ptJll^l 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV741 .B94 1856a 
 
 Signs of the times: letters to Ernst Mor 
 
 ill 
 
 oiln 
 
 3 1924 029 332 537 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029332537 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES: 
 
 LETTERS TO ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 
 
 DANGERS TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 
 
 PRESENT STATE OP THE WORLD. 
 
 CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAS BDNSEN, 
 
 IXD.. DlCL., D.PH. 
 
 l^BASBLATED FBOM THE GEBHAN BT 
 
 SUSANNA WINKWORTH, 
 
 AITTHOB OP "THK T.ivR OP NIEBUHB^" ETC. 
 
 NEW YOEK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 329 TO 335 PEARL STREET. 
 
 1856. 
 
25th op SEPTEMBER, 1855. 
 
 THE TEIOBNTENABT 
 
 RELIGIOUS PEACE OP AUGSBURG. 
 
 ** X PTTB SI MUOVE." 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Had the name of the author of the work now before 
 us been as unknown in England as it is well known 
 and honored, a suflGicient reason for the present 
 translation would still be found in the fact of the 
 importance attached to the work by public opinion 
 in Germany. As an illustration of this it is enough 
 to mention that the first edttion of 2,500 copies was 
 disposed of within a month from publication, and a 
 third edition was required within three months; while 
 the author was requested to become a candidate for 
 the representation of the capital, and of Magdeburg, 
 and actually elected in the latter city, though he 
 had in both cases refused to be put in nomination. 
 Some of the questions of which this book treats 
 have, indeed, an immediate and painful practical 
 interest in Germany, such as, happily for us, they do 
 not possess in England; but the general principles 
 upon which their decision ought to rest, are as 
 important to us as to the author's fellow-countrymen ; 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 and it affects the permanent well-being of our Church 
 and State, no less than theirs, that just and clear 
 conceptions on these points should be generally 
 preyalent among the people at large. I think it 
 may conduce to this result to contemplate these 
 subjects in pictures drawn from other lands and 
 foreign social conditions, where consequently our 
 perceptions may be undimmed by the mists of 
 personal and party prejudice that hang around 
 our own horizon; and I believe that we may learn 
 some useful lessons from beholding the logical 
 development and working out of ideas which have 
 their root in a temper and spirit not wholly extinct 
 here, if existing for the most part latently, or even 
 unconsciously. 
 
 It is possible that the historical details respecting 
 the internal development of the Prussian Church, 
 into which the author enters at considerable length 
 in the last letter, may be found somewhat dry 
 by those living at so great a distance, physically 
 and morally, from their scene. Indeed, some of the 
 notices of the original which have appeared in our 
 reviews, have recommended that in an English 
 translation this account should be greatly abridged. 
 After careful consideration, however, it seemed to 
 me most advisable to give the work entire; for 
 though some of .the subordinate questions it treats 
 
PREFACE. yii 
 
 of may not directly concern ourselves, it can 
 scarcely be without interest to us to study even 
 the special aspects assumed by ecclesiastical affairs 
 in a nation more closely related to us than any 
 other in the Eastern hemisphere of our globe, by 
 affinities of race, religion, and mental culture. The 
 partial alienation that has of late sprung up between 
 us ought to be solely attributed to its true cause 
 in the recent or former wrong-doings of a few 
 individual politicians on both sides of the water, 
 and not to be suffered to deaden the natural 
 sympathies of the two peoples ; nor should the 
 hatred to England exhibited by a mere clique make 
 us forget, as it has sometimes almost seemed to 
 do, the thousand ties of common interests and 
 affections that bind us to our Prussian brothers. 
 The reception that they have given to this work of 
 Chevalier Bunsen's, with its open declaration of his 
 political views and sympathies, is but one proof among 
 many that they are animated by an utterly different 
 temper toward us from that displayed by some of 
 their leading men for the time being. May the book 
 prove one contribution toward our reunion. 
 
 It is perhaps necessary to explain, that in the 
 following pages, a few passages have been somewhat 
 modified or curtailed in deference to the requirements 
 of style ; but I believe that in no case has the general 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 sense of a passage been affected by these alterations, 
 for which I have received the author's Sanction. They 
 are but few, and in all instances where a philosophical 
 idea was concerned, it has been my endeavor t» 
 adhere as closely as possible to the exact meaning 
 of the original. 
 
 S. W- 
 
 Manchestee, February 29th, 1856. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 FASH 
 
 SiQNS OF THE Times. — T!he Spirit of Association and the Hie- 
 rarchy — Freedom of Conscience and Persecution . . • . 13 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 The Eve of the Festival of St. 'Winfred— Bishop Ketteler's Pas- 
 toral — ^The German Kation and the Anglo-Saxons. . . 49 
 
 LETTER III. 
 The JabUee Festival — Bonifiice, his forerunners and successors . 61 
 
 LETTER JV. 
 
 The Sermon on the Tiara by the Bishop of Strasbourg, and the , 
 Manifesto of the Assembly of German Bishops at 'Wiirzburg, 
 in the Autumn of 1848 . 8T 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The History of the Dispute between the Church and Govern- 
 ment in Baden, from its commencement in 1853 up to the 
 
 present time .110 
 
 1* 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Conflict between the Civil Legislation and the Canon Law 
 of Borne, in its hearing upon Marriage, Education, and 
 Property . . . ^ 149 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Tbo Conflict of the Priesthood with Conscience ; and the Recent 
 Persecutions 162 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Historioal Retrospect and Solution of our Difficulties on the basis 
 of a truly Christian Polity 191 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Observations on Stahl's Dbctrine of Tolerance, as regarded from 
 an Historical and Juridical Point of View .... 243 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Objections to Stahl's Doctrine of the Church and the Union, in 
 its bearing on Law, on Religious Liberty, and on Free In- 
 
 quhy 2Y4 
 
 History of the tTnion 308 
 
 A Summary of our Inquiries with respect to the state of 
 Protestant Christianity in Prussia and Germany gener- 
 ally 354 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 The Significance of the Two Signs of our Times . . . 865 
 
TABLEOFCONTENTS. xi 
 
 APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 A. 
 An Historical and Juridical Account of the Contest in Baden, 
 up to June 1854 . 382 
 
 B. 
 
 A Project of Law proposed hj Professor Wamkonig, concerning 
 the external affairs of the Church in the Province of the Upper 
 Rhine . ... 401 
 
 APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 
 
 Documents eelatujo to the Recent Pbhseoutions. 
 
 A. 
 
 The Persecution of Domenieo Ceechetti in Tuscany . . .404 
 
 B. 
 The Persecution of Johannes Evangelista Borczynsld in Prague. 409 
 
 C. 
 The most recent Legislation of Austria on Ecclesiastical Affairs . 417 
 
 D. 
 Report of the Recent Persecution of a Protestant Father in 
 France . . 41» 
 
 APPENDIX TO LETTER VIII. 
 
 The Article of the Prussian Constitution of 1850, touching Eccle- 
 siastical Affairs 421 
 
 APPENDIX TO LETTER IX. 
 
 Extract from the Transactions of the Evangelical Kirchentag, 
 held in Berlin, in Septemher, 1853 423 
 
XII TABLB OF CONTENTS , 
 
 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 PASZ 
 A. 
 
 Boyal Cabinet Order of 2tth September, ISIT . . . . 42T 
 
 B. 
 Boyal Cabinet Order of July, 1834 429 
 
 0. 
 Cabinet Order oftheeth of March, 1852 430 
 
 D. 
 Cabinet Order of the 12th of July, 1853 482 
 
 E. 
 
 Eoyal Cabinet Letter to the Pastors of the Wittenberg Confer- 
 ence, October 11th, 1853 . . . . ' . . . 434 
 
 P. 
 
 Bvangelloal Consensus, as agreed upon by the General Synod of 
 Prussia of 1846 436 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 SIGNS OP THE TIMES — THE SPIRIT OP ASSOCIATION 
 AND THE HIERARCHY — FREEDOM OP CONSCIENCE 
 AND PERSECUTION. 
 
 Chablottenbbeg, near HBiDELBBEa, 
 , let June, 1865. 
 
 My Dear and Honored Friend, 
 
 What mean the Signs of the Times ? Is it ebb 
 or flood with us? Are we in Germany and Europe 
 going forward or backward ? Which will triumph : 
 Church or State, priesthood or people ? 
 
 So have thousands and millions asked since the end 
 of the last and the beginning of the present century ; 
 but never more Tiniversally and more anxiously than 
 since 1848 — except, since 1851. Every one feels that 
 the most opposite extremes — ^indeed, apparently, at 
 least, the most fundamental principles of truth — are 
 standing face to face, in an attitude of absolute defiance ; 
 that decisive conflicts are preparing; that a new order of 
 things is shaping itself. But opinions are everywhere 
 divided as to what is destined to remain at the close, or 
 whether perchance that close may prove to be the end, 
 
14 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 if not of the world, yet of the existing civilization and 
 social arrahgements of Europe. The fears of one party 
 are the hopes of the other ; selfishness and passion not 
 only step boldly into the foreground, but bear unblushr 
 ingly on their brow the sign of the highest and holiest. 
 The incredible in one form or other appears to all parties 
 and peoples credible, nay, the impossible, probable ; few 
 or none of the existing powers or faiths are held to be 
 secure. 
 
 Now wherever the free expression of thought is per- 
 mitted, and the popular sentiment finds its organs, these 
 contradictory principles, these doubts, this sense of anx- 
 iety, are clearly visible. But where this freedom of 
 utterance does not exist, or popular feeling has not as 
 yet colored the literature, there reigns a certain torpor, 
 which to many seems merely a symptom of exhaustion 
 and acceptance of the faits accomplis, but to others the 
 most threatening sign of the times; inasmuch as none 
 can tell how far it is a token of life or death, of indiffer- 
 ence or despair, of exhaustion or of energetic and only 
 temporarily repressed indignation. That new delusions 
 have been detected, has not made old lies more credible. 
 Confidence is demanded, but is not given : the duty of 
 faith is preached, but its preachers find no faith, even 
 when they and their sermon deserve it. Add to this, 
 that the mistrustful are by no means all unbelievers, 
 still more rarely thoughtless persons ; and that though 
 the exclusives may be here and there the most influential, 
 they are nowhere the majority of the people, nor yet the 
 leaders of learning and science. Those despairing views 
 of the world prevailing in Southern Europe, which have 
 found voice in the immortal lyrics and meditations of the 
 noble Leopardi, seem to be invading Germany ; may the 
 causes perchance be the same ? 
 
TTNIVEESAL ANXIETY. . 15 
 
 So far, however, we find a firm belief in the moral 
 order of the unirerse, wherever free speech and free 
 thought are not yet stifled. ' But it is equally certain 
 that we find even there, though the feeling may be less 
 predominant, a vague sense of uneasiness, and a gloomy 
 pondering over the signs of the times and the interpreta- 
 tion of prophecy, which paralyzes all energy for united 
 action just among the best people. For we can not 
 recognize as interpretations of those signs, the opinions 
 of such as believe in no moral order of the world at all, 
 nor yet of such as are only capable of regarding it as it 
 concerns themselves personally, or the class to which 
 they belong. Those who deny any sort of moral govern- 
 ment, see in the phenomena only chance — only the con- 
 sequences fortuitously produced by particular persons or 
 events. The latter, however, who judge all events and 
 actions by the standard of their own advantage or their 
 own selfish aspirations, do not really believe in the 
 superhuman, truly moral, and divinely true element 
 that lies behind all phenomena. The one class are the 
 theoretical, the other, the practical deniers of God. 
 
 Such a state of things is certainly very similar to that 
 in which the Roman Caesars ascended the throne of the 
 world's empire. But there is now no universal empire ; 
 and yet to have overlooked this circumstance is but the 
 most pardonable error and the smallest sin of the shallow 
 and sanctimonious writer Romieux, who three years ago 
 delighted so many of " the pious" with his " Age of the 
 Caesars," by the background of his picture — the hie- 
 rarchy ! " 
 
 There is no doubt but these two sorts of unbelievers, 
 together with the unenlightened students of prophecy 
 above mentioned, constitute in many countries, at this 
 moment, the great majority, although in various propor- 
 
16 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tions. With regard to our own country, we may still 
 thankfully acknowledge that despairing views of the 
 world have neither got a hold on the mass of the people, 
 nor yet on our learned men, or only in exceptional cases 
 through personal discontent. The German nation has a 
 firmer faith in the moral order- of the universe than any 
 other that I know of. Our notable men of learning and 
 of faith still to this day see in the facts of human con- 
 sciousness, as in those of the history of our race, the 
 confirmation of that instinctive faith of man in the moral 
 government of God ; and find in the teachings of the 
 Gospel, the same doctrine that is taught by all earnest 
 and thoughtful contemplation of the universe. 
 
 Nevertheless, the prevailing mood of men's minds 
 throughout , Europe is everywhere, and not only on the 
 Continent, decidedly that of uneasiness. Hence it is 
 not to be wondered at that many seek to explain this 
 feeling by their view of recent events or those of a more 
 distant past ; and that still more avail themselves of it 
 to further the spread of the views to which they have 
 specially devoted their efforts. Thus we encounter 
 almost daily some new phraseology which promises to 
 explain the state of the world and men's minds by means 
 of some new or old formula, dishonest men who puff 
 these nostrums, simpletons who believe them, and a still 
 greater number of triflers who pretend to believe them. 
 The Mormonites among the Sects, and the Rohmers 
 among the CagUostros, are not altogether isolated phe- 
 nomena. Hence, too, it is no wonder that we see the 
 delusions and* the sophistry which prevailed in the period 
 of the Restoration appearing again in. fuller force and 
 with bolder face. 
 
 How childlike appear the delusions of De Bonald and 
 Le Maistre, of Gorres and Friedrich Schlegel, compared 
 
PEETALENT DELUSIONS. If 
 
 to those of the writers in the Univers and the Tablet, 
 and many pastoral letters 1 How ingenuous and siriiply 
 pedantic appears even the sophistry of Adam Miiller and 
 of Haller, compared to the fecility with which their 
 successors and spiritual comrades in the Kreuz Zeitung, 
 or the historico-political periodicals, promulgate false- 
 hood as fact, a paradox as a truth. And how powerfully 
 are they seconded by the band of their juridical abettors, 
 who turn necessity into a virtue, and force into right ; 
 and by the unholy zeal of notable pulpit orators, who 
 paint despotism as law and order, servitude as freedom, 
 but, above all, scoff at the divine spark of reason within 
 us as godless, and crush down the conscience of the 
 individual as rebellion ! Are hot these things signs of 
 the latter days? 
 
 And what, with all their apparent success, do they 
 really bring to pass ? That the great mass of society in 
 Germany close their minds all the more against any 
 kind of mystery as mystification, and reject every means 
 of exciting the religious feeling, because they regard 
 them all but as so many attempts at galvanization on the 
 part of the police. Once for all, the people stay away 
 from church out of sheer aversion to a police-church. 
 And can the exclusives believe that the people will flock 
 into their church, when they openly confess that the 
 great mass of the town population and the cultivated 
 classes must be excluded from it, or at least given up as 
 unbelievers ? That this feeling is rankling in the hearts 
 of the people is one cause, too, of the morbid political 
 excitement, or torpor, reigning in so many quarters. To 
 most politicians, as to the masses, for this year past, all 
 has been trembling in the balance with Sebastopol. 
 That city is, to the one side, the fateful Troy, that must 
 be taken at all price ; to the other the fateful Palladium, 
 
18 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 on whose rescue hangs the future of the -world and the 
 preservation of the conservative element in our father- 
 land. Both these politicians and the masses forget, 
 meanwhile, the realities around them, and overlook, or 
 positively despise, the opportunity now afforded for use- 
 ful, calm, unceasing, durable, if not brilliant and stirring 
 action and reform. But "the Oriental question will 
 decide our future; the elections will turn upon that." 
 We look on at the strife; our old men sulk, and our 
 young men — smoke cigars ! To lay the hands in the 
 lap counts fo» wisdom, and is perhaps abnegation. The 
 great body of the nation is silent. But never could the 
 maxim of the jurists, " Silence gives consent," be less 
 correctly applied to the state of men's minds. 
 
 But we, too, my dearest friend, have always held with 
 those who believe firmly in a moral order of the universe, 
 and think that we are speaking aa becomes Christians 
 when we express our conviction, that both that order and 
 the mental freedom taught by the Gospel have been ac- 
 knowledged by the wise men of all ages and nations, and 
 are attested by the world's history no less than by con- 
 science. 
 
 You, my honored friend, our national seer of ninety, 
 have from the beginning of this century held up before 
 us of the past generation, as well as those of the present 
 — the third that has listened to your sacred songs of 
 faith and freedom, of patriotism and humanity — ^the 
 torch of God's Word and' human experience on the path 
 of Christian and truly German faith in Providence. The 
 great men under whose guidance Brandis, and I, and 
 many others, some of whom have now departed, while 
 others are still left, entered on active life and the 
 world of realities — I mean Niebuhr and Schleiermacher, 
 especially — were snatched away from us at the begin- 
 
PAST BXPERTENCB. 19 
 
 ning of the stormy period. But we ourselves have 
 abeady left behind us a forty years' pilgrimage through 
 a checkered and observant life, and we have passed these 
 years of sojourn, not at home among books and scholars, 
 but among various nations, and in divers spheres of 
 activity. And this we can say truly of ourselves and 
 our fellows in age and spirit, that we have striven not to 
 live unworthily of the teaching and the solemn baptism 
 of 1813 ; have never and nowhere denied our German 
 sentiments, or despaired of the future of our nation or 
 of humanity. Our first love is not quenched ; God be 
 thanked ! not one of us has suffered shipwreck in this 
 faith. All the more do we unitedly rejoice in your 
 wondrous youthful freshness and courage; but we esteem 
 you yet more happy in the absence of all bitterness in 
 your conversation or writing, notwithstanding all you 
 have suflFered from injustice and disappointed hopes. In 
 possessing such a temper of mind you have borne off the 
 high prize, the truly divine jewel of a Christian spirit ' 
 and genuine philosophy from the warfare of life. You 
 might have responded to the arrogance of the successful 
 party of the last six years, as you answered in your 
 " Nothgedrungenen Berichte,"* the insolent and shame- 
 less accuser of 1846, in the words of Goethe's Prome- 
 theus : 
 
 " Musst mir meine Erde 
 Dooh lassen stehen, 
 Und meine Hiitte die du nicht gebaut, 
 
 * " Nbthffednmgenen, Berichte;" — "Statement extorted by 
 Necessity," is the title of a book published by Arndt, in 1846 — 
 an account of the persecutions he had sufferred on the plea of so- 
 called "demagogical intrigues." It was "extorted" because some 
 evil-disposed person had, in 1846, again revived insinuations 
 against him, six years after the king had reinstated Amdt in his 
 professorship. — 2V. 
 
20 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Und meinen Herd, 
 Um dessea Grlut 
 
 Du mich beneidest 
 
 Walmtest du etwa, 
 Ich sollte das Leben hassen, 
 In Wiisten^fiiehen, 
 J "Wefl nioht alle 
 
 Bliitentriiume reiften ?"* 
 
 But not alone have you tamed the Titan-nature in 
 your breast, but the love of God and our brethren has, at 
 all times, found an echo there. In the sultry atmosphere 
 of 1846,1 which weighed heavily on us all, you say : 
 
 * These verses may be ratter rougUy translated as follows : 
 
 " Yet must thou leave me 
 My earth still standing, 
 
 And this my dwelling which thou didst not build, 
 And my bright hearth 
 Whose ruddy glow 
 
 Thou enviest me 
 
 Deemedst thou ever 
 
 That I should hate my life 
 
 And flee to deserts. 
 
 Because not every 
 
 Dream-blossom of youth bore fruit?" 
 
 t The universal feeling of discontent, of the instability of 
 pohtical powers in Germany, had grown to such an extent in 
 1845, that the year may well be compared to the calm preceding 
 a storm. Few things happened to denote it to the vulgar eye. 
 Tet it could be discovered in the character of several bread-riots; 
 in the habit which then gained ground, even among men in office, 
 of ridiculing and regretting every existing institution ; in the pro- 
 gress of power made by the provincial Diets in Prussia ; in the 
 threatening language held in all the "constitutional" States of 
 Grermany; in the resuscitation of naiional feelings which had 
 Iain dormant since 1815. Hence the immense excitement which 
 accompanied every Hberal movement in Italy soon after, and the 
 strong pohtical agitation produced by the King of Prussia's con- 
 voking the first United Diet in February, 1847. — Tr. 
 
THE TRUSTWORTHY SEER. 21 
 
 " Komm Q-ottj komm &ott vom Himmel, 
 
 TJnd sieh in G-naden drein : 
 Durchleuchte das G-ewimmel 
 
 Der Nacht mit Sonnenschein ; 
 Entwirre die Verwirrung, 
 
 Die ohne Licht und Rath, 
 Stets defer in Verirrung, 
 
 Verfahren hat den Pfad."* 
 
 And when, in the year 1851, many generous-hearted 
 and brave Angles and Hessians were forced to seek a 
 new home, and honorable grave, beyond the ocean, 
 though your deep grief broke out in the song — 
 
 " mein Deutschland, will dein cTammer?" 
 
 — yet how does it conclude ? 
 
 " Still I 03 rufet, du sollst beten, 
 
 Christ, sollst lieben, glauben, hoffen, 
 Sperrt sich eng die deutsche Welt auch 
 
 Ewig steht der Himmel offen I 
 Drum lass AUes durch einander 
 
 Fallen, stiirzen, krachen, breohen: 
 Droben, glaubet, waltet Einer, 
 
 Der wird letztes UrtheU sprechen."+ 
 
 * " Come, Grod, from Heaven, oh, come I 
 
 In grace look down on us. 
 And let Thy sunshine pierce the gloom 
 
 Wher-e we are '-wildered thus ; 
 Guide us from out the maze. 
 
 Where, reft of wisdom, light. 
 Our path through wilds of error strays 
 
 Still further from the right." 
 
 t " Hush I it cries, and pray, Christian, 
 Thou must hope, believe, and love ; 
 Shut's the German world against thee, 
 Open still stands Heayen above I 
 
22 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Nor haye you, since then, lost your trustful', joyful 
 confidence. Where could this feeling be more freshly 
 or youthfully expressed than in "your last sopg, -written 
 . for the blessing of the colors, last November, Trhich is 
 now lying before me, in your own beloved handwriting ? 
 You, who have seen Frederic the Great and his heroes, 
 sang in your eighty-fifth year, as you were nailing to 
 its staff the ensign of the "Union of Veterans" of Bonn-?- ' 
 
 " Das meint nioht Treue festzunageln, 
 
 Die muss duroli Gott gefestet sein, 
 Dasa, wenn die ScMaohtenwetter hageln, 
 
 Und Blei und Eisen niederspein, 
 Die Fahne fliege als ein Zeichen, 
 
 Der Bhre Pfand, der Treue Pfand, 
 Dass }n dem Kampf kein Mann will weichen, 
 
 Piir Konig, Gott, und Vaterland. 
 
 Und nun das hochste Hoch der Alten, 
 
 Zum Himmel steige das Gebet 1 
 Wir woUen feste Treue halten, 
 
 Wo diese Pahne vor uns weht I 
 Und muss sie einst im Pelde fliegen 
 
 Den stolzen Preuszenadlerflug, 
 So bleibe : Fallen oder Siegen 
 
 Der Veteranen Ehrenspruch.* 
 
 Then let all tMngs in confusion, 
 Fall and sink, and crack and break: 
 
 One, believe it, rules still o'er us. 
 Who the final word shall speak 1" 
 
 * " 'Tis not our truth that here we nail. 
 
 That must be done by God on high. 
 That when the battle's deadly hail 
 
 And iron storms around us fly. 
 Our flag may tell to all the field 
 
 The truth and honor of our band. 
 That in the fight we ne'er will yield. 
 
 For King, and God, and Fatherland. 
 
 ***** )H 
 
LAWS OP GEOWTH AND DECAY. 23 
 
 Concerning the politics of the day, and the attitude 
 of our country toward the great struggle between the 
 East and West, we have exchanged few words. Con- 
 scious of a perfect understanding with each other in 
 regard to the main point, each has allowed the other to 
 shape out his own course. It was, therefore, very nat- 
 ural that my heart should be attracted toward you, of 
 all others, when, at the close of the &st year after my 
 return to my native land, I looked around me, consider- 
 ing whether the fitting season had arrived to discuss the 
 portents of the age with friends and fellow-thinkers in 
 the presence of the public. For you are our oldest and 
 most trustworthy seer, and the signs of the times, and 
 their true and false interpreters, are a never-failing 
 subject of reflection and discourse with you. Of all stiU 
 left to us of the "neponeg avOpamoi" of this age, none 
 has a more liviug conviction — ^to none is it a more self- 
 evident feet — ^that the belief in an Eternal Love as the 
 foundation of the universe, is the source of all wisdom as 
 of all true piety and godliness. With both of us, also, 
 it is a fixed conviction that the highest conflicting ques- 
 tions of the day, and, in particular, the question whether 
 the present condition of afiairs is tending toward rejuven- 
 escence, or decay and dissolution, can not receive any 
 decision except in accordance with those eternal laws by 
 which the universe is ruled. And what these laws are 
 can not be a matter of dispute among those who, in the 
 
 " And now your last and loudest shout, 
 
 And let your prayer to Heaven arise I 
 Our truth diall ne'er be stained with doubt 
 
 Where'er this baimer o'er us flies I 
 And when it tries in deed once more 
 
 The Prussian eagle's glorious flight, 
 Our veteran's motto, as of yore, 
 
 Is ' death or victory' in the fight !" — 3V. 
 
24 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 light of this feith, have studied the course of human 
 events with Moses and the prophets, with Solon and 
 Herodotus. 
 
 We may, perhaps, sum up these laws most simply in 
 thefoUowing manner. Every human institution perishes 
 in one of two ways. In the first place, when the special 
 principle of life embodied in it dies out because it has 
 run its course, and some higher development is demanded 
 by the order of God's providence ; but it perishes too 
 when its representatives transgress the limits appointed 
 to man, which circumstance, indeed^, often coincides with 
 that former inward decay. Quern Deus vult perdere, 
 prius dementat, says a wise old proverb ; and the 
 homely German saying, Pride comes before a fall, 
 utters the mystery of ancient tragedy. 
 
 For every thing human is subject to conditions. Nay, 
 divine truth itself, when applied 'to definitive human 
 relations, is only true under conditions, and within the 
 limits they draw around it ; but man, by reason of his 
 egotism, is ever striving to get free of all conditions. 
 
 The first sort of death may be compared to the natural 
 death of an individual; the second, to suicide, and, in 
 general, to madness. It is this second, self-incurred 
 doom which is the source of the tragic element in history, 
 and which constitutes the magic power of the poetic crea- 
 tions of Eschylus and Sophocles, of Shakspeare and 
 Goethe. Even the greatest and most glorious human 
 energy and might are forfeit to fate as conditioned, and 
 go to destruction, when they try to become absolute, and 
 as such think and act. Thus the instinctive striving 
 after unconditional expansion has its source not in the 
 God-appoiated destiny of humanity in itself, but in the 
 blindness of the selfish element in our nature, which 
 desires to make the Me into the center of all things. 
 
THE ORACLE OF HISTORY. 25 
 
 The moral order of the world, on the contrary, demands 
 of each man and of each human institution, that this 
 Sdf-Seeking thould be conquered, and freely subordin- 
 ate itself to the Divine Whole. Hence arises a conflict 
 which touches the moving springs of the world's history. 
 For, inasmuch as the natural Sdf makes its own specific 
 existence a center, it foolishly attempts to make that 
 into an ultimate end, which has its true existence only 
 in its conformity with the collective arrangements of the 
 universe. Thus, every power that makes itself its own 
 end necessarily works, so far as in it lies, for its con- 
 trary; anarchy for despotism — ^unbridled license for 
 servitude ; while in so fair as the moral energy of men 
 and nations overcomes evil in its double aspect, is the 
 divine order of the world, and God himself made known. 
 
 This principle is no matter of dispute in our nation, or 
 in Christendom at large ; nay, all men who are in their 
 senses assume it, although they express it variously, and 
 often confuse and deceive themselves with regard to it. 
 Even in its application to persons and circumstances that 
 have long since passed away, the judgment of thoughtful 
 and well-informed men is seldom fundamentally at vari- 
 ance. But the dispute is concerning its application to 
 ourselves, and to the circumstances with which we stand 
 in immediate contact. Here our sense of right is sadly 
 apt to be confused by the tendency to self-seeking inher- 
 ent in our very existence; whether the egotism that 
 relates to our own personal existence, which is strong, 
 or the egotism of party or nation, which is often still 
 stronger and more reckless. 
 
 And yet the possibility of any mutual understanding 
 between opposing parties, or any adjustment of the con- 
 flicts of the present, lies in the mutual recognition of the 
 claims of others, and the voluntary limitation of our own. 
 
 2 
 
26 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Now, it has always appeared to me the surest method of 
 arriving at such an understanding and reconciliation, to 
 start with a conscious and practical acknowledgment of. 
 the principle we have laid down, and then to go on to 
 exhibit it as mirrored in sometbiug objective. This, 
 however, we can effect neither by a course of abstract 
 demonstration, nor yet by adducing single historical 
 examples ; but only by contemplating the wide page of 
 the world's history spread before us, whose center is the 
 Bible, and, above all, the Gospel. He who, .in its light, 
 can rise to a comprehensive survey of universal history, 
 attains, in proporticm to his mental requirements, a 
 height from which he can look down ia freedom on the 
 contests and struggles of the actual world. This is the 
 only sort of prophecy to which our age has a clear voca- 
 tion. 
 
 Does it not necessarily follow hence, my dear friend, 
 that we can succeed in reading the signs of the times in 
 an actual given case, only by adopting this method, but 
 then may perhaps also hope to persuade others to follow 
 in the same path, in order to reach the same insight into 
 the true laws and actual condition of our world. 
 
 "We must address ourselves to the present, and the 
 pressing questions of our own day. We must endeavor 
 to penetrate into the heart of reality. We must fix a 
 steady gaze upon those signs of the times in our own 
 heavens which now challenge us to read them. And we 
 must look at them from our own horizon, that is to say, 
 as referring them always to the true, namely, the divine; 
 center of all things. And I believe that I may especially 
 hope for your concurrence, when I propose to you to 
 abstain for this time from all mere politics of the day, 
 and all confessional theology. Doubtless every signifi- 
 cant portent of the times must have a bearing on our 
 
ABSTINENCE FEOM CONTROVEEST. 27 
 
 political circumstancea, both those of our German father- 
 land and those of Europe at large, which are so closely 
 interwoven with each other. Certainly, too, they can 
 not be without effect on the theological systems in accord- 
 ance with which Christendom has desired, or been forced, 
 to mold or bind her communities for the last fifteen 
 hundred years. But just at the present moment, and 
 with the phenomena which we are discussing — some of 
 which, indeed, we shall perhaps have been the first to 
 exhibit .in their full proportions — there is clearly an 
 imminent risk of dropping from the serene sky of con- 
 templation into the dark clouds of political and religious 
 passions, and instead of attainiag to light and peace, 
 rather augmenting perplexity and strife. Therefore no 
 politics and no theology in these pages, and still less 
 learned controversies or acerbities ! Of course we must 
 call things by their true names, and that can not 
 please every body. Eurther, truth requires that we 
 should not conceal righteous indignation, but only keep 
 it within bounds, by remembering that the triumph of 
 falsehood and baseness can be but short, and that pride 
 comes before a fall. And least of all, I think, ought it 
 to be difficult to us to hold bitterness and passion afar 
 from our meditations where we find the like in our op- 
 ponents. We preach toleration ; what a contradiction if 
 we should be intolerant ! No, we will be tolerant toward 
 the intolerant, and intolerant only toward intolerance. 
 Motives of personal ill-will have, thank God, always 
 lain far enough from either of us. Indeed we are not 
 concerned with the ever-changing actors in the scene, 
 nor yet with the religious and political convictions or 
 systems which now divide the world. We recognize 
 them all as Christian, and as having a right to be there, 
 in so feir as they obtain credence. Nay, on the domain 
 
28 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of theology, we are ready to. concede to the theologians 
 who wish it, that according to their system, they are in 
 the right: though, however, we know no theological 
 system among Christians, which in itself would neces- 
 sarily lead to intolerance and persecution so long as it 
 remained within its own ground. 
 
 Of the two eminent men against .whose doctrine I 
 shall have to express myself most strongly, one is en- 
 tirely unknown to me' personally, and I have a sincere 
 respect for his private character, as, it is needless to say, 
 I have for his ofiSce. But with the other I have been 
 for many years on terms of friendship, and I have never 
 doubted of the honesty of his religious zeal, even when 
 it a{)peared with a new ingredient which was to me un- 
 intelligible. And if I should sometimes exchange the 
 straightforward German mode of speech toward them 
 with that which in Socrates is called the ironical tone, 
 this is but the softened expression of a deep-seated indig- 
 nation in behalf of our cause, and justified by my sincere 
 belief that my opponent is as much in earnest as myself 
 in seeking for objective truth. And verily each shall 
 find me ever sincerely ready to learn the truth from 
 him. 
 
 Let me, therefore, relate to you, briefly and explicitly, 
 how I have come to feel myself called on to enter into 
 this discussion. 
 
 When on my return to my Grerman fatherland in the 
 summer of last year, I began to compare what I saw 
 there in traversing its various districts, with the result 
 of similar observations and studies during my fourteen 
 years' residence in England, two phenomena immediately 
 arrested my attention as universal and significant charac- 
 teristics of the age. I refer to the spontaneous and 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OP ASSOCIATION. 29 
 
 powerful development of the spirit of association, and 
 the evident increase of the power of the clergy or 
 hierarchy. I had long since fixed my eye on both these 
 fiicts, and endeavored to understand their workings, par- 
 ticularly in England. 
 
 The spirit of association, to speak of that first, is of 
 native and not recent growth in England ; and among 
 the modern monuments and public works of London, or 
 indeed of the British empire at large, there is scarcely 
 one that is striking or of any magnitude but what has 
 its root in this principle. The British empire in India, 
 the greatest in the world, has grown up in less than a 
 century from a company of traders and capitalists. The 
 great American republic had its origin for the most part 
 in voluntary Churches and other English associations, 
 and a future Canadian Union, which already looms on 
 the horizon, will also take its place in the world's history 
 by the strength of this same spirit. What but the spirit 
 of association has called into existence, within the last 
 twenty years, the gigantic railway structures, which 
 throw into the shade the collective results of all that 
 princes and states had ever been able to accomplish in 
 the way of roads and canals, and whose erection has 
 required more capital than the revenues of all the states 
 in the world amount to ? And what has given England, 
 in the same space of time, more new churches and chap- 
 els, and congregations of all Christian sects, than govern- 
 ments and hierarchies have founded during the whole 
 course of the last four hundred years, but this same 
 principle ? 
 
 Is, then, this spirit of association a product of the 
 most recent times, a child of this century, or, at most, 
 of the last eighty years ? Is it an offshoot of modern 
 industrial activity, or is it, too, a conquest of the philos- 
 
30 SIGN'S OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ophy of the last century, and of so-called modern civil- 
 ization ? England proves the contrary. Here we see, 
 so early as the seventeenth century, the formation of 
 voluntary congregations, vrhich, under the name of 
 Independents, develop themselves, as did Christianity 
 itself once, beneath the persecution of two hostile State 
 Churches. From these communities proceeded the 
 modern Baptists, whom even learned German theologians 
 still to this day affect to confound with the Munster 
 Anabaptists. As regards their form of government, 
 they are, as every one knows. Independents who perform 
 the rite of baptism, like the primitive Christians, by 
 immersion; and only administer the rite to such as 
 make a profession of personal faith ia Christ as the 
 Redeemer, and publicly pledge themselves to live accord- 
 ingly. The Baptists also arose amid persecution as 
 voluntary congregations of believers, and not only 
 gained a footing in England and Scotland, but formed 
 in the TJnited States many thousand congregations, 
 mostly from among the Independents. The congrega- 
 tions are independent of each other ; but, like the Con- 
 gregationalists, have formed voluntary unions ; and in 
 the United States now number more than five million 
 Christians, white and black. The vitality of these con- 
 gregational Churches is evinced by their missions ; for 
 the Baptists and IndependentS\have been the first who 
 have-converted whole tribes, and raised them into fitness 
 for civil life ; while the Jesuit missions of Paraguay only 
 trained a people perfectly incapable of self-government, 
 and unable to walk, except in leading-strings. For 
 example we may point to the Independents in Tahiti, 
 whom the French missionaries are trying to counteract 
 by means of bayonets and brandy : or to the Baptists in 
 the Sandwich Islands, where the State founded by the 
 
PROTESTANT SOCIETIES. 31 
 
 Mission forms a self-existent Church which sends out its 
 missionaries into the Oceanic Isles. All this has been 
 done in sixty years. During this period, nay, for the 
 space of two hundred and fifty years, the State Churches 
 of England and Scotland have exhibited but little capa- 
 bility of propagating themselves ; the German and Dutch 
 Reformed Churches, ^till less; and the Lutheran Church, 
 none at all. To the same principle we must assign the 
 voluntary associations for Pastoral Aid and Scripture 
 Readers, and the Mission for the City of London, as well 
 as all the associations for missionary labor at home and 
 abroad, and also the Bible Societies. 
 
 The whole of these have sprung up within the last 
 sLxty years ; and now they send forth many thousand 
 evangelists and apostles over the face of the whole earth, 
 and educate as many more fifom among their converts 
 belonging to the most dissimilar races of Asia, Africa, 
 and America, to become a parent-stock for future races 
 and peoples. The youngest of these voluntary associa- 
 tions, which we have seen shooting up before our eyes 
 during tite last few years by the side of a highly respect- 
 able, though somewhat torpid, national Church, I mean 
 that of the Free Church ©f Scotland, has, in only ten 
 jears, outstripped the activity of all the State Churches 
 in the world. 
 
 But, perhaps, this spirit of voluntary association is 
 the exclusive property of the Anglo-Saxon race ? This 
 is decisively contradicted by the activity of the associa- 
 tions which I have had the opportunity of observing 
 within the last twelve months in Germany and France. 
 In spite of the wounds which socialism and communism 
 have inflicted on civil society, in spite of great disorgan- 
 ization and disheartening isolation, lastly, in spite of the 
 manifold restrictions to which all associations have been 
 
32 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 subjected since 1851, I have everywhere found them 
 springing up and flourishing. I found them not only 
 on the field of industrial activity, but also in still greater 
 number on that of public and religious objects. Associ- 
 ations for the relief of the poor or the sick, young men's 
 associations, operative 'associations, were everywhere in 
 full and successful operation, notwithstanding the scanti- 
 ness of their funds, and the unfavorableness of the times 
 in which they had originated. One of the youngest of 
 these associations, the Gustavus Adolphus Society for 
 the aid of poor Protestant congregations, more especially 
 those, too often oppressed, which may be scattered among 
 Catholic populations, proves the universality and strength 
 of this spirit of co-operation, when we remember, that in 
 a few very unfavorable and bad years, half a inillion 
 dollars have been collected by this society and expended 
 with great conscientiousness. 
 
 If now we take a general survey of these religious 
 associations as a group of phenomena, we find that they 
 have all proceeded from one or the other of two opposite 
 tendencies. None of them have been associations in con- 
 nection with the Government. Most of them are volun- 
 tary associations of Protestant laymen : in England and 
 Scotland all are so; in Germany, by far the greater 
 number, and the most active. On the other side, we 
 find Catholic associations existing from the time of 
 Charles X., in France, but scarcely anywhere else until 
 1834 ; since which time a good many have sprung up 
 in Germany. They have been founded for various good 
 works, mostly of charity, or the furtherance of ecclesiaS'- 
 tical objects, such as the diffusion of religious books (not, 
 however, of the Scriptures). To this class belong the 
 Pius Society, the Borromseus Society, to which is now 
 added, the Boniface Society ; but, above all, the Lyons 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 33 
 
 Society for the Propagation of Christianity. These 
 Catholic associations are, in general, distinguished from 
 the Protestant by one striking feature — ^the activity of 
 the laity is confined to the raising of the funds ; while 
 the Protestant associations, for the most part, have been 
 founded by laymen, and are managed by committees, 
 the majority of whose members are also laymen. In full 
 accordance with the laws and usages of the ancient 
 Christian communities, all their organic laws are passed 
 in public meetings, and publicity is their principle of life. 
 The Propaganda of Lyons does, indeed, publish brief an- 
 nual reports, but there the matter rests. How deeply, on 
 the contrary, have the Protestant missions interpenetrated 
 the whole life of the Churches ! They no+ only raise annu- 
 ally nearly thirty million dollars, but also bring together 
 millions of human beings. Compared to these, what is 
 the recent proposal of a union of forty thousand priests 
 in Germany with forty thousand dollars ? Over the face 
 of almost the whole earth, weekly missionary meetings 
 are held, in which, as in the assemblies of the primitive 
 Christians, communications are made concerning the 
 feith, the doings, and the sufferings of the brethren; 
 hymns are sung, and often a stirring address delivered. 
 The original impulse, therefore, toward the formation of 
 these institutions came from the Protestants, and has 
 sprung from the sentiment of the oneness of that Church 
 whose many members are scattered abroad over the 
 whole earth, but which speaks one language, just because 
 every nJation speakain her own tongue. The Jesuits 
 have sought to avail themselves of this sentiment, by re- 
 modeling their old affiliation-system in accordance with 
 it. Thus, on the one hand, we have congregations, with 
 their preachers and the Bible: on the other, Jesuit 
 guilds of clerical educators, furnished with pecuniary 
 
34 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 means by the laity, ■with ecclesiastical books of devotion, 
 and forms of prayer. 
 
 So "much, for the present, concermng my first critical 
 sign of the times. 
 
 But equally conspicuous, both on the Continent and 
 in England, is the second sign I mentioned : I mean the 
 rising power of the clergy as a governing caste or 
 hierarchy, and especially, though by no means exclu- 
 sively, of the Romish. Here, too, the diversity of the 
 whole national and political life has an obvious influence 
 upon the complexion of the particular case : still the 
 phenomenon remains essentially the same. No two 
 things can be more unlike than English Puseyism and 
 German Lutheranism. The first rests upon a firmly 
 established episcopate, independent of the executive and 
 the police, and reciprocally influences and is influenced 
 by many national movements. But modern Lutheranism 
 is the child of a consistorial church of officials. "We find 
 the Lutheran pastors from whom this hierarchical ten- 
 dency emanates, with few exceptions, entirely uninflu- 
 enced either by the congregational elements for which 
 Germany is indebted to the Reformed Church,* or by 
 the outburst of new life throughout the Christian world 
 during the last sixty years. To both these elements of 
 
 * The term Eeformed Ohuroh is applied in Germany to those 
 Churches which owe their origin to the Swiss School of Reform- 
 ers. Though sometimes called Calvinistic, their dogmatic theo- 
 logy by no means always coincides with what we generally 
 understand in England by that name; they differ from the 
 Lutheran Church on some points of doctrine, such as the nature 
 of the Sacraments, Predestination, etc., and in their form of 
 church government, which is a free synodal form of Presby- 
 terianism bearing some resemblance to the Church of Scotland, 
 while the Lutheran has somewhat of the Episcopal element, 
 though on the whole more Presbyterian than otherwise. — Tr. 
 
RISIKTS POWER OP THE HIERARCHY. 35 
 
 life they are hostile, as derogating from the "dignity of 
 the sacred office," or even infested with the pestilence 
 of liberalism. But toward the peculiar scientific tend- 
 ency of German thought, whether in philosophy or 
 critical philology, to which they owe all the learning 
 they possess, they assume an attitude of direct opposition, 
 and insist on a theological system which is as far from 
 the leading ideas embodied in the Protestant Confessions 
 as from the spirit of that first and most genial of the 
 Reformers, whose name they abuse. Far outstepping 
 the views of the genial Steffens, nay, even of the more 
 cautious Harless, they accuse their instructors, the great 
 men of our universities, of holding aloof from congrega- 
 tional action, and of having sacrificed practical life to 
 critical science ; entirely forgetting that one main cause 
 of the sickly state of our churches is precisely what 
 those men have delivered us from. They reject the 
 unimpeachable results of investigation as infidel, and 
 stigmatize as godless that which has essentially proceeded 
 from a deep moral and religious earnestness. Thus, so 
 far as in them lies, they cut away the root of congrega- 
 tional life on the one hand, by the heirarchical preten- 
 sions of their "office," which issue in a Catholicizing 
 idea of the Church ; on the other by the servile bureau- 
 cratic spirit which, they display wherever they encounter 
 the element of free congregational activity. If they do 
 not persecute with the sword, like their predecessors, it 
 appears to be rather owing to want of power than of will. 
 At all events, they show the will wherever they are 
 able, as we shall soon have occasion to see. 
 
 But of all these hierarchical aspirations, I shall have 
 so much to say hereafter, my respected friend, and the 
 fiust itself is so patent, that I may here dispense with 
 entering further into detail. Enough has been said to 
 
36 SIGNS OB" THE TIMES. 
 
 justify and explain my general assertion that the hie- 
 rarchical element pervades the whole world. The pre- 
 tensions, to a divine right of the clerical office over 
 conscience, and as far as may be over the whole mental 
 culture of the human race, are everywhere the same; and 
 the contrast presented by this phenomenon to the state 
 of things at the commencement of the century, appeared 
 to me, on a superficial survey, not only remarkable but 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 What, then, I asked, is the origin of these phenomena? 
 Surely it must lie deep in the whole historical develop- 
 ment of the European mind. Else, how could they 
 present themselves under such dissimilar conditions of 
 the common national life at the same moment, and with 
 results of such magnitude ? 
 
 Is their cause to be sought in defects common to the 
 various social conditions of the past ? Or are they only 
 the one-sided and passionate manifestation of a power of 
 organic reconstruction in the future ? Does the promi- 
 nence of associative activity point to a future universal 
 republic? Or to the all-embracing reign of democracy? 
 Or to a universal empire, the downfall of constitutional 
 monarchy, and the advent of a new race of Caesars — an 
 imperial government, with pretorians and delators under 
 new names ? 
 
 So, too, with our second sign of the times. Does the 
 revival of the hierarchy point toward a restoration of the 
 ecclesiastical forms of the sixteenth or seventeenth cen- 
 turies ? Or to the universal sovereignty of the Romish 
 Church upon the ruins of Grallican and German privi- 
 leges — of Anglicanism, as of the Churches of Luther 
 and Calvin? 
 
 And then, what next either in the West or the East 
 of Europe ? 
 
FREEDOM OF COITSOIENCB. 37 
 
 But, not to stray from the solid footing of the present, 
 we ask, first and before all things, is there any connec- 
 tion between these two phenomena, either in their recip- 
 rocal action or in their deepest roots ? Or are they in 
 diametrical opposition, and from their inmost essence 
 inimical, so that he who would hold to the one must let 
 go the other? 
 
 Perhaps, I thought to myself, we may gain some pre- 
 liminary light on the matter, if we turn our eyes to two 
 other signs of the times — the ever-growing aspirations 
 of the nations after freedom of conscience ; and the 
 ever-increasing manifestation of the desire of the 
 clergy for the suppressvari of that freedom, and the 
 persecution of those of a different persuasion. 
 
 The striving after freedom of conscience appears in 
 the history of the last few centuries, and especially of 
 the last eighty years, as the type and condition of legal 
 freedom in general; and always in proportion to the 
 stage reached in the development of social and political 
 relations. Just so was it at the first propagation of 
 Christianity. The reconstruction of political society had 
 its prototype in the Church, and proceeded from her. 
 It would be easy to show in detail how and why freedom 
 of conscience is really the condition of a secure possession 
 and a right use of all other liberties. None arise with- 
 out it, and from it ali others flow, in a natural course of 
 development. So in the first place it has been with the 
 freedom of science. The story of Galileo is sufficient to 
 show how nearly this trenches on that of religion. The 
 history of the nations which have enjoyed freedom of 
 conscience proves what a much happier use they have 
 made of the liberty of scientific research which followed 
 that of religion, than those nations to whom this first of 
 all liberties was wanting, and who desired to be free 
 
38 SIGNS &F THE TIMES. 
 
 without conscience, and to possess rights without bearing 
 in their own breasts the sense of duty. The same thing 
 meets us still more visibly and significantly in the rela- 
 tions of political to religious liberty. 
 
 The cause of these phenomena it is, however, also not 
 difficult to perceive. For, if all individual liberty can 
 only bring forth wholesome fruits in so far as it is con- 
 scientiously regarded and exercised ; if conscientiousness, 
 and, therefore, true morality, can only exist where the 
 holy of holies in the conscience — the faith in God, and 
 the will to serve Him — is respected by the absence of 
 every sort of constraint ; then, surely, the right use of 
 every other liberty must lie in this fundamental liberty. 
 
 And what is true of political liberty in general holds 
 good, also, in particular, of the free expression of opinion, 
 or what is called freedom of speech and of the press, and 
 finally also of the right of free industrial association. 
 In this last direction, we see zealous and active efibrts to 
 substitute freedom of industry for closed guilds, free 
 trade for restrictive regulations. As in former cases, so 
 in the present instance, the enemies of association predict 
 the dissolution of the bonds of society, and the destruc- 
 tion of all existmg social order. But in every sphere 
 experience has proved the contrary, and the final reason 
 is everywhere the same^ — that no developement of human- 
 ity is so grand as that which takes place where there is 
 full security for the moral and legal freedom of the indi- 
 vidual, as well as of society. In other' words, the safe- 
 guard for popular liberties does not lie in ideas of the 
 understanding, and the enlightenment based thereon, 
 but in the groundwork of morality, and in moral culture. 
 But these, as we have seen, rest on freedom of conscience, 
 so far as that is understood and desired by the people. 
 But who will deny that this is the desire of all Christian 
 
INTOLERANCE AND PBBSECUTION. 39 
 
 nations, Protestant or Catholic — ^the aspiration which, 
 from the days of the Reformation, we haye seen gradually 
 rising with purer and purer flame from the ashes of 
 mediaeval oppression and disorder ? 
 
 Thus popular fanaticism, or whatever else we may call 
 the misled religious sense of the nations, will not serve 
 us to explain our second phenomenon — namely intoler- 
 ance and persecution. Both are to he named together, 
 for all religious persecution — except it be the mere mask 
 of political violence — comes from intolerance, and all in- 
 tolerance necessarily leads to persecution, so soon as 
 there is any real religious earnestness in the individual. 
 Religious persecution is of most ancient growth, as is 
 also the aspiration toward religious freedom. But, as 
 the multitude here and there believe — and as many are 
 now wishing to make them believe — ^that the men of the 
 French Revolution were the first to demand and estab- 
 lish freedom of conscience, namely, from unbelief, and 
 on behalf of irreligion, so do many also think that the 
 intolerant and persecuting spirit, which we hear them 
 not only excuse but defend, nay, sometimes absolutely 
 laud, as a proof of earnestness of faith — and still worse, 
 which we see them in these days practice — is a phenom- 
 enon of the last few years, and the work of a few leading 
 men. The phenomenon has been indigenous among us 
 for the last thirty years : and for the last forty, a silent 
 preparation for it has been evidently going on in men's 
 minds. Does it proceed from the hierarchy, or from the 
 govermnents, or from the peoples ? It is, at first sight, 
 certainly, the most perplexing riddle of this century. 
 
 Wherever a nation at large has striven for and con- 
 quered political freedom, it has never forgotten to lay 
 down the principle of freedom of conscience, still less 
 clamored for persecution. And though the Spaniards 
 
40 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 would not accept the Napoleonic tolerance, which came 
 to them in the train of craft and violence, and bore no 
 impress of moral earnestness, yet even there the indus- 
 trial masses have begun to perceive that the true Chris- 
 tian religion must be able to exist without inquisition, or 
 sword, or dungeon, and that those must have understood 
 little of its nature (not even excepting Donoso Cortes 
 and Balmes) who maintaiu, and withal to God's glory, 
 that this is not possible. 
 
 But who would have dreamt, at the beginning of this 
 century, that, in the land which saw the judicial murder- 
 of Jean Calas, symptoms of religious hatred should 
 manifest themselves immediately on the return of the 
 Bourbons — that, cotemporaneously with Le Maistre and 
 De Bonald, a school would arise which should defend 
 the massacre of St. Bartholemew, and apply to it those 
 fearful words : 
 
 " Ce sang 6tait-il done si pur ?" 
 
 — that, in 1823, Ferdinand VII. should only have been 
 restrained with difficulty from re-establishing the inqui- 
 sition in Spain — ^that, in 1832, the Protestant inhabit- 
 ants of the Zillerthal, in Tyrol, after suffering many 
 attacks and heavy oppressions, contrary to the law, 
 should at last have been driven into exile as an act of 
 mercy, as was the case in 1853 with the Madiai in 
 Florence? Yes, who would have believed that, under 
 the scepter of the brother of the religious and liberal 
 Alexander I., in the empire of Peter the Great, which, 
 though despotic, was based on univeral toleration, thou- 
 sands of Protestants, and millions of the United Greek 
 Church, would be forced over to the dominant and 
 national Church by every evil art of treachery and 
 violence, in provinces where this national Church of 
 
SPIRIT OP PERSECUTION ABROAD. 41 
 
 Eussia had never been the prevailing one, or never 
 existed at all before ? 
 
 Nay, even among Protestants rages this demon of 
 persecution. The Estates of that Swedish nation which 
 two centuries ago combated with such heroism and feith 
 for the religious freedom of their Protestant brethren in 
 Germany, have passed in the preceding year, an exceed- 
 ingly intolerant law, ordaining the persecution of evan- 
 gelical associations, and the banishment of natives who 
 go over to the Romish Church. After long hesitation, 
 the king has set his seal to this cruel decree ; while in 
 pious Norway, perfect freedom of religion prevails.* 
 
 And look at Germany ! Not only in Mecklenburg, 
 which has fallen a prey to measureless political retro- 
 gression, but even in other German countries, a vehe- 
 ment and bitter persecution has been set on foot against 
 the Baptist congregations, which had begun to form 
 themselves under the shelter of a short interval of 
 religious freedom.f Nay, what is still more astounding, 
 
 * In Sweden, not only persons who have dissented from the 
 Established Church, but numbers of its members, have been sub- 
 jected to fines and imprisonments under the Conventicle Law, 
 which prohibits all meetings for religious worship held apart from 
 the Lutheran Church. In the last Diet a law was passed which 
 makes it highly criminal to administer or receive the Lord's Sup- 
 per, except as connected with the hierarchy. At the present 
 time Baptist pastors labor imder sentence of perpetual expatria- 
 tion. The laws of Sweden, moreover, banish Eoman Catholics, 
 and absolutely prohibit their worship; ( See " Evangelical Christ- 
 endom" for July and August, 1855, and Jan. 1856.) — Tr. 
 
 t In almost all the States of Germany, persons dissenting from 
 the Established Churches have been prohibited from meeting to 
 worship God in the way which their consciences approve, from 
 observing the sacraments, and from every pubHc act of a religious 
 nature. There are cases in which these laws have been so 
 strictly enforced that persons have been accused of holding a 
 
42 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 even among freethinking Christian men in Germany, 
 principles have been enunciated in opposition to religious 
 freedom which were moire appropriate to the seventeenth 
 than to the nineteenth century.* Nay, even the lead- 
 ers of liberal political parties among us make a boast of 
 their exclusiveness as regards the Jews. Whence arises 
 this lagging behind of the Germans in the march of 
 humanity ? 
 
 The spirit of persecution is not, therefore, to be con- 
 sidered as the isolated endeavor of fanatical or ambitious 
 
 religious meeting, T)ecause one person, not a member of the 
 family, has been found reading a reKgious book. In Mecklenburg, 
 in Schaumburg-Lippe, in Hesse-Oassel, and in other parts of 
 Germany, persons offending against such laws have been visited 
 with heavy and ruinous fines, with the confiscation of their prop- 
 erty, and with imprisonment on bread and water, as though they 
 were felons ; and many have left their native country, under the 
 severe necessity of a compulsory expatriation. In some eases 
 the marriage rite, which is legal only when solemnized in the 
 Established Churches, has been refused on the score that the 
 parties had not received the Sacrament, they having been refused 
 the Sactament for having attended conventicle meetings; and 
 persons have for years remained siagle in consequence. In one 
 case where the parties, having endeavored in vain for three years 
 to get any clergyman to marry them, had resolved to undertake 
 the long journey to England, to be married there, passports were 
 reflised them on the object of their journey being discovered. 
 An idea of the views on this subject held even by a large pro- 
 portion of the Prussian clergy, may be formed firom the Appen- 
 dix to Letter IX. For further details, I beg to refer my readers 
 to "Evangehcal Christendom," for February, May, October, 
 aid November, 1855, and to a most instructive pamphlet, enti- 
 tled "Protestant Persecutions in Switzerland and Germany," 
 by the Rev. T. E. Brooke, and the Rev. E. Steane, pubHshed by 
 Partridge, Oakey and Co., 1854.— ». 
 
 * See the correspondence of M. Von Bethmann-Hollweg and 
 Count Pourtales, with M. Merle d' Aubign6, as given in " Evan- 
 gelical Christendom," vol. viii., p. 236, voL ix., pp. 49, 233. — Tr. 
 
FESTIVAL OF ST. BONIFACE. 43 
 
 individuals, but has roots in our social conditions. 
 Neither can it be designated as the tendency of a single 
 church or a single nation. Is it the offipring of the re- 
 cruited power of the hierarchy ? or is it the consequence 
 of the general direction taken by religious thought on 
 ecclesiastical questions, or a direct efifect of retrograde 
 absolutism ? or has it yet deeper grounds in the sense of 
 the inward unsoundness of the existing ecclesiastical and 
 political organizations ? 
 
 Here you have, then, my dear friend, a cursory indi- 
 cation of the thoughts and considerations which filled 
 my head and heart when I, last summer, after so long 
 an absence, had at last the happiness of taking up my 
 abode once more in my Grerman fatherland. Shall I 
 tell you now what strange feelings have possessed me 
 during the last fourteen days in connection with these 
 topics ? 
 
 As I was reviewing mentally all these striking and 
 grave phenomena, and seeking to hnk them in with the 
 results of my former observation and experience, there 
 resounded in my ears, from the neighboring cities of 
 Fulda and Mayence, the summons to the celebration of 
 the eleventh centenary of the martyrdom of St. Boniface. 
 The Anglo-Saxon, Winfrid, is almost universally styled 
 the Apostle of Germany, and his name can hardly be 
 unfiimiliar to any cultivated German. Thus, when I 
 learned that Baron Ketteler, the Bishop of Mayence, 
 and successor of that apostle, had invited his flock to 
 celebrate that festival by a Pastoral, and taken this 
 opportunity to address himself solemnly, like a second 
 Boniface, to the conscience of all Germany, I thought 
 to myself, What a blessing that I am now in Germany ! 
 I shall now have part in all that my nation experiences ; 
 and since this bishop is a man of such exalted and ascetic 
 
44 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 piety, it is a further happiness to live, as I do, in his 
 immediate neighborhood. Who would not gladly open 
 his ears to the latest utterances of the Catholic Church, 
 from a prelate whom many regard as a saint — all as a 
 man of extraordinary force of mind; and who must 
 necessarily, from his station, have a profound acquaint- 
 ance with the subject on which he is about to instruct us? 
 this dignitary of the Christian Church (thought I), in 
 speaking of the Apostle of the Germans, will surely not 
 forget the German people. Tea, in a thankful sense of 
 the honor and happiness of belonging to so great a nation, 
 he will speak of it with reverent affection, and in the 
 presence of the dangers threatening us from East or 
 West,, feel, more deeply than ever, the duty and desir- 
 ableness of exhorting all Germans to mutual love, and 
 the averting of every foreign influence. In this respect, 
 he will, doubtless, not wish to remain behind his great 
 pattern, the learned and intellectual Cardinal Wiseman, 
 who, with all his zeal for his Church, ever speaks of the 
 English nation, not only with respect, but with warm 
 affection and enthusiastic admu-ation; although the 
 Reformation has penetrated into the very flesh and blood 
 of the English so much more than it has among the 
 Germans. Thus, if Bishop Ketteler should rank his 
 saint and predecessor higher than we Protestants can do, 
 we will not take it amiss of him. 
 
 With these thoughts, I procured the Bishop's Pastoral 
 and other writings, and have been reading them during 
 the last few weeks with all attention. And now what 
 shall I say of them, my respected friend ? At all events, 
 the truth. Then I must tell you at the outset that I 
 have indeed found this Pastoral highly important and 
 deserving of attention : but with equal candor I must con- 
 fess it, in a sense by no means cheering or satisfactory. 
 
DUTY OF PEOTESTANTS. 45 
 
 Just at the same time, -within the last few weeks, I 
 heard with profound surprise, through the most trust- 
 worthy channels, of the sufferings of two brethren in the 
 faith, who had been cast into prison on account of their 
 religion. Alas ! thought I, this harmonizes but ill with 
 the festival of St. Boniface, ia which I felt so much 
 inclined to take a part. that one of the watchmen of 
 Zion would now step forth ! 0, that one of those emin- 
 ent and eloquent men, who stand as the pillars of the 
 Protestant Church, would now speak out ia behalf of the 
 imperiled liberty of conscience of their brethren ; above 
 all, one of the men whom the leading Protestant Church 
 of the Continent has intrusted with the task of building 
 up the Union, and training our national Church to inde- 
 pendence and self-government! Now would be the 
 moment to expose the immorality and unreasonableness 
 of all religious oppression, especially when directed 
 against fellow Christians ; and who lias so clear a calling 
 to the work as one of those leading men? We should 
 one and all thank them, if they, with that Protestant 
 and apostolic plainness of speech, and philosophic clear- 
 ness of thought which they possess, proclaimed before all 
 rulers and nations our detestation of such atrocities ; and 
 at the same time, pointed out the unseen blessings, both 
 for State and Church, which lie hidden in the bosom of 
 perfect religious liberty <- And lo ! on the twenty-ninth 
 of May what should I find on my study-table but a copy 
 of Professor Stahl's oration, already in print, bearing 
 the very title of a "Discourse on Christian Toleration."* 
 
 * Dr. Stahl, the autbor of Handbooks on " Ecclesiastical Law," 
 and " The Philosophy of Law and the State,'' was called to Berlin 
 as Professor of Ecclesiastical Law, in 1840. He has, since then, 
 been made Privy Councillor of Justice, and Crown-Syndic in the 
 Upper House; and in 1852 was appointed a Member of the 
 
46 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 I was amazed at the discovery that a man so celebrated 
 had delivered this discourse so long ago as the twenty- 
 ninth of March, in Berlin, before the court and a numer- 
 ous and brilliant assembly, at the request of a Society, 
 which is entitled, par excellence, the " Protestant." So 
 what I was wishing (said I to myself ) has really come 
 to pass, and I have been left in ignorance of it for the 
 last two months, only because I neglect to read the 
 '■'■ Evangelische Kirchenzeitung"* regularly, and none 
 of my Christian friends has drawn my attention to so 
 important an event. But when with eager curiosity I 
 came to read the pamphlet, I knew not what to thiak of 
 myself or of the great political orator and party-leader 
 who had written it. Either I had entirely unlearned in 
 England the meaning of tolerance and religious liberty, 
 and what in Prussia bears the name of Protestantism 
 and the Union — and, if so, at my advanced age there 
 was little hope of making up my lost ground, and I saw 
 myself doomed to pay this heavy penalty for my absence 
 from Germany, and especially from Berlia, and to die at 
 last, if not in cheerless unbelief, yet in distressing and 
 shameful ignorance — or I must come to the scarcely less 
 paiaful conclusion, that one of the first political and 
 ecclesiastical jurists of Grermany, a celebrated philosoph- 
 ical writer, an admired orator, a member not only of the 
 Upper House but al^o of the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council, a leader of the jfiTircAeM^ogr-!— finally, a man of 
 grave and Christian conversation, from whom I myself 
 had formerly expected much service, both in Church 
 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council. He formerly advocated moder- 
 ate views, botli in religion and politics ; but, in 1850, joined the 
 extreme reactionary party, headed by Grerlach, of which he is 
 now one of the most prominent members. — Tr. 
 * Protestant Church Gazette. — Tr. 
 
CHRISTIAN TOLERATION. 4.I 
 
 and State — ^had totally forgotten the history of Protest- 
 antism and the mission of all Protestants, himself in- 
 cluded, in the present and the future I For I could not 
 conceal from myself, that if the principles of toleration 
 and freedom of conscience preached by him were sound, 
 no logical possibility -would be left us of denouncing the 
 persecutors of our brethren, or of stigmatizing their acts 
 as intolerant and persecuting. 
 
 ^ The proofe of my assertion I will not fail to present 
 to you, in so far as they are called for by the great 
 problem which I propose to myself, namely, to inquire 
 into the true theory of liberty of conscience in the case 
 of- the individual, and the rights of the congregation in 
 the sphere of the Church; and, in particular, whether 
 such liberty and rights are really things so mischievous 
 and irrational as is now preached to us with so much 
 zeal for our conversion, and anxiefy for the safety of our 
 souls. 
 
 Here you have, in general terms, the impression 
 made upon me by the perusal of the two addresses to 
 which I have referred. The Pastoral of the Bishop 
 seemed to me, in every respect portentous ; the lecture 
 of the Berlin Ecclesiastical- Councillor seemed to me 
 rather to deserve the title of a discourse on Lutheran 
 Intolerance, than on Christian Toleration. Thus you 
 wUl see, too, my respected friend, in what perplexity, 
 or rather in what anguish of heart, I turned to you in 
 spirit, and resolved to ask you to discuss with me these 
 matters of siich general and weighty interest on occasion 
 of the approaching commemoration. 
 
 Let an earnest consideration of these two signs of the 
 times be our German, Christian, and human mode of 
 keeping this feast. Boniface shall be our starting-point; 
 universal history, our guide : the discovery of a clew 
 
48 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 whereby we may disentangle the perplexities presented 
 by our existing social conditions, our aim. Every great 
 festival must have its eve of preparation ; and so I invite 
 you, on the eve of the great festival on the fourth of this 
 month, to try what preparation we can find in Bishop 
 Ketteler's Pastoral appropriate to a worthy celebration 
 of the remarkable event which it commemorates. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 THE BVB OF THE FESTIVAL OF ST. WINFRID— BISHOP 
 KETTELEE'S pastoral — THE GERMAN NATION AND 
 THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 
 
 CHAHLOTTENBBBa, June 4tb, 1856. 
 
 Eve of the Feast of St. Boni&ce. 
 
 My Kespected Friend: 
 
 The eve of the Jubilee has arrived. As it befits 
 the season, we will observe it with a brief meditation. 
 
 Our text shall be that letter written immediately after 
 his return from the grave of our Apostle, by which 
 Baron Ketteler has announced the eleventh centenary 
 festival of the death of his great predecessor, and invited 
 the faithful of his flock to its celebration. 
 
 It lies before me under the following title: "A 
 Pastoral Letter from the most reverend Lord, Wilhelm 
 Emanuel, Bishop of the Holy See of Mayence, to the 
 clergy and believers of his diocese, on occasion of the 
 eleventh Centenary of the holy Archbishop and Martyr, 
 St. Boniface." This pastoral letter has been since pub- 
 lished as a pamphlet at Mayence, whence it has been 
 widely circulated in this part of the country. By this 
 solemn inscription, the Lord Bishop has, therefore, 
 entered the domain of publicity ; and it is our right, not 
 to say our duty, to examine and judge this address like 
 any other literary production. The Bishop commences 
 his announc€fment of the festival with a brief axjcount of 
 
 3 
 
50 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the wonders wrought by our Apostle, to whom God (aa 
 he says) did not make known his calling immediately by 
 aji inward revelation, but by the visible head of the 
 Church, the Pope. 
 
 " Now" (continues the Bishop), " by the fact that the 
 personal dignity of St. Boniface was transferred to this 
 chair by the elevation of the see of Mayence to the 
 primacy over Germany, a provision was made for the 
 permanence of this unity, and the Germans were hence- 
 forward duly prepared for the fulfillment of the exalted 
 task which God had assigned to them in the history of 
 the world." Starting from this position, he proceeds to 
 carry out the idea, that without the influence exercised 
 and the institutions founded by St. Bonifiice, the Carlo- 
 vingian dynasty "would never have risen to the idea of 
 a Christian polity and international relations;" nay, that 
 without him, there could have been no German nation, 
 probably not even a common German language. Then, 
 however, the Bishop continues, and here I must give his 
 own words entire : 
 
 " When, therefore, at a later period, this spiritual foundation 
 was broken up, and the spiritud bond was rent asunder with 
 which St. Boniface had bound the German tribes together, there 
 was an end of .German unity and the greatness of the German 
 nation. As the Jewish nation lost its vocation upon earth when 
 it crucified the Messiah, so did the German nation forfeit its high 
 vocation in the Kingdom of God, when it broke the unity of failii 
 which had-been established by St. Boniface. 
 
 " Since then, Germany has, done little but help to destroy the 
 Kingdom of Christ upon earth, and to set up a heathen view of 
 the world. Since then, with the old faith, the, Qld loyalty -hag 
 disappeared more and more, and not all the bolts and locks, nor 
 prisons and- houses of correction, nor police and sentinels, in the 
 world, avail to supply the place of conscience. Since then, 
 Germans have been ever diverging more widely from each other 
 in heart and thought, and we are now, perhaps, in the very midst 
 
MISSION OF THE GERMAN NATION. 51 
 
 of a chain of events yrHoh is paving, the way for the disappear-: 
 anoe of the German people as a single nation, and building up a 
 wall between our various members, as solid as those which al- 
 ready divide us from other peoples of German race. Since then, 
 those branches suffer also which have remained on the old stem- 
 for when a great branch is broken off from a mighty tree, the 
 whole tree begins to sicken, and it is long ere it regains its former 
 vigor and the old branch is replaced by a new one. This is the 
 source of much delusion. Men reproach the Gatholio . Church 
 VTith the many sins of her members, with the many lamentable 
 things which occur even in Catholic countries, without reflecting 
 that they are for the most part the consequences of that unhappy 
 schism. The nobler the member, the deeper is the injury inflicted 
 on the body when it begins to' refuse its services. The higher 
 the original vocation of the German people in the development 
 of the Christian order of the world, the deeper and more per- 
 manent must have been the shock to that organization, when that 
 member refused its office, and the longer must it last before a 
 new branch can replace the fallen limb, and fulfill the mission 
 which the Grerman nation has cast aside." 
 
 Truly these' are weighty words ; and, spoken on so 
 solemn an occasion by a man of such personal eminence, 
 and one of the most influential of Grerman prelates, 
 they claim a doubly serious consideration at our hands. 
 
 The German nation is accused of having forfeited its 
 Vocation in the Kingdbm of Christ by the Reformation, 
 as the Jews lost their vocation as the chosen people of 
 God by their crucifixion of the Messiah. As a palpable 
 proof that this reading of history is that of a true 
 prophet, called to proclaimt God's voice and His eternal 
 judgments in the events of His providence, three asser- 
 tions are made. First, that since that epoch, Germany 
 has almost exclusively exercised a destructive iiafluence 
 in the world of thought, and been the parent of a heathen 
 view of' the world. Secondly, that there has been si, 
 decay of the old Gerrnan loyalty, nay, of conscience 
 itself, which no civil penalties or correctional institutions 
 
52 SI&NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 can replace. As the former assertion is the prophetic 
 interpretation of history, so is the latter the prophetic 
 reading of the present. But the prediction of the future, 
 likewise, is not wanting. The Reformation is destined 
 to bring about the annihilation of the German nation- 
 ality, and the various races which were united in such 
 close spiritual bonds by Boniface and the Carlovingians, 
 and which still possess a common language and. culture, 
 will soon be as far divided from each other as they are now 
 from Switzerland and Holland, or even from the British 
 Anglo-Saxons. Nor is this enough. Through this 
 crucifixion of Christ afresh in his Church, the German 
 nation is responsible for the undeniable decay and cor- 
 ruption of the nations which have remained in the 
 Catholic unity. If a thousand voices in Italy and Spain 
 rise to heaven in lamentation over the wretched state of 
 these once so flourishing lands, these once so powerful 
 nations ; if thousands on both sides of the Pyrenees, are 
 sighing over the corruption of religion and morality ; if 
 (according to the latest official reports, which are now 
 filling all Europe with horror) the prisons of the Papal 
 States are crowded with men guilty of the most horrible 
 and loathsome crimes, to an extent hitherto unparalleled 
 among Christians or Turks (twenty-one parricides among 
 others) : on whom does the guilt rest but on ourselves, 
 the German nation? The unfortunate peoples and gov- 
 ernments are suffering from the consequence of our god- 
 less deeds committed three hundred years ago ! 
 
 Ought we, my respected friend, to keep silence under 
 such unheard-of accusations ? Boniface belongs already 
 to the history of the world, and every German especially 
 has the right to see that full justice be rendered to that 
 remarkable man and his works. But our national honor 
 is a holy thing, to contend for which, as far as truth 
 
RESPONSIBILITIES OF GERMANY. 53 
 
 permits, appears a sacred duty. And now such an 
 accusation! on such an occasion ! in such an emergency 
 in the affairs of our fatherland and of the world ! 
 
 The future belongs to God ; but conscience interprets 
 the signs of the times, and, above all, truth-seeking 
 humanity pronounces a final verdict. Bilt for a con- 
 scientious inquirer there can be no safer course than to 
 contemplate the phenomena around him,in the mirror of 
 history, and meditate on them in the light of the Gospel. 
 And so doing, I believe we can point the Bishop who 
 prophesies such evil and, according to my conviction, 
 untrue things, to a very different picture within the very 
 tribe with which Bonifece was more immediately con- 
 nected, the reality of which will be evident to all the 
 world. But the whole of Germany offers to our view 
 only one portion, if no insignificant one, of the great 
 destinies that are being evolved around us. The reign- 
 ing powers of the whole civilized world form one family, 
 the much-divided household of Christ, whose members 
 occupy very different stations in the great highway of 
 human progress, but who have all set out from the same 
 point and advance toward the same end, although they 
 have traveled and still travel , by different paths. The 
 lessons taught by the varied fortunes of the European 
 races in the aggregate, on both sides of the Atlantic, 
 will surely also be applicable to ourselves. We will, 
 therefore, as soon as this festival is over, try to rise to 
 the wider poinj of view offered by general history, whence 
 we may gain a freer survey. And, in so doing, we will 
 seek, as far as possible, to avoid opening afresh the yet 
 bleeding wounds of our fatherland, and rather look 
 abroad or to ages long past when we have to characterize 
 and prognosticate evils and dangers. * 
 
 We can not, however, suffer those unexampled words 
 
54 SIGNS or THE TIMES. 
 
 of the prelate to pass without comment. They are, 
 indeed, directed in the first instance to the believers of 
 his diocese, and if he chooses to treat them as such godr- 
 less persons,, we can not deny him the right to do so. 
 We, should certainly regret it deeply, but should neither 
 feel it our duty nor our business to stand between the 
 shepherd and his flock. . But it is clear that it is not the 
 Roman Catholic inhabitants of this diocese nor our 
 Catholic brethren in general, on whom the Bishop intends 
 his awful invectivps to fall They are evidently regarded 
 by him as sufferers under the fresh crucifixion of the 
 Messiah, committed by their Protestant fellow-country- 
 men. His hard words are, therefore, as regards the 
 guilt of the transaction exclusively, as regards the pun- 
 ishment chiefly, directed against us Protestants ; only 
 the Bishop, being a mild and courteous man, did not 
 wish to say the naked truth so directly in our faces. 
 God can not -possibly punish an innocent posterity still 
 more severely for our sakes than the sinners and crimi- 
 nals themselves — ^for that would be contrary to all justice, 
 human and divine. Our interpretation of his meaning 
 must, therefore, be the correct one. 
 
 Now. there are, probably, few;, even among the clergy 
 of the reverend prelate, who seriously think the German 
 nation a depraved one, and its views of the world un- 
 christian and godless, compared to those which prevail 
 in France, Spain, and Italy, or believe that its influence 
 in the world, since 1517, has been purely anti-Christian. 
 We will, therefore,, attribute its full share to the rhetor- 
 ical force of his language, and the excitement of the 
 great clerical festival which the Bishop had just been 
 attending in Rome. His language is strong, but let it 
 pass as an episcopal fagon de parler ! But when the 
 prelate says, in so many words, that the German nation 
 
ACOUSATiONS AGAINST G-EftMANY. 55 
 
 has lost its conscience, we are compelled,, by our con^ 
 science, which commands us above all things to speak 
 the truth, to tell him with Christian freedom, that we 
 deeply lament, for his own sake, that he should have 
 made such ?in assertion. It seems to us more worthy of 
 an ignorant feudalist, or an arrogant priest, than of a 
 man so highly cultivated, still less of a Christian bishop. 
 Nay, it reminds us but too strongly of those words of 
 our Lord, exhorting his hearers to beware of the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost, which could not be forgiven 
 (Matt. xii. 31, 32), for us to dwell on it without a 
 shudder. We can only -hope that the Bishop did not 
 know what he was saying. 
 
 He who denies all conscience to his own nation, to 
 which he owes his birth and mental culture, excommu- 
 nicates her from all participation in the Spirit of God, 
 in so far as she does not think as he does on Church 
 matters. And can such an act be committed by a 
 German prelate, casting his eye over three centuries, 
 at the celebration of a German festival, on the eve of a 
 great assembly of bishops? Now within these three 
 centuries (at least according to the judgment of those 
 who have not left their consciences and their eyes under 
 the cupola of St. Peter's, in the crypt of the Apostles), 
 German intellect, German integrity, German loyalty, 
 and German thought, have more than once enlightened 
 and .saved the world. Did not the Bishop then feel a 
 shudder when he denied conscience and honor to this his 
 nation, his home, his mother; when he joined the 
 epithet, murderer of the Messiah, to her name, forgetting 
 that there existed yet a Messiah to kill — the body of 
 Christ in the world, his Churchy and the conscience of 
 its living members? This Messiah truly, as did once 
 that divine Person, wanders over the earth in the form 
 
56 SIGITS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of a servaBt ; and nowhere mare so than in our distracted 
 fatherland. 
 
 But just because no cme can blaspheme the Spirit in 
 humanity without bla^heming or denying God himself, 
 are we bound to speak of the children of ouir common 
 mother with affection, and of herself with reverence; 
 and we repeat it, above all, of such a mother and such a 
 people, and in such a conjuncture of our fatherland and 
 the world ! 
 
 Gladly would we find an apology- for the Bishop that 
 should mitigate our censure and our sorrow, in his 
 patriotic anxiety regarding our future with referraice to 
 the position of foreign countries ; but this we are hon- 
 estly unable to do, and therefore must not attempt it. 
 For only too soon the course of our observations will 
 lead us to a very remarkable and purely politico-juristic 
 production erf the same prelate, in which he expressly 
 calls upon the two powerful neighbors c£ Germany, 
 France and Russia, to interfere in our ecclesiastical dis- 
 putes — namely, as guaranties of the Peace of Westphalia 
 in 1648, and of the Final Resolution of the Committee 
 of the Diet in 1803. We will, therefore, leave the 
 Baron to defend his honor; the Bishc^, his consci^ice; 
 and the Patriot, his German sentiments — ^I do not know 
 if I may add — the Subject, his oath of allegiance — ^fosr 
 it is said that he has never takep it — ^and seek for a 
 more consolatory, and, please God, a more worthy and 
 Christian preparation for our festival than the Bishop's 
 letter afibrds, while we return to the free air of Provi- 
 dence and history, and trace the fortunes of the race 
 from which Winfrid sprang. 
 
 Now if we take a comprehensive survey of the devel- 
 opment of the human mind and Christian nations during 
 the last eleven centuries, the fact instantly arrests our 
 
ANGLO-SAXON EA.CB AND FREEDOM. 57 
 
 eye, that the Anglo-Saxon race is that which has exhib- 
 ited the greatest amount of creative and constructive 
 energy, and, moreover, in a continually increasing ratio 
 of importance to the history of thfe world at large. This 
 was first exhibited by the West Frisian branch in the 
 free states of Holland ; and if at first their own institu- 
 tions displayed some remnants of the spirit of religious 
 intolerance, forgetting that they had revolted and com- 
 bated against the intolerance of Spain, this blot was 
 gradually effaced under the influence of the essential 
 principles of liberty, so that we see them already in the 
 seventeenth century the first nation in Europe to pro- 
 claim and practice toleration as the principle of a Chris- 
 tian State. Thus did they worthily atone before God 
 and man for their former violence, in which, however, 
 they no doubt rather saw the averting of unjustifiable 
 attempts on the part of foreigners to disturb their tran- 
 quillity, than a crime against religious toleration. But 
 this atonement was first consecrated as a principle of 
 universal authority by their noble brethren in England 
 and America, who established it as a fundamental law 
 that the State • has no right or power to meddle with 
 liberty of conscience, and thus uttered the most solemn 
 acknowledgment that mutual toleration is the true and 
 only valid proof of Christian feith before God and man. 
 
 Here we encounter some curious coincidences of time 
 and races. The bloody deed of pagan intolerance whose 
 anniversary we this day commemorate, belongs to the 
 middle of the eighth century. Eight centuries later, it 
 was the Anglo-Saxons of England who set bounds to the 
 atrocious intolerance and persecutions of Spain ; and it 
 must be confessed that the intolerance of the Frisians 
 was mere child's play compared to the Spanish methods 
 of conversion, and the dark horrors 'of the Inquisition. 
 .3* 
 
S8 SIG5FS OF • THE TIMES. . ::.*'-■ 
 
 And without, a,ll question, this Inquisition., with its rac]?:a 
 and- its scaffolds, had grown up out of the ecclesiastical 
 system of,Bonifiice.,:, Long before the Grand Inquisitor, 
 Torquemada, toward the end of the , fifteenth century, 
 brought the.Holy Office into, Spain, it had been employed 
 from its seat in Bome against the Albigenses ; and, Pope 
 Paul IV. celebrated the eight hundredth festival pf St. 
 Boniface with the uniyergal, introduction.of that, fearful 
 tribunal. Was Germany in that age less God-jfearing 
 than Spain with its rigid exclusiveness, because, in 1555, 
 she signed the Treaty, of Religious Peace at Augsburg? 
 Would this tre£!.ty itself have been more, or less,,. Chris- 
 tian,, and rich, in blessing, if it had conceded a larger 
 measure of freedom? And is Spain, in the yea!r 1855, 
 more Christian, ,more moral, more happy than Germany, 
 where, according to the expression of the Curia, "here- 
 sies rage unpunished ?", , 
 
 It was thirty-three years later, in the summer of 
 1588, that the ,English Anglo-Saxons saved the mental 
 and political freedpm of Europe, and the, honor of 
 Christendom,, by repulsing from her shores the vaunted 
 giant fleet of , Spain, and rendering it possible for the 
 hardly-.pressed West , Frisians victoriously to, achieive 
 their liberation from the Spanish yoke. Just one 
 century after, in' the year 1688, the same Anglo- 
 Saxons raised the principle of religious, liberty into 
 a fundameipial law of England, when ■. they put an end 
 to ecclesiastical domioation by the expulsion of the 
 Stuarts, who forgot .their oaths and their national his- 
 iOTj. , , , 
 
 , It was a great prince of these same West Frisians 
 who, naturalized on English soil the religious freedom 
 abeady successfully conquered by the Dutch. "But 
 already, during the contest with the Stuarts, English 
 
THE GERitAN' Spirit Progressive. 59 
 
 heroes of the Spirit, themselves martyrs of religious 
 intolerance, had; as Pilgrim Fathers and Apostles, laid 
 the foundation of that mighty empire beyond the Atlan- 
 tic which eighty years since, on the declaration of its 
 independence, proclaimed the principle of religious 
 liberty, no longer of mere toleration. 
 
