How lovable he was as father in his family! When his children stood before the table and looked hard at the fruit and the peaches, he said, "If anybody wants to see the image of one who rejoiceth in hope, he has here the real model. Oh, that we might look forward so cheerfully to the Judgment Day! Adam and Eve must have had much better fruit! Ours are nothing but crab-apples in contrast. And I think the serpent was then a most beautiful creature, kindly and gracious; it still wears its crown, but after the curse it lost its feet and beautiful body." Once he looked at his three-year-old son who was playing and talking to himself and said, "This child is like a drunken man. He does not know that he is alive, yet lives on safely and merrily and hops and jumps. Such children love to be in spacious apartments where they have room," and he took the child in his arms. "You are our Lord's little fool, subject to His mercy and forgiveness of sins, not subject to the Law. You have no fear; you are safe, nothing troubles you; the way you do is the uncorrupted way. Parents always like their youngest children best; my little Martin is my dearest treasure. Such little ones need their parents' care and love the most; therefore the love of their parents always reaches down to them. How Abraham must have felt when he had in mind to sacrifice his youngest and dearest son! Probably he said nothing to Sarah about it. That must have been a bitter journey for him." His favorite daughter Magdalena lay at the point of death and he lamented, "I love her truly, but, dear God, if it be Thy will to take her away to Thee, I shall gladly know that she is with Thee. Magdalena, my little daughter, you would like to stay here with your father, and yet you would be willing to go to the other Father?" Then the child said, "Yes, dear father, as God wills." When she was dying he fell on his knees before the bed and wept bitterly, and prayed that God would redeem her; and so she fell asleep under her father's hands, and when the people came to help lay out the corpse and spoke to the Doctor according to custom, he said, "I am cheerful in my mind, but the flesh is weak. This parting is hard beyond measure. It is strange to know she is certainly in peace and that it is well with her, and yet to be so sorrowful all the time."