to sound andchime for him, that he would be the first to sing the beautiful songof "The Bell." The boy grew apace, and the world advanced with him.
  While he was yet a child, his parents removed from Marbach, andwent to reside in another town; but their dearest friends remainedbehind at Marbach, and therefore sometimes the mother and her sonwould start on a fine day to pay a visit to the little town. The boywas at this time about six years old, and already knew a great manystories out of the Bible, and several religious psalms. While seatedin the evening on his little cane-chair, he had often heard his fatherread from Gellert's fables, and sometimes from Klopstock's grand poem,"The Messiah." He and his sister, two years older than himself, hadoften wept scalding tears over the story of Him who suffered deathon the cross for us all.
  On his first visit to Marbach, the town appeared to have changedbut very little, and it was not far enough away to be forgotten. Thehouse, with its pointed gable, narrow windows, overhanging walls andstories, projecting one beyond another, looked just the same as informer times. But in the churchyard there were several new graves; andthere also, in the grass, close by the wall, stood the old churchbell! It had been taken down from its high position, in consequence ofa crack in the metal which prevented it from ever chiming again, and anew bell now occupied its place. The mother and son were walking inthe churchyard when they discovered the old bell, and they stood stillto look at it. Then the mother reminded her little boy of what auseful bell this had been for many hundred years. It had chimed forweddings and for christenings; it had tolled for funerals, and to givethe alarm in case of fire. With every event in the life of man thebell had made its voice heard. His mother also told him how thechiming of that old bell had once filled her heart with joy andconfidence, and that in the midst of the sweet tones her child hadbeen given to her. And the boy gazed on the large, old bell with thedeepest interest. He bowed his head over it and kissed it, old, thrownaway, and cracked as it was, and standing there amidst the grass andnettles. The boy never forgot what his mother told him, and thetones of the old bell reverberated in his heart till he reachedmanhood. In such sweet remembrance was the old bell cherished by theboy, who grew up in poverty to be tall and slender, with a freckledcomplexion and hair almost red; but his eyes were clear and blue asthe deep sea, and what was his career to be? His career was to begood, and his future life enviable. We find him taking high honorsat the military school in the division commanded by the member of afamily high in position, and this was an honor, that is to say, goodluck. He wore gaiters, stiff collars, and powdered hair, and by thishe was recognized; and, indeed, he might be known by the word ofcommand- "March! halt! front!"
  The old church bell had long been quite forgotten, and no oneimagined it would ever again be sent to the melting furnace to make itas it was before. No one could possibly have foretold this. Equallyimpossible would it have been to believe that the tones of the oldbell still echoed in the heart of the boy from Marbach; or that oneday they would ring out loud enough and strong enough to be heardall over the world. They had already been heard in the narrow spacebehind the school-wall, even above the deafening sounds of "March!