 As regards Germany, I will not here inquire whether 
 Protestant or Catholic Germany haft gained more by the 
 religious toleration demanded and asserted as a principle 
 by the Reformers. All German hearts agree in this, 
 that we have all suffered from iatolerance ; not only 
 politically by the impeding of the free development of 
 Germany, but also in religion. Of all nations, the 
 Germans are those whom it will be the hardest to per- 
 suade, that the religious conviction of an individual, or 
 a congregation, or a country, ought to be, or can be 
 effectually, changed by force. This is an article of 
 faith wherever a German heart beats. Nor will the 
 Germans, with their inborn faith and humanity and 
 providence, ever hear those thmkers and legislators, who 
 in the last century labored for toleration and freedom 
 of conscience, spoken lightly of without indignation, 
 still less reviled as godless. Last of all will the German 
 people acknowledge itself as deserving censure, or even 
 punishment, because it honestly entertains sentiments of 
 toleration ; for it is by nature the most inwardly relig- 
 ious of all nations, and, therefore, the one which most 
 reverences the voice of conscience in matters of belief. 
 It is the German spirit which breathes in energetic 
 Scandinavia, as in Holland and in Switzerland. It is 
 this spirit which in the Romanic, Celtic, ai^d Slavic 
 populations and States, manifests itself as the element 
 of progress and civilization ; and never with mightier 
 energy than since the great spiritual upheaving of the 
 
60 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 sixteenth century, and nowhere with more of creative 
 and conservative power than in the races which shared 
 in that movement. 
 
 How should this spirit be utterly extinguished in 
 its great home in Germany, notwithstanding all our 
 political disadvantages and heavy calamities ? But all 
 the nations of the earth know, and say, the contrary. 
 
 The sorrowful and anxious question is only, how the 
 successor of St. Boniface has arrived at so gloomy and 
 untenable a view of the world, and grasps it with so 
 firm a conviction, that he has felt himself impelled to 
 . seize this moment to hold up with such solemnity the 
 distorted image reflected by his concave mirror, before 
 the eyes of his nation and the world? Was there 
 really no other mode of convincing us, or even his 
 believing flock, of his apostolic fiiith and episcopal 
 wisdom ? 
 
 Perhaps we shall be assisted to an explanation of this 
 phenomenon by the subject of our meditation on to- 
 morrow's festival, namely, St. Boniface and his work. 
 We will set his picture in the historical framework that 
 it deserves — ^that is, endeavor duly to point out that 
 great man's place, in the history of the world; namely, 
 between his forerunners, the earlier apostles of the 
 Christian faith among the German tribes, and his epis- 
 copal successors. And this will lead us immediately to 
 the men and the questions of the present day. What I 
 have said is enough for the eve of the eleventh centenary 
 festival. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 THE JUBILEE FESTIVAL — BONIFACE, HIS FORERUNNERS 
 AND SUCCESSORS. 
 
 Oharlottenberg, June 6tb, 1855. 
 
 On the Festival of St. Boniface. 
 
 This day, then, my dear friend, is celebrated the 
 centenary festival of the martyrdom of Winfrid, com- 
 monly called St. Boniface. Exactly eleven hundred 
 years have elapsed since that day, immediately following 
 the feast of Whitsuntide in the year A. D. 755, when 
 the Frisians murdered the Anglo-Saxon missionary and 
 legate of Rome on his entrance into their country. 
 Scarcely can one of the former centenary festivals have 
 been announced with such pomp of preparation, or in so 
 brilliant an assemblage of prelates. The summons to 
 its celebration rings through the whole land ; a papal 
 legate, several foreign bishops, and a large number of 
 ecclesiastics, have met in Fulda and Mayen^e ; solemn 
 processions and a fortnight's festival are proclaimed, and 
 tracts for the occasion are disseminated among the 
 people. 
 
 The earnest observer of the affairs of the German 
 nation, and of the present crisis in history, can not but 
 be struck, while contemplating the labors and death of 
 Boniface and this festival in his honor, by two trains of 
 thought, both of world-wide significance. The subject 
 of the one is the unchristian and inhuman nature of all 
 
62 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 religious intolerance and persecution. The other will 
 lead him to consider the pretensions of the Church ; or 
 the claims of the hierarchy on the individual, the nation, 
 the State, and mankind. And thus you see, dear friend, 
 we find ourselves at once in the midst of those ages 
 ■which we at first passed by, and yet no less in the im- 
 mediate present. 
 
 The deed of the West Frisians was an outbreak of 
 barbarism against intrusive ; foreigners ; but it was, 
 nevertheless, a murder prompted by intolerance and 
 religious hatred. Undoubtedly the Romish legate, and 
 Archbishop of Mayence, entered upon his missionary 
 travels with an unusually numerous and not unarmed 
 suite : fifty-two persons are mentioned as having fallen 
 with him, whom he had forbidden to defend him and 
 themselves. Evidently there was in the country a 
 powerful Christian party with which he stood in connec- 
 tion ; the same which shortly afterward took a bloody- 
 revenge for his death. It was the members of this party 
 whom be was awaiting in the tents which he had erected 
 at Dokkum, in Holland, on the river forming the 
 boundary between East and West Friesland.. On 
 Trinity Sunday, the, neophytes were to be confirmed, 
 and accompany him into the country on the opposite 
 bank. But up to this point, as far as we know, no act 
 of violence had been committed in the country by him 
 or his followers. EUs power and influence were certainly 
 of a spiritual nature ; and with spiritual and legal 
 weapons alone could and ought he to have been com- 
 bated. But the heathen party regarded him as a con- 
 temner of their gods, and a- foe to their national cus- 
 toms, and determined to prevent, his entrance into their 
 country. Thus he was attacked by their host, and 
 unresistmgly sufiered himself and his train to be slain, 
 
THE APOSTLE 05 GERMANY. gg 
 
 holding the gospels in his hands, above his head, as he 
 fell. 
 
 St. Boniface is called th,e apostle of the Germans. 
 But the judicious, historical researches of Neander and 
 B«ttberg have brought more clearly to light than had 
 ever been done before, the same fact on which Bishop 
 Ketteler of Mayence, and Professor Leo of Halle, with 
 their disciples and adherents, proudly dwell as the seal 
 of his aspirations and his work. Boniface was not so 
 much the preacher of the Gospel as of the Church ; he 
 labored chiefly where Christianity already existed: he 
 ought to be called, not so much the apostle of Germany 
 as the missionary of Rome, whence he was sent forth 
 furnished with extraordinary powers. To the one party 
 this is a defect and a reproach ; to the other his highest 
 glory : the fact is undisputed. 
 
 IJet us now inquire of history what is the truth as to 
 the church-system of Boniface. 
 
 From our point of vieVr — that is, from the ground of 
 historical fact — I think no one has pronounced a more 
 moderate judgment on Boniface than Neander has done, 
 in his Church History, and again, more fuUy^ 'in his 
 Ecclesiastical Memorabilia. In the latter work he says, 
 in the Essay oh Boniface (vol. iii., p. 259) : 
 
 " The dark side of tie ministry of Boniface was, that he did 
 not know, in its full extent, the freedom of the ehildren of G-od, 
 who have died with Christ to the^ordinances of the world ; whose 
 life, being no more of this world, but hid with Christ in God, and 
 belonging to heaven, ought not, therefore, to be brought into 
 bondage by the ordinances of this world. He knew, it is true, 
 the fundamental principle of inward Christianity, and possessed it 
 in his own inward life : he possessed it, indeed, all the more, be- 
 cause his powers of reasoning out the Church principles he held, 
 were not equally developed with the Christianity that lived in his 
 soul. But, with this inward Christianity, he still combined a cer- 
 
64 SIGNS 01" THE TIMES. 
 
 tain dinging to outward things -wHch is altogether foreign to it. 
 He did, indeed, build on that foundation which is Christ — and 
 hence his work could not but stand as of Grod; and grow in suc- 
 ceeding centuries by the Divine power that was in it — ^but he did 
 not build on this foundation pure gold, but wood, hay, and stub- 
 ble. And here it must be said to his excuse, that he was not the 
 author of this confusion, but that he foimd it already existing in 
 his age." ' 
 
 Neander and Eettberg seem to me to have treated the 
 most impartially of Boniface and his work, and mutu- 
 ally to supply each other's deficiencies. While Rett- 
 berg, by a wise criticism in his documentary history of 
 the diffusion of Christianity in Germany, has thrown 
 light on the outward history of this active and energetic 
 man, and on the institutions that he founded — confuting 
 at the same time, forever, with equal earnestness and 
 sagacity, unjust suspicions and accusations against his 
 character — Neander enters more into the theological 
 and apostolic side of his ministry. He dwells, with, 
 perhaps, greater affection than any previous historian, 
 on what was worthy of esteem and honor as a Christian 
 and a man in the character of Boniface. True, he can 
 scarcely adduce from his letters and writings one prin- 
 ciple of Christian wisdom for the spiritual life of man, 
 nor one sentence that would discover a deep apprehen- 
 sion of the Gospel in its bearing on the relation of the 
 soul to God and Christ. The predominant element 
 throughout his writings, as in his life and ministry, is a 
 strong belief in the right of priestly dominion over con- 
 sciences and nations, and a Jewish rather than Chris- 
 tian scrupulosity about outward forms. Neander takes 
 the more pleasure in being able to point out the exam- 
 ples of Christian liberality and deep moral earnestness 
 which Boniface gave in his acts. 
 
 At the present day we may smile at his inquiring 
 
CHARACTER OF BONIFACE. 65 
 
 from Rome, whether his converts might eat horse-flesh 
 (which they were evidently in the habit of doing), and 
 whether, and under what form, they might partake of 
 raw bacon ; in which case, Rome's decision against 
 horse-flesh, and recommendation of ham, were undoubt- 
 edly judicious. But Winfrid was not thus timorous 
 and helpless, where it was a question of truth and mor- 
 als within his own sphere. He did not conceal from the 
 Pope that the pilgrims who returned from Rome justi- 
 fied many ofienses against morality and Christian dis- 
 cipline by what they had witnessed in Rome itself and 
 its neighborhood, particularly on New Year's Eve ; and 
 he urgently recommends the Holy Father to abolish 
 such remains of heathen abominations within his own 
 diocese, in order to do away with this cause of stum- 
 bling. His method of proselytism is certainly chiefly 
 remarkable for its political sagacity, practical energy, 
 and a zealous determination to break down, once for all, 
 the resistance of the nation at large. But he frankly 
 censures the rapacity of the Roman Curia, which exr 
 acted so high a price for the archi-episcopal pallia, that 
 many begged to be excused this honor, though, prob- 
 ably, they also did not wish to obtain the metropolitan 
 dignity as a fief from Rome. He never ceases to com- 
 plain on this subject even after the Pope had commanded 
 him to keep silence on so tender a point. Though him- 
 self the Pope's legate, yet when Zacharias, the successor 
 to Gregory III., during his residence in those parts 
 consecrated Chrodegang to the bishopric of Metz, he 
 blames him for this invasion of the rights of Chrode- 
 gang' s metropolitan, the Archbishop of Treves ; and it 
 needs the mediation of Pepin to put an end to the dis- 
 pute. Finally, Rettberg has rendered it extremely 
 probable, that Boniface by no means sought, as Schmidt 
 
66 SIGNS OF THK TIMES. 
 
 maintains, the deposition of the Merovingians ; but ra- 
 ther excited the anger of the Pope by his protests 
 against the act. 
 
 But one stain can not be washed out from his characr 
 ter — that of religious persecution and hierarchical ex- 
 clusiveness. It is undeniable that Boniface, by the help 
 of the temporal power, managed to rid himself pf all his 
 opponents and rivals in the missionary field, and in par- 
 ticul§,r of one who was evidently a very distinguished 
 British missionary and bishop. So effectually did Boni- 
 face silence Clemens that the latter disappears without 
 a trace. Still his method, of proselytism, taken on the 
 whole, was a spiritual one, and truly excellent in com- 
 parison with the baptisms by masses, and deeds of vio- 
 lence, by which, thirty years later, Charlemagne carried 
 on the work of conversion among our Saxon forefathers. 
 Professor Leo does indeed try to justify Charlemagne 
 by allusion to the "human sacrifices" of, the Saxons: 
 that is, they sacrifi,ced single prisoners, while Charle- 
 magne caused four thousand to be massacred at once. 
 But this account belongs to the same dramatic romance 
 which ascribes the conversion of Germany to Gregory's 
 walk "on the Roman forum," through the medium of 
 England, whose offspring, Winfrid, "begot us," and 
 brought into existence our historical Germany. Nay, 
 the history of this metropolitan see, the diocese of May- 
 ence, manifests an extraordinary and more than patri- 
 archal power of generation in that hereditary statesman- 
 ship of the Electors of Mayence, who, by their counsels 
 as Arch-Chancellors of the Holy Roman empire, have 
 added so much to the happiness and < glory of Germany/ 
 Historical criticism can not, however, recognize" such 
 romances, except as pathological phenomena ; just as 
 gifted scholars have treated similar romances in ancient 
 
HIS PREDECESSORS. 67 
 
 history. We may certainly hope that these paradoxes 
 are not uttered in earne"st, but that the author is only 
 wishing to have a laugh against his hearers and readers. 
 
 On the contrary, history informs us that before Boni- 
 face — with whom Professor Leo begins the history of 
 Germany, passing over Arminius in silence — ^the pros- 
 pects of the Gospel in our country were by no means dis- 
 couraging. We certainly had no powerful Church, but 
 we had a free and spiritual Christianity. Though Me- 
 ander says that Boniface found the confusion between 
 externals and the inner principle — ^the Christian life ia 
 the soul and the Church organization — already existing 
 in his age, we must rather agree on this point with Win- 
 frid's present ecclesiastical panegyrists, who — as, for in- 
 stance, Leo, the Protestant (?) eulogist of the hierarchy 
 — regard the circuinstance which Neander laments, as 
 the highest merit and greatest glory of the martyr. 
 
 We say with them : Boniface was not the apostle of 
 Christianity in Germany, but of the Church, that is of 
 the Romish hierarchy. Boniface was the missionary of 
 Rome, and preached the supremacy of its pontiff with 
 the necessity of setting aside all those who thought 
 otherwise. Whether this was as great a blessing as 
 Professor Leo would make us believe, still remains a 
 question. 
 
 A glance on the predecessors of Boniface in Germany 
 wUlgive us somewhat more light on this point. 
 
 Christianity in Germany dates from primitive times, 
 and came to our forefathers, no less than to the Romans, 
 from the East. Asia Minor was its cradle ; and, later, 
 our pole-star was Byzantium, not Rome. One great 
 and noble Teutonic race, the Goths, had already volun- 
 tarily embraced Christianity, at a time when, according 
 to the unimpeachable testimony of their eotemporary, 
 
68 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Prudentks, more than half of the great families and the 
 ■wealthy and cultivated classes of Kome were still living, 
 almost without an exception, in heathenism. 
 
 The Bishop Theophilus who sat in the Council of 
 Nice for the metropolitan see of the Goths, lying on the 
 left bank of the Danube in Eastern Wallachia, may 
 probably have been rather a missionary than a national 
 prelate. But the Goths, as Commodian (in spite of 
 Kraffit's apparent refutation*) had prophetically ob- 
 served as early as the third century, had nothing in 
 their character or customs hostile to Christianity. 
 Ulphilas, who was born among the Goths, but was the 
 son of a Catholic priest of Cappadocia who had been led 
 away captive into their country, was the first and great- 
 est apostle of the Germans. He was a somewhat 
 younger cotemporary of Athanasius. At the age of 
 thirty he was made a bishop, a. d. 348, a dignity whose 
 possessor was called by the Goths presbyter or elder, 
 according to the primitive custom, wliich may be still 
 shown to exist, at that period, in many places beside 
 Asia Minor. In order that his people might be able to 
 read the Word of God to man, this great apostle in- 
 vented the Gothic alphabet, which he borrowed chiefly 
 from the Greek, also availing himself of the Latin al- 
 phabet and the Runes ; and about A. D. 370 — therefore 
 nearly fifteen hundred years ago — he translated the 
 whole Bible, except the books of Kings, from the Greek 
 into his own noble language — a language that owns the 
 same ancient origin with, and is the most closely allied 
 to .their primitive tongue. 
 
 It is true he declared himself in favor of the Synod 
 of Ariminum, and, therefore, with the . Patriarch of 
 
 * Eiafift. Die Kirohengeschichte des Germanischen Volks, 
 Bd. i., Abth. 1, 1854, s. 3. 
 
GOTHIC CHRISTIANITY. 69 
 
 Constantinople and Valens, against Athanasius ; but he 
 did it certaialy not to court the higher powers, but from 
 that deep conviction which he expressed to his people, 
 and which was accepted by them in perfect faith. His 
 memorable .saying was, "that the dispute concerning 
 the dogma of Athanasius was not a matter touching the 
 essentials of religion, but the ambition of the bishops." 
 His theological confession of faith, which was discovered 
 a few years ago in a nearly cotemporaneous manuscript 
 by Waitz,* is neither Arian nor Athanasian. In it, 
 Ulphilas abides by the decision of the Council of Con- 
 stantinople in the year 360, which confirmed the de- 
 cision of the Synod of Rimini, with the addition, that 
 the word " Ousia," which was used by both parties, 
 ought not henceforth to be employed in theological 
 treatises on the divine nature in God and Christ, be- 
 cause it was no more a scriptural term than the word, 
 "Hypostasis." Ulphilas then brings forward his own 
 theory. In it I do not, like KraflFt, see the influence of 
 a real or supposed Gothic mythology, but rather a train 
 of speculation, awakened by Ennodius and the theology 
 which the fiither Ulphilas brought from Asia Minor. 
 It is essentially monotheistic in principle, or Monarch- 
 ian ; yet it would not be difficult for a theological oppo- 
 nent to accuse it of Tritheism. We will further re- 
 mark that he is fer from giving out his system as a rule 
 of faith ; he puts it forward only as a view of the the- 
 ological schools; the customary mode of propounding 
 their systems among the elder fathers of the Church. 
 
 The Goths followed his view, and declared against 
 Athanasius. With regard to the Arianism of the Goths 
 and of all the German races, with the one exception of 
 the Franks, an acute and profoundly learned historian, 
 
 * Waitz. ITeber das Leben und die Lehre deS Ulfila (1852). 
 
70 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Gieseler,.hasverjr correctly remarked,: that it sprang less 
 from any enthusiasm for the Arian formula, than from 
 the disinclination of the Germans to look for the truth 
 in any, even theological disputes, among the Romans.* 
 They thought, no douht, that that principle could not 
 possibly be the right one, which was preached by those 
 whom they knew and abhorred, in practical life, as false 
 aind treacherous. Thus they took part with those bish- 
 ops who declared against Athanasius, and who, for a 
 time, formed the majority. ' ' 
 
 •However this may be, it is certain that we owe to this 
 Gothic Christianity, which was kindled by the Greek 
 Church, the most ancient translation of the Bible into a 
 popular European languiage — a work which is a mas- 
 terpiece in its class, and an imperishable glory of our 
 people and tongue. The Latin version bf St. Jerome 
 is a translatioil into a dying language, and dates, more- 
 over, half a century later; the e&rlier Latin version, 
 the Itala, is older, but had its source in Africa, and the 
 conjecture that it was known to Ulphilas, as some would 
 now imagine, is altogether without foundation. Ulphi- 
 las's translation has faults and mistakes, but they are all 
 to be explained from the original Greek text before him. 
 This form of Christianity produced, among other great 
 men, the noblest of our Christia.n heroes — at once the 
 most German and patriotic in heart, and the only good 
 ruler and true benefactor of Italy during those evil cen- 
 turies — Theodoric, the elder Dietrich of Berne of the 
 Niebelungen Lay. True, at the instigation of the or- 
 thodox priesthood, the ashes of the king wefe taken, 
 soon after his death, from their resting-place, and scat- 
 tered to the winds as those of an accursed heretic ; but 
 even his empty mausoleum is a speaking monument, and 
 '^ Gieseler. Erchengeschiolite, ii. 1. 
 
COLUMBAN AND GALLUS. 71 
 
 the fame of the hero atill Uvea in song, and in the grate- 
 ful memory of the people. 
 
 But we will as little join with' Leo and Ketteler to 
 forget the thoroughly orthodox British apostles of Ger- 
 many and their disciples and successors, as we will con- 
 sent to disown Ulphilas and Theodoric^ It is true that 
 these Apostles, like Boniface, gave us no national 
 Bible; like him, too, they formed for us no true 
 national State; but they did preach a far fireer and 
 more spiritual faith — ^a faith, according to the testimony 
 of history, akin to that of the ancient church. Unfor- 
 tunately we know but little of the j>ersonal characters 
 and history of the two British missionaries with. whom 
 we are most nearly concerned — Kilian and Fridolia ; 
 but we know the school to which they belonged, and we 
 know still more of the heads of that school, Columban 
 and his discipl6 Grallus, both of whom may themselves 
 be counted among our apostles ; ihe former being the 
 apostle of the Burgundians among the Vosges, the lat- 
 ter of the Swiss. Both preached the Gospel in the 
 German language with great suc(Sess, from a hundred 
 and fifty to a hundred years before WinMd. Colum- 
 ban himself was a follower of the inspired apOstle of 
 Ireland, St. Patrick. In him, and in the whole of 
 this British school, breathes the free spirit of that 
 Celtic Christianity of Southern France, of which Iren- 
 seus of Lyons is the represeittative and patriarch— that 
 Irenaeus who was, again, the disciple of Polycarp of 
 Smyrna, a follower of the teachings of St. John, and 
 the champion of the liberties of individual congregations 
 against Rome, in the great dispute concerning the time 
 of Easter. • 
 
 Like Irenaeus, Columban combated the claims of the 
 Bishops of Rome to make decisions for the whole of 
 
72 SIG-NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Christendom, and this in the times of a Gregory the 
 Great. Holding fast, as Irenaeus did, to the more an- 
 cient custom concerning the feast of Easter, he says, 
 with reference to it : 
 
 " The same has been also said by the Bishop of Rome, Victor, 
 but none of the Oriental bishops received this figment of his 
 brain. What a crude and careless decision 1 for it rests on no 
 testimony of Holy Scripture."* 
 
 Thus, the Scriptures are to him the highest rule of 
 faith, and the freedom of the individual churches is the 
 first principle of his Catholic wisdom. 
 
 Nay, even in the days of Boniface and later, there 
 were not wanting worthy representatives of this more 
 liberal British school, which once in Anglo-Saxon En- 
 gland came into collision with the Romish emissary, the 
 monk Augustine, in the person of the Abbot of Bangor. 
 We know the British bishop Clemens, who was also a 
 preacher of the Gospel in Germany, and is so bitterly 
 denounced by Boniface, only through the harsh and 
 evidently angry accusations of his zealous opponent. 
 But according to the representations of Boniface him- 
 self, these accusations, in point of &ct, may be reduced 
 to the following : 
 
 First — Clemens lived in matrimony, and had two sons 
 after he became a bishop. Now it is well known that 
 the marriage of the priests was permitted both by law 
 and custom in the British Church, and long after, in 
 the Anglo-Saxon. That prohibitions of second mar- 
 riages occur in very early times (according to the cele- 
 brated passage, 1 Tim., iii. 2), proves of itself that 
 first marriages were considered unobjectionable. It is 
 not quite just in Boniface, therefore, to call this relation 
 
 * Neander. Denkw. iii., 222. 
 
THEOLOGY OF CLEMENS. 73 
 
 adultery (i. e., fornication) ; for it was not such to 
 Clemens or his Church, any more than the primitive 
 Christians. ' , 
 
 Secondly — He' did not hold marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister to be divinely prohibited — a view which is 
 shared by many of the ancient fathers, which evidently 
 has the sanction of the Mosaic Law, and is now no 
 longer regarded by the Pope himself as contrary to the 
 divine commandments. 
 
 Finally — According to the statement of Boniface, 
 Clemens believed that Christ, on his descent into hell, 
 may have proclaimed the Gospel of salvation to the 
 heathen, and thus redeemed them ; which is simply a 
 philosophic and theological interpretation of that obscure 
 passage in the First Epistle of Peter, concerning which 
 the ancient Church knew no more than we do, and on 
 which the fathers are known to have held the most dif- 
 fering views. But this very opinion found no insignifi- 
 cant advocates in Clemens' great namesake of Alexandria, 
 and the early Alexandrian fathers. Neander thinks 
 that Clemens the Briton may, perhaps, have gone so 
 far as to question whether all the latter heathen were 
 lost forever, though Christ had not been preached to 
 them.* But even if Clemens (as Neander supposes) 
 should have held the possibility of a final restoration of 
 all souls — as many fathers believed before him, and the 
 great Briton, John Scotus Erigena, certainly did a cen- 
 tury later — this would have constituted no crime or 
 heresy in the eyes of the British Church, whose bishop 
 he was, or in those of the primitive Christians. 
 
 Probably, too, Boniface may not have been satisfied 
 with the validity of the British episcopal ordination ; 
 for the abbots of those ancient British monasteries which 
 * Denkw. iiL 264, Anm. 
 4 
 
74 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 sent out so many missionaries, nsed to consectate bisHops, 
 without being bishops themselves. But had he been 
 heard, Clemens could have defended^ his Church and 
 himself for this practice, as well as St. Patridi, Colum- 
 ban, and Gallus. 
 
 What we do know is, that he was condaamed by Rome 
 unheard, on the accusation of Boniface. DoubtlesSj 
 therefore, Neander's comparative jud^ent on the twa 
 is very justj when he saya : 
 
 "In trae knowledge of Christianity, CSemens was probably 
 superior to Boniface, and how much good might he not have 
 wrought, if, uniting to this fteer insight the spirit of love and 
 wisdom, he had bmlt up the German church, from the first, on 
 this fpmidation — that the only source of the true knowledge of 
 the Christian faith is Holy Scripture as interpreted by itself. 
 What widely different fruits would Christianity have borne, thus 
 receives at once in its puHty 1"* 
 
 In all this we fully coincide with Neander's verdict. 
 But the difference between Boniface and his predeces- 
 sors, and in general between the Church system which 
 he preached and the Christianity of the earlier church 
 whose relics and ruins he found existing around him, 
 did not lie simply in theological definitions, as we might 
 suppose from Neander's representation. It was not 
 merely a difference and a conflict in the field of thought j 
 it had to do with the real world and its government. The 
 struggle of the hierarchy for dominion is always the 
 same in principle, and does but assume varying forms 
 according to the varying position of the individual to the 
 congregation and the State, and the relation of these to 
 each other and to the clergy. 
 
 The great points on which we must here fix our at- 
 tention, are the election or nomination of bishops, and 
 
 * Denkw. S. 263. 
 
ELECTION OP BISHOPS. 75 
 
 legislation on the points of collision between the State 
 and the Church.- Of the latter, the three most im- 
 portant are — first, marriage and education, or the home 
 and school ; secondly, the education and discipline of 
 the clergy and people ; and thirdly, the management of 
 the Church property. Let us now inquire, successively, 
 what position Bonifece'held with regard to these three 
 questions. 
 
 Until up to the beginning of that century, the bishops 
 both in the east and the west, were still, as a rule, chosen 
 by the people and the parochial clergy (a clero et pop- 
 tdo), as the canon law of the Western Church still pre- 
 scribes. This election was followed by the recognition 
 of the metropolitan Church, whe^e one existed, or of the 
 neighboring bishops. The rise of spiritual corporations 
 led to the episcopal ordination ■ of missionaries to the 
 heathen by the abbot of the monastery which sent them 
 forth, the abbot himself however not being a bishop. 
 This form wo find among the British missionaries. 
 When Christian governments and Christian corporations 
 possessed of property came into existence, the recogni- 
 tion of the State was added to that of the Church. But 
 in France, where the sovereigns found the episcopacy 
 already existing as a rival power, they claimed a larger 
 share of influence in the episcopal elections — nay, aimed 
 at securing to themselves the whole right of appoint- 
 ment.* 
 
 So long as the bishops all sprang from the Romano- 
 Celtic population, the old canonical form was maintained^ 
 and the Gallic Synods fought bravely for their ancient 
 rights and liberties. But when Franks entered the ranks 
 of the clergy, and important estates came into the pos- 
 
 * With regard to the following pages, consult the sources 
 indicated by Rettberg, vol. iL, p. 604. 
 
76 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 session of the Church, the relation existing among the 
 followers of the King was applied to the bishops ; the 
 King bestowed a bishopric, as he bestowed a fief upon 
 the lay nobility. The Synod of Orleans, A.D. 549,' 
 decrees that the election must have the consent of the 
 King ; but the right of election itself is affirmed by all 
 the synods of this century. But in the year a.d. 614, 
 the decree of Clotaire II. proclaims the right of the 
 King to fill up vacant bishoprics. With a demoralized 
 monarchy and aristocracy, like that of the Franks, this 
 claim opened the door to all manner of baseness and 
 simony. The same evil spread rapidly among the dukes 
 of the neighboring races. The example of the Frankish 
 kings was contagious. 
 
 Boniface found things in this state under Charles 
 Martel. He complained of the abuse that had crept in. 
 In these appointments he .very justly saw a violation of 
 ancient usage and right. But of whose rights ? Accord- 
 ing to the testimony of Scripture and the history of the 
 primitive Church, it was a question of the restoration 
 of the rights of the congregation and the parochial 
 clergy, who formed part of the congregation. But this 
 was not at all what Boniface desired. On the contrary, 
 he himself, as papal legate, filled" up the vacant sees. 
 Carloman replied to this proceeding by a simple repeti- 
 tion of his appointments, including the papal appoint- 
 ment of Boniface himself as archbishop. Charlemagne 
 unhesitatingly followed on the same path. Under Louis 
 the Pious (817), the right of free election is recognized 
 for the first time. But now the chapters have taken 
 the place of the parochial clergy, while the congregation 
 as the highest depositary of the rights of the Church 
 has disappeared altogether. It must have been easy for 
 Boniface to prove that the claims of the sovereigns 
 
THE CONGREGATION SET ASIDE. 77 
 
 were a usurpation, and to exBibit the acts of violence 
 which occurred in the enforcement of these claims, as a 
 great wrong. But he did not regard them as a wrong 
 done to the congregation, that is, to the Christian people, 
 but as a wrong to the Church, that is, to the ruling 
 priesthood. This priesthood, however, culminates in 
 the Metropolitan ; but disputes in tliis sphere must be 
 ultimately decided by the successor of St. Peter, the 
 Bishop of Eome, from whom he holds his archbishopric 
 in a foreign country as a fief. 
 
 Whenever in matters of opinion and religious belief 
 one despotism is ranged against another, the spiritual 
 despotism is certain to maintain a superiority over its 
 secular rival, at least among all noble nations. The 
 secular government appears overbearing enough without 
 this combination ; and always, in contrast to the hie- 
 rarchy, assumes more or less the character of brute 
 force. The Christian people, as Sterne said in one of 
 his sermons, is the true Issachar bowed between two 
 burdens, and it is too sorely oppressed when all the 
 weight is laid on one side. This natural popular in- 
 stinct showed itself here as usual. Boniface succeeding 
 in constitutiQg the clerical synods, the bishops and metro- 
 politan, and therefore in the last resort, the Pope, as 
 the heirs of the liberties of the Christian congregation, 
 in the stead of Pepin and the other sovereigns, who 
 found themselves in possession of these liberties, or were 
 seeking to appropriate them. But under this system, 
 too, the Christian nation, as the episcopal flock, re- 
 mained shorn of its rights; nay, the great Christian 
 congregation, the State, was stripped of its power, and 
 at last of its rights, toward the hierarchy. Naturally 
 the position of the parochial clergy became much less 
 free under the episcopal rule, but the freedom of the 
 
78 'SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 spiritual element was asserted against the secular power, 
 ^which was at that time no less rapacious than barbarous. 
 
 This seems to us the true import for the world's his- 
 tory of the work of Boniface. In his fundamental hie- 
 rarchical principle lie all the Decretals, and all the 
 forgeries and corruptions of the law of the Western 
 Church which are ibound up therewith. From this first 
 principle sprang all the struggles of the Popes with the 
 Emperors concerning the rights of investiture, induction, 
 and confirmation; and, lastly, the pretensions of the 
 bishops to a canon law, which negatives the State no 
 less than the congregation. 
 
 Professor Leo, as we have already hinted, says that 
 Boniface begot the German nation, and that his grave 
 should be more sacred to us than the graves of the 
 patriarchs to the IsrSCelites.* The same gifted writer 
 also informs us, "that the Carlovingians, by the mode 
 of their accession to the throne, submitted themselves 
 even as monarchs to the moral law of the Christian 
 Church," and that " this accession assumed as its funda- 
 mental principle, that we must obey God rather than 
 man;" wherefore Professor Leo is very zealous against 
 those "narrow-minded Protestant theologians" who 
 strive to exculpate Boniface from intrigues connected 
 with this, "the weightiest political act of his day." 
 "They forget," he says, "that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, and regard the servant's form, 
 not as one of humiliation, but of glory."f Thus teaches 
 this enlightened politician and professor of history in a 
 Protestant university, principally frequented by future 
 Protestant theologians. Much as we rejoice in such 
 perfect freedom of instruction, we can as little coincide 
 
 * Vorlesungen iiber die deutsche Gesohichte, i. 488. 
 t Ibid. s. 481. Compare note on 474. 
 
RISE OP THE HIERA.ECHT. 79 
 
 with Professor Leo. The congregation can no more die 
 out than the moral order of the universe, or historical 
 truth — ^than common sense and conscience. 
 
 It was not merely a contest between Prince and Pope, 
 which Boniface conducted to a conclusion favorable to 
 the hierarchy. It was the coat of Christ over which 
 the mighty ones of the earth were disputing, and which 
 they at last parted among themselves. The contest con- 
 cerning the nomination and investiture of bishops be-s 
 came a contest for scepter and tiara, carried on between 
 the absolute imperial and the absolute papal power. 
 The possessors of the kingly authority among the Ger- 
 mans conceived (as Eettberg very justly expresses it),* 
 the position of the bishops as analogous to that of their 
 feudal followers. In France, in the time ■ of Boniface, 
 the Franks recognized in tiieir relations with Rome 
 those rights which had been accorded to the Pope in 
 this great dispute in Christendom, by the decisions of 
 Sardis, and certain imperial decrees of the last days of 
 the empire; rigfits which even a Gregory the Great 
 only claimed over his own patriarchate — ^thus, for in- 
 stance, not dver Milan. These privileges consist in the 
 right of watching over the laws of the universal church, 
 and of ultimate decision in case of appeal to these laws 
 by the metropolitans on disputed points. Gregory's 
 predecessor, Pelagius, did not refuse to furnish King 
 Childebert, on the demand of the latter, with proof of 
 his orthodoxy and his adhesion to the council of Chal- 
 cedon. Pelagius submitted to do so; for Childebert, 
 though not his own sovereign, was a great King ; and 
 he did it because, as he says, "Holy Scripture com- 
 mands us to be subject to kings." Beyond these limits 
 no historical trace can be found of interference on the 
 
 ♦ Eettberg Geschichte ii.- 583, etc. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 196. 
 
80 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 part of Rome. None of the apostles to the Allemannen 
 — Fridolin, Columhan, and Gallus — ^provided themselves' 
 in their missionary work with powers from Rome ; nor 
 did Emmeran, the apostle of Bavaria. The story that 
 Kilian, the apostle of Thnringia, sought a commission 
 from Rome, is an evident fabrication. It was the Anglo- 
 Saxon converters, Wilhbord and Boniface, who, in the 
 first half of the eighth century, caused themselves to be 
 furnished by Rome with apostolic authority ; and Boni- 
 face was the first to swear the oath of fealty to the 
 Pope, which was taken by the suffragan bishops of the 
 Roman Church. But even Boniface never- dreamed of 
 thereby weakening or setting aside the metropolitan 
 authority ; as is proved by the remarkable trait in his 
 life already mentioned. 
 
 But with regard to ecclesiastical legislation, the Kings 
 of France assumed to themselves the ancient rights of 
 the Christian congregation as opposed to the purely 
 episcopal synods, and this evidently with the approba- 
 tion of the Frankish nobles and the. people."* The 
 first great Austrasian Council of 742, the so-called 
 Concilium Germanicum, which established the episco- 
 pal authority in the position awarded to it by modem 
 canon law, was not an episcopal synod, but a half-yearly 
 assembly of the empire, convened by the King — a coun- 
 cil of the magnates and opiimates, among whom the 
 bishops were included. Here the propositions of the 
 bishops were heard, accepted with amendments, and 
 published by the King as royal decrees or imperial 
 ordinances. The episcopal nominations of Boniface are 
 not mentioned at all ; Carloman undertakes the appoint- 
 ments as though nothing had been done. So, likewise, 
 the new regulations concerning ecclesiastical discipline 
 -* Rettberg, i. 352, etc. 
 
THE PRANKS AND THE CHtJECH. 81 
 
 and marriage, appear in the form of decrees of the 
 State. This proceeding elicits an expression of thank- 
 ful satisfection from Pope Zacharias. The same course 
 is pursued in the three succeeding synods ; — the Lesti- 
 _nian (held in 743 in the Hennegau), the Neustrian 
 (held in Soissons, 744), and the General Council of 
 745. Pepin followed the example of Carloman. The 
 decisions of the oecumenical councils are recognized, 
 and new ordinances are promulgated by the King, in 
 accordance with the deliberations of the imperial 
 council. 
 
 Whatever would seem to contradict this, the historical 
 fact of the case has been shown by an unprejudiced 
 criticism to be the misconception, or the forgery and 
 falsification of a later period. The genuineness of the 
 ancient records of these four Frankish councils . has 
 been placed beyond all doubt by the most eminent 
 French and German critics ; and whoever chooses may 
 now read them for himself in the third volume of that 
 truly great, yet melancholy national work, Pertz's 
 Monumenta Germanica. The form of this compact 
 between the bishops and the civil government with re- 
 gard to the relative position of Church and State was, 
 therefore, in no sense, based on the assumption that the 
 episcopate possessed an independence external to and 
 above the State. The State represented the congrega- 
 tion,^ which had been forced into the back-ground by the 
 overweening power of the vassals on the one hand, and 
 the perfectly analogous power of the episcopate on the 
 other. It was still Franks who deliberated, and the 
 Frankish King who determined and proclaimed what 
 should be the law of the land, after a Catholic Chris- 
 tianity had penetrated the national life. The form was 
 
 rude, like the age ; but it was the right form with re- 
 4* 
 
82 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 gard to the relation of the State to the hierarchy. 
 Considered from the widest historical point of view, it 
 answers to the position assumied in ecclesiastical affairs, 
 under a freer and somewhat different development of 
 both the Church and State- elements, by the English 
 Parliament of the seventeenth century. But the direct 
 historical development of this form is the Gallican 
 Church, not only as established by the declaration of 
 the French clergy in 1682, but rather such as Napo- 
 leon would have made it, when, by the organic articles 
 of the Concordat of 1801, he began to bring it into 
 harmony with the altered relations of the world.* Had 
 the course of the world's history fallen out otherwise, 
 the Concordat of Fontainebleau would have completed 
 
 * As the terms of this Concordat may not be immediately 
 present to the minds of my readers, it may be as well to recall 
 its principal provisions. I recapitulate them as given in Bauer's 
 Weltgeschichte. " This Concordat, gigned by the Pope on the 
 18th August, 1801, re-established the observance of Sunday, and 
 restored the old days of the week ; deprived the State of all 
 churches still used for Grovernment purposes, and where none 
 were still standing, obliged the Government to assign some other 
 public building for divine worship. It insures to the Catholic 
 religion the free exercise of its rights, but it is nowhere called 
 the religion of the State — the future head of the State" naight 
 even be of another confession. Protestants have equal rights 
 and privileges with Catholics ; Jews retain the civE rights which 
 were granted to them during the Revolution; all who have 
 purchased Church lands from the State retain undisputed posses- 
 sion of them. The Pirst Consul enters into possession of all the 
 powers and privileges enjoyed by the previous sovereigns of 
 Prance, nominates the Archbishops and Bishops, and receives 
 from them the oath of allegiance ; is further authorized to make 
 any police regulations affecting the Chtiroh which maybe required 
 for the public tranquillity. The Pope confirms the Archbishops 
 and Bishops, and they nominate directly all the parochial clergy, 
 who are confirmed by the Government, and a suitable salary is 
 to be accorded to them," etc.T eh. — 2^. 
 
METROPOLITANISM AND PAPACY. gg 
 
 this work, and restored the metropolitan constitution as 
 it existed in essence in the eighth century under the 
 Franks. But certainly the more ancient form was the 
 more free. The middle ages did not attain, either in 
 civil or ecclesiastical polity, to any stable form of 
 freedom ; the knot was already too " intricate ere the 
 Teutonic races entered on the scene of the world's 
 history. The missionary institutions of the British and 
 Irish monasteries were neither the original type of 
 Christianity, nor one that could become permanent ; 
 the place of the Christian congregation could not be 
 supplied by monks and their bishops ; this form of 
 government fell, like the rule of the Judges in Israel; 
 by its own incapacity. But still less was the congrega- 
 tion duly represented under the sway of the episcopacy 
 or metropolitanism of the middle ages. The knot 
 remained unloosed, or was cut asunder by despotism. 
 Even if the Reformers had not opened a new sphere to 
 the development of the European mind, yet the progress 
 of culture and the social relations of the age were grad- 
 ually pressing on toward another attempt, no longer to 
 solve, but to compromise the difficulty. The question 
 was, .to what point of the yet unconcluded course of 
 development should a return be made. The Galilean 
 and Napoleonic view of the relation between the epis- 
 copal authority and that of the metropolitan, and be- 
 tween the latter and the. Papal power, has gained a 
 complete victory over the opposing Ultramontane view 
 in the field of historical jurisprudence — that is to say, 
 among the students of history, and a certain portion, 
 now but a small one, of the clergy of Prance and South 
 Germany. But the question of the juridical right no 
 longer lives in the remembrance of the French nation ; 
 and with regard to the position of the reigning dynasty. 
 
84 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 it is still an undecided point whether the present Em- 
 peror will be able to maintain the Napoleonic constitu- 
 tion or not. "Will it be a reason for or agaiast its 
 maintenance that the constitution of Joseph II. has just 
 been relinquished by the Imperial House of Austria, 
 after a tenacious resistance ? We may probably live to 
 see this question answered. 
 
 Conceived in its highest form, this struggle resolves 
 itself into a question of dictatorship. The dictatorship 
 of the State has for its object the protection of the 
 laity, as subjects, against the clergy, and of the pa- 
 rochial clergy against the episcopate, whose power over 
 the pastorate is unlimited, according to the French 
 code, in France and on the left bank of the Rhine, and 
 now, according to the new canon law, in Austria also. 
 
 For, historically considered, the rights of the congre- 
 gation were no more derived legally from the authority 
 of the State, than were the rights of the bishops them- 
 selves. Let us once more look at the facts. The legis- 
 lative power belonged to the congregation, as well as 
 the right of electing bishops ; the executive government 
 to the council of elders, and already, in very early 
 times, to the bishops, as the head of the presbytery. 
 
 Such is the origin and position of free episcopacy. 
 Under this state of things, the congregation possessed 
 the highest voice in legislation — that is, nothing could 
 be decided without its participation ; and in the election 
 of bishops, the congregation acted beside and with the 
 parochial clergy. 
 
 As the nations became Christian, and the congrega- 
 tions, therefore, were bound up into a Christian state, 
 the power of the Crown meanwhile developing and 
 strengthening, the civil government gradually assumed 
 the position of a national dictatorship toward the Rom- 
 
CHURCH AND STATE. 35 
 
 ish clergy and the Pope. Diets, in which the bishops 
 took part, passed resolutions even on the affairs of the 
 clergy; and made general regulations, with regard to 
 marriage, education, and similar matters, which would 
 formerly have fallen within the sphere of each separate 
 congregation. 
 
 Thus prince and bishop, and, at the head of all. Pope 
 and Emperor, parted between them the heritage of the 
 congregation. The congregation, meanwhile, gradually 
 ceased to be the independent depositary of faith and 
 Christianity, as also of the rights of Christians. 
 
 As the Reformation was the parent of the independent 
 Christian state, so that civil absolutism which culmin- 
 ated in Philip II. and Louis XIV., sought to place the 
 national element on a level with the canonical, as pos- 
 sessed of equal authority. In all collisions with the 
 Church on the rights of property, or in the domain of 
 law in general, the decree of the sovereign now appeared 
 as the highest sj^bol of the nation. 
 
 Thus arose the disputes between Church and State, 
 in the modem sense of- the term. They were disputes, 
 not merely about the filling up of certain clerical ap- 
 pointments, but about these three great points — ^mar- 
 riage, education, and the management of Church prop- 
 erty. 
 
 Eor a time the sovereigns believed that they could 
 put an end to these contests by means of so-called Con- 
 cordats, or treaties with Rome; but so many insur- 
 mountable points of disunion presented themselves, that 
 it always, became necessary, in order that -the sovereign 
 should be ruler of his own country, either to break the' 
 Concordat, or to take the more honorable course of 
 Joseph n. and Napoleon the Great, and establish as the 
 law of the land, by means of organic articles and civil 
 
86' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 legislation, those indispensable arrangements which it 
 was impossible to obtain from Rome. 
 
 If, then, we look back over the whole course of devel- 
 opment through these eleven hundred years, up to its 
 present point in our own day, the final result is, that if 
 the middle ages failed to find any means of reconciling 
 these opposing powers, royal or imperial absolutism has 
 been equally unsuccessful. Despotism against despot- 
 ism, the secular power will always have the worst of it ; 
 and, regarded simply as a contest between these two 
 powers, it is just and right that it should be so. 
 
 Once for p.11, the eternal laws of Providence forbid us 
 to gather grapes off thistles, or the fruits of freedom from 
 the tree of despotism ; though such a harvest is not only 
 believed in nowadays by many governments, but- even 
 sought, in their despondency, by many nations. But 
 the tide is turning : the deeper stirrings of the moral 
 and religious consciousness are making themselves felt 
 in the hearts of individuals and of nations ; and the sup- 
 pression of the laity as the congregation, begins to be 
 productive of as much uneasiness as the suppression of 
 the rights of the metropolitans. 
 
 But we will say more on this point hereafter, and 
 from a freer point of view. For the present our near- 
 est duty is to look more closely into the three great 
 points of dispute already indicated. We will, however, 
 first await the conclusion of the week's festival, and the 
 issue of the processions and assemblies connected with it 
 in Mayence, which will last up to the 21st of this 
 month. Meanwhile, farewell ! 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 THE SEKMON OF THE TIARA BY THE BISHOP OF STRAS- 
 BURG, AND THE MANIFESTO OF THE ASSEMBLY OF 
 GERMAN BISHOPS AT WURZBURG, IN THE AUTUMN 
 OF 1848. 
 
 Charlottenbbeg, Jvine 24th, 1855. 
 
 The Feast of St. John the Baptist. 
 
 My Honored Friend : 
 
 The great festiyal has passed away, and its train 
 of ceremonies has ended in processions and sermons. In 
 spite of the jubilee indulgences connected with it, not a 
 trace of sympathy on the part of the German people can 
 be discovered, not even among the inhabitants of Fulda 
 or Mayence. The Protestant festival on the Sunday 
 does not even seem to have inspired one sermon of any 
 importance. No news from Sebastopol, only fi-om Han- 
 over. 
 
 So much the more can we now afford to smile at much 
 that has been cried aloud in our ears from their sanctu- 
 aries by the enthusiastic coryphoai of this party, or that 
 is announced or betrayed to us in the public prints. 
 But it is worth while to draw the attention of the politi- 
 cal and philosophic spectator, and of the reflecting lover 
 of his country, whether Catholic or Protestant, to some 
 things which have been said by the opposite side, espe- 
 cially toward the close of the festival. 
 
 I know not, nor is it of much importance, whether 
 
88 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Dr. Rasz, the Bishop of Strasburg, himself of German 
 descent, was one of those prelates to whom M. von Dal- 
 wigk, the minister of the Grand Duke of Hesse, gave a 
 great banquet last week in the name of his Protestant 
 sovereign ; on which occasion, though himself a Protest- 
 ant, he thought proper to say so many kind and approv- 
 ing things to his eminent ecclesiastical guests, about the 
 enlightened sentiments they had manifested. 
 
 In short, as we are informed by the newspapers, the 
 Bishop of Strasburg preached on the 21st instant, in 
 the cathedral of Mayence, when he took the opportunity 
 of eulogizing to the utmost of his power the hero of the 
 day, and the master of St. Boniface and himself — the 
 Pope. All this is quite in order. But of the conclu- 
 sion of his sermon we have the following account in the 
 letter of the Mayence correspondent of the Neue Preus- 
 sische Zeitung : 
 
 " At the conclusion of hia discourse, the Bishop of Strasburg 
 invited the faithful to' show their gratitude to St. Boniface, by 
 praying for the speedy conversion of England to the True Faith 
 and the Chair of St. Peter, for she had been drinking for three 
 hundred years from a fountain whose waters are not those of 
 Eternal Life. The orator then addressed an apostrophe to the 
 Queen of England herself, solemnly adjuring her to restore the 
 tiara, which was unjustly placed on her head, to its rightful pos- 
 sessor, the Pope of Rome." 
 
 The Bishop of Strasburg is unable to see any thing 
 in the whole dispute but Pope and Emperor. The 
 Queen of England exercises certain privileges to which 
 the Pope, lays claim; let her reluiquish them to the 
 Pope. Then the dispute would be settled, the distinc- 
 tions of confessions would be at an end, and with them 
 the misery of the world. Nothiag is said of Germany ; 
 we do not know, therefore, whether he has given us up, 
 
THE QUEEN AND THE TIARA. 89 
 
 like the Bishop of Mayence, or thinks himself sure of 
 us, Uke Le Maistre. In short, it is a question of Pope 
 and Anti-Pope. 
 
 As for the people and history, too many since 1851 
 have left them altogether out of the question. The con- 
 sciences of iadividuals, and the rights of Christian con- 
 gregations, are of as little account with them, and with 
 this Bishop, as the -defunct liberties of the Galilean 
 Church. This is characteristic. Equally so is the ig- 
 norant or' consciously false representation" of the real 
 matter of fact. Queen Victoria exercises the prerogative 
 of appointing bishops under the form of a pro formd 
 election, after privately consulting the archbishop, who 
 would assuredly as little draw down on himself the ter- 
 rors of a prcBmunire by the use of his veto, as would 
 the chapter by any well founded refusal. Charles Mar- 
 tel and Pepin exercised the same right without any 
 election, as heirs of the Christian congregation — ^there- 
 fore the exercise of such a prerogative involves no in- 
 fringement of the papal rights. The Queen, however," 
 can afiSrm no new dogma, and has no power of excom- 
 munication. It is true that in conjunction with her 
 Parliament (in which the clergy is represented by the 
 bishops) she makes laws on ecclesiastical matters, as 
 was done by those Frankish Kings, without parliament 
 or public opiaion. But whatever she does is done by 
 virtue of the constitutional rights of the Crown ; while 
 the Catholic dynasties have always done the same, when 
 in their power, without constitution. 
 
 Therefore she has no tiara, and consequently can not 
 restore any to the Pope. But, as we have already said, 
 even in reference to St. Boniface, this expression of 
 our Lord Bishop is not in harmony with history and 
 feet. What the panegyrist of Boniface calls the rights 
 
90 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of the tiara were unknown to Boniface himself, except 
 in so far as he combated them. 
 
 But in zeal is truth ; and in every enthusiasm some 
 truth is revealed. Since this declaration has not been 
 disowned, let us examine it, as a test of the views 
 taken by the hierarchical party of the affairs of the 
 world, and as a standard of episcopal acquaintance with 
 history. 
 
 The spirit which is revealed in it is, indeed, not that 
 of the Gospel. Rather does it bear a strong resem- 
 blance to that spirit of religious hatred which has so 
 long drenched Europe in blood; that spirit of perse- 
 cution which these claims to absolute power necessarily 
 bring with them, and whose latest fruits we shall soon 
 have to contemplate. 
 
 Nor is it the spirit of the great forerunner of Christ, 
 whose memory is celebrated to-day by Christendom. 
 In the midst of very evil and truly d^perate times, 
 John the Baptist did not look for the salvation of the 
 people of God and of mankind in a general recognition 
 of the authority of the high priest, whose emissaries and 
 adherents, the priests and Levites, stood before him. 
 Here is his short sermon to the assembled multitude : 
 
 " generation of vipers, who hatii warned you to flee from 
 the wrath to come ? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of re- 
 pentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have 
 Abraham to our father ; for I say imto you, that God is able of 
 these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also 
 the ax is laid unto the root of the trees : every tree, therefore, 
 which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into 
 the fire." (Luke iii. 7-9.) 
 
 Let this be our text to-day for a sermon on the tiara, 
 very different from that of the Bishop of Strasburg. 
 Since he exalts the tiara so highly, we will consider 
 
CLAIMS OF THR TIARA. Ql 
 
 more closely its real claims, and, above' all, search into 
 their origin. 
 
 The insoluble problem of the perplexities in which 
 the State, whether Catholic or Protestant, is involved 
 with the hierarchy, and the irreconcilable discord be- 
 tween them, so long as the hierarchy asserts its absolute 
 rights with respect to the three great comer-stones of 
 the State — marriage, education, and property — rboth lie 
 in the peculiar nature of the law of the Western clergy. 
 
 Hardly had the metropolitan system of Boniface su- 
 perseded the ancient rights of the Christian congrega- 
 tion, when, as is well known, the State, under the weak 
 and Superstitious son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, 
 was also brought to acknowledge the supreme authority 
 of the Church. This was the work of a century. 
 When it was complete, toward the middle of the ninth 
 century, the Roman papacy, now constituted the sole 
 heir both of the Roman empire and the rights and liber- 
 ties of the Christian Church, looked around for a legal 
 basis for its position. As no such basis could be found 
 iu the canonical codes and decretals already existing, it 
 accepted one invented for the purpose. The absurd in- 
 vention of the bestowal of Rome by Constantine on Syl- 
 vester, dates from the age of St. Boniface, or a little 
 earlier, and is of papal origin. It still commanded uni- 
 versal belief when, six centuries later, Laurentius Valla 
 made the first historical use of that application of the 
 conscience to ancient records which is now called criti- 
 cism. Its object was very simple, namely, to give the 
 Pope a right of property in Rome. More difiicult was 
 it to find a legal foundation for the universal sovereign- 
 ly, which followed the assertion of Rolne's supreme epis- 
 copacy. The foundation of Christianity is a purely 
 historical one ; the depositary of right and law within 
 
92 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 her commuDion is the Ecclesia — the congregation pos.- 
 sessing its own members and its own independence. 
 The prescriptions, or canones of ancient Christendom 
 always presume this. Thus, the primitive records were 
 in glaring contradiction with the pretensions of that 
 hierarchy which Boniface and the Carlovingians had 
 naturalized in France and Germany. A new canon law 
 must be iavented. That the Decretals of Isidor were 
 an intentional falsehood and forgery had been already 
 maintained by Luther and Calvin, and waa demonstrated . 
 by the Magdeburg Centuriatores* as completely as the 
 motion of the earth by Galileo, i. e., sufficiently for 
 every one who has an uninjured sense for truth. Nor 
 since the time of Van Espen, have all the arts of the 
 romanticists of canon law availed to raise a doubt on 
 the point, even in Germany 
 
 It is curious enough, that the Archbishopric of May- 
 ence was more particularly implicated in* this forgery. 
 It was a successor of Boniface, Otgar, who fabricated 
 these Decretals, some eighty years after the death of 
 Boniface X^-hout 833), and then caused them to be 
 mingled with certain falsified capitularies by Benedictus 
 Levita. Here, then, we find that archbishopric appear- 
 ing as the parent of a lie, which, according to the oracle. 
 of the professor of Halle, is so blessed with hereditary 
 
 * The authors of the Magdehurg Church History, written by 
 Flavius and his friends, about the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 to prove the right and necessity of the Eeformation from the his- 
 tory of the Church. Every century was treated in a separate vol- 
 ume by one of this band of authors, and hence their name of 
 Centuriatores. The work was brought down to the end of the 
 thirteenth century. It had a powerful effect on the age when it 
 was published and, called forth the celebrated answer of BaroniuB, 
 who endeavored to make the same tract of history prove the 
 justice of the claims of the Romish Church. — ?5*. 
 
THE FORGED DEOEBTALS. 
 
 93 
 
 wisdom, that, up to the close of the Holy Roman 
 Empiye, we see its Electors as imjSerial chancellors, 
 distinguished for the wise counsels by which they ren- 
 der Germany happy, and lead the empire to its glorious 
 termination. 
 
 There is as little truth in the idea, to which some 
 celebrated Catholic scholars of our own. time have endeav- 
 ored to give plausibility, that this most colossal of all 
 historical deceptions (for the forgeries of the Mormons 
 give themselves out for romances) has its basis in ancient 
 canon law ; as it is impossible to maintain; either that 
 the collection grew up of itself out of the unsuspicious 
 faith of the people (according to the well-known assump- 
 tions of the romantic school of a popular creative poetic- 
 al genius, and of a generatio equivoca in history), or 
 that these Decretals arose from the corruption of really 
 ancient and genuine traditions. It seems to me most 
 humiliating to the German mind and German science, 
 that grave inquirers into history should think such sub- 
 terfuges necessary to protect their works from inclusion 
 in the Index Exjpurgatorius, or from the censure of 
 ignorant French bishops and crafty Jesuit chaplains. 
 Doubtless, the condition of the times, and the state of 
 many perplexed minds, may have suggested the funda- 
 mental idea ; but this only explains the success of the 
 deception, it does not prove the innocence of its birth. 
 This lie rather sprang into existence, like Minerva from 
 the head of Jupiter, consciously and full-grown from 
 the head of the hierarchy, and has spread out its branches * 
 from Mayence over all Western Christendom, like a 
 mighty upas-tree. The proper poetry of absolutism and 
 superstition is that impious thing, a pious fraud. How 
 early, and in what place, the consciousness of fraud 
 passed into credulous delusion; and which did most, 
 
94 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Eome or Mayence, to produce or diffuse the forgery is 
 a point we will leave undecided. But one portion of 
 the deceit at least rests on Mayence; and the whole 
 deception could not be unknown to Rome when it was 
 accepted there. Boniface had the collection of Decretals 
 by Dionysius in his hands, and no other. Every bishop 
 in the Frankish empire knew what capitularia had been 
 published ; none better than the ArcEbishop of Mayence 
 and his canons, officials who appear at a very early date 
 in connection with that see, and from whom our cathedral 
 chapters are descended. In that city, therefore, it was 
 easier to deceive, and more difficult to be deceived, than 
 anywhere else, Rome excepted. 
 
 Every new step in research confirms the justice of the 
 historical views of the Reformers in this field, no less 
 than others, of ancient Church history. They saw, in 
 a general and comprehensive manner, what was genuine 
 and what was spurious, and their successors completed 
 the work of proof; while their opponents defended every 
 thing spurious with the acuteness of self-interested par- 
 tisans. The latter party, beaten at all points, now 
 begins to act as though those things had been always 
 believed which have been always contested ; and those 
 matters were of no consequence, for which men have 
 fought as for divine right and sacred truth. But every 
 fresh step in the progress of inquiry renders these eva- 
 sions less tenable. Wasserschleben first disclosed the 
 beginning of the fraud, or at least brought us on to the 
 right track. Since then, the discovery of the great 
 work of Hippolytus of Portus, has led to the restoration 
 of the primitive text of the so-called Canones Apostolicse, 
 which still form the precious foundation of the canon 
 law both of the Eastern and the Western clergy, and 
 has rendered possible the restoration -of the primitive 
 
THE FOEGBD DECRETAXS. 95 
 
 records of the Churches of Antioch and Alexandria, the 
 most learned and illustrious Churches of the first three 
 centuries. Here I can but indicate the indisputable 
 results attained by a course of investigation which I 
 have pursued elsewhere.* According to these researches 
 we find that our present collection of primitive regula- 
 tions, manners and customs of the apostolic community, 
 comprised in eight books, to which the name of the 
 Apostles is prefixed, is but a feeble attempt of the 
 Byzantine Church to legalize the authority of the bishops 
 aiid metrepolitans ; as the Roman Church, four hundred 
 years later legalized the supremacy of the Papal power. 
 Those simple regulations and customs of the principal 
 churches which could not be traced to the decisions oi 
 individual bishops or congregations, were collected as 
 early as the second century, and ranked as apostolic. 
 In the fourth and fifth centuries, this collection was 
 transformed by interpolations and corruptions into a 
 title-deed of the episcopal hierarchy. But the Decretals 
 accomplished the same purpose for the West on a much 
 grander scale, and in the true old Roman manner : in 
 place of theological maxims and pious exhortations, they 
 took a purely juridical form as a code to guide judicial 
 decisions. The earlier literary fraud proceeded from 
 the same school, if not from the same man, to whom we 
 owe the corruption of the Ignatian Epistles. The fraud 
 of the "Western Church was the conscious work of St. 
 Booiface's archbishopric, pre-eminent for hereditary 
 wisdom ; invented for the benefit of Rome, it was cer- 
 tain, in any case, to be accredited by Rome. 
 
 Torgive me, dear friend, this apparently learned di- 
 gression. The question is by no means one of merely 
 
 * Hippolytus and his Times. Vol, iv., 1852. Oomp. Ay 
 Analecta Ante-Nicsena, vol. ii., Keliquise Canonicse. Lond. 1854. 
 
96 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 historical significance, but is of the greatest import for 
 our own days. For it is the code of the Decretals to 
 which the eulogists and successors of St. Boniface now 
 appeal, as establishing the divine rights of the episcopate. 
 Taking, then, the widest historical survey, what do 
 we see to be the characteristic feature of this new-made 
 system of Decretal law? That it pretends to uncon- 
 ditional authority over the individual, as well as over 
 the congregation and State. This episcopal authority 
 (which, in the last resort, becomes papal) is truly des- 
 potic, not only in relation to the parochial ciergy, but 
 also in relation to the laity and the State itself, and 
 betrays an aspiration to universal empire. Originally 
 intended only for the discipline and guidance of the 
 clergy, the canon law has gradually becoine the su- 
 preme code of an ecclesiastical corporation, governing 
 with absolute power, and itself directed by an absolute 
 head, the Pope. And it is not by the Canones Apos- 
 tolicse, but by this code, that the hierarchy governs — a 
 code which not only leaves the laity wholly destitute of 
 rights toward the Church, but even places the State in 
 the same position wherever the two bodies come into 
 collision. Now the laity is neither more nor less than 
 the whole Christian people organized into a congrega- 
 tion — ^the State is the Christian magistracy and govern- 
 ment; the points of contact between "the clergy and the 
 individual, or the State, may be summed up in those 
 three institutions which lie at the foundation of all 
 human society — marriage, education, and property; 
 without the control of which the modern State would be 
 but an institution of police, with barracks, shops, and 
 public-houses, or, at the best, museums and picture- 
 galleries — a level to which here and there a State has 
 really sunk, or is sinking. 
 
MODERN CLAIMS OP THE CANON LAW. 97 
 
 But the final utterance of that fraud, and' of the 
 wLole system of law grounded on it, is precisely what 
 tlie Bishop of Strasburg says, according to the public 
 prints, in his sermon on the tiara. You are acquainted, 
 my honored friend, with those presumptuous and omin- 
 ous words, to which I have more than once listened my- 
 self — I mean the words with which the Dean of the 
 College of Cardinals places the tiara on the Pope's 
 head : " Take the triple crown, and know that thou art 
 King of kings, and Lord of lords, and the Vicegerent 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth !" 
 
 No pretension was ever put forth in a more naked 
 and unconditional, not to say horrible and blasphemous 
 form. The power of such pretensions over the minds 
 of men and of nations lies in this — that what is there 
 said is as true of humanity, and of every organized 
 Christian congregation or ecclesia (if we remember only 
 that what is divine can alone be rightfully absolute or 
 unconditioned) as it is false of the Pope, or of any other 
 person who would set himself in the place of the congre- 
 gation, or of believing humanity, that he may bring the 
 latter, which is God's own free child, into slavery. • 
 
 Is not this, indeed, a truly apocalyptic transforma^ 
 tion ? What was once laid down for itself as an internal 
 rule of conscience by the free Christian congregation 
 with its elders and bishop, while as yet unconnected 
 with the State — what had the force within the congre- 
 gation itself of a free law, of which conscience was the 
 sanction, is now wielded, according to this code, in their 
 own behalf as the " Church," and against the Christian 
 people and its government (therefore against the whole 
 civilized world) by the clergy, organized into a hierar- 
 chy; and, forsooth, as a divine right, which it would 
 be godless to disobey. The individual is created to 
 
 5 
 
'98 SiaNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 obey this law at the peril of his eternal salvation ; the 
 State is bound to carry it into execution at the peril of 
 its peace — ^nay, of its existence. The secular arm is 
 summoned to act as the servant of the clergy ; should it 
 exert its own rights and those of the people, even for 
 purely Church objects, the thunderbolt of excommuni- 
 cation is ready to paralyze it — ^that is, if there is the 
 least hope that the bolt will kindle a flame among the 
 people. A helping hand to the conflagration is never 
 wanting. 
 
 Contemplating the present social position of the 
 world, one should imagine that every thoughtful and 
 well-intentioned person must feel the complete abolition 
 of the claims of such a code, resting, as it does, on forg- 
 eries, and a base and self-interested deception, to be 
 the greatest boon to all classes ; and that the clergy, at 
 least, must regard it as most desirable for themselves 
 that the State should set bounds in practice to such pre- 
 tensions. And this was, in fact, the prevalent view, 
 during the last two and the ea-rly part of the present 
 century, among the most pious and enlightened, as well 
 as truly patriotic bishops and other ecclesiastics of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. But such moderate men, 
 where they have not allowed themselves to be "con- 
 verted," or driven by the coarse domiaation of the 
 bureaucracy into that re-actionary infection from which 
 no priest is safe, are now called infidel and servile. The 
 same party that despises Sailer as a sentimental weak- 
 ling, pours contempt not only on Febronius,* but even 
 
 * Frebonius's real name was Ton Hontheim ; he was Suffragan 
 Bishop of Trfeves, and wrote (about 1770) a defense of the liber- 
 ties of the German Church agiainst the absolute claims of Eome, 
 on behalf of the three spiritual electors of Mayence, Cologne, and 
 Treves. ' "- 
 
BISHOP KETTBLBB'S TEACT. 99 
 
 on Wessenberg,* as ignorant, deluded men, traitors to 
 their order, and slaves to princes. However, to the real 
 advantage of that hierarchy, the legal limitations of its 
 authority, so widely desired, were introduced into all 
 Catholic States, or remained untouched where they al- 
 ready existed, up to the year 1850. 
 
 But this view is far from being shared by that gifted 
 and eloquent prelate who invites his faithful flock to 
 celebrate the Feast of St. Boniface, and admonishes us 
 meanwhile to do penance for the murder of the Mes- 
 siah — ^that is, of the very hierarchy which is giving 
 at this moment such characteristic and vigorous signs 
 of life. 
 
 As before, we will let the Bishop speak for himself. 
 Bishop Ketteler gives us, in his tract of last year, en- 
 titled "The Eights of the Catholic Church in Germany, 
 and their sanction; With particular reference to the 
 demands of the Episcopate of the Upper Rhine, and 
 the present ecclesiastical conflict," the following in- 
 formation concerning the claims of the bishops upon 
 the State : 
 
 " Al the demands of the bishops may be reduced to four. 
 
 "First, they demand the right of educating their priests, and 
 placing them, without interference; and of exercising ecclesiastical 
 discipline over the priests and the laity. 
 
 "Secondly, of possessing .and founding Catholic schools. 
 
 " ThiriUy, of directing the religious hfe ; that is, of founding 
 and possessing the institutions and corporations which minister to 
 the nourishment of that life. 
 
 * Wessenberg, a, very learned, pious, and highly gifted man, is 
 still living : at ike beginning of this century he was Adminis- 
 trator and Suffi-agan Bishop of Constance, where he introduced 
 many reforms, which were all condemned by the Pope in 1816. 
 He wrote a history of the Council of Basle, in seven, volumes. 
 
100 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 " Fourthly, of the entire management of the revenues belong- 
 ing to the Catholic Church, and expressly guarantied by the peace 
 of Westphalia, and the Final Resolution of the Committee of the 
 Diet in 1801." (p. 40.) 
 
 These four points are concise and pregnant, and are 
 laid down quite tranquilly without any preface. They 
 almost remind one of the customary phrase of the 
 Janissaries, when they took a Christian by the hair to 
 cut his head ofiF, " Hold still ! it won't hurt." Innocent 
 as they look, they are very weighty, and cut very deeply 
 into the life of- the people and of the State. In order 
 to- estimate the whole range of their meaning, and. to keep 
 at the same time on the ground of fact and the present 
 time, let us first seek the explanation of these points in 
 the fuller manifesto published by the assembly of German 
 Cardinals, Bishops, Apostolic Vicars, and their repre- 
 sentatives, which was held in Wkrzburg in the autumn 
 of the fateful year 1848. The short statement of the 
 Bishop of Mayence in 1855, so innocently put forth, 
 and so tranquilizing in sound, evidently rests on this 
 document, which has not yet, it appears to me, met with 
 the attention it deserves. It has been repeated in es- 
 sence by the Bishops of Bavaria and Austria,' and has a 
 significance far transcending the boundaries of Germany. 
 In the first of these manifestoes Bishop Ketteler's pre- 
 decessor took part, and he himself is one of the most 
 distinguished and active men among the Bishops of Ger- 
 many who were there represented. 
 
 This remarkable "Preliminary Council of the Catho- 
 lic Church in Germany" consisted of a Cardinal-Arch- 
 bishop of Cologne, five Archbishops, and eighteen 
 Bishops. The six Archbishops are those of- — 
 
 Salzburg and Olmiitz, in Austria ; 
 
 Bamberg and Munich-Freising, in Bavaria ; 
 
EPISCOPAL DEMANDS. .JQl 
 
 Freiburg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden ; 
 Cologne, in Prussia. 
 
 The following eighteen Bishops signed the manifesto, 
 either personally, or by their accredited clerical repre- 
 sentatives : 
 
 The Bishop of Brixen, ia Austria ; 
 
 Those of Augsburg, Passau, Wiirzburg, Ratisbon, 
 Speier, and Eichstatt, in Bavaria ; 
 
 Culm, Ermland, Breslau, Paderborn, Munster, and 
 Treves, in Prussia ; 
 
 Hildesheim and Osnabriick, in Hanover ; 
 
 Eottenburg, in Wurtemberg ; 
 
 Limburg, in Nassau and Frankfort ; 
 
 Mayence, for Darmstadt ; 
 to whom may be added the "Apostolic Vicar in the 
 kingdom of Saxony, the Bishop of Corycus," who is the 
 successor of the man who presumed to take the title of 
 Bishop of Meissen. ^ 
 
 The manifesto of these Bishops, which bears the title 
 of a "Memorial," is published on St. Martin's Day, 
 the 11th of November, and addressed to governments 
 and peoples ; the general address to the clergy and the 
 pastoral letter appeared on the same date, and with the 
 same signatures. 
 
 At that time two great rights had been proclaimed 
 throughout Germany, namely — -freedom of association, 
 and the right of every religious body to regulate its 
 own affairs without external interference. These the 
 Bishops now claim for their own benefit, and declare 
 that they will suffer the generally demanded separation 
 of Church and State to take place, without either 
 wishing or fearing it. 
 
 Meanwhile they make the following reserves and 
 declarations : 
 
102 ' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 " 1. The Concordats offer many restraints to the life of the 
 Church ; the bishops demand their alteration by the State in 
 such a way as to give liberty to the Church. 
 
 " 2. AH limitation of the episcogal authority not already stip- 
 ulated in the Concordats, they once for all refuse to admit. 
 
 " 3. They claim the divine right of the instruction and educa- 
 tion of mankind, in which sph^e the Church has,- in all ages, 
 brought to pass ike most glorious results." 
 
 The last point is literally, expounded as follows : 
 
 , " This right over mankind the Church can never renounce, 
 without renounciug her very nature ; and it is the natural and 
 necessary consequence of this right that she should be free to 
 choose and determine all the means requisite for carrying it into 
 execution, such as the individuals and corporations appointed to 
 the task of education and instruction, as well as the school-books 
 to be used ; that, in particular, she should be wholly and entirely 
 uncontrolled in the process of training, and the point at which 
 she pronounces her laborers and emissaries ripe for her great 
 work of education, as also in their employment, superintendence, 
 correction, and, if necessary, removal; also, that it must rest 
 with the Church to decide what bodies and corporations are to 
 be preserved or founded for this end, and what' are no longer 
 usefiil or admissible, if she is to be placed in the full enjoyment 
 of the liberties which belong to her as the guardian of morals, 
 which have their root in the faith, and are the guaranties of all 
 pubHc law and order." 
 
 The exercise of these liberties is more nearly defined 
 as follows : 
 
 " nhUmited freedom m the matter and made of instriuMon, with 
 the power to found and superintend her own institutions for in- 
 struction and education, are claimed, in the widest sense the 
 terms convey, by the Church, as the indispensable means without 
 which she can not be in a position to fulfil her divine mission 
 truly, and in its ful extent ; and she must regard every measure 
 tending to limit her sphere of action in this field as incompatible 
 with the just claims of the Catholics of the German nation." 
 
 Here, my honored, friend, two things are to be 
 remarked : first, that nothing can satisfy the episcopate 
 
EPISCOPAL DEMANDS. 103 
 
 but unlimited freedom of instruction and the establish- 
 ment of its own educational institutions. The Bishops 
 would therefore put their unlimited rights in force even 
 in the public schools] and naturally (as we shall pres-~ 
 ently find them expressly stating) lay claim to the 
 support of the State for this purpose. They have un- 
 limited rights ; all others, nay, the State itself, have in 
 this matter only unconditional duties. They demand 
 unlimited freedom to arrange affiiirs ia accordance with 
 their own code, and make this demand in the name of 
 God and justice. 
 
 Secondly, every measure not in accordance with this 
 view (and up to the present time no national law in the 
 world, not even that of the United States, does accord 
 with it) is a violation of the rights of the nation, in so 
 far as it is Catholic. 
 
 At the present time, all those States which do not 
 exclude religious instruction from their public institu- 
 tions, grant to the bishops, in schools of mixed denomin- 
 ations, those liberties w;hich the bishops have never 
 granted where they have been the masters, or suffered 
 others to grant where their influence has been predom- 
 inant. 
 
 Historically viewed, these claims are the claims of an 
 ecclesiastical corporation. This party calls them the 
 claims of the Church, and represents its cause to be that 
 of the Catholic people. It is thus represented also by 
 the bishops assembled in Wiirzburg. But at this very 
 time, and in the German people itself, condemned by 
 this constitution to be but the passive member of the 
 Church corporation, many truly popular and unmis- 
 takable voices were raised against such an identification 
 of its rights with the pretensions of the episcopate. 
 
 In passing from the discussion of the general schools 
 
104 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 to those institutions already existing, or to be hereaftar 
 established, for the education and training of the clergy, 
 the assembled Bishops start by demanding the unlimited 
 right, not only of uncontrolled superintendence ovct 
 both these classes of institutions, but also of ntanaging 
 the funds belonging to them. They must and will 
 possess this right in virtue of their divine mission. 
 They already enjoy it, as is well known, in all German 
 States where there are episcopal seminaries of the 
 Catholic Church, particularly in Prussia and Baden. 
 But the manifesto aims at absolute unconditional power, 
 as all so-called divine rights do. It says : 
 
 " The Bishops declare that the participation of the State in the; 
 preliminary examination of those destined for the clerical state, 
 before their reception into the seminaries, as also its participation 
 in the competitive examination for appointment to parishes, in- 
 volves a fundamental limitation of the liberties of the Chm-ch, and 
 an infringement of the rights of the bishop." 
 
 Hitherto in Germany it is only in. exceptional cases 
 (not in Prussia for instance) that the State has claimed 
 a participation in the examinations prescribed for those 
 who are candidates for parochial cures. But in all 
 cases the bishops are free to give or withhold the ordin- 
 ation of priests, as they think right, after having trained 
 their pupils by teachers of their own appointment, and 
 under their own exclusive superintendence. We shall 
 return to this point when considering the Church dis- 
 putes in Baden. But this is not the chief point. Shall 
 the bishops be able to receive into their semidaries mere 
 boys, wholly ignorant persons, and foreigners, or shall 
 they be obliged to receive only such as have been 
 already educated at the gymnasia and universities? 
 Yes, my friend, the object is to set aside the universities 
 and gymnasia; supplying the place of the former by the 
 
THE BISHOPS AND EDUOATIOK 105 
 
 episcopal seminaries, and the latter by the so-called 
 minor or boy's seminaries, which shall furnish a supply 
 of ready prepared pupils to the superior institution.* 
 
 As long as gymnasia and universities exist, it is clear 
 that the State can not suffer itself to be deprived of the 
 right of deciding on the proficiency requisite for those 
 who' enter them, without surrenderiag its very being, 
 and with it-its duties toward the individual who is born 
 a man and a citizen, and must and will be trained as 
 such. Whoever can give proof that he has acquired 
 this necessary culture in his own country, is at liberty, 
 on attaining his eighteenth or twentieth year, to deter- 
 mine on becoming a priest. Moreover in all gymnasia 
 and lyceums, the Catholic clergy has the free right of 
 religious instruction during the hours set apart for the 
 purpose. Lastly, at those universities which have a 
 Catholic faculty, there are conventual colleges for young 
 men who wish to prepare for the clerical office, where 
 they may reside together under the special superintend- 
 ence of a spiritual director. 
 
 The demand for a certain amount of liberty in the 
 establishment of private schools, which shall be prepar- 
 atory to the gymnasia, is both general and reasonable, 
 and has been more or less conceded wherever constitu- 
 tions exist— at least since 1840. 
 
 But whatever liberty may be allowed in the establish- 
 ment of private schools, the State caa never surrender 
 its right and its duty to fix a certain degree of culture 
 
 * The difference between the regulation of Grermany and Prance 
 (indeed, all the Eomanic nations) in this respect, is moat lucidly 
 exhibited in the historical and juridical analysis of the Baden 
 Church disputes, published last summer by Professor Wamkonig, 
 to which I refer my readers ; also to the well-known works of 
 Dupin and Gaudry, and the Essay by Laboulaye, in Wolowski'g 
 
 .Toumal. 
 
 5* 
 
106 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 which must be attained. Yet, according to the mani- 
 festo, such a participation is as contrary to the divine 
 right of the episcopate, as a State system of education 
 is unknown to the canon law. 
 
 For the same reason the Government can never suffer 
 the existence of corporations and dorporate rights within 
 the State, except such as are recognized by itself On 
 this pomt, too, the manifesto protests, and once more in 
 the name of liberty ; it says : 
 
 " The assembled archbishops and bishops demand, on behalf of 
 all ecclesiastical associations of men and women, the same^ de- 
 gree of freedom of association which the constitution of the State 
 grants to all its citizens." 
 
 This practically means, as is proved by the demands 
 made since 1850, that even when the rest of the citizens 
 enjoy no such freedom of association, the- bishops stiU 
 lay claim to it for themselves, and that without limita- 
 tion. .What is unconditioned in essence, must remain 
 unlimited in practice. 
 
 All this refers — like Bishop Ketteler's first three 
 J)oints — ^to education. But now the manifesto reaches 
 the subject of his fourth point; — ^practically, the main 
 point — Church property. What is Church property? 
 In whom do the rights of ownership reside ? in whom 
 the power of administration ? The manifesto says. 
 Church property is the property belonging to the found- 
 ations and endowments; the ownership resides alone in 
 the one Catholic Church ; the uncontrolled administra- 
 tion resides with the bishop. Here are the words : 
 
 " Finally : the Church has a right to demand that the revenues 
 of all Catholic foundations and endowments should enjoy, as her 
 lawfiJly acquired property, held by legal titles, the same pro- 
 tection from all arbitrary encroachments as that of every citizen 
 or civil association; and that she shall be equally free and inde- 
 
NATUEE OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 107 
 
 pendent in the use and administration of it These revenues, 
 everywhere set apart solely for the objects of the Church, and 
 guarantied by the archives of foundations reaching back, in many 
 cases, for several centuries, are the property of the one Catholic 
 Church corporation, which must be recognized as the sole de- 
 positary of all legal rights with regard to them ; and, if right and 
 •justice are still sacred to the princes and people of Germany, and 
 have not becoine empty words, this property must, under all 
 circumstances, enjoy the same protection as that of every other 
 association, tiie inviolability of which ia secured in aU countries 
 where public and civil order truly exist." 
 
 The assembled archbishops and bishops omit to pro- 
 duce the proof and legal demonstraition of these rights ; 
 but Bishop Ketteler, in his last controversial tract, en- 
 deavors to supply the deficiency. 
 
 The famous " Recess" of the old German Empire of 
 1803, says the Bishop, confers this right on the epis- 
 copate. We might urge the propriety of taking into 
 account the dissolution of the German Empire in 1805 
 — the rights conferred since then — the constitutions 
 to which baths have been taken — the regulations that 
 have been passed ; but we will rather quote the article 
 adduced by the Bishop himself, from the " Final Reso- 
 lution of the Committee of the Diet." (^ 62) : 
 
 " Every religion shall bo secured in the possession and undis- 
 turbed enjoyment of its own Church property and educational 
 funds, according to the prescriptions of the Peace of Westphalia." 
 
 I read nothing here of the divine rights of the epis- 
 copate ; '-every religion" signifies in law every religious 
 association. But the same document does indeed say 
 {^§ 34 and 61) : 
 
 ''All cathedral chapters shall be incorporated with the de- 
 mesnes of the bishops, and pass with the bishoprics to the princes 
 to whom the latter are assigned; all royalties and capitular estates 
 shall fall to the new sovereign of the country," 
 
108 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Shall we then call upon the Emperor of Austria for 
 his "intervention" in Baden or Prussia, as is openly 
 done by the " Deutsche Volkshalle,"* which appears in 
 Cologne ? and is kindly proposed in both these countries, 
 as we learn from the newspapers, by certain vagabond . 
 meddlers who have the impudence to give themselves 
 out for Austrian agents ? No, we will leave these birds 
 of ill omen — these apostles of darkness — ^to the universal 
 contempt in which they are held by the people, whether 
 Catholic or Protestant, and the just anger of the gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 Or, finding this legal basis no longer tenable after the 
 dissolution of the German Empire in 1805, shall we go 
 back to the Peace of Westphalia iu 1648, and, with 
 Bishop Ketteler and the juristical champion of this 
 party. Baron Von Linde, summon the guaranties of that 
 treaty, to adjust our dispute, and thus call both the 
 French and Russians at once into our poor country? 
 No : but we will take good heed to these fearful words. 
 
 The concluding words of the manifesto • speak, not 
 only of "the full enjoyment of true liberty," but of the 
 German character, " whose loyalty is proverbial.." We 
 leave it to Bishop Ketteler to say, if he would tell us 
 the truth on this point, whether this betrays a change 
 in opinion, or only in the circumstances of the case. 
 Was it thought necessary to be more courteous in 1848 
 than in 1855 ? or has not the good sense and right feel- 
 ing shown by the Catholic population in the Church dis- 
 
 * This paper has been supressed, since the date of this letter, 
 by the Prussian G-ovemment, to the sorrow of the really liberal 
 party who desire the freedom of the press, notwithstanding their 
 dislike of the paper itself, which was an Ultramontane organ, 
 mostly carried on and paid for by the Austrian Government, and 
 maintaining a more or less open war with Prussia. — Tr. 
 
ULTEAMONTANB PATRIOTISM. 109 
 
 putes of the last few years fulfilled the hopes that were 
 placed in the German conscience ? And have the Ger- 
 mans thus first become worthy to be stigmatized as mur- 
 derers of the Messiah, and to be offered up on the grave 
 of St. Boniface by an arrogant priest ? We have al- 
 ready termed the Baden Church difficulties the practical 
 ■ commentary on the manife^o of the bishops ; we must 
 now look more closely into this remarkable occurrence. 
 Let it be the subject of our next letter. 
 
lettIer v. 
 
 THE HISTORY OP THE DISPUTE BETWEEN THE CHURCH 
 AND GOVERNMENT IN BADEN, EROM ITS COM- 
 MENCEMENT IN 1853 UP iro the present time. 
 
 CHAELOTTBNBEEe, June 25th, 1865. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 No doubt, when reading the manifesto we 'dis- 
 cussed in our last letter, it did not escape you that this 
 document expresses a fixed resolve to seize the earliest 
 opportunity that may arise of carrying into effect the 
 principles there solemnly laid down. 
 
