This story, allowing for the exercise of fancy in its construction, isonly too faithful a picture of German student life and habits, with itsignorance or disregard of the Christianity taught us in the Gospel, itsonly half-concealed leaning towards the ancient systems of religionproperly known as heathen, and its careless indifference to human life.The translator has ventured to deviate slightly from the original in oneor two places in order to avoid giving an unnecessary shock to thesusceptibilities of readers trained and educated in principles widelydiffering from these.--_Transl_.