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30th Mar. Things are going a little better: yarn and food are cheaper, the weather is good and crops are doing well. But many people, including Bräker, are still weak. [Chronik, p 75]

30th Apr. The trees are coming into leaf, but very slowly. Since yarn has gone down in price, confusion reigns in business, the wish for profit is everywhere. [Chronik, p 77]

1st May The maid at The Lion in Wattwil, delirious from illness, runs away in the night and is drowned. [Chronik, p 77]

3rd May Bräker hears a sermon about a "mob of godless lads", who broke into a house in Ulisbach and behaved "in a right sodomitical manner". [Chronik, p 77]

16th May Bräker is persuaded to vote for a man in the election for the Landrat [provincial council], in exchange for a glass of wine. On the 24th, a week later, he regrets this, and feels that those who offer bribes are unworthy of office. [Chronik, p 77]

30th June The weather has been good this month and the hay crop and other crops have done well. [Chronik, p 78]

3rd Aug. A severe hailstorm takes place in the Toggenburg, but the entry for 10th-15th Aug. repeats that the harvest has been the best for twenty years. [Chronik, p 80]

17th Sept. Bräker attends the meeting of the Landsgemeinde [provincial council] in Wattwil.
This council did not meet regularly but only when necessary for some special purpose. In this case it was to elect a successor to a recently deceased "Bannerherr", an officer who would lead the men of the Toggenburg in time of war.
The entry for the next day describes Bräker's pleasure at being present when "a whole province assembles in brotherly peace and unity, to renew the ancient liberties." But he adds that this is all vanity, and he should be comparing it to the great assembly of the world at the last day. [Chronik, pp 81-82]

10th Sept "According to how one takes it"
     "If one wants to relate or write down the sad and evil things in human life, there are a series of nothing but contrary circumstances and it seems indeed a dreary life. On the other hand when one wants to relate or write down the good and joyful things, it seems indeed a life like paradise. So it is just according to how one takes it, sad or happy. Indeed and in truth it is mingled and a changing life, now joy and now sorrow. Yet here it is called a vale of tears, and some insist that a Christian should live here poor and wretched. Others, however, say that a Christian is permitted to enjoy many kinds of worldly happiness. According to how one takes it. I hold by holy scripture and the example of the saints. Of them I find in my reading that they too have had two kinds of life, happy as well as sad. Also I cannot believe that God has granted all the lovely aspects of nature only to the godless, and has destined to the pious only the misery and hardship. [...]." [Voellmy, v 2 p 153]

28th Oct. "I cannot indeed boast that my natural inclinations are towards work, especially not to heavy work. It would be an easy thing for me to go through the world without doing much work. But for the sake of its physical and spiritual benefits I bring force to bear on my lazy flesh and compel it to work. For the benefit of useful, moderate work shines too brightly in my eyes for me not to pay attention to it. For God has given me my healthy, straight limbs so that I might use them to work. All those who do not do useful work live uselessly in this world and abuse the favourable time and their healthy limbs. There is hardly any virtue like industriousness where the reward follows so closely on its heels. [...] If now in many great cities there are many idlers, who mock the life of work, the pious, industrious workers will mock them on that Day. For they already have their reward and the latter have it still in expectation." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 157-158]
[This passage is taken from a longer entry in which Bräker demonstrates why work is good for man, besides being commanded by God. It shows some of his insight into his own character.]


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