 Such an Opportunity presented itself in Baden, a 
 country apparently offering peculiar advantages to the 
 attempt. It is a small State that has passed thro'ugh 
 many vicissitudes, and is exposed oh all sides to the 
 action of the conflicting tendencies of the age. Of its 
 nearly a million and a half of inhabitants, not much less 
 than two-thirds (900,000) are Catholics. The larger 
 portion of the territory, the Brisgau, with its capital, 
 Eribourg, was transferred from Austria to Baden only 
 in the year 1804, bringing with it a large accession to 
 the Catholic population-^as had been the case somewhat 
 earlier with the provinces of Spire. The southern ex- 
 tremity of Baden had previously belonged to the Prince- 
 Bishop of Constance. In the beginning of this century, 
 the unwearied exertions and the pious wisdom of Wes- 
 
REFORMS IN SOUTH GERMANY. m 
 
 senberg, one of the most distinguished of German pre- 
 lates, had made this see the focus yfhence an improved 
 education of the clergy, coupled with a ppirit of religious 
 earnestness, had been diffused over the neighboring dis- 
 tricts. Many reforms were introduced ; public worship 
 was held, as far as it was practical, in the German lan- 
 guage ; the clergy openly aspired toward a higher men- 
 tal culture, joining with their intelleotual aspirations a 
 high moral tone, and exerted themselves in a truly pat- 
 riotic and Christian manner for the moral and religious 
 education of the people. On the return of Pius VIII. 
 to Rome, the leaders of this movement, and especially 
 the excellent administrator of the sfee, were exposed to 
 most violent attacks on the part of the Ultramontanists. 
 Since the scheme proposed in Vienna for a CathoUc 
 National Church, in which all the German Bishops 
 should agree upon the attitude they should, in common, 
 assume toward Rome, had found no encouragement at 
 the hands of the Austrian Government, and Prussia 
 likewise showed no interest in the question, the Govern- 
 ments of South Germany united together to enter into 
 a joint convention with Rome, by virtue of which the 
 Upper Rhine should be constituted into an ecclesiastical 
 province, of which the Archbishop of Fribourg should 
 be the metropolitan. 
 
 The S.tates which composed this Union were Wurtem- 
 berg, represented by the Bishop of Rottenburg; the 
 Electorate of Hesse, by Fulda ; Darmstadt, by May- 
 enoe; Nassau and Frankfort, by Limburg. So early 
 as 1821, their negotiations issued in a convention with 
 Rome, which, in 1827, the Pope announced by a second 
 bull, and . which was published throughout the five 
 States which took part in it, with the necessary regula- 
 tions. But, as usual, the execution of the treaty gave 
 
112 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 rise to protests and collisions. The Governments had 
 published the papal edicts -with the customary reserva- 
 tions, and had regulated the mode in -which they were 
 to be carried out by the ordinance of the 30th of Jan- 
 uary, 1830, in which they exactly copied the example 
 set by Napoleon with regard to the Concordat of 1801. 
 In the course of the same year the Pope entered a pro- 
 test against such an interpretation of his measures, just 
 as his predecessor had protested against the organic ar- 
 ticles of Napoleon. Notwithstanding these difficulties, 
 the newly-formed ecclesiastical province flourished under 
 the protection of the civil constitutions bestowed by the 
 sovereigns of the States composing it, and with the aid 
 of the savings from the ecclesiastical revenues which the 
 Governments conscientiously laid by. The people en- 
 joyed" with gratitude the advantages of the foundations 
 originally made for the public benefit ; and the clergy 
 rose daily in mental culture and in general esteem. 
 The Archbishop lived in peace with the University of 
 Fribourg, between which and the seminaries for the 
 training of priests Joseph II. had established an organic 
 connection, on terms harmonizing with the state of edu- 
 cation and leamiag in Germany. For, as we have said, 
 it is entii-ely opposed to the spirit of the German people, 
 that children and boys, who have no knowledge of them- 
 selves or of human Hfe, should be separated from the 
 world from their earliest years, and set apart to be edu- 
 cated, or rather broken in, for the priesthood. It is 
 true that the boys are not compelled to become priests 
 on leaving the seminaries ; but drilled as they are, what 
 else are they fit for ? Besides, the majority are utterly 
 penniless, and who will give them the means to make 
 up for lost time ? According to German views of hu- 
 man justice and Divino laws, however, these children 
 
MEMORIAiJ OF THE BISHOPS. 113 
 
 and boys have a double claim to protection against such 
 arbitrary and unnatural treatment : in the first place, 
 as citizens ; and in the second, as men — a still higher 
 claim, because of immediately Divine origin. . 
 
 With regulations based on these principles, there 
 has been generally no lack of servants of the p,ltar in 
 the Catholic Church, at least before the unfurling of 
 the new Ultramontane banner frightened away the 
 young men. The parochial clergy who proceeded from 
 our great episcopal seminaries were a very different 
 class from those whom we see in France, Italy, Spain, 
 and Portugal ; they counted members from the middle 
 and upper ranks of society, and the Catholic clergy and 
 professors were equal, or not much jpferior, to the 
 Protestant in mental culture and social position. More- 
 over, up to the date of which we are speaking, the 
 Bishops of the Upper Rhine province were, on their 
 side, satisfied with this arrangement, and with the other 
 articles of the convention. When, at a later period, 
 complaints arose of the continually increasing deficiency 
 of candidates for the priesthood, the Government of 
 Baden, at the request of the bishops, consented to mod- 
 ify its regulationsj and even declared itself willing to 
 place at once such Catholic pupils of the lyceums as 
 might express a desire to devote themselves to the cler- 
 ical profession, under episcopal superintendence, and 
 allow them to enter on a secluded life. Then came the 
 year 1848, with its universal commotion, and the 
 bloody insurrection of the republicans in Baden, which 
 raged more especially in the district of Fribourg. 
 
 In 1851, the third year after the publication of the 
 Wiirzburg manifesto, the five bishops above mentioned 
 handed in to their respective Governments a memorial, ■ 
 in which they petitioned for " the freedom of the 
 
114 SIGNS OF TH^ TIMES. 
 
 Church," in the sense attached to those terms by the 
 manifesto. The Governments replied by a general order 
 of the first of March, 1853 ; to which each of the Gov- 
 ernments concerned appended some special stipulations 
 affecting their own bishops, by edicts dating from the 
 2d to the 5th of March, 1853. With this beganthe 
 contest. As a Protestant, I thiiik it best to refrain 
 from giving my own statement of the facts with regard 
 to events which have giverl rise to such hot dispute, and 
 whose issue is not very apparent. But after haviag 
 read- nearly every thing that has been published on both 
 sides about this controversy,* I find nothing that de- 
 serves the name of a concise, connected, juridical treat- 
 ise on the subject, but the luminous and strictly impar- 
 tial narrative given by Professor Warnkonig, one of the 
 ablest Catholic canonists of Germany and of Europe. I 
 therefore proceed, to lay before you an extract from his 
 pamphlet, relating to the first decisive steps taken by 
 the belligerent parties, and their consequences up to the 
 summer of 1854, referring those who may wish to learn 
 M. Warnkonig's views as to the proper merits of the 
 question to Appendix A. Another account, given in 
 Deutsche Vierteljahrschift for 1854, is written with 
 great talent, and goes into full details, but is very one^ 
 sided, and expressly written from a party point of view. 
 
 * A complete and thorougHy historical review of above thirty 
 publications on this subject, deserving notice, will be found in 
 Schletter's " Jahrbiichem der deutschen Eechtswissenschaft," i. 
 bd., 3 heft (July, 1855), from the hand of Professor Warnkonig. 
 Other facts jnentioned in the text are derived from a very ably 
 written reply to Hirscher's pampUet, entitled, " Zur Orientirung 
 iiber den derzeitigen Erchenstreit," after I Tiad ascertained .the 
 reliableness of this work by'a reference to documentary evidence. 
 Its title is " Das Eeich G-ottes und Staat und Kirche." Jena, 
 1854. 
 
DEMANDS OF THE BISHOPS. ^ 115 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE BISHOPS. 
 
 "The Episcopate demands a radical reform of the existing 
 order of things, and claims the complete restitution of all tiiose 
 rights which it asserts to belong to itself, according to the consti- 
 tntion of the Cathohc Church, the canon law, or the conventions 
 which have been concluded with the Pope. 
 
 " It demands in particular i 
 
 " L That the right of collation to all the ecclesiastical benefices, 
 and of nomination to every fimction or employment within the 
 bosom of the Church, should belong to the Bishop ; exeept in 
 those cases where some other person, whether the sovereign or a 
 private individual, has acquired the right of patronage according 
 to the canon law. ' It does not recognize this right as belonging 
 to the sovereign as such, and does not consider the secularization 
 of the property of those rehgious corporations which formerly 
 possessed the right of appouiting to the livings of the incorporated 
 parishes, a title which could give the sovereign the right of pat- 
 ronage. It requires that its own nominations should be valid, 
 without being approved or confirmed by the head of the State, 
 and that the nomination of a pastor by the Bishop should insure 
 his recognition and protection in all the prerogatives appertaining 
 to his charge and his dignity. 
 
 "11. As a consequence of this principle, that the Bishop alone 
 can confer benefices and ecclesiastical dignities, the Episcopate 
 demands not only that the sovereign should not enjoy the right 
 of examining candidates for reception into the seminaries, or 
 those candidates who compete for parochial cures, but also that 
 he should be excluded from any participation whatever in the 
 examinations, that he should not be represented in, them by 
 delegates, and, above all, that he should not have the prerogative 
 claimed by the Grovemments in March 1852, of giving a vote on 
 the capacity of the candidates examined. 
 
 " III. For the same;*easons the Bishops claim the immediate 
 direction of all ecclesiastical schools, and the establishment of 
 seminaries conformable to the prescriptions of the Council of 
 Trent; they require that the professors of theology iu the uni- 
 versities should be appoiated only in accordance with their ad- 
 
116 . SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 vice, and that the professors themselves, as well as their instruc- 
 tion, should be subject to their immediate supervision. They 
 further demand the sole right of conferring the clerical title, or of 
 sustentation, and therefore of disposing of the funds appropriated 
 to this object, and even of conferring orders vrithout the neces- 
 sity of such sustentation. 
 
 " IV. The episcopate further claims the complete and entire 
 aboUtion of the right of placet, and of the recourse to another 
 tribunal in case of abuse ; or of appeal against its decisions to 
 the civil authorities, except in cases where there was a usurpa- 
 tion of civU functions on the part of the clergy. It claims, 
 moreover, the free exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, civil aa 
 well as penal, secundv/m canones adhuc \>igentes et prcesentem 
 ecdesicB disdpUnam,, and it exacts from the Government the 
 execution of its sentences — therefore the right of deposing, sus- 
 pending, and removing priests at its own plea ure, without any 
 inquiry on the part of the civil authority into the regularity of 
 the proceeding. 
 
 " V. The Bishops next claim full and entire liberty of wor- 
 ship, even with regard to the acts not considered necessary" 
 to salvation ; and, consequently, the right -of commanding mis- 
 sions, processions, and solemn pilgrimages, and of establish- 
 ing confraternities, congregations and convents, and monastic 
 orders, without any preliminary authorization from the G-ov- 
 ernment. 
 
 " VI. They claim not only the exclusive direction of religious 
 instruction in the primary schools, colleges, or lyceums, as well 
 as the right of appointing the professors, but also that of -watch- 
 ing over and even directing' the secular instruction there given, 
 and of dismissing those professors who no longer enjoy their 
 confidence ; lastly, they demand the abolition of all mixed 
 schools, that is, of such as are intended for the simultaneous 
 instruction of children of different confessions, in order that 
 children of the Catholic religion may be instructed in exclusively 
 Cathohc schools. 
 
 " VII. The Episcopate demand full power to pronounce sen- 
 tence of- excommunication, major as well as minor,- on every 
 person, whether priest or laic, who may have incurred this 
 penalty. 
 
 " VIII. Knally, it claims the free and exclusive administration 
 
OPPOSITE VIEWS. Ill 
 
 of all Church property, without the contro! exercised up to the 
 present time by the State — consequently, the abolition of all 
 the rules, of administration established by the Government. It 
 is, above all, the general ecclesiastical fimds of which the Bishops 
 desire to have free disposal, without any authorization whatever 
 from the civil power, and conformably to what is prescribed in 
 the canon law. 
 
 "In fliis memorial, the question of mixed marriages is not 
 treated ; the Episcopate having for many years past eirforced the 
 papal Edicts on this point ; and considering civil legislation as 
 nul and void on all points where it contradicts these Edicts, it 
 has not been thought necessary to demand its abrogation. 
 
 " If we compare the governmental system exhibited above 
 with the demands of the Bishops, it is easy to perceive that they 
 rest upon such different modes of looking at the subject, that 
 there exists between them an absolute contradiction. According 
 to the principles of the Government, the Church can not clairh 
 from the State any rights but those which the latter is willing to 
 accord to it ; the greater part of these rights appear to the State 
 a simple concession on its own part, and it considers that it has 
 the right to refiise to the Bishops more important privileges, such 
 as that of conferring ecclesiastical beniflces, of examining the can- 
 didates in theology and for parochial charges, and of managing 
 the central ecclesiastical fund ; while the Bishops on their side 
 claim all these rights as belonging to them exclusively, or at least 
 as prerogatives which the State can not make dependent on condi- 
 tions dictated by itself, nor circumscribe within certain limits; 
 they even declare the greater part of these rights so inherent in 
 the episcopal dignity and functions, that they do not think them- 
 selves authorized to renounce them, or to allow the civil' power 
 to meddle with them. In short, it is the most absolute and the 
 most frankly expressed Ultramontane system which the Bishops 
 of the Upper Bhine wish to see carried into practice, utterly 
 regardless whether the State recognize it or not. Hence the 
 Archbishop of Fribourg thought himself at liberty lo take pos- 
 session of «■ part of these rights by his own autiiority, and by 
 practically exerting them; while the Governments feared lo ab- 
 dicate a part of their sovereignty by allowing such a state of 
 things to be tacitly introduced. 
 
 " The Governments bad modified the ordinance of the 30th 
 
118 SIGN'S OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of January, 1830, partly by another ordinance drawn up by 
 their mutual consent, partly by a ministerial explanation of 
 the 2d to the 5th of March, 1853. But these modifications 
 did not meet all the demands of the Bishops p many demands 
 had been rejected, and tlje principles of the old ordinance 
 maintained ; the Bishops therefore declared that . they were not 
 satisfied by the concessions which they had just obtained. We 
 will enumerate the most essential changes which had now been 
 decreed : 
 
 "I. All Papal BuUs or Briefs, the general ordinances of the- 
 Bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities, as well as the decrees 
 of the Synods, may be published and enforced without the placet, 
 except when they impose obUgations which are not within the 
 sphere of the Church, or have reference to public or civil aifairs. 
 As to the rest, which are of a purely spiritual character, it is only 
 necessary that the Q-ovemment should be previously advertised 
 of them, 
 
 "II. Pree liberty of communication with Rome is accorded 
 to every one who may wish to exercise it, but without 
 prejudice to the hierarchical order of the ecclesiastical authori- 
 ties. 
 
 "III. Theological studies must be conducted by a faculty of 
 theology forming part of the Q-ovemment Universities. 
 
 " IV. Theological candidates shall not be admitted to receive 
 holy orders, or to enjoy the clerical title, until they have suc- 
 cessfiilly passed an examination by the episcopal commission, 
 who shall be assisted by a Grovemment Commissioner; the 
 latter shall have the power of a suspensive veto, when the 
 case must be referred to the board of pubUc worship, with 
 whom hes the ultimate decision on the admission of the sus- 
 pended candidate. 
 
 " V. The right of fi:ee nomination to the livings which may fall 
 vacant in the months of July and December, is granted to the 
 Bishops and to the Archbishop of Pribourg. 
 
 " VI. The Bishop has the right of immediate supervision over 
 the establishments of public instruction for persons intending to 
 become priests ; the professors, and the directors of the boarding- 
 houses coimected with these establishments, can not be appointed 
 without his consent. 
 
 " VII. The Bishop nominates the rural deans, but they can not 
 
CONCESSIONS OF THE GOTERNMBN'TS. Hg 
 
 enter on their fiinctions until their appointment has been con- 
 firmed by the G-ovemment. 
 
 " Viil. The GrQvemments recognize the episcopal right to 
 award the customary penalties to priests guilty of some fault ; if, 
 however, the sentence involve civil consequences, such as the loss 
 of the benefice, etc., it is necessary that it should have been pro- 
 nounced by a duly organized tribunal, assisted by a jurisconsult. 
 The verdict must be arrived at by a proceeding conformable to 
 law, and the condemned person is at hberty to appeal to 
 the civil authority ; if he does not make use of this privilege, 
 or if the civil authority decides that there is no reason to reverse 
 the sentence^ the execution of it is conmiitted to the secular 
 arm. 
 
 "IX The Governments recognize the episcopal right of ex- 
 communication, but excommunication can have no civil conse- 
 quences, and gives a right of appeal as for an abuse of authority 
 when pronounced for any acts not of a religious nature. 
 
 " The reforms refused by the Governments concern, among 
 other things, the erection of the minor seminaries prescribed by 
 the Council of Trent, but which do not exist in Germany, and 
 Sie rendered superfluous there by the secondary schools and 
 existing colleges; also missions, solemn pilgrimages, and the 
 founding of convents without the preliminary authorization of 
 the State ; the superintendence and control of secular instruction 
 "by the Bishop, or of the theological professors appointed by 
 Government in the national universities. Finally, the existing 
 laws with regard to Church property and foundations are main- 
 tained ; and the Governments declare their resolve to keep the 
 administration of the central ecclesiastical fund created by them- 
 selves in- their own hands, although augmented by the revenues 
 of the vacant benefices. The Bishops must be satisfied with 
 having the right of consent to the employment of this fund, etc. 
 They conclude by promising the Bishops that whenever they 
 demand some ameUoration on behalf of the common welfare of 
 the Church, the Governments will be always ready to comply 
 with their wishes, provided only that they are compatible witii 
 the modem order of society and the laws of the State." 
 
120 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 II. 
 
 ACTS OP mSUREECTIOlsr ON THE PART OP THE 
 BISHOPS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENTS, AJ!TD 
 PROCEEDINGS OP THE LATTER. \ 
 
 " The Bishops were not slow in carrying out their threats and 
 taking possession of the rights which the Governments continued 
 to dispute. They made choice of two methods for attaining 
 their end. At first they refused to take part in those acts of the 
 ecclesiastical administration, which, by the ordinances then in 
 force, required the co-operation of the clergy and the Govern- 
 ment, or they did not carry out those orders of the Government 
 which they regarded as contrary to their rights. This kind of 
 passive resistance had already begun at the time of the revolu- 
 tionary movement of March, 1848. The Bishop of Eottenburg 
 had then refused to take part in the nomination of the rural 
 deans, and to send a commissioner to the examination to be 
 passed in Stuttgardt by the prieste who were candidates for liv- 
 ings. Soon afterward the whole Episcopate went further; it 
 reflised canonical institution to the pastors appointed by the 
 head of the State as such, and no longer recognized as bind- 
 ing those orders of the board of publie worship which ap- 
 peared to it to encroach on the episcopal prerogatives or juris- 
 diction. 
 
 " At last the Archbishop of Pribourg, and subsequently the 
 Bishop of Limburg, passed from passive disobedience to active 
 resistance.* 
 
 " They appointed pastors to the vacant parishes in virtue of 
 their pontifical power. The Archbishop gave to a certain person 
 power of attorney, with the right of representing him within the 
 chapter itself, without giving notice of what he had done to the 
 Government ; he no longer requested permission fi:om Govern- 
 ment to publish his decrees, or to execute any acts of his juris- 
 diction whatever, fie caused the preliminary examinations before 
 reception into the seminaries to be carried on in his own name, 
 
 * An apologetic letter of the Archbishop, published at Mayence, 
 represents all these acts as implying merely a passive resistance. 
 This is really too naivfe. 
 
CONDUCT OF THE ARCHBISHOP. 121 
 
 and refused to admit to them the civil commissioner ; in a word, 
 he placed himself above the ordinances legally sanctioned by 
 G-ovemment, and which he and his predecessors had hitherto 
 always ' respected and obeyed. Finally, on the 5th of August, 
 1853, he entered into correspondence with the members, lay as ,. 
 well as ecclesiastical, of the board of Catholic worship at Carls- 
 ruhe, for the purpose of inducing them to resign their places, as 
 obliging them to exercise functions incompatible with the duties 
 of a Cfithohc Christian. Not one of them having acceded to his 
 proposal, he launched against them a sentence of excommunica- 
 tion, which was personally signified to each of, them on the 20th 
 of October, 1853. Thus he 'came to an open rupture with the 
 G-ovemment, and war was declared. 
 
 " The Government of Baden found itself obliged to make re- 
 prisals in order to maintain the laws actually in force, and to 
 make its own authority respected. In the first instance it chose 
 the least severe means of arriving at this end: instead of institut- 
 ing a criminal prosecution against the Archbishop, or causing hirn 
 to be arrested, he was placed under guardianship; an edict of the 
 7th of November, 1853, prohibited the publication or execu- 
 tion of any act emanating from him without the counter-signature 
 of a special commissioner named by the Prince Regent, who 
 selected for the post the first magistrate of the district of Fribourg; 
 the Archbishop immediately excommunicated him, which, how- 
 ever, did not prevent him from fidfllling his painful office. The 
 Archbishop caused all his sentences of excommunication to be 
 solemnly published, and charged the pastors of Fribourg and 
 Carlsruhe to read them from the pulpit, which they caused to be 
 done by their curates. It is, however, to be remarked that the 
 arehiepiscopal chapter solemnly declared itself to agree in all 
 points with the views of its head. 
 
 "The Q-ovemment replied to these new demonstrations by 
 pronouncing penalties of fine and imprisonment on those who 
 took part in them.* The Grand-Yicar of the Archbishop was 
 successively condemned to fines amoimting to several thousand 
 
 * All the ma'gistrates, with the exception of a very small 
 number, were active in prosecuting those ecclesiastics who ren- 
 dered themselves liable to it. The few who refused to do so 
 were deposed from office. 
 
 6 
 
122 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 franca. All thoee persons who had executed the orders of the 
 Archbishop which had not the counter-signature of the special 
 commissioner, were threatened with these penalties ^ while the 
 deans and pastors who remained faithful to the legal order of 
 things were assured of the protection of the G-ovemment. The 
 Archbishop endeavored to justify his conduct in several proclam- 
 ations, which were printed secretly, or pubHshed beyond the 
 frontiers. Finally, he commanded (stiU without the authorization 
 of the special commissioner) every pastor to preach four sermons 
 expounding his position toward the State, the violation which 
 had taken place of the rights of Holy Church, and the object of 
 his extraordinary proceedings. The clergy found themselves in 
 a position of great embarrassment; the majority obeyed, with or 
 against their will, the orders of the Archbishop; the recusants were 
 suspended or deprived of their office, and some were even excom- 
 municated. Invery many places the communal councils entreated 
 the Archbishop to withdraw his command concerning the four 
 sermons, or abstained from attending them, and in some cases the 
 whole parish did the same. The Archbishop was inexorable, and 
 steadfastly declared that he would persist in the line of conduct 
 he had marked out for himself until justice was rendered him. 
 On the other hand, .the preachers who had distinguished them- 
 selves by their warmth, were summoned before the civil tri- 
 bunals, 
 
 " The spectacle, hitherto unparalleled in Germany, of such- a 
 war to the death, produced the utmost astonishment; and the 
 clerical journals in all countries were constantly occupied with its 
 discussion. In some it was represented that the cause of rehgion 
 and the Catholic Church was undergoing a cruel persecution : and 
 the Baden Government was attacked with such virulence, that 
 the editors of several foreign journals were summoned before the 
 tribunals and condemned for contumacy. On the other hand, 
 some attempted to gain over the Prince Regent of Baden, and 
 the other sovereigns interested in this great question, by soft 
 words and flattering insinuations, and sought to persuade them to 
 abandon the system that they had hitherto followed, to separate 
 themselves from the counselors of tjhe Crown, and to embrace the 
 sacred cause of the Church, which was represented as their own ; 
 the alliance of the altar and the throne was held up as the strong- 
 est guaranty of the stabUity of the latter, and the surest pledge of 
 
CONDUCT OF THE GOVERNMENT. 123 
 
 its triumph over democracy, which was depicted as the common 
 enemy of both. 
 
 " Subscriptions were opened in Bavaria and the Ehine provinces, 
 and other parts of Catholic Grermany, as well as in Prance and 
 other foreign countries, to indemnify the priests who were mar- 
 tyrs of the Church. 
 
 "A large number of addresses of cotidolence and congratulation 
 from the Bishops and the Catholic clergy of almost every CathoUc 
 country, as well as a papal brief, arrived at Fribourg to sustain the 
 courage of the prelate under his so-called persecution. Some 
 even pretended to see in this affair a war of Protestantism 
 against the CathoUc Church, although the Protestants, except a 
 very small number, had remained silent spectators of a struggle 
 which could not, however, raise the Church in their eyes. It is 
 true that among the journals which took the Grovemment side 
 there are several edited by Protestants, but the great majority of 
 the better class of CathoUc journals belong to the same party. As 
 to the mass of the CathoUc po{)ulation, it has remained indifferent 
 to this conflict: it is sufficiently euUghtened to perceive that the 
 CathoUc reUgion has suffered nothing, and has nothing to fear ; 
 seeing that the order of things which the Bishops now stigmatize as 
 tyranny has siiisisted peaceably for half a century, without a single 
 open complaint having been made. 
 
 " Almost every one regards this conflict merely as a personal 
 affair of the Bishops, who aspire to extend their power ; there is 
 even a large number of persons who fear that the victory of the 
 Bishops might be prejudicial to the Uberty of conscience. 
 
 "The Baden Grovemment at first entered into negotiations 
 vyith the Papal Nuncio at Vienna, hoping to put an end to the 
 contest by the help of an arrangement with the Pope'. It is to 
 be remarked that, with the exception of the Bishop of Limburg, 
 whose diocese includes the Duchy of Nassau and the city of 
 Frankfort, the heads of the otter dioceses have not followed the 
 example of their MetropoUtan ; that of the electorate of Hesse 
 has, in some measure, withdrawn from the coaUtion, trusting to 
 his personal influence over M. Hassenpflug, the prime-minister of 
 that country, for the adjustment of all differences. The Bishop 
 of Eottenburg has addressed himself to the Kin^ of Wurtemberg 
 in person. A kind of armistice was first agreed upon, and in the 
 month of January last a compromise was concluded, which was 
 
124 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 formed into the proposals for a convention, and transmitted by 
 file Bishop to the Pope. Nothing positive has transpired as to 
 the clauses of this arrangement, or the negotiations of the Baden 
 embassador at Vienna. The most ardent, however, among the 
 leaders of the clerical party have betrayed a certain dissatisfaction 
 with the pacific issue of the grand struggle. 
 
 " It was in the midst of this ever-increasing agitation of the 
 piiblic mind, constantly excited by anonymous pamphlets and 
 fugitive letters filled with invectives, that the opening of the 
 Chambers of the Grand Duchy of Baden took place. Public 
 attention was generally directed -to that passage in the speech 
 from the throne which would necessarily refer to the disputes 
 with the Church. The Prince Regent alluded to them with equal 
 dignity, tact, and reserve : he expressed his sincere regret that 
 the desire of the Archbishop to see his power more extended 
 than it could be in conformity with tlie laws and the existing 
 ordinances, had given rise to a kind of schism between the Epis- 
 copate and the Government, notwithstanding the attachment 
 which he himself, his late father and grandfather, had always 
 manifested to their CathoHc subjects, and notwithstanding' their 
 respect for that religion and their zeal for the Churdh ; ' that it was 
 against his will that he had been forced to take severe measm-es 
 for the honor of the State and the authority of the law, but that 
 he hoped that aU would be terminated by an arrangement, etc. 
 
 " In their answers or addresses of the 22d of January, 1854, 
 the two Chambers expressed their fullest sympathy with the 
 Prince Regent in this matter. The Lower Chamber, in par- 
 ' ticular, which is principally composed of Cathohcs, expressed 
 itself on this occasion in a very remarkable manner ; it said : 
 ' We regret the more deeply the painful complications to which 
 the extraordinary proceedings of the archiepiscopal see have 
 given rise — ^proceedings so opposed to the fundamental basis of 
 our pohtical organization— because the measures which your 
 Royal Highness found yourself compelled to take in order to pre- 
 serve the prerogatives of the Crown fi-om attack, have provoked 
 ulterior acts on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities, which 
 might easily have disturbed the public peace, and occasioned 
 serious disorders, had your faithful subjects been less^ attached to 
 their duty than they are. Whatever errors may be current in 
 foreign countries with regard to these events, which have been 
 
ADDRESS FROM THE CHAMBERS. 125 
 
 rarely placed in their true light, your people has proved by its 
 attitude, and by its firm confidence in your Highness, its persua- 
 sion that the sacred cause of its religion is exposed to no danger. 
 The remembrance of the benefits with which the Catholic Church 
 has been loaded from the time of your illustrious grandfather, 
 Charles Frederic, up to our own day, and the assurance of your 
 Royal Highness that the Catholic faith is not less dear to your 
 heart than your own confession, strengthen it still more in this 
 conviction. We, the representatives of the nation from all parts 
 of the Grand Duchy, believe that it is our duty to lay this assur- 
 ance, at the foot of the throne ; and to bear this public testimony, 
 that the affection of your subjects and their deep conviction that 
 you render to all the same impartial justice, and that you have 
 the same equal desire for the welfare of all, have suffered no 
 change whatever- in any part of the country in consequence of 
 these diiferences. Tour faithful deputies hope with confidence 
 that an arrangement with the ecclesiastical authorities. may be 
 arrived at, which shall not derogate-in the least from the dignity 
 and the prerogatives of the Crovm.' 
 
 " Conformably to the declaration made to the Chambers, the 
 Prince Regent determined to send an envoy to his Holiness, in 
 the hope of terminating amicably this great contest. 
 
 "He made choice of Count von Leiningen, known for his 
 attachnient to the Church, and joined with him a young secretary 
 who had assisted at the conferences of the envoys of the united 
 Governments which had been held, as we have said above, at 
 Carlsruhe. To secure him a welcome in Rome, the Prince 
 revoked the ordinance of the 7th of November, 1853. 
 
 " The Government of Baden reasonably expected tljat the 
 Archbishop would respect the status quo until the decision of the 
 Pope was known ; but this was not the case : aggressive mea- 
 sures were immediately resumed. The Archbishop was no 
 longer contented with merely nominating pastors on his ovra 
 authority, but he prohibited all ecclesiastics from presenting them- 
 selves at the examinations in matters of religion, so long as they 
 should take place in the presence of the Government Commis- 
 sioners, and decreed the establishment of a school for students of 
 theology at Pribourg, in a building belonging to the State ; further, 
 he caused al the Churches to be closed wherever his nomination 
 of the pastors had not been recognized by the Government. 
 
126 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 This hostile act did not alter the moderate conduct of the Govern- 
 ment: unwilling to deprive the CathoKc communities of the 
 opportunity of worship, it permitted the pastors nominated by 
 the Archbishop to exercise their office as temporary curates. Yet 
 this condescension did not satisfy the Pontiff, who went still 
 greater lengths on the road of arbitrary aggression. He com- 
 manded the churchwardens to put his pastors in possession of the 
 revenues of the hving. As these officials refused to lend them- 
 selvers to his design, and he himself no longer recognized the 
 board of OathoHo worship as having a legal existence, he put forth 
 on the 5th of May, 1854, an ordinance intended to prevent his 
 pastors from being left wholly without support, by which he en- 
 joined all the communal boards to recognize no authority superior 
 to his own; he deposed the recusant members, and commanded 
 his pastors, in their character of president of these boards, to take 
 possession of all the documents relative to the financial adminis- 
 tration of the parish. 
 
 " This last measure occasioned the greatest perplexity in the 
 local administration of the ecclesiastical funds ; a small number 
 of the members of these boards submitted to the episcopal decree, 
 a larger number resigned office, the great majority resisted the 
 decree altogether. Its execution was vigorously opposed by the 
 Government, and the civil authorities found themselves obhged, 
 in many places, to arrest the pastors. The Odenwald, where the 
 populace forcibly prevented the arrest of the priests, was the 
 scene of several riots ; the GovernmeM was compelled to have 
 recourse to military force to make its authority respected. 
 
 "On these grounds the-judicial authority, seeing in the episco- 
 pal decrees of the 5th of May a manifest abuse of power, and an 
 open violation of the law, as they contained a formal injunction 
 no longer to obey that law, took the preUminary steps for exert- 
 ing its power. The instructing magistrate of the court of Pribourg 
 visited the Archbishop,.and when the latter refused to answer the 
 questions addressed to him, placed him under arrest in Hs palace. 
 
 " The Pontiff protested against this judicial act, interdicted the 
 ringing of the church bells and the performance of high mass, 
 and addressed, on the 20th of May, a protest to the court of 
 justice against the proceedings commenced against him, asserting 
 that, in ecclesiastical matters, he had no judge but the Pope. 
 Nevertheless, he afterward submitted to the interrogation of the 
 
STATE SYSTEM OF BUREAUCRACY. 127 
 
 magistrate, and, in the course of a few days, was restored to 
 liberty. The inquiry was soon terminated, and the criminal 
 court of Pribourg is at present occupied with examining the cause, 
 in order to deliver its definitive judgment. On the part of the 
 Archbishopj the interdict was raised when the arrest was at an 
 end." 
 
 From this purely historical and juristic analysis, it 
 appears conclusively, that of the main points which the 
 eiyil government refused to abatidon, there was none 
 but what had been in substance asserted and established 
 in practice by France — ^nay, by Bavaria, and, up to 
 1850, evea by Austria, as regarded their bishops ; none 
 but what lay within the reservations , on behalf of the 
 supreme right of the State in the compact which had 
 been made with Rome. While referring to the extract 
 above given for individual facts, I will only allow my- 
 self to make a few observations on those points which 
 -stand closely related to our problem, and then carry on 
 the histoirical statement from July, 1854, where our ex- 
 tract breaks of 
 
 To carry out its principles of self-defense, the Gov- 
 ernment' opposes to the pretensions and encroachments 
 of the episcopate a very thorough system of bureau- 
 cracy. In this instance I confess that I have been 
 made to feel afresh with pain the correctness of the polit- 
 ical view which we both advocate — I mean that central- 
 ization is incompatible with the training of the people to 
 true freedom, and, in the long run, enfeebles rather 
 than strengthens the power of the State itself I am 
 here speaking of the common continental system of 
 bureaucracy, which is a tutelage extended to the mi- 
 nutest details of life, exercised over the people in the 
 name of the State ; which recognizes no sphere of inde- 
 pendent action whatever besides ' its own, and more par- 
 
128- SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ticularly excludes all independent congre^tional action. 
 A bureaucracy of this kind, whicli strengthens the fiscal 
 element of the old absolutism by such a mechanism, em- 
 bracing the smallest details of police regulation, as that 
 introduced by Napoleon, is nowhere less suitable and 
 more dangerous than when employed in ecclesiastical 
 matters, and all relations with the clergy. As soon as 
 a spirit of religious attachment to the Church is awak- 
 ened, the Government finds itself at fault. Thus, in 
 the case of various official forms insisted on by the min- 
 isterial declaration of 1853, issued without the force of 
 law, it has proved not only difficult, but downright im- 
 possible to carry -them out ; still more often do they -in 
 practice fail of their effect. That this ordinance has a 
 legal basis is incontestable, and equally so that it is a 
 step' in advance toward the introduction of a freer sys- 
 tem as compared with the ordinance of 1830. The only 
 question is, whether it would not have been well to have 
 attempted at once to frame a definitive law, conformable 
 to ,the principles of constitutional monarchy, and aiming 
 at the greatest possible amount of liberty. In our days^ 
 a constitutional State with a Protestant dynasty can not 
 recur to the forms of public law in use in the eighteenth 
 century, without placing itself in a false position. What 
 formerly seemed, or really was, a protecting tutelage, is 
 now felt to be an oppressive governmental interference. 
 No doubt the demands of the bishops exceed all bounds, 
 and must ever remain inadmissible; for the hierarchical 
 canon law, on which alone the prelates take their stand', 
 admits of no conditions. The bishops are wishing to re- 
 duce the principle of the unconditional authority of their 
 Church to a present reality, and this by virtue of divine 
 and legal right. But when the Government, on thpir 
 side, confront them with equally absolutistic principles 
 
THE ONLY CHRISTIAN BULWARK. 129 
 
 of administration, drawn from the canon law of despot- 
 ism, they betake themselves to the ground of the bish- 
 ops themselves — namely, that of unconditional power, 
 and therewith to that of intolerance, of slavery — ^in 
 short, to the ground that is fatal to themselves, and to 
 the present generation. 
 
 The unconditional canon law of the Romish Church 
 either recognizes no relation toward the State, or one 
 of subjection on the part of the latter ; that is, a des- 
 potic, unchristian, hostile relation. The only Christian 
 defense against this is to grant legal rights and liberties - 
 for all. The primary origin of the conflict lies, as we 
 have seen, in an old sin, in a wrong committed by both 
 powers — the suppression of the rights of the Christian 
 congregation. The dying out of the Christian congre- 
 gation in the Catholic Church of the eighth century, is 
 the source of the inward weakness of the hierarchy of 
 the nineteenth ; and the dying out of the civil congre- 
 gation in a feudal police-State become absolutistic, is 
 the weak point ia the monarchy of our days, as opposed 
 to the same hierarchy. The functionary system of the 
 princes was contrived to supply the place of this congre- 
 gation in a despotic State, and to exercise their rights 
 " in the name of the State ;" this was the final solution 
 reached by the previous century ; good, when necessary, 
 as a dictatorship — ^ruinous, fraught with positive injust- 
 ice, and, therefore, with the germs of death, when con- 
 ceived and treated as a permanent legal condition, above 
 all in such an age as ours, and in the present conjunc- 
 ture of affairs in Europe. 
 
 The question is, therefore, whether the existing con- 
 stitutional system affords a solution that answers to the 
 actual condition of society. The highest authorities of 
 the Roman Catholic Church declare that they waive 
 
 6* 
 
130 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 their unconditional claims only in deference to the over- 
 powering force of circumstances, that they will never 
 give way, except under coercion — and then only as a 
 matter of fact, not of principle. They have also an- 
 nounced their intention, in no ambiguous terms, to have 
 recourse to self-redress, and even to push matters to an 
 actual civil war, as soon as they think they can do so 
 with success. 
 
 The liberal party on the continent have gradually 
 emancipated themselves from the folly of their prede- 
 cessors, who imagined that the encroachments of the 
 clergy could be successfully repelled by the despotic 
 police and fiscal system of Joseph II. and Napoleon the 
 Great. Those worthy people had sufiered themselves to 
 be deluded by old Lamennais and other ultramontanists 
 into the idea, that the knot could be loosed by the cheap 
 talisman of a separation between Church and State. 
 Yet none of these wise men attempted to any purpose 
 to show how, with regard to certain questions of social 
 life, we were to arrive at such a separation as could at 
 all events cut the knot : in the first place, with regard 
 to marriage and public education — points on which the 
 State necessarily comes in contact with the ecclesiastical 
 corporations ; and secondly, with regard to the adminis- 
 tration of the Catholic Church revenues, except where 
 these are, by common consent, the property of the con- 
 gregation. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, the whole 
 amount of the property belonging to the Catholic 
 Church may be estitoated at no less than sixty million 
 florins (125,000,000 francs), if we add the capital to 
 the yearly revenues, and capitalize the latter at five- 
 and-twenty years' purchase. It is worth the trouble 
 to take a survey of the componeift parts of this prop- 
 erty. We have here four difierent classes of property : 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 131 
 
 1. Ftmds for the maintenance of the cathedral chap- 
 ter, the seminary, and the cathedral benefice. These 
 are managed by the cathedral chapter ; the Catholic 
 High Church Council audits the accounts. 
 
 2. The general ecclesiastical fund, foimed of seques- 
 trated ecclesiastical foundg,tions, and the dues belonging 
 to vacant benefices (intercalary funds, in the official 
 language of lie canon law). This capital amounts to 
 800,000 florins ; the current -income and e2j)enditure 
 from 120,000 to 130,000 florins. This considerable 
 branch of Church property has been accumulated and 
 kept up by the provident efforts of the Government, and, 
 by universal' testimony, is managed with the greatest 
 conscientiousness by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Board. 
 
 3. Funds belonging to the parishes and districts, and 
 for the' support of churches, schools, and the poor, in 
 the several localities. These funds are in the hands of 
 local boards, for the management of endowments, pre- 
 sided over by the parish priest. The Supreme Ecclesi- 
 astical Board exercises only a general supervision. 
 
 The capital of these revenues is estimated at about 
 20,000,000 florins. By- the constitution, the whole of 
 this property is placed under the protection of the laws, 
 and therefore every abuse can be brought before the or- 
 dinary courts of justice. The Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Board is composed exclusively of Catholic members, 
 clerical and secular. Not a single complaint has ever 
 been lodged against it for bad management or injustice, 
 still less for peculation.* • • 
 
 * Comp. Wanikonig : " Ueber den Conflict des Episkopats," 
 etc., and a pamphlet written with great fairness, and much in- 
 formation, entitled "Auch zur Antwort uber den derzeitigeii 
 Kirchenstreit," February, 1854. In this brief essay, the numer- 
 ous errors and misconceptions of Canon Hirscher are exposed. 
 It has been attributed byWamkonig (Schletter's "Jahrbiioher 
 
132 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 4. The incomes of the livings. This, which is the 
 most considerable branch of Church property, amounts, 
 including capital, and capitalized income, to about 
 20,000,000 florins. I^ is managed by the parish 
 priests themselves, who apply it at their discretion. 
 The Bishops and Government exercise a joint super- 
 vision over the maintenance of the capital. 
 
 Now the Epispocal Court claims the sole management 
 and supervision of the whole of this property, to the ut- 
 ter -exclusion of the State ; and at the 'same time does 
 not surrender its claim to grants from the State. All 
 this is said to be nothing more than compensation -for 
 the ecclesiastical revenues that have been confiscated. 
 So things are on quite a dififerent footing here from 
 what they are in France or Belgium, where such pro- 
 ceedings as those of our Bishops would be .called simple 
 treason, which, strictly speaking, they really are. In 
 these countries the Church property was confiscated 
 long ago by the State, and the Church is satisfied 
 with the scanty residuum allotted to her. Thus it 
 would be impossible to concede the demand of the Bish- 
 ops without violating the principles of the greatest 
 Christian fairness, and the most liberal constitutional 
 treatment. It is the same with education. The mo- 
 nopoly of education and mental culture by the State is 
 certainly not better than by the clergy — here, too, the 
 principle of freedom is still new on the soil of Napo- 
 leonic centralization. In both domains the principle 
 of freedom can not be administered by mere official 
 action, but only by calling in the aid of Catholic con- 
 
 der deutschen Wissensohaft") to a distinguished CathoKc func- 
 tionary in Carlsruhe ; and the statements of the article in Cotta's 
 " Vierteljahrsohrift" for 1854 ascribed to M. von.Linde, coincide 
 with this. 
 
STATE CONTROL. 133 
 
 gregaidonal activity, as Wessenberg as recently advised 
 a&esh. 
 
 In all its proceedings the Government evidently 
 stands upon the ground of the law. It opposes to the 
 unconditional claims of the Bishops the right derived 
 from the existing laws of the land, and the intrinsic 
 reasonableness of those laws. Yet things can scarcely 
 remain long at the point which they have reached. 
 One thing is already clear : the State can no longer re- 
 tain its right of supervision in the form of an exclusive 
 administrative guardianship. Still less can it derive its 
 right and its practice from the' usages of the eighteenth 
 century; in those cases where an active participation of 
 the clergy is required, the secular power can restrain 
 the priest's hand, but it can not impel him to impose it. 
 It has the right to cancel an inadmissible verdict of the 
 episcopal tribunals as invaHd, but has not, therefore, 
 any right to modify the verdict into accordance with its 
 own views, thus making itself a partner in the unjust 
 decision. Scarcely could imperial power suffice to ac- 
 complish this in a crisis so grave as the present, in 
 which, moreover, under one form or other, a hierarchi- 
 cal tendency has so strong a hold on the popular mind. 
 
 But, above all, it is not right. It will not do to op- 
 pose to a right, however one-sided, nothing more than a 
 consideration of mere State expediency. 
 
 On these grounds I can not but term it a lamentable 
 blunder, and a decided anachronism, that in 1852, at 
 the obsequies of the Grand Duke, the Government 
 should have required the Archbishop to order a mass 
 for the dead to be performed, as his predecessors had 
 always been used to do under similar circumstances, 
 without raising any objection. His refusal was cer- 
 tainly most uncourteous ; and it was further contrary to 
 
134 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the usage of a more liberal age. But that age was also 
 really one of confessional indifference — ^nay, an age in 
 which, in many quarters, there was much indifference 
 even to morals and religion. We have at all events, 
 now-a-days, to take other spiritual elements into the 
 account, not only in the Ultramontane party and in the 
 clergy, but also in the people ; and the Catholic Church 
 supplied other suitable forms for the expression of the: 
 people's sorrow at the death of their Prince and attach- 
 ment to his memory. And lastly, it really seems to us 
 little consonant with the dignity of the Ministers of a 
 Protestant sovereign to entreat the public prayers of; 
 such a hierarchy. So likewise it appears to me an in- 
 consistency when the State binds itself, or thinks itself 
 authorized to co-operate actively in acts " of the clergy 
 within the sphere of their own canon law. And thus I 
 can not but find it a questionable ;thin'g when it is . said: 
 in the edict addressed to the bishops in 1853, " Cen- 
 sures (punishments which the bishop has the power of 
 inflictiDg on ecclesiastics) need the sanction of the State, 
 only in those cases where the aid of the State is re- 
 quired for their fulfillment." A constitutional govern- 
 ment, and especially a Protestant one, should never con- 
 descend to make itself the executioner of ecclesiastical 
 censures. Every government must have the ri^t to 
 afford protection- to all, be they clergy. or laity, who 
 complain of 'the violation of their civil ; liberty or rights 
 of property^ through the abuse of ecclesiastical power ; 
 and this is what the governments of France and Baden 
 have done. And in such cases, the more the civil gov- 
 ernment can restrict itself to the application of univer- 
 sal legal enactments, and leave every thing to the ordin- 
 ary tribunals (rather than to the Council of State, for 
 instance, in France) the more secure it is of keeping in 
 
RESISTANCE OF THE BISHOPS. 135 
 
 the right path. But then there must be no question of 
 State sanction, but only of its decision respecting the 
 legal consequences of the dissolution of a contract by the 
 one party alone, such as that between a bishop and the 
 incumbent of a living, as regards the revenues. Any 
 thing beyond this is to be reckoned among the blunders 
 and inconsistencies of the modern continental State. 
 
 But on the side of the Bishops we find not merely a 
 passive resistance — they preach active resistance ; nay, 
 insurrection. The Archbishop unquestionably resorted 
 to self-redress, and proclaimed opmi war against the 
 Government, when, in conjunction with the four bishops 
 of his province, he declared on the 12th of April 
 " That from henceforward he would withstand the laws 
 of the State, in so far as they affected the Church, and 
 contradicted her dogmas." And that he acted upon this 
 declaration is proved by subsequent events. He pre- 
 scribed that four sermons should be preached in every 
 parish, in order to make the wrong committed by the 
 Grovernment clear to the people — an order that in France 
 and every other Catholic country would have drawn 
 down upon him a criminal prosecution before the ordi- 
 nary tribunal.* The Archbishop filled up livings, 
 without reference to the right of co-operation hitherto 
 exercised by the Government. But when the Govern- 
 ment, on their side, appointed incumbents to parishes 
 of which they claimed the right of presentation, and 
 where they had hitherto exercised it without dispute, 
 the Archbishop launched a sentence of exconununication 
 against the members of the' Catholic Supreme Ecclesias- 
 tical Council — ^laymen and officers of State, who had 
 simply done what they were bound to do. But, accord- 
 
 * Code Penal, Art. 201-203. See Laboulaye's Essay in 
 Wolowski's Law Gazette, which is cited in Appendix A. 
 
136 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ing to the Ultramontane interpretation of the canon 
 laiY, even to do this is a crime which excludes from 
 Christian communion. "We must obey God rather 
 than man" is a well-known maxim in that system ; 
 whatever may become of God's voice — the personal con- 
 science of the individual — we ought unconditionally to 
 obey the ecclesiastical court rather than the secular 
 one ; and this is commanded on pain of exclusion from 
 the means of grace belonging to the Church — ^there- 
 fore, as far as lies in human power, from eternal salva- 
 tion. 
 
 The Govermnent, however, did not respond, as they 
 might have done, by stopping the income of the Arch- 
 bishop, but placed the execution of the ordinance of the 
 7th November, 1853, in the hands of the head magis- 
 trate of the district of Fribourg, whom the Archbishop 
 thereupon excommunicated. On their side, the Govern- 
 ment caused some parish priests who had taken part 
 with the Archbishop to be arrested on account of illegal 
 acts which they had committed in their office, and im^ 
 posed fines on them. Meanwhile the Government had 
 announced their intention of entering into negotiations 
 with the Nuncio in Vienna. But already, in December, 
 1853, the Pope put forth an allocution, in which he 
 declared the Archbishop entirely in the right, and soon 
 after gave him to understand that his acts met with his 
 highest approbation. On this, in order to be able to 
 commence negotiations with Rome, the Government re- 
 called the ordinance of the 7th of November. On the 
 other hand, the sentence of excommunication against 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council and the first magis- 
 trate of Fribourg was not recalled, which certainly, 
 considering that they had simply performed the duties 
 of their office, without any act of personal hostility, 
 
MISTAKE OP THE GOVERNMENT. 137 
 
 ■would have been done by any one else. A bishop, 
 however, who places the unconditional canon law above 
 God's Word and above justice, sees the case in a very 
 different light. It is said that he gave hopes of a par- 
 don, if the condemned individuals professed their re- 
 pentance. How could they do so, when, in carrying 
 the law into effect, they had already made a declara- 
 tion that they only did their duty as oflScials, and 
 they had never even been accused of any personal viola- 
 tion of their duties toward religion and ecclesiastical 
 authority. 
 
 But all this would hardly have come to pass if the 
 Government had quietly advanced on the ground of 
 their political and constitutional rights, and come to an 
 understan(£ng with the country by means of the Cham- 
 bers. By negotiating with Rome, they took up before- 
 hand a position on which they must inevitably be de- 
 feated ; and by refraining from a judicial inquiry into 
 acts of encroachment provided against by the laws, 
 they allowed the only weapon which, is feared by the 
 hierarchy to be taken out of their hands. There is not 
 the slightest doubt but that the functionaries and clergy- 
 men on whom that spiritual penalty was inflicted, had a 
 right to expect the judicial protection of the executive 
 power. Can we therefore wonder if, on all sides, things 
 began to take a turn unfavorable for the Government ? 
 The revolt that had been preached did not take place, 
 but the decided spirit of opposition to the hierarchy 
 shown by the Chambers, and throughout the country, 
 could not but cool down when the Government did not 
 stand up .for its own rights, and those of the citizens, 
 on the ground of law. The disposition to maintain the 
 laws of the land and the majesty of political rights, 
 had been manifested most unmistakably at the opening 
 
138 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of the Chambers in January, 1854. On that occasion, 
 when the Prince Regent alluded to these circumstances 
 in dignified terms, and expressed his confidence in the 
 deputies and the people whom they represented, the 
 enthusiastic response which followed was the most 
 conspicuous proof that the first wish of Catholics, no 
 less than Protestants, was to see the law of the land 
 upheld in its integrity. The number, too, was very in- 
 considerable of the parish priests who had shown any in- 
 clination to comply with the first illegal commands of the 
 Archbishop. They continued to transact business with 
 the ecclesiastical department, and the administration of 
 the revenues of foundations suffered no interruption.- 
 But were they not now, to some extent, left in the lurch 
 by the Government, and exposed to the ecclesiastical 
 vengeance of the Archbishop ? 
 
 It might have been imagined that the Archbishop 
 would now, on his side, adopt a milder course. But 
 his conduct by no means justified these expectations. 
 Any joint action in the management of ecclesiastical 
 afiairs proved to be attended with greater difficulty 
 than in the earlier stages of the contest. The Arch- 
 bishop subjected all the parochial clergy who had 
 yielded compliance to the Government to a spiritual 
 censure: and on the 14th of May, issued a Pastoral 
 forbidding the local boards (who are charged with the 
 management of local foundations, under the joint super- 
 intendence of the State and the Archbishop) to give an 
 account of their expenditure to the ecclesiastical depart- 
 ment, as prescribed by law. The Archbishop, next, 
 even tvent so far as openly to call upon the* individual 
 Catholic congregations to take things into their own 
 hands, thus inciting them to active resistance, and rebel- 
 lion against the laws of the land. These are the words 
 
ARCHBISHOP ARRESTED. 139 
 
 of his Edict concerning the priests whom he had ap- 
 pointed to livings: "To the several parishes is in- 
 trusted the duty of protecting, by suitable means, the 
 pastor legally set over them by the Curia, and securing 
 him in the possession of his living." The spark did 
 not kindle ; only in a small number of country parishes 
 was it necessary to quarter a few companies of soldiers 
 for a short time ; the great majority even of the rural 
 population remained tranquil and faithful to the Govern- 
 ment. The answer of the city of Eribonrg to the ex- 
 communication of her first magistrate, was his election 
 as honorary citizen at the expiration of his term of oflSce. 
 But it was no thanks to the Archbishop that the country 
 was not made a prey to disorder till the claims of the 
 hierarchy were satisfied. 
 
 The entering into negotiations with Rome was, there- 
 fore, from the outset, an error and an unfortunate step 
 for the Government. For as early as the year 1830, 
 and repeatedly since then, the Pope had called on the 
 bishops to adopt the very course of which the Govern- 
 ment had to complain. How, then, could he declare 
 them in the wrong, when they had so evidently pursued 
 the course indicated to them ? 
 
 Now, as a last resort, the Government turned in the 
 right direction, and recurred to the ordinary course of 
 law. They instituted criminal proceedings against the 
 Archbishop, and on the 19th of May caused him to be 
 arrested, on a charge of having abused his ofiice to the 
 endangering of the public peace and order. In this way 
 the Archbishop sufiered some days' confinement in his 
 palace, namely, during the preliminary hearing of the 
 ease, as the laws prescribe. As soon as the judicial in- 
 vestigation had formally commenced-^ the arrest was at 
 at end, and the Archbishop held perfectly • free com- 
 
140 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 munication with, the world. It need hardly be said, that 
 during this short time of arrest the Archbishop was 
 treated with the greatest respect, and all the considera- 
 tion due to his age and high dignity. This, however, 
 did not prevent numbers of the pious from -rushing to 
 his palace on the news of his arrest, in order to be re- 
 fused admission, in accordance with the general rules of 
 court ; on which they, of course, revived the cry of per- 
 secution and -martyrdom. The public press of Baden 
 and Germany, in which every particular relating to this 
 affair was recorded and discussed by both parties, affords 
 the best refutation of these falsehoods and exaggerations. 
 Without a doubt a jury would have maintained the law 
 of the land. As the legal mode of commencing such a 
 prosecution, the arrest of the Archbishop was not merely 
 a justifiable step, but a necessary one, commanded by 
 respect for the law. In the same way, the arrest of the 
 Archbishop of Cologne in 1837 was perfectly justifiable, 
 on the supposition that the Government intended to cite 
 the Archbishop before his lawful judges, if Rome should 
 decline to silence him ; and, on this supposition, those 
 proceeded who had counseled his arrest, as the docu- 
 ments would unanswerably prove to all the world if 
 they were published. The Government of Baden was 
 therefore perfectly in order when they caused the' Arch- 
 bishop to be put under arrest, and examined according 
 to the rules of court. Instead, however, of allowing the 
 judicial proceedings really to follow, they accepted in 
 September the offer of mediation made by Home on the 
 25th of August, and announced the terms of the pro- 
 visional agreement on the 14th of October, on which the 
 Archbishop notified the same to his clergy on the 18th 
 of November. According to the text of this Edict of 
 the 14th ef October, in the first place the proceedings 
 
COMPROMISE WITH ROME. 141 
 
 instituted against the Archbishop are quashed, "siace 
 an agreement being arrived at respecting the manage- 
 ment of local ecclesiastical funds, the occasion for a 
 judicial investigation is removed." Secondly, those 
 ecclesiastics or laics are to be set at liberty who may 
 have been imprisoned for executing an order of the 
 Archbishop, -with reference to " the diocesan government 
 or administration of Church property;" and the investi- 
 gations still pending with regard to such acts, are to be 
 quashed. Thirdly, the cure of souls is provided, for by 
 the regulation, that " the Archbishop is to appoint fit- 
 ting clergymen to perform the parochial duties, to whom 
 the Government will cause the usual daily stipend (a 
 florin and a half per diem) to be paid, after deducting 
 the remainder of the income of the living." Thus the 
 filling up of the living is suspended until the final ar- 
 rangement is made between the Government and the 
 Archbishop. On'this follows, as the fourth article, the 
 announcement that the administration of the local 
 Church property is to be carried on as before the dispute 
 arose. This, therefore, includes the rescinding of the 
 Archbishop's prohibitions of intercourse with the Gov- 
 ernment. On the other side, the fifth and concluding 
 article declares, that the ministerial ordinances in reply 
 (the Edicts of the 18th of April and 18th of May) are 
 canceled on the part of the Grand Ducal Government. 
 
 It can not be denied, that in this preliminary conven- 
 tion, the Curia only gives way on one point, namely, 
 with regard to the Administration of Church property, 
 which the Archbishop had brought to a stand-still, by 
 forbidding the officials concerned to transact business 
 with the Government. As regards Church discipline, 
 Rome upholds the Archbishop in every step, including 
 the excommunication of the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 
142 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Council. The Government gives way on both the 
 points in dispute. It cancels all legal proceedings 
 against the Archbishop and his priests, not only with 
 reference to the present dispute, but also with reference 
 to the government of the Church, and confirms the ille- 
 gal nominations of the Archbishop. It only insists that 
 the persons so nominated shall be regarded as curates, 
 not incumbents, and therefore receive only a portion of 
 the income of the benefices. At first it appeared as if 
 the whole execution of the convention would suffer ship- 
 wreck on this point. The persons excommunicated re- 
 fused to sue for pardon, since they had sunply done 
 their duty. On account of this, the clergy were unable 
 to enter into the relations with them that were necessary 
 to the carrying on of the administration. After some hes- 
 itation, the Archbishop' empowered the parish priests, 
 by a circular issued in February, 1855, to hold dealings 
 with the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council in the matters 
 affecting the revenues of endowments, but to i-efrain 
 from all other intercourse. This is the position in which 
 affairs stand, up to the present moment. 
 
 Now, what would have been the probable result, if the 
 Government had simply pursued a constitutional course ? 
 No doubt, if the dispute had been arranged by an appeal 
 to the courts of justice, the necessity would have been 
 still more apparent of a clear, honest, liberal law, defin- 
 ing the position of the State toward the Church, which 
 might have replaced the ordinances of 1830, and of 
 March, 1853. Hence there seems nothing left for the 
 Government to do but that, which done in January, 
 1854, would have averted much 'mischief — I mean, that 
 they should lay a project of law before the Chambers, 
 defining the existing regulations in the sense of true 
 legal and constitutional liberty, and, where necessary. 
 
NEEDFUL MEASURES. 143 
 
 altering them so as to adapt them to present circum- 
 atjinces. By so doing, they will thus reward evil with 
 good, encounter the hierarchy with Christianity, and op- 
 pose to the claims of the canon law the majesty of polit- 
 ical justice and civil freedom. Such a law might be 
 assimilated, in some respects, to that of France and 
 Belgium, in others to the existing regulations in Prus- 
 sia ; at the same time, however, keeping in view the 
 points of difference in the legislation of those countries, 
 and the existing compact with Kome. In any case, the 
 law would have to be as liberal as possible, and to con- 
 tain a penal clause. The more fair and just a law, the 
 greater security is there for its enforcement against 
 every one, even against archbishops ; for then public 
 opinion becomes penetrated with that sense of law 
 which was expressed some time ago in the remarkable 
 words of the Sardinian officer, who had to keep guard 
 over the Archbishop of Turin. The latter remarking 
 that he no doubt felt it very painful to execute the orders 
 of the Government, the officer replied, very simply — 
 " Not in the least; for we all stand beneath the majesty 
 of the law, which you have violated.'' Such a feeling 
 of the sanctity of the laws of our fatherland, makes even 
 small governments and states more powerful than many 
 larger ones. In his recent essay in Schletter's " Jahr- 
 bucher," Professor Warnkonig has appended the scheme 
 of such a law for the province of the Upper Rhine, 
 which, coming from so distinguished and experienced a 
 man, certainly deserves attention. I therefore insert it 
 in Appendix B, and beg to express my general concur- 
 rence with it. 
 
 You will observe that the seventh article of this pro- 
 ject speaks of the execution of the sentences of the 
 Spiritual Court. This might, perhaps, require a more 
 
144, SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 precise definition, in the sense of what has been said 
 above. With regard to his eighth article, concerniog 
 popular education, the experience of France and Bel- 
 gium shows that it is virtually putting the gymnasia and 
 lyceums into the hands of the bishops, if you make it 
 dependent on their pleasure whether Catholic religious 
 instruction shall be imparted or not. The Government 
 must, in any case, reserve to itself the right of choosing 
 a master for religious instruction from among the clergy 
 approved by the bishop. If he refuse on principle to 
 send up candidates for the office, the Government must 
 retaliate by suspending the episcopal revenues, as has 
 always been its acknowledged right. With the other 
 branches of instruction the bishops should have nothing 
 whatever to do. 
 
 When I here give utterance to my convictions, I 
 know that a Government so enlightened as that of Ba- 
 den will not see any want of respect even in my criti- 
 cisms, but only the candid remarks of a sympathizing 
 observer. I make ample allowance for the embarrass- 
 ment of their position. I fully recognize how greatly 
 the violent and illegal conduct of the Archbishop and 
 his adherents increased the difficulty of entering on the 
 path of parliamentary legislation. Finally, I do not 
 forget the respect naturally paid to the diplomatic 
 representations of which we have heard, dissuading 
 from an open constitutional proceeding with the Cham- 
 bers, and to the urgent advice, proceeding from an 
 influential quarter, to negotiate with Rome. 
 
 So much the more, however, do I hold it my duty to 
 declare that I think the Government perfectly in the 
 right when they expelled the Jesuits who were holding 
 missions in the country, since that body enjoyed no 
 legal recognition from the State. 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. I45 
 
 Whether there ought to be a legal permission of the 
 public labors of the Jesuits in the land, is an open 
 political question, on the consideration of which I am 
 not here called upon to enter. But it is no matter of 
 question that such labors, in order to be legal, require 
 an express legal resolution and edict. For a society 
 which has been formally abolished, and that at the 
 Pope's desire, can not possibly lay a claim to be legally 
 •re-established, even by the Pope^s desire, without a leg- 
 islative enactment. And in former times they have al- 
 ways demanded such an authorization in Catholic States. 
 But, be that as it may, in Baden the Jesuits had no 
 right to hold missions, nor the bishops to allow them to 
 do so ; jand the Government simply availed themselves 
 of their right ; a step all the more justifiable under cir- 
 cumstances of so much perplexity. 
 
 The educational establishments of the Jesuits may 
 certainly be regarded as those of private persons ; and in 
 that case, where universal religious liberty exists, they 
 ought not to be excluded from the rights commonly ac- 
 corded to private schools ; it being understood, of course, 
 that they submit themselves to the same inspection on 
 the part of the State as all others. These, therefore, 
 would be schools conducted by individual Jesuits. But 
 schools belonging to the society presuppose (as do Jesuit 
 missions in my opinion) the express permission of the 
 Order by a law. This was the view taken in France 
 under the Bourbons. But if the question under dis- 
 cussion be whether the Jesuits are to be recognized as a 
 society with corporate rights, we must not overlook the 
 fact that this society is distinguished from all other or- 
 ders of the Catholic Church by its fundamental principle. 
 It is a priestly institution for proselytizing and popular 
 education, and a secret society, of which every member 
 
146 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. • 
 
 pledges 'himself at all times to yield obedience to what- 
 ever decision may issue from the Pope of Rome, to 
 uphold' whose unconditional authority is the declared 
 object ©f their Order. Laboulaye's verdict on this point 
 in his . articles on the history of the dogma of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, has never been answered,; and is 
 unanswerable. 
 
 All the States in which the Jesuits have" once had 
 the upper hand, banish them as soon as they are able ; as. 
 we see now taking place in Spain and Sardinia ; in all 
 other Catholic countries they are the object of general 
 aversion, both to the regular and secular clergy. That 
 they have made their way into Prussia and Hdienzol- 
 lern and established themselves there, can scarcely be an 
 inducement to the Government of Baden to swerve from 
 their secure footing on the law. The Catholic parochial 
 clergy would vote for it as little as the people, but it is 
 possible to intimidate the former. 
 
 As we have said, the ecclesiastical contest in Baden 
 remains up to the present moment as far from decision 
 as it was a year ago. The result of the negotiations 
 that have been going on in Rome, and are now con- 
 cluded, has not yet been made public. But enough has 
 been shown, in the subsequent course of events, to en- 
 able us to recognize in -the acts of the Archbishop the 
 fixed determination of the bishops to uphold, in all their 
 magnitude, those pretensions to supreme and unlimited 
 power in all cases of collision between the State and tiie 
 hierarchy which have hitherto lain dormant ; and to at- 
 tempt to enforce them in defiance of a Government 
 strong only in the power of right, and in the attachment 
 to law by which its enlightened and patriotic population 
 is animated. In this contest the Government of Baden 
 JB the champion of the rights, not only of all the Prot^ 
 
CONTEST triTDEOIDBD. 147 
 
 estant Grovernments of Gennany, but of all the States 
 that have resolved not to sacrifice their o-vvn independ- 
 ence and the rights of their subjects on the altar of the 
 canon law. The issue which we predict will be a bene- 
 fit to all Grovernments, and to the clergy in the country 
 itself. What are the expectations, on the other hand, 
 of the hierarchists we learn best from their advocate in 
 the voluminous essay already referred to in Cotta's 
 Quarterly Magazine for last year. After having in- 
 formed us that two hundred and forty bishops, and 
 among them all the eighty-five of France, have ex- 
 pressed their sympathy with the Archbishop of Fribourg, 
 and offered him their congratulations on the part he has 
 taken, he draws from it the following tragic-comic con- 
 clusion : 
 
 " Henee it appears that all these bishops recognized the pre- 
 tensions of the episcopacy to be founded on the canon law. The 
 Pope, as the supreme judge of the metropolitan, has decidM in 
 his favor ; his decision has thus,become in the truest sense oecu- 
 menical: according to the law of nations there is now presented 
 to the parties or guaranties to the peace of Westphalia and the 
 Final Kesolution of the Diet of 1803, by this decision of the 
 Pope, a violation of the treaties which they have pledged them- 
 selves to maintain intact. "What should hinder these powers 
 from availing themselves of their rights in order to restore 
 peace ?" 
 
 Clearly nothing but the war in the East ! As soon 
 as this is over, therefore, the French and Russians are 
 bound to invade Germany in case the Baden Govern- 
 ment should refuse to give way, and the Emperor of 
 Austria fail to do his duty. We take due cognizance 
 of these patriotic opinions and hints, not to call them 
 suggestions and instigations. 
 
 There only remains one thing more for us to do in 
 
148 Signs of the times. 
 
 order to perceive the full historical import of the contest 
 between the hierarchy and the State ; namely, to con- 
 sider more narrowly, in their mutual bearing, the three 
 great points which must perpetually bring them into 
 collision. This I purpose to do, my dear friend, in my 
 next letter, for which you shall not have to wait long. 
 
LETTER ?L 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CIVIL LEGISLATION AND 
 THE CANON LAW OP ROME, IN ITS BEARIN& UPON 
 MARRIAGE, EDUCATION, AND PROPERTY. 
 
 Chaelottekbebs, June 26tb, 1866. 
 
 Verily, my Honored Friend, from all that we haye 
 had to relate and discuss in my last two letters, it seems 
 that those who are raising the standard of absolute 
 Church authority against the State are in bitter earnest. 
 And they are waging a warfare not merely against the 
 authority and majesty of civil legislation in general, but 
 against the most vital elements of all national existence. 
 For, as we have seen, the unconditional law of the hie- 
 rarchy is not only, by its very nature as unconditional, 
 incompatible with the legal conditions of an independent 
 State, but also stands in an attitude of equally implaca- 
 ble hostility toward the intellectual requirements of the 
 age. This holds good with regard to popular education, 
 which, however, can not be suffered to remain on a foot- 
 ing utterly at variance with the political circumstances 
 of a country, nor yet be surrendered into foreign hands; 
 and is equally applicable to free research in the domain 
 of history. The natural sciences are, at length, every- 
 where allowed free scope; but philology and history, 
 and all free mental and moral or religious philosophy, 
 find in our day greater obstacles than ever from the 
 
150 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 canon law, and greater resistance than ever from the 
 hierarchy which takes its stand upon that law. 
 
 I repeat it : what I have said is, I firmly believe, as 
 true of a Catholic State as of a Protestant ; and in saying 
 it, I have had no reference to any particular Christian 
 confession. The immediate question before us, in the 
 first instance, simply concerns itself with the law. It is 
 a question of the final consequences of that system which 
 was planted by Boniface, but which he carried into 
 practice (for he could not do otherwise) with modera- 
 tion, and kept within bounds. .Hence, however, it is a 
 question whose root-principle affects the stability of law 
 in all European States, Catholic as well as Protestant, 
 and -decides the future prospects of mental culture in 
 Europe. Yes ; we utter no exaggeration, but a simple, 
 unvarnished fact, when we say that, humanly speaking, 
 the point at issue is the civilization and freedom of the 
 world, so far as Western Europe has a voice in the 
 matter. For the science and culture which place our 
 century in so high a rank, are certainly not the work of 
 this hierarchy, and they have now escaped from its 
 guardianship, as formerly from its persecution. 
 
 In the first instance, we shall limit our attention to 
 the relation toward the State, and, ignoring all confes- 
 sional considerations, proceed to consider those three 
 great points to which we have alluded ; not alone the 
 two which the Wtirzburg manifesto places in the fore- 
 ground^education and Church property ; and we will 
 begin with the third, whose championship the Bishop 
 commits to the Pope, namely, marriage. 
 
 According to the views of the hierarchical or Ultra^ 
 montane party, it is pure impiety on the part of the 
 State to make the validity of marriage, and its legal 
 consequences in the legitimacy of the children and the 
 
THE CHUECH AND MARRIAGE. 151 
 
 right of inheritance, dependent on the vow or declara- 
 tion of the contracting parties before a civil court, and 
 the recording of their union in the registers of the 
 State. 
 
 For the last three centuries, the conscience of educated 
 nations has raised its voice in opposition to this view. 
 And, really, one would be ready to think it a. greater 
 impiety on the part of the State if it took no heed to 
 thiS' fundamental pillar of its own existence. Nay, 
 its Christian character consists in the truly Christian 
 attitude which it assumes toward the conscience of the 
 individual, when it leaves it to him to make himself a 
 partaker of the blessings of that religious community 
 to which he belongs. At an early date, the fre6 citizens 
 of the Netherlands had sought to obtain this end by 
 establishing a so-called civil marriage for all who did 
 not belong to the Reformed Confession. The Prussian 
 code of Frederic the Great evidently sets the same end 
 in view. But the Prussian lawgiver and the general 
 sentiments of his age were still too much in bondage to 
 the juristic and historical error of the Reformers, who' 
 imagined, that according to the law and custom of prim- 
 itive Christianity, the religious rite constituted the con- 
 tract of marriage, instead of merely hallowing it; whereas 
 even the Romish canonists admit, that according to the 
 ancient Church, the mystery, or as the "Western Church 
 expresses it, the sacrament, does not lie in the pronounc- 
 ing of the blessing, but in the consummation of the 
 marriage vow. This error was the chief source of the 
 maxim laid down by the Prussian code, that the ecclesi- 
 astical ceremony was requisite to the legal validity of a 
 marriage. 
 
 The Austrian code of Joseph II., already mentioned, 
 was on this point less fettered by prejudice. He gave 
 
152 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 less prominence to the benediction of the priest, without, 
 however, directly and openly reinstating the civil cere- 
 mony in possession of its old rights. To have effected 
 this in a logical and consistent manner, is the immortal 
 merit of Napoleon the Great, and of the eminent jurists 
 and statesmen whom he gathered round him. In En- 
 gland, Peel, the greatest English statesman of the age, 
 has paved the way for the introduction of this wise 
 measure; while observing due respect to the peculiar 
 circumstances of the country and the existing usage, 
 according to which a marriage was formerly valid only 
 when performed in the Episcopal Church. Ped re^ 
 dressed this griev?ince on behalf of all Protestant dis- 
 senters, and established civil registers, under the man- 
 agement of lay of&cials. The Episcopal clergy are still 
 able to solemnize all marriages, and retain their own 
 books of registration, in which every marriage solemnized 
 by them is entered immediately after the religious cere- 
 mony, in the same form as by the civil r^istrar ; ,and 
 is, indeed, registered twice — once in the parish book, 
 and then in the quarterly return sent in to the superin- 
 tendent registrar. The ninteenth article of the Prus- 
 sian Constitution holds out a prospect of the introduction 
 of civil marriage by a special law. 
 
 The justification of civil marriage is generally based 
 merely on the rights and duties of the State, and this 
 justification is perfectly adequate in the sphere of law. 
 But it is time to expose the hypocrisy, or at least to 
 unvail the absurdity, of the assertion now boldly revived, 
 that an enforced religious solemnization is more conso- 
 nant with Christianity. It is, on the contrary, precisely 
 from the Christian point of view that civil marriage 
 derives its recommendation. It alone is entirely in 
 consonance with Christianity, and therefore pre-emi- 
 
CrVIL MARRIAGE. 153 
 
 nently favorable to the highest good of peoples and 
 states — namely, religion ; inasmuch as it lays aside coer- 
 cion, and gives, or rather restores, to a religious rite its 
 voluntary character. For Christianity can only exert 
 a power for changing men's hearts, in so far as the 
 religious acts of the individual are freed from all con- 
 straint. Civil society, when, having culminated in a 
 polity, it has risen to the full consciousness of its divine 
 vocation, tolerates no legal coercion but that of the laws 
 of the land, with whose maintenance' the State alone is 
 chargeable. But neither can the Christian religion, 
 when awakened to the consciousness of its own inward 
 and personal nature, tolerate any coercion — still less 
 desire or demand it. The universal conscience of Chris- 
 tian men has lon^ago perceived that God's blessing 
 rests only on such religious acts as are voluntarily per- 
 formed. In our day this sentiment has found its verifi- 
 cation in facts ; not only in France, but in the Rhenish 
 provinces. The facts adduced by Siisskind with regard 
 to ISelgium, to prove the contrary, and of which the 
 retrograde party so gladly avail themselves, have arisen 
 from the unique position assumed by this almost ex- 
 clusively Catholic country toward the clergy, who are 
 endeavoring to gain political supremacy. In tha coun- 
 tries referred, to, the feeling of the sacredness of the 
 religious act has not diminished, but, on the contrary, 
 increased where it ejcists ; and has now revived even where 
 it seemed to have died out. The experience of England 
 and the United States yields the same result, as every 
 one knows who is acquainted with the internal affairs of 
 those countries. To protect the Catholics from coercion 
 was also the object of that regulation in the Prussian 
 code, which secures to Catholic couples the right of 
 being married in a Protestant church where no objec- 
 7* 
 
154 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 tions to their union exist on the score of morality or the 
 provisions of the common law. But the means are 
 inadequate to the end, and the requirement of any ec- 
 clesiastical ceremony whatever rests upon an error. 
 Even the law of Joseph II. (now, as it seems, set 
 aside), although not clearly expressing the simply relig- 
 ious significance of the ecclesiastical ceremony, is a step 
 toward the right path, which Napoleon at length entered 
 upon. Thus both the German codes deserve, to a certain 
 extent, our gratitude and approbation in behalf of Chris- 
 tianity and civil liberty. 
 
 Under Napoleon, in 1801, Rome had perceived that 
 his system was not inconsistent with the general defini- 
 tions of the canon law, nor with the usages of the an- 
 cient church ; but since 1850 she' can no longer be 
 made to comprehend this. Wherefore ? The Ultra- 
 montane party — which raised its head again upon the 
 restoration of the Bourbons, and after the death of Pius 
 VII., ia 1823, became the ruling influence at Rome — 
 thinks, in its blind fanaticism, that the salvation of the 
 Church lies in the restoration of this error of the dark 
 ages. But the main ground of the hatred with which 
 the hierarchy in general regard civil marriage is, that 
 they descry in it the means whereby the State emanci- 
 pates itself and the consciences of its subjects from the 
 yoke of the clergy. And this is the very end to be at- 
 tained. It is, indeed, high time that the scientific 
 jurists of Germany should rise to this point of view. 
 But, as yet, there still evidently lingers a religious 
 prejudice against civil marriage in the minds of some 
 of the leaders of our so-called historical, or more truly 
 Romish-romantic, school Of jurisprudence. Lastly, the 
 objections raised by the Lutheranistic theologians against 
 civil marriage only furnish a new proof of the utter in- 
 
NATIONAL EDUCATION. I55 
 
 capacity of this class to conceive any clear notions of 
 jurisprudence, or to enter into the realities of the world 
 around them. Beaten on the field of history, and driven 
 from the position they had taken up in poLtics, they fall 
 back on the religious feeling of the multitude. 
 
 ■Upon this point, then, an open war is being waged at 
 this moment between the Pope and the Sardinian Gov- 
 ernment, under which the real point at issue is concealed, 
 namely, that of toleration in general, together with the 
 rights of Church property, and the suppression of mon- 
 asteries in favor of the parochial clergy. An attempt 
 will be made to give the struggle a religious coloring, 
 by bringing prominently forward the question regarding 
 marriage, while forgetting that the example of the neigh- 
 boring countries of France and Belgium gives the lie to 
 these accusations of irreUgion. Thus hei*e, too, we find 
 a contest which can only end with the surrender of un- 
 conditional pretensions ; and these are evidently in this 
 case on the side of the hierarchy. 
 
 The second point is that of education. On this ques- 
 tion, also, before the present raising of their standard 
 by the hierarchical party, a practical settlement which 
 gave general satisfaction had been attained. With re- 
 gard to the education of the clergy, all Germany, with 
 Prussia at its head, had adopted the system of Joseph 
 H. ; the clerical training to follow the general course 
 of study in the national high school, the university to 
 precede the episcopal seminary. Prussia, especially, 
 had thoroughly carried out this system, with regard to 
 the appointment of theological tutors at her universities, 
 while observing all respect toward the rights of the 
 bishops. Eome was acquainted with the system before 
 and during the negotiations, and had nothing to say 
 against it. In fact, its greatest crime in the eyes of the 
 
156 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 hierarchy was, that its provisions left nothing to object 
 to, so long as they were as yet unwilling or unable to 
 prefer their unlimited pretensions. According to the 
 prescriptions of the Council of Trent — the only ordi- 
 nances respecting the episcopal seminaries received in 
 Germany — the great episcopal seminaries for priests 
 opened their doors to a young man after he had passed 
 through the university under ecclesiastical superintend- 
 ence, and thus received a preliminary training as a man 
 ajid a citizen. Within his seminary the bishop reigned 
 alone. The position in which these institutions stand 
 toward the university, was not only unassailed by the 
 clergy, but regarded with gratitude by the majority of 
 them, as it was by the Catholic population in general 
 In fact, the Governments had simply acted by the advice 
 of pious Catholic bishops and jurisconsults, when they 
 established things on this footing. The institutions 
 they founded had raised the clerical profession from a 
 state of ignorance and general contempt, to refinement 
 and scholarship, and to corresponding respect from the 
 public. The first Archbishop of Cologne, after the re- 
 establishment of the see and chapter, found a seminary 
 dating from the time of the French occupation, in which 
 the larger part of the pupils could barely read the text 
 of the LatiQ mass, far less explain it. Now, the pupils 
 of the same seminary compete successfully with their 
 Protestant fellow-candidates for the prizes given for 
 scientific essays, and in other learned labors. With 
 regard to popular education, things have taken a similar 
 course. The reform in primary instruction, and the 
 establishment of seminaries for schoolmasters, accom- 
 plished by that excellent and pious ecclesiastic, Prince 
 Bgon Von Fiirstenberg, and the system pursued in 
 Prussia, are the fruit of the same spirit. They pursue 
 
EXPERIENCE OF BELGIUM. 157 
 
 the same end by similar methods and regulations. Why, 
 then, are we suddenly told that all this is godless, an 
 oppression of the Church, an insult to episcopal rights, 
 a corruption of the Catholic people? Very simply, 
 because since 1848 the Ultramontane party has thought 
 itself strong enough to govern at will State and people, 
 if it can but get the mastery over the clergy as well as 
 the populace ; or because it despairs of ruling the peo- 
 ple any longer on any other system. The blindness or 
 absolutism of this faction is so great, that they do not 
 even perceive that it is precisely the Catholic Govern- 
 ments whom they endanger the most by the course they 
 are pursuing — the Catholic States which they are under- 
 mining, and the Catholic populations which they are 
 lowering more and more in general estimation, and 
 whom they will, in the end, exasperate and drive to 
 despair. I pass over, at present, the clerical party in 
 Belgium, who are somewhat incautiously boasting of the 
 Catholic feeling of the nation, and of the share which 
 their own body has taken in raising the nation to inde- 
 pendence. They forget that the nation won its freedom 
 under the banner of universal liberty. While a com- 
 plete separation of the Church from the State subsists 
 as far as regards administration (for it draws from the 
 State the means of subsistence), the Government finds 
 increasing support from the country against the pre- 
 tensions of the clergy to the exclusive direction of pub- 
 lic education, more especially from the majority of the 
 leading men in the nation, and from the cities of ancient 
 celebrity. 
 
 As in France (whose code, including the organic ar- 
 ticles of Napoleon's concordat, is in use in Belgium), 
 the bishops are now seeking to contrive embarrassments 
 for the Government, or, in other words, to purchase in- 
 
158 SIGN'S OP THE TIMES. - 
 
 tolerance bj their abuse of the right accorded to them, 
 of appointing a priest to give religious instruction in the 
 lyceums or public high schools. But it is clear that 
 this means of coercion, like any other, must wear itself 
 out by use. Meanwhile, the experience of this State 
 during the twenty-five years it has been in existence, is 
 altogether in favor of the free university of Brussels and 
 the national lyceums, as compared with the Catholic 
 university of Louvain, and the episcopal seminaries. 
 The latter have hardly arisen above the corresponding 
 provincial institutions of France, while the national uni- 
 versity is rising more and more to the level of the age ; 
 and even in the departments of mental philosophy and 
 philology, may challenge comparison with the first uni- 
 versities of Europe. 
 
 In France itself, once the cradle of philological sci-- 
 ence, and long the seat of learning among the Catholic 
 clergy, the aspect of afiairs is yet more discouraging. 
 The Ultramontane bishops have not been ashamed of the 
 barbarism of endeavoring to banish classical studies as a 
 homage, rendered to paganism ; and they have already 
 succeeded so far, that the older French clergy can 
 hardly point to one distinguished Latin scholar in their 
 ranks, and in Greek not a single one. A more gener- 
 ous spirit seems awakening in the younger generation, 
 and they are not Ultramontane. It is this extreme 
 party which has given the French Government so much 
 trouble by throwing ol)stacles in the way of a fair and 
 reasonable execution of the Code Napoleon. It barters 
 to the Government and the prefects its co-operation in 
 the educational institutions of the State, in return for 
 the- unjust, and often positively illegal, exclusion of the 
 Protestants from their benefits, and the closing of Prot- 
 estant churches. It. is the moving spring of the attack 
 
ULTBAMONTANE BABBAEISM. 159 
 
 made upon the property of the Protestant Church in 
 StrasbUrg — the foundation of St. Thomas — which was 
 guaranteed to the Protestants by Louis XIV. himself, 
 and solemnly recognized as belonging to them by Na- 
 poleon I. ; an affair for the just and liberal settlement of 
 which England and Germany look with trust, not un- 
 mingled with anxiety, to the present emperor. But 
 what is the character of the influence exerted by this 
 party on the .popular mind, is proved by one circum- 
 stance, among many that might be named, which took 
 place last year in an important town of Burgundy. At 
 the time of the cholera, the magistrates found themselves 
 obliged to advise the six or seven wealthy Protestant 
 families who resided there, to retire into the country 
 while the pestilence lasted, because the populace (the 
 same which in 1848 was red to a man) had been stirred 
 up to burn them the next night in their houses, as an ac- 
 ceptable offering to the Holy Virgin, who was visiting 
 the city with the plague on account of the presence of 
 those heretics. So much for education ! 
 
