The boy was but a year old when his father died, and the discipline of such a restless spirit as he exhibited in early childhood seems to have been a task almost beyond the poor widow’s powers.  An incorrigible spirit of mischief possessed him.  He was an arrant scape-grace, plundering cupboards, gardens, and orchards, lifting the gates of mill-races by night, and playing a thousand other practical and not always innocent jokes.  Neither counsel nor punishment availed, and the entire weight of his good qualities, as a counterbalance, barely sufficed to prevent him from losing the patrons whom his bright, eager, inquisitive mind attracted.  Something of this was undoubtedly congenital, and there are indications that the strong natural impulse, held in check only by a powerful will and a watchful conscience, was the torment of his life.  In his later years, when he filled the posts of Ecclesiastical Counsellor and Professor in the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe, the phrenologist Gall, in a scientific seance, made an examination of his head.  “A most remarkable development of”——­, said Gall, abruptly breaking off, nor could he be induced to complete the sentence.  Hebel, however, frankly exclaimed,—­“You certainly mean the thievish propensity.  I know I have it by nature, for I continually feel its suggestions.”  What a picture is presented by this confession!  A pure, honest, and honorable life, won by a battle with evil desires, which, commencing with birth, ceased their assaults only at the brink of the grave!  A daily struggle, and a daily victory!

Hebel lost his mother in his thirteenth year, but was fortunate in possessing generous patrons, who contributed enough to the slender means he inherited to enable him to enter the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe.  Leaving this institution with the reputation of a good classical scholar, he entered the University of Erlangen as a student of theology.  Here his jovial, reckless temperament, finding a congenial atmosphere, so got the upperhand that he barely succeeded in passing the necessary examination, in 1780.  At the end of two years, during which time he supported himself as a private tutor, he was ordained, and received a meagre situation as teacher in the Academy at Loerrach, with a salary of one hundred and forty dollars a year!  Laboring patiently in this humble position for eight years, he was at last rewarded by being transferred to the Gymnasium at Carlsruhe, with the rank of Sub-Deacon.  Hither, the Markgraf Frederick of Baden, attracted by the warmth, simplicity, and genial humor of the man, came habitually to listen to his sermons.  He found himself, without seeking it, in the path of promotion, and his life thenceforth was a series of sure and moderate successes.  His expectations, indeed, were so humble that they were always exceeded by his rewards.  When Baden became a Grand Duchy, with a constitutional form of government, it required much persuasion to induce him to accept the rank of