Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/23

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

danger. Both as a pastor and as a teacher, he rendered
himself very acceptable to those under his charge, and he
soon became reconciled to the life of isolation and self-
denial which his position necessarily imposed upon him.
  In 1823, he was married to Henrietta de Vries, a
woman of cultivated intellect and affectionate temper,
and the union appears to have been in all respects a
happy one.
  The terrible inundation of February, 1826, so ably de-
scribed in the twenty-third chapter of "The Hallig," de-
prived his flock not only of all their personal property,
but almost of the very soil on which their humble habita-
tions were reared. Biernatzki exerted himself most zeal-
ously in stimulating and promoting measures for their relief
among others by contributing the proceeds of a work en-
titled "Faith, a religious didactic poem," which he had
written some time before, and which now went through
two editions. So successful were his efforts, that his peo-
ple were furnished with the means of rebuilding their
church, their wharves, and their houses, and of replacing
their furniture and sheep ; and the whole congregation,
with the exception of a single couple, returned to the hal-
lig, though it had been within a very few years thrice laid
waste by the waves.
  In the autunm of 1825, Biernatzki was transferred to a
somewhat wider sphere of labor as pastor of a church in
the city of Friedrichstadt in Schleswig, a town founded in
1624 by Arminians from Holland, who had been compelled
to emigrate from their native country, by the resolutions
of the Synod of Dort. In this charge he was as successful
as he had been in his former humble parish, and was always
conspicuous for his zeal in the cause of education and
of philanthropy. His leisure hours were devoted to liter-
ary pursuits both general and professional, but all his