 The third point for our consideration is the manage- 
 ment of Church property. Here, too, it is easy to de- 
 monstrate that an irreconcilable contrariety subsists 
 between the demands of the Ultramontane party, the 
 necessities of society, and the rights of the State. No 
 description of civil polity can less afford to give way to 
 these ijnlimited pretensions to supremacy than the 
 Christian State of our day— ^the State which is working 
 its way up from revolution and bloodshed to order, civil 
 liberty, and mental culture, and endeavoring to raise it- 
 self from poverty and financial embarrassment to pros- 
 perity and power ; in other words, the Continental 
 State of the nineteenth century, in so far as it is yet 
 capable of life in the year of grace 1855. According 
 
160 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 to the Ultramontanes, the bishops are the sole deposit- 
 aries and administrators of Church property. So says 
 the Archbishop of Fribourg, so says Bishop Ketteler of 
 Mayence, so their juristic champion, the Baron von . 
 Linde, the representative of the principality of Lichten- 
 stein in the Grerman Bund. Prussia will perform the 
 promises she has given with regard to the endowments, 
 but she can not recognize the bishops and chapters as 
 proprietors of the Church revenues. To do so would be 
 as unjust toward the Catholic laity as it would be sui- 
 cidal for the State. Catholic Belgium has no more con- 
 ceded this than France. And Baden can as little con- 
 cede it, as the State of New York can allow Bishop 
 Hughes to be the sole administrator of a fund amount- 
 ing to five million dollars. The public will insist on the 
 Church property being managed by committees of lay- 
 men, who, under the superintendence of the bishops, 
 and in conjunction with the parochial clergy, will ad- 
 minister the moneys belonging to foundations, and riender 
 a public account of their expenditure. On the Conti- 
 nent, also, and especially in Germany, these freer forms 
 will have to be generally adopted. From ofScial tute- 
 lage, an advance will gradually be made to administra- 
 tion by Catholic corporations. 
 
 We have asked for freedom. The bishops assembled 
 at Wiirzburg in 1848 also demanded freedom ; freedom 
 is what Bishop Ketteler calls for ; but only freedom for 
 themselves, for the Church, i. e., for the corporation of 
 bishops under the sway of Rome. They demanded the 
 right of association when all demanded or possessed it ; 
 they attempt to exercise it when all others have been 
 wholly or partially deprived of it. 
 
 Belgium and Sardinia maintain their ground against 
 the storm, and withstand the machinations of this party 
 
WAR ON CONSCIENCE. 161 
 
 only by means of their legally established political free- 
 dom ; for, during the last quarter of a century, constitu- 
 tional monarchy has proved itself as mighty, as despot- 
 ism has impotent, to sustain this contest. Belgium and 
 Sardinia are flourishing, and develop daily new energy 
 and vitality, while in Spain every thing is at the mercy 
 of the next turn of the' cards, because an immoral and 
 imbecile dynasty has for the last few years given ear to 
 the reckless reactionary instigations of this party, and 
 open civil war is impending. 
 
 Which way, then, is the current setting? Is the 
 hierarchy rising or falling in the balance ? Is canon 
 law, in all its absolutism, the last word of the century, 
 or legality with its liberties, of which the only secure 
 foundation is liberty of conscience ? Freedom of con- 
 science ! But it is precisely with the conscience and its 
 liberty that the hierarchy wages the most implacable 
 and deadly warfare. To consider this warfare and the 
 Signs of the Times as exhibited by the recent cases of 
 persecution in our own day, shall be the business of my 
 next letter. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 AND THE RECENT PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 ' CHAELOTTENBEEe, June 29tb, 1855. 
 
 Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 
 The hierarchical celebrations of the centenary festival 
 in Mayence, my honored friend, reached their close more 
 than a week ago^ and without eliciting, as far as we have 
 been able to hear, any remarkable sign of popular sym- 
 pathy. We ourselves; however, will continue the train 
 of meditation awakened by this festival, which we be- 
 gan on the day of St. John the Baptist, with his solemn 
 warning to repentance for our text. On this day, con- 
 secrated to the memory of the two great Apostles, let 
 us rise to the full light of apostolic knowledge. From 
 the heights of a Scriptural acquaintance with the doc- 
 trine aiid labors of these two princes among the Apostles, 
 let us cast one free and joyful glance behind us on the 
 original subject of our meditations, and on that eighth 
 century, when the Church existed with all its members 
 fully developed and organized ; and then let us turn to 
 our serious work of to-day, and fix our eyes on the 
 miseries of the present. 
 
 First, then, let us draw an apostolic motto and in- 
 spiration for meditations embracing so vast a portion of 
 history, from the heart of the primitive Christian con- 
 sciousness of these two great Apostles of the Lord. 
 
OUB MOTTOES. 163 
 
 When I strive to bring clearly before me the image of 
 those two preachers of the Gospel, on whom so great a 
 blessing rested, I behold men of the Spirit, moved by 
 the purest love to man, who were persecuted evpn unto 
 death, but who never persecuted, who did not revile nor 
 curse their enemies. I behold Apostles and disciples 
 who, through love and patience, overcame, first their 
 own not unimportant differences of opinion with regard 
 to the first forming of the Christian communities, and 
 then the strifes between their several parties. In the 
 words of the Spirit and of love, which they have be- 
 queathed to us, we must inevitably find the best solution 
 for our task. Yes, we will take their words with us as 
 our guiding star on a road full of serious difficulties, 
 and lying from time to time amid painful scenes. 
 
 Our first motto from St. Peter shall be this : " Add 
 to your faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to 
 knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ; 
 and to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly 
 kindness ; and to brotherly kindness charity" (1 Pet. 
 i., 5-7). Our second shall be the passage where the 
 Apostle applies the great saying of the Old Testament 
 to the people of God and all Christians : "Ye are a 
 chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a 
 peculiar people ;. that ye should show forth the praises 
 of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His 
 marvelous light" (1 Pet. ii. 9). But from St. Paul 
 we are content with the one saying, " Where the Spirit 
 of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. iii. 17). Such 
 cautions and such guiding stars are indeed needed^ or' 
 the thorny track of meditation for which we must now 
 prepare ; for our present task is to display the ungodli- 
 ness and immorality of religious persecution, to unvail 
 the horrors to which it is afresh giving rise, and to reach 
 
164 SiaNS OJ" THE TIMES. 
 
 a point whence we may hope to behold the simple and 
 infallible solution of our present perplexities. 
 
 Let us begin, then, with St. Boniface as our starting- 
 point. 
 
 , Boniface fell a victim to religious persecution, if we 
 assume, as it seems most probable, that the attack of 
 the heathen Frisians was prompted by religious hatred. 
 But Boniface himself made use of persecutions against 
 Clemens, and delivered him over to the secular arm of 
 Pepin, and to the prison in which he disappears from 
 view. Aldebert, the other theological opponent of 
 Boniface, escaped from confinement, and was found 
 murdered by shepherds. 
 
 Did Clemens die in prison?' History knows only 
 that he vanishes from her scene. 
 
 Boniface founded aii hierarchical system, from which 
 more persecution has proceeded" than from any other — 
 possibly only because it has been the mightiest ; the fact 
 is incontestable. But even Protestant hierarchies have 
 leagued with the power of the State to persecute. Thus 
 the Lutherans persecuted the Calvinists, the Anglicans 
 persecuted the Puritans. Under Cromwell, a Puritan 
 Parliament for a few years imitated, but did not equal 
 the hierarchies ; the execution of Servetus in free 
 Geneva, under Calvin, is quite a solitary instance. 
 The Lutheran clergy alone can lay claim to be ranked 
 with the Roman hierarchy in what they have accom- 
 plished — ^their limited power being taken into due ac- 
 count. 
 
 The Church condemns religious persecution in gen- 
 eral ; her own is an exception, because she is right while 
 all others are wrong. She washes her hands of blood. 
 She herself never condemns to death ; but the laws in 
 virtue of which the State does it are required, approved, 
 
RETROSPECT OF HISTORY. 165 
 
 brought to pass by her ; only so that her left hand 
 knoweth not what her right hand doeth. The Pope 
 does not desire a St. Bartholomew's night — ^probably he 
 never even advises it ; but he celebrates its success by 
 feasts and medals, and by adorning the princely ante- 
 chamber with splendid paintings. Bossuet finds it quite 
 natural that the Albigenses (and the Waldenses with 
 them) should be burnt, and sees simple justice in the 
 system of Louis XIV. toward the Huguenots, with its 
 galleys and dragonades. And Bossuet was a pious and 
 highly-cultivated bishop, the eloquent defender of the 
 rights of his Church. 
 
 Is religion, then, really persecution ? Is persecution 
 really religion ? Is the zeal of an inquisitor really the 
 natural consequence of the sincerity of his belief, and 
 the earnestness of his heart? Is Christianity, there- 
 fore, the religion of persecution, and intolerance the zeal 
 of Christian faith ? 
 
 Not alone the primitive records of Christianity, but 
 all noble hearts among all nations and tongues cry with 
 their myriad voices. No, and forever No ! 
 
 The solution of the strangest of all enigmas lies here, 
 too, near at hand in the human heart and its divine 
 mirror, the world's history, for every one who believes 
 in a moral order of the world. 
 
 Let us then, my honored friend, befoi'e we have to 
 speak of our age, of our German fatherland, of the very 
 present day, look around for a moment on history. We 
 shall then easily perceive that the principle of intolerance 
 is latent in every existing religion, and in every religi- 
 ous body, by virtue of the self-seeking principle in the 
 natural man. But the divine deed of redemption from 
 selfishness is meant to set man free from the rule of this 
 principle in his nature. That a religion does this is the 
 
166 SIG-NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 surest pledge of its divine origin ; that a State recognizes 
 liberty of conscience — that is, the right of free religious 
 association according to law — ^is an equally certain proof 
 that it is a Christian State, while persecution, oppression, 
 and coercion in religious matters must be held proofs of 
 the contrary. 
 
 It is very intelligible that the selfish principle of 
 nature should be especially active in the field of religion. 
 Every society within the State, every corporation, bears 
 within it the germ of a temptation to concentrated self- 
 ishness. The member of such a society may seem to 
 others, nay, to himself also, to be acting in an unselfish, 
 self-sacrificing manner, while he is really only minister- 
 ing to a more intense selfishness, by regarding the society 
 as an end in itself, insteaid of a means. But this danger 
 is particularly great in matters of religion. 
 
 Religion is the highest divine symbol of unity, whether 
 in the household, the tribe, the nation, or the State. It 
 is our God whom we defend or avenge when we are filled 
 with zeal against those of an opposite faith. But to 
 appropriate what belongs to God is the very essence of all 
 selfishness, the true 'Fa^\l of man, who would fain be the 
 master of goodness and truth, not their voluntary serv- 
 ant. This danger grows with the deepening conscious- 
 ness of national unity, and the civilization which attends 
 this consciousness. The more religion is absorbed into 
 the mind, and is conceived as essentially bound up with 
 the moral law of the universe and of conscience, the more 
 will the idea of purity and godliness become attached to 
 our faith, and that of impurity and ungodliness to the 
 faith of our opponents. They are our enemies because 
 they are despisers of God — ^that is, despisers oi our God. 
 Why, else, should they not worship him with iis 7 Thus 
 the natural man calls his neighbors who speak another 
 
BIGOTET IN -EGYPT. 167 
 
 language ayXuaaoiy in contrast to fisgonsg dvdpojTroi • he 
 scornfully calls them barbarians, in contrast to the intel- 
 ligent human being. 
 
 Hence, too, it comes, probably, that we find that the 
 great nations of history, who possess a spiritual and 
 maidy consciousness of God, have been more intolerant 
 and given to persecution when they have .followed the 
 b&nt of their natural inclinations, than races occupying 
 a low place in the scale of civilization. 
 
 The Egyptians, with their hostile local deities, differ- 
 flig in every province, would have mutually annihilated 
 each other, and rendered the existence of a national 
 commonwealth impossible, had not their primitive union 
 in the common worship of Osiris deprived this stubborn 
 principle of nature — ^fostered though it was by their 
 fragmentary and distorted conception of God — of much 
 of its fanatical and barbarizing influence. Hence, in 
 Hadrian's time, the killing of a cat could raise the'whole 
 city of Bubastis in revolt against the garrison; for it 
 was our sacred cat which the Roman soldier had killed. 
 The belief in the goddess Pakht, whose symbol was a 
 cat, could not be otherwise vindicated than by taking 
 vengeance on the murderer, who had probably thought 
 of nothing but ridding himself of a troublesome animal. 
 It was not that it symbolized the powers of nature, as 
 many ancient forms of worship did, but that it repre- 
 sented in a symbolical form the consciousness of the 
 eternal relation of the human soul to the Soul of the 
 universe — ^to the merciful God who rules over the living 
 and the dead — ^which made the worship of Osiris a bond 
 of peace and unity, and gave it power to overcome the 
 baser selfish principle. 
 
 Possessing no such central consciousness, Phoenicia 
 and Syria sank beneath the devil-worsMp of the child- 
 
168 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 devouring Moloch. But this consciousness is neither 
 new nor self-invented. Abraham found it already ex- 
 isting, not only in his own heart, but in the pious tradi- 
 tions of a primeval world. With an inspiration that was 
 truly of God, because truly moral, he made the holiest 
 treasure of his own heart the holiest possession of his 
 household, which in the course of a century became a 
 pecuUar people, through the free spirit of this faith in 
 God. But hardly had this conception of God become 
 the national religion of the Jews, when this people began 
 to act and feel as though the God of heaven and earth 
 were thei?- God only. What would have become of them 
 without the constant assaults of the outer world, and the 
 prophets awakened by their troubles, who exalted the 
 spiritual and human elements in the religion of Jehovah 
 above the formalism of the temple worship, and pointed 
 to love as the fulfilling of the law ? And yet the last 
 great historical act of the Jews, before their death- 
 struggle with the Romans, was a murder of intolerance, 
 followed by a fanatical religious persecution of the dis- 
 ciples of Him who had been legally murdered with the 
 forms of justice. 
 
 Finally, Mohammed, from a heretic persecuted as an 
 atheist, became the persecuting founder of a new re- 
 ligion. 
 
 The Arian races appear in very early times to have 
 been remarkably enlightened but exclusive and persecut- 
 ing people — ^the Medes and Indians, no less than the 
 Babylonians and Assyrians. It can be shown that their 
 wars were often religious wars, like that of the founder 
 of the second Babylonian dynasty, Zoroaster, King of 
 Bactria, in the twenty-third century before Christ. 
 
 The most intellectually-gifted nation of the world, the 
 Hellenes, with the Athenians at their head, were unable 
 
HELLENIC INTOLERANCE. 169 
 
 to conceive of religion without persecution. The Athenian 
 people tolerated vain babblers and sophists, but it exiled 
 Anaxagoras, and condemned Socrates to death as arf 
 atheist. The humanizing and uniting principle of the 
 Hellenic religion lay partly in its mysteries, partly in 
 the sacred national festivals of the Hellenes, in which 
 the national religion took the form of a union, and partly 
 in the consciousness of God which philosophy had 
 bestowed on her thinkers and citizens. All these were 
 counteracting elements to the selfish zeal of persecution, 
 and diffused a spirit of generous toleration and humane 
 civilization. 
 
 Toward the external world the Romans were, and 
 always remained, a persecution-loving people, notwith- 
 standing the union of different races iu religion as in 
 civil polity which had taken place within Rome itself at 
 the commencement of its history. But they showed this 
 spirit less than the Greeks. When they first began to 
 spread themselves abroad, they came in contact only 
 with kindred forms of worship — above all, an ennobling 
 and spiritual Hellenism. When tihey penetrated into 
 the barbarian world they had already become too super- 
 stitious, on the one hand, to be willing unnecessarily to 
 make enemies of the strange gods, and too practical, on 
 the other, to allow religious disputes to hinder them in 
 the spread of Roman law and civilization, and in the 
 possession and enjoyment of rich territories. 
 
 Moreover, the stubbornness of the popular mind and 
 faith had then already been broken down by contact with 
 the Hellenic philosophy. Originally, within the limits 
 of the Roman city, as later within those of the Empire, 
 no strange faith was suffered; afterward the Jews, who 
 worshiped without image or temple, and whose useful 
 industry had spread itself through the Empire, obtained 
 
170 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 legal toleration, and the same boon was finally extended 
 to the Egyptian festivals. But intolerance was, and 
 continued to be, the law against all principles that were 
 fundamentally at variance with the national reUgioa. 
 Centuries after that rehgion had died out in unbelief, or 
 had been 'supplanted by Christianity, under the most 
 Christian Emperor Theodosius, Rome's proud Senate 
 required that Christian Senators should take a few grains 
 of incense, on their entrance into the hall, and strew 
 them on the altar of Vesta; for was not Vesta the 
 symbol of our universal empire ! 
 
 The ancient Teutonic races possessed a consciousness 
 of God no less grand and intelligent than that of the 
 Hellenes ; their deities were human gods — ^they were 
 noble, high-minded, self-sacrificing, and kindly heroes, 
 less bloody than that of the Kelts, or even of the Italians. 
 The distinction of race with them, as with the Hellenes, 
 broke down the narrow limitations of local superstitious 
 rites and customs. -Yet they kept the latter strictly ; 
 and it is worthy of remark, that we find among the 
 Frisians a trait of the same sternness and barbarism to 
 which Boniface afterward fell a victim. Shortly before 
 the time of Boniface, the slaying of an animal for food 
 on the safired island of Heligoland, where all living 
 things had a safe asylum, had almost cost a Christian 
 missionary his life, though the deed seems to have been 
 committed from ignorance, not in defiance. But we no- 
 where meet with a prohibition of the preaching of the 
 Gospel, if unaccompanied by any contempt of national 
 customs. 
 
 The Teutonic races became Christians, and persecuted 
 more bitterly than their heathen forefathers. Whence 
 came this spirit of persecution, in spite of an advancing 
 civilization ? 
 
TEUTONIC INTOLERANCE. I7I 
 
 We must consider this remarkable phenomenon more 
 closely. The Christianity of the Gospel and of the apos- 
 tles could neither have awakened nor fostered this spirit, 
 for it knew not as yet the doctrine, that persecution is 
 the pledge of faith most' pleasing to God. It was as 
 little possible in the days of Boniface, as four centuries 
 earlier, in,those of TJlphilaa, that the Gospel could trans- 
 form iuto a nation of persecutors, a 'people who were 
 innately of a mild and kindly disposition — a people, as 
 Tacitus says, distinguished by this very kindliness of 
 heart from all others, and like only itself And the 
 profound affection with which the Saxon races in partic- 
 ular received the Gospel into their loyal hearts as a 
 strong personal faith in the Saviour, is proved by 
 nothing more touchingly than by the Saxon "Gospel 
 history of the Lord." This work dates from the 
 period immediately following the sanguinary proselyt- 
 ism of the Frankish Charlemagne : it must have had 
 its origin in this race, and certainly struck deep root 
 there.* 
 
 Thus at that early date the German people read the 
 Bible, or at least the Gospel history. It was not those 
 narratives which could have imbued such a people with 
 the notion, that the words of the Keeleemer — " By this 
 shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have 
 love one to another" (John xiii. 35) — applied only to 
 those holding the same theological creed, whether Arians 
 or Catholics, Roman or British proselyters and neo- 
 phytes. It was not faith in the Gospel which could give 
 rise to the belief, that the employment of fire and sword 
 against men of different views was enjoined by Him who 
 
 * This has been already remarked by Eettberg, i 247-252. Is 
 there no one willing to make Scheneller's work accessible to the 
 reading public ? 
 
172' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 rebuked the sons of Zebedee wben tbey wished to call 
 down fire from heaven on the unfriendly Samaritans, 
 and warned them and said "Ye know not what manner 
 of spirit ye are of" (Luke ix. 55) — ^namely, of the 
 devil, the power of the evil' spirit of darkness which 
 tumeth away from the light of God — which spirit is 
 selfishness. The Bible did not teach them that secular 
 power and meana of coercion by the help of the law, 
 which beareth the sword for a terror to evil-doers, had 
 been granted, with the right of authority over the con- 
 sciences of the congregation, to the^ preachers and 
 stewards of the glad tidings by Him who said to His 
 disciples, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles 
 exercise dominion over them, and they that are great 
 exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so 
 among you : but whosoever will be great among you, let 
 him be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief 
 among you, let him be your servant." (Matt. xx. 25, 
 27.) ifor does the Gospel history teach that piety and 
 saving faith lie in outward things ; and that Christ was 
 commanding them ta exclude "and persecute as enemies 
 those Christians whose ciistoms might dififer from their 
 own, when He answered the question of the Pharisees, 
 when the kingdom of God should come : "The kingdom 
 of God Cometh not with observation ; neither shall they 
 say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom 
 of God is within you." (Luke xvii. 20, 21.) He who, 
 while gazing on Gerizim, and beholding with His mind's 
 eye the temple of Jerusalem tottering to its fall, could 
 proclaim the worship of God in spirit and in truth, as 
 that which must remain forever (John iv. 21, 24), could 
 not have taught them to place th^ kingdom ofheaven 
 ia one consecrated spot, for which they should wage 
 through centuries a bloody war with its possessors. 
 
TEUTONIC INTOLERANCE. 173 
 
 The Pauline Epistles were early known to the con- 
 verted Germans. With their hereditary faculty for the 
 reception of spiritual things, they could scarcely have 
 found a sanction for theological condemnation in that 
 great apostle of the heathen, who says of himself and 
 of others, " Why is my liberty judged of another man's 
 conscience?" and who submitted himself to the judg- 
 ment of this same . Corinthian congregation, when he 
 says, appealing to the word and commandment of Christ, 
 " Judge ye what I say." (1 Cor. x. 29, 16.) Since, 
 then, these facts of persecution occur among them as 
 among aU Eomanie nations, no explanation is left us 
 but to suppose that it has been the intolerance of the- 
 ologians which has made Christianity exclusive, and the 
 German people persecutors; In the Gospel, nothing 
 could be found to produce this result, but much to pre- 
 vent it. 
 
 Under Boniface, the Germans received from the 
 priesthood, who ruled and instructed them, a, ready- 
 luade system of theology, which had been put together 
 in the course of the last four centuries by the schoolmen 
 'and bishops of Byzantium and Rome. But the great 
 apostle of the heathen, whose memory we celebrate to- 
 day, had left them a warning against all teachers who 
 do not abide by the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, speaking of the "perverse disputings of men of 
 corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that 
 gain is godliness." (1 Tim. vi. 3, 5.) Yet, as we have 
 said, we find persecution early practiced by all the Ger- 
 man tribes, and that in the name of the Saviour, and 
 for the glory of God. • 
 
 It would be wholly unjust to ascribe this corruption 
 to the peculiar organization of the Roman Church ; it 
 is the necessary consequence of the system of every 
 
174 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Church claiming unconditional rights. Did the rigid 
 partisans of their Church among the Lutherans act 
 otherwise ? Hardly were Luther and Melancthon dead, 
 when the son-in-law of the latter, a pious and peace- 
 loving' minister, who preached peace with Calvioists as 
 brethren, was cast into prison ; and not' long afterward 
 another was executed as a malefactor, with a sword in- 
 scribed for the purpose with the words, "Beware, Cal- 
 vinist !" And this took place in the very cradle of that 
 Reformation which had preached the freedom of the 
 Gospel, and sealed its testimony before God and man 
 with the precious blood of martyrs. 
 
 ! that the successors of those old Lutheran zealots, 
 who are now again springing up in Mecklenburg and 
 Prussia, would make a pilgrimage to Dresden, and there 
 gaze on the bloody sword with which Crell was executed, 
 and consider aright its bloodthirsty inscription ! ! 
 that they would then look within and blush for them- 
 selves, when they demand the power of the keys to en- 
 able them to re-awaken the faith which has died out 
 under their hands, and to unite the scattered congrega- 
 tions under a new jurisdiction ! ! that they could 
 see how their fanaticism betrays their secret want of 
 faith in the sight of all, when they invoke the power of 
 the police against a few poor Baptist preachers ! 
 
 With Boniface, in particular, however, two great 
 powers begin to play their parts in the world's history : 
 an exclusive hierarchy, which absorbs the hereditary 
 rights of the congregation, and overshadows the congre- 
 gation itself ; and a stern intolerance of all theological 
 dififerences. 
 
 By intolerance (let me repeat it once more) we do npt 
 mean insisting on their own doctrine as the only true 
 one, for we leave this open to all theologians who desire 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL PERSECtTTION. 175 
 
 it ; but the enforcement of their doctrine within the 
 domain of law, by coercion, persecution, penalties, and 
 death. 
 
 Every absolute Church necessarily brings with it per- 
 secution. It denies the right demanded by the con- 
 sciences of the individual and the congregation, namely, 
 freedom of thought, and, what is the same thing, freedom 
 of speech and of teaching, on the highest subjects of hu- 
 man research and contemplation. This priestly and 
 Church system equally denies the State, for it would 
 make it merely the instrument of defending or avenging 
 the prescriptions of the Church ; that is, devolve on the 
 State the right of punishment. And it demands this 
 servitude on the part of the latier as a Divine right 
 which it were godless to withstand. Lastly, it denies 
 the most Divine thing on earth — the conscience of the 
 individual and of humanity ; it stigmatizes as profane 
 the utterance of the conscience of society, that is, public 
 opinion, and seeks to set aside, by prohibition or repeal, 
 the judgments which the Spirit has given through his- 
 tory — ^nay, the Bible itself. 
 
 The same priesthood points to the persecution of 
 Boniface by a heathen horde, aa a type of the persecu- 
 tions now suffered by his folbwers, when the State re- 
 fuses to recognize their unbounded pretension to a right 
 of absolute sovereignty and stewardship. As though 
 there were no other persecutions than those of which 
 bishops have to complain, when they are called upon to 
 respect those laws under which their predecessors lived 
 in peace ! . As though there had ever been so bloody a 
 persecution as that practiced by bishops and theologians, 
 in virtue of their so-called Divine right ! Alas ! and 
 they have practiced it, not only with prison and scaffold, 
 on solitary thinkers and pious men, but with that silent 
 
176 SI&NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 killing out of the Spirit, which, in the course of a few 
 centuries, has brought- the noblest nations into a state 
 of spiritual stupor or wild despair. 
 
 After many sanguinary struggles, the power of cir- 
 cumstances, working partly through treaties of peace, 
 partly by absolute princely power, partly in the laws of 
 free States, had consecrated the work of civilization, 
 namely, religious toleration. This child of persecuted 
 faith, and of an unspoken, yet widely-recognized bond 
 of mutual toleration, which the spirit of charity to all 
 men was silently bringing to pass in different Christian 
 confessions, produced a ready co-operation and commun- 
 ity of life between "them, along with other noble fruits 
 of civilization. A great Catholic nation proclaimed per- 
 fect liberty of conscience, in the very words of the men 
 of freedom beyond the ocean. Two great Catholic sov- 
 ereigns. Napoleon and Joseph II., proclaimed and car- 
 ried into effect the -principle that religion may and shall 
 be honored and efGcacious without persecution. 
 
 And lo ! in our own days the demon of persecution 
 suddenly rises from the abyss, and shows himself, not 
 in one church, but in almost all — ^most especially, how- 
 ever, in that of Boniface — and proclaims that oppression 
 of conscience is a proof of faith, and that tolerance is 
 the offspring of perditiMi, and is preached to the people 
 by infidelity. 
 
 I wish not to open old wounds ; but I must raise my 
 voice, that those yet bleediag may be healed, and not 
 new and more deadly ones inflicted. I must speak of 
 facts which seem to justify the fears of millions, and to 
 open an immediate prospect of religious wars and uni- 
 versal ruin. It is now the atmosphere if not the era 
 of 1617. 
 
 Yes, the system which deluded and ignorant priests 
 
RTTSSIAN INTOLERANCE. - Jiyy 
 
 — unable to read the signa of the tunes, careless of peo- 
 ple or State — are now, consciously or unconsciously, 
 preaching and practicing, must lead to religious wars, 
 which will overthrow or shake^ to their foundations, 
 many thrones that are lending themselves to this party, 
 unless its progress can be checked now, even at the last 
 moment. 
 
 ■ Not that the spirit of the peoples is intolerant or per- 
 secuting. There is no nation in Europe to whose spirit 
 and leading energies this reproach could be affixed. The 
 Spanish people has no desire for the Inquisition and 
 auto-da-fes ; and the fanaticism of the old Russian party 
 is directed, in its natural growth, not against the Church 
 of the West, but against the State Church of Peter the 
 Great, and the military synod which has supplanted the 
 Patriarch. 
 
 Nor are the absolute sovereigns of Europe and their 
 princely houses distinguished by cruelty and love of 
 persecution. In his private character, this could not be 
 said even of that Sovereign who has recently been so 
 suddenly summoned before his Judge ; and who, while 
 his mental vision was most bounded, ruled with a might 
 and sternness almost transcending human limits. Doubt- 
 less, among the sixty thousand Protestants and the two 
 million of members of the United Eastern Churches, 
 who, in the course of the last ten years have been 
 brought over to the Russian Church by delusive repre- 
 sentations, by deeds of violence, by the imworthy seduc- 
 tions of his priests, and officials, and policemen, there 
 are myriads and myriads who accuse him before their 
 own consciences and the throne of God of unheard-of 
 wrong. The sufferings and sighs of the Abbess of 
 Minsk have echoed through the whole world, and 
 scarcely can all the dungeons, and pains, and tortures 
 8* 
 
178 ' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of Russia, have wholly stifled their sound within the 
 country itseE And yet all who knew the Emperor 
 Nicholas personally, agree ia saying that he himself 
 did not issue those cruel decrees, and was to a great ex- 
 tent unconscious of the sanguinary mode in which they 
 were executed by his superior spiritual and secular 
 officers. And surely his mild and gentle successor, the 
 pupil of the high-minded and noble General von Mdr- 
 der; and the truly liberal, pious, and cultivated poet, , 
 Jukowski, is the last man of whom we need to fear that 
 he would tread in the blood-stained footsteps of the late 
 Government. 
 
 And yet the cruel proceedings against the Madiai 
 show us whither the princes are led by the principle of 
 obtaioing, at any price, the friendship and support of 
 Rome and the Ultramontane party, and of purchasing 
 the so-called " peace of God" (that is, peace with the 
 clergy) at the cost, if not of our own sense of right, of 
 the law- of the land and freedom of conscience. Who 
 would not do all justice to the personal character of the 
 descendant of the humane and enlightened Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany? Who does not know the mildness and 
 humanity which render a residence in that ever-memo- 
 rable and highly civilized country, so pleasant and de- 
 lightful to both Italians and foreigners ? And yet, 
 what heart does not revolt at the naked, unconcealed, 
 undeniable fact, of cruel personal persecution of a 
 wholly inoffensive couple, who were distinguished in 
 their lowly calUng by the purest life and strict obedience 
 to the laws, who held aloof from all political intrigues, 
 and who have witnessed the purity of their faith by the 
 martyr's spirit of patience in which they have endured 
 their sufferings ? The Madiai were not the first nor the 
 last victims of Ultramontane cruelty. But the proceed- 
 
DOMENICO CEOCHETTL I79 
 
 ings against them -w^ere the first-fruits that had met the 
 public eye of. the new contracts with Rome, and of 
 the concessions extorted by the latter as an atonement 
 for the spirit of free thought inherited from Joseph 
 n., and as a token of gratitude to the Pope for deliver- 
 ance from the storms of 1848, by means of Austrian 
 bayonets ! 
 
 Hardly has the indignant outcry of Europe at these 
 cruelties died into silence, ere new tidings reach us, 
 from the same country and the same city, of an act of 
 yet greater harshness. 
 
 The documents connected with the proceeding will be 
 found collected at the end of this book.* The facts 
 there given are authenticated partly by official and docu- 
 mentary papers, partly .by internal evidence, and the 
 absence of any contradiction. They need no explana- 
 tion. No legal form of justice is observed — no defense 
 admitted — ^no witnesses are brought forward. This is 
 no legal process such as that to which we owe, in the 
 case of the Madiai, a defense that does honor to Italy. 
 It is an inquisition, only conducted by secular agents — 
 not by judges proceeding according to forms, but by 
 underlings of the Executive Government. The police 
 needs no rack, as it has no forms to observe. The issue 
 is a harsh decision, summarily given by the Executive. 
 On a Sunday morning, the 25th of March, apparently 
 in honor of the FeasfrK)f the Annunciation of Heaven's 
 grace to earth, a highly respected man, the father of a 
 feimily, who has been but just arrested, is led away in 
 chains to spend a year in the House of Correction. 
 And why ? Because he had read the Bible with his 
 children quietly in his own room — nay, had prayed 
 there with them, and possibly may have confidentially 
 * See Appendix A to Letter vii. 
 
180 SiaNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 spoken of this culpable practice to aii inmate of tlie 
 same house ! We grieve that the trial of Galileo has 
 lately found a German apologist, who could reiterate all 
 the old shallow gossip about the passionate obstinacy of 
 that great man ; but what is the trial of GuUleo to this 
 recent proceeding ? Martial law administered by the 
 police in educated and peaceful Florence ! 
 
 Would to God. that this were a solitary case, or at 
 least that we had no instance of intolerance and relig- 
 ious persecution to lament within our own country while 
 celebrating the present festival ! But the urgency of 
 the times, and the love of truth, and my confidence in 
 the independence and justice of a great German prince, 
 constrain me to speak of another instance of the same 
 spirit, equally recent, and still more revolting, and to 
 draw attention to the consequences of the unhappy con- 
 cessions of our Governments to the boundless preten- 
 sions of the Romish clergy — concessions inconsistent 
 both with mental liberty and the dignity of the Govern- 
 ments. 
 
 The cruel treatment of a. Catholic of Bohemia, who 
 has gone over to the Protestant Church, has been already 
 brought before the public by both native and foreign 
 journals. 
 
 One Johannes Evangelista Borezynski, formerly a 
 lay-brother of the Order of the Brethren of Mercy in 
 Prague, and for twenty years physician to the institu- 
 tion, had notified, according to law, before the Catholic 
 Ecclesiastical Board, and in the presence of two wit- 
 nesses, his conversion to Protestantism. As it was not 
 concealed from him that such a step would never be 
 permitted in Austria, notwithstanding the existing law 
 of the land, but that he would probably be thrown into 
 prison, he then crossed the frontier in all haste into 
 
JOHAKNES ETANGELISTA BORCZYNSKI. 181 
 
 Prussia. He came back provided with all the prescribed 
 certificates and documents connected with his legal re- 
 ception into the Pfotestant Church.* Trusting in the 
 laws of the Empire, he returned, on the 29th of March, 
 in all privacy to his native place — Prossnitz, in Mo- 
 ravia, where he lived quietly in his father's family. 
 And now turn to the oflScial records, and read the 
 story of the cruel treatment of this man, who, how- 
 ever, had not ceased to possess the rights of a subject, 
 since it was as a subject that he was arrested by the 
 State.t 
 
 The proceedings of his late ecclesiastical superiors 
 remind us of those well-authenticated narratives of the 
 escaped nuns from Lithuania which filled Europe with 
 horror ten years ago. The details are too revoltiug to 
 be repeated here. I can vouch that the facts here given 
 possess the greatest authority ; they are in part official. 
 I will only remark that I must reserve the right of 
 adding further particulars in case I should have occasion 
 to announce Borczynski's death in the course of my sub- 
 sequent letters. The world would have her own opinion 
 of the affair, and the suspicion that the superiors of the 
 Order had been alarmed at the possible disclosures of 
 this man respecting themselves or their Order, would 
 remain indelibly fixe'd on them by history. 
 
 In Passion Week, that period sacred to all Chris- 
 tians,' he entreats permission,' if not to celebrate the 
 Lord's Supper with his fellow-believers, at least to 
 receive a pastoral visit. The answer is mocking and 
 cruel ; he wishes to do penance, then — ^he shall have 
 the opportunity granted him of fasting for three days on 
 bread and water. Soon after, he is cast into a dark 
 cell, and left in the foul air of a dungeon. Is this an 
 * See Appendix 0, ii. 2, to this Letter. t See Appendix B 
 
182 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 example of Christian love or ecclesiastical humanity? 
 Does it not rather look like priestly revenge, and a con- 
 firmation of the Roman proverb, "A priest never for- 
 gives?" Many weeks and months have passed since 
 then ; his persecutors have condescended to insert a few 
 words in defense of their conduct in the journals devoted 
 to their party, but not a word of changing his place of 
 confinement, or of alleviating the cruelties inflicted in 
 that week of divine atonement, which must inevitably 
 end' in his death, if they do not reduce him to the same 
 state as his brutalized companions. Is there not among 
 the inmates of this convent the monk Zazul^, who has 
 been confined already twenty-two years, and is treated 
 as a lunatic, b^ause he has betrayed a leaning to Pro- 
 testantism ? 
 
 But I look forward with you, my honored friend, to a 
 better termination. , I am firmly convinced that if the 
 powerful sovereign of German Austria, the youthful and 
 knightly Emperor, can be made aware of these proceed- 
 ings ere it be too late, he will not approve them, but 
 exert his authority to bring them to a close. " To a 
 Christian and German heart, the sympathy of Christen- 
 dom can be no reason for withholding compassion. It is 
 not thus we feel and think on this side the Alps. To a 
 German heart, the respectful expression of sympathy and 
 disapprobation is no crime. The Emperor will show 
 that he is lord in his own land — ^that he is Emperor, 
 and a German and truly Christian lord. Nor will he 
 suffer a retrospective force to be given within his states 
 to the possible provisions of any Concordat — I say pos- 
 sible, for we know not yet what the Concordat contains, 
 stilL less do we know with what reservation it may be 
 published. 
 
 The whole world knows what the Pope and the Bishops 
 
AUSTRIAN INTOLERANCE. Igg 
 
 now demand, but the ■whole German nation knows, and 
 all true statesmen know, that Germany never will be 
 brought to allow her mind and conscience to be silenced 
 in an age when free discussion and even free censure is 
 admitted in all financial operations. Yes, it would now 
 be impossible to bring to pass what was still possible 
 under Ferdinand II., that every stirring of the trampled 
 national conscience should be answered by prisons and 
 torture, as it has been in Russia since 1826 ; or that the 
 calm discussion of public questions, which concern all 
 consciences and the very sanctuary of religious convic- 
 tion, should be stopped by deeds of brute violence. Not 
 Germany alone — ^the whole civilized Christian world is 
 joined in a holy league against a return to such a course 
 of action. If the public opinion of the world, which 
 demands freedom of conscience and toleration by the 
 law, had no other force. on its side than the eternal truth 
 of maa's deepest feelings which underlies it, yet it could 
 not long be set at naught by any save misanthropic 
 sophists or reckless desperadoes. Nay, it does not be- 
 come truly omnipotent over those who really or seemingly 
 despise it, until it addresses itself to the sense of justice 
 and personal honor in the sovereign himself. The prom- 
 ises made by the reigning Emperor of Austria when 
 he repealed the constitution live in his breast, in the 
 sanctuary of his conscience ; and they shut out all pos- 
 sibility of the recurrence of such cruelties, whatever may 
 come from beyond the Alps. Borczynski will certainly 
 find succor when the Emperor heara of his case, although 
 he was a lay-brother. 
 
 I hold the same conviction with regard to other in- 
 stances of the same kind, of which we have heard during 
 the last few years from difierent parts of the Austrian 
 Empire, some of which have been discussed in the public 
 
184 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 prints, and, as far as I know, have never been denied. 
 The fate of Boyczynski is no isolated example of priestly 
 persecution in Austria. Without adducing particular 
 cases, which might be dangerous to those concerned in 
 them, I will merely give the following fact from Hun- 
 gary in the words (which have never been contradicted) 
 of a public paper, edited by men of high standing, whose 
 names are well known and universally esteemed. The 
 Protestantische Kirchenzeitung of Berlin tells us, 
 early in the present year, that the pious and gentle 
 Archduchess Palatine (since dead) had presented some 
 Bibles to her Protestant brethren in Pesth ; and a Bible 
 society had added to her gift a few more copies, to be 
 bestowed on poor youths and niaidens on their marriage 
 and admission into the congregation. Thereupon the 
 police steps in, requires the pastor to give up. the' Bibles, 
 and presents him, a few days later, with a receipt for 
 fifty-four kreutzers, as the price of the paper-maker's 
 pulp into which those Bibles had been' pounded. The 
 Word of God, acknowledged even by the Catholic doc- 
 trine to be the sole rule of faith to Protestants, the pious 
 gift of a princess of the Imperial House to the poor 
 members of a Christian congregation, is hunted out and 
 destroyed as if it were a book of blasphemy ! No doubt 
 there was some police regulation which made this pos- 
 sible : so much the worse. The writer of ~the . account 
 from Hungary says, "This receipt says much." It 
 does indeed say much. If all this happens before the 
 Concordat — ^before the laws of Joseph, which have been 
 blessed by millions for the last three generations, ha^e 
 been supplanted by a new order of things devised to 
 please Rome, what may not — what must not — ^happen 
 hereafter ? 
 
 And if any thing could arouse more indignation than 
 
PERSECUTION DEFENDED. JgS 
 
 what has been done, it would be what has been said in 
 its explanation and defense, since the press, including 
 that of France, has, with a generous freedom of thought 
 which merits acknowledgment, drawn attention to these 
 cases. (The Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung mentions 
 at least the first.) 
 
 Barati, the pastor of the parish in Florence to which 
 Gecchetti belonged, had been charged with denouncing 
 him to the Government, and of having done so even, 
 perhaps, at the cost of violating the secresy of the con- 
 fessional. He defends himself thus : 
 
 " In order to justify my own share in the misfortune which 
 has occurred to Cecchetti, it is necessary that the world should 
 be made aware, that the priest is bound by the government to 
 send in yearly a report of the condition of the sovfs under his cwre. 
 Now, as this Cecchetti had lived four years in my parish without 
 ever coniing to confession, I was obliged to inform the police of 
 the circumstance. If the gensdarmes afterward visited the 
 family, and found Diodati's Bible in his possession, it is not my 
 fault." 
 
 So the police chooses to be informed annually of the 
 condition of souls, wTiether a citizen goes to mass and re- 
 ceives the communion! What need of an Inquisition 
 when we have a police ! But the priest deserves re- 
 spect; he merits grateful thanks for having justified 
 himself in his priestly character. 
 
 Hitherto the case stands otherwise with the defenders 
 of the proceedings against Borczynski. The Deutsche 
 Volkshalle puts forth the following view of the subject 
 in its number of the day before yesterday (June 19th, 
 1855, No. 137). The crime of the lay-brother Borc- 
 zynski against his Order, it says, is to be placed on a 
 level with ithe breach of the marriage vow, or the oath 
 of allegiance by a soldier. It then enters into a long 
 exposition, to show how much worse is the crime against 
 
186 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the Order than the crime of the perjured deserter or 
 traitor within the army ; for which vow, it asks, is the 
 most sacred — this or that ? 
 
 Therefore a blameless man, esteemed by his very per- 
 secutors, who has availed himself of the permission of 
 embracing the Protestant Church which the law grants 
 to every one who is not under sentence of civil death, 
 and. therefore to the lay-brother among the rest — who 
 avails himself of this legal privilege with all possible ob- 
 servance of the forms of law, and without exciting noise 
 or remark — who is charged simply with having so far 
 confided in the Emperor's word and his own good con- 
 science, as to return privately to his native place — this 
 man has rightfully fallen under the penalties of the 
 criminal law, as much as a convicted adulteress : nay, 
 ought to be yet more severely punished than the traitor 
 to his country who deserts his colors. He, a medical 
 lay-brother, has broken his allegiance to his Order, and 
 merely for the sake of his private conscience ; and no 
 rights as a citizen or a man, no protection of the State 
 shall avail him against the regulations of that Order 
 (which has nevertheless made use of the police to re- 
 cover their captive), against the commands of his late 
 superiors, to whom he is a serf for life. Ecclesiastical . 
 law is higher than the State — it is absolute ! 
 
 The dignity of the State, the honor of the Sovereign, 
 nay, the salvation of his soul, demand that he should 
 "protect the Church" in these pretensions; and ere 
 long he will solemnly have vowed to the Pope thus to 
 protect her. The very shadow that the coming Con- 
 cordat casts before it, brings down a punishment on the 
 despisers of God; but the punishment of treason is 
 death ! 
 
 The editors of this paper believe, no doubt, that they 
 
PERSECUTION IN TUSCANY AND AUSTRIA. 187 
 
 are rendering a service to the Emperor of Austria in 
 putting forward a defense like this, -which would better 
 suit the men of the Univers. Similar, friends of the 
 Emperor are wandering through the Rhenish provinces, 
 and are impudent enough to assume the airs of agents 
 ■ of Austria, sent forth to stir up the land for a great and 
 sacred object at a critical moment. What a disgrace to 
 the Imperial name ! And what honorable confidence in 
 the sound judgment and the noble instinct of right in 
 her Rhenish subjects does it not show, that Prussia suf- 
 fers these birds of night to fly abroad unmolested ! 
 
 Let this, my respected friend, be our first sermon on 
 toleration, on occasion of the eleventh centenary festival 
 of St. Boniface, in the second half of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. Seek to profit by it as you can, and farewell. 
 
 P. S.— 6th August, 1865. 
 THB LAST NEWS OF THE PERSECUTION IN TUSCANY 
 AND AUSTRIA. 
 
 We have just learned, through the public papers, 
 that the representations of the English and French Em- 
 bassadors in Florence have been successful in obtaining 
 the commutation of the remaining eight months' im- 
 prisonment of Cecchetti into exile. Every Christian 
 and true friend of his race must feel grateful to those 
 Governments and their representatives, and acknowledge 
 the mercy of the sovereign's decision. You and I cer- 
 tainly share this feeling to its full extent. But it can 
 not make us forget two decisive facts. First, that the 
 mercy of the sovereign only amounts to the "sorrowful 
 privilege of banishment;" secondly, that the Imo re- 
 mains unchanged for him, and, perhaps, a hundred 
 other pious readers of the Bible. If on his return, 
 after a day of honest labor, Cecchetti wishes to read the 
 
188 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Bible with hi3 children, and does not deny his crime 
 when he is questioned, he may be once more put in irons, 
 and thrown into prison in a felon's dress. Meanwhile, 
 the prisons may be filled with martyrs in the same faith, 
 of whom no one hears a word. All freedom of the press 
 was long since at an end in the country^ who will stand 
 up in behalf of the obscure victims of persecution, itt 
 country towns and remote districts? Thus, on the 
 24th October, 1854, Eusebio Massei, an honest baker 
 of Pontedera, near Pisa, was summarily arrested by the 
 police, like Cecchetti, and condemned to a year's im- 
 prisonment in the House of Correction. This instance 
 was stated in the AUgemeine Kirchenzeitung of the 
 13th February, 1855, ia a letter from Florence, dated 
 20th of December, 1854. The man's crime consisted 
 in searching whether Diodati's translation of the New 
 Testament was really, as the priests said, a mutilated 
 version. For this object he compared it with the trans- 
 lation of the Archbishop of Florence, Martini, and found, 
 of course, that Diodati had given a full and complete 
 translation. It must be observed. that Martini's Bible 
 is inaccessible to any poor man, as the only unpro- 
 hibited edition contains the Latin text and notes, and 
 costs nearly seventy francs. Everything is done, more- 
 over, of late, to prevent the laity from reading even this 
 edition. 
 
 No other charge could be brought against Massei, 
 except that when the cholera was raging in Pontedera, 
 he had said that purification, and cleanliness of the 
 streets and houses, might be more efScacious than the 
 worship of the Holy Cross of Pontedera. 
 
 On these charges alone Massei was brought before the 
 police, and Condemned by them, according to. the san- 
 guinary laws of 25th April, 1851, and the 14th No- 
 
THE SECOND EDITION. 189 
 
 vember, 1852, for "apostacy in matters of religion," 
 ^^per defezione in materia religiosa." Who will be- 
 lieve that this instance stands alone ? 
 
 Thus, nothing has been done to alter the position 
 of affairs. The persecution of Sweden and Meck- 
 lenburg is the mercy of Tuscany — namely, ejdle. 
 Thus does Rome revenge herself for her spiritual im- 
 potence against the Gospel on the ground of freedom 
 and justice. 
 
 With regard to Borczynski we have since then re- 
 ceived no intelligence but of fresh sorrows. His brother 
 Ubaldus has been removed from Prague to Gortz — ^that 
 means that he has been got out of the way. We shall 
 hear no more of him. 
 
 We have just learned that the same man last year 
 spent seventeen weeks in confinement, because he com- 
 municated his experiences in the Order to tKe Pope, and 
 petitioned to be rele&sed from his vow.* He is now 
 suffering for his sympathy with his brother's misfortunes. 
 The Appendix gives our last letter from imprisoned 
 Evangelista, xlated " the 25th June, in the prison of the 
 Order of Mercy." Our hope is in the merciful God ; 
 and, next to Him, in the justice and compassion of Borc- 
 zynski's Imperial Sovereign. 
 
 p. S. 2.T^THB SBCOlfD EDITION. 
 
 November 6th, 1855. 
 
 Our hope is fulfilled. Thanks be to God and to the 
 
 Emperor, whose Government has suffered the captive to 
 
 escape from the prison of the " Order of Mercy." 
 
 About the 22d of last month Borczynski reached the 
 
 * Frcmhfwfter Jowrnd, Appendix No. 2 to No. 169, 17th July 
 1855. For an account of the brother the Franhfwrter Jovmyd 
 refers to the " Wahrer Protestant," voL iv., p. 13. 
 
190 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 house of the Pastor Nowotny in Petershayn (in Prus- 
 sian Lusatia), "still living, though almost a corpse," 
 as a leter says. It was this pastor who, seven months 
 before, had received him into the Protestant Church, 
 and had watched his departure with anxious fears. 
 
 m 
 
 P.S.— August 25th, 1855. 
 THE LATEST PBKSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. 
 
 The Journal des Debats brings us word of the most 
 recent and severe persecutions ; and this is taking place 
 in France ! A highly respectable man, the father of, a 
 family, is invited to show cause why the decision of a 
 family council should not be carried into effect,, which 
 would deprive him of his most sacred right, that of 
 paternal authority, on the ground of his Protestantism ; 
 and the proceedings are said to be founded on the Code 
 Napoleon, the first principle of which is, that the law 
 does not take cognizance of the religious confession of a 
 member of any recognized religious body. The man's 
 children, who are still under age, are to be taken from 
 him, because he would have them educated in the Prot- ' 
 estant faith which he has embraced. 
 
 I give in the Appendix to this Letter the ofiScial re- 
 port of the persecution in France, with the solemn 
 promises made by the Emperor of Austria on the repeal 
 of the constitution. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 HISTORICAL RBTKOSPBCT AND SOLUTION OF OUB DIF- 
 FICULTIES ON THE BASIS OF A TBULY CHRISTIAN 
 POLITY. 
 
 CHAELOTTBNBEEe, July 25th, 1855. 
 
 St. James's Day. 
 
 My Respected Friend, 
 
 A maxvelous picture of historical circumstances 
 unrolled itself before our eyes, when, on the feast of 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, we closed our meditations on. 
 the relations of the hierarchy to the State, to the 
 congregation, and to the conscience. Our reflections 
 commenced with Boniface, and ended with his now liv- 
 ing representative, and the fellows of that represent- 
 ative. We began with persecution and left oflF with 
 persecution, but the persecuted had become the per- 
 secutors. , 
 
 Thus we have reached the point from which, follow- 
 ing the method we proposed at starting, we must extend 
 our survey to a world-wide horizon, in order to see if, 
 taking our stand on the groundwork of fact lying before 
 us, and in the light of simple truth, we can attain to a 
 practical solution of the perplexities which we have ex- 
 hibited, and thereby approximate to an understanding of 
 the signs of the times. 
 
 Here, too, we shall borrrow the motto of our medita- 
 tions from the apostolic recollections connected with the 
 
192 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 day. If with some, in speaking of St. James, we think 
 of the brother of our Lord, in after years the head of 
 the Jewish-Christian congregation in Jerusalem, we can 
 find nothing more to our purpose than two sayings of 
 that pious man, which may well recur to us ofttimes in 
 pursuing our path (James iv. 12) : " There is one 
 lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; who 
 art thou that judg est another? (James ii. 13.) For 
 he shall have judgment without mercy that hath 
 shewed no mercy, and msrcy rejoiceth against judg- 
 ment." 
 
 But as a motto drawn from the disciple James, the 
 brother of John, in default of any words of his own, of 
 which none are handed down to us, we will take that 
 beautiful saying of his divine-souled brother, which con- 
 cludes his First Epistle, and in which he warns the be- 
 lievers to abstain from all idols, therefore from every 
 thing unconditioned which is not God : " lAttle children, 
 keep yourselves from, idols. Amen." 
 
 Let us first cast our eye back over the course of 
 historical development which has passed in review 
 before us. St. Boniface dies — a victim, as it ap- 
 pears, to religious persecution — ^because he is resolved 
 to preach the Gospel of the love of God in Christ, and 
 of the freedom of the Spirit in God. But Boni^e 
 himself had persecuted his fellow-apostle of the same 
 Gospel, on account of his creed. Clemens had been 
 sent forth by another Catholic brotherhood, and Boni- 
 face had no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over him ; while, 
 as a Christian, he had no right to invoke the secular 
 arm against him. He did go, however, for life and 
 death, although no civil charge was brought against 
 Clemens. He reviles him as a heretic and an impure 
 man, because Clemens the Briton adheres to the system 
 
HISTORICAL RETROSPECT. 193 
 
 of doctrine and discipline whicli had been transmitted to 
 his Church. In him, Boniface insults the whole British 
 Church with St. Patrick at its head, which had remained 
 stedfast to a more ancient phase of Christianity and 
 theological science. The successors of Boniface, how- 
 ever, left masters of the field, displayed still greater 
 animosity as soon as they attained to power ; and in the 
 lapse of centuries they find no more fitting expression 
 for their fiery zeal than the stake. Dominic becomes a 
 saint because he gives counsel to bum the Albigenses, 
 although with some show of mercy ; eight hundred 
 years later, we see this hierarchy invoking the secular 
 arm, nay, summoning the majesty of the German empire 
 to persecute German congregations because they ask 
 for freedom of conscience, and to make war upon Ger- 
 man princes Irith Spanish troops because they guaranty 
 this freedom. And the summons is obeyed, although 
 those congregations and princes take their stand on 
 God's word, and preach the doctrine of personal faith in 
 Christ as the Saviour of mankind ; although they pro- 
 fess their faith in the creed of the universal Church 
 concerning God and Redemption ; and although they 
 refrain from all acts of violence and persecution. But 
 the doctrine of the Gospel maintains its ground in the 
 empire in spite of persecution; and the Protestant Church 
 becomes free, after a bloody contest. 
 
 And, behold ! only one generation later we see this 
 Protestant Church ruled over by theologians who perse- 
 cute their own brethren to the glory of God and his 
 Christ, cast them into prison, and slay them with the 
 sword of penal justice, because they are suspected — of 
 what crime ?— of laboring to bring about an approxima- 
 tion to the reformed doctrine of Calvin ; that is to say, 
 they did not wish that a philosophy of the ccanmon evan'- 
 
 
194 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 gelical belief which had not. been rejected by Melanc- 
 thon, should be condemned as heretical ! 
 
 Again, two generations later, we find both these 
 bodies — the followers of Luther and those of Calvin — 
 engaged alike in a thirty years' warfare with the adher- 
 ents of the old hierarchy, which is leagued with Spajn 
 and the Pope to exterminate the Protestant faith. In 
 this struggle, the most fierce and sanguinary in the 
 whole range of history, not even excepting the Social 
 War in ancient Italy, we see Germany slowly bleeding 
 to death. The fatherland of the Reformation loses its 
 rank as one of the great powers of the world ; nay, it 
 becomes little better than a desert, and sinks to the 
 verge of barbarism, almost as much through the conten- 
 tions and priestly narrow-mindedness of the Lutheran 
 theologians, as from the attacks of the Pope, the Jesuits, 
 and the princely houses under their influence. 
 
 But, behold ! at the same epoch in England and Hol- 
 land, we see the Protestant faith victoriously winning 
 its freedom, and spreading itself beyond the Atlantic. 
 
 Finally, in our own days, we see Protestant nations 
 in a steadily progressive condition, taking the lead in 
 the development of the world's history. We see their 
 citizens, without any assistance from the State, nay, 
 without any co-operation from the Established Church 
 of England, proclaiming the word of God in all lan- 
 guages, and spreading Christian civilization among the 
 peoples of the earth ; training wild tribes up to form 
 independent states, and self-governing peoples, and re- 
 kindling sparks of noble life in nations apparently de- 
 funct. But at the same epoch, also, when scarcely 
 emerging from the struggle with a foe grasping at uni^ 
 versal conquest, the priesthood steps forth again, after 
 a period of deep prostration, as a candidate for universal 
 
CLAIMS OF UNITBRSAL DOMINION. 195 
 
 dominion, and soon puts forward its old claims with re- 
 newed vehemence and increased inflexibilitj. This 
 movement is led by the Catholic hierarchy, which we 
 see nowhere looking for support to the people over 
 whom it rules, but everywhere more and more to the 
 governments and actual possessors of power, and leaning 
 upon an educational society under clerical management, 
 which proceeds by aggression, and is revived for this 
 purpose by the Pope. Wherever its claims are con- 
 ceded, this hierarchy demands and practices intolerance 
 and persecution as its peculiar and divinely-bestowed 
 right. It demands them as a condition of its existence, 
 and'enforces them as the attestation of its exclusive pos- 
 session of the truth. For, according to this party, if a 
 theological system be true, and a discipline of Divine 
 authority, it necessitates exclusiveness ; and a sincere 
 faith will demand, in case of need, legal persecution and 
 the extirpation of unbelievers with fire and sword ; while 
 simple intolerance is made a universally binding duty 
 on all believers. This hierarchy professes to rescue, to 
 secure, and to defend the rights and liberties of Catholic 
 populations ; and nowhere is it more hated than in ex- 
 clusively Catholic countries. Nearly all the Catholic 
 reigning houses, however, enter into alliance with it, 
 support the papal Church system, and conclude con- 
 cordats with Rome. But on this very account they are 
 obliged to attach to the execution of these concordats 
 certain protests and limitations which tacitly involve a 
 denial of the unconditional claims of the Papacy ; and 
 these limitations become the law of the land. Rome, on 
 her side, protests against them, but the peoples fully 
 concur in their necessity. Nowhere in these Catholic 
 countries is there any hearty resistance offered on the 
 part of the nation to the setting aside of such concord- 
 
196 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ats ; on the contrary, in almost all, we see them collapse 
 amid the rejoicings of the people. 
 
 The same hierarchical system demands infringements 
 of the legally established liberties of the individual 
 (which, in most cases, the princes have recently sworn 
 to maintain with solemn oaths), nay, encroachments on 
 the independence of the civil government itself. It 
 calumniates toleration as the child of unbelief and indif- 
 ference, and makes war on it in the name of God and 
 the Gospel. It designates the demand for freedom of 
 conscience as the offspring of anti- Christian and revolu- 
 tionary ideas ; regards that freedom of speech and of the 
 press, under whose shelter all the existing sciences have 
 blossomed forth, as an " emanation of the spirit of de- 
 struction ;" and the diffusal of those IJoly Scriptures, 
 from which it professes to derive its own authority, is the 
 greatest crime of all. The printing-presses close, and 
 the prisons open their doors. The atmosphere of our 
 earth resounds once more with the sighs and groans of 
 innocent victims of persecution ; bayonets surround the 
 altar and guard the throne of the absolute Spiritual 
 Lord of Christendom ! Meanwhile, reigning houses re- 
 gard the hierarchy as their best bulwark ; and, there- 
 fore, hand over to its guardianship, to an extent hitherto 
 imknown, the sanctity of the family— rmarriage, and the 
 most sacred possession of society — ^popular education and 
 mental culture. 
 
 But not less mighty are the currents and counter- 
 currents on the ecclesiastical domain of the Byzantine 
 and Protestant Churches. There, too, the hierarchical 
 spirit raises its voice against all toleration, as against all 
 education of the people or clergy- which does not proceed 
 from itself; and what is done by the clerical body itself 
 in both these departments is infinitely less than what is 
 
REVIVAL OP. THi; HIERARCHY. 197 
 
 done in the Catholic Church. In Russia itself every 
 movement is dependent on an unlimited sovereign who 
 is at once Emperor and Pope. The clergy under his 
 sway proceed against priests according to the severest 
 canon law in the world, and put this law into force 
 against all in accordance with the most cruel regulations 
 of ancient Slavic barbarism ; certainly, however, making 
 an exception in the case of those who can purchase their 
 freedom by bribing the higher powers. What has saved 
 the wealthy members of the old orthodox Greek Church 
 in Moscow this year but their treasures ? * By such 
 means the torrent of pure clerical violence is weakfened, 
 but, at the same time, it receives an imperial color, and 
 is sullied by a corrupt administration. How bloody 
 that imperial color was under Nicholas we have abeady 
 lamented. The counter-current is not only the hatred 
 of the world (I mean of the nations), but within the 
 bosom of the empire itself, the wild hatred, exalted al- 
 most to fury, of the old orthodox against the State 
 Church of Peter the Great. The working of the system 
 on the clerical body during the late eventful reign, has 
 been the extinction of the more liberal tendency, which, 
 under Alexander, had brought the modern Russian 
 Church nearer to the older Church, and thereby to the 
 Bible and the Reformation. This tendency finds a noble 
 representative in an historical personage, Plato, the 
 Archbishop of Moscow, whose expressions concerning 
 the Anglican doctrine, and Bingham's delineation of the 
 ancient Church, have inspired De Maistre with such 
 
 * The old High Church party among the Greek Church, who 
 look upon the Patriarch of Constantinople as their rightful head, 
 and the Czar as an usurper of the spiritual supremacy. They 
 date from the time when Peter the Great made himself head of 
 the Church. — Tr. 
 
198 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 horror and alarm in his book entitled "Z>m Pape." 
 Finally, 4;he effect of the system upon the people is the 
 decay and downfall of the institutions for popular educa- 
 tion which had flourished under the mild scepter of 
 Alexander I. The Ministry of Public Instruction is 
 called in mockery, the ministry for the public preven- 
 tion of instruction. 
 
 Alexander I. favored the printing of the Slavic Bible, 
 and ordained its introduction into the family and school 
 — as, indeed, had been the case with the clergy of the 
 Eastern Church in general, who, wherever they have 
 not been under the sway of the Imperial Pope, have 
 always allowed the Scriptures to be in the hands of the 
 people, and with blessed results. Some English philan- 
 thropists have suffered themselves to be deluded by the 
 tale that the yearly donation of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society (£4,000 if I recollect rightly) is now 
 again, as an act of favor, allowed to be applied to the 
 printing of Bibles. But the sum is simply_ appropriated 
 to the Protestant provinces of the Baltic in which the 
 Greek Church exercises no rights but those of conquest, 
 and that contrary to treaty. Again, with regard to 
 schools, people have read lately of their having been 
 multiplied threefold (4,000 instead of 1,400 throughout 
 the whole empire) under the reign of Nicholas. Instead 
 of 71,000 pupils, there are now stated to be 207,000, 
 and this is no doubt correct ; but it must not be forgot- 
 ten that the new schools are either purely military, or 
 else fettered institutions regulated on an entirely military 
 footing, and that the same Emperor has done every thing 
 in his power to narrow the circle of instruction in the 
 gymnasia, or higher schools, into which moreover none 
 but the upper classes have admission. The Bible is 
 everywhere suppressed ; not a single Slavonic Bible, aa 
 
THE BIBLE SUPPRESSED. 199 
 
 I have said, has been printed since 1826 to the present 
 day, in the whole of this enormous empire, and in a 
 Church which has never forbidden the Bible to the 
 people. No foreign mission is permitted, even among 
 the Mohammedans ; while the Russian State Church has 
 never made converts to any extent, even among pagans, 
 without the help of the bayonet and the tap-room. Even 
 the peaceful missionaries of the Moravians among the 
 Tartars have been expelled. 
 
 The same system of suppression of the Bible and 
 every sort of popular education now prevails throughout 
 all the Byzantine Churches of the East, and does so by 
 means of the influence which Russia exercises over the 
 bishops. These are her tools ; and the maintenance of 
 her despotic power is the real object of the much- vaunted 
 Christian protectorate of Russia. The same incubus 
 weighs upon the national Church of Armenia, which, 
 like ail the independent Churches of the East, reveals 
 noble germs of life, and particularly in Etschmiadzin 
 shows a leaning toward Protestantism. 
 
 With great truth it has been said that these hopeful 
 tendencies in the Christian Church of the Turkish Em- 
 pire, especially the establishment of the Bishopric of 
 Jerusalem and the schools and institutions connected 
 therewith, togetiier with the wonderful progress made 
 by the American missions, which have carried civiliza- 
 tion and prosperity to the very borders of Persia, have 
 not been without weight in hastening on the determina- 
 tion to execute those plans of conquest so prematurely 
 begun. We hear too that the American missions have 
 been expelled through Russian influence from the 
 countries around Lake Ooroomiah and the Persian 
 Kurdistan. 
 
 Things have taken a difierent shape among the Greek 
 
200 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 nation aspiring to constitutional freedom, who, in spite 
 of the deep traces left by their long servitude, and many 
 unfavorable circumstances, yet discover an indestructible 
 vital energy. The priestly party of the orthodox, stirred 
 up by Russia, saw -with aversion the severance of Greece 
 from the Patriarch of Constantinople — the puppet of 
 two despots, and victim of a system of universal bribery 
 and venality. This party recognized that a hierarchical 
 domination of the Hellenie mind would jiot be possible 
 without a Russian Csesaro-papacy in Greece. They, 
 therefore, sought by every means in their power to shut 
 out the light that was breaking in from the West, and to 
 nip freedom of thought in the bud. Civil liberty, how- 
 ever, and the noble sentiment jrervading the popular 
 mind, preserved the possibility of a tranquil advance of 
 learning, science and national piety. The noble and 
 pious funeral oration of Kotzias in Athens (to select the 
 most recent instance), pronounced in honor of bis great 
 master Schelling, which has just fallen into my hands^ 
 would alone suffice to prove that Greece has not fellen a 
 prey to a materialistic philosophy ; and this condition of 
 the Greek clergy is further evinced by their attitude 
 toward science and education; with regard to which 
 their behavior toward the pious American missionary, 
 Mr. Hill, and his excellent wife, deserves a special 
 remembrance. 
 
 Thus if we survey the spectacle presented by the 
 Oriental Church, here, too, we see intolerance and per- 
 secution triumphant only through the aid of despotic 
 power; while, in spite of the unfavorable conjuncture 
 of the present moment, toleration and freedom of con- 
 science, coupled with intelligence, moral earnestness and 
 religious faith, are evidently destined to counteract them 
 victoriously in the long run. 
 
THE ANGLICAN CLBKGY. 201 
 
 If we now turn to the Protestant Churches, the phe- 
 nomenon of Puseyism in the Episcopal Church of En- 
 gland and the United States only appears as a faint 
 reflection of the hierarchic schemes of Rome, its proto- 
 type; while it is met by a puritanic resistance of a 
 thoroughly national type, and a universal aspiration after 
 greater evangelical liberty. But to the praise of both 
 parties, and still more to the honor of England, be it 
 said, that the High Church clergy, where they have not 
 gone over to Romanism, can not be called enemies to 
 civil liberty, any more than their theological opponents, 
 the Evangelicals, can be accused of a leaning to a Rus- 
 sian Csesaro-papacy. After various fluctuations, many 
 of the most eminent men of both parties are now agreed 
 as to the propriety of admitting the laity to a share in 
 the government of the Church, after the pattern of the 
 reform that has taken place in the Episcopal Church in 
 the tJnited States. But on this point the clerical party 
 displays all the blindness of its hereditary absolutism. 
 It is williug, as is said in. the resolution passed this 
 month by the majority of Convocation, to "confer" the 
 franchise on the laity, without dreaming that the latter 
 can never admit that any such power resides in the 
 clerical body. The consequences of this obstinate cling- 
 ing on the part of the clergy to their imaginary right to 
 government are seen in the indifference of the nation to 
 their proposals. This hierarchical party demands from 
 the Crown the authority to draw up and propose for 
 acceptance a reformed ecclesiastical constitution, which 
 it has no more right to do than the old French provinc- 
 ial parliaments would have had to frame a scheme for a 
 free constitution for France. As little does the right of 
 acceptance, that is to say of veto, appertain to them. 
 Besides, the nation would never regard any constitution 
 
 9* 
 
202 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 emanating from them otherwise than with great mistrust, 
 after some of the leading bishops have openly declared 
 that, in any case, they must reserve to themselves every 
 thing relating to doctrine (including, of course, the re- 
 form of the liturgy), as they alone possessed a divine 
 commission for such a work. No doubt they honestly 
 believe that the Spirit was given to them in ordination 
 for this purpose. 
 
 The counter-current has hitherto exercised little more 
 than a retarding agency. The laity and the parochial 
 clergy are protected by the common law. The Bishop, 
 can, indeed, canonically depose the latter, and exclude 
 the former from the communion ; but the injured party 
 has his action of damages. Thus, for practical purposes, 
 the power of excommunication has entirely ceased ; and 
 the clergyman is too certain that a civil action will be 
 entered against him by common law before a jury, to 
 dare to maintain Church discipline. The question is 
 now whether it is still possible to convert this negative 
 position of afiFairs into a positive one. To this end a 
 mixed Royal Commission might be formed, composed of 
 lay and clerical members, to draw up and propose a 
 scheme of Church government in which the laity should 
 find their place. That, if this be not done, the entire 
 separation of the Church from the State will come to 
 pass, and that by the instrumentality of a puritanic 
 movement among the people, is already foreseen by 
 many. Few, however, on the side of the Church, seem 
 clear as to the mode in which this may be prevented, or 
 so directed as to lead to beneficial results. When the 
 due time comes, the problem will be solved, according to 
 the circumstances of the day, by the public spirit of this 
 Protestant nation, without spasmodic commotion, and in 
 the way most favorable to the interests of religion. 
 
THE SAFEGUARDS OF ENGLAND. 203 
 
 But the fever of Puseyism which has infected the 
 younger half of the clergy, and a part of the Univer- 
 sity students, together with the ladies helonging to the 
 upper classes, is already on the decline. The realities 
 of life are dispelling it. The arduous conflict waged 
 against Russia, with its solemn aspects for religion and 
 humanity, its lessons and rebukes, and its illustrious 
 examples of self-devotion among those who are not mem- 
 bers of the Established Church (as in the case of the 
 heroic and highly-gifted Florence Nightingale), has 
 awakened all who are worth any thing from their dreams. 
 Mediaeval phantasms vanish before such realities as the 
 mist before the sun. Thus in Pitt's time the fever of 
 Jacobinism was healed by the realities which called out 
 a national and military spirit ; thus in the spring of 
 1848 the broad practical common sense of the middle 
 classes proved the safeguard of the nation from the de- 
 lirium of communism and socialism. Thus here, too, 
 reality will deliver the English from the sacerdotal puer- 
 ilities of Puseyism. 
 
 Every thing that exercises a saving influence in En- 
 gland : public spirit ; the sense of legally established civil 
 liberty, as a closely guarded jew;el, as the very health of 
 life ; the conviction that perfect freedom of conscience is 
 alone in harmony with Christianity ; that every check 
 upon this is persecution, and all persecution unchristian ; 
 finally, the belief that in this unconditional religious 
 liberty the ameliorating agency is really to be found — 
 all this is wanting to that clerical tendency in Germany 
 which corresponds to Puseyism. This, in adopting the 
 title of Lutheranism, constitutes itself at once the heir 
 and representative of the genial though one-sided piet- 
 ism of the first thirty years of this century, while it 
 makes itself at the same time the organ of absolute 
 
204 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 monaxchical power and the priyileges of the feudal nobil- 
 ity, and, above all, the advocate for the penal laws by 
 which the external discipline of the Church was main- 
 tained during the sixteenth 'and seventeenth centuries. 
 A double police government is the ideal of this party, 
 which is thereby not only drawing perdition down upon 
 itself, but also threatening to deliver up Protestantism 
 and the State into the hands of the Jesuits. That this 
 tendency has completely got the upper hand in Meckr 
 lenburg, where it is displaying all the old intolerance 
 of the Lutheran hierarchy, arises from purely political 
 causes. The people there are quite unleavened by this 
 spirit, as much so as in Pomerania and Brandenburg ; 
 what may appear as such is only an artificial excitement 
 produced by the clerical or lay hierarchists. 
 
 Meanwhile the free congregational and synodal organ- 
 ization sprung from Calvinism, approves itself under the 
 blessing of the Union in the Rhine provinces and West- 
 phalia, by a process of steady and tranquil development. 
 Holland and Switzerland present a similar spectacle. 
 After many struggles — in Holland with the civil power, 
 in Switzerland with an unbelieving democratic party — 
 that liberal tendency has conquered, of which the no- 
 ble Vinet was the apostle and martyr ; and with the ex- 
 istence of liberty, a solution will be found for those diffi- 
 culties which still remain. Thus in Geneva especially, the 
 old evangelical body of citizens, the town of Calvin, will 
 emerge victoriously from strife and division, while in 
 the Canton of Vaud a better state of things has already 
 been introduced which is based upon a secure foundation. 
 
 In Sweden the Church has been kept freer from the 
 power of the State than the other Lutheran Churches, 
 but it has remained stationary in its earliest stage ; it is 
 devoid of spiritual life, and defaced by police cqercipu. 
 
A COMPARISON. 205 
 
 which it has the unhappy privilege of using on its own 
 account. How can we wonder, therefore, that in the 
 Scandinavian people of Sweden a revival of spiritual 
 life should be attended with convulsive throes, and 
 threaten to degenerate into fanaticism ! How can we 
 wonder that with such a national Church the Peasant's 
 Chamber should be the great stronghold of intolerance, 
 which retains banishment and persecution as the law of 
 the land ! But the time can not be far distant when the 
 Swedish people, with their clergy at tlieir head, will 
 spurn this legacy of the same hierarchy, to break whose 
 yoke they have for centuries poured out their hearts' 
 blood with noble self-devotion and the courage of Chris- 
 tian faith. Here, as elsewhere, civil freedom is about 
 to demand and conquer religious liberty. 
 
 On comparing the various pictures we have been sur- 
 veying, we can not fail to detect an inward resemblance 
 in spite of all their differences. All these phenomena 
 in Asia and Europe maybe reduced to six simple propo- 
 sitions : 
 
 I. The absolutism of the State has strengthened the 
 absolutism of the hierarchy, even more by its resistance 
 than by its patronage ; for it has shown itself unequal 
 to the contest, at least in the long run. 
 
 n. Protestantism has nowhere developed itself vigor- 
 ously, and exhibited a capacity for educating a people, ex- 
 cept where the reformation of the Church has given birth 
 to civil liberty as its logical and practical consequence. 
 
 These evidences of vital energy and practical efficacy 
 have exhibited themselves only in connection with the 
 Reformed communities, but have done so there with 
 such power as to afifect the whole course of history; 
 while they have never anywhere been manifested in con- 
 nection with the Lutheran churches. 
 
206 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 III. Civil liberty has never displayed any vigor ex- 
 cept -where it haa rested on self-government in the lower 
 spheres of common life ; and this has never been possi- 
 ble except where freedom of conscience exists. This 
 freedom is based on the congregation, and the idea of a 
 congregation has its root alone in personal religious self- 
 determination. 
 
 IV. The Hierarchy desires freedom of conscience 
 only for itself, and instinctively combats it in others. 
 
 V. Religious liberty has never yet led to political 
 revolution, but its suppression often has. 
 
 VI. Intolerance and persecution have neither 
 brought blessings to governments nor peoples ; but they 
 have been the greatest curse to Protestant governments, 
 because in this case they have involved an intrinsic self- 
 contradiction. 
 
 Thus the congregation is the root, liberty of con- 
 science is the soil ; but religious self-determination, the 
 sense of moral responsibility, is the divine energy that 
 causes the plant to spring up. 
 
 That root which Boniface found already in a feeble 
 condition, and did all he could to clip and dig away, 
 seemed quite dead when the world was divided between 
 Emperor and Pope, or Pope and Emperor. It was for- 
 gotten in Protestant countries also, where the watchword 
 was only Prince or Clergy. But behold ! suddenly it 
 begins to bud afresh in every land, and manifests a re- 
 newed and vigorous life ; not in self-destructive strug- 
 gles, nor yet in mere isolated phenomena. Mankind feels 
 that something new is about to be born into the world. 
 This root of the Christian life in union, the Chris- 
 tian congregation, is called by a term which the clergy 
 have appropriated to themselves, and which has thereby 
 lost its true meaning, the Chukch. This properly sig- 
 
THE BCCLESIA. 207 
 
 nifies the Christian people, regarded as an organized 
 and well-arranged community, with its elders and serv- 
 ants. The congregation existed before the Christian 
 imperial, or papal power, and will outlive both. All 
 that the clergy of Boniface say of the Church, is per- 
 fectly true of the congregation, the Ecclesia ; which is 
 brought forth and germinates wherever there exists a 
 believing household; and has no limits -but those of our 
 planet. Her faith builds up nations and States, but she 
 has no fatherland but heaven, that is to say, the per- 
 fected kingdom of the Spirit. In spiritual matters she 
 knows no father {Papa) but God, no master and lord 
 but Christ, no code but the Bible, no supreme tribunal 
 but the universal conscience of humanity, which, re- 
 generated by the power of that charter of its rights, 
 is building itself up into orderly Christian congrega- 
 tions. 
 
 It is this Christian congregation of believers which 
 in the camp of the hierarchists is called unbelieving and 
 godless, and in the camp of the political absolutists, a set 
 of fanatics. Why ? Because they desire toleration and 
 freedom of conscience, and because freedom of conscience 
 can not subsist permanently in human society without 
 civil liberty. Only in connexion with liberty of con- 
 science does the page of history present us with the free 
 Christian congregation in victorious possession of its 
 rights, and exercising a conservative influence on the 
 course of history. With majestic tranquillity the Chris- 
 tian Ecclesia advances to the reconstruction of a world, 
 while absolute heirarchism, which condemns her as devil- 
 ish, is found totally powerless to save peoples or States, 
 though mighty indeed to draw them down to deeper and 
 deeper destruction. Certainly, in these days a resus- 
 citated hierarchy is exerting an increasingly powerful 
 
208 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 influence throughout the greater part of the Western 
 Continent, and even of our own country — nay, in one 
 form or other, everywhere. The converts which it 
 makes from skepticism easily fall a prey to superstition ; 
 nay, many thinkers of eminence, and powerful govern- 
 ments, are coming to doubt whether the hierarchy is not 
 perhaps destined to rule the world once more. If it can 
 not regenerate humanity, or remedy disorganized finances, 
 it may yet, perhaps (so think many), bind up the bleed- 
 ing wounds of the present, strengthen the hands of the 
 governments, and bring the nations repose. 
 
 The unprejudiced observer of human afiairs will not 
 be deceived as to the true bearings of this conflict of 
 principles, however it may be attempted to conceal them. 
 That conscience acting under the guidance of reason, 
 which we are wont to call healthy common sense, ^nd its 
 most universal expression — public opinion — ^are now, 
 once for all, steadfastly fixed on the actual conditions of 
 civil society, and are becoming daily more capable of a 
 mature judgment. But the conscience and common 
 sense of the public will never allow them to be persuaded 
 out of the belief that this is a question of "to be or not 
 to be" for the Present; and of what is to rule and de- 
 termine the Future. A presentiment of the approach 
 . of the latter days pervades humanity almost as it did 
 nineteen centuries ago. The temple of Janus was closed ; 
 Augustus reigned without a rival ; the people withdrew 
 exhausted from the arena. But do we see the reign of 
 true peace — real tranquillity? Is Rome enteriag on the 
 undisputed sovereignty of the world, or on the period of 
 her own decline ? There came a voice out of Judsea, 
 and where remained high-priesthood and the Empire of 
 the Caesars ? 
 
 Is it to be ebb or flood? forward or backward? up- 
 
FilLUEE OF THE HIERARCHY. 209 
 
 ward or down to the abyss ? This is the question in 
 every agitated epoch big with great events, great recol- 
 lections, and great expectations. 
 
 Now»we know what a divine energy is latent originally 
 in the Christian Congregation, namely, that of a free 
 conscience. In this lies the power and the weakness of 
 the hierarchical system. What it has suffered . to re- 
 main of the congregational element is that which keeps 
 it in being, despite its glaring defects ; the want of a 
 free, self-responsible conscience, is that which weighs it 
 down. K the hierarchical system be so firmly rooted in 
 the affection of the Catholic populations as many believe, 
 why can it be kept up only by means of Concordats 
 that can not be enforced, and special privileges that can 
 not be practically maintained? Why can it hold its 
 ground only by the power of the bayonet, the ignoring 
 of all historical science, and the suppression of all free- 
 dom of speech and of the press ? Why must the noblest 
 Catholic populations be cut off or restricted from med- 
 dling with ecclesiastical matters — nay, more or less with 
 intellectual subjects altogether — lest they should be 
 carried away by the spirit of fanaticism ? 
 
 As in nature, so in history ; a force acts only where 
 it finds a vacuum in which it encounters no opposing 
 force of equal magnitude. Nothing dies except from 
 the absence of inward vital energy ; and every thing 
 perishes by reason of itself, namely, by its own principle 
 of self-seeking, which oversteps the conditions of its ex- 
 istence through criininail arrogance or blind folly. , There 
 is nothing which has been created and subsists as an end 
 in itself, for its own sake ; but every single thing lives 
 in relation to the Whole ; but that Whole subsists only 
 by the free surrender of the individual for the common 
 good. 
 
210 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Why was the eighteenth-century system of turning 
 the body politic into a police-machine, unable to main- 
 tain itself? Because on principle it sought its basis in 
 the selfishness of dynasty and caste. 
 
 Why could not the republic endure which rose upon 
 the downfall of the throne in Catholic countries? Be- 
 cause it was only an6ther form of the same selfishness, 
 and contempt of the rights of others. 
 
 Why perished the tolerance and religious freedom 
 which was preached by the philosophers of the Revolu- 
 tion? Because, like those men themselves, it lacked 
 the deepest groundwork of all freedom — that of moral 
 earnestness, and of true respect for that humanity whose 
 liberation it proclaimed. 
 
 Why did the metropolitan system of the Gallican 
 Church and St. Boniface fall vanquished in its contest 
 with the absolutism of the Papacy ? Because it had 
 raised itself* at the expense of the Congregation. It 
 fell by the very principle which, for a time, had given 
 it power. 
 
 Why did the freer system of the British Church 
 vanish before the episcopal system of St. Boniface? 
 Because it no longer satisfied the requirements of the 
 Congregation and those of humanity ; because it could 
 no longer fulfill its vocation in the world's history. 
 Power is ever victorious over weakness; but if it be a 
 selfish power, it conquers only to fall into deeper de- 
 struction. 
 
 Why did the Reformation in Grermany stand still 
 after it had become the dominant religion in nearly 
 every district of the country ? Because the theologians 
 and nobles who guided the Protestant peoples did not 
 unders&nd, or willfully disregarded their high vocation ; 
 because they turned the divinely-bestowed possession of 
 
CAUSES OF ALL IlECAY. £11 
 
 the Congregation to their oWn ends ; because they denied 
 their own fundamental principle. 
 
 What in our own days has brought the mediaeval and 
 Catholicizing "Romantic School" into vogue? The 
 emptiness and wickedness of the eighteenth century. 
 What has corrupted and overthrown this " Romantic 
 School?" That it sought the future in the past — ^that 
 it forgot the Congregation, its mother, and the Free 
 Spirit, its father : it has perished because it disdained 
 realities, and reveled in the dreams of its own imagin- 
 ation, if it did not stoop to selfish ends of personal 
 advantage. 
 
 What gave Puseyism its power in Protestant En- 
 gland ? The want of intelligence among the Evangeli- 
 cals, the one-sidedness of Methodism, and the impotence 
 of the philosophy of the skeptical eighteenth century. 
 What has thrown Puseyism into the arms of Rome? 
 Its toying with a conscious lie — with a self-seeking 
 hierarchical principle on the domain of Protestant- 
 ism. 
 
 What has all at once given Lutheranism, already 
 odious through its intolerance and bigotry, such an in- 
 fluence among our clergy that the Lutheran pastors are 
 rising up against their academical instructors? That 
 many of these latter have forgotten or neglected life 
 and reality; despised, too, in some cases, the poor of 
 Christ's flock, and worshiped themselves and their 
 philosophy as an ultimate end, instead of serving the 
 flock of the Lord, when it looked up with wistful 
 longing to those who held in their hands the keys of 
 knowledge. 
 
 What has shaken to its center the Evangelical Union 
 in Prussia, and prevented its establishment on a firm 
 foundation ? Not simply that in some instances proceed- 
 
212 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ings have been instituted against the Old Lutherans* ac- 
 cording to the strictest letter of the law ; no, it is because 
 in general the dictatorial system of Church government 
 had lost the forms through which the Congregation with 
 their Synods "would have been able to create what alone 
 could have wrought any good ; that men tried to build 
 the house of God without seeking for its living stones — 
 to plant a tree without leaving room for its roots and 
 branches to grow. 
 
 There is one eternal law of the universe in all things 
 — a law of love, but also of almighty power, which is at 
 work in all these phenomena. But there are times when 
 this divine law claims its right more loudly than is its 
 wont — when the Spirit of God, moving through the ranks 
 
 * The " Old Lutheran" party took'its rise in 183ft — many years 
 after the Union had been in full and beneficial operation through- 
 out Prussia — when Scheibel, a professor in Breslau, refused to 
 use those formularies in the celebration of the Lord's Supper 
 which rendered it possible for Calvinists to join in the communion. 
 He soon found a considerable number of adherents, in spite of the 
 king's repeated declarations that the Lutherans were not required 
 by the Union to lay aside their distinctive creed, but merely to 
 admit the Reformed Churches to practical Christian fellowship'; 
 and the king, much annoyed by a movement which threatened 
 the existence of the Union, endeavored to put a stop to it by 
 measures of repression. These were more harshly enforced than 
 he intended by the G-overnment oificials, and led to the banish- 
 ment of Scheibel from Silesia; the incarceration of several miius- 
 ters ; to the occupation of the Church of Hoeningen, in Silesia, 
 on Ohristmas-day, 1834, by soldiers, to keep out the real congre- 
 gation and install the new minister ; with other acts of persecu- 
 tion. The king, whose advanced age rendered l^im timorous 
 and unimpressible, did not perceive the gross injustice of these 
 proceedings ; but on the accession of the present sovereign, the 
 grievance was redressed by an act granting full liberty of worship 
 to the "Old Lutherans," as a separate body frbm the "Evan- 
 gelical Church." — Tr. 
 
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE NEEDFUL. 213 
 
 of men, is more visible and audible than in ordinary 
 ages. These are the times in which things tend rapidly 
 to restoration or destruction. Our age is such an fepoch 
 — especially in our fatherland. 
 
 Let us leave politics behind for a moment, let us not 
 discuss the separation of Church and State as if this 
 vrere the magic talisman which would give us all that 
 we desire. Certainly many things do seem to tend that 
 way, and it will surely come to that, if the present con- 
 ditions of things do not answer to the wants of humanity, 
 if they conduct to more hopeless entanglement instead 
 of yielding a clew to the gradual solution of our per- 
 plexities. But one thing now is needful — most urgently 
 needful — ^namely, freedom of conscience ; that is to 
 say, free room for the divine impulse to act in individ- 
 uals and in the Congregation ; a recognition of the fact 
 that any pressure exercised upon the conscience is rebel- 
 lion against God. It is no longer proud toleration of 
 error, but equality of rights on the domain of conscience, 
 that must be granted. The protective forms of law, 
 which afford free scope to every Christian community 
 that proves itself to be a religious body, are at the same 
 time the most effectual means of averting that Socialism 
 and that subversive tendency in politics which here and 
 there assume the mask of religious congregational activ- 
 ity. Only under this banner is it possible to withstand 
 every kind of absolutism which seeks to establish its 
 supremacy in the domain of the Spirit by legal coercion 
 exercised by the State or the Church. None but a free 
 State can, with consistency, condemn arbitrary acts; 
 none but a free State can succeed in establishing tolera- 
 tion where it is wanting, transforming it into' freedom 
 where it exists, perfecting in faith what has been begua 
 in fidth, even if carried out by philosophers. 
 
214 SIGiTS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Man can not live without breathing the vital air ; the 
 Ecclesia of that Christianity which is one with morality, 
 and works by moral means, can not live without the 
 divine atmosphere of liberty of conscience. All desire 
 to possess this liberty, and with reason ; but none should 
 desire this divine treasure for himself — ^for his own selfish 
 ends. Each should make himself worthy of his freedom 
 by respecting that of his neighbor, and by honestly rec- 
 ognizing the universal authority of the "royal law of 
 liberty." From within outward must all change for the 
 better proceed ; and the Governments which desire such 
 a change must lead the way by setting a good example. 
 The star which they have worshiped, the power to which 
 they have bowed down, fades away with the dawning of 
 the sun of liberty of conscience, the emanation of that 
 divine Light which shone out on this world in Christ 
 Jesus. The path of unconditional and unmeasured 
 exercise of arbitrary power, which the spiritual power 
 has entered on, will lead as a matter of fact, and by the 
 necessities of its nature, to ever-increasing embarrass- 
 ments with the State as well as with the individual. 
 These embarrassments will call out more and more open 
 resistance ; this will lead to harsher and harsher oppres- 
 sion, from whence to despair and deadly strife the step 
 is not wide. 
 
 The world is no longer what it was at the outbreak 
 of the great French Revolution. At that era, egotistic 
 absolutism, and the most rigorous restraints on conscience 
 proceeding from Spain and Rome, had brought mankind 
 to the skepticism of despair, or the bitter mockery of a 
 Rabelais. For this reason Christianity had died out in 
 the nations. It may indeed have survived in individuals 
 as a Thought, but not as Will, which can re-mold life 
 and society. Moral courage and earnestness were 
 
THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 215 
 
 wanting, and the contest began on the pestilential soil 
 of skepticism and moral corruption which the Jesuits 
 and their abettors had left behind them. Such a soil 
 could at first bring forth nothing but poisonous fungi, 
 and it brought them forth. But a nobler growth sprang 
 up with them, and gathered strength from the air of 
 freedom. Now tlje case is far otherwise. The races of 
 Europe are sighing for the Gospel and its peace, but 
 also for its light and its liberty. " More light," was 
 Goethe's last word; "more darkness," the first word 
 of the hierarchy after its restoration. The Komanticists 
 promised a golden future ; noble minds reveled in the 
 poetry of a departed age, and idolized its defects and 
 follies, while they looked down with contempt on the 
 sober sense (sometimes, too, on the " common-place 
 morality") of the eighteenth century. Sophistical 
 historians whitewashed all the bloody men of violence 
 and persecution, and cast suspicion on the heroes of 
 freedom and humanity. Sophistical dabblers in politics 
 taught that tyranny was freedom, selfishness, the true 
 statesmanship of princes, and the State, a mere bundle of 
 personal and separate interests. Others desired to make 
 us believe (and did really find faith among great men and 
 princes) that modern political economy leads to the dis- 
 solution of the State, and is equally false and godless ; 
 that closed guilds, monopolies, and prohibitory laws were 
 the pillars of prosperity, and would restore the disor^ 
 dered national finances to a healthy state. Adam Miiller 
 based the three-course system of agriculture formerly in 
 use upon the doctrine of the Trinity ! Mystagogues 
 proved that the true history of all science and art, as 
 well as religion, was mystical — a secret hidden from 
 reason, and true from its very contradiction to her, 
 According to this view nothing was so unreasonable as 
 
216 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 reason ; but still there was a science of the Incompre- 
 hensible for the believers in the Pope, which, soaring on 
 the wings of mediaeval art, was destined in a few years 
 to give the lie to a,ll the proud wisdom of the last few 
 centuries, and convict them of impious error. History 
 was turned into legend. Nothing was any longer cer- 
 tain but what contradicted reason : -that the earth turned 
 round the sun was called very doubtful among Protest- 
 ant hypocrites or weaklings : while in France shining 
 crosses in the sky, and letters of the Virgin Mary 
 fallen down from heaven, claimed credence — and ob- 
 tained it ! 
 
 What has become of all these phantasmagoria? Des- 
 pite them, the Parthenon has remained in its ancjent 
 glory beside the Gothic minsters, and as a world-wide 
 type for all ages, stands above them ; and the exaggera- 
 tions of the mediaeval spirit are now found as ridiculous 
 as those of the antique. The prophecies relating to 
 science have proved themselves equally delusive with 
 those concerning politics. Where are the historians who 
 write German history, now^a-days, after the fashion of 
 Frederick . Schlegel, or political economy according to 
 Adam Miiller ?* — rpolitical jurisprudence, according to 
 Haller ? — the history of ancient religions, according to 
 Gorres ? or that of Christiajiity, according to Stolberg ? 
 or biblical criticism, according to Hengstenberg ? There 
 are, indeed, some who do so, but not one writer of note 
 
 * Adam Miiller, author of " Ueber die Nothwendigleeit einer 
 tlieohgisdien Ch'undlage der Staatswissenschafi wid Staatsmrth/- 
 schafi," was bom at Berlin in 1779, and turned Catholic in 1805, 
 after which he was much employed by Metternich, at Vienna, 
 where he lectured and wrote on a new system of national and 
 political economy, which, according to him, was based upon 
 Christian princ^tles. He died in 1829. — JV-. 
 
EESULTS OF FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE. 217 
 
 — ^not one who has a seat or a voice in the republic of 
 letters. Such a journal as the Univers can maintain 
 itself only on the field of skepticism and religious indif- 
 ference. 
 
 And what has become of those who wished to convert 
 the people without the Bible ? and make them obedient 
 without will? and learned, without mental freedom? 
 Do the governments which have re-established, or 
 at least are favoring the Jesuits, come to that Society 
 when they want to re-animate science which has died 
 out in their countries, and implant learned culture 
 afresh? 
 
 There is no Strength without Freedom : that is 
 the lesson taught by all modern history and recent 
 politics to our governments. There is no Freedom 
 without its due Bounds, therefore without moral earn- 
 estness and the love of the Gospel, which alone can 
 assign its rightful limits. That is their lesson for the 
 peoples. 
 
 The licentiouaiess of the democratic element in the 
 popular movements of Germany has bliiided the eyes of 
 many to a truth which in 1848 was undisputed and un- 
 mistakable, namely, that the retrograde movement in 
 the world of thought which began in 1821, is strongly 
 and increasingly on the decline, and must decline there- 
 fore also in the regions of politics and religion. But the 
 fall force of the counter-wave will be felt all the more 
 powerfdlly the more unexpectedly it overtakes us. 
 This is my profoundest conviction, and I doubt not, 
 yours also, my honored friend. But even those who 
 do not share it with us, ought on that very account 
 to join with us on the matter of freedom of con- 
 science. Where has this led to revolution? Where 
 has restraint on conscience ever issued in the tranquil- 
 
 10 
 
218 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 lizing of toe people and the lasting restoration of the 
 governments ? 
 
 It is as superfluous to demonstrate the morality and 
 reasonableness of freedom of conscience and religious, 
 toleration fi>r those who enter on the consideration of 
 the subje'ct in good faith and earnest thought, as for 
 those who will listen to nothing which run» counter to 
 their prejudices, or (what is worst of all) their personal 
 and corporate standing. He who will bare a church 
 must build up a congregation ; but the stones of the 
 edifice are the free ccmsciences of the individual be- 
 lievers. The whole structure rests upon personal piety ; 
 therefbre, upon respect for conscience and faith in God's 
 free Spirit. If any will not hear the voice of the Lord 
 and his disciples, nor yet that of his own conscience, we 
 refer him to the earliest and the latest martyrs of relig- 
 ious liberty — Barclay and Vinet. If he be a speculat- 
 ive philosopher, to Kant, Fichte, and Hegel also, or 
 even to their seeming opponents, Rosmini* and Gioberti 
 — ^may whose ashes rest in peace, and their memory be 
 blessed ! As with the Gospel, so with modern German 
 philosophy the State is the highest realization of the 
 
 * Since Rosmini is not so well known in England as the Abb6 
 Grioberti, it may be as well to mention that he was the author of 
 some philosophical works, for which Grioberti attacked him in a 
 special treatise, "Degli errori filosofid di Bosmini." While Eos- 
 mini's semi-clerical philosbphy was considered, on the one hand, 
 perfectly sufficient to overthrow Grennan philosophy, it neverthe- 
 less gave umbrage to the Roman Pontiff by its liberality. Ros- 
 mini accordingly recanted any error into which philosophy might 
 have led him, and retired into a convent in Lombardy, with a 
 number of devoted followers called Rosminiani, who gave them- 
 selves to preaching whenever they were asked to do so in 
 churches. He died last year in Lombardy, and by a large num- 
 ber of the clerical party is regarded as a saint. — Tr. 
 
MAERIAGE. 219 
 
 moral idea, and religion has its divine root in the moral, 
 therefore free, unforced, conviction. If, finally, he be 
 a student or writer of history, let him read the co- 
 temporaty memoirs of the last three hundred years 
 as living fiicts and testimonies for the respective influ- 
 ences of religious liberty and religious oppression on 
 nations. 
 
 And now, since I have made this open confession of 
 faith (or rather renewed it, for I have never had any 
 other faith than that of freedom), I will with good 
 coilrage go straight to the heart of things as they are. 
 We found in our former meditation in what an irrecon- 
 cilable antagonism the absolutism of the State was in- 
 volved with that of the Church, and we are brought by 
 the history of the conflict itself to the conclusion, that 
 the disappearance of the Christian people as the organ- 
 ized Christian Congregation, and of mental freedom as 
 the vital air of faith, may be considered as the funda- 
 mental origin of this internecine strife. If our view be 
 correct, the way of escape must be clear, and the solu- 
 tion of the problem easy in all Christian States, whether 
 the complete separation of the civil government from 
 the ecclesiastical take place or not. By finding a solu- 
 tion, I, of course, refer only to the laying down of first 
 principles ; the world-wide scope of our present problem 
 of itself precludes our following out these leading prin- 
 ciples into their special applications. 
 
 The first dispute we encountered was that concerning 
 MARRIAGE ; and here there are three points in particular 
 which present difficulties to the legislator: first, the 
 
 RELATION OF THE StATE TO THE CONTRACT OF MAR- 
 RIAGE ; secondly, its relation to the dissolution 
 OF marriage ; thirdly, its relation to mixeb mar- 
 riages. 
 
220 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 The principle of solution with regard to the contract- 
 ing of marriage was first broached by Napoleon ; Peel's 
 application of this principle in England is insular in its 
 character, resting on entirely peculiar historical rela- 
 tions. The Episcopal Church alone has power to cele- 
 brate marriages for all sects alike ; in the case of Catho- 
 lics and Dissenters all that is required is for the bridal 
 pair to make a very simple declaration before the civil 
 registrar. Several States of the American Union have 
 gone ftirther still, but in them there exists a complete 
 separation of Church and State. Thus, again, England 
 has no civil legislation with regard to the dissolution of 
 marriage. Her tribunals recognize nothing but the 
 canonical laws of the Popes, which know no divorce, 
 but, on the contrary, cause the parties to swear that 
 they will not suffer themselves to be divorced. But 
 since Charles the Second's time, the custom has gradu- 
 ally crept in (as regards the rich, that is to say) of ap- 
 plying to the Upper House in cases of adultery— only 
 that of the wife, however — in order to obtain a divorce 
 by a private bill : a privilege in the old sense of the 
 word. A legisktioh so replete with self-contradiction is 
 by no means calculated to supply the deficiency of the 
 civil code ; and the introduction of judicial divorce ia 
 accordance with the precepts of the Gospel, which is al- 
 ready proposed, will be the forerunner of wider reforms 
 in civil legislation. 
 
 Napoleon's system, of jurisprudence is a model as re- 
 gards the recognition of the independence of religious 
 from civil legislation : the State can dissolve only that 
 which it has sanctioned, namely, the civil contract of 
 marriage; the Church retains her right to exert au- 
 thority within her own domaia — ^that of conscience and 
 morals — even by exclusion from the pale of her com- 
 
THE CIVIL MAERIAGE. 221 
 
 munion, according to her laws. la establishing this 
 principle, Napoleon was treading in the footsteps, not 
 alone of Solon and the twelve tables, but also of Abra- 
 ham and Moses, and the laws of the ancient Christian 
 Church. He put an end to an encroachment on the 
 part of the ecclesiastical law which had taken place 
 during the mediaeval chrysalis-period of Christianity. 
 On this point, too, his Code is greatly superior to the 
 Prussian Code, which makes the priestly benediction a 
 condition of the validity of a marriage, and yet dissolves 
 this religious marriage, regardless of all ecclesiastical 
 law or moral earnestness. It must not, however, be 
 forgotten that this moral laxity subsisted in the practice 
 of the German law long before the Prussian Code was 
 framed. The German jurisprudence had not indeed 
 reached that contempt for marriage which constituted 
 the exclusive glory of Poland and Venice, where a show 
 of force in the solemnizing of the marriage was permit- 
 ted to take place in order to form a ground for proving 
 it invalid subsequently. In Protestant Saxony, how- 
 ever, for instance, any marriage could be set aside at 
 will, on the plea of divorce for adultery, or forsaking 
 with malicious intent, by a criminal understanding or 
 collusion- between the parties; The corruption thus en- 
 gendered was so great that it was thojight less immoral 
 to facilitate the obtaining of a divorce by honest means 
 than to have it obtained by lying and perjury. With 
 such laws it was a great inconsistency, a contempt for 
 the Gospel, an insult to the Congregation, an unex- 
 ampled piece of tyranny toward conscientious clergymen, 
 that the law required them to treat a marriage, dissolved 
 in contradiction to every Christian precept, as non- 
 existent, and to pronounce the benediction on a fresh 
 marriage, which, according to the undeniable precepts 
 
222 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of the Gospel, was mere legalized adultery. But the 
 solution of these difficulties is to be found only in a civil 
 marriage. Equally inconsistent, however, is the in- 
 validity established by usage in the French courts of 
 law (it is not so in the Belgian) of a marriage contracted 
 by a man who was formerly a Roman Catholic priest. 
 But the prohibition of divorce (by the law of 8th March, 
 1816), which was iutroduced at the Restoration, dis- 
 turbed the whole of the laws relating to marriage, and 
 was besides, for the Protestants, an insulting oppression 
 on their consciences. By this measure the Government 
 of the Restoration not only evinced its servility to Rome, 
 but also proclaimed that the Bourbons had less faith than 
 Napoleon in the vital power of the Catholic Church. 
 They believed as little as the papal clergy that the 
 Church would be able to maintain itself against the 
 operation of the civil law. Had moral earnestness been 
 the motive for this change they would have adopted a 
 stricter standard with regard to the grounds of divorce 
 admitted into the code. The abrogation of the thoroughly 
 immoral ground of "mutual consent," which holds out 
 a temptation to levity ia the contracting of marriage, 
 and lowers matrimony to the level of concubinage, had 
 found universal approbation. It was, moreover, from 
 this unbelief in their own Church that they gave the 
 Protestants no legal remedy against the operation of this 
 law, which was entirely in opposition to their own con- 
 sciences; it was feared that to make an exception in 
 their case would lead thousands over to Protestantism. 
 The experience of Belgium and the Rhine provinces, in 
 which this Bourbon-papal mutilation of the Code Napo- 
 leon has not taken place, testifies for the power of a free 
 conscience. 
 
 According to the conscience of all Christian nations 
 
DIVORCE. 223 
 
 marriage can be dissolved by death alone. But the 
 majority of Christian nations,, both in the East and 
 West, consider at this day, with the Gospel and the 
 ancient Church, that death ensues as regards the mar- 
 riage contract when the wife betrays the sanctity of 
 paternity intrusted to her keeping — ^and it is this alone 
 which is called by the ancient Christians, as by the. Jews, 
 adultery. But it ia an equal crime when the husband 
 does not afford the protection he has promised, but breaks 
 his feith as a husband and master of a family, by forsaking 
 his wife with malicious intent. In both cases the natural 
 consequence can be nothing else but entire civil death, 
 extending to the devolving of the estate upon the next 
 heirs during the lifetime of the parties, and incapacity to 
 enter into a fresh union and beget legitimate issue. But 
 the great and wealthy have found the Christian yoke too 
 hard, and thus, after the degradation or annihilation of 
 the Congregation which has crept in, in the civil as well 
 as ecclesiastical sense, during the course of centuries, 
 they have endeavored to evade these consequences of 
 crime by immoral juristic quibbks and legal iniquities. 
 
 This is the clear doctrine of the Gospel and Apostles, 
 which I have long recognized and professed, in opposition 
 more especially to the inclination sometimes shown to 
 touch the laws relating to marriage with the profane 
 hands of police regulation; and probably I may have 
 occasion, before long, to come before the Church with a 
 fiirther exposition of these principles. The solution of 
 the problem from this point of view is very simple. The 
 State may either bring its action into harmony with this 
 evangelical view, as will probably be the case in England, 
 or it can, after the example of the French and Prussian 
 codes, open the door to a somewhat wider mode of meet- 
 ing the difficulty. As regards the grounds of divorce in 
 
224 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the dissolution of the ciTil marriage, the Code Napoleon 
 ha3 clearly hitherto maintained; a higher moral position 
 than that of Prussia. But I must hra-e repeat that the 
 ground taken by the latter was, to a great extent, a 
 mere attempt to set bounds to the immorality, shame- 
 lessness and ungodliness to which the higher classes had 
 abandoned themselves previous to the gr^t French 
 Revolution. Their immoral grounds of divorce found 
 neither approval nor imitation in the middle and lower 
 walks of life, till the poison had gradually oozed down 
 from above. The French Code, likewise, is stained with 
 the permission of divorce by mutual consent; but a 
 divorce on this ground which turns marriage into con- 
 cubinage, can take place only under circumstances which 
 make it very difficult to be obtained. On the other 
 hand, the project of law which was laid before the Prus- 
 sian Chambers last year by the Government, places our 
 code above that of France ; and it is only to be r^etted 
 that that, as well as the stricter project introduced by 
 Stahl, both suffer from the curse of police interference. 
 The State has no right to raise an accusation which the 
 injured husband or wife does not raise. Ko one will 
 expect any blessing to result from giving the police 
 power to protect the sacredness of marriage and punish 
 its infringement, who has seen, in the ecclesiastical 
 pattern-State of Rome, how easily wili hypocrisy it can 
 be abused to the perpetration of the greatest iniquities. 
 The sins of the poor are visited, while the often far 
 deeper crimes of the greatest and highest in the State 
 remain unchastised. 
 
 We turn to consider the various attempts that have 
 been made hitherto to establish a friendly relation be- 
 tween the civil and ecclesiastical mamage. Wholly 
 irreccmcilable with the main object of the civil marriage 
 
CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE. 225 
 
 as mstituted by the Code Napoleon, is the arrangement 
 proposgd by Kome, and introduced in some places (rec- 
 ommended ako by M. Thiersch, junior), of causing the 
 civil ceremony to take place after, instead of before, the 
 ecclesiastical. By this plan the obligatory character of 
 the religious service, -which it was the object of the State 
 to remove, is restored, and the State undertakes duties 
 ■without possessing rights. The same defect appears in 
 the proposal of the majority of the Sardinian Senate, 
 that the civil marriage should take place only where the 
 parties are not Catholics. 
 
 With respect to the naturalization of the civil mar- 
 riage in Germany, various plans have been proposed. 
 Some would only allow the civil marriage to take place 
 in case of necessity: thus, for instance, when the 
 Church benediction is refused. No scheme can be more 
 unworthy and more ineffectual. If the State recognizes 
 the civil marriage as legally justifiable only in caae of 
 necessity, it degrades its own act; while the Church 
 has, notwithstanding, right to complain of an infringe- 
 ment on her province. In Baden, where the Code Na- 
 poleon is the law of the land in civil matters, the civil 
 magistrates do no more toward the marriage-contract 
 than to set forth a document, notifying that there is no 
 longer any impediment to the marriage. This is to de- 
 grade the act of the State to a permit from the police. 
 Neither can I regard it as expedient that in Baden the 
 clergyman represents at the same time the civil func- 
 tionary, by reading the articles concerning marriage to 
 the bridal couple in the vestry. In the Church the 
 clergyman should know no code but the Bible — no moral 
 precepts but those of religion ; he is not the mouthpiece 
 of the law, but of conscience. And this practice is very 
 generally felt as a grievance. How, then; is it to be ac- 
 10* 
 
226 SIGN'S OF THE TIMES. 
 
 counted for that even so circumspect and intelligent a 
 judge as the author of an instructive disquisition " On 
 Civil Marriage in its relation to the Church" (inserted 
 in Cottars Vierteljahrschrift for 1850) should yield to 
 the prejudice that the introduction of civil marriage 
 would wound the religious feeling, more especially of the 
 Protestant population ? Evidently the main cause is, 
 that he has no faith in the Ecclesia, which has here 
 hecome invisible against its will- He constantly sees 
 nothing beyond the political machine of police and offi- 
 cials, with that dependent institution which it calls " the 
 Church." From this point of view he is perfectly right, 
 when he says that the practice, retained for instance in 
 Wurtemberg, of consulting the ecclesiastical dignitaries 
 in all proceedings relating to marriage, has proved its.elf 
 wholly inefficient. 
 
 The annihilation of the idea of the Congregation is 
 altogether the weak point in the marriage-law of the 
 Code Napoleon. The Maire, who answers to our vil- 
 lage magistrate or burgomaster, is, in most cases, no 
 worthy representative of the majesty of the civil com- 
 monwealth, which we call the State. The sacredness 
 of the Church is, with regard to such a ceremony, repre- 
 sented by the meanest of her ministers, but the majesty 
 of the State is not by its lower functionaries. The 
 reading of the admonition prescribed by law, is in itself 
 a solemn ceremony, considered as the voice of the State, 
 which, by this act, places itself in subordination to the 
 Divine law. It recognizes thereby that it has found 
 marriage existing, and derives ite own beiag therefrom ; 
 and its exhortation to the parties to consider, with due 
 gravity, the importance of the step they are about to 
 take, is its homage to the law of Grod, standing above all 
 human regulations, which has its seat in the conscience, 
 
MIXED MARRIAGES. 227 
 
 and to the eternal moral order of the universe, of which 
 conscience is the revelation. But it is, at the same time, 
 a recognition of the Christian Congregation. Thus, 
 among the English Anglo-Saxons, the porch of the house 
 consecrated to the spiritual use of the congregation, was 
 chosen for the solemn celebration of betrothals (called in 
 North Germany Winkop — Weibkauf*^. That mag- 
 nificent and unique formula of the marriage vow, whiclj 
 now forms a part of the English Church Service, is of 
 indigenous origin, and derived from Grermany ; Tacitus 
 knew it, and mentions it with admiration, f It would be 
 well, therefore, if the civil marriage were only allowed 
 to take place in the more considerable towns, while the 
 magistrates or burgomasters of the village to which the 
 parties belong, with other representatives of the peas- 
 antry or citizens, should also be present as witnesses. 
 No one would object to the trouble or expense of such a 
 bridal procession. 
 
 With respect to mixed marriages, what was more es- 
 pecially understood by this term in the good old days of 
 Lutheranism, was the marriage with members of the Ee- 
 formed Chuch. In one of the recent numbers of the 
 Darmstadt Allgem,eine Kirchenzeitung (7th July), a 
 worthy man expresses his horror at the exploded fanat- 
 icsm of a Lutheran pastor in Bavaria, who, glorying in 
 his narrow-mindedness and priestly self-conceit, has 
 (evidently with a side glance to the present) picked out 
 
 * The purchase of a wife. 
 
 t Tacit. G-enn xviii. "Ne se muKer extra virtutum cogita- 
 tiones extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsia incipientis matrimonii 
 auspiciis admonetur, venire se laborum, periculorumque socius, 
 idem in pace, idem in pi-celio passuram ausuramque, hoc juncti 
 boves, hoc paratus equus, hoc data arma denuntiant. Sic viven- 
 dmn sic pereundum : accipere se, quas liberis inviolata ac digna 
 reddat, quse nurus accipiant, rurusque ad nepotes referant." 
 
228 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of the dust of the Church Archives, " as a flower of the 
 Church," the account of the conversion of a Calvinistic 
 lady of the seventeenth century, in which she submits to 
 adopt the Lutheran doctrine of the sacrament, and there- 
 upon becomes the wife of the Lutheran pastor who writes 
 the account. The writer of the article might find a pas- 
 sage in CarpzoviuB, which runs thus : ' ' The marriage 
 [of an orthodox Lutheran] with a Catholic is not indeed 
 attended with the disgrace which attaches to the mar- 
 riage with a Calvinist, still it must always be regarded 
 as a subject of regret and disapprobation." This was 
 written in the time of the Thirty Years' War ! And 
 such miserable stuff does the ill-advised priestly paii;y 
 rake up from the ashes of the past to rekindle evangeli- 
 cal faith, or rather confessional bigotry ! 
 
 "We term mixed marriages those between Protestants 
 and Catholics. With regard to these, it is universally 
 acknowledged that the participation of the State, to a 
 certain , extent, is indispensable as a defense against 
 hierarchical oppression, and for the sake of domestic 
 peace. The regulations contained in the Prussian laws 
 on this subject, appear to correspond the most closely to 
 the dictates of reason and justice. They may be re- 
 duced to two points : No constraint shall be exercised 
 either by the State or the clergy ; the father and mother 
 alone shall decide : Compacts between parties betrothed 
 to each other can not be made the ground of complaint 
 agaiQSt the father, who is regarded as the head of the 
 family. 
 
 Thus the State does not require the Catholic clergy- 
 man to perform an act which he is forbidden to do by 
 the laws of his Church ; but it forbids him to commit an 
 offense against the laws, by demanding any promise from 
 the bridal couple with regard to the children that may 
 
NATIONAL EDUCATION. 229 
 
 be bom to them. Tlie remaining difficulties will disap- 
 pear on the introduction of the civil marriage, but only 
 thereby. 
 
 With regard to the marriage between Christians and 
 Jews the most advisable course appears to me to consist 
 in the application of a just and wise maxim of the Prus- 
 sian Code. The maxim is as follows: "A Christian 
 can not contract marriage with such persons as are pre- 
 vented by the precepts of their religion from submitting 
 themselves to the Christian laws of marriage." This 
 maxim, however, clearly justifies the prohibition of mar- 
 riages between Christians and Jews, which it has estab- 
 lished in practice, only in so far as the Jewish community 
 in the State abides by all the Talmudic regulations, and 
 the parties are unwilling to receive the Christian bene- 
 diction which, is required by the existing law'. 
 
 With regard to the second point in dispute between 
 the State and the hierarchy, namely,, the education oe 
 THE PEOPLE, this is the most sacred Right, and still 
 more, the most sacred Duty of the State. But on this 
 question various systems are conceivable. Positive re- 
 ligious instruction may be excluded from the public 
 primary schools, and i-egarded as the province of the 
 ministers of religion belonging to the various confessions, 
 as is. the case .in most States of the American Union, 
 though a selection from Holy Scripture is usually re- 
 tained. Or religious teaching may form a part of the 
 course of popular instruction, but it may be so arranged 
 that the minority is not compelled to take part in it, as 
 is the course pursued in the primary schools in Prussia. 
 In our gymnasia, the masters nearly always belong to 
 one confession. Or, finally, the different persuasions 
 may have separate educational institutions maintained at 
 the expense of the State, or of the particular religious 
 
230 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 body. None of these forms is absolutely inadmissible ; 
 which is the best, is a question which must be answered 
 variously in different States, and even in different prov- 
 inces of the same State. 
 
 But no form is admissible which does not hold fast 
 one thing, namely, that liberty of conscience be not in- 
 fringed, both for the sake of conscience itself, and as rep- 
 resenting one of the true guranties for the Christianity 
 of the State. The reproach still often made against the 
 first of these systems, according to which the religious 
 instruction is left in the hands of the special teachers of 
 religion — that it is a godless system — is equally unjust 
 in itself, and unconfirmed by fact. That such a sever- 
 ance between religious and secular instruction must ever 
 be carried out with the most tender and judicious con- 
 sideration for the existing religious sentiments of the 
 people, and with sincere moral earnestness, follows of 
 necessity from the fundamental principles we have al- 
 ready laid down. 
 
 All this, my respected friend, we will sum up in one 
 word — ^yes, faith in God, in Christ, and in Man. 
 
 Of course, to follow out our fundamental maxim of 
 liberty, in addition to the schools provided by the State, 
 the existing religious denominations ought to have the 
 full and unrestricted right of establishing special re- 
 ligious schools, at their own expense, for the children of 
 their members. But the State ought to do every thing 
 in its power that its own schools should be the best. 
 That at this moment educated Protestants in the United 
 States are sending their children to the Jesuit schools, 
 which send out 4,000 young people annually, arises 
 from the fact that the State has not done its duty be- 
 yond the sphere of elementary instruction. Boston 
 alone, with its university of New Cambridge, makes an 
 
CATHOLICS m AMEEICA. ^31 
 
 honorable exception. The once famous Columbia Col- 
 lege is in decay. With the present rekindling of na- 
 tional feeling (originally directed against the ofFscouring 
 of Europe, and especially the barbarism of the Irish im- 
 migrants), in which the Know-nothing movement has its 
 roots, no doubt this weak side of the national develop- 
 ment, which is so admirable in other respects, will not 
 remain unremedied. The allurements to forsake the 
 self-sacrificing service of science, and the still more self- 
 denying vocation of an instructor, are in that Empire 
 more numerous ahd powerful than anywhere else. But, 
 hitherto, thanks to the moral and religious earnestness 
 of the Puritans, which is the healthiest and most vigor- 
 ous root of that gigantic State, there has never yet been 
 wanting a corresponding moral energy to remedy any 
 recognized deficiency ; and, on the other hand, the social 
 conditions of America present peculiar advantages. But 
 this much is certain, that against a centralized power, 
 such as that of the Jesuits, neither the isolated efibrts 
 of individuals can succeed, nor yet such State schools aa 
 entirely exclude religious instruction. The demand of 
 the Catholic bishops in the Union, more especially urged 
 by Bishop Hughes in New York, that the State should 
 surrender a proportionate part of the revenues for na- 
 tional education to the bishops, or Jesuits, for their 
 Catholic schools, was unreasonable, and it is this which 
 has given the political faction of the Know-nothings its 
 present aggressive tendency. 
 
 Now, where the State and the Church are not entirely 
 separated, it is impossible to deny the State a right of 
 superintendence over all private schools, or to dispense 
 with the exercise of this right, seeing that it has to pre- 
 scribe a certain standard of education which must be 
 reached in every such private institution. The State 
 
232 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 must, therefore, test the abilities of the teaxjhers, and be 
 represented in the examination of the pupils. 
 
 As regards the education of the clergy, there are 
 three rules which have approved themselves in practice 
 as the most just and effectual. 
 
 I. That the State should refrain from taking any part 
 in the purely spiritual training of priests. 
 
 II. That it should not suffer this to commence until 
 after a preliminary national training has been passed 
 through in the gynmasmm and at the university. 
 
 m. That at the universities the State should not 
 allow the Bishops to appoint the theological professors, 
 but should give them a veto on a statement of their 
 reasons. 
 
 On this point, too, Prussia has taken the lead of all 
 other States in wisdom and fairness. 
 
 From the ground we take of entire liberty of con- 
 science, and real independence both of the State and the 
 congregation, we can regard no other attitude as fitting 
 — no other solution of the problem presented as true. 
 
 We now come to the last, and also the sorest of the 
 contested points. The question of the tenure and 
 ENJOYMENT OE Church PROPERTY meets US throughout 
 history as the most fraught with danger of all those in- 
 volved in the conflict between the officials of the State 
 and the priesthood. But even this offers no insuperable 
 difficulties if the principles of perfect liberty and legality 
 which we have indicated be honestly and rigidly carried 
 out, under the guidance of existing circumstances. I 
 believe I may here lay down the maxim as universally 
 admitted by all jurisconsults, that Church property is 
 sacred, but not, like private property, irrespective of the 
 use made of it. The possessor for the time being has no 
 right of disposal over it : he has simply the usufruct, 
 
CHXTROH PROPERTY. 233 
 
 and that only under certain conditions, and fop a public 
 end. If that end be not answered — those conditions not 
 observed— ^the State has not only the right but the oblv- 
 gation to take away the property from the possessor or 
 corporation ; still, so far as possible, only for the better 
 attainment of the- same end, not for the enriching of the 
 public treasury. 
 
 This is what, on the whole, really took place at the 
 Reformation, as far as the rapacity of princes or aristo- 
 cratic corporations allowed, and only on such and similar 
 appropriations of ecclesiastical revenue has the blessing 
 of God rested. Naturally such a course could not be 
 strictly adhered to where, as happened shortly before 
 the dissolution of the German empire, regulations were 
 made affecting provinces and States which had belonged 
 to ecclesiastical rulers. In modern times, England, and 
 recently also Sardinia, are those States which have 
 treated this question most honestly and generously. In 
 the retrenchment of the capitular bodies in England, 
 and the reduction of the incomes of those retained, every 
 penny has been devoted to the augmentation of parochial 
 stipends, the miserable condition of which formed a dis- 
 graceful contrast to the princely revenues of certain dig- 
 nitaries. So, likewise, Sardinia, in abolishing those 
 monasteries and convents which did not devote them- 
 selves to education or works of mercy, has most solemnly 
 established the principle, that the money thus saved 
 shall be expended for the benefit of the clergy, for whom 
 no adequate provision had been made. With regard to 
 the whole proceedings of the Sardinian Government, I 
 refer you to the exhaustive article on this subject in the 
 Quarterly Review for July, which is attributed, no 
 doubt with justice, to Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 The main question, however, to be settled in coming 
 
234 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 to terms *with the canon law, is the attitude which the 
 State ought to assume toward the pretension of the 
 Ultramontane party — that the One Universal Church is 
 the depositary of all ecclesiastical revenues. For, as 
 we have seen above, this is, in other words, to recognize 
 the Bishops and the Pope as the possessors of all national 
 church property. Ecclesiastical history proves that that 
 pretension has heen turned to advantage more than once, 
 especially on the part of the Pope. Now we maintain 
 that the Congregation is the universal ultimate, as well 
 as immediate, depositary of church property. Our 
 mode of settling the matters in dispute would be deter- 
 mined more precisely according to the peculiar nature 
 of the property itself. 
 
 As regards Local Funds, neither the State nor the 
 Church, in the wide sense of these words, can be said to 
 be the depositary thereof, but the local Congregation ; - 
 therefore, neither the Pope nor the Bishop, nor yet the 
 parish priest by himself, but the elders of the Church 
 recognized under various forms by the Catholic Church 
 (churchwardens), with the minister of the parish, for 
 the time being, at their head. 
 
 I believe, with Wessenbrg, these associations of elders 
 must be put upon a better footing, else that it would be 
 necessary to return to a Catholic Committee of the Con- 
 gregation, which, according to the law of Prussia, is 
 only the heir of the civil community, but according to 
 that of France, is the actual possessor, except in the case 
 of particular foundations and corporations. 
 
 The next question arises where the Revenues are 
 derived from a Grant of the State. According to our 
 principles, we shall here have to distinguish whether this 
 grant is a free gift, or by common acknowledgment a 
 compensation for estates or dues that have been lost. In 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 235 
 
 the second case the Congregation evidently enters into 
 possession of its own rights ; but the former may lay 
 the foundation for a relation of superintendence and 
 patronage on the part of the State. The fiscal principle 
 in its absolute form is as inadmissible and works as badly 
 as the hierarchical. 
 
 Finally, as regards the third portion of Church prop- 
 erty, the Property or Revenues of the Bishops, their 
 Chapters and Seminaries, it is manifest that the forms 
 of actual possession and enjoyment, or of a full mortgage 
 security on landed property, are not reconcilable with 
 the present state of political economy. For this reason, 
 too, the proposal which has been made in the Prussian 
 Concordat to grant a mortgaige security on forests (which, 
 moreover, are charged with the yet unredeemed state- 
 debt), will probably never be carried into literal execu- 
 tion. But the form of a security on the aggregate prop- 
 erty of the State — a plan proposed by Napoleon, and 
 accepted by the Pope on the part of the Church — that 
 is to say, the entry of a perpetual annuity in the public 
 accounts, is one which is for all purposes satisfactory, at 
 least for States which have a well-ordered financial sys- 
 tem, as Prussia always has had, and always will have. 
 
 In regard to the possession of landed property, all 
 modenj systems of public law agree in not allowing the 
 validity of testamentary dispositions in mortmain. Even 
 money legacies in favor of the Church are made depend- 
 ent on the observance of certain conditions. 
 
 On this point, again, the spirit and usages of consti- 
 tutional monarchy have proved a truer guide than Napo- 
 leonic Caesarism or the absolutism of the eighteenth 
 century. The right of confirming such bequests is, 
 particularly with Protestant Governments^ a dead letter. 
 Here, too, Peel struck out the right path, when, care- 
 
236 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 fully avoiding every thing savoring of arbitrariness, he 
 restricted himself to laying down the principle that 
 every such bequest is vaUd, if made sik months or more 
 before death, the deed being, of course, drawn up by a 
 notary, and signed iu the presence of witnesses. No 
 one can complain of this with any show of reason, and 
 thus the object is attained. 
 
 Thus, my respected friend, I think that in proceeding 
 from our starting-point we have reached a solution which 
 violates no ecclesiastical or religious feeling, disturbs no 
 usage, raises no points of contest, presents no practical 
 dangers, but, on the contrary, appears to open the way 
 to a result as safe and pregnant with blessing as it is 
 inevitable. It is true that in pursuing our course we 
 have found that with regard to these questions, as well 
 as that of toleration, Germany does not in all respects 
 stand at the head of European culture and civilization, 
 but has sometimes lagged behind within the last forty 
 years. For even from 1550 onward, and to a still 
 greater extent since 1650, a stagnation, if not a corrup- 
 tion, partly caused by the pettiness of the political re- 
 lations in such a congeries of small States, but most of 
 all by the narrow-mindedness of the Lutheran theolo- 
 gians who have ruled the Church, has crept in, accom- 
 panied by a self-conceit which appears ridiculous or 
 lamentable, when it brings its pretensions to the broad 
 daylight of publicity. But, on the other hand, in the 
 Reformed Church of Germany, which takes a very dif- 
 ferent historical attitude, and in the reforming zeal of 
 enlightened Governmenis we have everywhere found 
 still fertile germs of life, which, with the inexhaustible 
 mental power, and the indestructible religious sentiment 
 that pervades the German people, present the fairest 
 pledges for our future. 
 
THE SAFEatJAED OF THE CHURCK 237 
 
 Finally, in what specially concerns us as Prussians, 
 much as we may have to find fault with or mourn the 
 want of, many as may be the fears and anxieties openly 
 expressed or secretly cherished, we can look with thank- 
 fulness to the past, the present, and the fiiture. 
 
 The Magna Charta of our laws touching religious and 
 ecclesiastical relations, as contained in Articles XII.— 
 XIX. of the Constitution,* is perfectly satisfactory ; and 
 its meaning is placed beyond the possibility of doubt by 
 the official documents which accompany it, and the de- 
 liberations in which it originated. Our best guaranty 
 that this Palladium will not be shaken or wrested aside 
 from its true meaning, is the loyal respect for law of 
 our King, and the sentiments of the heirs to the throne, 
 as well as of the nation at large. Neither should it be 
 forgotten how many safeguards and institutions Prussia 
 posessed before the 18th of March, 1848. This ground- 
 work of law certainly needs, however, to be fortified by 
 a corresponding practical realization. According to 
 what principles this might be done as respects the Evan- 
 gelical Church, in order to conduct it onward from the 
 present regal dictatorship to constitutional independence, 
 and how, on the other side, the collisions with the Rom- 
 ish hierarchy not yet wholly guarded against are to 
 be prevented, we have endeavored to discover by a 
 method which can hardly be misrepresented as a false 
 one, ever keeping in view our ultimate aim — a peace- 
 able and leigal adjustment of all differences. 
 
 The theological conflict between various religious con- 
 fessions may be safely left to the influence of learning, 
 faith, and outward events. The alienation between those 
 of different creeds ceases when they no longer come into 
 
 * Our appendix to this letter will place these articles before 
 the eyes of those who may not know, or may not recollect them. 
 
238 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 painfixl collision, and, under good management, without 
 issuing in skeptical indifference. The attachment to the 
 State will become universal on the ground of equal 
 rights, and as a result of the peaceful co-operation of 
 all for noble objects. Increasing prosperrity, science, 
 and art, exert a humanizing influence upon manners 
 also in this field, while at the same time deepening the 
 sentiment of nationality ; and each confession feels it- 
 self honored in the respect which it pays to the con- 
 science of others. Such a State, is truly a Christian 
 State, for it is founded upon Christian love, and upon 
 reverence for the Divine justice. 
 
 He who should set himself against such a reconcilia- 
 tion would thereby betray that he did not thoroughly 
 believe his creed to be the true one ; for truth has noth- 
 ing to lose or to fear from freedom. Man is no godless 
 animal, as the Prince de Broglie appears to assume in 
 his critique on Dupin's Canon Law, when he gives 
 vent to the apprehension that religious congregations 
 may all at once be turned into revolutionary clubs. The 
 State has the right of recognition, and consequently of 
 prohibition, in the case of fraudulent and immortal sects, 
 such as that of the Mormons ; revolutionary Christian 
 factions there have never yet been ; and the mask of the 
 hypocrites falls off as soon as political liberty exists. 
 We need point only to Ronge and Doviat ! And when, 
 in the "Free Church" in Magdeburg, Uhlich's col- 
 league, Krause, urged that this Church should not even 
 call itself " Christian," because this term implied a limi- 
 tation oppressive to the &ee Congregation and unworthy 
 of the position they took up, he thereby simply acknowl- 
 edged the justice of the ordinance whichrefuses to rec- 
 ognize such associations as religious, but subjects them 
 to inspection as political. 
 
TENDENCIES IN THE GERMAN • CHUECH. 239 
 
 Only let the liberty be uniyersal without exception : 
 no toleration, no qld-fashioned "parity" in the State, 
 ■where only two confessions are authorized, the Catholic 
 and the Protestant, and the latter sometimes only in 
 the double aspect it has been compelled to assume. 
 That in Bavaria the Gorernment will only allow the 
 Protestants to be called a religious association, and 
 not a Church, is certainly the result of no friendly 
 spirit, but we may as well resign this appellation to 
 the Roman Catholic denomination as that of " the 
 Catholics." 
 
 It will certainly be necessary on all sides to over- 
 come much egotism, not only in its worst forms of prej- 
 udice and hatred, but also in the little-mindedness and 
 separatism peculiar to the Germans of the last two 
 centuries. One can not endure the Baptists because 
 they make converts ; another the Jews, because they 
 practice usury, like many Christians, or because some 
 of their forefathers crucified Jesus, and called down a 
 curse on themselves and on their children, which 
 clearly must be realized by Christian oppression of 
 their descendants. All such arguments are nothing 
 but a cloak for egotism, or a deficiency in humanizing 
 culture. 
 
 I live in the firm conviction that throughout our com- 
 mon German fatherland the overwhelming majority both 
 of Catholics and Protestants are quite of one mind as to 
 the principle of freedom of conscience ; and that with 
 open and dispassionate discussion their pet exceptions to 
 this principle would vanish like mist before the sun. 
 But evidently it is pre-eminently the vocation of Protest- 
 ant Governments, statesmen, and public instructors — 
 therefore, also, of the leading men of the free German 
 literature — to protect and cherish this principle. They 
 
240 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 themselves stand and fall with the Congregation and 
 with liberty. It is not a question of bringing the Con-, 
 gregation into existence — it is there, indigenous and 
 vigorous, not merely capable of life ; nay, since 1848 — 
 as, indeed, from 1840 up to that date — a wonderful 
 impulse of life has filled it with aspiration and fresh 
 thought. A tendency toward outward embodiment and 
 organized activity is astir in our German churches, 
 which bears in itself the evident impress of the Divine 
 hand; for it manifests itself as that ministering love 
 which is the parent of all works of mercy. It lives and 
 breathes as an affectionate recognition of the beauty, the 
 truth, and the goodness that have existed in past ages, 
 not only within the limits of their own respective homes, 
 but of the whole of their beloved German fatherland, 
 nay, of all humanity. This sentiment shows itself self- 
 sacrificing, not demanding sacrifice ; but it does demand 
 freedom for its highest impulse, respect for its most 
 sacred possession. It will not endure the fetters of 
 police-regulation; it despises the crutches of official 
 tutelage and the protection of the peiial laws which have 
 crippled it, no less than a so-called patriarchal super- 
 intendence of the Crown. Not to repress this aspiration 
 in the Christian community, but to aid it by support, 
 enlightenment, exhortation— -this is the special vocation 
 of Protestantism. All the aids that Protestantism would 
 borrow from constraint, force, repression, intolerance, 
 are so riiany weapons which it puts into the hand of the 
 hierarchy for the persecution of the evangelical belief. 
 He who can not fulfill this vocation in faith is not called 
 to put his hand to the work of salvation. 
 
 This Protestant consciousness has been never more 
 deeply felt than within the last few years and days. 
 What astonishment, what sorrow, then, must seize the 
 
RETROGRADE EFFORTS. 241 
 
 friead of the Gospel, of his country, of freedom, of 
 humanity, when he sees no insignificant number, espec- 
 ially of the younger Lutheran pastors and preachers, in 
 co-operation with political parties, and in more or less 
 open alliance with absolutism and feudalism (or at least 
 playing into the hands of the absolutists and Jesuits), 
 striking out for themselves a precisely opposite course ! 
 Do Ijiey really think to benefit Protestantism by coercion, 
 or dream^ of restoring faith by the spirit-killing formulas 
 of the seventeenth century, while crying down all as- 
 piration toward tolerance and freedom as revolutionary 
 and anarchical ? I forbear to mention insignificant at- 
 tempts of this kind, or childish, stupid, senseless attacks, 
 such as those we have witnessed in Mecklenburg, Hesse, 
 and Lippe. I pass over impotent conferences or unions 
 of pastors, such as that held recently in Leipsic under 
 Kahne's leadership, where furious speeches were made 
 against schismatics and sectaries on the part of the self- 
 styled Old Lutherans. 
 
 Their retrograde efibrts are not backed by Congrega- 
 tion or people — ^by intellectual, or, hitherto, by civil or 
 princely power. The phenomenon is simply instructive. 
 But it is jyith pain that I see in the ranks of this party 
 a man from whom I and others had hoped better things 
 in his youth, but who has now become the acknowledged 
 organ of the powerful retrograde party in politics and 
 religion. It .is a just subject of unmitigated regret, 
 when such a man becomes the advocate of intolerance 
 and illiberality in the greatest Protestant State of the 
 Continent — ^the only considerable Protestant State of 
 Germany ; and that in the name of tolerance — ^in the 
 name of Luther and of Christ ! 
 
 I allude, toy respected friend, to the oration of Stahl 
 already mentioned, which he pronounced on the 29tk of 
 11 
 
242 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 last March, in the Evangelical Association of Berlin, 
 before the Court and a large and influential assembly, 
 not without immediate evidence of its efiect. This dis- 
 course, which bears the title of " Christian Tolerance," 
 but which, in reality, appears more like a discourse in 
 favor of confessional intolerance, has been printed by its 
 eloquent author with notes, for the general reading world, 
 after it had appeared with the same additions in the relig- 
 ious organ of the party, the Evmigelische Kirchen- 
 zeitung, and been printed in their political organ, the 
 Kreugzeitung. 
 
 With the examination of this discourse for the object 
 we have in view, I propose to conclude our correspond- 
 ence for the present. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON STAHL'S DOCTRINE OF TOLERANCE, 
 AS REGARDED FROM AN HISTORICAL AND JURI- 
 DICAL POINT OP VIEW. 
 
 Chaelottbnberg, 24th August, 1865. 
 * The Day of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 This is a solemn day, my dear and honored friend, 
 on Tvhich we are called to consider Stahl's doctrine of 
 tolerance. It is the anniversary of the Massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew — ^the infernal festival of religious persecu- 
 tion — ^the orgies of the devils ! For whatever share in 
 the events of that day may be ascribed to the hatred of 
 political parties, it can not be denied that these parties 
 themselves took their source in religious heirarchical 
 fanaticism, and that this was the sole lever by which 
 they acted on the populace. It was religious hatred 
 which, as Ranke has recently shown, gave that demon- 
 iacal fury, Catherine de Medicis, the means of attaining 
 her factious aims. It was religious hatred which enabled 
 the king whom she swayed, to find willing executioners 
 in the brutal mobs of Paris, Lyons, and other towns, 
 stirred up by the priests. In Admiral Coligni, and 
 many of his clerical and secular fellow-sufferers, France 
 lost the highest ornaments and noblest blood of the land, 
 and, at the same time, the strongest moral primitive- 
 £>rce for the wider development of her mental and polit- 
 
244 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 ical freedom. In them, Christendom forfeited a large 
 portion of her brightest jewels, and the Christian name 
 was branded for everlasting age^, till a full atonement 
 should be made. 
 
 The Massacre of St. Bartholomew and the Inquisition 
 are the final expression of that intolerance whose cause 
 Stahl appears to us to espouse, and whose refutation, as 
 delivered in the Constituent Assembly of France in 
 1789, when perfect liberty of conscience was decreed as 
 one of the rights of man, seems to inspire our orator 
 with boundless contempt. Nay, he inveighs against 
 philosophical toleration at the very moment when the 
 powers of darkness are once more rousing themselves and 
 leaguing together against their own brethren ib belief 
 For Dr. Stahl begins by telling us that 
 
 " Toleration is the child "of unbelief; the demand of freedom 
 of conscience as a right, in legally governed States and constitu- 
 tional nations, is a part of that work of destruction and revolution 
 which characterizes modern science, and which menaces the tran- 
 quillity of Europe." 
 
 From the time of its introduction into German juris- 
 prudence, up to the present day, the word Toleration 
 has rather had a mournful than a joyful sound ; for in 
 its juridical sense it merely signifies that the Church 
 authorized by the State, suffers others besides itself to 
 exist in the land. But, in the general language of lit- 
 erature, the sound common sense of all European nations 
 understand by this term, the not unreasonable demand, 
 that a man shall not be persecuted by the civil magis- 
 trate, or by a dominant Church, if he, without violating 
 the general civil regulations, worships God after his own 
 fashion in company with his fellow-believers. In sub- 
 stance, this demand is clearly not much unlike that 
 made eleven hundred years ago by Winfiid, in beihalf of 
 
A.DVOCATES OF TOLERATIOIT. '245 
 
 his somewhat aggressive style of preaching, from the hea- 
 then Frisians, in the name of the God of the Christians 
 whom they did not know. 
 
 Not even so far removed, but diflfering only in the 
 slightest degree from State protection instead of perse- 
 cution, was the demand made by Peter BayH, when 
 toward the end of the seventeenth century he was stir- 
 red up by the persecutions in France to write his famous 
 tract On Keligious Toleration. We may take an utter- 
 ly different and much graver view of the Old Testament 
 and its history than Bayle did. But when in that book 
 he supports his arguments drawn from reason by pas- 
 sages from the Bible, he does so not only in a very seri- 
 ous spirit, but often, I must confess, with a much better 
 exegesis of the Bible than we find in many theologians 
 and professors of ecclesiastical jurisprudence in both 
 ancient and modern times. Voltaire made the same de- 
 mand as Bayle, when, in his account of the judicial 
 murder of Galas at Toulouse, he exhibited, with equal 
 courage, eloquence, and love of truth, the dreadful con- 
 sequences of religious hatred among the populace, and 
 its influence on a usually honorable court of justice. 
 Undoubtedly, Voltaire's scoffs at religion, and defama^ 
 tion of the person of the Divine Founder of Christianity, 
 are as repugnant to German philosophy as to the whole 
 tone of sentiment in our nation. But every candid man 
 ought to respect and honor him for his defense of Calas, 
 which' required more courage and manliness than many 
 an unctuous oration in our days. 
 
 Much greater earnestness and depth were certainly 
 shown in the treatment of this subject by -our great 
 Lessing, when he availed himself of the mediaeval story 
 of the Three Rings, in order to exhibit, in his " Nathan 
 the Wise," the unreasonableness and impiety of religi- 
 
246 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ous intolerance. The slurs which were cast on him and 
 his friends by Pastor Gdtze, and his like, may have had 
 their share in strengthening his abhorrence of the 
 '■'■ Pfdffejigebeisz" * (to use Luther's language), to 
 which, as much as to the Pope and Jesuits, we owe the 
 rending*aaunder of the Protestant Church in Germany, 
 and all the misery of the Thirty Years' War. Still, to 
 place him among the scoffers at religion and the de- 
 spisers of Christianity, is for this very reason a crying 
 injustice, and a proof of pitiable one-sidedness. That 
 to Lessing, personally, Christianity was the religion of 
 the world, and the Bible the sacred record of the divine 
 plan for the development of humanity, he has ■ declared 
 clearly enough in his immortal tract, The Education 
 of the Human Race. And now let us turn to our 
 more strictly speculative philosophers. Modern history 
 scarcely presents to us a more blameless and earnest 
 moral character than that of Kant, and no one will deny 
 that his deeply moral tone of thought was transmit- 
 ted to his successors, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. All 
 these, like the two heroes of our popular literature, 
 Goethe and Schiller, have, equally with the members of 
 the First Constituent Assembly, insisted on the princi- 
 ple of religious toleration, on the ground that liberty 
 of conscience is a right ; therefore claimed it as a right 
 of humanity in the -name of reason, of the Spirit, and 
 of morality — ^nay, of Christianity itself 
 
 Are they on that account the enemies of Christianity ? 
 Is it, then, unchristian, or fraught with danger to the 
 true religion, to demonstrate that Christianity is at one 
 with morals and reason ? Certainly Dr. Stahl appears 
 to think so. He says in the opening of his oration : 
 "For after all, the first moving-spring of that tolerance 
 * Priestly venom. 
 
STAHL AND LESSING. 24-7 
 
 is nothing else than doubt of divme revelation, and there- 
 vrith of all sure and binding religious truth." As evi- 
 dence for this incredible assertion (for it really appears to 
 me such, in the case of so learned, thoughtful, and pious 
 a man), the orator adduces Leasing' s Nathan. Nathan, 
 the orthodox son of Abraham, is put on a level with Pi- 
 late the pagan Epicurean and man of the world ; and 
 then Stahl proceeds : — "Are Nathan the Wise and Pi- 
 late right when they ask, ' What is truth ?' or is Christ 
 right when he says, ' I am the truth V " Brilliantly 
 said; but is it equally to the point — above all, substan- 
 tially, true ? 
 
 We shall really be obliged, my honored friend, to 
 address ourselves to the answering of this question ; al- 
 though it may not appear to you in good taste, when the 
 orator so unnecessarily brings the sacred person of Christ 
 into juxtaposition with a philosopher, whose chain of 
 argument, be it true or false, still cannot be set aside 
 with a mere theological flourish of words. Certainly it 
 is not without danger to say much to this orator con- 
 cerning German science. The science of the day (and 
 we have no other despite Stahl's books and speeches) is 
 godless, and we shall hardly, I think, be able to raise 
 ourselves to such a height of self-suflSciency or self- 
 annihilation as to say with him that "it is a blessing 
 to a Christian statesman to be cursed by public 
 opinion."* 
 
 I must here at once plainly confess that I have hith- 
 erto been under the delusion that our nation desired 
 
 * This expression was used by Stahl, in his famous speech on 
 the. Oriental Qufestion, in 1855, to the effect that Russia was the 
 defender of right and of Christianity, and that England had no 
 right to' fight in behalf of an Infidel [Mohammedan] G-ovemment. 
 — «-. 
 
248 SIGNS. OF THE TIMES. 
 
 freedom of conscience for conscience' sake, and m tie 
 name of reascHi and Christianity. This I have always 
 supposed to be -what is meant by the simple tradesman 
 and peasant, as by the truly pious and mse amoog our 
 scholars, Catholics as well as Protestants. But it ap- 
 pears that this is an error. "^Sdemce is godless — ^the 
 desire for toleration is born of unbelief." He who does 
 not share the view of our authcH- on this pcant must be 
 content to forfeit the name of Christian. Upon the 
 practical consequences of sudi an anathema, in Prussia 
 at least, the ecclesiastical Privy Counselor does, indeed, 
 afterward to some extent set our fears at rest, as we 
 shall soon hear. Still the anathema of a philosopher 
 and professor who is also a member of the Supreme Ec- 
 clesiastical Council, is no trifle. But what is to be 
 done ? I take cousrage and pass on to consider the terms 
 in which he tells us what bethinks of that which all the 
 civilized world calls toleration. This is the passa^ with 
 which the whole oraticai commences : 
 
 " In that epoch of mental culttrre ■whieb arrogates to itself the 
 title of the era of erilightemneiit and philosophy, and whose dom- 
 inant ideas continue to exert a considerable influence, even at the 
 present day, the cardinal virtue — that which takes fee lead of all 
 other virtaes — is ebligious toleeation. Every man shaH live 
 after his own creed, be he CShristian, Jew, MohammedaQ, Kiilos- 
 opher, but he shall accord the same respect to the faith of his 
 neighbor. So, likewise, the State shall recognize alt religions as 
 having equal rights. Nay, even from that enlightened Church 
 which they do us the honor to call the R-otestant, this proof of 
 tolerance is demanded, that she shall concede to every, opinion, 
 believing or unbelieving alike, an equal right to occupy the pul- 
 pit or cathedra. It matters not, either before God or man, what 
 a man's religious creed be, but only whether 'his conduct be 
 upright. According to this, the worst crime with which a man 
 can be charged is exclusiveness — ^that is to say, a reMgioias con- 
 viction claiming to be the sole true and authorized creed." 
 
STAHL'S ORATION. 249 
 
 And hereupon appeal is made to the God of the Old 
 and New Testaments, that henceforth no one Hke Bayle, 
 and others beside him, may seek for toleration in the 
 Bible. "Did not God," says Stahl. "command his 
 chosen people under the old dispensation to root out 
 every other religion from the land? Did not the great- 
 est of his prophets cause the priests of Baal to be slain ? 
 Nay, finally, does not Christ declare that all who be- 
 lieve not shall be damned, and his apostle pronounce an 
 anathema on him who shall teach any other gospel?" 
 
 Thus, whoever shall plead the cause of that tolera- 
 tion which Stahl has described, is no Christian, nay,, a 
 positive denier of God, the veriest atheist. Neverthe- 
 less, it will scarcely be justifiable by the laws of God to 
 stone us, on account of certain profound theological argu- 
 ments which he adduces against so natural an inference ; 
 but this much our orator knows full well, that unbelief 
 in Divine revelation is our deepest incentive if we agree 
 with Lessing or Bayle ; and even this is very frightful. 
 Certainly toleration, as he understands it, is a strange 
 sort of thing. It asks that a man " shall accord to the 
 creed of another the same respect which he demands for 
 his own ;" at the same time, also, " that the State shall 
 recognize all religions- as having equal rights." Nay, it 
 makes this extraordinary demand upon the Protestant 
 Church — "that it shall accord to every opinion, believ- 
 ing or unbelieving alike, the same right to occupy pulpit 
 or cathedra." Really, had the orator's audience been 
 less calculated to command respect, one would be in- 
 clined to believe that he intended in this exordium to 
 make fools of his hearers. What in the name of truth 
 and reason has the modest wish to live as honest men 
 and citizens of a civilized nation in accordance with our 
 own faith, so kng as we violate no civil law, to do with 
 11* 
 
250 SI&NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the opinion, which I here encounter for the first time, 
 that a man who does not believe in Christ or God ought 
 to have the same right to preach before our congrega- 
 tions as any believing clergyman ! Who has ever de- 
 manded this of the Protestant Church in the name of 
 toleration ? No one. I confess that in this passage I 
 can hardly recognize our acute and philosophical author. 
 He surely can scarcely intend to place the belief in the 
 Gospel and in the doctrine of salvation through Christ, 
 on a level with the systems of the Lutheran theologians, 
 according to which the Calvinists are treated as worship- 
 ers of Isis or Moloch ? For we are surely not the only 
 members of the United Church of Prussia who thank 
 God that we are at liberty not to regard this as a pact 
 of Christianity. But who knows ? We must see. 
 
 We are quite willing on our part to confess to him 
 that even though toleration had no ancestors but the 
 French philosophers and the Constituent Assembly — or, 
 at best, a few men such as Washington and Franklin, 
 and certain ideologists and poets whose writings consti- 
 tute pretty nearly all that Europe calls German phi- 
 losophy and literatiire^-we should not be ashamed of this 
 pedigree, be the consequences what they might. But 
 we know, besides, that Christ died to set men free, and 
 not to bring them into bondage. We know that his dis- 
 ciples and their missionaries did not convert the intoler- 
 ant ancient world by means of persecution, but under 
 persecution, and in the faith that the reign of brute 
 force and despotic coercion was destined to be transform- 
 ed into the reign of God's liberty, as is prophesied in the 
 Revelations. We know, further, that the inspired men, 
 who in the sixteenth century undertook to restore Chris- 
 tianity to its pristine form, demanded this toleration Tor 
 themselves on the ground of the Word of God — ^neces- 
 
FATHERS OF TOLERATIOIT. 251 
 
 sarily, therefore, for all, else they themselves would have 
 been no true evangelical Christians, which signifies such 
 as accept the Wordof Grod as their highest standard,, and 
 a believing temper of the heart as the only saving faith, 
 and regard the Church as a legally-ordered community 
 who have vowed to live unto God as brethren in Christ, 
 and are subject to all the powers that be (even to a 
 Nero) in civil matters, but subject to God alone in those 
 appertaining to conscience. 
 
 And if the Reformers have sometimes forgotten to 
 practice this toleration, we ought, I think, to see in this, 
 partly the natural effect of a thousand years' slavery — 
 partly the working of that despotic egotism, which those 
 in power, be they princes, priests, or people, so rarely 
 escape, and against which, by the testimony of history, 
 nothing can protect- nations except a free constitution, 
 and a popular education based on Christian principles. 
 In short, we are not ashamed of the predecessors as- 
 signed to us. But we can not but wonder at the asser- 
 tion &om such a man, and in such an oration, that, as a 
 matter of fact, the progenitors of the principles of toler- 
 ation were the French philosophers and the Revolution. 
 It is notorious that this toleration had been demanded 
 and preached long before in the name of Christ by faith- 
 ful men, and implanted in vast Christian communities. 
 How could this learned man forget that the whole his- 
 tory of religion has revolved round this center ever since 
 the Reformation? Forget that the Netherlands freed 
 themselves from the tyranny of Spain, not on the ground 
 assigned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 
 1789, but on the ground of Gospel faith and the princi- 
 ples of the earliest ecclesiastical reformers concerning 
 the nature of faith and the spirit, concerning the divine 
 dignity of man and the- saoredness pf the image of God ? 
 
252 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 They demanded the same toleration in order to worship 
 God according to the Gospel, which the French philos- 
 ophers demanded in the name of Reason. Are these two 
 things so incompatible that the one must command rev- 
 erence, the other inspire abhorrence ? To me it appears 
 quite otherwise. The modern mode of expressing this 
 principle seems to me perfectly in harmony with the 
 course of nature. When the longing after that freedom 
 of conscience, once alternately struggled for and re- 
 pressed by sanguinary contests, had entered into the 
 very flesh and blood, no longer of mere isolated thinkers, 
 but of great and noble Christian nations, why should 
 not conscience and reason demand toleration for them- 
 selves in the name of Humanity ? 
 
 But the doctrine of religious toleration was preached 
 first, and with the greatest success, by the men, in many 
 instances the martyrs, of the Evangelical Confession. 
 The series begins toward the end of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, with Robert Browne, the spiritual-minded and 
 courageous advocate of the independence of single 
 churches, and the right of all Christians to the free 
 exercise of their own mode of worship. Why has the 
 orator passed over this venerable father of Independ- 
 ency and toleration? Certainly Stahl has no love for 
 the Independents. In the course of his oration, he 
 tries to demonstrate that their principle " carried out to 
 its ultimate results" would exclude the idea of the Chris- 
 tian community, and leave room only for the isolated 
 soul. This is much as if he were to assume that if the 
 principle of the centrifugal force be " carried out to its 
 ultimate results," the earth must necessarily fly out into 
 space. The true centripetal power, which is the free 
 conscientious faith in the God of the Gospel, seems to 
 have been as little wanting among these congregational- 
 
BBOWNE AND FOX. 253 
 
 ists as in any Christian community whatever. This 
 body has maintained itself for the last three hundred 
 years under heavy oppression from State and priesthood, 
 and through severe persecutions — ^nay, has even founded 
 States ; and at the present day abeady numbers more 
 congregations than all the Lutherans on the face of the 
 earth. Reasons sufi5cient why we should not despise it. 
 But, assuredly, it still remains its greatest glory that its 
 members were the first to preach the principle of free- 
 dom of conscience (I beg their pardon, of toleration), 
 and have violated it far less than the Lutherans or than 
 their own persecutors, the bigoted Presbyterians. But 
 even among the ranks of the latter we can point to en- 
 lightened defenders of religious liberty in those ages, 
 and at their head to one of the greatest Christian poets 
 and philosophers — ^Milton. 
 
 This toleration was certainly preached in a still purer 
 form by it^ apostles and martyrs, the fathers of the So- 
 ciety of Friends — George Fox, who began to preach 
 publiclyon this subject in 1650, and his two disciples, 
 Robert Barclay, the author of the Apology for his sect, 
 and William Penn, the father and apostle of Peimsyl- 
 vania. <■ I am quite aware that the name Quaker will 
 sound still worse in the ears of our Supreme Ecclesias- 
 tical Couilselor than that of the Independents, or even 
 the Baptists, who stir up his righteous indignation. 
 But as I am not writing for him, nor yet for the theo- 
 logians and politicians of whom he is the spokesman and 
 pride, this circumstance will not prevent me from de- 
 claring the historical fact, that the toleration preached 
 by the French philosophers sprang up two centuries be- 
 fore their day from the same Christian soil which pro- 
 duced the civil and constitutional liberty of the nations 
 of modern Europe. In this modern Europe, however, 
 
254 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 we are living, and moreover, in the year of grace one 
 thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, and not in the 
 seventeenth century, still less under mediaeval papacy. 
 Here are the words of Robert Barclay in his Apology : 
 
 " Since Grod liath assumed to himself the power and dominion 
 of the Conscience, who alone can rightly instruct and govern it, 
 therefore it is not lawful for any whosoever, by virtue of any 
 authority or principaUty they bear in the government of this 
 world, to force the consciences of others ; and, therefore, all kill- 
 ing, banishing, fining, imprisoning, and other such things which 
 are inflicted upon men for the alone exercise of their conscience, 
 or difference in worship or opinion, proceedeth from the spirit of 
 Cain, the murderer, and is contrary to the truth ; providing al- 
 ways, that no man, under the pretense of conscience, prejudice 
 his neighbor in his life or estate, or do any thing destructive to, 
 or inconsistent with human society ; in which case the law is for 
 the transgressor, axiA justice is to be administered upon all, with- 
 out respect of persons." 
 
 Starting fi:om this forcible proposition, Baf fclay shows 
 that the toleration which the Friends desired is in ac- 
 cordance with Christianity, and the unchristian nature 
 of the proceedings of the magistrates who caused them 
 to be hanged and whipped, by dozens, as malefactors. 
 In particular, he shows how that when Christ told his 
 disciples that he sent them forth to be as lambs among 
 wolves, it could not be considered as the distinctive 
 privilege of Christian magistrates over heathen ones, 
 that they should devour the lambs. Therefore, he con- 
 tinues, Christ reproved the two sons of Zebedee who 
 would have called down fire from heaven to burn those 
 that refused to receive Christ ; therefore he delivered the 
 parable of the tares, whose uprooting the Lord reserved 
 to himself Now the tares must be either hypocrites or 
 heretics; but' one thing will be pronounced heresy by 
 one Government, another by another ; from which it ap- 
 
ROBERT BARCLAY. 255 
 
 pears that heresy can not be included among those evil 
 things which St. Paul meant, when he said that the 
 ruler is the minister of God, a revenger to execute 
 wrath upon him that doeth evil. Nay, Barclay even 
 seems so bold as to believe that this refers to what we 
 should call police or executive justice. 
 
 He concludes this remarkable section of his Apology 
 by showing that all which he has proved by the clear 
 letter of Scripture, follows with equal certainty from 
 human reason ; for that no corporeal suffering which one 
 man can inflict upon another, can avail to change his 
 convictions, especially with regard to spiritual things ; 
 but that this can be effected alone by sufficient argument, 
 united with the power of God to touch the heart. And 
 according to these principles, he says the Quakers have 
 acted: 
 
 " For so soon as God revealed his truth among them, without 
 regard for any opposition whatever, or what they might meet 
 with, they went up and down, as they were moved of the Lord, 
 preaching and propagating the truth in market-places, highways, 
 streets, and public temples, though daily beaten, whipped, bruised, 
 haled, and iniprisoned therefor. And when there was anywhere 
 a church or assembly gathered, they taught them to keep their 
 meetings openly, and not to shut the door, nor do it by stealth, 
 that all might know it, and those that would might enter ; and as 
 hereby all just occasion of fear of plotting against the Government 
 was fully removed, so this their courage and faithfulness in not 
 giving over their meeting together (but more especially the pres- 
 ence and glory of God manifested in the meeting being terrible 
 to the consciences of the persecutors), did so weary out the mal- 
 ice of their adversaries, that oftentimes they were forced to leave 
 their work undone. For when they came to break up a nieeting, 
 they were obliged to take every individual out by force, they not 
 being free to give up their liberty by dissolving at their com- 
 mand ; and when they were haled out, unless they were kept 
 forth by violence, they presently returned peaceably to their 
 place. Tea, when sometimes the magistrates have pulled down 
 
256 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 their meeting-houses, they have met the next day openly upon 
 the rubbish, and so, by innocency, kept their possession and 
 ground, being properly their own, and their right to meet and 
 worship God being not forfeited to any. So that when armed 
 men have come to dissolve them, it was impossible for them to do 
 it, unless they had killed every one ; for they stood so close to- 
 gether, that no force could move any one to stir, until violently 
 puUed thence : so that when the malice of their oppressors stirred 
 them to take shovels, and throw the rubbish upon them, there 
 they stood unmoved, being willing, if the Lord should so permit, 
 to have been there buried aUve, witnessing for Him. As this pa^ 
 tient, but yet courageous way of suffering made the persecutors' 
 work very heavy and wearisome unto them, so the courage and 
 patience of the sufferers, using no resistance, nor bringing any 
 weapons to defend themselves, nor sefiking any ways revenge 
 upon such occasions, did secretly smite the hearts of the perse- 
 cutors, and made their chariot-wheels go on heavily." 
 
 Thus spoke Robert Barclay in the year 1675 — there- 
 fore, after the restoration of the Stuarts, and during the 
 illegal persecution which commenced with that event, 
 and lasted up to the year 1688. And, certainly, thus ■ 
 did not speak the orthodox Lutheran priests of Germany 
 in the seventeenth, nay, even in the sixteenth century, 
 who murdered their own Protestant brethren, kept them 
 for years in prison, nay, caused them to be executed as 
 criminals, and saw in the victims of St. Bartholomew, 
 not martyrs, but only rebels duly chastised. It is just 
 this odium theologicum to be freed from which made 
 Melancthon rejoice that his end was come, and which 
 such men as Spener, and the best and noblest men of 
 learning in the early part of the eighteenth century, 
 from Leibnitz to Thomasius, struggled against with all 
 their might. They were as anxious to deliver the Ger- 
 man intellect, well-nigh extinguished by the meanness 
 of the relations which environed it, from this curse, as 
 £rom the crime and madness of the trials for witchcraft. 
 
MERLE D'AUBIGNfe 257 
 
 To have done all in their power to free the minds of their 
 people from these evils, is the undying glory of Frederic 
 the Great and Joseph the Second, with their counselors. 
 
 As soon as the national Churches of Protestant. Ger- 
 many had recovered from the tyranny of a theologian 
 rule, those men of the Spirit started up who preached 
 freedom of conscience in the name of Christianity as well 
 as in that of reason. The same cause has been espoused 
 in England by Coleridge, who, in his remarks upon En- 
 glish theologians, speaking of Baxter, the apostolical 
 confes'sor and sufferer, utters the grand maxim — " The 
 conscience is from God, and so is its freedom;" and in 
 the present day, the representatives of two different 
 schools, Maurice and Archbishop Whateley, have both 
 presented, each after his own fashion, the same uncondi- 
 tional demand for liberty of conscience in their respective 
 essays " On the Kingdom of Christ." 
 
 Meanwhile in French Switzerland, one of the most 
 profound, noble-minded, and devout of Christians — 
 Vinet — has lived, struggled, and suffered in the same 
 cause ; and in spite of persecution, a rich harvest of 
 blessing has been reaped from the very principles which 
 brought him into prison in 1824. He has a worthy 
 successor in the celebrated author of the History of the 
 Reformation, Merle d'Aubigne. It is a source of pain 
 to me, and no doubt also to you, my dear friend, that in 
 his recent statement as to the effects produced by entire 
 religious liberty, proving it to be the only security against 
 persecution, D'Aubignd should have had occasion to de- 
 fend himself against the derogatory expressions of some 
 of our common friends and countrymen* whom we both 
 
 * See the correspondence between Merle d'Aubigne, Beth- 
 mann-HoUweg, and Count Pourtales, in the "Evangelical Chris- 
 tendom," vol. viii., p. 236, vol. ix., pp. 49 and 233-251.— ?V. 
 
258 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 respect. Of course, in the difierence of opinion that has 
 unfortunately arisen between them, I can not but range 
 myself entirely on the side of Merle d' Aubign^, but at 
 the same time do not hesitate to express my confidence 
 ithat those really enlightened and liberal men, who are 
 also actuated by the best mtentions, will, as events de- 
 velop themselves, come to range themselves, not among 
 our opponents, but on our side and that of all the friends 
 of the most strongly guarantied religious, and I must 
 add, constitutional freedom, and wiU, no doubt, be found 
 in the foremost ranks of that party. But with regard 
 to our Supreme Ecclesiastical Counselor, I dare not 
 cherish the hope that he will attach the slightest weight 
 to the names to which I have alluded ; for it is not to 
 be denied that among them all there is not one single 
 Lutheran theologian ! It is not my fault. The cir- 
 cumstance has struck me also very forcibly. The suc- 
 cessors of Luther, the confessionalists and fanatics of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have not been able 
 to maintain their ground on the field of learning ; yet to 
 our orator, these very men are the guardians of the 
 sacred mysteries. But if, even those pious and devout 
 men find no favor in the eyes of the zealous Ecclesias- 
 tical Counselor, because they were no Lutherans, but 
 only Reformed, perhaps we might still appeal to the 
 concurrent fundamental doctrines of our Reformers 
 and to -the blood-sealed testimony of our martyrs — 
 I mean we might refer him to the Apostles and to 
 Christ himself. But no, we can not do any thing of 
 the kind, at least if Dr. Stahl be right in his 
 second proposition — " Christianity is the religion of 
 intolerance, and its kernel is exclusiveness." Yes, this 
 is what is really said by our orator. Let us hear his 
 own words ; 
 
THE RELIGION OP INTOLERANCE. 259 
 
 " Yes, Christianity, as compared with the tolerance of the 
 Konaan religion, compared with the tolerance of the Greek phi- 
 losophy, nay, even compared with Judaism, which left the 
 heathen to their errors, entered on the stage of history as the 
 religion of intolerance. Its kernel is exclusiveness — ^its mode of 
 operation is aggression against all other religions, a propaganda 
 among all nations. And how could it be otherwise ? Certain 
 of its own divine truth, how could it be tolerant toward the error 
 which robs Grod of his glory, and man of his salvation ?" 
 
 But perhaps this is merely an innocent assertion, 
 couched in pointed language. Perhaps it is only a strong 
 and novel mode of characterizing the contrast of Christian- 
 ity to Paganism and Judaism ? It is true that we find it 
 said in the following page, that the Christian mode of 
 thought surpasses every other in that which is the basis 
 of all tolerance — love, humility, and reverence for the 
 image of God ia man. 
 
 "We are next led to ask," says our orator, "does 
 Christianity extend a tolerance to unbelief and false 
 doctrine which it does not extend to sin and vice ? Can 
 it, for instance, be tolerant towElrd rationalism and pan- 
 theism in any other fashion ?" Yes, replies the Profes- 
 sor of Canon Law (p. 6), " Christianity does not know 
 two sorts of sin — sins against faith and sins against 
 virtue ; but it does know two sorts of imputation^ — im- 
 putation according to nature and imputation according 
 to grace." What a pity that I have promised not to 
 bring theology into these letters ; for here there is evi- 
 dently something very profound intended- The passage 
 concludes : " Man is not the judge whether a sin against 
 faith has its source in a positive perversion of the will." 
 
 Shall I confess my weakness to you, my respected 
 friend? This scholastic distinction makes me shudder — 
 it reminds me so closely of the language used in the 
 books put forth for our conversion, by that Church which 
 
260 , SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 burnt our fathers with these words in her mouth, and 
 even now shuts up our brothers in prison ; that hierarchy 
 which rises up in indignation, and threatens excommuni- 
 cation from the fold of Christ, and the dissolution of 
 civil order, if a Catholic Government think that they 
 may be good Catholics without practicing or permitting 
 such persecutions. What may not be hidden under 
 such scholastic phrases ? And I am confirmed in this 
 fear by what follows soon after : 
 
 " Christian tolerance has God's truth for its boundary line ; it 
 swerves not from its fidelity and zeal toward that. No tolerance 
 could restrain the prophets of the Old Testament, the messengers 
 of the new covenant, from condemning the rites which were 
 then held sacred by the nations, as idolatrous. No tolerance 
 ought to restrain us fi?om characterizing the philosophy and 
 science which are now the cultus of the nations, and whose in- 
 most root is the denial of God's revelation, and the subversion of 
 his ordinances, as that which they are. No tolerance ought to 
 persuade the Chiu-ch to allow het pure doctrine to be adulterated 
 from the pulpit or the altar, or move the State to surrender its 
 Christian institutions." 
 
 Here already we have the State brought into play, 
 namely, the Christian State, or that which persecutes in 
 the name of Christ and to the glory of God, which a 
 certain party calls Christian on that very account. This 
 is exactly what it was called in the days of the Inquisi- 
 tion, and is so still in the countries where that is in force. 
 The Church does not thirst for blood — she simply hands 
 over the sinner as a criminal to the State, that the latter 
 as a Christian State may execute her " unbloody" sen- 
 tences with fire and sword, by virtue of its " Christian 
 institutions." But how could Stahl, as a member of the 
 Supreme Council of a Protestant Church, employ even 
 the most distant reservation of this kind ? I can not 
 answer you upon this point. It is strange, and the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN STATE. 261 
 
 clause which foUoivs seems to me still more questionahle ; 
 " enough that every man, in so^ar as he is personally 
 concerned, can live after his own creed, without detri- 
 ment to his human rights and human honor." Is it 
 really to come to this at last, you ask, that all toleration 
 is to be reduced to the proposition that the individual, 
 so far as he himself is concerned, may think, and (so far 
 as the supervision of the police over press and publishers 
 will permit) even write ; only he may not attempt to 
 worship God after his own creed with his fellow-believers, 
 to which, however, every kind of religious conviction 
 impels us? Undoubtedly, my dear friend, this is his 
 meaning. If the " individual" cares nothing for books, 
 but if, in obedience to his conscience and the dictate of 
 the Bible, he does care to worship in common with his 
 fellow-believers, if only in the most private and secluded 
 maimer, then ? Yes, then he must (in a Christian 
 State, for in Turkey he need not) in the first place 
 apply for permission to the Government, and the Govern- 
 ment, if it be (like that in Tuscany) truly Christian, 
 will certainly take care not to give such a permission, if 
 they can possibly help it ! Stahl himself gives us some 
 instances of the application of his principle, and so we 
 read, among other statements, the following : 
 
 " Christian toleration will not silence those teachers who ' drive 
 out devils in the name' of Christ, that is to say, make war upon 
 unbelief and sin, even when they walk not 'with us,' as the dis- 
 caple saya — that ii, with the Church. Whether it be teachers in 
 the sects, or teachers in the Church, who, in the general darkness, 
 have preserved, or once more rekindled, a ray of Gospel Mght, in 
 the name of Christ they will work a blessing; for we have his 
 answer concerning them, 'Forbid them not, for he who is not 
 against us is for us.' But when such teachers turn aside from 
 their war against unbelief and sin to make war upon the Church 
 itself, and can not tolerate that the M sun of the Gospel should 
 
262 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 shine in the Church, whereas they have borrowed and reflected 
 only one of its rays, then we must apply to them the converse 
 saying of our Lord, ' He who is not with us is against us," and 
 'he who gathereth not with us, scattereth.' " (p. 9.) 
 
 We will not cavil at its being said, that to such as do 
 not walk with the Church — the Papal Church, or the 
 Lutheran Church in a Christian State — the expression 
 applies that they do not walk with the Apostles. The 
 unsuspecting man has surely never thought of such in- 
 ferences on the part of other Churches. But what if it 
 is precisely to the Apostles, i. e., to the Scripture, that 
 these men appeal, as did our fathers at the Reformation ? 
 Certaialy such is the case in our own day with those, 
 for instance, who believe and teach that the Apostles did 
 not baptize infants, but persons whom they had previ- 
 ously instructed in God's Word. Now we, on the 
 other hand, can with a good conscience have our chil- 
 dren baptized — nay, defend infant baptism, when con- 
 sidered in the light of a solemn thanksgiving-vow on the 
 part of the parents, and a sacred birthday gift to the 
 baptized infant — and yet not admit, as the Christian 
 character of the State is said to require, that the Baptists 
 can be thrown into prison and fined, without a violation 
 of our Constitution. But probably we do not happen to 
 be true believers. In Prussia, such proceedings on the 
 part of the magistracy, stirred up by the consistories and 
 preachers, have been solemnly forbidden by a royal 
 decree, and therefore, we hope, prevented for the future; 
 but we know that other German governments are carry- 
 ing out such principles to tKeir logical consequences. 
 
 If, then, these unnamed persons, be they Baptists, or 
 members of the New German Churches who wish to 
 found their communities on the Scriptures and the Apos- 
 tlra' Creed, or those poor souls who read the Bible in 
 
TOLERA.TION IN PStJSSIA. £63 
 
 their own houses, and are content with that — " if they" 
 (says the Ecclesiastical Counselor) "will not tolerate 
 that the full sum of the Gospel should shine in the 
 Church, because they have borrowed and reflected only 
 (me of his rays, then we must apply to them the con- 
 verse saying of our Lord, ' He who is not with us is 
 against us.'" Will not tolerate — ^they who only ask 
 for toleration ! It is the old fable of the wolf and the 
 lamb over again. And then it appears we must pro- 
 ceed with the Christ and the Apostles of our orator, to 
 cry " Anathema !" 
 
 Now what are the duties of a Christian State in such 
 cases, appears to us to be set forth in the most plain 
 and thoroughly Christian manner by Article XII. of 
 our Constitution ; at any rate, I thought I might ex- 
 pect to find nothing contradicting this in the oration of 
 a member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, and 
 the Crown-Syndic of the Tipper House. For else how 
 could he, with his scrupulous theological conscience, re- 
 tain his office and dignities ? But let us fir^t listen to 
 the text of that Article, which every Prussian ought to 
 know by heart — at all events, every one who has taken 
 an oath to observe it — and then to the orator who seems 
 to have forgotten it. 
 
 The Charter of the Constitution of the 31st January, 
 1850, Article XII., reads as follows : 
 
 " Liberty of religious confession, and of union in religious so- 
 cieties, or of social worship, domestic and public, is guarantied. 
 The enjoyment of civil and political rights is independent of re- 
 ligious creed. Ko damage shall accrue to the civil and political 
 rights of any individual from the exercise of religious liberty." 
 
 Now let us listen to our orator. After showing how, 
 " in fidelity toward diVine truth, the iiidividual ought to 
 
264 SIGNS- OF THE TIMES. 
 
 watch over the religious condition of his neighbor," he 
 continues : 
 
 " The same demand which Christian tolerance thus makes upon 
 the individual Christian, it extends also to -the State — ^that is, 
 with regatd to the conduct of Christian Grovernors. To them also 
 is issued the command, to be, above all, faithful tp Christian truth, 
 to maintain its authority in the public arrangements of society, 
 in the laws relating to marriage, to national education, to man- 
 ners, to personal purity, to the defense and support of the Church, 
 to the appointment of truly Christian men to offices of authority. 
 But no less is the State commanded to exercise tolerance to- 
 ward the religious condition of the individual ; hence the guar- 
 anties given for personal religious liberty, and the enjoyment of 
 civil (private) rights by every religious confession. * * * But 
 certainly the Iberty of religious association is something quite 
 distinct from personal religious liberty. This at once overstejfs 
 the bounds of inward personal development, and enters on the 
 territory of public sogial arrangements. This, however, is the 
 task and the responsibiUty that devolve upon the Gk)vemment; 
 here it has to take into account, at once, public offense and public 
 seduction ; hence, in each given case, it has to hit upon the fitting 
 adjustment, according to the character of the religion- in question, 
 and according to the circumstances of the country; and an un- 
 conditional and unlimited liberty of religious association is by no 
 means demanded by Christian toleration. But however the 
 rulers may have the right of circumscribing or j)rohibiting re- 
 ligious association, they have no right to make that, any more 
 than personal apostacy (and for the same reasons), the Glgect of 
 criminal punishment, nor yet treat it as a crime against the true 
 faith." 
 
 We gathered as much from those ominous words 
 which Stahl pronounced as President of the Kirchen- 
 tag^ held at Berlin, in the sitting of 21st September, 
 
 * The Kircheniag, or Church Diet, is a voluntary assembly of 
 Protestants from all parts of Germahy, which meets at different 
 places every year. The first session was held in 1848. Its ob- 
 ject is to bring about, as far as may be, a united action of the 
 Protestant Churches, and if does not consist of delegates from 
 
STAHL'S CHRISTIAN tOLEBANCE. 265 
 
 1853, concerning the means of coercion at the disposal 
 of the Christian State, which formed a strong contrast 
 to the tolerant spirit displayed by all the other speakers. 
 I hope you will read the extract from the proceedings 
 which I have given in my Appendix to this letter.* 
 Here, however, our orator expresses himself without re- 
 serve. 
 
 The above extract is followed by a vindication, con- 
 ceived in a somewhat Judaico-scholastic spirit, of his 
 truly Christian tolerance, from the reproach that it con- 
 travenes the Jewish law. I hear you say, my honored 
 friend, can not we be content to admit this ? No, we 
 really can not. "It is true," says Stahl, in substance, 
 " tha,t idolaters were stoned according to the law (Num- 
 bers xvii. 5) ; but the policy of the Old Covenant was 
 not a prototype of the Christian State, but of the future 
 Kingdom of God." But, as we can not suppose that 
 there will be any stoning in the kingdom of God, this 
 typical character is not particularly clear. Hence the 
 orator adds, by way of explanation : " For in the Chris- 
 tian State, the reign of Grace is not clearly manifest, as 
 the reign of the Law was in the Jewish State." The 
 uninitiated might be inclined to exclaim here — "What 
 a happiness for us, since we have to live in the Christian 
 State of realities, that the reign of Grace has not yet 
 become clearly manifest. For who knows then which of 
 us might not have to expect some sort of aggravated 
 stoning, if there is really any thing in this analogy?" 
 
 congregations or churchea, but of voluntary members, clergymen 
 and laymen, without any official character whatever. The only 
 weight, therefore, attaching to the resolutions passed in it, is that 
 they represent, to some extent, the pubhc opinion of the Q-ermau 
 Protestant Churches. — Tr. 
 * See Apendix to Letter ix. 
 12 
 
266 SIGNS -OF THE TIMES. 
 
 But we will first try if we can come to underatand our 
 author better, as he is so renowned a dialectician. If 
 the Jewish law, commanding the stoning of idolaters^ 
 has its counterpart in the future Kingdom of God^ we 
 must ask, in the first place, whether we are to under- 
 stand by this term, the thousand yeara' reign in which 
 men are to be living on this earth, or a kingdom in the 
 next world where, according to the words of our Lord, 
 " they neither marry nor are given in marriage." NoWj 
 as I am quite unable to connect any intelligible idea 
 with the assertion, that the civil legislation of the Jews 
 was a type of such a divine life in the Spirit, and our in- 
 structor gives us no help ia the matter, I must, since we 
 have to employ human logic, assume the first. Of 
 course, if the orator was referring 'to the second, he is 
 at liberty to tell ua so ; in which case he had better have 
 done it at first. 
 
 Now, in the millennium, what can we conceive of as 
 the antitype of the stoning of idolaters? To escape 
 needless difficulties, we are ready to assume that in the 
 millennium God should not reign in person ; for, if this 
 were the case, what would be signified by the punish- 
 ment of idolaters? Merely that the unhappy men 
 should be crushed by the rock of God's Word, i. e., con- 
 verted through the spiritual agencies of conviction and 
 the all-conquering, because divine, energy of love ? If 
 so, we quite agree with the Professor of Canon and 
 Civil Law that this were a method worthy of the Kiag- 
 dom of God. In common with many millions of Chris- 
 tians of our own day, and with the most venerable, wise, 
 and pious Christians of former ages, we wish, and beg, 
 and pray, that this method may, without further delay, 
 be employed in the cause of religion by the Christian 
 State, in the stead of all police -penalties and coercive 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CHRISTIAN GOVERNORS. 267 
 
 measures. If we did not believe already, according to 
 Christ's words, that the Kingdom of God had begun 
 with the announcement of salvation and the founding of 
 Christian communities, we should find a new proof of it 
 in such a fulfillment of the orator's type. We can hardly 
 help asking how is it that he can not see the forest for 
 the trees? However, his words may have a deeper 
 sense. Perhaps the stoning is an emblem of the Bang- 
 dom of God, ia that all idolatry is really annihilated in 
 the latter, while in the Jewish State, on the contrary, 
 even so far as the law came into operation, nothing but 
 the act expressing the ungodly temper of mind? But 
 then, what becomes of the pretty play of the contrast ? 
 The stoning of the idolaters, according to the law of 
 Moses, does not justify the Christian State in attaching 
 a still severer penalty to apostasy from the faith, but is 
 a type of the blessed condition of things in the Kingdom 
 of God, where there are no idolaters at all. This says 
 either nothing, or expresses in pompous language a truth 
 neither new nor contested. 
 
 Meanwhile, I return to our oration : it continues 
 thus : 
 
 " Moreover, the tolerance to be exercised by a Christian Grov- 
 emment, equally with that which is incumbent on individual 
 Christians, does not rest on the recognition of man's right to an 
 arbitrary choice of his religious beUef, but on the duty of forbear- 
 ance and tenderness toward his particular religious condition, 
 therefore toward his religious conscience even if in error. There- 
 fore where there is not, and can not be, any religious conscience, 
 there the State is under no obligation, merely for the sake of 
 freedom, to accord any Ucense on the field of religion. It is no 
 part of Christian tolerance to permit a decidedly Atheistic or 
 materiaUstic profession of faith — still less that children should be 
 educated in the same ; for no one has a religious conscience im- 
 pelling him to bear witness for Atheism, and consecrate his child- 
 ren to it; toward a non-existent God no obligation of conscience 
 
268- SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 can be supposed. It is, at least, no unconditional duty of Chris- 
 tian tolerance to give a general permission to Deistical religious 
 associations, i. e., to such as deny a"^ositive revelation. Toward 
 the Grod whose existence we merely infer from reason but from 
 whom we confess we have received no communication nor com- 
 mand with regard to the matter of his adoration, we can have no 
 dictate of conscience impeUing us to a common worship of Him 
 in pubUc. Sui even with regard to the va/rious confessions cmd 
 Christian, sects of positive believers, the granting of formal legal 
 guaranties for the exercise of their religion, still more their reception 
 as authorized forms ofpubUc worship, oversteps the limits of Chris- 
 tian toleration. Such higher privileges rest upon a special recogni- 
 tion of the intrinsic worth of these faiths according to the Christian 
 standard, or of their historical justification, or, lastly, of their prov- 
 idential significance." 
 
 A Daniel ! A Daniel ! will many fellow-believers of 
 the eloquent man be ready to exclaim, and probably 
 those of Rome and the members of a certain Society 
 among the first. But I confess, my respected friend, 
 that I can not even cry, A Gramaliel ! For this wise 
 Rabbi observed to his brethren in office, the members 
 of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council of Judea, that it 
 might be as well not to stone the men who preached the 
 new doctrine of the Gralilean, as they were just about to 
 do to the glory of God. "For," says he (Acts v. 38, 
 39), " if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come 
 to naught : but if it be of God, ye can not overthrow it ; 
 lest haply ye be found feven to fight against God." I 
 do not know whether Gamaliel regarded it as a correct 
 application of his exalted (because reasonable) principle 
 of toleration, that upon hearing his speech the assembled 
 Counselors caused the Apostles to be scourged. But in 
 so far as the proceeding may be conceived as lying within 
 the sphere of the correctional police. Dr. Stahl might 
 prove it as highly as his political adherents in the doc- 
 trine of the Christian State do their favorite punishment 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CHRISTIAN GOVERNORS. 269 
 
 of the cane. He insists only on the exclusion of "crifn- 
 itial proceedings." So did the Grand Duke of Tuscany 
 two years ago : he only caused the Madiais to be put in 
 confinement; and when Cecchetti was sentenced by a 
 civil tribunal, or more correctly by a police magistrate, 
 to a year in the house of correction, it was purely a 
 civil proceeding. 
 
 Let us then leave Daniel and Gamaliel, and try to 
 come to a clear notion as to the essence jDf Stahl's toler- 
 ation in a Christian (therefore the Prussian) State. His 
 words merit universal attention; they are spoken ex 
 cathedra (only a little top much in the consciousness of 
 that high position where one speaks and all the rest are 
 silent). What excites my alarm and astonishment is 
 that he seems to be either entirely unmindful of the 
 Constitution, or else to regard it as something unchris- 
 tian, which requires to be amended and decently draped 
 in accordance with the new Judaic-scholastic-pietistic- 
 Lutheran view of the moral government of God. Both 
 cases appear to me hardly reconcilable with wisdom and 
 honesty. If our jurisprudence is to be rendered Chris- 
 tian after the pattern of such theories, we have not only 
 no longer any ground of objection to urge against the 
 persecution of our co-religionists in Italy and Austria 
 which we complain of, but, to speak plainly, as far as 
 it rests with Stahl, neither should we have any legal 
 guaranty left for the continuance of any one of our 
 liberties, political, religious, or mental. 
 
 What should we say, my dear friend if one of these 
 days we ourselves should be arrested, not on a criminal, 
 but only on a police warrant, in case (which God forbid) 
 we should be induced by the anti-Gamalielic tolerance 
 of Old Lutheranism in some parts of our country where 
 it prevails, and by the wish to escape from Lutheran 
 
270 SIGNS 01" THE TIMES. 
 
 exclusiveness and maledictions, to meet together witli 
 some like-minded friends purely for the purpose of relig- 
 ious worship, according to a form more resembling, for 
 instance, that of the Reformed Church. We should, of 
 course, do so, observing all existing regulations, statutes, 
 and Christian institutions ; but God has blessed us with 
 children and grandchildren, and these would be taken 
 out of our hands without further ceremony ; for it is the 
 duty of Stahl's Christian State to see to it that they 
 are not led astray. Puchta's refutation of this despotic 
 theory has not convinced his great friend ; perhaps per- 
 secutions will. I do not know what guaranties we could 
 offer. If, indeed, we could get off with historical creeds, 
 I should be ready to sign the Augsburg Confession at 
 once, if I were allowed to do so with reservation of the 
 supreme authority of the Bible, and the doctrine of 
 justification by faith, which overrides all the dogmas of 
 State Churches. But some sort of a " quatenus" some 
 restrictive formula, which may blunt the edge of the 
 dogmatic absolutism of Byzantium and Rome, such as 
 that formerly in general use, " In so far as the symbolic 
 books agree with Holy Scripture," we must beg for. 
 All this, however, would avail us nothing where the 
 Lutheran Government was animated by ' a truly living 
 faith' — as in Mecklenburg and other countries which 
 present a truer exemplar of the re-establishment of the 
 Christian State and the priestly office, if not of the 
 Kingdom of God itself To concede our petition would 
 be, in the eyes of such watchmen of Zion, to abandon 
 divine truth to the " license, of the individual," or what 
 the Puseyites decry as "private judgment." This 
 might iadeed be admissible in the case of other confes- 
 sions, but of course not with "ours;" for "we know" 
 that we have the truth. Now if you and I should be 
 
LESSONS OF HISTOET. 271 
 
 overtaken by some human frailty, and seized with moral 
 indignation on hearing the invectives against factions 
 and sects customary in the Christian preaching of these 
 ■ days applied to ourselves— if, remembering that man is 
 Ood's image, we should appeal to our common human 
 rights (not " fundamental" rights, else we might all 
 together be declared guilty of high treason), we should 
 at once be placed in the category of Deists and Atheists. 
 The utmost mercy we could beg would be that, on the 
 strength of our Lutheran baptism, we might appeal to 
 litis oration, according to which no " criminal- prosecu- 
 tion" should be instituted against us. Even this restric- 
 tion seems to have cost the orator some self-denial. His 
 doctrine of the heavy responsibility resting upon Chris- 
 tian ijrovemments, if they do not maintain Christian 
 discipline, has stood in his path like a Medusa's head. 
 For, at the concluaon of his discourse, he bestows a 
 solemn absolution upon such Grovemments as may fear 
 for the safety of their souls if they extend the doctrine 
 of toleration so far; and assures them that, for such 
 lenity, they shall not be condemned at the last day. 
 Still, certainly, if these tender consciences should tliink 
 it after all safer to maintain the faith in all rigor, we 
 shall find ourselves in a dungeon, or, at best, only have 
 to hope for "the enviable privilege of banishment." 
 
 See, my dear friend, ail this we should have reason 
 to fear, — and who knows how soon, if we look at the 
 history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ! 
 And yet if we acted as I had supposed, what should we 
 have done more than the Christians of apostolical times 
 (to whom some of that party appeal so often and so in- 
 cautiously) did and said in the persecutions under Nero 
 and Decius, when they shed their blood to re-awaken 
 the reverence for man as man, i. $., as the image of 
 
272 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 God, in the name of the Son of Man ? Unhappily, the 
 love of persecution, or the conviction of its necessity, 
 is also clearly betrayed in the somewhat ambiguous 
 answer which the acute Professor returned to the 
 straightforward questions of the unsuspecting Baptists 
 concerning persecution, at the Berlin Kirchentag of 
 1853. He, indeed, protested against the supposition of 
 the Church's preaching persecution, but he said so 
 much at the same time of the care with which the State 
 ought to watch over the defense of the Church, and 
 again of the impossibility that the Church should de- 
 spise such a protection, that the English Baptists were 
 compelled to declare in their report that they had not 
 been able to draw any encouragement from his speech, 
 for they could see nothing in it but a covert justificatian 
 of some impending persecution. 
 
 If I look at realities as they lie before us, I know, 
 indeed, that such a persecution is impossible under our 
 present royal family, and was so even before we had a 
 Constitution. I have amply wished to show to what 
 lengths " the discourse would force us to ^" (to speak 
 .with Socrates in Plato) — whither that system logically 
 applied would conduct us. And I can not for^t that 
 Dr. Stahl is not only the greatest orator of the party, 
 but confessedly one of its moderate members. He is, 
 further, a man of learning and intellect, and no one has 
 ever reproached him with barbarism or that innate hatred 
 to mental culture which some evince. Nay, even in the 
 lectures which he delivered before the same Protestant 
 association in 1853, he has said so much that is truly 
 evangelical and Christian (though even then mingled 
 with questionable eulogies of the Catholic episcopacy 
 and apostolical succession), that we may, perhaps, hope 
 better things of him yet. 
 
APPREHENSIONS FOR THE PTJTURE. 273 
 
 To me, his system appears as fundamentally fallacious 
 as it is un-Protestant and un-Prussian, — un-scriptural, 
 and J must add, not only unphilosophical, but also, repug- 
 nant to sound common sense. What is the good of such 
 hair-splitting distinctions between " tolerance," and 
 "Christian tolerance;" between "liberty" and "guar- 
 anties of liberty ;" nay, between " pertonal freedom of 
 conscience" and " freedom of religious association" ? 
 That is no more than is ofiFered by the Spanish ministers 
 and the Portuguese Constitution. And this to us Prus- 
 sians ! And our apprehensions are eiihanced when we 
 proceed to elamine the doctrine of our orator with re- 
 gard to the Church and to free inquiry, and his view of 
 the Union, which is closely connected with these ques- 
 tions in his mind. These topics shall conclude our dis- 
 cussion, and form the subject of my next letter. Mean- 
 while, farewell! 
 
 12* 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO STAHL'S DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 
 AND THE UNION, IN ITS BEARING ON LAW, ON 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, AND ON FREE INQUIRY. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SIGNS 
 OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Chaelottenbeeg, 28tli August, 1855. 
 The 106th Anniversary of Goethe's birth. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 The day on -wliicli we commenced our corre- 
 spondence was fixed for us : we found the summons to a 
 solemn celebration of the festival of St. Boniface lying 
 before us, aiid we could not refuse to obey it. And thus 
 the course of our discussion has led us on further and 
 further, till we arrive at its conclusion on the birth-day 
 of Goethe, who saw the light one hundred and six years 
 ago this day. A martyr's day this too! For the 
 entrance into life is the entrance into sorrow, and most 
 surely so for all who come forward in the character of 
 " confessors," as those old heroes .of Christianity were so 
 beautifully called. And Goethe too was surely a con- 
 fessor, nay, more — a prophet and an apostle, equally of 
 Germany and of humanity. Yes, we will say so boldly, 
 in defiance of the malicious taunts, not to say calumnies, 
 of Hengstenberg's Kirchen-zeitung, and other " Chris- 
 tian" friends of the orator with, whom we have to do. 
 Still I secretly flatter myself that a man of genius -like 
 
GOETHE. 275 
 
 Stahl, and one so thoToughly imbued with the German 
 tone of thought and language, will not, in spite of his 
 associations and his scholasticism, remember this our 
 hero without reverence and affection ; but that if our 
 words should meet his eye, he will also rejoice on this 
 day, and at last join in the motto which I propose to bor- 
 row from Goethe's sayings for the heading of our present 
 discussion. The passage which I am about to offer to 
 your notice, teaches us that the eye of reason contem- 
 plates the history of revelation from Adam to Christ as 
 a mirror of the universe ; by which it is evident that 
 Goethe not only intends to express the divine reasonable- 
 ness of this revelation, but sets a Christian belief before 
 reason as her highest problem. 
 
 Toward the end of the year 1816, the composer Zelter 
 announced to Goethe that the idea had struck him of con- 
 secrating the approaching tricentenary of the Reforma- 
 tion with a solemn oratorio, and begged for his master's 
 opinion and counsel on the subject. Goethe praised him 
 for having conceived a purpose so noble and so appro- 
 priate to the occoasion, and sketched out for him a brief 
 plan for an oratorio, in the style of Handel's " Messiah," 
 — " Christ in the World's History." When we survey 
 this grand and truly inspired scheme, it is easily ex- 
 plained why it was never carried out by the man at 
 whose request it had been written, for it far transcended 
 his powers. But if death had not snatched away from 
 us so early the youthful genius whom we have both 
 known from his cradle, and whom I glory in having 
 loved from the first, and greeted with all the reverence 
 due to genius — if Felix Mendelssohn had not died just 
 when, presaging the approach of the storms about to 
 burst over our country, he was intending to withdraw 
 for some years into solitude at Rome, and there work out 
 
276 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 his "Christ" according to the idea in his mind — then 
 Goethe's idea -would have been realized in a manner 
 worthy not only of him, but of its great object. Still 
 Goethe's conception stands before us for all time as 
 a great Christian thought. He introduces it in these 
 terms : 
 
 " Since the leading idea of Lutiier's system rests upon a truly. 
 noble basis, it offers a fine occasion both for poetical a.nd musical 
 treatment. This baas consists in the definitive contrast between 
 Law and Chspel, and in the reconciliation of these extremes. 
 Now, if, in order to rise to a higher point of view, we substitute 
 for these two expressions the words Necessity and Freedom, with 
 their synonyms, with their divergent and approximating mean- 
 ings, you will see clearly that in this circle every thing is included 
 which can be interesting to man. 
 
 "And thus Luther perceives in the Old and New Testament 
 the symbols of the great perpetually self-repeating Soul of the 
 Universe. There we see the law which strives after love, here 
 the love" which strives back -again after law and fulfills it; not, 
 however, of its own might and power, but through faith in the 
 Messiah, whom all things foreshadow, and who works in alL 
 
 "These few words may be sufficient to convince us that 
 Lutheranism can never be recondled with Papacy, but does not 
 militate against pure reason, when the latter is willing to regard 
 the Bible as the mirror of the universe, which, indeed, she ought 
 to find no difficult task." 
 
 You will remark, my dear friend, that our immortal 
 poet has here, whether intentionally or not, so to speak, 
 given an authentic exposition of the well-known distich, 
 written at an earlier period of his life, in which it is said, 
 that formerly Lutheranism had hindered the tranquil 
 development of civilization.* That is to say, in the pas- 
 sage we have just quoted, he uses the term Lutheranism 
 
 * Die Vier Jahreszeiten, § 68. 
 " Franzthum drangt in diesen verworrenen Tagen, wie ehmals 
 Lutherthijni es gethan, ruhige Bildung zuriick." — Tr. 
 
THE CHUECH AND GERMAN PROTESTANTISM. 277 
 
 in reference to Luther personally, and to the great his- 
 torical idea which prompted his act ; in the angry dis- 
 tich, he means what, we now call Lutheranism — he 
 means that un-historical and un-philosophical, as equally 
 un-theological and un-evangelical network of inferential 
 dogmas in which Luther himself, to his own and Me- 
 lancthon's grief, became entangled, during the latter 
 half of his life, and which afterward the Lutheran 
 schoolmen elaborated and endeavored to impose on the 
 Church as a " Confession of Faith." In this sense, our 
 great seer has, as a great seer ought ,to do, uttered an 
 incontestable fact, and spoken prophetically of the future. 
 For just as those theologians desired to impose their 
 highly doubtful scholastic inferences on our fathers as 
 articles of faith and grounds of religious division, so do 
 their successors now-a-days press upon our acceptance 
 all the scholasticism of the theological confessions as 
 " revealed truth." Hence we will take this motto with 
 us by the way as our watehword — Honi soit qui mal y 
 pense ! 
 
 And now to our work, which is truly no easy task; 
 for we have first to examine the orator's scholastic doc- 
 trine of the Church, and then the Ecclesiastical Counsel- 
 or's views, so nearly connected therewith, of one of the 
 most difficult questions of the present day — ^the Union 
 and the National Church of Prussia. We can not ven- 
 ture, however, to descend with him into the plain of real 
 life, till we have attempted to ascend with him to the 
 chmax of his whole oration. 
 
 The orator is conscious that his doctrine of the Church 
 brings us to the culminating point of his eloquent dis- 
 course; for he propounds it in the most solemn and 
 elevated tone : " German Protestantism" (he says, p. 22) 
 " has a higher mission than that which the ' Evangelical 
 
278 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Alliance' of the English aspires to fulfill. Its vocation 
 is not to unite the sects, but to exhibit the unity of the 
 Church. And the seal of this Church is a public Con- 
 fession of Faith, whose delirery constituted an era in 
 the history of the ■world:" namely, that delivered at 
 Augsburg. Mark, it can only be the original unmodified 
 Confession of 1530, of which he is here speaking ; for 
 Melancthon's milder formula was never publicly deliv- 
 ered, but only solemnly recognized. Now, if we accept 
 this as our Creed, without making any distinction as to 
 the contents of the several artiples (which, as we shall 
 soon see, will not do for Dr. Stahl), we shall be obliged 
 to pronounce a curse on oui- brethren of the Reformed 
 Church, on account of their doctrine concerning the 
 Lord's Supper. On the sentence we have quoted, 
 follows Stahl's Profession of Faith Concerning the 
 Church. It is an eloquent elaboration of his avowal at 
 the Kirchentag of 1853, where, as a good jurist, he 
 indeed accepted the decision of the majority as a matter 
 of expediency, but sought to attain, by the insertion of 
 clauses, what he had been unable to carry in the com- 
 mittee. Notwithstanding its length we give the entire 
 
 " We do not seek so to loose men from the Church that each 
 individual may remain, up to maturity, as far as possible free from 
 predisposing influences — as it were a tabula rasa — ^and then, with 
 the Bible in one hand and the Ust of some twenty Protestant 
 denominations in the other, decide in perfect freedom, as he 
 imagines, to which of these he wiU belong. ■ On the contrary, we 
 strive to bind men to that Church which we recognize as the 
 true one : we would have them carried in the arms of the Church 
 from childhood up, by baptism, catechetical instruction, confirma- 
 tion — ^by the influence and authority of parents and teachers — ^by 
 all the pubKc rites of rehgion. Even our investigation of Scripture 
 proceeds upon our belief in the unity of the Church; for the 
 
THE CHXTROH AND GERMAN PROTESTANTISM. 279 
 
 Protestant principle of free inquiry, which was first proclaimed Ijy 
 the German Reformers, we do not understand and practice other- 
 wise than in allegiance to the reverence due to the belief of cen- 
 turies, and the testimony of specially enlightened men and ages. 
 
 " In this we do not, as is said to our reproach, adopt a semi- 
 Catholic conception, and seek the kingdom of God in the outward 
 institutions of the Church rather than in the salvation of the indi- 
 vidual soul. We do not deny that the individual soul is the ultim- 
 ate end, and the highest standard in reUgion; but we do deny 
 that the individual soul — that is, the soul in its isolated character 
 — ^is the seat of divine communications, and the recipient of 
 special acts of grace. This, however, is the conception whicb is 
 held up in opposition to us, and which is precisely the culminat- 
 ing point of the principle of Independency. According to that 
 system, the individual congregation is independent, sovereign in 
 the kingdom of God, the abode of Ijie Holy Spirit. According 
 to this conception, by logical inference from the principle laid 
 down, the individual soul is independent, sovereign in the king- 
 dom of God, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit ; and can hence begin 
 entirely afresh, and from its own resources, to expound the Bible, 
 and to discover therein things which are, at all events, quite new 
 and hitherto unheard-of Our doctrine is that the communica- 
 tions of divine grace are promised to the soul only in the Church. 
 But the Church is not a mere external institution ; it is a king- 
 dom consisting in the influences and operations of inward spiritual 
 forces. It is a reciprocal interworking of the inward personal 
 faith of man with the outward forms and monuments which have 
 been created by faith, and now stream out again, the breath of 
 faith over man ; an interfusing of the grace which God has stored 
 up in his ordinances, and that which he operates in the sovl; it 
 is the treasury of all divine blessings, and of all human ;i;ap«iT/i(ira 
 and efforfa, a transmission of sacred things from generation to 
 generation. Hence it embraces within its scope the imderstand- 
 ing of the Word of God, as it has been wrought out by the faith 
 of Christendom, and by the aid of a profoundly believing theolog- 
 ical learning, during the chain of successive centuries: and the 
 beautiiul forms of worship which have been framed by devout 
 hearts, from the days of the Apostles to our own : the communion 
 of the office of the ministry ; the Christian consecration for all the 
 relations of life, for the home, for the State, for art, for science : 
 
280 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the Christiafi discipline and social arrangement of the nation, andj 
 above all, the sacraments in their proper use and significance. 
 These are ordinances and bonds which God has intertwined 
 throughout Christendom, and which Christendom has in all ages 
 helped to weave. The community of believers within the circling 
 limit of these ordinwnces and bonds, not external to it, is the Church 
 — ^the mystical body of Christ, the seat of the operations of divine 
 grace, of the Spirit who guideth into all truth. To exalt the 
 Church is not, tiierefore, to cleave to outward forms, to violate 
 the ties which bind the soul to Christ, but to cherish and 
 strengthen this personal bond. The fruit of the kingdom of Grod 
 is the salvation of souls ; but the soil on which alone this fruit can 
 grow and flourish is the Church. It is not cherishing the plants 
 to tear them out of their native beds, that they may grow inde- 
 pendently, by the energy of their vital juices. 
 
 Now, by virtue of this its vocation toward the Church, G-erman 
 Protestantism can exercise no such tolerance as would derogate 
 in anywise from her rights. The German Protestant can never 
 recognize the Evangelical sects — he can only recognize the 
 individual members of such sects in their personal relation as 
 brothers in Christ, not so much lecause, as although, they belong 
 to a sect. His tolerance consists in the fact that he does not 
 judge the persons of men, not that he considers the existence 
 and founding of sects as innocent in itself (as the Americans do, 
 probably from knovring no better) — ^for it is written, ' There 
 shall not be divisions among you.' 
 
 " The German Protestant willingly, also, concedes to all sects 
 the free exercise of their rehgion, but he can not feel any obKga- 
 tion to accede to the demand made upon him to secure them the 
 right of making his own Church the field of their missionary 
 labors. Neither does it by any means follow from the permission 
 for the free exercise of worship, that a legally guarantied and 
 authorized existence as a Church shall be granted. In our States 
 which still retain an estabUshed Church, and whose Christian life 
 has ever been rooted in the Qhurch, an unlimited so-called Free- 
 dom of the Gospel is not a principle, nor yet a justifiable demand 
 any more than the universal ' Freedom of Religion.' For what, 
 we ask, is to be the distinctive sign of the Gospel ? Do not even 
 free Scriptural inquiry, and the doctrine of justification by faith, 
 assume a totally different aspect in the whole religious system of 
 
TRUE PRINCIPLE OF INDEPENDENCT. 281 
 
 one sect compared with that of another? And ought their 
 position relatively to the Church to be entirely unaffected 
 thereby? All positive concessions to any given sect are, there- 
 fore, properly made conditional on the examination of its doc- 
 triues by the authorities ; and the States of Protestant Germany 
 have no cause to be otherwise than chary of such concessions." 
 
 Here, therefore, we have our orator's doctrine of the 
 Church, and its immediate application to religious liberty, 
 which we wished to hear from his own lips. But we can 
 neither accept the doctrine nor the inference. In one 
 remark, certainly, we entirely concur with him. He 
 says -that his doctrine has been unjustly reproached as 
 being a semi-Catholic conception of the ideal of a Church. 
 I do not know who has made such a charge, but, who- 
 ever he may be, he is certainly wrong. Stahl's view is 
 not semi-Catholic, but entirely so — or, to leave no 
 ambiguity, thoroughly Popish. If it should ever come 
 to Dr. Stahl's finally casting off the United National 
 Church of Prussia, or being cast out by it, we tell him 
 beforehand, that if he still adheres to his doctrine, he 
 will find -less difficulty in making it pass current at 
 Munich than at Erlangen. 
 
 Unquestionably he who denies that the individual 
 Christian lives in the Church, and is called to live in 
 and for the community, is no Christian. But no one 
 does say this; least of all the Independents, against 
 whom our orator declaims with so much warmth. Like 
 the ancient Christians, they regard every local congre- 
 gation which has adopted an organization of its own, as 
 a self-governing Church, not subject to other Churches. 
 But this Congregation or Church is the judge whether 
 one of its own members holds and teaches the right fiiith. 
 Nay, one section of these congregational denominations — 
 the Baptists — ^recognize none as members of their Church 
 
282 SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 
 
 but those whom the congregation itself has examined and 
 approved. No one can be farther than they from deny- 
 ing the Congregation; and the Congregation is the 
 Church, according to the Bible. 
 
 Neither is this the case with the Anti-Trinitarians or 
 Anti-Athanasians. the most noble-minded and enlight- 
 ened exponent of whose views, Dr. Channing, is now as 
 little a stranger in Germany as in France. Nay, it is 
 not even true with respect to the so-called "Free 
 Churches" and " German Catholics" that have sprung 
 up within the last ten years, except in those instances 
 where they have proved themselves to be purely political 
 associations under another name, and have been treated 
 as such. 
 
 On the other side, however; all Protestant Confessions, 
 and the sentiments of all evangelical Christians (which 
 in this relation, also, constitute public opinion, Dr. 
 Stahl's "blessing-bringing curse"), harmonize on this 
 point, that a participation in Christ and in God is con- 
 ditional upon faith as a personal temper of trust, and 
 that it is the Spirit of jGod which kindles this faith in 
 the heart, according to Christ's promise, given just be- 
 fore his sufferings and departure from this world. He 
 who denies this is certainly no Protestant. Christian; but 
 Dr. Stahl must permit me to say that the statement of 
 his just quoted does in effect deny it. To me, at least, 
 all his phrases about the Church appear to be either in- 
 genious modes of expressing the well-known belief of all 
 Protestant Churches, or, where they depart from this, 
 to involve an essential annulling and denial of the same. 
 What mean the words : " We only deny that the indi- 
 vidual soul — that is, the soul in its isolated character — 
 is the seat of divine communications, and the recipient 
 of special acts of grace ?" That is to say, he denies 
 
WHAT IS THE CHURCH? 283 
 
 either nothing or every thing. Either he does not deny 
 that saving faith is a personal thing — and, if so, -why his 
 attack on the Independents ? — or he denies the funda- 
 mental Protestant principle of justification, and how does 
 that accord with his office as a member of the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council ? 
 
 The same may be said of the proposition : " Our doc- 
 trine is that the communications of divine grace are only 
 promised to. the soul in the Church." Here, I ask 
 again, what is the Church ? If it be the organized com- 
 munity of Christians, of which the family represents the 
 simplest outward form, such an expression is perfectly 
 allowable ; but in that case it simply declares a fact of 
 natural and civil social life which no one has ever dis- 
 puted. But if in the above extract the term Church is 
 used in the sense of the writers on canon law, as the 
 theologico-hierarchical institution whose teachings are 
 infallible, and which is the object of faith, then the 
 writer is simply a Catholic, in the sense of Rome. 
 
 And further on we read : 
 
 " The Church is * * * the treasury of all divine blessings, 
 and of aU human ;i;api<VO''0 and efforts, a transmission of sacred 
 things from generation to generation. Hence it embraces within 
 its scope the understanding of the Word of Grod * * * and, 
 above all, the Sacraments in their proper use and proper signifi- 
 cance." 
 
 Certainly our writer considers the communion of be- 
 lievers as the Church, but how ? 
 
 "The communion of believers, within the oirclvng limits of these 
 institutions and bonds, not exterrml to it" (the italics are in the 
 original), " is the Church, is the mystical body of Christ, the seat 
 of the operations of divine grace, of the Spirit who guideth into 
 all truth." 
 
284 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 " Extra ecdesiam nulla salus /" Outside that his- 
 torical institution, with its transmission from generation 
 to generation (the traditio of the Catholic canonists), 
 there is no salvation. None within the pale of such 
 upstart and mushroom denominations as the Independ- 
 ents, and other still younger offshoots pf the Reformed 
 sister-churches ! No, only in the historical Church, 
 propagating the mysteries downward through successive 
 ages, and perpetuating the miracle of the altar ! So say 
 the Romish Priesthood, and we shall soon hear from our 
 orator with what well-founded consciousness of the pos- 
 session of " apostolical continuity." But Dr. Stahl re- 
 peats it with still greater energy, unction, and official 
 solemnity, in the following words: "The fruit of the 
 kingdom of God is the salvation of souls ; but the soil 
 on which alone this fruit can grow and flourish is the 
 Church." And now follows that striking similitude of 
 the Christian's soul wandering around among Churches 
 and sects, to the plants taken from their bed, which we 
 have given above at full length. Considered more nar- 
 rowly, however, the simile does not seem to me very apt 
 for his purpose ; for, in reality, plants often do succeed 
 much better for being transplanted from their native bed, 
 and set to grow by themselves in free air, light, and suf- 
 ficient space. But who would dispute about words, 
 when he thinks of the sorrows and perils that are being 
 endured, at this moment, by the flock of Christ — of the 
 calamities and dangers that encompass our fatherland ? 
 
 Poor Rosa Madiai ! didst thou find comfort in this 
 idea of the Church? Poor Evangelista Borczynski! 
 was it this thought that gave thee courage to return to 
 the Austrian Empire, whose laws thou hadst not violat- 
 ed ? Was it this that supported thee in the dark and 
 filthy dungeon into which thou wast cast, for desiring in 
 
■WHAT IS THE CHURCH? 285 
 
 the Holy Passion Week to keep the Supper of the Lord 
 with that body of Christians to which, after ripe and de- 
 vout consideration, thou hadst joined thyself? Will 
 this thought waft thy soul heavenward, when released at 
 length from misery and wrong, it returns to thy heav- 
 enly Father ? If, indeed, the cry of thy wrongs should 
 not, ere it be too late, reach the ear of thy Emperor — 
 a German — a Prince loving justice. Poor Francesco 
 Cecchetti ! did this thought help thee to endure thy mar- 
 tyr's chain, and exhort thy son to steadfastness, when he 
 stood weeping to see his pious and innocent father in the 
 garb of a felon ? 
 
 No ! in the name of God and of all truth — No, and 
 eternally no ! Such barren phrases have never yet 
 comforted any human- heart to which th^ message of 
 salvation by Christ had come, and sprung up as the 
 germ of a divine life 1 
 
 'And this is the moment which the orator chooses 
 complacently to amuse himself with the formulas of a 
 scholastic theology, and to exclaim, after having placed 
 the belief in this theology on a level with saving faith 
 in God and his Word, and the redemption by Christ, 
 " Cursed be he who yields up one jot or one tittle there- 
 of !" Did the First Commandment never rise up before 
 the mind of our orator? The command, "Thou shalt 
 have none other gods but me," condemns, according to 
 the doctrine of Protestantism, those who put the ordi- 
 nances of men on a level with God's Word ; therefore 
 all Catholicizing, even though Lnitheran, sticklers for 
 Creeds ! 
 
286 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 PEEE SORIPTUEAL INQUIRY AOT) THE EVAN- 
 GELICAL UNION. 
 
 The inversion of the evangelical conception of the 
 Church involves very weighty consequences for ^ Stahl's 
 view of free Scriptural inquiry, and of the Evangelical 
 Union. These consequences have an immediate bearing 
 on the position of learning and the Church, in Prussia 
 and in Germany at large. And this is the last and 
 most pressing point which claims our consideration. 
 We descend from the giddy heights of scholastic phi- 
 losophy to which our author had conducted us, into 
 the burning plains of reality — the actual condition 
 and circumstances of our fatherland. For the re- 
 mainder of our discussion, we have to treat of the 
 Christian polity ia which we and our posterity are called 
 to live. 
 
 Stahl's doctrine of the Church, forasmuch as it is a 
 negation of Protestantism, is ipso facto a negation of 
 the United National Church of Prussia. For if the 
 essence and the unity of the Church consists in the 
 unity of historical creed and scholastic dogma, a union 
 of two Evangelical Churches, having each their own 
 Confessions of Faith, and in which a difference of theo- 
 logical system on certain points is declared, can be, to 
 the upright adherent of such a doctrine, nothing but an 
 act of religious indifferentism. For (as Stahl says) how 
 can we draw a distinction between fundamental and non- 
 fundamental dogmas ? Every thing is fiindamental in a 
 self-consistent system. It is clear, therefore, that what 
 we Protestant Prussians have hitherto regarded "as a 
 union, and called so, is, to say the least, an extremely 
 
PEINOIPIB OF TJNITT. 287 
 
 dubious thing. We must invoke the positivity of 
 Calvinism — ^nay, even if possible of Catholicism ; but 
 above all, call up afresh the full-blown Lutheranism 
 of the seventeenth century to save the faith ; that is to 
 say, to smother the Union of the Evangelical Churches 
 between the rigid forms of ancient and modern scholas- 
 ticism. 
 
 Dr. Stahl has not thought fit to draw this corollary 
 in the oration itself, in which he has altogether kept the 
 question of the Union in the background. His candor, 
 therefore, deserves acknowledgment, when he remedies 
 this omission by some lengthy notes. He appends the 
 first (p. 16-19) to a rather sentimental than philosophi- 
 cal exposition of an idea which, in its wider sense, is 
 thoroughly untrue. According to him, German toler- 
 ance (that of the theologians who hunted Spener .to 
 death) took its rise from Pietism. Spener prepared the 
 way for it by placing the essence of piety in the inward 
 life, in a Christian walk, and charity — without, there- 
 fore, ceasing to be a good Lutheran. Hence he draws 
 the following maxim for the tolerance of German 
 Protestantism, as the summary of its essence. " Tlie 
 recognition of Christian brotherhood in those who 
 differ from us; while 'preserving fidelity toward the 
 Church" (p. 16). 
 
 That you may not, my dear friend, remain in any 
 obscurity as to the meaning of this oracular saying, 
 allow me, in the first place, to throw a light on -some 
 points from the note to which I have referred. First, 
 under the phrase " those who differ'" (the heterodox, or 
 dissenters ?), the Romish hierarchists are equally under- 
 stood with that communion which we Lutherans have 
 been wont to call the Reformed Sister Church. Nay, 
 the recognition of the " providential significance" of the 
 
288- SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Catholic Church, which meets us later on, has evidently- 
 flowed much more readily from Stahl's theory than that 
 of " Calvinism." Observe, secondly, that Christian and 
 evangelical toleration is, according to him, that exercised 
 by one theological system toward another ; not toleration 
 as exercised by the magistracy, still less that of a State 
 renouncing all persecution (therefore an atheistical 
 State), or that of the Congregation enjoying only the- 
 " limited understanding of subjects,"* which is usually . 
 denominated the Christian people. The theologians 
 define for the people what is to be called in history, 
 toleration and mental freedom. Alas for history ! — 
 alas, indeed, for the peoples ! But this, it seems, is the 
 true reading of the order of Providence. Catholic States 
 may not exercise any toleration whatever ; the clergy, 
 awakened to a consciousness of the dignity of their office, 
 the "oecumenical episcopate," as. shown in Stahl's 
 speech before the Kirchentag in 1853, has the kernel 
 of Christianity, exclusiveness, for its watchword. Hence 
 it is that the Lutheran theology, which stands as truth 
 between two divergent systeitis, has grasped this kernel 
 so much more firmly than the system of the Reformed 
 Church. The latter has, according to the verdict of our 
 prophet, only the mission to "accomplish the sanctifica- 
 tion of the congregation;" truly a very evangelical 
 
 - * This expression, no-w a common phrase in Germany, was 
 first employed by M. Von Eochow, Minister of the Interior in 
 Prussia from 1840 to 1848; who, in an official reply to the 
 remonstrances and suggestions with regard to the granting of 
 the Constitution, offered in the most loyal and respectful manner 
 by the Burgomaster of one of the principal Prussian cities, said, 
 " The limited understanding of a subject is not capable of forming 
 a judgment on such subjects." (Der beschrangte Untefthaneu- 
 verstand ist nicht fahig dergleichen G-egenstande zu urtheilen.") 
 —Tr. 
 
CALIXT AND SCHLEIEEMACHEE. 289 
 
 miasioo, seeing that the Gospel knows no Church but 
 the Congregation. Hence, finally, is it4o be explained, 
 that our orator's tolerance is extended in equal measure 
 to the Catholic aad.the Eeformed Churches, Now we 
 do not desire merely toleration, but freedom for both; 
 and we have no odium theohgicum toward either the 
 one or the other. We live in the most perfect peace 
 with our Catholic fellow-citizens, mutually respecting 
 the conscientious belief of our Christian brethren. We 
 have no enemies but the persecuting hierarchists, be 
 they the Pope and his bishops, or exclusive Lutheran 
 pastors and professors, who anatheuiatize , toleration as 
 unchristian, and decry religious liberty as reyolution or 
 atheism. But, for this very reason, it is the same thing 
 to us what garb this hierarchical spirit assumes ; and 
 whether we encounter it ia Rome or Oxford, in Berlin 
 or Halle. To say the truth, of all . these Popes, the 
 Pope of BiOme has always appeared to me the best; 
 and of all hierarchical systems, that of Borne the only 
 logical one. 
 
 The orator uses moderate language in speaking of 
 Cailixt,* in order to aim the severer side-blow at Schlei- 
 ennacher. The elder Calixt was no doubt worthy of 
 all honor, when, surrounded by the calamities of the 
 Thirty Years' War, he eudea,yored to bring about a 
 union of the Protestant with the Catholic Church. He 
 was much more in earnest in this matter than Leibnitz, 
 for which very reason his attempt must be regarded as 
 a still more signal failure and thorough mistake, as soon 
 as we perceive that in such a union the power of the 
 clergy is a question of more importance to ijie peoples 
 
 * A learned professor, who wrote about 1650, and aimed at 
 bringing about a union between the Catholic and Protestant 
 Churches, by a system of syncretism or fusion.T-4V. 
 13 
 
290 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and States than their dogmas. That in that day Calixt 
 should have treated the differences between the Lutheran 
 and Reformed dogmas as almost equally serious with the 
 great points of contrast which separated Lutherans and 
 Reformed alike from the Romish hierarchy, is rendered 
 intelligible by the history of that terrible epoch. Tho- 
 luck has, with meritorious industry, drawn forth to light 
 all the miserable pettiness of the Lutheranism of the 
 seventeenth century ; and, from the passages he adduces,* 
 we can see that Hase, the conscientious and spirited 
 Church historian, simply relates a naked historical fact, 
 when he says : 
 
 " The theologians of the Reformed Church were al- 
 ways inclined to recognize the Lutherans as brothers, 
 while the latter preferred holding communion with Pa- 
 pists, and affirmed the hope that even Calvinists might 
 be saved, to be an inspiration of the devil, "f 
 
 But that in 1855, a member of the Supreme Council 
 of the United National Church of Prussia should seri- 
 ously propose that such a union or confederation, as if 
 between three equal powers, should be carried out by 
 Lutheranism, as holding the true medium between 
 Catholicism and Calvinism ; — ^that he should see nothing 
 more in Schleiermacher's representation of the relative 
 position of the two Protestant Confessions than a muti- 
 lation of Calixt' s scheme — ^the syncretism of Calixt 
 without his logical consistency ; — ^that in the peroration 
 of his discourse he should again dwell with much unc- 
 tion on the co-ordinate rank of the three Churches, 
 relatively to the one true Church of the future — this I 
 confess, my honored friend, is more than I had ex- 
 
 * See Tholuck's " G-eist der Lutherisohen Theologen," § 115, 
 169, 211. 
 t Kirchengesoliiohte, p. 527, seventh edition, 1864. 
 
THE tTNION OF CONFESSIOIJS. 291 
 
 pected from one -ffho axicepted the post of Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Counselor so lately as the year 1852. 
 For he could not but know that the Old Lutherans, in 
 so far as they set themselves against the Union, are a 
 sect in Prussia, in the eye of the law, according to 
 which the United Church is the one Evangelical Na- 
 tional Church. 
 
 But this is the sore point. The union of the two 
 Confessions is, to Dr. IStahl, only an exception in 
 Prussia; and there can be no question of toleration in 
 the case ; for toleration is possible only between existing 
 religious bodies : the Union abrogates these bodies — 
 annihilates them. Here are his own words : 
 
 " The TJnion occupies a perfectly distinct ground from that of 
 toleration, and in reality there is no point of contact between 
 them. For the TJnion (I mean by this merely the Confessional 
 Union, which even in the national Church of Prussia only forms 
 the exception) consists herein, that the Lutheran and the Be- 
 formed Churches are mutually and voluntarily to give up their 
 distinctive dogmas, and a new doctrinal system, common to both, 
 is to be formed around the Consensus as its nucleus. But in that 
 case it is clear that there can be no longer any question of tolera- 
 tion — ^that is, of tolerating others who teach differently; for 
 there is only one doctrine, and Lutherans and Reformed can no 
 longer be tolerant toward each other, when they no longer exist 
 at all." (Note, p. 16.) 
 
 In this passage every thing is distorted. It is the 
 very principle of the Union that no congregation is to 
 be deprived of its Confession of Faith. On the con- 
 trary, two sets of confessions and symbolical books are 
 laid biefore it ; agreeing in essential points, and yet inde- 
 pendent of each other. The essence of the Confessional 
 Union does not consist in the surrender of their dis- 
 tinctive types of doctrine by the Lutheran and Reformed 
 divines, but simply in their recognilaoh that these dis- 
 
292 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tinctions form no ground for separate communion as 
 regards worship and discipline. Certainly, if this fun- 
 damental idea be correct, the consummation of. the Union 
 will consist in the progressive development of the posi- 
 tive doctrines held in common. And if the Spirit of 
 God see fit to guide the Church into this path, who shall 
 say Him nay? The Pope and Dr. Stahl, For they 
 both regard theological systems as "the revealed truth 
 of the Church" — a truth of which naturally each frac- 
 tion is fundamental, even to the most recondite and 
 dubious of scholastic inferences. Of course, if we ad- 
 mit this, there is an end of the Unjon. The King's 
 Address of 1817 expressly makes such a distinction. 
 But what means the following passage ? 
 
 " Having once recognized the doctrine of the Churcii to be 
 revealed truth, G-erman Protestantism can not make a distinction 
 between its articles as fundamental and non-fundamental (i. e., 
 not essential to salvation). Dare any man presume to draw a 
 line of demarcation through the territory of Divine revelation, 
 and say that what hves on this side of it has been propounded 
 by &od for our reception only, as it were, as a matter of luxury ? 
 To the individual soul nothing is fundamental save that last glim- 
 mering spaik of faith which none but God perceives, and which 
 in no case can be reduced under a formula. To the Church every 
 thing is fundamental that forms apart of the whole indivisible 
 belief revealed by Ood. And Anathema sit 1 whoever eonsdomhj 
 gives up one jot or one tittle thereof I" (p. 25.) 
 
 What he offers to us as a " Union," in place of the 
 " Confessional Union," is a theological compact of the 
 Lutherans with the Catholics and Reformed Churches, 
 on the ground of a recognition of the " particular 
 providential mission of the three great Confessions into 
 which Christendom is now divided, as one indivisible 
 oiKovofiM of the kingdom of God ; according to which, 
 even the separation itself, although in the first instance 
 
THE POSITION OF LUTHEBANISM. £93 
 
 the work of human error, narrow-mindedness and obsti- 
 nacy, still, nevertheless, must be regarded also as the 
 result of a special providential mission." Here, we 
 should like to ask, Which then was the erring, narrow- 
 minded, and obstinate party at the Reformation ? Surely 
 not the Protestant? Or, afterward, when the schism 
 took place among the Protestants? Surely not the 
 Lutheran? But these are trifles. What becomes of 
 the Union? He who sets up a Union with the Papacy 
 as a counterpart to the union between the Lutherans 
 and the Reformed, ill conceals that he does not or can 
 not cordially concur in the Union as accomplished by 
 Frederic William HI. He does not approve it, inas- 
 much as no reasonable man can now-a-days believe that 
 Rome could propose to, or accept from, the Protestants 
 any thing but an unconditional submission. He can not 
 desire it, if he can for one moment place the union 
 between German Protestants in one category with a 
 union between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. 
 What an abyss has our Ecclesiastical Counselor opened 
 between his doctrine and the Gospel ! Whether he calls 
 his system Lutheranism, or, as would be more correct, 
 crude papistry, we can have nothing to do with it in our 
 United National Church. We will not, however, suffer 
 ourselves to grow angry, but calmly read ai^ weigh 
 what follows — the brilliant peroration of the (fiscourse. 
 Who knows but it may yield us at last some happy 
 solution ? 
 
 A magnificent conclusion it certainly is, and I most 
 sincerely acknowledge its eloquence. And it appears 
 to offer to our acceptance an invaluable treasure. As 
 becomes a well-arranged discourse, the end is the most 
 exalted part of it — a true and high work of art. On 
 reading it I mentally exclaimed, What a dazzling burst 
 
294 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of eloquence 1 If all this lie true, we have only to 
 decide which most to admire— the mystic sublimity of 
 the seer of the past, the wisdom of the statesman of the 
 present, or the marvelous heights attained by the prophet 
 of the future. The very position now openly assumed 
 by our author filled me with astonishment, and still 
 more so, the unhesitating confidence with which he 
 regards it as that of Crerman Protestantism. "He 
 stands" (as he exclaims from his lofty eminence) '• at 
 the portals of the Middle Ages, whence the believing 
 hosts of Christendom issued forth to the opposite ends 
 of the earth, till, at this day, they do not even under- 
 stand each other's speech ; and here he has set up his 
 pillar, bearing the inscription of unperverted ' Gospel 
 truth.' " 
 
 Here, again, great scruples rose to my mind on 
 occasion of this prophetic survey, embracing in its uni- 
 versal sweep all things behind and before. At the very 
 outset we know not what to make of this strange division 
 of the world, in which there seems to be as little room 
 for the armies of the faith that have taken the field since 
 1650, as in the compilations of his hymnological friends 
 for hymns composed since 1750.* Yet it appears, as 
 
 ' * This refers to the circumstance that Dr. Philip Waekernagel, 
 the well-ltnown authority in ancient German literature, was 
 called upon by an Assembly of Delegates from the German Pro- 
 testant Governments, which met at Eisenach, in 1852, to prepare 
 a collection of hymns, 150 in number, which should contain all 
 the classical hymns in the language, and should, if possible, be 
 introducfd into the Protestant public worship throughout Ger- 
 many. Waekernagel, with some pedantry, restricted his selection 
 to hymns composed before 1750, and, moreover, gave their text 
 with such merciless correctness, that many Governments declared 
 that their people would have to sing what they could not under- 
 stan .1, and would, besides, have to forget their favorite hymns of 
 
THE POSITION OP LUTHEEANISM. 295 
 
 we have seen, that of all the Protestant armies that 
 have gone forth into the world since the division of the 
 two evangelical Confessions in Germany — therefore for 
 the last three hundred years — our new world-dividing 
 Jupiter has no place for those who seem to have gone 
 forth with the highest faith and courage, because utterly 
 without State support, and who certainly have fought 
 the hardest, Mid carried their arms the furthest. No 
 place for the poor Independents and Baptists, to say 
 nothing of sinaller people like our dear Moravian breth- 
 ren ! These, according to the instructive note (p. 29), 
 which in some measure makes up for the silence of the 
 text, have only proceeded from the " wide-spread radical 
 idea of the Church ; their inmost essence is a turning 
 upside-down of the Protestant principle." That is to 
 say, these good people, from their youth up, have known 
 very little of Ae great blessing of the Lutherans — a con- 
 sistorial government ; and a Supreme Ecclesiastical Coun- 
 cil the poor creatures certainly did not even know by 
 name, to say nothimg_of their blindness as to "the miracle 
 of the altar." They knew nothing but their Bibles, and 
 that from this they should have divined the organization 
 of the primitive Church so much better than it is under- 
 stood by our great doctor of law (which can now-a-days * 
 no longer be denied) seems almost to convict them of 
 forbidden arts. But it was "just their curse that they 
 iaid so much stress on the ancient rights of the Congre- 
 gation. In issuing from the portals of Babel, they 
 carried with them so little faith in authority that they 
 became a prey to the most destructive radicalism, as 
 every one knows who understands Stahl's theory of 
 Divine Providence. Now we, who beside the Bible 
 
 a later date. Thus, Wackemagers iMderschata has remained a 
 dead letter. — H: 
 
296 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 know nothing but our catediism^ or at best a smaiter- 
 ing of history, ma.j have our serrtples. as- to believing all 
 this; still the confidence of our doctor must make some 
 impression even on us. Certainly it strikes the " limited 
 understanding' ' of a member of the Union as somewhat 
 strange, that the Protestant Prophet of the Suprrane 
 Ecclesiastical Coundl should take his stand at that 
 portal of the Middle Ages, where, according to this 
 guid^ a new Babylome confusioin of tCHigues took its 
 rise. Till them, it seems, Eaen had understood each 
 other ; till 1517 they had lived in the ujiity of the one 
 saving theological language; the whole theological world 
 spoke one tongue (and how fortunate for her, the Rom- 
 ish !); and, no doubt, all men were as well able to under- 
 stand each other as they were well oiF in every other 
 respect in those good old times. I should have thought^ 
 a good Protestant, who, if not a Luth^an theologian of 
 that old school to which we have given a little attention 
 above, is at least a memba: of the Rrotestant Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council of Prussia, would not have taken 
 his stand at the portal of the Middle Ages, but would 
 rather have knocked in humble faith at the door of the 
 Gospel, and taken the Word of Grod as his guide through 
 the history of the world, so far as it were permitted him 
 to advance on this path: It further gave me some 
 anxiety, in spite of all my admiration, that Dr. Stahl 
 should cling so tightly to his triple division of the 
 Christian world at the very time that he was a member 
 of the highest Council of our United Prussian Church, 
 whose avowed object is to make two of these bodies into 
 one, and not to make one into three. Our author, thought 
 I, may indeed possess the secret of the unity that is to 
 be in the kingdom of God, but that will hardly console 
 us for his rending asunder our United National Church 
 
TRUTH THE SUPREME OBJECT. 297 
 
 that now is : least of all, if he do so in virtue of his office 
 as member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council. 
 
 Free Scriptural inquiry, however, fares little better 
 than the Union upon his view of the Church ; and this 
 is, especially to Germans, a matter of no small moment. 
 In the very first paragraph of the long passage we have 
 quoted, he says : 
 
 " Even our investigation of Scripture proceeds upon our belief 
 in the unity of the Church; for the Protestant principle of iree 
 inquiry, which was first proclaimed by the German Reformers, 
 we do not understand and practice otherwise than in allegiance to 
 the reverence due to the belief of centuries, and the testimony of 
 specially enlightened men and ages." 
 
 In the Church, then, free Scriptural inquiry is to be 
 limited by reverence. Nothing is more reasonable, and 
 nothing more undisputed. But reverence for what? 
 Surely, above all, reverence objectively toward the 
 Scriptures as the Word of God, and subjectively toward 
 the inquirer's own conscience. We may, perhaps, desig- 
 nate the two conjoined as reverence for. the truth. For 
 faith teaches us to seek for truth in the Scriptures, and 
 this we can not do otherwise than in a truthful spirit ; 
 Divine things are understood by that which is Divine. 
 Hence the testimony of enlightened men and ages will 
 necessarily bespeak our reverence, and " in the faith of 
 centuries" we must earnestly endeavor to discover that 
 which is purely biblical, as that which is permanently 
 true ; even where we encounter mistakes and false exe- 
 gesis. In this sense modern exegesis has been the first 
 to show true reverence toward past centuries, and to 
 attain to a consciousness of the true unity of the Church. 
 But we must not reverse the process. If in our investi- 
 gation of Scripture we set before ourselves, not Truth, 
 but the Unity of the Church, as our object— if we feel 
 
298 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ourselves in bondage to the belief of centuries and the 
 testimony of the ancient fathers — ^we have set out on a 
 wrong path, because we are not seeking truth itself. 
 And if our orator has searched Scripture himself, he, 
 too, knows that "reverence for the faith of centuries" 
 might bring us, along with the Roman Inquisitors and 
 Professor Hengstenberg, to the point of persecuting 
 Galileo, denying the Divine facts and laws of the uni- 
 verse, and for this very reason giving a thoroughly per- 
 verted interpretation of the Bible — nay, even bring us 
 into danger of making shipwreck of conscience, that is 
 to say, of silencing God's voice in our souls, and, as far 
 as in us lies, in the hearts of youth, and in the Church 
 as well. The inquirer into Scripture who seeks any 
 thing but truth, is a hypocrite ; and it is a weighty and 
 profound saying of Luther — "Hypocrites are lunatic in 
 their conscience." Hence it is, indeed, a real comfort 
 to me to believe that the philosopher, notwithstanding 
 the confidence with which he propounds his formula, has 
 never drunk deeply of the original sources in his inves- 
 tigation of Scripture ; and I am confirmed in this view 
 by the reverence which, according to him, is to be 
 exercised by and for the ^ke of the Church, " toward 
 the testimony of particularly enlightened men and ages." 
 For no one could speak thus who had himself investi- 
 gated the Bible. The formula of the Puseyites, that 
 the Bible is to be interpreted in accordance with " what 
 has been believed always, everywhere, and by all," says 
 nothing. But if the orator more especially means rever- 
 ence toward the Scriptural interpretations of the Fathers 
 of the Protestant faith, with them as he himself acknowl- 
 edges, the principle of freedom stands above all their 
 expositions. And how will he justify Luther's revolt 
 a.gaanst ' ' the faith of centuries ?" * 
 
DOUBTS AND SCRUPLES. 299 
 
 I hope that Dr. Stahl sjtill believes in science, and 
 does not wish that our youth should be trained up to 
 hypocrisy ; that is to say, I hope he does not wish to 
 sow unbelief right and left ? But his rule of Scriptural 
 interpretation for the^ Church necessarily leads to such a 
 result, and is already turned to advantage for party 
 purposes, unless we refuse credence to notorious facts. 
 How, if in examining and appointing candidates for the 
 ministry, their confessional tendencies are the chief 
 point of inquiry, rather, than their abilities and general 
 religious character ? How, if confessionalistic profess- 
 ors of Protestant theology, and therefore exegesis, are 
 sought for and appointed ? We know the Lutheran 
 names and achievements in this department of learning, 
 from Hengstenberg and his absurd exposition of the 
 Song of Solomon, up to Dietlejn and Otto, and the 
 latest zealots for the pure Aramaic accent of Balaam's 
 ass. All this would, however, be recommended to us 
 out of reverence for the faith of centuries. 
 
 Such grave doubts as these rose up to my mind, in 
 addition to those I have already expressed, on perusing 
 this admirable work of art. Thus, at length, I was 
 irresistibly led to ask the critical preliminary question : 
 Is our author, then, really in earnest in his whole view 
 of the question, and not merely playing a dangerous 
 game with words? and, above all, can there be any 
 truth in his view ? Now that we may consider this in 
 all seriousness and candor, and in one mode or other 
 come to learn what we so much need to know, I will be- 
 gin by laying before you this concluding portion of 
 Stahl's discourse, just as it stands, omitting merely 
 some erudition touching the eternal order of God's Provi- 
 dence, which is beside our present purpose, and which 
 we may, perhaps, find a more suitable opportunity of 
 
300 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 noticing before long. Thus reads the aortistic peroraticm 
 of the discourse : 
 
 " To speak only according to human insight on this subject, the 
 Koman Catholic Church has her special'mission in the kingdom 
 of Grod. Despite her obscuration of the central doctrine erf" 
 salvation, despite the tincture of legality and scholasticism which 
 runs through her dogmas and institutions, and whatever else we 
 may find to censure in her, she tepresents the exalted aspect of 
 the historical continuity of Christianity, of the unbroken course 
 of development from the apostoUc to the present time ; and it is 
 not to be measured what now visible blessings, and what yet 
 concealed seeds of blessing, are contained in this. * * * 
 Side by side with Luther's Reformation, that of Calvin had also 
 its mission in the kingdom of God. That which, indeed, the 
 Reformed Church itself boasts of as its greatest glory — its much 
 sharper antagonism to the Mediaeval Church, from which most of 
 its distinguishing tenets proceed — we, as Lutherans, can not pos- 
 isibly recognize to be an excellence. But Calvin gives us the 
 complement of the Reformation on the side of religious morality, 
 in the sanctification of the congregation, and the building up of 
 a self-contained world of Christian ordinances and life from the 
 inmost center of the living faith of the Congregation. A pro- 
 found fear of Grod maintained inviolate, an energetic Christianity 
 molding the life, these are the blessings that issued from 
 Calvin's work, and are to this day fertilizing Western Europe and 
 America. And how should we, of all men, feil to recognize the 
 mission of Luther? — above all, his insight into the deepest mys- 
 tery and firmest pledge of our redemption, in the blending of ti^e 
 divine with the human, of the spiritual and natural, in the person 
 of Christ, and in his Sacrament, that fountain of perfect consola- 
 tion, as of inward piety, Christian freedom, and the right mean 
 between extremes. * * * In all this I merely utter facts. 
 But if we can thus, even with our humaii vision, recognize 
 such a special mission in each of these confessions, how much 
 more may we have a dim forecastuig of their mutual coherence 
 in one Divine, though to us, inscrutable economy ? * * * 
 
 " But Catholicity, in this sense, is the final seal and highest 
 norm of toleration. From it flows, not only the recognition of 
 the members of other confessions as the children of God, but 
 
VATICINATIONS. 301 
 
 the recognition of these confessions themselves as messengers 
 from God. And the recognition and favoring of each confession 
 by the State will be measured by the degree of error by which 
 it overshadows its Divine commission. According to this, genuine 
 tolerance does not consist in mutual surrender and adjustment of 
 difiFerences on the part of the various confessions, but rather that 
 the members of each should' only renounce error, and for the 
 -rest fulfill their own special mission with the utmost energy, 
 while at the same time recognizing that of their brethren, and 
 adopting their excellences so far as may be. No mutual sur- 
 render, except of error, but a mutual adoption of each other's 
 truths, until we attain to a perfect communion, is the path of true 
 progress. * * * 
 
 " At the time of our Lord's advent there was at Jerusalem a 
 kind of men, such as Simeon and Anna, who waited for the 
 salvation in Israel. They were no less true to the law than the 
 Pharisees — they were true to the existing faith in its perishable 
 as well as in its imperishable aspect. But their aspiration was 
 directed toward a much higher good, and therefore it was granted 
 to them to behold it. 
 
 " So is it with us. The expectation of a future salvation in the 
 fiillness of its truth and glory, whicl^ is exalted far above all 
 earthly Churches, is of aU things most fitted to make us tolerant; 
 but it makes us tolerant in fidelity toward Divine truth, infidelity 
 toward the Church 1" * * * 
 
 Now, my respected friend, we shall certainly both 
 unite in rejoicing that our orator has at last found some- 
 thing able to make him and his friends tolerant. But 
 wcffould fain be satisfied respecting one point— what 
 "kind" of tolerance it may be. As eighteen hundred 
 years ago in Jerusalem, so now there exists not far from 
 Bethany, a "kind" of men who are waiting for the 
 salvation in Israel, but refuse to believe that it is already 
 come, and desire to remain thus, without doing any 
 thing to bring it to pass. They choose to refer to the 
 millennium, or to the kingdom of God in the next world, 
 what we poor Bible Christians and laics of our United 
 
302 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 National Chiu'ch, not only desire for the Christian State 
 of the present, but what we, relying on the Gospel, our 
 Constitution, and the word of our King, think we have 
 a right to call ours already, in the secure possession of 
 that freedom for which poor European humanity, under 
 many a sore oppression, longs' and pines on her bed of 
 pain ! And in this point of view no particular confi- 
 dence is inspired by the circumstance, that in the great 
 Luthei-an partition of the world at the portals of the 
 Middle Ages, all our orator's affection seems to be re- 
 served for the Romish Church, and little, if any, left 
 for the Reformed. For when I remember the many 
 points of advantage which the Lutherans, and now it 
 seems the Catholics too, have over them — the Luther- 
 ans, the possession of the central truth — the Catholics, 
 the "consciousness of apostolical succession," while both 
 together have such great blessings, and the Church of 
 Rome more expressly so much hidden seed for the 
 future, in the eye of our seer of the course of Provi- 
 dence — I am involuntarily reminded of the prophet 
 Balaam, when it is coldly conceded that the blessing of 
 the Reformed Church consists in the sanctification of the 
 believers. Yes, truly, he came to curse like Balaam, 
 and he has left a blessing ! I, at least, thought that the 
 sanctification of the Congregation was called in the 
 Gospel and in the apostolic Epistles (and, as our orator 
 undoubtedly knows, also in the Old Testament), the 
 proper aim and final end of the decree of God's love for 
 mankind, and the great object to be striven after in every 
 true Church. 
 
 And now what shall we say to his mysterious hints 
 of an approximation to the Catholic Church (which far 
 outstrip the irenic dreams and fancies of the younger 
 
THE HIEBAECHT THE ONLY FOE. 303 
 
 Thiersch),* and the providential destiny of the Romish 
 hierarchy (for that is the Catholic Church as a Govern- 
 ment) for the future ! And all this in the face of the 
 struggle in Baden in the West, and the Austrian Con- 
 cordat in the East, and the revival of the Jesuit train- 
 ing-schools in Prussia itself, and the persecution of 
 Protestants on the part of this same ChtTtch, so replete 
 with open and secret blessings, and the consciousness of 
 the apostolical succession ! As regards the peaceable 
 relations of German Catholics and Protestants, or indeed 
 of Catholic and Protestant populations in general, the 
 orator need be under no apprehension : we dwell side by 
 side, and carry on intercourse in perfect peace, and ask 
 for nothing more than to be allowed to do so. But the 
 question at issue does not concern the Catholics, but the 
 Catholic Church : that is to say, the Romish hierarchy 
 on the one side, and the Protestant people of Christ, with 
 or without Supreme Ecclesiastical Counsellors, on the 
 other. And let our author at least remember this for 
 the future. 
 
 Certainly, therefore, my respected friend, it troubles 
 me greatly to find so much in this ideal prophetic sur- 
 vey of the past and future, which I am utterly unable to 
 understand: How gladly would I learn the truth on 
 such sublime themes ! But, once for all, I must be con- 
 tent to endure my ignorance • for when I look at the 
 misery of the present, the anxieties that fill the souls, of 
 so many faithful Christians, the perplexities that beset 
 
 * The M. Thiersch referred to above is the son of the famous 
 Professor of Greek, at Munich, and a member of the Church 
 founded by the late Edward Irving. The expression "irenic 
 dreams" refers to some views which he holds with regard to a 
 universal reconciliation between Christian Churches, specially in- 
 cluding the Komish. — 7¥. 
 
304 SIGNS 01" THE TIMES. 
 
 men's consciences, the dangers of our country, the crit- 
 ical position of the whole world, the overwhelming issues 
 hanging on the present crisis, I avow, my friend, that 
 the most serious investigation of the truth affecting the 
 past and the future, ought to sink into insignificance in 
 comparison with the duty of love toward the community 
 in which we are placed, and for which it is our calling 
 to live and die. 
 
 Henceforward, then, I forsake the subject, grand and 
 sacred though it be, of that true moral government of 
 the world in which we and all good Germans believe, 
 and always have believed, and turn to naked reality — 
 to this present time — so full of troubles, and yet, to con- 
 fess it plainly, so rich in hope and life. 
 
 Here we find a point of controversy, on which, in the 
 interests of true peace, we can not lay too great stress. 
 It may thus be expressed. Who is in possession of the 
 right ? the one united Evangelical National Church of 
 Prussia (and not of Prussia only), or the Lutherans 
 who have refused to come into it ? Have we really one 
 Church or three? And how does the administrative 
 system of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council comport 
 with Stahl's principles, as expressed in this oration and 
 elsewhere, but more especially in his official character ? 
 The point at issue may, however, according to my view, 
 be more succinctly and simply expressed thus for those 
 who will not misunderstand it. Do we set before us as 
 our object, Bible faith and evangelical life within one 
 national Church possessing this faith and practicing this 
 life, or scholastic belief ia creeds and Church formularies 
 within three Churches? This brings us to the point 
 which I indicated at the commencement of this letter : 
 we have entered on the domain of reality, and the social 
 conditions now existing, or in process of formation. But 
 
PACTS AND DOCUMENTS. 305 
 
 ■we shall certainly best find our way by keeping closely 
 to a documentary historical representation of facts, ac- 
 cording to which the conscience of our jury, that is to 
 say, the reading public of the religious world, and in 
 particular our German evangelical fellow-believers, will 
 decide. 
 
 We will therefore, in the first place, present to your 
 consideration the legal decisions afiecting the Union to 
 the best of the "limited understanding" of a Christian 
 man. With this view I have given, in the Appendix^ 
 the only four documents by which the point of law must 
 be determined — ^namely, two edicts of the late, and two 
 of the reigning monarch. They are the following : 
 
 A. 1817., Proclamation of Frederic William III., of 
 the 27th of September. 
 
 B. 1834. Cabinet Edict of the 28th of February. 
 
 C. 1852. " " " 6th of March! 
 
 D. 1853. " " " 12th of July. 
 
 To these legal documents I have added the King's re- 
 ply, just published, and dated October 11th, 1853, to 
 some pastors of Wittenberg, and the Union Confession 
 of the General Synod of 1846. This Confession has not, 
 indeed, obtained any legal force, still it carries the not 
 inconsiderable weight of an act of faith of that great 
 assembly; and an Anglican dignitary and theologian 
 equally remarkable for his faith, learning, and genius 
 (alas ! lately snatched from us by dea,th), Julius Hare, 
 has aptly said of it, that it was the grandest Confession 
 of Faith ever framed by any Church in Christendom. 
 
 The legal decisions and declarations reach, therefore, 
 up to October, 1853. Since that epoch, we have as yet 
 received no documentary communications respecting the 
 proceedings of the supreme board of administration. It 
 was the mode in which the first royal decree of the 6th 
 
306 SiaNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 March, 1852, was carried into effect, which excited such 
 universal apprehension and grave doubts throughout the 
 country, that the King was induced to put forth the 
 second decree ; and it is only the way in which the lat- 
 ter has been carried out that we shall have to consider, 
 after taking a historical view of the legal ordinances. 
 
 We shall confine ourselves to the documents them- 
 selves, and the prominent facts connected with the car- 
 rying out of the Union from 1817 to 1852. On the 
 right understanding of this main point must depend the 
 general verdict pronounced by public opinion, and the 
 final achievement of this great enterprise. 
 
 Besides Nitzsch's collection of documents relating to 
 the evangelical Union, with his apostolical preface, 1853, 
 we possess the profound work of his worthy spiritual 
 brother, Julius Miiller, The Evangelical Union, its 
 Essence, and its Divine Right (1854). We have 
 also two very valuable historical accounts of this epoch 
 — one in Messrs Church History (9th edition, 1855), 
 and another in the work of the same author, entitled 
 The Evangelical Protestant Church of the German 
 Empire (2d edition, 1852), and a third in Gieseler's 
 last volume of Church History, which has just appeared. 
 To these we must add Schenkel's excellent book on the 
 Vocation to Union of Germ,an Protestantism, which 
 has come out in the present year. With the views 
 enunciated by these writers, I find myself in perfect 
 agreement as regards the main point ; still, in some 
 respects, the history of the Union, as given by them, 
 remains incomplete, and sometimes is mixed up with 
 other subjects ; and finally, none of these works furnish 
 the documents, an acquaintance with which appears to me 
 indispensable to the forming of an independent judg- 
 ment on the part of the laity at large. Some state- 
 
WORKS ON THE UNION. 307 
 
 ments, too, of Gieseler, relative to the part personally- 
 taken by Frederic William III. in this •work are 
 neither complete nor quite correct. Eylert's account 
 in his book upon Frederic William III., is that of a 
 gossiping unintelligent old man, but it is in the main 
 point historically true. The King has given a very 
 simple and unvarnished picture pf himself in his book, 
 Luther. He was no author, but he was a Christian 
 and a King ; and as such, has not as yet received his 
 due meed of honor from history. 
 
 I begin, therefore, with the historical account of the 
 origin of the Union, and proceed from that to a review 
 of the legal acts, and their execution, up to the pro- 
 niulgation of the Second Cabinet Edict of the reigning 
 King.- 
 
HISTORY OF THE UNION. 
 
 When, in the year 1814, after heavy trials and 
 arduous conflicts, Frederic William III. visited. En- 
 gland, an idea ripened within him which had slum- 
 bered in his breast ever since 1808. There, for the 
 first time, he beheld the Protestant Church under a 
 form worthy of her : at once national and conservative- 
 honored, yet moderate — ^fiill of belief, yet liberal in 
 practice. In the English Liturgy he found a service 
 animated by a spirit of piety, and calculated to exert a 
 living influence over its hearers, while it efiectually ac- 
 complished the object of assigning to prayer its due share 
 in public worship. 
 
 The first plan preparatory to a union of the two Pro- 
 testant Churches of Germany, and a common liturgy for 
 their use, were sketched in St. James's Palace, and were 
 the fruit solely of his own itiward impulses. Ere long, 
 but after an interval filled up by the Congress of Vienna 
 and the battle of Waterloo, came the Tricentenary Fes- 
 tival of the Reformation in 1817. What an event for a 
 HohenzoUer and King of Prussia ! In virtue of its own 
 history and that of the country, it had become the hered- 
 itary vocation of this dynasty to labor for the removal 
 of the lamentable divisions between the two Protestant 
 Confessions : the house of HohenzoUer, originally Lu- 
 theran, had gone over to the Reformed Church shortly 
 before the Thirty Years' War, and the personal religion 
 
THE KING'S IDEA. 309 
 
 of all the reigning princes had borne strong traces of this 
 latter type. But the Protestant population of the six 
 eastern provinces belonged almost exclusively to the 
 Lutheran Confession, while in "Westphalia and the 
 Rhine Provinces the Reformed element predominated. 
 
 From the days of Melancthon, thoughtful princes, 
 with good and wise theologians, such as Calixt and 
 Spener, and, above all, the great Leibnitz, had been 
 rolling the stone of Sisyphus, in the vain attempt to 
 reacl^ Christian concord by the path of theological dis- 
 cord. For in endeavoring to bring scholastic theologians 
 to an agreement about their systems of thought, they at 
 once paid homage to the unhappy delusion of Byzantium 
 and Rome, which places the life and creed of the Con- 
 gregation in these abstract formulas of an imperfect phil- 
 osophy ; and, at the same time, did violence both to this 
 philosophy itself and to the religious feelings which had 
 eiltwined themselves around it. The grandeur and his- 
 torical significance of the work achieved by Frederic 
 William III. consists in the fact of his having perceived 
 that this way was utterly false, and resolved that it 
 should be given up. Why, thought he, should not the 
 Protestant National Church exhibit her unity by a com- 
 mon worship and organization ? What belief there re- 
 mained, either among the people or the learned, did not 
 take the hue of a particular confession, but of simple 
 personal piety. There was no need for Lutherans to go 
 over to the Reformed Church, nor the Reformed to the 
 Lutheran ; the question should be simply put to them — 
 " Will you leave your differing theological notions con- 
 cerning the Sacrament* to the schools and the learned 
 
 * The extreme form of the doctrine of election had never be- 
 come an authoritative doctrine of the Reformed Chnrch in Q-er- 
 many. 
 
310 SIGNS OF TfiE TIMES. 
 
 ■when you go to the table of the Lord, and when you are 
 called to common action as a Church ? In other words, 
 - — ^would you not rather constitute a National Protestant 
 Church, and live under one ecclesiastical organization, 
 than persist in a division which has borne such bitter 
 fruits ? You will be at liberty to use the Lutheran or 
 the Heidelberg Catechism, or one in which your peculiar 
 points of difference are kept in the background and 
 softened down ; you will be at liberty to preach accord- 
 ing to whichever form of doctrine your conscience dic- 
 tates — the one Lutheran the other Reformed, a third 
 chiefly in the spirit of the form of agreement which may 
 be hereafter adopted ; but you must refrain from all con- 
 demnation of your brethren, and all attacks upon the 
 other forms of doctrine admitted within the pale of the 
 Union. This work shall be sealed by a Union Liturgy, 
 which shall keep as closely as possible to Scripture, and 
 by a united church government. A purely evangelical 
 celebration of the Sacrament will unite you as brethren 
 in faith and love in one worship — a common constitution, 
 a single ecclesiastical body." This is a tolerably faith- 
 ful representation of the idea of Frederic William III. 
 
 I have purposely used the term ecclesiastical constitu- 
 tion, not merely church government. At that time the 
 King still cherished a strong predilection for constitu- 
 tional congregational self-development in the Church as 
 well as in the State. This is evinced by his ordinance 
 of 1816, which prescribes that presbyters, i. e., elders, 
 shall be chosen by each congregation, who, with the pas- 
 tors, shall form the Provincial Synod, in which lay el- 
 ders shall sit with the clergy. In this manner did 
 Frederic William III. begin the greatest work of his 
 reign^ — perhaps, of this century. That he did not enter 
 on it without a grave sense of its importance and scope. 
 
APPEAX OF THE KING. gH 
 
 is unmistakably shown by his proclamation of the 27th 
 of September, 1817, whidi may be termed the " Appeal 
 of the King to his Protestant people," and which forms 
 the first document appended to this letter. 
 
 The King announces to his subjects that it is his inten- 
 tion on the jubilee of the Reformation (30th of October, 
 1817), to assemble in his Church, at Potsdam, the Re- 
 formed and Lutheran congregations of that place, and in 
 this united congregation to receive the Sacrament. The 
 appeal which follows this announcement may be thus 
 briefly summed up : Let every one who can and will fol- 
 low my example, in faith, do so, as an act of faith and 
 love, in thankfulness toward God, and it will be a work 
 rich in blessing. 
 
 The King adds in explanation : 
 
 " By the proposed union of the two Churches, Jhe Re- 
 formed will not go over to the Lutheran, nor vice versd, 
 but both will become a revivified, evangelical Christian 
 Church, in the spirit of its holy Founder." 
 
 With theology our wise and pious King would not 
 meddle : 
 
 "To the wise guidance of the Consistories, to the 
 pious zeal of the clergy and their Synods, I commit the 
 outward form of the agreement to be entered into, as- 
 sured that the congregation will willingly follow their 
 proper leaders." 
 
 ■ He himself prescribes no ritual whatever, but declares 
 his conviction 
 
 " That if only the eye be directed in earnestness and 
 sincerity, and clear from all interested views, to what is 
 essential — ^to the great and holy cause itself — a form will 
 readily be found ; and thus the outward shape will spon- 
 taneously spring forth from the inward essence, and as- 
 sume a simple and dignified aspect." 
 
312 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 . The whole body of the Berlin clergy, with Schleier- 
 macher at their head, responded to the King's " Appeal" 
 with a declaration and proposals, breathing at once 
 Christian earnestness and Protestant liberality, and their 
 example was soon followed by the country at large. In 
 fact the King's project was so entirely in harmony with 
 the wants of the times, that in a few years the move- 
 ment in favor of a Union spread throughout the whole 
 of Germany, except where it was checked by the higher 
 powers. The gifted and sagacious historian, Karl Hase, 
 has said with great truth, " The Union fell into the 
 King's hand like a ripe fruit." If, now-ar'days, ill-in- 
 formed adherents of the Junker party, and extreme re- 
 actionaries, see, or pretend to see, in this willingness to 
 meet on a common ground, nothing but ungodly indif- 
 ference, this is simply a proof that they have no con- 
 ception of the purely evangelical and undogmatic hue of 
 the piety of that day, nor yet of the arduous ' mental 
 struggles which Christians had undergone in coming to 
 a conviction of the mischiefs of having these distinctive 
 creeds imposed upon them. It was not indifference to 
 the symbolical books, but a Gospel faith that had been 
 tried by sorrows, and exalted by stupendous historical 
 events, which made it possible for the King to carry out 
 what it would have been impossible for the father and 
 grandfather of the great Federic even to attempt. The 
 Union came to pass spontaneously, as Leibnitz had 
 prophesied long before. It is true that the most power- 
 ful thinkers of the age joined the King in wishing for a 
 combination and gradual coalescence of; the two Confes- 
 sions, but they only wished it in the sense of an earnest 
 evangelical faith. Those shallow writers, are even less 
 aware of the fact that the relaxation of the rigid chains 
 of those theological creeds which have cost Germany 
 
SPIEIT OF THIS APPEAL. 313 
 
 her place in Europe, torn her asunder, and \fell-nigh 
 reduced her to slavery, was the safety-valve which 
 preserved thinking people from utter skepticism and 
 despair, and the members of our Church from the con- 
 vulsive throes of politico-social revolutions. 
 
 Frederic William III. was the representative of the 
 sentiments thus shared bythe noblest and best of our 
 teachers and thinkers, as the personification of Christian 
 common sense ; and he was adopted as their leader, even 
 by Churches which were not subject to his scepter, and 
 as their exemplar by independent Grovernments. The 
 great fundamental idea of his Appeal was as little secta- 
 rian as it was inconsistent with churchmanship. This is 
 proved by the remarkable sentence with which it con- 
 cludes, and which was uttered in a spirit of sincere faith 
 untinged by proselytism : " May that promised era be 
 not far distant, when all shall be gathered under one 
 shepherd into one fold, with one faith, one hope, one 
 love." But certainly from the very beginning the difiS- 
 culty was evident of bringing about a new embodiment 
 of spiritual life without the active co-operation of an 
 independent Congregation, and without a strengthening 
 of personal faith. The course taken by the King was 
 by no means simply negative and latitndinarian ; for 
 brotherhood in the Unioii must strengthen our grasp 
 of the fundamental conceptions of Protestantism— the 
 supreme authority of the Bible above all creeds, and 
 ■justification by faith (therefore, subjectively, by virtue 
 of a temper of trust and willing self-surrender), and 
 likewise our faith in the chief doctrines flowing from 
 these first principles, concerning the Law and the Gos- 
 pel, this world and the next. 
 
 While, however, the King felt that the Union could 
 not be consolidated without the two positive and practical 
 14 
 
314 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 bases of a Liturgy and Constitution, the idea of the lat- 
 ter was somewhat obscured in his mind during the period 
 from 1820 to 1822, by the insurrections in Spain and 
 Italy, and by the " Burschensehaften" amcmg the stu- 
 dents and their proceedings at the Wartburg. We must, 
 however, state the simple historical truth, and what con- 
 tributed still more to this result, was the purely abso- 
 lutistic and aggressive attitude which the closely allied 
 Imperial Courts of Russia and Austria assumed toward 
 liberty in general, and which they induced him to assume 
 also, to some extent, by means of the Holy Alliance. 
 This reacted upon the question of the Union, as was 
 shown by the fact that the Decree of 1816, respecting 
 the establishment of presbyteries in the congregation, in 
 order to the election of mixed synods, was never carried 
 into execution. During the following years there was 
 no want of efforts to induce the King to take further 
 steps in the matter, but age had indisposed him to stir 
 arid change, and his experience with regard to the intro^ 
 duetion of a Liturgy had irritated him, and rendered 
 him mistrustful. 
 
 The commission which he appointed, so early as the 
 year 1814, to deliberate on a Liturgy, after long official 
 correspondence and discussions, at last succeeded in 
 framing a scheme, according, to which the first Union- 
 service was held in Potsdam, on the 30th of October, 
 1819. With a few remarks, Schleiermaeher easily 
 demonstrated its practical inefficiency. It is not true 
 that this scheme was the King's own production/ It 
 was only after its failure that the King took the work 
 into his own hands, with the resolve to keep closely to 
 the Liturgies framed by the Reformers, or rather to 
 their modifications of the order of the mass, which were 
 brought into provisional use in the different provinces of 
 
THE FKAMING OP THE lITtJEGT. 315 
 
 the country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 and had never been legally abolished, but only Mien 
 into desuetude. He caused these Liturgies and rubrics 
 to be laid before him, and a short comparative review of 
 them to be prepared in the Cabinet itself. After he had 
 thus made himself personally master of their contents, 
 he, with the assistance and advice of a few clergymen in 
 his confidence, compiled from them the "Agenda for the 
 Cathedral and Royal Chapel at Berlin," which appeared 
 in 1821. The result was a simple order of worship 
 which, in substance, corresponded to those older forms, 
 though certainly not without some errors and onesided- 
 ness. 
 
 If this production, unsatisfactory and incomplete as it 
 could not fail to be, had issued from the deliberation of a 
 Synod in which the Congregation was represented, and 
 had been put into the hands of the people as a supple- 
 ment to the Hymn-book, it would have been as welcome 
 as the "Appeal to -the Union." But appearing thus, as 
 the production of a military Cabinet and Court clergy, 
 it was regarded as something alien and unprotestant, and 
 was received with decided mistrust. Congregational 
 singing and the sermon, the two vitg,! elements of the 
 evangelical worship, certainly seemed about to be thrown 
 into the background. The Agenda was a book for the 
 clergy, and not put into the hands of the people at all. 
 The order for public worship bore no popular name, but 
 the foreign, hierarchical-sounding title of a " Liturgy." 
 It was "performed" without a pause by a choir, also 
 npt a thing of native growth ; and a short sermon, with- 
 out prefiice, formed a kind of appendix to it. As to the 
 feeling of its foreign character, it did not even remind 
 the hearer of the Common Prayer-book of the Anglican 
 Church, but rather suggested a comparison with the 
 
316 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 military Russian Liturgy, which had made a deep 
 impression on the King. Finally, the people were 
 predisposed to regard any thing emanating from the 
 Government with undue suspicion, by their political 
 dissatisfaction at the attitude assumed by the three 
 Northern Powers toward the constitutional aspirations 
 of the peoples of Southern Europe and the legal consti- 
 tutional development of Prussia and Germany. 
 
 The difficulties that beset its introduction were over- 
 come in the course of the next few years by the firmness 
 of the King, by the personal confidence felt in his just 
 moderation and freedom from all narrow pietism, and 
 finally, by the tacit consciousness that the Union itself 
 was a heaven-inspired thought, and in harmony with the 
 demands of the age. But what contributed, perhaps, 
 the most to the removal of all opposition, was the refer- 
 ence of the Liturgy, in 1829, to the Consistories and 
 assemblies of clergy, for the purpose of introducing such 
 modifications within the limits of the original type as 
 should adapt it to the use of particular provinces. Al- 
 ready, in the beginning of the year 1828, the King had 
 sanctioned the use, in the Chapel of the Embassy at 
 Rome, of certain very important alterations, which bore 
 the stainp of congregational co-operation, in the arrange- 
 ment of the Liturgy; and, in particular, had conceded 
 that the sermon " should be restored to the more im- 
 portant position in the service, formerly assigned to it by 
 a wide-spread and ancient custom." This rubric, and the 
 preface to the " Liturgy for the Evangelical Chapel in 
 Rome," proceed from the King's own hand, who ex- 
 amined for himself the order of worship laid before him, 
 in all its details, with the greatest earnestness, as is tes- 
 tified by papers of his still preserved. Meanwhile, the 
 Union itself, with its symbol, the Union Liturgy, was 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE UNION. 317 
 
 making progress, and in 1830 was introduced by law 
 into the various congregations. But at the~ same time 
 an Old Lutheran reaction showed itself, which found an 
 organ in Scheibel, a very ignorant, but resolute and 
 fenatical preacher, and gradually caused the King much 
 anxiety. The spirit of adherence to a particular con- 
 fession was aroused, and now the isolation and helpless- 
 ness of the royal dictatorship became apparent. The 
 want of any independent governing authority in the 
 Church, and of all free congregational action, rendered 
 it more and more difficult for the Government and the 
 Congregation to come to an understanding with each 
 other ; nor were there any adequate legal securities for 
 religious liberty. Hence sprang the Cabinet Order of 
 the 28th February, 1834, the second document we ap- 
 pend, which properly has to do rather with the Liturgy 
 than Vith the Union. 
 
 The King sought to separate the question of the 
 Liturgy from that of the Union. He held it to be his 
 right, in virtue of his sovereign authority, to lay the 
 Liturgy before the congregations for their acceptance ; 
 while the accession to the Union, he says, is a matter of 
 free choice ; — ^it will be easy for an unprejudiced person 
 to convince himself that this has nothing to do with any 
 abolition of confessional distinctions hitherto existing. 
 As it had been said in the Appeal of 1817, "that the 
 Lutheran should not go over to the Reformed Church, 
 nor the Calvinist to the Lutheran," so this Edict says, 
 evidently with the same meaning, "the object and inten- 
 tion of the Union was not any conversion to a new Con- 
 fession of Faith." His fundamental principle of the 
 Appeal of 1817 had been already recalled to mind by a 
 Cabiaet Order of the 30th April,^ 1830, which expressly 
 declares that "the Union involves no change of Confes- 
 
318 SIGNS OF 'THE TIMES. 
 
 sion." The Union Liturgy, we are told by the Edict 
 of 1834, is not intended to occupy the place of the con- 
 fessional writings which have been handed down in the 
 Church. No evangelical Christian can be unable to ac- 
 cept it, nor does its acceptance necessarily involve any 
 accession to the Union. A congregation which joins the 
 Union naturally adopts the Liturgy, but it does not, by 
 adopting the Liturgy, constitute itself a member of the 
 Union. But even those who believe themselves bound 
 to hold fast the distinctions of doctrine between the two 
 Confessions with the utmost strictness, ought not on this 
 account to deny themselves all outward Church fellow- 
 ship. The meaning of such expressions must clearly be 
 nothing else than this : that such dogmatic Christians 
 and congregations may be willing not only to recognize 
 the preponderating coincidence of the two systems of 
 doctrine, but through faith in what they have in com- 
 inon, to live in external Church fellowship ; that is, 
 at least, to make use of a common form of worship, 
 and to live under the same Protestant Church govern- 
 ment. 
 
 To one point the King holds fast, as that by which 
 the Union must stand or fall : 
 
 " Under no circumstances can the enemies of the 
 Union be 'permitted, to constitute themselves a separate 
 religious body." 
 
 This evidently can not mean to say, the Old Luther- 
 ans are to be driven out of the country. For if so, 
 what would become of the fundamental principle, that 
 accession to the Union is wholly voluntary ? It can 
 only mean, therefore, they shall not organize themselves 
 into a separate religious body within the United National 
 Church. The King saw that else we should have in 
 future three State Churches instead of two, and that his 
 
PEINCIPLES OF THE UNION. 319 
 
 pious labors, instead of producing unity, would only 
 have brought about worse divisions. Hence, the King, 
 in the earlier Edict of the 30th April, 1830, had already 
 recommended the Greneral-Superiatendents to endeavor 
 to bring about : " The disuse of the distinctive names 
 of the t\Do Protestant Confessions (^Reformed and 
 Lutheran) both by the clergy and laity." 
 
 He who wishes to live within the Protestant National 
 Church as by law established may therefore, as a school- 
 man or a dogmatist, remain Lutheran or Reformed, as 
 he chooses ; provided only that he give the inferior place 
 to the points of difference, and subordinate them to the 
 points of agreement, instead of ranking them as insepara- 
 ble on the same leveL The ministerial regulations of 
 the reign of Frederic William III. amply prove that 
 duriag this reign this principle was followed in all the 
 proceedings and decisions of the Government. 
 
 From the time that the Union Liturgy had been ex- 
 tended and modified by the various provinces in 1829 
 and 1830,^ the Union had existed by law throughout the 
 country ; having been accepted by \k& clergy and laity, 
 with the exception of a few congregations, whose resist- 
 ance would soon have died out, had they been quietly 
 allowed t» take their own course. In the Rhine Prov- 
 inces and Westphalia, thirty-two congregations did not 
 join the Union, but unhesitatingly adopted the synodal 
 constitution, in which they lived amicably as united 
 members. In the rest of the provinces, this seal, the 
 element borrowed from the Reformed Church, was want- 
 ing ; but the liturgical seal, the guiding and overruling 
 element, was present; and sacred song and prayer 
 worked together toward that union of heart of which 
 they were the outward symbols. Not only every prov- 
 ince, but every separate congregation had been suffered 
 
320 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 to mamtain its own forms and customs, if they had no 
 exclusive tendency, and learned now to feel united 
 with the rest in that Last Supper of Love which, in 
 its dogmatic form, had causedj and could only cause 
 divisions. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the opinion of those who maintained 
 that the Union had no solid and permanent foundation 
 was but too soon confirmed. There lacked, except in 
 the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia, the legal recc^i- 
 tion of the Congregation as the depositary of right, as 
 well as any permanent organs of the pious consciousness 
 of the united people. 
 
 Since 1809, the King had exercised a pure dictator- 
 ship over the Church, and administered its affairs through 
 his ofiScers. Every parish priest was designated in the 
 official oath as "servant of the Church and State." 
 Under such a despotic (however mild and well-inten- 
 tioned) Church-government, not much regard was paid 
 to the obtaining of a formal and authentic expression of 
 sentiment ; the acceptance of the Union took place in 
 each congregation separately-r-sometimes by the enthu- 
 siastic assent of the whole, sometimes by the pastor 
 alone, with that tacit consent of the congregation which 
 is the fe-vorite form or fiction of the absolute canon law. 
 The clergyman reported to the Superintend^it, the 
 latter to the Consistory, and the Consistco-y to the min- 
 istry, that the acceptance had taken place. But it had 
 really taken place everywhere in the course of these 
 seventeen years, and had been carried out and established 
 by law without opposition. In 1834, in about five 
 Lutheran congregations, some remstance was. displayed, 
 but even in them only by a minority (as far as this fact 
 can be learned from ofScial documents, I speak firom 
 personal knowledge). 
 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 321 
 
 The congregational element was also far too much 
 neglected in the mode adopted in introducing the Union 
 Liturgy. The Liturgy was, and continued to be, an 
 Agenda, and was treated as an aSkir of the clergy alone, 
 because it had been so in the first instance. It was not 
 included in any Hymn-book ; nor was it popularly devel- 
 oped, like that of England, into a dialogue between the 
 priest and the people. It was "performed" by the 
 "officiating minister and the choir." No doubt, with 
 regard to these mistakes, the King betrayed a certain 
 degree of narrowness and tiinidity of mind ; but we 
 must not forget the materials he found existing around 
 him ; — the invincible pedantry of the narrow-hearted 
 and priest-ridden seventeenth century, and the barren 
 formlessness and chaos of the eighteenth, both the result 
 of our political condition. 
 
 Thus religious liberty was the first necessity to re- 
 kindle that congregational feeling in individual Chris- 
 tians which might be the parent of new organizations. 
 To grant this liberty to the small party of Old Luther- 
 ans, who certainly found themselves treated with the 
 utmost rigor of the law, was one of the first acts of the 
 reign of Frederic William the Fourth. 
 
 But the whole tendency of the present King's labors 
 
 was toward freedom, and the practical supply of those 
 
 deficiencies of the Protestant Church which we have 
 
 characterized above. With this aim he convoked, in 
 
 1846, after many preparatory measures, the first General 
 
 ■Synod, which consisted of thirty-seven clerical and 
 
 thirty-eight lay representatives, and included among its 
 
 •members the most distinguished men of Prussia, whether 
 
 for enlightened piety and spiritual experience, or for 
 
 power of utterance and knowledge of Scripture. The 
 
 overwhelming majority of this assembly felt, like the 
 
 14* 
 
322 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 King, that the first task of such an assembly must be the 
 consolidation of the Union. For how could any thing 
 profitable be done for or by a Church, unless it were 
 first of all clearly determined what was necessary to 
 church-fellowship and for the representation of the Con- 
 gregation ? Unhappily, no practical efficacy was given 
 to their proposals. But there remains, as a monument 
 of their spirit, -their memorable theological declaration 
 on the import, extent, and bearing of the points of 
 agreement between the two systems of doctrine; as 
 whose author Nitzsch may be regarded, in conjunction 
 with Dr. Julius Miiller, who was charged with the 
 drawing up of the Consensus.* 
 
 No person of candid and well-informed mind cau read 
 this remarkable document without becoming convinced 
 that the witness thus borne to the Union forms the most 
 dignified and decisive answer to much of the theological- 
 bigotry and scholastic arrogance of the present day, as 
 well as to certain misrepresentations of the original idea 
 of the Union, which would give it a meaning favorable 
 to the exclusive spirit of the Old Lutherans. 
 
 On the latter side, unhappily, we even then find 
 Stahl, as the head of a minority, consisting of fourteen 
 members. We have the speeches he made in these de- 
 liberations now before us in the records of the General 
 Synod, and we can not but perceive that they proceed 
 from a point of view, not merely occasibnally difiering 
 from, but diametrically opposed to the view of the ma- 
 jority, and the Union of Frederic William the Third. 
 For Stahl announces that "the logical definitions of the 
 truths essential to salvation given in the Creeds, can npt 
 be separated firom the truths themselves." He declares 
 
 * See Appendix F to Letter X. :— -The Evangelical Consensus 
 adopted by the General Synod of Prassia in 1846. 
 
THE CREEDS AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 323 
 
 for himself, and those who think with him, that "the 
 truths essential to salvation are, to them^ living only as 
 they are contained in the vessel of the Creeds." These 
 words, therefore, fully confirm our exposition of -hia 
 somewhat obscure statements on this subject in his 
 speech of 1855. He denies the Union. 
 But at the same time he admits that : 
 
 " The logical definitions of the Creeds are defective, and not 
 fidly adequate to the Divine Truth ; and it is the task of every 
 private Christian, and of the ■whole Christian Church, constantly 
 to rise nearer to the Divine Truth itself and to endeavor after a 
 wider conception thereof, toward which, however, these logical 
 definitions must permanently serve as a vehicle." 
 
 As to the mode of reconciling this, doubtless, correct 
 view of the inadequacy of the definitions of the old ec- 
 clesiastical Confessions with his former high-flown theo- 
 logical utterances, we are left quite in the dark. We 
 might ask, what will become of the vessels when the sav- 
 ing formularies free themselves from their bounds ? or of 
 thfr truths essential to salvation when they are taken out 
 of the vessels without which they are but dead ? 
 
 Not only is every philosopher of our age fully aware, 
 but every unlearned evangelical Christian must easily 
 perceive, that it is impossible not to fall into contra- 
 dictions, if the simple Christian faith, as contained in 
 universally known Bible maxims and the Catechism, and 
 witnessed by conscience, is placed on the same level with 
 the acceptance of the scholastic deductions of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. The inadequacy of 
 the principles of exegesis and historical criticism on 
 which these deductions are based, and the defectiveness 
 of the whole method pursued then, as in the Middle 
 Ages, in philosophizing on Biblical theology, are now 
 universally acknowledged. The very man who holds 
 
324 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Luther's fiindamental conception of Justification by 
 Faith, as expressed in the Augsburg Confession and the 
 Smaller Catechism, to be the best exposition of this 
 point of doctrine, may entertain the strongest objection 
 to the demand, that the same respect should be con- 
 ceded, the same binding power assigned, to the sys- 
 tematic development of this doctrine by the Lutheran 
 divines. His objection will be grounded partly on the 
 nature of the case itself, partly on the defective and ar- 
 bitrary character which, according to Stahl's own testi- 
 mony, is inherent in all such theological formulas. And 
 all this will be felt still more strongly with regard to the 
 scholastic body of proof "for the Lutheran doctrine of the 
 Eucharist, in which Luther himself has but a small share. 
 Unfortunately Stahl's expressions concerning the 
 Union were as 9b3cure formerly as they are at the 
 present day. He admitted (and it is well to note this) 
 that 
 
 " The confessional Union is already accomplished, and the ec- 
 clesiastical government is confessionaUy united, in so far as it is 
 the only organ through which the Church has the power of ex- 
 pressing her faith, and giving it practical effect; in this sense 
 there exists no longer any Lutheran Church in Prussia." 
 
 Such is his view of the state of the case in the eye of 
 the law. But henceforth it must be the grand aim of 
 the rulers of the Church to counteract this condition of 
 things. The problem of the United Church government 
 must be, " to protect the separate Confessions within the 
 pale of the Union." This last proposition demands 
 grave consideration. The shadow of Frederic William 
 rises up to protest against the assertion, that he intended 
 to attack the separate Confessions : he would only as- 
 sign them their right place in the life of the Christian 
 Congregation, and not suffer the great National Protes- 
 
THE SEPARATE CONFESSIONS. 325 
 
 taut Church to become once more a Church of theo- 
 logians, through the rekindling of a religious zeal for 
 ecclesiastical distinctions. On the other hand, all fear 
 of any oppression of the separate Confessions outside the 
 United National Church is no less strongly negatived by 
 the perfect liberty accorded to them, immediately on his 
 accession to the throne, by Frederic William IV. But 
 to carry out in practice the protection here demanded for 
 these Confessions, in their scholastic completeness, within 
 the pale of the Union, is to destroy the Union and an- 
 nihilate its fundamental principle. 
 
 The separate Confessions possess, as all agree, a har- 
 mony with each other which is grand and beautiful, 
 consoling and peace-giving : he who holds fast by this, 
 and as a member of the Congregation keeps in the back- 
 ground the discordant theological dogmas of the two 
 systems, is within the pale of the Protestant National 
 Church, and belongs to a noble confession. He who 
 can not, or will not, do this, will find ample protection 
 in the separate Churches, Lutheran or Calvinistic, 
 founded upon these points of difference. As a learned 
 theologian, any one of course may prefer the one doctrine 
 and its development to the other ; but this has nothing 
 to do with congregational life, only with the republic of 
 letters. But whoever would lay stress on these differ- 
 ences as a hinderance to a common constitution, and to 
 union in a common worship of God, can not honestly 
 remain within the United Church: he denies it. He 
 can only remain in it in order, consciously or unconsci- 
 ously, to work its destruction. 
 
 K we compare Stahl's expressions in 1846 with the 
 oration of 1855, we perceive a progress that must be 
 regretted, on the path of introducing confessional separ- 
 atism within the pale of the Union, and fostering it 
 
326 SIGN'S OP THE TIMES. 
 
 through the agency of the highest dictatorial council. 
 He says now, as we have seen, that it is altogether inad- 
 missible to make any distinction between fundamental 
 and non-fundamental doctrines: every thing is funda- 
 mental in a true system. "And Anathema sit! who- 
 ever consciously gives up one tittle thereof!" 
 
 This is, if possible, even stronger than his character- 
 istic confession of faith, apostolic, oecumenic, and Luth- 
 eran, in the Kirchentag of 1853. 
 
 We now come to the fateful years of 1848 and 1849, 
 and must take notice of Stahl's remarkable expressions 
 of opinion at that time, and the official measures which 
 followed them, in so far as they affect the Union and the 
 United National Church. 
 
 On the 15th of January, 1849, the then Minister -for 
 Ecclesiastical Affairs, M. von Ladenberg, invited all the 
 Consistories and Protestant theological faculties of the 
 universities, with the Privy Counselor of Justice Stahl, 
 and three other distinguished professors of canon law, to 
 send in reports on the best method of preparing the way 
 for the constitutionar independence of the Protestant 
 National Church. These reports were published in the _ 
 following July. As early as the autumn of 1848, the 
 idea of committing the work of framing the constitution 
 to a General Synod, springing from direct election, had 
 been given up, and the discussions now turned on the 
 necessary organic preparations for a National Synod, to 
 be elected by the Synods of the separate circles and 
 provinces, which again were to be elected by thei 
 parochial boards. Others desired a free Conference for 
 the discussion of the subject ; and Stahl had advocated 
 this view when there was still a probability that 
 a General Synod resting on direct election might be 
 called. 
 
PROJECTS FOE A CONSTITUTION. 327 
 
 A memorial drawn up by Dr. Ludwig Richter,* the 
 celebrated professor of canon law, which contained a 
 lucid statement of all the views hitherto expressed on 
 the topic, accompanied the ministerial invitation. It 
 now stands at the head of the very meritorious publican 
 tion containing the " Official Reports on the Constitution 
 of the Protestant Church in Prussia." The upright 
 Professor of law justly ranks the Union itself as the pre- 
 liminary assumption. In some few provinces, he says, 
 the reaction of certain political agitations has given rise 
 vto the idea, "that the first and most essential- step is to 
 restore to the separate Confessions those rights of which 
 they have been deprived by the Union." " This party," 
 continues the memorial, " renounces, therefore, the 
 maintenance of the external unity of the whole great 
 Protestant Congregation of the nation ; and in the place 
 of the National Church, whose conception is to them 
 wanting in clearness and truth, they would restore three 
 independent spheres of religious life — the Reformed, the 
 Lutheran, and the United Churches." 
 
 This is the language of truth and history. We now 
 know on official evidence, that Stahl's report (p. 404— 
 416), may be regarded in the main as the organ of that 
 Lutheran party which had been stirred up in certain 
 provinces. We find in it the very words which Richter 
 characterizes aa the party-view of the enemies of the 
 Union. 
 
 * The most learned and famous professor of canon law in 
 Q-ermany, now at Berlin ; in 1847 he was made Comiselor of the 
 Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs, and wrote excellent memoirs 
 in connection with this department during 1848 and 1849. He 
 is a member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, but is opposed 
 to Stahl, whose theories as to the depositary of power in the 
 Christian Church he had demolished in a learned work published 
 in 1843.— 5}-. 
 
328 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 "With regard to the Constitution, Stahl rejects the 
 territorial doctrine, according to which the sovereign, as 
 such, governs the Protestant Church. But I do not 
 give him much thanks for this, as he lets in the right, of 
 the sovereign to govern the Church by another door — 
 namely, the Protestant sovereign governs it as being its 
 " highest member." Both systems are irreconcilable 
 with the rights of the Congregation and are practically 
 alike. Dr. Stahl knows full well that the King of 
 Bavaria and the Emperor of Austria are justly indiffer- 
 ent to such distinctions. If the Protestants are, once 
 for all, to be governed by their sovereigns, no sovereign 
 will find any difficulty in accepting the position. It 
 comes to the same thing whether he rules by Lutheran 
 usage or the new Caesaro-papacy, of which the Prussian 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council is laying the foundation : 
 - — whatever be the form, it is in virtue of this sovereignty 
 that the Reformed Churches of Hungary and Transyl- 
 vania now see their free constitution menaced by the 
 extension of the consistorial form of government to the 
 Reformed Synodal Church. The same fate has over- 
 taken the Reformed Churches in other places. Did not 
 the Catholic Minister of the Interior in Bavaria, a short 
 time ago, forbid a highly-respected clergyman and 
 member of the Consistory to take part in an assembly 
 of deacons, of a purely religious nature? Moreover, 
 Stahl preaches against the territorial doctrine, because 
 he fears that by virtue of it complaints might be laid 
 before the Chambers of the non-execution of those 
 Articles of the Constitution which affect the Church.' 
 A constitutional appeal to the Chambers with regard to 
 the execution of these Articles is, in the eyes of his 
 party, identical with sacrificing the independence of the 
 Church to the State. An appeal to Parliament, there- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN. 329 
 
 fore, a piece of " territorialistic" treason; but that the 
 Protestant sovereign should rule the Church as her 
 "highest member," with the help of the academical 
 body, is founded in justice. And wherefore? Stahl 
 says, because it is founded on the existing fiicts of the 
 case. Nor according to him, iS it contrary to the letter 
 of the Constitution (aa he publicly declared in the Pas- 
 toral Conference of 1848), only to the spirit of it. At 
 any rate, therefore, it appertains to the Crown to con- 
 tinue to rule the Church for the present : — a provisional 
 arrangement that however, "may occupy a considerable 
 space of time, which it is wholly impossible to determine 
 before-hand." The preparation of the Church for the 
 introduction of a new Constitution would be best com- 
 mitted to a board of commissioners, hereafter to be organ- 
 ized, who should rule the Church with the now existing 
 Consistories under it. But even in this ultimate consti- 
 tution, this ecclesiastical board, strengthened, perhaps, 
 by the addition of some members of Consistories, must 
 share the government with the representative Synod. 
 The Congregation, as we all know, is not in his eye the 
 depositary of right. 
 
 When, however, he represents such a constitution as 
 in harmony with the usage of the Lutheran Church, he 
 is but too correct ; for it would be nothing else than the 
 consistorial constitution of the seventeenth century, first 
 established as a provisional arrangement (which has 
 lasted, however, in all its rigidity, for three hundred 
 years) by a dictatorship that had passed into a despot- 
 ism ! The whole apparatus of synodal deliberation in 
 this system is, in practice, merely a troublesome and 
 costly appendage. The Central Commission, which 
 rules the Church in the name of its Protestant head, 
 has not only the executive power (therefore the actual 
 
330 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 governinent), but a share in the deliberations, and even 
 the right of veto. 
 
 When, however, he hints that such a constitution, 
 "as not organized from below upward," is consistent 
 with the spirit of the Apostolic Form of Church govern- 
 ment, I must confess, my friend, that this sentiment, if 
 it is not a mere common-place, has strengthened my 
 doubts whether this learned man has ever really made 
 researches on any field of theology :, that he has not 
 done so in the field of exegesis I have already seen 
 much reason to doubt — ^to his honor, and the calming of 
 my own fears. And in early Church history he seems 
 merely to have taken up certain assumptions, in order 
 to make them of use in his interpretation of history 
 and law. But Richter has already proved, in 1843, 
 that his view is false, even according to the expressions 
 of the Reformers themselves. 
 
 Finally, when he finds the fulfilment of the national 
 Constitution of Prussia in such an ecclesiastical con- 
 stitution, it is sufficient for the " limited^lay under- 
 standing" to point to our Magna Charta (printed in the 
 Appendix), to prove that such an assumption is as con- 
 trary to the Constitution as it is discordant with the 
 wishes and expectations clearly enough expressed by our 
 Protestant population. He himself has confessed that 
 the form toward which he works as his goal is irrecon- 
 cilable with the spirit of the Constitution ; consequently 
 he can but be working toward the complete transforma- 
 tion of that spirit. 
 
 After these declarations — painfully surprising, indeed, 
 from so acute and learned a man — Stahl's report reaches 
 the vital point, the Union. He admits that the members 
 of the Confession (read : Lutherans) possess no satisfac- 
 tory guaranty for their confessional convictions even in 
 
LIMITS OF LIBERTY 'WITHIN THE UNION. 331 
 
 the Cabinet Edict of 1834, expressly intended to tran- 
 quilize their fears; for this Edict is neither clear in 
 itself, he Says, nor is it everywhere carried out alike. 
 Besides, the Lutherans have still to complain of two 
 restrictions. One is that the Lutheran congregations 
 are forbidden to use their old Liturgies — the other that 
 they are forbidden to form an organ of ecclesiastical 
 law for themselves, whose sphere of action should con- 
 sist in watching over the maintenance of the confessional 
 character. This is true — ^that is, within the Union ; 
 for as separatists they already have more than ia here 
 demanded. The one thing that has hitherto been re- 
 fused is an organ of separatism within the Union : to 
 grant it would be self-contradiction or treason ; to de- 
 mand it — ^is not seemly.' 
 
 Whoever knew the Union as it was under Frederic 
 William HI. (and I had occasion to make myself per- 
 sonally acquainted with it long before Dr. Stahl came 
 into the country), will scarcely trust his eyes when he 
 reads such a charge against the honored memory of its 
 founder. The assertion, that no regard was paid to the 
 peculiarities of the Lutheran Liturgies, is entirely con- 
 trary to fact. After the provincial deliberative assem- 
 blies of the clergy, held in 1829, had accepted all those 
 formularies of worship which were certified by the su- 
 perintendents or pastors of parishes to be still living 
 and dear to the people, still more was done ; for (as the 
 King's commands gave me occasion to see for myself, 
 in 1834, by the inspection of official documents) wher- 
 ever an old Agenda was insisted on, whether reasonably 
 or unreasonably, its use was permitted as a special ap- 
 pendix to the general National Liturgy, except where, 
 in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, some form had 
 crept in which would exclude their Reformed brethren 
 
332 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 from Churcli fellowship. The same documents, however, 
 also showed but too plainly that the fanaticism of the 
 Old Lutherans (who did not then form the majority of 
 a single congregation) went so far that they resisted the 
 binding up of their own Agenda with the Union Liturgy 
 in one volume as a desecration of the former. And 
 these are the people of whom a man of intellect makes 
 himself the organ ! 
 
 If, to please a few ignorant country congregations in 
 whom a fiinatical spirit is systematically excited, this 
 arrogant and exclusive party should overthrow the first 
 principles of the Union, while still remaining within the 
 U'nited Church, they will . end by practically destroying 
 the latter ; at least, they could pursue no other course 
 were such really their object. Now Stahl sees no harm 
 whatever in this. On the second point he certainly per- 
 ceives some diflSculties ; but it would only be necessary, 
 he thinks, to replace the Union by a "Confederation," 
 such as has already been proposed by the Wittenberg 
 Assembly of Lutherans, and was described by Stahl 
 himself, in the Pastoral Conference at Berlin, 1848, 
 dimly looming through the twilight of futurity. Thus, 
 perhaps, might the Lutherans be withheld .from schism 
 and complete separation ; in case of which, they would 
 be entitled to appeal to the Peace of Westphalia, and 
 the legal condition of things before 1817, were not at 
 least the half of the Church property assigned to them. 
 
 Here, then, we first encounter the phrase, which 
 began to grow current in 1848. " Confederation" is 
 the ominous word which some are seeking to substitute 
 for " Union ; " and confederation is the thing which the 
 same men are, to the utmost of their power, substituting 
 for " Union" in practice. The dust of " Confederation," 
 some years later, was thrown in the unsuspicious half- 
 
LIMITS OF LIBERTY "WITHIlir THE tJNION. 333 
 
 closed eyes of the good honest Kirchentag ; and thus 
 it happened, to the deep grief of myself and many good 
 Protestants, that the Kirchentag of 1853 adopted that 
 name, and set aside the improved Confession of 1540, 
 ■which received Luther's approbation. 
 
 The menace of the Peace of W^tphalia., almost re- 
 minds us of the terrible words of Bishop von Ketteler 
 and M. von Linde ; here, however, it is rather ridiculous 
 tnan offensive. 
 
 Stahl closes with the following remark : 
 
 " AltQgether it will require a special statute to settle the ques- 
 tion of Church property, in case of a change of Confession, or 
 of internal schism." 
 
 The Constitution, it seems, has settled and can settle 
 nothing on this point ; and the old regulations are no 
 longer sufficient. The sentence is somewhat obscure, as 
 is occasionally the case with our Professor of canon law. 
 Can he here have suffered himself to be carried so far 
 away by his theological system, as to have forgotten the 
 &8t principle of the Union, namely, that in it no change 
 of Confession finds place. In the United Church the 
 Lutheran does not become Reformed, nor the Reformed 
 Lutheran. To secede is open to all ; he who does so for 
 conscience' sake, is simply a separatist or dissenter 
 worthy of all respect. 
 
 As to the Synod, in 1848 Stahl proposed, instead of 
 a Synod, a Conference for free discussion. This propo- 
 sition he now naturally recalls, for he wanted the Con- 
 ference only to avert a General Synod ; when this object 
 was accomplished, he wanted neither Conference nor 
 Synod. But he does want a Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council — ^that is, the " Central Board," of which we 
 had a glimmering prospect above, and which is to rule 
 
334 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 in the name of the Protestant sovereign, with the aid of 
 subordinate Coiisistories for the management of local 
 affairs. 
 
 My dear friend, we promised at setting out that we 
 would look things in the face and call them by their 
 right names. What, then, is the practical kernel of the 
 whole report? What is Stahl aiming at? or, setting 
 aside all v personalities, what would be the necessary 
 practical result of the plan here proposed ? A Cabinet 
 Government in the place of a Ministerial Government 
 • — therefore, in the course of time, the 'most dangerous 
 form of an absolute State Church. This permanent 
 Board, personally dependent on the sovereign for the 
 time-being, is to be extended by the aid of Synods, in 
 order to place it in a position to pass ecclesiastical meas- 
 ures with a show of Church authority, and to give 
 them the appearance of being the work of the whole 
 ■Church, laity as well as clergy. I cast suspicion on 
 the motives of no man ; as a Christian, I know that I 
 ought not to judge him ; I speak only of the system. 
 A system wprks independently of all motives ; accord- 
 ing to the, eternal law of God, things, produce those 
 effects only which it lies in their nature to produce. 
 But when an individual or a party consciously puts for- 
 ward such a plan, I say openly, it is a purely unconsti- 
 tutional evasion of the Constitution — nay, it is an open 
 insult to it, and all who have sworn to it — ^to the King, 
 and to the nation. Is not this the truth ? 
 
 Such, then, is Stahl's report of February or March, 
 1849. 
 
 More than a year passed without any thing being 
 done beyond assigning the management of the internal 
 affairs of the Church to a special section of the Ministry 
 for Ecclesiastical Affairs. But the Royal Edict of the 
 
THE SUPEEME ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL. 335 
 
 29th of June, 1850, called into existence a collegiate 
 legislative body, with the title of the " Evangelical 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council." The ofiSco of this 
 board is to co-operate with the Ministry for Ecclesias- 
 tical Affairs in preparing .the way for the iatroduction 
 of a congregational organization into the congregations 
 of the Eastern Provinces, and doing whatever else may 
 be desirable to lay the foundation of an independent 
 Church polity. 
 
 Once accepting the idea of a dictatorship (and that 
 the transition to independence should be accomplished 
 by means of a dictatorship, holding plenary power from 
 the sovereign, has in it nothing essentially unconstitu- 
 tional in my eyes), we must allow that the Royal Edict, 
 while imposing a heavy responsibility on the new board, 
 left it at perfect liberty to do what was good and right. 
 Evidently, all depended on the fundamental view taken 
 of the Union. Where such views of the Union and its 
 object, as those impartially delineated by Richter, and 
 gloried in by Stahl, are openly professed, he also who 
 joins the Union as it was conceived by its founder and 
 the nation, is capable of accomplishing any thing truly 
 beneficial within the United Church— nay, of fulfilling 
 the most moderate demands of the public conscience. 
 Not every one, however, is able to join the Union in this 
 sense sincerely; but every one,, it seems to me, is free to 
 accept or deehne a seat in that Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council, whose object is to confirm and settle the Union 
 on a secure basis. 
 
 I repeat it, then as now, all fruitful co-operation in 
 the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs seems to me im- 
 possible, so long as we do not know who is the deposit- 
 ary — who the subject — of the organization whose in- 
 troduction is to be prepared : whether one United 
 
336 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Church, or three confederate Churches, one of which 
 regards the two others as swerving from the center, and 
 seeks to overshadow them by the honored name of 
 Luther. 
 
 We will now give an uncolored narrative of the official 
 acts of this board. So early as the 2d of the following 
 month it had completed a very minute system of con- 
 gregational organization, which on the 11th of the same 
 month was presented to the six Eastern Consistories, as 
 it was not needed by the Church of the Rhine Provinces 
 and Westphalia, which had already adopted a synodal 
 organization in 1835. This work bears the name of 
 " Sketch of a Protestant Congregational Organization." 
 That the beginning must be made with the ecclesiastical 
 organization of the local congregations, was the very 
 &st idea underlying the unexecuted Cabinet Edict of 
 1816, and the Royal Edict of 1850. The fundamental 
 idea, therefore, is a new pledge from our sovereign for 
 the Union and the Constitution. The organization here 
 decreed also contains much that is excellent and worthy 
 of grateful acknowledgment. The wording of the first 
 two articles is certainly questionable. When the First 
 Article says that the Congregation is a member of the 
 Protestant Church this declaration might seem superflu- 
 ous ; but it seems ominous when it reminds the Congre- 
 gation that her right to this membership rests on the 
 full theological Confession to which the clergy are bound, 
 and demands a promise of submission to the general 
 laws of the Church (ancient, modern, or future laws 
 therefore), but says nothing of the supreme authority 
 of the Scripture. 
 
 The Article runs thus : 
 
 " As a member of the Protestant Church, the Congregation 
 confesses that doctrine which is founded on the pure and clear 
 
THE (ECUMENICAL CREEDS. 337 
 
 Word of God — ^the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old 
 and New Testaments — and is testified in the oecumenical Creeds, 
 and the Confessions of the Reformers ; and further submits itself 
 to the general laws and regulations of the Church." 
 
 This is not all : according to the Second Article : 
 
 The Congregation binds her members to be diligent in the 
 Christian wajk and conversation ; to give their aid to the main- 
 tenance of the institutions connected with the congregations by 
 the supply of the necessary contributions, and to confess them- 
 selves members of the Church by participation in the Word and 
 the Sacraments.'" 
 
 On the fulfillment of this engagement rests (accord- 
 ing to Article 3) the right of the member to a share in 
 the Church's means of grace, and the institutions and 
 prdinances of the Congregation. 
 
 I confess this regulation seems to me questionable. It 
 is meant, we are told, to exclude the so-called " Free 
 Churches." But these latter do not belong to the 
 United National Church at all, and it will scarcely 
 occur to any congregation of this Church, or its church- 
 wardens, to seize the opportunity of making a little 
 private Confession of Faith, as " Ldcht-freunde"* for 
 itself! But what, I ask you, my honored friend, has 
 the simple evangelical Christian to do with the three 
 oecumenical Creeds ? Of course, the term means, be- 
 sides the ancient so-called baptismal vow or confession, 
 which is the only Creed occurring in the course of wor- 
 ship and in the Catechism, the Nicene Creed (properly 
 speaking, the ConstantinopoUtan, of A. D. 380), and the 
 
 * Friends of Light. They were fellow-thinkers of Uhlich of 
 Magdeburg, mentioned in a former letter. Their belief was, in 
 the first instance, a sort of Pantheistic Christianity, but gradually 
 approached nearer to simple Deism. — Tr. 
 15 
 
338 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 theological fonnula of the fifth century erroneously at- 
 tributed to Athanasius. And -will he who knows any thing 
 of the last named, choose or feel himself free to purchase 
 his congregational rights with this Confession? What 
 should we both say in such a case? ' First, I think, we 
 should ask, who gives you or any one a right to demand 
 of me as a simple Christian and member of the Protest- 
 ant National Church, that I should confess my belief in 
 these creeds as witnessing the truth contained in God's 
 Word ? And why these creeds alone ? Why not the 
 doctrines of those Councils in the first five or six cen- 
 turies, to which the creeds owe their authority in the 
 Church? Why not, for iostance, the dogma of the 
 Ephesian Council concerning Mary, as the mother, not 
 of Christ, but of God, from which Rome has just drawn 
 an inference not wholly unjustifiable from this point of, 
 view ? Next, we should probably resist the demand on 
 internal grounds. We might regard the Nicene Creed 
 (eyen if it had not been corrupted in the Western 
 Church by the interpolation of the words "and from 
 the Son,") aa a one-sided exposition of the Apostles' 
 Creed, and yet might hold fast to the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion. Thus, too, we might, like most Christian scholars 
 of the present day, hold the third Creed to be a forgery, 
 and a piece of unscriptural and unapbstolic subtlety. 
 We might abhor its damnatory clauses, and yet be good 
 members of the Congregation. At any rate, we should 
 be far less willing to rank these Creeds than even the 
 baptismal confession of the Roman Church on a level 
 with Holy Scripture, which is never mentioned at all. 
 As a congregational testimony against error, the Te. 
 Deum might appear to us far more appropriate than 
 those two formularies. Luther, it is well known, ad- 
 duces it in his translation as a fourth Symbol. The 
 
THE COMMITTEE OF THE CONGEEGATION. 339 
 
 wording of this Article, therefore, is a mistake, and a 
 distortiMi of the fundamental idea of the King. 
 Next follow the organic definitions themselves : 
 Every man of full age is entitled to a vote who has 
 not given cause of offense by a vicious course of life, or 
 by evincing in his acts a contempt for religion or for the 
 Church. The question of feet is decided by the Con- 
 gregational Committee, or, in case of appeal, by the Sy- 
 nod of the Circle ; therefore, in the mean time, as tiie 
 latter is not yet in existence, by the Consistory. The 
 members of this Congregational Committee (who must 
 be at least four in number) must be thirty years of age, 
 respected heads of families, and constant attendants on 
 the Church and the Sacraments. The pastor is the 
 president. The election is made by the quajified mem- 
 bers of the congregation, from a list proposed by the 
 Congregational Committee (proposed, in the first in- 
 stance, by the pastor, the patron, and the churchwarden, 
 under the direction of the superintendent) : at least 
 twice as many names must be given as there are va- 
 cancies ("§> T). Nothing is said of the duration of the 
 office — it must, therefore, be for life. The ultimate or- 
 ganization of the congregation will be established by the 
 Church. 
 
 The members of the Congregational Committee have 
 a share, which is not, however, defined, in the appoint- 
 ment of a pastor, probably a right of veto on the ground 
 of doctrine and conduct. Beside this, they appoint the 
 inferior servants of the Church, "where this does not 
 contravene any already existing and well-grounded 
 rights^" and represent the Congregation in its relations 
 to the school, and the as yet non-existent Synod of the 
 Circle. 
 Taken as a whole, the measure deserves grateful acr 
 
340 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 knowledgment. Carried out in the spirit of the Union, 
 it is the necessary first step in an approximation to the 
 Church as it is in the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia. 
 Its results in the province of Prussia Proper seem to be 
 gratifying ; and it is the enemies of the gradual intro- 
 duction of a congregational Church constitution who op- 
 pose the measure in the other Eastern Provinces. But 
 as far as its practical execution is concerned, we learn 
 from the documents already published, that several con- 
 gregations have wished to hold aloof from this organiza- 
 tion ; and the local authorities are repeatedly urged to 
 do all in their power to effect its introduction, without 
 having recourse to coercive measures. The employ- 
 ment of coercion would certainly be most unfortunate 
 where the object is to bestow a liberty and an honor. 
 If a congregation persists in its opposition, we are told 
 in the Edict of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council of 
 the 22d of July, addressed to the Consistory of Silesia, 
 it shall provisionally remain in its former position. 
 While some districts in Pomerania did not think their 
 constitutional rights as Lutherans sufiSciently guarantied 
 by this disquieting membership in a general Evangelical 
 Church (Edict of the 11th November), some of the 
 most highly esteemed pastors in Berlin (among them 
 Jonas, Pischon, and Sydow) rejected the whole arrange- 
 ment as unconstitutional. The latter gentlemen also 
 censure the omission of the Holy Scriptures as " our 
 sole rule of faith." The Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, 
 in its reply of the 28th November, 1850, declares itself 
 quite ready, if it is desired, to allow the insertion of 
 these words. I confess that, though I do not share the 
 sentiments of those estimable men, in so far as they re- 
 ject the whole measure, yet I can not either regard the 
 reply as satisfactory. "The Lord thy Grod is a jealous 
 
THE (ECUMENICAL CREEDS. 341 
 
 God, and his glory -will he not give to another;" so we 
 once learned in our Lutheran catechism. Belief in the 
 Word of God can not be simply "inserted" amid the 
 decisions of the councils and the damnatory formularies 
 of the schools. 
 
 The three (Ecumenical Creeds, at which those clergy- 
 men have also taken fright, are to the Supreme Ec- 
 clesiastical Council wholly inseparable. It, however, 
 tranquilizes any scruples which they may entertain as 
 to this condition of congregational membership, in the 
 following manner — that is, in case any such scruples 
 should practically show themselves : 
 
 " We should, indeed, deeply lament it, should congregations be 
 found who have fallen away from the foundation of the Confes- 
 sion. Were such, however, the case, we would not thrust them 
 from us, if they did not separate from us of their own accord, but 
 would willingly hold out to them the hand of Christian fellow- 
 ship, in order to win them back to the Confession. To co-oper- 
 ate in this work, not by constraint of any kind, but by the zeal- 
 ous preaching of evangeUcal doctrine, and the faithful cherishing 
 of even the weakest germs of Christian hfe, will be the blessed 
 task of the Christian ministry." 
 
 I must lament that belief in those three formularies 
 should be taken as the standard of saving Christian 
 faith. A man may accept these forms and yet believe 
 nothing ; a man may be a truly evangelical believer of 
 the National Church, and yet consider them to be only 
 historical testimonies. Congregations have not "fallen 
 away from the foundation of the Confession" because 
 they do not feel themselves called upon as congregations 
 to accept the three (Ecumenical Creeds. Our fore- 
 fathers, with Luther at their head, certainly linked theif 
 ofiScial Confession to the creeds of the ancient Church ; 
 but always in subordination to the article of justification 
 by faith, and the supreme authority of Scripture. 
 
342 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Let us now proceed with the examination of our ofiS- 
 cial documents. They lead us next to the spring of 
 1852, and therewith to the first organizing Edict of the 
 present King of the 6th of March of that year : the 
 second Edict is dated the 12th July, 1853.* The pa- 
 pers of the administration possessing any importance for 
 us, do not come down later than this latter date. 
 
 The King's second Edict was communicated to the 
 Consistories on the 27th July, with the injunction not 
 to allow it to be made public; it has, therefore, been 
 printed only as a supplement to the Circular, and in 
 small type. As we are expressly told that this second 
 Edict is intended to guard against wrong conceptions 
 and applications of the former, we must regard the two 
 as forming a whole, and the provisions of the latter as 
 our rule of interpretation. For this reason we begin 
 with the King's solemn declaration in the Edict of 1853, 
 which runs thus : 
 
 " It could not be my intention to disturb, much less to repeal 
 the Union of tbe two evangelical bodies established by my father, 
 now resting in God ; and thereby to bring about a schism in the 
 National Church." 
 
 The accompanying declaration that the object of the 
 first Edict certainly was to grant the Confession that 
 protection within the Church to which its claims was 
 unjustly questioned, finds therefore its defining limits in 
 the maintenance of the Union, as it was established by 
 Frederic William III. That which contravenes the 
 Union can not be enforced as protecting the Confession. 
 
 Now what does the first Edict say on this point ? It 
 
 takes its stand first of all on the assertion that the royal 
 
 founder of the Union never intended "that the Union 
 
 should cause any transition fi:om one Confession to 
 
 * See Appendices C and D to Letter X. 
 
THE TWO ROTAL EDICTS. 343 
 
 another, far less that it should bring about the forma- 
 tion of a new third Confession." The King, it adds, 
 meant only to render possible a fellowship in the Supper 
 of the Lord, and to unite . both Confessions into one 
 National Church. The words contain nothing in them- 
 selves contradictory to that view, which we have already 
 derived from the records of the first founding and the 
 whole afler-history of the Union. 
 
 The fundamental idea of the King seems to me to be 
 the maintenance of the Union of his father ; that is, he 
 takes, or rather retains as his object, the absorption 
 of the two separate confessions into one homogeneous 
 Church. The regard paid to Lutheran bigotry seems 
 to me to flow from that benevolent disposition which we 
 all revere in our Sovereign. He evidently thinks that 
 a sick man must be differently treated from one in 
 health. But it is not to be inferred that he wishes to 
 see a congregation, that may chance to show more zeal 
 than understanding, inoculated with the theological evil 
 or the confessionalistic fever. 
 
 There is not, nor was there ever given, the most dis- 
 tant hint of an alliance or confederation of the two Con- 
 fessions. Thank God ! the people never for one moment 
 dreamed that they should quarrel and fight to please 
 some strife-loving pastors or theologians. They worked 
 together wherever they could ; the believing Christian 
 thought much less of the distinction than the Rationalist. 
 As Httle was the suppression of the two systems of doc- 
 trine discussed within the Union- It was merely taken 
 for granted that a Congregation which joined the Union 
 felt the harmony of the fundamental views of the 
 Reformers and their positive doctrines and institutions 
 strongly enough to cast their differences into the shade. 
 Without this feeling, the Union does not exist at all. 
 
344 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Its essence is to make men at one with each other. 
 And this oneness must be exhibited outwardly — ^that is, 
 toward those who are without — ^by fellowship in the 
 Lord's Supper, and in the polity of the Church. In so 
 far as this liying agreement in essential points involves, 
 or rather expresses, a new relation of the various points 
 of doctrine to each other — certain points being recognized 
 as essential in comparison with divergent methods of 
 teaching on other points — the Union might be called a 
 new Confession. But if this should be interpreted to 
 mean that the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions have 
 essentially ceased to exist because of the Union, this 
 would be to destroy the very thing which we are told it 
 is intended to secure. For that which in both is ac- 
 knowledged to be essential, is not to be so much as 
 weakened : it is to be strengthened, and strengthened in 
 a double manner. First, because the testimony of two 
 independent witnesses to a truth is stronger than that of 
 one ; secondly, because that which is essential gains a 
 stronger, more vigorous, more active life when it is 
 parted from that which is later, non-essential — ^there- 
 fore, to some extent, the accidental addition of individ- 
 uals and circumstances. But in the present case, many 
 since Melancthon had felt that there was much which 
 was non-essential ; and even Luther, toward the end of 
 his life, did not deny that he had gone too far in the 
 doctrine of the Sacraments. Throughout the Prussian 
 dominions, even long before the Union, no clergyman on 
 ordination was ever bound unconditionally to any Con- 
 fession ; but a conscience-saving clause was always 
 added, " In so far {jjuatenus) as it is agreeable to Holy 
 Scripture ;" thus limiting the assent to what was essen- 
 tial. The Union, therefore, gave more positive doctrine 
 than it found ; and the United Church, so far from being 
 
THE THREE PROPOSALS; 345 
 
 destitute of a Confession, possesses one of increased 
 stringency. 
 
 The King's endeavors, however, are directed against 
 those who by their very appeal to the Bible set them- 
 selves above the Bible, and would look upon the Union 
 as a deluge destined to sweep away all confessions what- 
 ever. Thus are we to interpret the occasion and the 
 meaning of the Royal Edict. Evidently, therefore, the 
 King's aim could only be to act ia this spirit when he 
 bestowed the Royal sanction on certain proposals of the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council with regard to the prac- 
 tical application of these two rules. The report of the 
 19th December, 1851, to which the royal Edict of the 
 6th March, 1852, refers, has not been published. The 
 three proposals which the Edict sanctions are as follows : 
 
 I. The Supreme Ecclesiastical Council shall pro- 
 tect the rights of the Union as well as those of the 
 two Confessions. After what has been given above, 
 we understand this, not as intended to maintain the 
 equilibrium between the Union on the one hand and the 
 two Confessions on the other, as between two hostile 
 powers^for in the Union there is no equilibrium, but 
 simply union ; but we understand it as referring to the 
 equality existing between the Confessions themselves, 
 and their common protection against a rationalism which 
 would be the curse of the Union. 
 
 n. The Supreme JEJcclesiasiioal Council consists of 
 members of both Confessions who can conscientiously 
 approve the co-operation of members of the two Con- 
 fessions. 
 
 ni. In confessional questions the votes shall first 
 be taken of thbse members who belong to the- partic- 
 ular Confession concerned, and their decision shall 
 form the collective basis of the resolution- 
 15* 
 
346 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 It must then be the practical execution of these 
 administrative principles proposed by the Supreme Ec- 
 clesiastical Council and sanctioned by the King, ■which 
 has produced such undesirable consequences, called out 
 complaints, excited the King's displeasure, and thus led 
 to the second Edict of the 12th July, 1853. Our next 
 and most necessary step, therefore, must be to examine 
 the measures of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council 
 during the interval between the two royal Edicts^ by 
 the help of the published " State Papers," That since 
 that admonitory Edict, the Supreme Ecclesiastical Coun- 
 cil has altered, as far as possible,, the course on which 
 they had entered, can not be doubted. We know, how- 
 ever, from the best sources — ^from Stahl's Oration — ^how 
 far he has been^arried by the view of the subject which 
 he adopted. That the uneasiness and apprehensions of 
 the country have not ceased is also no secret. On whom 
 does the fault chiefly rest ? 
 
 It is clear that the greatest circumspection was neces- 
 sary in carrying into execution the Royal Edict of the 
 6th March, 1852 ; particularly with regard to the third 
 point contained in it. Eor, otherwise, how could the 
 government of the Church be distinguished from that 
 over two, not united, but merely allied. Churches, stand- 
 ing side by side with a United Church, which formed 
 the exception ? Nay, even in the old German Empire, 
 the Catholic and Protestant members voted together, 
 except where the matter before them related to contested 
 points of religion ; but no one ever called this a Union. 
 But what was more to the point, this, in substance, was 
 the general practice long before the Union subsisted, 
 wherever a Consistory directly subject to the Crown 
 held supremacy, and governed both Confessions as far as 
 was practicable. 
 
DUTT OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COtTNOIL. 347 
 
 But what is to be done if one and another of the 
 members should declare that, as a United Evangelical 
 Christian, he belongs to both Confessions ? ■ Accordiiig 
 to the view which appears to us alone tenable, this was 
 the only correct answer. In case of such a declaration, 
 however, unless all joined in it, the only .practical way 
 of coming to a decision would seem to be that such a 
 Union-member of the Council should vote in all cases, 
 the others (who, properly speaking, ought to have no 
 vote at all) only aa representatives of the Confessions 
 concerned. 
 
 Lastly, this regulation was, at all events, a mere ex- 
 periment. If in practice it encountered difficulties, if it 
 even threatened the stability of the Union, the part of 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council (as it appears to me) 
 was either to recognize that the whole conception was a 
 mistake, inasmuch as it could not be carried out without 
 destroying, or at least shaking, the Union ; or, at all 
 events, the Council should, in consideration of these 
 results, have obtained from the King fresh rules for the 
 conduct of their proceedings. But we hear nothing of 
 any steps of this kind ; while we are well aware, from 
 Stahl's speech of the 29th March, "that the Union 
 AS A Consensus is the exception in Prussia" — 
 that is to say, in plain language, that the Union forma 
 the exception in the United National Church as govern- 
 ed by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, or rather 
 as thoroughly reorganized since 1850. But, unhappily, 
 on the 14th of July, Stahl's programme of 1849 tri- 
 umphed. The following is all that is communicated to 
 us h^ published documents concerning the decisive 
 point of the manner in which the first Edict was carried 
 into efiFect. 
 
 It was communicated to the Provincial Consistories 
 
348 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 under date of the 10th May, and the corresponding 
 instructions followed on the 12th. In these, also, the 
 members of the Consistories were called on to distinguish 
 themselves as Lutherans, Reformed, or Evangelical {iiio 
 in partes) ; and, as fax as I know, with very dissimilar 
 results. 
 
 The answers sent in by the various Consistories, and 
 the practical results that ensued, are well known from 
 the numberless communications in the public prints; 
 and we see, from the King's second Edict, that scarcely 
 a year had elapsed before such numerous complaints, 
 grievances and apprehensions had arisen, that the King 
 thought it high time to withhold no longer from the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council the expression of his 
 displeasure. This Edict speaks in severe terms of efforts 
 in behalf of the separate Confessions which were under- 
 mining the order of the Church; nay, declares that 
 " instances are said to have occurred," where " Synodal 
 Assemblies, nay, even individual clergymen, have re- 
 solved to renounce, on behalf of the congregation, the 
 title of an Evangelical Church and the use of the Union 
 Liturgy." 
 
 But even what we learn from the published transac- 
 tions of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, gives us a 
 glimpse of the perilous conjuncture to which Stahl's 
 view had led in carrying out the principles sanctioned 
 by the King, and the great embarrassments which could 
 not fail to ensue to the King and the country. 
 
 On the 14th of July, 1852, the President von 
 Uechtritz called upon the members present to declare, 
 "in which of the two divisions they would vote in case 
 of confessional questions being brought before them?" 
 Dr. Stahl had proved the necessity of this question in a 
 juridical memorial. 
 
COURSE ADOPTED BY THE COTOTCIL. 349 
 
 The President and five other members (Bishop 
 Neander and MM. Strausz, von Miihler, Twesten, and 
 Richter) deckred themselves Lutherans, but with the 
 addition, "in the sense given to that term by his Majes- 
 ty's Cabmet Order of the 28th of February, 1834." 
 With the same addition the Chaplain-General BoUert, 
 and Dr. Snethlage declared themselves of the Reformed 
 Church. Stahl was the only one who refrained from 
 this, to some extent, satisfactory addition. He declared 
 unconditionally, "I declare myself a member of the 
 Lutheran confession." That is as much as to say (as 
 the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung also remarks), "I 
 choose to sit in the Supremo Ecclesiastical Council as a 
 pure Lutheran." 
 
 In October, on the death of Dr. Ehrenberg, who 
 before the Union had been a member of the Reformed 
 Church, his place was filled up by M. Cappell, who, 
 originally of the Reformed Church, had gone over to 
 the LMtheran Confession, and who made the same 
 unconditional declaration as Stahl. This was, in feet, 
 a victory, and a very remarkable one for Stahl. 
 
 But we have not yet spoken of the man who is almost 
 universally throughout Germany considered as the first 
 of Evangelical theologians, whom the country honors 
 as a Jiberal citizen, and on whom the king has since 
 conferred the most distinguished post in the Church, in 
 appointing him Provost of Berlin. Before the sitting 
 of the 12th July, Nitzsch had made a written declara- 
 tion " that he belonged to both Confessions; that is, 
 to the Consensus of both." Not only does such a dec- 
 laration fail to surprise us, but, as we have hinted above, 
 we are unable to imagine any other equally good. But 
 we are surprised at the decision which followed upon it; 
 namely, that for the future Dr. Nitzsch should take no 
 
350 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 part in the decision of confessional questions. That he 
 himself should have expressed a wish to take no part in 
 them is very natural. He knew what was the point in 
 question — namely, the Union : and what was the object 
 of those confessional questions— namely to shake it. 
 For the present mode of conducting affairs could not but 
 expose the Union to great dangers, however it might be 
 desired to maiutain it intact. 
 
 Practically, this measure simply means that the Lu- 
 therans should decide whether the Union Liturgy and 
 Constitution endangered their Confession or not ; which 
 was to subject the Union to a severe test. The funda- 
 mental principle laid down, was that the Union should 
 be maintained in the sense attached to that term by 
 Frederic William III. Thus, the more fitting mode of 
 carrying iuto effect this regulation of the first Edict of 
 the present sovereign, would have been that the Lu- 
 theran members should have discussed this point among 
 themselves in the first place, but that the others should 
 also have been allowed to express their views as freely 
 on the subject as though no prcArious discussion had 
 taken plafie. Thus it would have been possible that a 
 Eesolution quite different from that of the Lutheran 
 majority should be passed, or laid before the King for 
 his sanction. 
 
 Unfortunately, this was not the course adopted. All 
 the Consistories were required to declare themselves 
 Lutheran, Reformed, or United. The measure proved 
 abortive in practice, owing to the gOod sense of many 
 of these boards. Li most, it remained a dead letter. 
 It is said to have done so in the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council itself Dr. Grdber, the venerable Superinten- 
 dant General of Westphalia, returned the 5ame answer as 
 NitzBch. But the system remains, and may sooner or 
 
THE TITLE EVANGELIOAL. 351 
 
 later be carried into effect. From their own confessions, 
 ■we know what is aimed at by a certain active party. 
 It can not but be regarded with indignation, even by one 
 who should not regard the whole proceeding as funda- 
 mentally incompatible and at variance with the main- 
 tenance of the Union, and thinks that the Supremo 
 Ecclesiastical Council ought never to have proposed such 
 a measure to the King. And the proposal itself, still 
 more the way in which it was practically carried out, 
 up to the issuing of the second Edict, must be deeply 
 regretted even by those who do not perceive that its 
 motive was to obtain, by its practical working and the 
 choice of persons for appointments, that which would 
 never have been obtained from the King by direct 
 means — namely, the surrender of what so many mil- 
 lions call the Union. 
 
 Dr. Stahl seems really to have succeeded in raising 
 to supremacy that system which Richter delineated in 
 1849, and whose organ our acute opponent had consti- 
 tuted himself. 
 
 An important State Paper, dated the 7th of July, 
 1853, and entitled, "Edict addressed to the Consistory 
 of N.," affords us some insight' into the intended appli- 
 cation of this mischievous diBsension-sowing regulation. 
 The question concerns the use of the term " Evangeli- 
 cal" to designate' the congregations of the United 
 Church, according to the usage established by Frederic 
 William III. in his Edict of 80th April, 1830, and the 
 circular of the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs issued 
 on the 5th of May in the same year. Now we have 
 seen from our historical survey, that this title, without 
 any addition, is the one legally established. The pro- 
 ject of the Ministry in 1817, recommended the disuse 
 of the more precise designation of Evangelical Lutheran, 
 
352 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 or Evangelical Reformed. From this Dr. Stahl draws 
 this conclusion : 
 
 " That the title ' Evangelical,' besides denoting the acceptance 
 of the Union ritual, presupposes a, special act, although uncon- 
 nected Tvith any prescribed formality. Thus, the fact that a 
 congregation is United, must, in the first place, like every other 
 fact, be certified by authentic documents." 
 
 I confess that such a procedure seems to me almost 
 as unintelligible as it is illegal. For the Edict in 
 question expressly recognizes that the simple designation 
 as Evangelical has been since then often employed in 
 State papers as synonymous with United National 
 Church, and is so in the most important royal Edict of 
 the present reign, the General Concession of the 23d 
 July, 1845 (the act granting tolerajtion to the separa^ 
 tistic Lutherans in Silesia), and the patent of the Slst 
 of March, 1847, as well as in Article XV. of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 This title, is, indeed, still to be preserved as a rule 
 except when a more precise definition of the Confession 
 is necessary for identification, or on account of the rela- 
 tion of the title-deed to the Confession, or in case the 
 use of a particular confessional title should be pro- 
 posed by duly qualified persons. 
 
 But the whole question should never have been raised 
 at all. Not all the congregations had, like those of the 
 Rhenish and Westphalian Church, made an official affi- 
 davit of their acceptance of the Union ; probably it had 
 occurred to very few that any distinction existed be- 
 tween the acceptance of the Union and the adoption of 
 the title " Evangelical ;" they acted on trust. Now 
 the ashes of Frederic William HI. are again disturbed ; 
 but it is further clear that with the help of those two 
 clauses it would be easy throughout the country to find 
 
DANGERS TO THE tTNION. 353 
 
 a legal ground of questioning the very, thing itself that 
 is the Union. Have not the patron aM the pastor cer- 
 tain legal rights ? and can not the President of the Con- 
 sistory, and the Supreme President of the Province, 
 and all the Provincial Councils, -vrork toward this ob- 
 ject ? nay, are not those among them obliged to do so 
 who regard the Union as a misfortune ? 
 
 What the practical result of this procedure is, we 
 are told by those words, which, though Stahl places 
 them in a parenthesis, in the midst of a long note on 
 the Union, are weighty indeed : 
 
 " The Consennus is the exception in Pi-ussia." 
 Once more I repeat, this necessarily means — " The 
 Union is the exception in Prussia, if the claims 
 of the separate theological confessions are to 
 hold that rank which is assigned to them b¥ 
 Dr. Stahl." 
 
A SUMMARY 
 
 OF THE EESTILT OF OUR IH-QUIRIES WITH RESPECT 
 TO THE STATE OP PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY IN 
 PRUSSIA AND GERMANY G-ENERALLY. 
 
 The history of the rise and progress of the legal 
 conditions of the Union, from 1817 to 1853, lies 
 before us, my honored friend. Judge of it for your- 
 self 
 
 Even if some isolated facta may be adduced against 
 our view, the attempt to make the question of the 
 Union dependent .iipon the confessional preliminary 
 question is a failure, and has done harm. Lutheranism 
 has been sown — the seed has sprung up and yielded a 
 harvest of fanaticism. Provincialism has been planted, 
 and lo ! division shoots forth ! Confessionalism has 
 been favored, and behold the Union is shaken to its 
 foundation ! Our rulers have acted upon Stahl's decla- 
 ration of 1849, that the thing needed was protection for 
 the distinctive Confessions which stood in jeopardy, and 
 lo ! the Union Church threatens to fly asunder in three 
 pieces ; so far at least as the administration of afiairs by 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council has power to effect 
 such a result. It reminds one of the deep prophetic 
 saying, " For they have sown the wind, and they shall 
 reap the whirlwind." (Hosea viii. 7.) 
 
 From this present mode of managing our ecclesias- 
 tical affairs, no good result is to be hoped, notwithstand- 
 
APPEAL TO THE KING. 355 
 
 inc the evidently excellent intentions of the King, and 
 the Christian wisdom and experience which are found 
 collected m the Silpreme Ecclesiastical Council, and 
 to which I gladly pay the meed of my sincere admira- 
 tion. 
 
 The King alone, who can not but know the facts of 
 the case, and who has shown his wisdom in the Edict of 
 1853, may still find the means of averting the evils 
 which menace us. It is not too late. Nay, the present 
 seems to me a most favorable moment, from those very 
 signs of the times which we have been engaged in con- 
 templating. The hopeful and pregnant germs which 
 we have discovered ought to inspire courage : the grave 
 and threatening facts cry aloud for a prompt right royal 
 course of action. Misconceptions exist — mistrust has 
 been conceived — anxiety fills faithful hearts and thought- 
 ful minds — ^the departments of the ecclesiastical execu- 
 tive are divided and perplexed — ^the theological faculty at 
 our universities is paralyzed, and knows not which way to 
 turn — ^while the divinity students and candidates are 
 sinking lower and lower in point af intellectual culture, 
 even as compared with the Catholics. But all as yet is 
 capable of remedy. 
 
 The years 1848 and 1849 have awakened within our 
 Church germs of life that are rich in blessing ; men's 
 hearts are longing more than ever for evangelical Chris- 
 tianity and united congregational action. This senti- 
 ment, as it seems to me, is the lever by which to operate. 
 Let the authorities in the first place cease to ask, when 
 a man presents himself as a candidate for the office of 
 schoolmaster, still more that of pastor, "Are you 
 Lutheran or Reformed?" but simply inquire who is 
 best fitted to be useful in the office to the congregation 
 of a United Church. The Union Confession is incom- 
 
356 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 patible with a disruption of the Church into three bodies 
 standing on a footing of parity. All that has" been said 
 in this sense, and all the efforts that have been made in 
 this direction by the administrative authorities, must be 
 regarded as an error, and, as such, set aside. How this 
 may best be accomplished must be left to the royal saga- 
 city to decide. 
 
 The second point, on which much will depend, is to 
 make it perfectly clear how the scrupulous tenderness 
 of two pious monarchs for the twt> Confessions of the 
 sixteenth century could be perfectly satisfied without, in 
 any respect, paralyzing, still less dissolving, the Union. 
 The Lutheran embodiment of the common evangelical 
 type has already, I think, secured to itself full freedom ; 
 but if this be anywhere wanting, let Lutheranism have 
 all that it demands, on the ground of universal religious 
 liberty : with one exception, viz., that it is not to replace 
 a positive by a negative type. Let it refuse, if it will, 
 to receive the seal of the Union ; this is not, and never 
 will be required of it. But let those who do not think 
 they can uphold the saving faith in its integrity, without 
 refusing communion to the Reformed, on account of 
 their differences — those to whom the "ultimate end — 
 the perfect fusion of both elements," is an abomination, 
 seriously consider whether theirs is a truly evangelical 
 temper of mind ; and if they in their conscience find it 
 so, let them depart in peace. 
 
 The process of mutual fusion has its lowest as well as 
 its highest stage, from the mere recognition of the Union 
 through the common celebration of the Lord's Supper, 
 and the unity of organization and discipline, up to com- 
 plete fusion through the positive working out of common 
 doctrines ; but no boundary line ought to be drawn be- 
 tween these two points. One congregation may with its 
 
GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED CHURCH. 357 
 
 pastor restrict itself to the use of Luther's Catechism ; 
 aQother to that of Heidelberg ; a third may (as is often 
 the case) use the smaller Catechism of Luther for the 
 younger catechumens, and that of Heidelberg for the 
 more advanced ; or, finally, prefer to both, the organic 
 fusion of the two •which has just been framed in Baden. 
 It is the same with the Liturgy. Its general type is 
 already thoroughly Lutheran, and not Reformed. If it 
 should ever be delivered from its present crippled and 
 half-developed condition, and made really congregational, 
 it would not only be brought nearer to the Reformed, but 
 also to the Apostolic, and therefore truly evangelical 
 Church, and thereby to the fundamental idea of Luther. 
 But as regards the third element; the constitution of 
 the Church — therefore, in the first place, its government 
 — every division according to Confessions is an intrinsic 
 contradiction of the Union; and if so now, under the 
 dictatorship of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, it 
 would be still more the case in the free constitution of 
 an independent Church, such as we are aiming at. The 
 Union is a communion in worship and in congregational 
 life, or it is nothing. Christianity itself presents the 
 example of such a union in its first beginnings ; for we 
 find Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians — followers 
 of Peter and followers of Paul. All finite life, spiritual 
 as well as natural, proceeds from the close intertwining 
 of opposite conditions, from the play of two opposite 
 poles. The opposition between Luther and Calvin 
 vanishes in the Gospel, as that between Peter and 
 Paul does in Christ. In this manner we might see 
 the principle verified which has been propounded above : 
 " Toleration for all, even for the Intolerant ; but 
 not for the Intolerance of such as are exclusive on 
 principle." 
 
358 ^ SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 But liberty is the condition divinely attached to the 
 solution of antagonisms in history. The banner of per- 
 fect religious liberty is the sign in which the truly 
 Christian State will be victorious — ^the truly Evangelical 
 Church will triumph. This liberty will teach the Chris- 
 tian Government to take up the proper attitude at once 
 toward the Christian people and the hierarchy. This, 
 and this alone, affords any possibility of escape from our 
 present perplexities. 
 
 But in order to have any real vital efficacy it must 
 not remain a shadow, but become a practical truth. A 
 free Church with a consistorial polity as its final form 
 is a self-contradiction; a synodal or episcopal Church 
 broken up into districts governed by superintendents 
 has no living energy. We do not want bishoprics but 
 Churches ! But that these Churches may be able to 
 govern themselves, let a bishop, appointed for life by 
 the Synod, stand at their head. It was, no dOubt, the 
 proper course to take in preparing the way for such 
 a free type of the Church to begin with organizing 
 the local congregations. But, at the same time, the 
 final aim — ^namely, the freedom of the whole Church of 
 the future — ought to be set before the Congregation and 
 their elders in unmistakable terms. No really benefi- 
 cial progress iu the organization of the Church can be 
 looked for unless the summons to the people find a ready 
 echo in hearts filled with joyful and spontaneous hfe ; 
 and how is this possible if they are uncertain and doubt- 
 fiil as to the object in view 1 The aim of Stahl's pro- 
 gramme, for instance, or at least its inevitable conse- 
 quencej would be slavery under the delusive semblance 
 of freedom. . - - - 
 
 It is not. by such a path, nor by following the word 
 of such prophets, that, we shall attain that which was 
 
GOVERNMENT OF THE tTNITBD CHURCH. 359 
 
 the declared and constitutional aim of the King — self- 
 existent conigregational Churches, that is to say, inde- 
 pendent ■ffell-orgaiiized communities capable of govern- 
 ing themselves. This is the true aim ; but the necessity 
 of placing and keeping it before the eyes of all is yet 
 more urgent now than in 1860. It is the bounden duty 
 of our rulers to declare their intentions by whatever 
 mode is most unambiguous and most calculated to in- 
 spire confidence. It can not be overlooked or forgotten 
 how the articles of the Constitution affecting this point 
 have been carried into practice by one of the most influ- 
 ential members of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, 
 who is, besides, the organ of a still more influential 
 parly in Church and State. The recommendations of 
 his published report would point to a permanent govern- 
 mental ■ machine worked by the Cabinet and the Royal 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, to which all Protestant 
 Christians should be yoked as to a triumphal car — and 
 this in the name of Christ, to God's glory, and under 
 the title of a free, self-governing Evangelical Church 1 
 It is important to do away with this impression, for it 
 has a very mischievous influence. Under any circum- 
 stances, congregational action requires great self-sacri- 
 fice, as does all true freedom. Who will undertake it 
 without knowing to what end ? without feeling that his 
 efforts are duly rewarded by the independence secured 
 to the whole Church, and to his own particular sphere ? 
 And how is the further and permanent development 
 of the Church conceivable Trithout such a sense of 
 security ? , 
 
 The first necessity is that the congregational bond 
 should lead to a wider ecclesiastical bond, that of the 
 Church diocese, as we have hinted above. An inde- 
 pendent union of churches — ^the diocese of the ancient 
 
360 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Church — ^presupposes an independence in the existing 
 spiritual and external means. The council of such an 
 Episcopal or Congregational Church must, generally, 
 have its seat in the city which forms the center of the 
 Union. 
 
 I proved, as I think, in 1848, that in the six ecclesi- 
 astical provinces into which Prussia naturally falls, 
 there are, at most, not above sixty such towns — ten in 
 each. But a third of this number is sufiScient, and 
 would be more practicable. Thus, besides the six uni- 
 versity cities, we should need only fourteen considerable 
 and wealthy cities. But as I have shown above, if our 
 governors persist in dividing our National Church into 
 circles — that is to say, small unions like our present 
 nearly four hundred superintendencies — either they 
 really do not intend that the Church should be inde- 
 pendent, or they expose themselves to such an imputa- 
 tion. For such small unions can not act for themselves, 
 but require guidance from the superior authorities ; and 
 whence can this guidance come from but the Cabinet or 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council ? Synods can neither 
 govern nor administer. 
 
 The apostolic character of the Congregation consists 
 in its independence. It does not consist in this or that 
 arrangement of oflScers, but in the freedom from inter- 
 ference by ofi&cers external to itself — thus in deciding 
 for itself on important points. The mixture of a free 
 synodal constitution with a consistoral executive govern- 
 ment, accepted by the Synod of 1846, is an error, if 
 regarded as permanent. With some, the acceptance of 
 the scheme was a compromise agreed to in despair as the 
 only one that presented itself : with some it was the re- 
 sult of political immaturity. Nothing is accomplished 
 in the long run by the resolutions passed in mere de- 
 
A SYNODAL CONSTITUTION. 361 
 
 liberative assemblies ; it is felt that the executive gov- 
 ernment must be connected with the Synod — ^that the 
 administration must be in the hands of the Congregation. 
 Above all things it is necessary to take for granted the 
 capacity of each individual Church for self-government, 
 on the ground of the common sentiment of its members. 
 In spite of all its defects, the episcopate of the primitive 
 and of the Anglican Churches is strong in itself, and in 
 the hold which it has upon men's minds by reason of its 
 independent character ; and the true apostolic consecra- 
 tion of the Bishops does not lie in any imaginary apos- 
 tolical succession, but in their oflBicial independence 
 toward the secular power, even more than toward the 
 laity and parochial clergy, and in their possessing in 
 the Church revenues the means of maintaining their 
 independence. 
 
 Moreover, it is most imperative that securities should 
 be given with xegard to these sources of revenue ; for 
 the Protestant National Church does not possess a peimy 
 beyond its purely parochial necessities. The expense 
 of the Synod weighs upon the congregations. If the 
 Government took a frank course of proceeding, they 
 , would find no difficulty in obtaining such means from the 
 House of Representatives. The Catholic party could 
 not vote against that which they are demanding for 
 their own Church. The measures required lie patent 
 as soon as we tear asunder the meshes of the sophistical 
 net in which the subject has been wrapt up in Stahl's 
 report and the papers connected with it, in order to 
 make the whole.affair unintelligible and untangible. 
 
 Let the laity be told that the Synods are to stand 
 above all Bishops, as the whole is superior to the indi- 
 vidual. But above all it is indispensable to set men's 
 consciences at rest by giving them au authentic and un- 
 16 
 
362 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ambiguous assurance that there is no iateation of im- 
 posing on the Church any rule of faith, or ultimate 
 standard, but the Word of God, us understood by their 
 living consciences. According to the fundamental idea 
 of Protestantism, there is no "revealed truth" for the 
 Church but in the Bible ; there is no expounder of this 
 truth but the Spirit which is given to the Church ; there 
 is no final aim but the realization of the Divine in the 
 Church, that through her the kingdom of God may be 
 built up. The Lutheran type of the hierarchy is the 
 most narrow-minded and unfruitful of which history 
 furnishes an example. The Union baa, for the first 
 time, rendered that possible ia Germany which was done 
 for England three hundred years ago by the Common 
 Prayer-book, although not in a form that is absolutely 
 typical and of universal applicability. With us in 
 Germany the Spirit of God working in Luther, aad in 
 that popular mind on which his mantle fell, had al- 
 ready begun to bring about this Union by our unique 
 treasure of sacred poetry, the Divine Iliad in Hymns, 
 the unbroken succession of the Divine iospiration of 
 the German people concerning the world's history ; but 
 they lacked the seal of a common worship and a common 
 organization. 
 
 Thus what we want is more of Luther's spirit, but no 
 modem Lutheranism ! No new papacy in England ! No 
 State Church in Holland ! Let us not be entangled 
 amid the icy bonds of old forms, and frozen into • the 
 rigidity of death ! The Spirit impels us to look back to 
 the Church of our forefathers with fresh love, that we 
 may drink into their spirit, but not that we may erect 
 into a new law the letter of institutions long since de- 
 funct. 
 
 So, too, we want more of a confession — ^yea, more 
 
WHAT IS ■WANTED. 363 
 
 than a confession. The solemn and sanctifying vow of 
 the Christian 'people organized into a Church, the vow 
 of the Congregation, is the highest and final form : a 
 vow pledged in the midst of the realities of life, and af- 
 fecting those realities. But we want no new theological 
 dogmatic Confession as the banner of a denomination, 
 were it even the best I know, that of the Berlin Synod 
 of 1846. 
 
 So, again, we want a beautiful form of public wor- 
 ship for the Congregation, but no Agenda in the hands 
 of the clergy alone ; nor yet modem arbitrary and ar- 
 tificial forms of devotion. We already possess general 
 forms of public prayer, and should, and shall frame for 
 ourselves yet more perfect ones ; forms which are sim- 
 pler, profounder, and speak more to our own souls. 
 
 Now the final end of all public worship is adoration, 
 and the beginning and end of adoration is the Christian 
 vow : whether it be the general vow contained in the be- 
 liever's earliest vow in baptism, and in the communion 
 of the Lord's Supper, as also on occasion of birth, 
 death, and burial ; or whether it be the special vow of 
 marriage, or entrance into the office of the ministry, or 
 any other occasion that may call for the sanction of the 
 Church. The vow is the spontaneous — therefore the 
 Protestant — element in the Divine life of the individual 
 as of the Congregation. Such terms as baptism, con- 
 firmation, ordination, only express what is special and 
 subordinate ; the outward sign and seal added to the 
 vow would be unscriptural and unreasonable without the 
 previous voluntary and conscious promise. Many of the 
 forms prescribed in connection with these rites are the 
 mere remnants of the mediaeval transition-era (with its 
 passive rather than divinely active conception of faith), 
 and tainted by a priestly spirit. Thus in the arrange- 
 
364 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ment of liturgical questions, which are now taken up in 
 such an arbitrary and piecemeal manner, and generally 
 with such want of intelligence. and utter absence of tact, 
 the leadinga of God's Spirit point to the revival of the 
 consciousness of the vow, its intellectual development 
 and congregational application. But the end and aim 
 of all vows and adoration is not to be found in them- 
 selves, but in their practical falfillment in Hfe through 
 the faith that worketh by love — not by zeal which easily 
 goes astray, and often leads to sin, but by brotherly 
 love, the fruit of thankful love to God. 
 
 To sum up all that we have said in a few words. 
 The Christian's life finds its divinely appointed and per- 
 manent sphere in the practical following of Christ in the 
 family, the Church, and the State ; and its aim and ob- 
 ject is the development of a free, conscious moral per- 
 sonality, or of the spirit. The most beautiful of all 
 Divine services is a life well-pleasing to God; and in 
 that, too, it is not the works but the spirit that is the 
 essence ; how much more so in adoration ! Every thing 
 rests upon the Ecclesia of the Bible and the Bible of 
 the Ecclesia! But the root of the Ecclesia and her 
 'Divine life is personality — ^that alone is an end in itself. 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TWO SIGNS OF OUR TIMES. 
 
 The Feast of St. Hichael the Archangel, 
 
 29th September, 1855. 
 
 " Und Stiirme brausen um die Wette, 
 Vom Meer auf s Land, vom Land auf s Meer, 
 Und bilden wiithend eine Kette 
 Der tiefsten Wirkung rings lunlier. 
 Da flammt ein blitzendes Verheeren 
 Dem Pfade vor des Donnerschlags ; 
 Doch deine Boten, Herr, verehren 
 Das sanfte Wandeln deines Tags." 
 
 So sings the high Messenger of God, the Angel of 
 Judgment, contemplating the magnificehce of the works 
 of God ; and as he perceives the wisdom which has or- 
 dered all things, he exclaims, worthy of the name he 
 bears, "Who is like unto God?" You and I, my 
 friend, at all events, think that the great poet on whose 
 natal day we commenced this our last discussicai, has in 
 his prologue to " Faust" made the Archangel speak in 
 a maimer not unworthy of his name. And at no unfit- 
 ing time for us, as it appears. Yes, indeed; storms 
 are raging more wildly than ever — 
 
 " Tom Meer auf s Land, vom Land auf s Meer." 
 
 Many a meteor shoots in its fiery hissing track from 
 east to west and west to east ; and as they gaze on these 
 
366 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 things, men's hearts are shaken with restless suspense 
 and dark forebodings. The end of lawlessness, and 
 brute force, and disorder, is at hand. The end of all 
 hypocrisy, of all attempts to patch up corrupt and worn- 
 out systems is at hand ! Nothing but the True can 
 save us ; nothing but that which is of Law can, renew its 
 youth, and stand its ground against conscious lies and 
 might which has been worshiped as right, whether it be 
 that of peoples or of princes. Many have wished to be 
 as gods, and the reward of their crime is at hand. God's 
 judgment draweth nigh ; whether we say with the other 
 great poet of the German Dioscui'i — 
 
 " Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht," 
 
 or whether our thoughts turn rather to the end of the 
 world — at least, of all the glory of Europe — or whether 
 we, as is surely wisest, believe both in the one and the 
 other. 
 
 Our reflections set out from a little spot in the pres- 
 ent ; and, under the leading hand of facts, have traveled 
 to and fro along the path of centuries. Our reflections 
 rose in solemnity the deeper we penetrated below the 
 surface of our present condition, and examined its found- 
 ations. We found nothing less than a struggle for our 
 highest blessings — a struggle for life and death, yet a 
 warfare to be carried on by moral force and intellectual 
 weapons. And a warfare which admits of no procrasti- 
 nation ! But too forcibly does the state of the world 
 remind us of the significance of this day in the Christian 
 year. Most vividly rises up before our eyes the goal of 
 all mental development, the touchstone of the vitality of 
 all those phenomena of the present which have passed in 
 review before us. Freedom of conscience, the Ecclesia, 
 Personality — ^these three remain to us God's ministers 
 
DIVINE ELEMENT OF HUMANITY. 367 
 
 for our spiritual and social life ; in opposition to oppres- 
 sion of conscience and persecution, to mental servitude 
 and brute force. 
 
 The way of deliverance lies in faith in the eternal and 
 Divine truth of that which we know, we need, and we 
 aspire after ; above all, in faith in Personality as the 
 likeness of Grod in man, as the all-conquering and the 
 Teproductive element in humanity, as the aim and end 
 of creation and of life. 
 
 But this faith in the Divine element of humanity is 
 not to manifest itself as a zeal which hates and per- 
 secutes, but as the love that beareth all things and 
 believeth all things ; it is to be fearless, active, self- 
 aaerificmg, unsullied by impatience or passion. We are 
 to believe that the True will conquer, as certainly as the 
 physical universe stands before us in its orderly magnif- 
 icence; as certainly as the spiritual universe unfolds 
 itself to our mental vision in the world's history. Evil 
 fe,lls by its own weight, struck down to the abyss by the 
 iightning-flash of eternal love, piercing the ether of the 
 spiritual Cosmos. 
 
 Ou^t we to find tbis hard to believe ? Does it not 
 flow irresistibly from the facts of our consciousness, of 
 history, and of the world around us ? 
 
 K it be true that free life in the Ecclesia is the 
 divinely-given form of the operation of Christianity in 
 man, and that Personality with its free moral self- 
 determination is the root from which the life of the 
 Church proceeds, must not the final aim of all the tem- 
 porary developments of the Christian Church be the 
 birth of that personal Spirit which is truly and in itself 
 the Inmiortal Element ? He who refuses to accept this 
 truth from Christianity will find himself forced to accept 
 it by philosophy, and vice versd. The birth-throes are 
 
368 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 called by us mortals, life ; the real birth, death. Noth- 
 ing else is an object in itself. ■ Neither Congregation nor 
 Church, Family nor State, art nor science, nay, not 
 even the holiest exercises of piety, are an end ia them- 
 selves, but only serve as means to the great art of life — 
 the birth of eternal life in the human soul, the invisible 
 child of God. Self-love, the strongest energy- of natural 
 life, is jiothing but the perversion of the Divine impulse 
 striving to give birth to the personal, self-conscious 
 spirit. But this consciousness does not rest essentially 
 on the dialectic activity of the understamding, but on the 
 moral energy which may grow and come to perfection 
 without learning or iatellectual apprehension. True 
 science and intellectual apprehension will be developed 
 out of the moral force, where such is the soul's destiny, 
 and it is called to a higher vocation ; especially where 
 false science and a semblance of knowledge are widely 
 spread, and mental culture is universal. But the true 
 knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine order of the 
 world, of which Christ is to us the center, humanity the 
 aim ; and the mystery of which slumbers .in every 
 human soul that is seeking after God. The key that 
 unlocks the significance of the world's history is the 
 knowledge of the realization of the Diviae in the develop- 
 ment of humanity : in that building of that temple of 
 God which is raised of the living stones that with con- 
 scious personality freely join themselves together. And 
 in this knowledge alone can we discover the key by which 
 to interpret those hieroglyphics of eternity which we call 
 the Signs of the Times. 
 
 In our present rapid survey of the condition of the 
 world, I have endeavored to characterize and interpret 
 certain phenomena of the present. I am conscious of 
 the imperfect manner in which I have fiilfiUed my task, 
 
THE ROOT OP CHTTRCH LIFK. ggg 
 
 but equally so of the truth of my fundamental view, and 
 the certainty of the general result. It is realities, not 
 the creations of our imagination, upon which we have 
 been fixing our eyes ; we have adduced decisive and in- 
 contestable fects, and while endeavoring to understand 
 their historical connection, we found a startling unity 
 recurring through their manifold variety. 
 
 In the harmony pervading the phenomena of the last 
 few centuries, and again of our own times, and in the 
 ease with which the great questions of the day may be 
 solved from this point of view, consists the palpable 
 proof of the truth of the results to which we have been 
 led. The urgent questions, amidst the excitement of 
 which we are living, will be brought to their issues, of 
 more or lesser import, by individuals or nations, in the 
 lapse of years or centuries, according to the great 
 destinies of humanity ; but not according to the selfish 
 will of any human being, the bidding of any arrogant 
 potentate, or the purpose of any overbearing people ; but 
 simply and solely in accordance with the eternal law of 
 God's moral government, and by virtue of the moral, 
 heaven-sprung energy whose resistless might brings all 
 things into subservience to the kingdom of God. The 
 world's history, contemplated from its center, is not 
 only the mother of the future, but its prophetess — ^its 
 true Pythia. 
 
 Of the two great signs of the times, with the contem- 
 plation of which we began our survey, one is in its 
 ascendant, the other verging toward its setting. The 
 Spirit of Association, with its liberty, is the genius and 
 the daemon of the dawning day ; the Hierarchy with its 
 tyranny is the waning planet of departing night. It is 
 not Hesperus but Phosphor which is shining in this 
 twilight of the gods. Nor have the heavens but just 
 16* 
 
370 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 begun to glow with the crimson belts of Aurora, nor ia 
 this the first moment in which the light has flashed from 
 east to west across the world's path. The same constel- 
 lation ruled the sky when, seven years since, the hie- 
 rarchy, impelled by the sense of its coming death, leagued 
 itself with the spirit of association as it did once with 
 secular absolutism. It sought for strength where it saw 
 the power to lie; but its selfish eye failed to perceive 
 that this was the very power from which it was destined 
 to receive its death-blow. The more powerful grows the 
 spirit of association, the more self-evident becomes the 
 antagonism between the hierarchy and freedom. For 
 freedom of conscience is the sole vital air of humanity, 
 and the cradle of true personaHty ; and this freedom, 
 the mother of every other freedom, can not endure the 
 hierarchy forever. The God of the Cosmos has risen 
 up against that hierarchy. Thus darkness and light are 
 struggling in the light, force and freedom in freedom. 
 
 I am not speaking as a Protestant in contradistinction 
 to my Catholic fellow-citizens, or even to the Catholic 
 peoples in general. They and we are journeying by 
 separate paths toward the same goal ; but as to what 
 this goal is, we are philosophically and historically at 
 one with each other throughout Europe; we with them 
 and they with us. It is legal religious liberty with its 
 consequences. The Germanic and Romanic nations have 
 in apparent hostility begun their course from opposite 
 ends of the compass. With us the movement has begun 
 on the territory of religion, and has advanced from this 
 ground to the region of politics; they, however, made 
 their first steps on the field of politics. Freedom of 
 conscience and religious peace is what we all desire, 
 especifiUy in Germany. It has, undoubtedly, been a 
 cause of sorrow to many a heart among us, that our 
 
PROTESTANTS 'AND CATHOLICS AT ONE. 371 
 
 Catholic brethren have not been able to join us in cele- 
 brating this week the third Centenary of the Religious 
 Peace of Augsburg, for which we solemnly gave thanks 
 to God in all our Christian assemblies on the past Sun- 
 day. I feel sure that not a single Protestant preacher, 
 nor a single congregation will have referred to that event 
 in an arrogant tone of triumph ; for that peace accorded 
 to us but a precarious existence, which was not changed 
 into a more secure position until after a civil warfare of 
 thirty years had been terminated by the Peace of West- 
 phalia, in 1648, and that with many losses to the Pro- 
 testant Church of Germany, That Peace secured to 
 •Protestantism only a subordinate rank, which was first 
 changed into that of equal brotherhood before the whole 
 world in 1815. So long as that Peace continued to be 
 the basis of our legal right to exist, the recognition of Jis 
 by the law bore no proportion to our intrinsic and per- 
 manent power. Thus for two hundred years its anniver- 
 sary offered us nothing but a sorrowful remembrance of 
 a past age fall of bloodshed and devastation, and a faint 
 dawning of freedom of conscience. Still we dwelt will- 
 ingly and with thankfulness to ^fbd on the memdry of 
 this day ; and why ? Because that peace was the first 
 recognition, reluctantly extorted and ill-observed though 
 it was, of the saving principle of liberty of conscience 
 and free personality. 
 
 The sorrowful feeHng, therefore, which I hear ex- 
 pressed on every hand is not unnatural ; still, it ought 
 not to make us unjust and mistrustful toward our Cath- 
 olic fellow-citizens. The Catholic laity is, in the eye of 
 the Church, utterly destitute of rights, and is now, like 
 the parochial clergy, more than ever made the mere 
 passive instrument of the bishops ; while the latter again 
 are more than ever prostrate under the unconditional 
 
372 SIGNS OF THK TIMES. 
 
 supremacy of the Pope, who enforces the absolute 
 canon law. Now, from the beginning, as Eanke has 
 proved by the documents extant, the Pope has always 
 protested against the religious peace of Augsburg, as an 
 impious surrender of the Divine rights of the Church ; 
 and hence our Catholic brethren find themselves in such 
 a position that it is impossible for them to share our 
 patriotic feeling, or to celebrate an event which brought 
 peace, and set bounds to religious hatred, with any thing 
 but a sorrowful, or, at most, silent remembrance. 
 
 Now, as I have dedicated these letters to " eternal 
 peace," I will, before concluding, touch upon that point 
 which more than any thing else threatens to disturb re- 
 ligious peace through all time, not only in Germany, 
 but throughout the world : I mean Jesuitism. Many 
 persons, in other respects at once able thinkers, -candid 
 men, and trustful believers in God's providence, believe 
 that the peace of the world can be secured on no other 
 terms than the expulsion of the Jesuits by all Protestant 
 governments and peoples, and their exclusion from the 
 universal principles of toleration. I myself do not under- 
 estinlate the worldly power and importance of this fear- 
 ful Society, and have unreservedly expressed my views 
 as a politician concerning the point of law,- and the only 
 right modeof treating this subject. So much the more 
 do I consider it my duty on the present occasion, setting 
 aside all theological matters, and passing over the histor- 
 ical arguments that have been a thousand times repeated^ 
 to discuss the subject from' the point of view to which 
 we have now attained. , 
 
 We start from the most secure and unassailable 
 position. If that be true which we have said of person- 
 ality when summing up our results, its necessary conse- 
 quences are also true. If on every side we are met by 
 
RBVIVAl OP JESTJinSM. 373 
 
 proofs, derived equally from thought and from historical 
 feet, that moral personality is the image of Grod in man, 
 the annihilation of personality can lead neither individ- 
 uals nor nations to salvation, but must conduct both only 
 to perdition. If moral personality is an end in itself, if 
 the training of men to personal independence — that is, 
 to free self-determination and true freedom — be the end , 
 of creation, as it is the inmost fruit of the counsels of 
 eternal love, and be thus the final aim of all human 
 education and social life, a system can not be true which 
 destroys personality. God needs personality to accom- 
 plish his work in the soul; he who kills that principle 
 destroys, so far as he is able, the Divine element iu the 
 soul. A system of such destruction, of such " obedience 
 unto death" imto human beings, must work for evil, 
 whether it rest on delusion or a conscious lie. 
 
 The imperfectioA of the existing conditions of Chris- 
 tendom during the rise and development of this system, 
 explains how it was possible that a society founded upon 
 it should become mighty, and regain power so rapidly 
 after its restoration. But it can not and will not be 
 able • to maintain a protracted existence in the present 
 circumstances of the world, with the gravity of the times, 
 and the inward character which religion has assumed, or 
 is striving to assume. On this subject, the passionate 
 exasperation of implacable hatred to wrong and falsehood 
 is at one with the truly Christian sentiment of respect 
 for humanity, and the honest striving of peoples and 
 churches after truth in our ecclesiaBtical and civil polity. 
 
 The natural course of events would therefore be, that 
 the overthrow of Jesaitism should proceed from those 
 peoples and States which are ecclesiastically connected 
 with Rome. In them the Order is ' at home, and 
 exiercises the power of a native potentate. But in those 
 
374 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 countries it has been arraigned and condemned; and 
 Spain, the land of its birth, joined with Sardinia in 
 setting the example of its expulsion. As far as we are 
 concerned, the re-establishment of the Order was nothing 
 more nor less than a declaration of war against Protest- 
 antism, and hence its re-admission into Austria is a 
 highly lamentable and ominous event for Germany, 
 The breach of the religious peace of 1555 was the work 
 of the Jesuits, and their suppression was the advent of 
 freedom of conscience and tolerance on the part of the 
 Catholic Sovereigns, who were still sanguinary per- 
 secutors a hundred years ago. This circumstance, 
 painfttl as it is, must not be forgotten, but must be 
 recalled to men's recollections when the Jesuits, now try 
 to gain all hearts under the mask of charity and even of 
 enlightenment, and have by these means succeeded in 
 blinding, or even in winning over, many men and 
 women — ^nay, princes and governments. But these con- 
 siderations must not induce, us to lose our faith, and 
 forsake our dignified, reasonable, and impregnable posi- 
 tion. All their successes wiU not save them : the 
 Catholic peoples know them too well — the cloven foot 
 will soon peep oiit. Let us not deceive ourselves. The 
 antagonism of Jesuitism to the Gospel, as to all reality in 
 nature and history, is neither accidental nor the effect of 
 any. degeneracy of the Society: it is essential and original. 
 The antagonism does not affect this point or that, but 
 is absolute, because it proceeds from the fundamentally 
 false view of the world and of man on which the whole 
 Order "vfas founded and subsists. On this point, Ranke 
 and Stahl are at one with each other and with Pascal, 
 that the shallowness of the Jesuitical ethics and the 
 proverbial turpitude of their casuistry can not be ac- 
 counted for by this or that object of the Society, but by 
 
LOYOLA'S GREATNESS AND ERROR. 375 
 
 the imnaturalness and ungodliness of its fundamental 
 principle, whether regarded from a Christian or a phi- 
 losophical point of view, or from that of plain common 
 sense. 
 
 The Jesuitical theory of the universe is a positive 
 denial and thorough inversion of the Divine and human 
 modes of action — a conscious breach with history and 
 Providence. For it is the conscious and professed sub- 
 ordination of truth to an end, and that on the domain 
 of morals and religion : it is the murder of the principle 
 of personality bestowed by God and belonging to God. 
 Hence it is involved in irreconcilable hostility with 
 freedom, science, and humanity. This is an irrefrag- 
 able argument against it, independent of all historical 
 demonstration. 
 
 Loyola was well aware that a will directed on spiritual 
 objects has power to rule the world; but he vainly 
 deemed that he could rule over God, and take God's 
 place in His own sanctuary. He knew that all religious 
 knowledge consists, not in any outward learning and 
 scholarship, but comes from the inward part of the 
 soul. But he desired to reign over this inward part, in 
 order to use it as a means and a tool ; the which is 
 eternally contrary to God. Lastly, he knew also that 
 the natural Me, the Self, is the true enemy of the Divine 
 life in every man, and self-seeking the essence of sin and 
 the root of evil and of all the miseries of humanity ; but 
 he wanted to break the vessel, in order to make it the 
 instrument of God in the service of the Superiors and 
 of the Pope. 
 
 His perception of these truths constituted his highest 
 and noblest ideas. I am inclined to think that his belief 
 in them was sincere ; but what we can judge of was, 
 that his whole view of the real world was unsound, 
 
,376 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and can not be brought into harmony with the facts cff 
 nature, nor with the essence of the Divine. Neither in 
 nature nor in history, neither in the Bible nor in the 
 Church, did he seek Truth for its own sake, but only as 
 a means of governing by the crushing and killing out of 
 personality — ^that is, of God in man. And this charac- 
 teristic of crushing the faculties is indelibly impressed 
 on the Order by a system which can not indeed be called 
 an organization, but is a most perfect mechanism, and 
 which is the naked prose of hierarchism under the 
 garb of enthusiasm, and the lifeless deposit of the 
 Middle Ages preserved in the acid of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 That personality which a man finds in himself is, ac- 
 cording to its natural root, a selfish principle. But there 
 is a living consciousness in man that from this bitter 
 root, under the tending care of God's Spirit, working 
 through conscience and reason, a life of love and right- 
 eousness, is destined to blossom out. And this conscious- 
 ness the Gospel has, for all mankind, brought into clear 
 light through the personality of Jesus of Nazareth ; and 
 this historically true, and yet perfectly unique, per- 
 sonality is exhibited to us on the background of the 
 historical development of the consciousness of God in 
 humanity, from Abraham and Moses onward, through 
 wondrous manifestations of the Divine element in the 
 men of God believing in the one God of creation and con- 
 science, and the nation founded upon this belief. 
 
 Thus, from the selfish personality is educed by moral 
 training (which can not be otherwise than religious) a 
 renewed personality, that ever aspires toward goodness 
 and truth. From the mere self-determining power is 
 evolved a will truly free ; from the constraint and ser- 
 vitude of self-love issues Divine freedom ; the laboring 
 
ESSENCE OF JESUITISM. 377 
 
 for self is transformed into a willing recognition of just- 
 ice. To cold isolation and arbitrary power, strong only 
 to destroy, succeeds the appointed realization of the 
 Divine in the sphere, not artificially created but divinely 
 ordained, of the household, of the Church, of the State; 
 and, lastly, mental struggle and self-contradiction give 
 place to godliness in the individual, and to prosperity in 
 the community. 
 
 Jesuitism is not unacquainted with this order of 
 development, but it lays its hand on the wheels and 
 stops them, in order to insure the accomplishment of 
 the end by destroying personality ; not knowing, or not 
 remembering, that with personality it destroys that very 
 end itself. Were there neither Grod, nor Christ, nor 
 Gospel, nor consciousness of God in man, Jesuitism 
 would be indispensable ; but they exist, and humanity 
 exists. 
 
 Jesuitism places in the stead of free moral self-deter- 
 mination, unconditional obedience to your fellow-men, 
 the superiors of the Order. The voluntary surrender 
 of the selfish will to God is turned into blind obedience 
 to a man who has ceased to be his own master. Man, 
 says the Bible and the " Theologia Germanica," is to be 
 to God as His hand or His foot ; man shall become a 
 corpse or a stock, a lifeless tool, say the Constitutions 
 of the Jesuits literally : 
 
 "Let each man firmly believe that those who live 
 under obedience ought to sufier themselves to be guided 
 and governed by Divine Providence working through 
 their Superiors, exactly as though they were a corpse, 
 which suffers itself to be turned about in any direc- 
 tion, and treated in any manner you please : or Uke 
 the staff of an aged man, which serves everywhere 
 and in all things him who holds it in his hand." Vi. 1. 
 
378 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Who will set bounds to the Spirit of God ? Who 
 can deny that pious men have lived in the Order ? We 
 are speaking of the system, and of its necessary work- 
 ing as a whole ; we are not now speaking of individuals. 
 What can result from this annihilation of the Divine 
 element — ^this killing out of God? Surely not that 
 moral self-determination of the individual which can 
 only result from freedom and the consciousness of the 
 eternal and immediate relation of the human spirit to 
 God ; nor yet the sense of moral responsibility which is 
 necessarily developed therefroni. Jesuitism crushes, it 
 does not train the faculties; it enslaves, it does not 
 liberate man ; it is a concentrated faculty of self-seeking 
 in the member of the Society which takes the place of 
 God. And, truly, its fruit among the nations is not in- 
 dependence and prosperous development, but a ruinous 
 fluctuation between anarchy and despotism, between 
 skepticism and superstition. Nor, finally, does it give 
 birth to a true, solid, truth-discovering science, nor a 
 healthy and living art. Is not the impress of Jesuitism 
 unmistakable in both these spheres ? In that of art it 
 is a sentimental distortion of the beautiful, a mannerism 
 in painting and sculpture, an innate absence of taste and 
 love of theatrical ornamentation in architecture. In 
 science it is a rhetorical shallowness, where it is not a 
 sophistical concealment of truth — a garbled history, a 
 degrading philosophy, a dead and unintelligent philol- 
 ogy; -in every department it is prose reheved by fanat- 
 icism. 
 
 This incapacity to respect, and therefore to perceive, 
 what is healthy in nature and mind, is a necessary 
 effect of the system ; and is the Divine retribution 
 for its unnaturalness and untruthfulness. Nay, reason 
 and conscience, nature and history, and the author 
 
HOW TO MEET JESUITISM. 379 
 
 of both, God himself would not be true if this were 
 not manifest as the necessary consequence of such a 
 system. 
 
 K these things be so, my honored friend, how can 
 we Protestants, who have nothing to do with the Jesuits, 
 doubt that the great and noble nations whom that society 
 has first let to superstition and despotism, and then 
 plunged into their inevitable consequences — unbelief and 
 anarchy — will extirpate from their midst, with holy 
 resolve and judicious act, the evil that has once more 
 assumed such gigantic proportions, and free the world 
 forever from its curse? What nations wish for the 
 servitude which the Jesuits introduce or cherish, and 
 not for liberty? — ^for the disruption of the common- 
 wealth, and not for its prosperity ? — ^for persecution and 
 not for freedom of conscience ? It would require fresh 
 centuries of bondage, new religious and civil wars, be- 
 fore the nations could again be made rotten enough, the 
 world wicked enough, skepticism universal enough, and 
 the decline of true learning deep enough, for Europe to 
 become once more a pupil of the Jesuits. We will not 
 do them the favor to fall into the snare which they have 
 laid for us. 
 
 Therefore we, for our part, in the strength of this 
 faith, desire to keep wholly within the field of right and 
 of liberty. We desire to take note of all that is done : 
 we will not depart from our rights in order to deprive 
 the Jesuits of theirs. Were we to violate our principle 
 of freedom, we should be recreants to our faith in the 
 victory of tmth. The only way in which we can help 
 our Catholic brethren is by faithfully acting upon the 
 dictates of the Gospel committed to our hands, and of 
 the freedom and knowledge to which it has conducted 
 us; and by laboring for the kingdom of God among 
 
380 SiaNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ourselvea, ever mindfal of our own faults and imperfec- 
 tions, and of the high purpose and prize of liberty. 
 
 But this we will say boldly, and proclaim to all the 
 world : Whoever •promotes oppression of conscience 
 and mental slavery — yea, whoever does not, with all 
 sincerity and energy, labor in faith for the freedom 
 of the human conscience and intellect, is working for 
 Jesuitism, and, as much as in him lies, for the 
 downfall and destruction of his own Church and 
 nation. But if he be a Protestant, he deserves a 
 double measure of our abhorrence or compassion. 
 
 But he who in the sphere assigned him, whether it be 
 high or low, labors faithfully for right and freedom, is 
 laboring for the overthrow of the enemies of the king- 
 dom of God over the whole earth. 
 
 Assuredly, my honored friend, a mighty struggle is 
 impending for us. It is a sacred warfare, and no un- 
 hallowed iiands may take part in it with impunity. The 
 antagonism between liberty and oppression of conscience 
 is everlasting, but the banner of free moral personality 
 waves victoriously over the battle-field, and on it is in- 
 scribed, in letters of fire — 
 
 " In hoc signo vinces." 
 
 Even as the chorus of Greek tragedy ends — 
 
 "to d' ev viKwrbi." 
 
 Yes, the Eight shall prevail in the history of our world ; 
 for it prevailed in Christ for all Humanity eighteen 
 centuries ago ! 
 
 We are all hasteniag to eternity while living in it, 
 and our time has its essence in eternity. Time, into 
 which the Kingdom of God has been born, and is ad- 
 vancing step by step to its full accomplishment. 
 
THE RiaHT SHALL PEEVAIL. 381 
 
 Probably, my deax and honored friend, -we shall be- 
 hold only in spirit the dawning of the new day that is 
 coming upon our earth ; but we shall behold the day 
 that is about to break, for it is ours. May we, like the 
 divine prophet Elias, perceive the presence of the Lord 
 in His still small voice of inward peace, even amid the 
 roar of storms and crashing of tempests ! May we, aa 
 we depart from this world, exclaim, in the beautiful dy- 
 ing words of the immortal seer of Gorlitz, the pioua 
 Jacob Bdhme — 
 
 " Hallbltjjah ! From sunrise to midnight flames 
 the power and might of the Lord ; who wHl stay hi| 
 thunderbolts? 
 
 " TTATX Ti!T.n.TATT ! Into all lands looks thine eye of 
 love ; and thy truth endures for everlasting ! 
 
 " Hallelujah 1 We are redeemed from the yoke 
 of the oppressor ! No one shall build his kingdom 
 again forever; for the Lord hath spoken it by His 
 wondrous deeds. Hallelujah !" 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 AN mSTORIOAL AND JUEIDICAL ACCOUNT OP THE 
 BOCLBSIASTICAIi CONTEST IN BADEN, UP TO 
 JUNE, 1854. 
 
 * 
 
 Prom the "Expos6 historique et raisonne du conflit entre 
 I'Epispopat et les gouvemements des temtoires eomposant la 
 province ecclesiastique du Haut-Ehin en Allemagne; par 
 M. L. A. Wa/rnkosnig, Professeur de droit ecclesiastique a 
 r university de Tubingen, membre correspondant de 1' Insti- 
 tut de Prance, des Acad§mies royales de Belgique et de 
 Munich, etc. BruxeUes, Paris, Leipzig, 1854." (Published 
 in July.) 
 
 I. 
 
 DeTnomde des iveques. 
 
 1! episcopat demande une rfiforme radicale de 1' ordre des 
 choses existant, et reclame la restitution complete de tons les 
 droits qu'il prfetend lui appartenir, selon la constitution de 
 I'Eglise catholique, la legislation canonique, ou les conventions 
 conclues avec le Pape. 
 
 H demande en particuUer : 
 
 1. Que la collation de tons les benefices eccl6siastiques, et la 
 nomiuation k toute fonction ou emploi dans le sein de 1' Eglise, 
 appartiennent k V 6v6que, hormis le cas, oft un autre, que ce soit 
 le souverain, ou un simple particulier, ait acquis le droit de patron- 
 age d' aprSs les lois canoniques. II ne reconnait pas ce droit au 
 souverain comme tel, et ne considfere pas la secularization des 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER Y. ggg 
 
 biens des corporations r61igieuses, qui avaient autrefois le droit de 
 designer les curfis dans les paroisses incorpor^es, comme un titre 
 qui ait pu donner au souverain le droit de patronage. H veut 
 que ses nominations soient valables sans 6tre agr§6es ou conflrmfees 
 par le chef de 1' Etat, et qu' il suffise qu' un cur6 soit nomm6 par 
 1' 6v6que, pour qu' il soit reconnu et maintenu dans toutes les 
 prerogatives inhferentes k sa charge et k sa dignity. 
 
 2. En consequence de ce principe, que 1' Sv^que pent seul 
 conferer les b6n§fices et dignit^s eocl^siastiques, et conform6ment 
 sax. dispositions du concile de Trente, 1' §piscopat veut, que non 
 Seulement le souverain ne jouisse pas du droit de faire 1' examen 
 des candidats k recevoir aux seminaires, ou celui du concours dit 
 paroissial, mats encore qu' il soit exclu de toute participation aux 
 examens, qu' il ne puisSe s' y faire reprfesenter par des d61§gu6s, 
 et qu' H n' ait surtout pas la faculty, que les gouvemements ont 
 encore rficlamee en mars 1853, d' fimettre tm vote sur la capacite 
 des candidate examines. 
 
 3. les 6v6ques r6clament, pour les mtoes raisons, la direction 
 immediate des Icoles et pensionnats eoclesiastiques, et 1' 6tablisse- 
 ment de siminaires d' aprfes les preceptes du concile de Trente ; 
 lis veulent que les professeurs en theologie aux universites ne 
 puissent 6tre nomm6s que sur leur avis, et qu' ils soient, ainsi que 
 leur enseignement, soumis k leur surveillance immediate. lis 
 veulent en outre pouvoir seuls conferer le titre cMrical ou de sus- 
 tentation, et disposer k cet eflfet des fonds qui y sont affect^s, ou 
 mtee conferer les ordres, sans qu' il y ait besoin d' une pareille 
 sustentation. 
 
 4. Ce que 1' episcopat reclame encore, o' est 1' abolition complete 
 et enti^re du droit de placet, et du recours comme d' abus, ou de 
 r appel contre ses decisions aux autoritfes oiviles, sauf le cas oh. il 
 y aurait usurpation de fonctions civiles de la part du'clerg§. II 
 reclame en outre le Ubre exercice de la juridiction eccl6siastique, 
 tant civile que penale, secu/nchmn canones adhuc vigemtes etjarcesen- 
 tem ecchsim discipUnam, et il exige du gouvernement 1' execution 
 par6e de ses jugements, par consequent aussi le droit de d6poser, 
 suspendre, et dfeplacer les prtoes sur jugement, sans que 1' autorit^ 
 ravile ait k a' assurer de la r6gularit6 de la procedure. 
 
 5. Les 6idques rficlament ensuite une pleine et ■ entifere Ubert6 
 du cidte, m6me k V 6gard des actes non reputis nficessaires au 
 salut, et par consequent le droit d' ordonner des missions, des 
 
384 APPEiroiX TO LETTER V. 
 
 processions, des pelerinages solennels, d' 6tablir des confreries, 
 des congregations et des convents et ordres monastiques sans 
 autorisation prfealable du gouvemement. 
 
 6. lis pretendent non seulement &. la direction exclusive de 
 1' instruction religieuse dans les §coles primaires, colleges, ou 
 lyc6es, ainsi qu' au droit d' y nommer les professeurs, mais encore 
 a. celui de surveiller et mime de dinger 1' enseignement profane, 
 de faire renvoyer les professeurs, quand ils ne jouissent plus de 
 leiu- conflance ; ils demandent enfin 1' abolition des fecoles mixtes, 
 c' est-Jl-dire de celles qui sont destinees k V instruction simultanSe 
 d' enfants de differentes confessions, afin que ceux de la religion 
 catbolique soient exclusivement instruits dans des §coles 
 catholiques. 
 
 7. L' episcopat veut de plus avoir plein pouvoir de prononcer 
 I' excommunication tant majeure que mineure centre tout prtee 
 et lai'que qui a encouni cette peine. 
 
 8. II reclame enfin 1' exclusive et la Jibre administration de 
 tous les biens ecclesiastiques, sans le controle exeroe jusqu' a cette 
 heure par I'Etat, par consequent 1' abolition des reglements 
 d' administration fetablis par le gouvemement. C est surtout du 
 fonds ecollsiastique general que les 6v6ques veulent pouvoir 
 disposer sans autorisation quelconque du pouvoir civil,-et confor- 
 mlment k ce qui est prescrit par le droit canon. 
 
 Dans leurs iflfemoires il n' est pas question des mariages mixtes; 
 r ipiscopat ayant depuis nombre d'annees mis les ordonnances 
 du saint-si§ge k cet 6gard en vigueur, et considerant la legislation 
 civile en tous les points oii elle leur est contraire comme nulle, il 
 n' a pas juge necessaire d' en demander 1' abrogation. 
 
 Si r on compare le syst^me gouvernemental expose, ci-dessus 
 avec les exigences de 1' Episcopat, on doit se convaincrement 
 aisSment qu' ils reposent sur des maniferes de voir si dififerentes, 
 qu'il existe entre eux une antinomic absolue. D'aprfes les 
 principes du gouvemement, 1' Eglise ne peut rldamer de 1' Etat 
 d' autres droits que ceux qu' il veut bien lui aocorder ; la plnpart 
 de ces droits ne lui semblent qu' une simple concession de sapart, 
 et il croit pouvoir lui en refuser des plus importants, tel que celui 
 de conffirer les b§n6fices eccMsiastiques, d' exaniiner les candidats 
 en thfeologie et les aspirants aux places de cur6, et d' administrer 
 le fonds central eccl§siastique ; tandis que les Svlques de leur 
 c6t6 revendiquent tous ces droits comme leur appartenant exclU' 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 385 
 
 sivement, ou tout au moins comme des prfirogativea, que 1' Etat 
 ne peut faire dependre de conditions dict^es par lui-mlmej et 
 dont il ne peut circonscire 1' exercice dans certaines limites ; ils 
 declarant m§me la plupart de ces droits tellement inhferents k la 
 dignite et aux fonctions 6piscopales, qu'ils ne se croient pas 
 autorises k y renoncer ou h permettre que le pouvoir civile s' en 
 m^le. Bref, o' est le syst^me ultramontain le plus abaolu et le 
 plus franchement prononcfe, que 1' 6piscopat du Haut-Rhin veut 
 voir mettre en pratique, peu lui importe que 1' Etat le reconnaisse 
 ou non. . C est pour cela que I'archevfique de Eribourg a cru 
 pouvoir se mettre de sa propre autorit^ et par voie de fait en 
 possession d' une partie de ces droits, tandis que les gouveme- 
 ments craignent d' abdiquer une partie de leur souverainet6 en 
 laissant s' introduire un t«l ordre de choses. 
 
 Les gouvernements avaient modifie, en partie dans une ordon- 
 nance r^digee en commun, en partie dans une declaration minis- 
 terielle du 2 au 5 mars 1853, 1'ordoimance du 30 Janvier 1830. 
 Mais cela ne suffisait pas pour ripondre k toutes les demandes de 
 r episcopat; un grand nombre de ces demandes avaient 6t6 
 rejetees, et les principes de 1' ancienne ordonnance maintenus ; 
 aussi les 6v6que3 d6clartont-ils ne pas ^tre satisfaita par les con- 
 cessions qu' ils venaient d' obtenir. Nous aliens enumerer lea 
 plus essentiels des changements qui avaient 6te d6cret6s : 
 
 a. Les bulles ou bref's du Pape, les ordonnances gSnfeales des 
 gvSques et d' autres autorites ecclesiastiques, ainsi que les dScrets 
 des synodea, n' ont besoin du placet, pour fitre publics et execu- 
 tes, que lorsqu' ils imposent des obligations qui ne sont pas du 
 ressort de 1' Bglise, ou qui se rapportent aux affaires publiques ou 
 civHes. Quant aux; autres, qui ont un caractfere purement apiri- 
 tuel, il suffit qu' ils soient portfes k la connaissance du gouverne- 
 ment. 
 
 h. H est libre k tout le mondfe de communiquer avec Rome, 
 sans tbutefois qu' il soit porte prejudice k V ordre bierarchique 
 des autorites ecclesiastiques. 
 
 c. Les etudes theologiques doivent se faire k une faculte de 
 theologie faisant partie des universites gouvemementales. 
 
 d. Les candidats en theologie ne sont admis'^ recevoir les 
 ordres sacres, ou k jouir du titre clerical, qu' aprSs avoir snbi 
 avec succfes 1' examen d' une commission 6pisoopale, assistee 
 d'un conmassaire du gouvemement; ce dernier est muni d'un 
 
 17 
 
386 APPENDIX TO LETTER T. 
 
 droit de veto suspensif, et doit en referer au conseil des cultes, 
 qui decide alors en demifere instance sur 1' admission du candidat 
 ajourn6. 
 
 e. On aocorde aux 6v§ques et &. 1' archev^que de Pribotirg le 
 droit de nommer librement aux places de cur6 qui deviennent 
 vaoantes aux mois de juillet et de decembre. 
 
 /. L' 6v6que a le droit de surveiHer immediatement les 6tab- 
 lissements d' instruction publique des prtoesfuturs; les profes- 
 seurs et les chefs ou regents des pensionnats qui y sont annexes 
 ne peuvent 6tre nomm6s sans son consentement. 
 
 ff. L' Svdque nomme les doyens ruraux; mais ils ne peuvent 
 entrer en fonction qu' apr^s avoir §t6 confirmfes par le gouveme- 
 ment. 
 
 h. Les gouvernements reoonnaissent aux 6v^ques le Sroit de 
 prononcer, centre les pretres enfaute, les peines usit6es; si ce- 
 pendant leurs sentences doivent produire des effets civils, tels que 
 la perte du b§n6fice, etc., il faut qu' eEes aient 6t6 rendues par 
 un tribunal bien organist, et assiste d' un jurisoonsulte lai'que ; il 
 faut que la condamnation se fasse par suite d'une procedure con- 
 forme aux lois, et que le condamn6 ait pu en appeler t V autoritS 
 civile ; s' il n' use pas de ce droit, ou si 1' autorit6 civile declare 
 qu' il n' J ait pas lieu k cassation, les condamnations seront mises 
 a. r execution 4 1' aide du bras seculier. 
 
 i. Les gouvernements reconnaissent aux 6vlques le droit d' ex- 
 communier ; mais 1' excommunication ne pent avoir nul effet 
 civil; ele donne lieu k un recours comme d' abus, lorsqu' elle est 
 prononc§e ^our des faits strangers k la religion. 
 
 Les reformes refusees par les gouvernements conoement entre 
 autres r Erection des petits seminaires prescrite'par le concile de 
 Trente, mais qui n' existent pas en Allemagne, et sont rendus 
 superflus par les fooles secondaires et les pensionnats existants ; 
 ensuite les missions, pel6rinages solennels, ainsi que 1' Erection de 
 couvents sans autorisation prfealable de 1' Etat ; la surveillance 
 et le contr6le de 1' enseignement profane par 1' eyeque, ou ceUe 
 des professeurs en theologie nommis par le gouvernement aux 
 imiversit§s de 1' Etat. Enfin la legislation existante k V fegard des 
 biens ecctesiastiques et des fondations est maintenue, et les gou- 
 vernements dfeclarent vouloir oontinuer k faire administrer le 
 fonds central eocl^siastique or66 par eux, quoique aliments par les 
 revenus des btoefices vacants ; il doit suffire aux 6v^ques d' avoir 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 387 
 
 le droit de consentir k V emploi de ce fonds, etc. Us terminent 
 en promettant aux fivlques que toutes les fois qu' ils rSclameront 
 quelque amelioration du bien-6tre general de 1' Eglise, ils s' em- 
 preaseront de satisfaire & leurs desirs, pourvu qu' ils soient com- 
 patibles avec r ordre social moderne et les lois de I'Etat. 
 
 n. 
 
 Actes cCopposition insurrectioneUe de V ipiscopat conire les gou- , 
 vememenis, et procedis de ces demiers. 
 
 Les 6v^ques ne tardferent pas de donner suite i leurs menaces, 
 de se mettre en possession dea droits que les gouvememenfa ne 
 cessaient de leur contester. Us choisirent deux voies pour par- 
 venir k ce but. Us refiis^rent d! abord ' leur participation aux 
 actes d' administration eccl6siastique qui selon les ordonnances en 
 vigueur devaient se"faire de commun accord, ou Us ne donnferent 
 pas suite aux qrdres du gouvemement, qu' ils envisageaient 
 comme contraires i leurs droits. Cette esp^ce de resistance 
 passive avait deji commeno6 a partir du mouveinent rdvolution- 
 naire de mars 1848. L' 6v6que de Kottenbourg avait alors refuse 
 d? prendre pa;rt k la nomination dea doyens ruraux, et d' etivoyer 
 un commissaire aux examens Si aubir k Stuttgardt par les prfitres 
 aspirants aux places de cur6. Bientfit aprte 1' episcopat tout 
 entier alia plus loin ; il refusa 1' institution canonique aux cur^s 
 nommes par le chef de 1' Etat, comme tel, et ne reconnut plus 
 commes obligatoires les ordres du conseil des cultes, qui lui sem- 
 blaient empi§ter sur les prerogatives ou la juridiction episcopale. 
 
 Enfin r archeveque de Fribourg et plus tard 1' evfique de 
 Limbourg pass^rent de la desobSissance passive k dfis actes de 
 resistance active.* 
 
 Hs nommSrent, en vertu de leur pouvoir pontifical, des cur^s 
 aux paroiases vacantes. L' archeveque se donna un fonde de 
 pouvoir avec le droit de le representer au sien du chapitre, sans 
 mfime en faire part au gouvemement ; il ne recherche plus d' au- 
 torisation pour publier ses decrets, ou pour ^x6cuter des actes de 
 
 * Un dcrit apologSticiue de V archevSque, public h Mavencei presente tous ces 
 actes comme n* impliqnant qu* one r^Bistance pasBive. ^Ceci est par trop naif. 
 
388 APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 juridiction quelconque. II fit feire les examens de reception au 
 seminaire en son nom, et refusa d' y admettre un oommissaire 
 ciyU ; en un mot il se mit au-dessus des ordonnances legalement 
 sanctionnees du gouveirnement, que lui et ses prfideoesseurs 
 avaient pourtant respectees et execut§es jusqu' alors. Enfin il 
 entra en correspondance, le 5 aoftt 1853, avec les membres tant 
 laiques qu' ecol6siastiques du conseE du culte catholique i Carls- 
 ruhe, pour les engager k se demettre de leurs places, comme les 
 obligeant 5i des fonctions incompatibles avec les devoirs d' un 
 Chretien cattolique. Aucun d' eux n' ayant defire k sa demande, 
 E lan5a contre eux une sentence d' excommunication, qu' il leur 
 fit signifier h. chacun personellement, le 20 octobre 1853. C est 
 ainsi que la rupture avec le gouvernement fut consommee, et la 
 guerre declarte. 
 
 Le gouvernement de Bade se vit contraint d' user de repr6- 
 sailles, pour maintenir I'ordre l^gal en vigueur, et pour faire 
 respecter sa propre autorite. II choisit d'abord -i cet eflfet le 
 moyen le moins dur; au lieu de faire instruire un procfes criminel 
 contre 1' archev^que ou de le faire arr^ter, il le mit en iUteWe; une 
 ordonnance du 7 novembre, 1853, defendit de publier ou d' exe- 
 cuter tout acta emane de lui, sans le visa d' un commissaire 
 spteial, nomme par le prince regent en la persoijne du premier 
 magistrat du baillage de Fribourg ; 1' archev^que 1' excommunia 
 tout aussitd^, ce qui du reste ne 1' empecha d' exercer ses 
 ptoibles fonctions. L' archeveqvie fit publier solennelement 
 toutes ses excommunications, et chargea les cures de Pribourg et 
 de Carlsruhe d' en lire les d^crets au pr6ne, ce qu' ils firent faire 
 par leurs vicaires. H est cependant k remarquer que le chapitre 
 archiepiscopal declara solenneUement partager en tous points la 
 manifere de voir de son chef. 
 
 Le gouvernement repondit k ces nouvelles demonstrations en 
 pronongant contre leurs agents des peines d' amende et d' em- 
 prisonnement.* Le grand vicaire de I'archeveque fiat succes- 
 sivement condamn6 k plusieurs milliers de francs d' amende. 
 Tous ceux qui avaient execute les ordres de 1' archevfeque non 
 contre-sign^s du commissaire special, fmrent menaces de ces 
 peines ; les doyens et cur6s fideles k V ordre legal, au contraire, 
 furent assures de la protection du gouvernement. L' archevSque 
 
 * Tous les magistrats k Y exception d' un fort petit nombre, s' empresBferent de 
 ponrBuivre les eccl6slatitiqaeB d6faut ; ceOx qui b" y refaBftrent furent destltuds. 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 389 
 
 essaya de justifier sa. conduite dans plusieurs proclamations, soit 
 secrfetement imprimfees, soit publiees a. 1' etranger. A la -fin il 
 ordonna (toujours sans 1' autorisation du commissaire special) t 
 tous les cur6s d' exppser, dans quatre sermons, sa position envers 
 r Etat, la violation des droits de la sainte Bglise, at le but de son 
 proc6d6 extraordinaire. 
 
 Le clerg6 se trouva dans un fort grand embarras ; la majeure 
 partie ex§cuta bon gr& mal gr6, les ordres de 1' archereque ; les 
 recalcitrants fiirentsuspendus ou dfimis de leurs fonctions, et quel- 
 ques-uns forent mSme frappes de 1' excommunication. Bans un 
 grand nombre d' endroits les conseik communaux sollicitferent 
 r archev^que de retirer 1' ordre des quatres sermons, ou m6me ils 
 s' abstinrent d' y assister, et quelques fois mdme toute la paroisse 
 avec eux. L' archevdque fut inexorable, et dfeclara constamment 
 qu' il persisterait dans la ligne de conduite qu' il s' 6tait trac6 
 jusqu' k ce que justice lui fat rendue. D' un autre c6t6 des ^re- 
 dicateurs trop ardents furent traduits devant les tribunaux. 
 
 Le spectacle de cette lutte i outrance, sans pareille en AUe- 
 magne, produisit encore 1' ^tonnement le plus g§n4ral, et les 
 feuilles clericales de tous les pays s' en occupferent sans cesse. 
 On y presenta la religion et 1' Bglise catholique comme cruelle- 
 ment persecutees ; on y attaqua le gouvemement badois avec un 
 tel achamement, que pluiseurs r6dactours de joumaux Strangers 
 furent cites devant Ifes tribunaux et condamnSs par contxunace. 
 En revanche, on ticha de gagner, par des insinuations douces et 
 flatteuses, le prince regent fle !^de et les autres souverains in- 
 teresses k cette. grande affaire; on les engagea k abandonner le 
 systeme suivi jusqu' k ce jour, k embrasser, en se s^parant des 
 conseillers de la couronne, la cause sacrfee de 1' Eglise, qu' on 
 chercha k leur presenter comme leur propre cause ; on lenr fit 
 voir • dans 1' alliance de 1' autel et du trdne la plus forte garantie 
 de la stability, et le gage du triomphe le plus certain sur la d6mo- 
 oratie, qui 1' on depeignit comme 1' ennemi commun. 
 
 Des souscriptions furent ouvertes en Bavifere, dans les pro- 
 vinces rh§nanes et dans d' autres parties de 1' Allemagne catho- 
 lique, de mSme qu' en Prance et aUleurs en pays Strangers, pour 
 indemniser les prStres martyrs de 1' Eglise. 
 
 Une quantity d' addresses de condolSance et de felicitation des 
 6vSques etdu clergS, catholique de presque tous les pays, ainsi 
 qu' un bref du Pape, arrivferent k Pribourg pour soutenir le 
 
390 APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 courage du prfelat qu' on prltend toe pers6cut6. On feigiiit 
 mime de voir, dans cette aflfaire, une guerre du protestantisme 
 centre 1' Eglise catholique ; quoique les protestants, sauf un fort 
 petit nombre, soient rest§s spectateurs muets de cette lutte qui, k 
 leurs yeux, ne sert pas a. glorifier 1' Eglise. II est vari que parmi 
 les journaux qui prennent le parti des gouvernements, il en est 
 plusieurs dont les redacteurs sont protestants; mais la grande 
 majorite des catholiques, appartenant -i la classe 61ev6e, est du 
 mtoe parti. Quant ,a la masse de la population catholique, elle 
 reste indifferente h ce conflit ; elle est assez 6clairee pour voir que la 
 religion catholique n' a rien souffertet n' a rien i. soufflir, attendu 
 que V ordre de choses que V episcojpat fait passer avjourcS huipour 
 une tyranrm a suVsiste paisiblement depuis un demi-sUcle, sans 
 qu'on s'en soit jamais plaint ouvertement. 
 
 Presque tout le monde ne voit dans le conflit qu' une affaire 
 personelle des 6vlques; qui aspirent Sl 6tendre leur pouvoir. II 
 y a meme un grand nombre de personnes qui craignent qu' une 
 ■victoire de I'lpisoopat ne soit nuisible i la liberty des consciences. 
 : Le gouvernement badois entama d' abord des n6gociations avec 
 le nonce du Pape k Vienne, pour faire cesser le conflit k V aide 
 d' un arrangement avec le Pape. II est a, remarquer qu' k V ex- 
 ception de r evique de Limbourg, pour le duch6 de Nassau et la 
 ville de FrancfOrt, les chefs des autres dioceses n' ont pas suivi 
 r example de leur mtoopolitain ; celui de la Hesse felectorale s' est 
 en quelque sorte retirS de la coalition, se livrant Si, 1' espoir de ter- 
 miner J^es diffloiilt6s par son influence- sur M. Hassenpflug, premier 
 ministre de ce pays. L' 6vlque de Eottenbourg s' est adress6 au 
 roi de Wurtemberg en personne. On arr^te d' abord une espfece 
 d' armistice, et 1' on conclut, au mois de Janvier passe, un com- 
 promis, qui fut redig6 en projet de convention, et que 1' evique 
 transmit au Pape. Eien de positif n' a transpire sur les clauses 
 de cet arrangement, ni sur les nfegociations de 1' ambassadeur 
 badois a Vienne. - Les cheis les plus ardents du parti clerical ont 
 manifeste cependant un certain mecontentement d' une issue paci- 
 fique de la granda lutte. 
 
 C est au milieu de cette agitation toujours croissante et ali- 
 mentee par des Merits fugitifs, des pamphlets anonymes, et des 
 feuiUes volantes pleines d' invectives, qu' eut heii 1' ouverture des 
 chambres du grande-duchfe de Bade. L' attention publique 6tait 
 gfoi'ralement dirigee sur le passage du diloours du tr6ne ou il 
 
APPElTDrx: TO L^TTEK V. 391 
 
 devait tee fait mention du conflit ecclSsiastique. Le prince-re- 
 gent le fit avec autant de dignite que de tact et de reserve. H y 
 exprimait ses sinc^res regrets de ce que le voeu de 1' arohevSque, 
 de voir son pouvoir plus 6tendu qu' il ne 1' 6tait conform6ment 
 aux lois et aux ordonnances en vigueur, avait fait naitre une 
 esp§ce de scission entre 1' episcopat et le gouvemement, malgre 
 1' attachement que lui, feu son p6re et son a'leul, avaient toujours 
 temoignS a. leurs, sujets catholiques, et malgr6 leur respect pour 
 cette religion et leur zfele pour leur Eglise ; que c' 6tait cofitre 
 son gr6 qu' il avait da prendre des mesures ^v^res pour 1' hon- 
 neur de 1' Etat et 1' autoritS des lois, mais qu' il esp§rait que tout 
 serait termini par un arrangement, etc. 
 
 Dans leurs reponses ou adresses du 22 Janvier, 1854, le deux 
 chambres exprimferent au prince-regent leur sympathie la plus 
 franche relativement k cette affaire. La seconde chambre sur- 
 tont, composSe en majeure partie de catholiques, s' exprimea, en 
 cette occasion, d' une manifere remarquable ; eUe dit : " Nous 
 regrettons d' autant plus profondementles complicatioiis fecheuses 
 qu' a fait naitre le precede extraordinaire de siege archiepiscopal, 
 si oppose a la base fondamentale de notre organisation gouveme- 
 mentale, que les mesures qu' a dCi prendre Votre Altesse Koyale 
 pour garantir centre toute atteinte les prerogatives de la couronne, 
 ont provoque, de la part de 1' autorit6 ecdesiastique, des actes 
 ulterieurs qui auraient facilement pu troubler le repos public et 
 occasionner de graves desordres, si vos fidfeles sujets avaient ete 
 moins attaobfes k leurs. devoirs qu' Us ne le sont. Queles que 
 soient les erreurs r§pandues k V stranger sur.ces affaires, que 1' on 
 connait si peu sous leur vrai jour, votre peuple a prouv6, par sa 
 tenue et par la firme confiance qu' il a en Votre Altesse, qu' il 
 estpersuadS que la sainte cause de sa religion n' est exposte k 
 nul danger. Le souvenir d«3 bienfaifs dont 1' Eglise catholique a 
 Ate combine depuis les temps d§ votre iUustre aieul Charles-Fr6d- 
 6ric jusqu' k nos jours, et 1' assurance de Votre Altesse que la foi 
 catholique n' est pas moins chtee il votre cceur que votre propre 
 croyance, le fortifient encore en cette conviction. Nous, les rep- 
 rSsentants de la nation de toutes les parties du Grand-Duoh§, 
 nous crpyons qu' il est de notre devoir d' en donner 1' assurance 
 au pied du trfine, et de rendre ce t^moignage public, que 1' amour 
 de vos sujets et leur conviction intime que- vous rendez a, tons la 
 m6me et impartiale justice, et que vous avez pour tons une 
 
392 APPENDIX TO IBTTEE T. 
 
 m6me et egale bienveillance, n' a nulle part dans tout le pays 
 subi la moindre alteration par suite de ces differends. Vos fiddles 
 d6put6sesp&rentavec confiance qu' on arrivera i. un arrangement 
 aveo r autoritS ecclfeiastique, qui ne porte aucune atteinte £t la 
 dignite et aux droits de la couronne." 
 
 ConformSment k la declaration faite aux chambres, le prince- 
 regent rfesolut r envoi d' un negociateur auprfes de sa Saintete h. 
 V effet de terminer ce grand conflit k- V amicajjle. 
 
 H fit choix du comte de Leiningen, connu par son devouement 
 a. 1' Eglise, et lui' adjoignit un jeune secretaire qui avait assiste 
 aux conferences des envoyfis des gouvernements rfeunis, tenues, 
 comme nous 1' avons dit plus haut, k Carlsruhe. Pour lui preparer 
 un bon accueil k Rome, le prince r^voqua 1' ordonnance du 7 
 novembre, 1853. 
 
 Le gouvernement badois espSrait avec raison que 1' archiepis- 
 copatrespecterait le staiiis quo jusqu' k la decision du Pape; mais il 
 en fut autrement. Les mesures d' agression reprirent leur cours ; 
 I'archeveque ne se contenta pas seulement de nommer les cur^s 
 de sa propre autdrite, mais il defendit encore aux ecclesiastiques 
 les examens en matifere de religion, aussi longtemps qu' ils au- 
 raient lieu en presence des commissaires gouvernementaus, et 
 decreta 1' etablissement d' un pensionnat pour les tbeologiens k 
 Pribourg, dans un batiment appartenant k 1' Etat ; de plus il fit 
 fermer les 6glises, dont les cures nommes par lui n' avaient pas 
 ete reconnus par le gouvernement. 
 
 Cet acte hostile n' empecha pas ce dernier d' user dei modera- 
 tion; ne voulant pas priver les communes catholiques de 1' exer- 
 dce de leur culte, il permit aux curSs nommes par 1' archeveque 
 d' exercer leurs fonctions en qualit§ de vicaires. Toutefois cette 
 condescendance ne satisfit pas le pontife, qui s' engagea de plus en 
 plus dans la voie de 1' arbitraire. H ordonna aux administrateurs 
 des fiibriques des eglises de mettre ses cures en possession des 
 revenus attaches S. leur place. Comme ceux-ci ne voulurent pas 
 s' y preter, et que lui-meme ne reconnaiss^t plus le conseil du 
 culte catholique comme legalement existant, il 6mit, pour ne pas 
 laisser ses employes sans traitement, le 5 mai, 1854, une ordon- 
 nance par laquelle il enjoignit a. tous les conseils (ie fabrique de 
 ne plus reconnaltre d' autre autorite superieure que la sienne ; il 
 en destitua les membres recalcitrants et prescrivit aux cures, en 
 leur qualite de presidents de ces conseils, de se mettre en pes- 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 393 
 
 session dea obligations, hypothSques, et autres documents relatifs 
 i 1' administration financifere de la paroisse. 
 
 Cette derni^re mesure oocasionna les plus grands troubles dans 
 1' administration locale des fonds eoclesiastique : un petit nombre 
 de ses membres se soumit aux ordres de 1' fepisoopat, un plus grand 
 se dgmit de ses fonctions, la plupartr^sistaaux ordres archi^pisco- 
 paux. Le gouvemement de son c6t6 s' opposa 6nergiquement 3l 
 leur execution, et les autorites civiles se virent obUg6es, dans 
 plusieurs endroits, de faire arr^ter les cures. L' Odenwald, 
 ou les populations empiki^rent violemment 1' arrestation des 
 pr^tres, fut le th^&tre de plusieurs 6meutes; le gouvemement, 
 pour faire respecter son autoritS, se vit oblig6 de recourir i la 
 force militaire. 
 
 Sur ces entrefaitea, 1' autoritfe judiciaire, voyant, dans les de- 
 crets fepiscopaus du 5 mai, un abus de pouvoir manifeste et une 
 ■violation patente de la loi, puisqu' ils contenaient 1' ordre formel 
 de ne plus lui obSir, se mit en mesure de dSployer son action. 
 Le juge d' instruction du tribunal deiFribourg, se rendit auprfes 
 de r archev^qne, et lorsque se dernier refusa de repondre 
 aux questions qui lui 6taient adress6ea, il le mit aux arrets dans 
 son palais. 
 
 Le pontife protesta centre cet acte judiciaire, fit interdire le 
 son des cloches et les messes solennelles, et adressa, le 20 mai, k 
 la cour de justice une reclamation centre la procedure commencie 
 a. sa charge, prfetendant qu' en matiferes ecclSsiastiques il n' avait 
 d' autre juge que le Pape. 
 
 H se soumit n§anmoins plus tard Ji 1' interrogatoir-e du juge 
 d' instruction et fut remis peu de joura aprfes en liberty. L' en- 
 qu^te fut bientdt terminSe, et la cour criminelle de Fribourg 
 s'occupe on ce moment d' examiner la cause pour rendre le 
 jugement definitif. De la part de 1' archev^que, 1' interdit fut en 
 m6me temps lev6. 
 
 m. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 II y a disaccord oomplet dans les rapports mutuels de la so- 
 ci6t6 politique et religieuse. La voie la plus convenable et la 
 plus sflre pour rStablir la bonne harmonie sans prejudice pour 
 1' Etat et pour 1' Bglise, est sans contredit ceUe de la convention, 
 
 1^* 
 
394 APPENDIX TO LETTER T. 
 
 dont r acceptation doit cependant en dernier ressort appartenir a 
 r Btat, vu qu' il s' agit d' affaires exUrieures de la vie sociale, et 
 que, pour nous servir des paroles de M. Laboulaye,* " 1' Etat est 
 le maitre du temtoire et le representant de tous ceux qui 
 I'habitent;" son intfa^t c'est I'interlt general, contre laquelle 
 ne peuvent prSvaloir des inter^ts particuliers, quelle qu' en soit la 
 nature. • Si 1' Eglise se croit 16s.ee, elle a, comme toutes les autres 
 societes regues, le droit d' agir par voies Ugales; eUe peut fecrire, 
 petitionner, s' adresser Ju 1' opinion publique, aux grands pouvoirs 
 de la soci^te ; mais si 1' Etat persiste en une mesure que 1' Eglise 
 considere comme oppressive, elle n' a que le moyen de se soumet- 
 tre ou, oe qu' elle ne fera pas, de quitter le territoire. " Quand 
 on TOUS persecute en un pays, fuyez dans un autre," a dit son 
 divin fondateur (Saint Matthieu x. 23). II n' a pas permis ni 
 compte la resistance et la rebellion au nombre des moyena, par 
 lesquels les fidMes peuvent faire triompher oe qu' Us croient Itre la 
 v6rite. 
 
 L' Etat fera done au pouvoir ecclesiastique les propositions les 
 plus favorables ; il lui offrira une spbdre d' action et de liberte aussi 
 large que possible, mais compatible avec la base et 1' organisation 
 de la soci§t6 politique ; il n' abdiquera en rien sa souverainet^. 
 Si les chefs de 1' Eglise^fut-ce meme le Pape, refusent d' agreer ces 
 propositions, quisont k considerer comme les derniferes concessions 
 que r Etat puisse faire, n les octroiera comme la charte politique 
 de r Eglise. C est ainsi que tous les 6tats de la chr6tient§ ont 
 agi depuis Constantin le &rand jusqu' k nos jours. Les souverains 
 ont tous determine les droits de 1' Eglise et de 1' §piscopat en par- 
 ticulier, soit pas des arrangements appelfes concordats, conven- 
 tions, ou autrement, soit par des lois sanotionnees en vertu de 
 Ifiur souverainete. Les deorets du concile de Bale n' ont rejus 
 force de loi en Prance, que par la pragmatique sanction du roi 
 Charles VIL, apr^ 1' assemblee de Bourges en 1438, tandis qu' en 
 AUemagne ils ont 6te regus par suite d' un concordat avec le 
 Pape Eugene IV. 
 
 En 1801-1802, la France choisit un double voie pour retab- 
 lir r Eglise catholique, celle du concordat, qui n' eut de valeur 
 qu' apres avoir et6 adopte comme loi nationale, celle de la legislation, 
 
 * Revue de legislation et de jvHaprudence de M. Wolowski annSe 1845, t i, 
 p. 468. 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER T. 395 
 
 qui donna lieu aux articles organiques du 18 germinal an X. ; ce 
 sont oes articles qui, sauf quelqes ohangements, qtii y furent faits 
 plus tard, rfegissent encore la R-ance, malgrfi toutes les reclama- 
 tions ultramontaines adressfees aux diverses gouvemements, qui 
 s' y sont succ6d6 depuis. Toutes les constitutions de la France, 
 mime oelle de-1848, fetablissent quelques principes fondamentaux 
 sur les rapports de 1' Eglise avec 1' Etat C est ce qu' ont fait 
 aussi les constitutions des divers Etats de la confederation ger- 
 manique depuis 1818. La libert6 dont jouit 1' Eglise en Belgique 
 n' existe, comme il a 6te dit plus haut, qu' en vertu de la consti- 
 tution de ce pays ; et la legislation de Joseph 11. n' a cess6 d' Itre 
 en vigueur en Autriche, qu' autant qu' elle a 6t§ abrog6e par les 
 concessions du gouvemement autrichien faites en 1850. 
 
 Le regUment de toutes ces aflfaires devant 6maner, pour avoir 
 force obligatoire, du pouvoir l^gislatif, il faut pour oela, dans les 
 Etats constitutionnels, le concours du souverain et des chambres, 
 a moins que ces demiferes ne confient ce soin i la sagesse per- 
 sonnelle du prince et de son ministfere responsable. Dans le 
 sifecle oii nous vivons, et apr^s les debats qui viennent d' avoir 
 lieu par suite du conflit lui-m6me, il n'y a plus d' oppression 
 a. craindre pour 1' Eglise de la part de 1' Etat. 
 
 Si I'on veut terminer les differends par un arrangement, il 
 n' est pas necessaire que tous les poipts litigieux y soient decides ; 
 cela ne se pent mSme pas a 1' egard de ceux sur lesquels 1' Eglise, 
 a. cause du dogme, et 1' Etat, a cause des principes fondamentaux 
 de la constitution, ne peuvent transiger. 
 
 L' Etat doit les rfegler en vertu de sa souverainete, et si 1' Eglise, 
 lie croit pas pouvoir les confirmer, elle s' y soumettra par neces- 
 sity ; car c'est elle qui est dans I'Btat, et non I'Etat dans 
 1' Eglise, comme I'a d^jSi dit Saint Optat au quatritoe sifecle de 
 I'fere chr6tienne. ies §v6ques peuvent tranquilliser leur con- 
 science, si, aprds avoir essay6 de faire triompher le plus pos- 
 sible le principe du eathplicisme, ils n' y ont pu enti^rement 
 reussir. 
 
 Les points a. r^gler d' un commun accord nous semblent 6tre 
 ceux qui Concement : 
 
 1. La nominaUon aux places de cmri, et d' autres fonctions ayant 
 un caractere 'public. Si 1' Eglise catholique etait una soci6t6 
 priv6e, r Etat n' aurait nul intSrlt k la nomination de ses chefe ; 
 mais les cur6s et chanoines des feglises gatJj&drales sont reconnus 
 
896 APPENDIX TO LETTER T. 
 
 fonctionnaires publics, et trait^s comme tels par 1' Etat ; ils sont 
 investis de droits que 1' Etat lui-m^me et tout le corps politique 
 doivent respecter aussi bien que ceux de 1' evique ; ils sont, com- 
 mes fonctionnaires, inamovibles mime de-la part de 1' ivlque ; les 
 cur6s ont un pouvoir ext6rieur, k la verite fort restreint, mais 
 toujours assez important dans 1' Etat, et sont, en outre, officiere de 
 r §tat civil ; les chanoines sont membres du conseil administratif 
 de I'Eglise et du tribunal eccl6siastique, qui juge les pauses 
 matrimoniales, etc. Comment peut-on pretendre que I'Etat 
 doive se laisser imposer des fonctionnaires ou magistrats qui, 
 quoiqu' ils representent, en premier lieu, le pouvoir ecclesiastique, 
 font nfianmoins partie de la hierarchie civile ? H ne pent 6tre 
 indifferent k V Etat que tel ou tel pritre soit cur6 en tel ou tel 
 endroit ; ses relations joumaliferes avec les autorites civiles sont 
 si frSquentes et exigent une telle entente r^ciproque qu' on ne 
 pent en faire dfependre 1' existence d' im pouvoir qui serait au- 
 dessus de celui de 1' Etat. C est done une disposition fort sage 
 du 19e article organique du concordat frangais, que "les ivlques 
 nommeront et institueront les cures ; neanmoins ils ne publieront 
 leur nomination et ne donneront 1' institution canonique qu' apr^s 
 que cette nomination aura ete agr§ee par le premier consul, etc." 
 Cette disposition avait ete consentie d' avanoe par 1' art. 10 
 du concordat, et le pape Pie VII. a lui-mSme d6clar6, dans 
 TMx^sizione dei smivmenti, " qu' on pouvait accorder, sans difi- 
 cult§, aux princes prptestants, le droit de rayer de la liste des 
 candidats les personnes qui ne leur seraient point agrfeables." 
 Nous pensons done que ce premier des points litigieux pourrait 
 ^tre d6cid§ avec d' autant plus de faoilit§, que les gouvernements 
 r^unis sont tous convaincus, a 1' heure presente, que le droit de 
 nommer i une place ou dignit§ ecclesiastique n' emane point de 
 leur, souverainete. 
 
 2. Ce premier difiilrend termini, un deuxifeme, qui s'y rat- 
 tacbe, s' arrangerait tout aussi aisement ; c' est celui qui conceme 
 les examens. II est Evident que I'examen des candidats -a la 
 pritrise, k leur entree aux seminaires, et de ceux qui aspirent a. 
 «Jes places de cure, est une attribution de I'evique ; car c' est lui 
 qui donne les ordres clericaux et 1' institution canonique ; c' est 
 done a. lui de faire oonstater la capacite et le mirite de ceux qui 
 veulent les recevoir. Mais 1' Etat etant, de son c6t6, interease, k 
 ce qu' il y ait de bons prfitres, et le souverain devant connaitre le 
 
APPENDIX TO LBTTEE V. 397 
 
 m^rite dea cur6s, qu' il a le droit d' agrSer, il faut aussi lui acoorder 
 le droit de s'en convainore et d' envoyer aux examens un com- 
 missaire qui, sans avoir de voix deliberative quant a la reception 
 dea candidats, sera mis i m^me de juger de leur mfirite et d' en 
 faire rapport el son souverain. Ce serait un acte d' insubordi- 
 nation, si r 6v6que ou son jury d' examen voulait s' opposer k 
 admettre un tel commissaire. On ne peut pas exiger du souve- 
 rain qu' il ait une confiance absolue dans les decisions de personnea 
 qui lui aont tout Si fait etrang^res. 
 
 3. L' Iv^que a, en vertu de sa juridiction ecclesiastique, le droit 
 de punir tous sea fonctionnairea et mSme de lea suspendre ou de 
 les destituer ; mMS quand ceux-ci perdent avec leurs placea leura 
 imoyens d' existence, les sentences du tribunal ecclesiastique pren- 
 nent le caractfere d' un aote de droit civil. H se peut aussi que 
 lea condamnes ne se soumettent pas de bon gr6 aux sentences 
 portles contre eux, et refusent, par exemple, de se d6mettre de 
 leur place ou de quitter le preaby tfere ; 1' evlque n' ayant paa de 
 forcea materielles dont il puisse disposer, il faut bien que I'Etat 
 pr^te son assistance k 1' execution de ces ordres; maia il doit 
 avoir, li cet effet, aussi le droit de se convaincre que la sentence, 
 qu'il est requis d' ex6cuter, est fondfee en droit. L' autorit6 civile 
 doit s' asaurer que la condamnation de 1' accua§ repoae sur une loi 
 p6nale, que 1' ordre regulier de la procedure a 6t6 observ6 et que 
 le fait de la culpabiliti de 1' accus6 est constate ; elle s' abstiendra 
 de tout examen de questiona dogmatiquea auxquellea le proces 
 peut avoir donn6 lieu. . 
 
 C eat une pretention exorbitante de 1' epiacopst du Haut-Bhin 
 de "vouloir que les fonctionnaitea de 1' Etat n' aient qu' k exScuter 
 les ordres de 1' ^vSque, dfes qu' ila leur sont insinuls. Deux arch- 
 ev^quea de Paris ont 4mis im avis tout k feit oppoaS k cette 
 etrange thSorie: savoir Mgr. Afire, dans son livre sur I'appel 
 comme d' abus, et Mgr. Sibour, dans son remarquable ouvrage : 
 Institutions diocisaines. Ce dernier s' exprime dans 1' art. 124 de 
 ses atatuts d' o&cialit6, de la manifere suivante : " Lorsque le titre 
 (d'un prfetre condamn6 par son tribunal) sera appuy6 sur une 
 ordonnance royale (c' est-a-dire si sa nomination est agr^^e par le 
 chef de 1' Etat), 1' administration diooesaine fera ses diligences 
 auprfes du gouvemement pour faire revoquer cette ordonnance." 
 " Dans le cas de recours d' un cur6, dont la nomination n' est pas 
 rfevooable, 1' autorite," dit Mgr. AfiSre, " se bomera k a' assurer que 
 
398 APPENDIX XO LETTBE V.. 
 
 les regies essentielles des jugements aient,6te observSes, c'est-k- 
 dire que le coupable ait 6te entendu, ou s' il ne 1' a pas et6, que la 
 culpabilite ait et6 oonstatee sur des Merits 6man§s de lui, ou par 
 des t6moins." Telle est aussi la jurisprudence duconseil d' Etat, 
 doht les fev^ques n' ont pas k se plaindre. C est ioi encore que la 
 legislation frangaise peut servir de modfele k V Allemagne, pour 
 aplanir ce differend, sur lequel on n' a pas encore pu s' entendre 
 jusqu' aujourd' hui. 
 
 4. Un quatrifeme point i r6gler d' un commun accord, c' est la 
 direction et la surveillance des etablissements destines Si 1' instruc- 
 tion du clerge. Les gouvernements sont, en vertu des stipula-^ . 
 tions de 1803, tenuS d' en fournir les fonds et, par consequent, en 
 droit de s' assurer de leur emploi. On peut. Si cet §gard, suivre 
 deux systfemes differents, dont on peut appeler 1' un le systtoe 
 frangais, et 1' autre le systdme allemand. D' apr^s le premier, ces 
 etablissements sont purement ecclesiastiques, comme les petits 
 et les grands seminaires organises selon les principes du concile 
 de Trente ; V^v&qae en nomme les _directeurs, professeurs, et 
 regents, sur 1' avis des autorites civiles, qui onf le droit -de sur- 
 veiller ces ecoles et pensionnats.* D' aprfes le systeme allemand, 
 ceux qui veulent devenir pretres font leurs etudes dites human- 
 ites aux colleges, gymnases, ou lycees de 1' Etat, et leurs etudes 
 en tbeologie aux facultes universitaires ; les professeurs en sont 
 nommes par le gouvernement, siir 1' avis autorites ecclesiastiques, 
 qui ont en outre sur ces etablissements un droit de surveillance 
 plus ou moin restreint. Cette surveillance a ete jusqu' k cette 
 heure determine par le gouvernement tout seul et d' une maniere 
 peu etendue.t II suffira done pour le moment d' etendre un pen 
 
 • Voy. VuiUefroy, T'raite de V administration du eulte cathoUque. 
 
 \ "Les candidats ^ la pr&tnse doivent avoir fait des etudes ^ une faculte de 
 thSolog^e catholiquc, soft du pays, soit d' une autre unirersit^ allemande ; ils ne 
 sont recuB aux s6minaires, qu* apr^s avoir passd un examen devant un commis- 
 sion mixte, c^ est-A-dire tant gouvemementale gu' Episcopate ; cette commission 
 Be compose ordinairement des professeurs en th6olognie et des professeurs du droit 
 canon, sous la prSsidence d* un commissaire du gouvernement et d' un autre 
 commissaire nomm€ par 1' 6v6que ou 1* archevfeque. D6s leur reception au 
 B^minalre, ils doivent jouir de ce gu' on appelle le litre clerical ou de sustentation, 
 indispensable pour recevoir les ordres ; ce titre ne consiste pas, comme en France, 
 d* apr6s les articles organiques, dans la possession d* un revenu propre de 300 
 francs, mais dans une rente de 300 h 400 florins, as&ign6e par le souverain sur le 
 fonds eccliJsiastique h celul qui, k ddfaut de cette allocation, se trouverait sans sa 
 faute hors d* etat d* exereer ses fonctions. Le sSjour au sdminaire n* est ordl- 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 399 
 
 plus ce pouvoir de 1' 6v6que. Le principe de la liberte de 
 r enseignement se trouve-t-il en vigueur dans le pays, il faudra' 
 en outre, dans ce cas, permettre a. 1' fev^que d' etablir des ecoles 
 particuli^res ou de faire donner discours de theologie a son 
 seminaire, mais tout cela k ses propres frais et en 6gard aux 
 conditions .prescrites en general pour feriger des itablissements 
 d' instruction priv6s, sauf aussi le droit de surveillance que les 
 lois y accordent au pouvoir civil. Tout cela se pratique dejk 
 maintenant dans 1' un ou 1' autre des Etats de la province du 
 Haut-Bhin, les gouvemements s' 6tant d^clargs disposes k faire 
 en cela tout ce que 1' ^piscopat desiraitj mais avec la reserve que 
 les Etudes en thSologie se fassent, comme cela a toij|jours 6t6 usite 
 en Allemagne, aux universites.- C est centre cette demi^re 
 restriction que les ev^ques ont principaJement toujours protests. 
 
 5. Tin dernier point i rSgler par un comprtimis entre les deux 
 pouvoirs, conceme 1' administration des biens ecclesiastiques et 
 r emploi de leurs revenus. H r^gne k cet 6gard une grande con- 
 fusion dans les idSes. Les gouvemements, en vertu de leur droit 
 de curateUe sur toutes les personnes incapables de r6gir leurs 
 affaires de fortune, tel que les mineurs, les prodigues, les corpora- 
 tions, et autres, se sont charges, de dinger 1' administration de 
 touB les biens ecclesias^qUes, en respectant n6anmoins la volonte 
 des fondateurs. L' episcopat, de son c6t6, reclame le droit de 
 surveillance et de contr6le administratif sur tous ces biens, ainsi 
 que r administration libre et sans controh des caisses centrales 
 ere6es par les gouvemements pour les int^rets gtoeraux de 
 1' Eglise cathoKque de leurs pays, la legislation canonique ayant, 
 
 nairement que d' une ann6e ; il est destind k V 6tade de la litargie et k V initiation 
 des candldats k leur saint ministdre. 
 
 *^ II n* y a point de petits 66minaires ; les etudes dites llumanit6s se font, pour 
 ceux qni Be vouent il la prdtrise, soit aux coll6ges ou lycSes ordinairefi, soit aux 
 6coleB eccl6sia6tiques secondaires fondles et dingoes par le gouTernement; ces 
 derni^res ont des pensionnats, et lenr professeurs et regents sont nomm^s sur 
 r avis donnS par les ^vfiques de lenr cspacit^ et morality. Aux universites de 
 Fribonrg efc de Tubingen il y a des pensionnats fort bien organises et dirigds par 
 des ecclS^stiqnes que le gouvernement cboisit apr&a s' 6tre concerts avec 
 r fivSque; ou compte toujours dans ces pensionnats de 120 k 150 61dves en 
 th6ologie, qui y sont pour la plupart nourris, habill6s, et pourvus du ndcessaire 
 aux frais de V Etat ; les sommes destinies k ces depenses sont port6ca au budget 
 de r £tat ; de mdme que les subsides des pensionnats attaches aux dcolcs 
 secondaires, et ceux qui s* appliquent k 1* instruction des dl6ves re^us au 
 s4niinaire ; sous ce rapport c' est comme en France, o4 le gouvernement a dot6 
 de bonrsesles siminaires et Ics 6coles eccUsiastiques secondaires." 
 
400 APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 de mfeme que le droit romain, attribul 1' administration de cette 
 ' sorte de biens k ¥ fevSque. 
 
 Mais il est Evident que c' est la question de la propriety de ces 
 biens qui doit decider de leur administration. H se peut qu' ils 
 appartiennent a une corporation, par exemple, k une commune, 
 k V Etat, ou a, r institution elle-meme, si elle jouit des droits, de 
 personne civile ; il se peut aussi qu' ils appartiennent el une society 
 de particuliers ou meme k im seul individu ; ce n' est que leur 
 destination, qui donne d ces Mem le caractere eccUsiastique. 
 L' administration en appartient de droit k celui qui en est la 
 proprietaire ; done, si c' est une corporation, elle sera soumise k 
 la surveillance des autorites civiles. 
 
 Les gouvernements ayant' cre§ les caisses centrales du culte 
 catholique, non pas pour 1' ev^che, mais pour la population 
 catholique de leur Etats, ils les ont fait administrer par. des 
 employes nommes par eux, et ont determine I'emploi des fonds, 
 de manifere cependant qu' il ne se fasse point sans le consentement 
 de r autorite eccl§siastique, et en lui permettant le contrdle dea 
 recettes annuelles. Si 1' on veut cependant respecter le droit 
 canon, en ce qu'il a de r^ellement applicable daris cette circon- 
 stance, il faudra k V avenir confier cette administration k une 
 commission mixte, ou que la source principale de ces fonds con- 
 siste dans les revenus de benefices vacants qui, selon les principes 
 du droit ecclfesiastique en vigueur, ne peuvent recevoir d' autre 
 destination sans le consentement de deux autorites. 
 
 Dans le cas o4 1' 6piscopat ne pourrait ou ne voudrait pas 
 s' arranger sur ces points de contestation avec les gouvernements, 
 ceux-ci seraient dans la necessite et par \k mfime en droit de 
 trancher le conflit existant par une loi, que 1' ipiscopat devrait 
 aprfes tout respecter, s' il ne veut pas se rendre coup'able d' aclions 
 crimineUes. H sera oblige d' agir de m^me k' V egard des autres 
 articles qui forment 1' objet de ses griefs. Ceux-ci sont de nature 
 k ^tre regies exclusivement par 1' Etat, vu qu' il ne s' y agit que 
 d' actions ext4rieures de 1' autoritS eeclesiastique, et non essen- 
 tielles pour le salut, telles que des processions en dehors de 
 r Eglise, de 1' Erection de couvents, etc. Ces affaires sont de 
 deux espfeces ; les unes sont k regler par des lois preventives, les 
 autres par des lois repressioes. Cej-tains actes, tels que ceux que 
 nous venons de nommer, ne doivent k cause des inconvenients 
 qui peuvent en risulter, 6tre permis qu' avec 1' autorisation pr6- 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 401 
 
 alable des autorit^a civiles; d'autres, qui seraient de v&itablea 
 abus de pouvoir, ne doivent pas 6tre tolferes du tout : par exemple, ' 
 la censure des lois et des ordonnances du gouvemement du haut 
 de la chaire ; 1' interdiction des fecoles publiques par 1' 6v6que, k 
 moins qu' on n' ait pas fait droit a ses plaintes bien motivees; 
 r excommunication de fonctionnaires publics, pour avoir execute 
 les lois et les ordres ISgaux du gouvemement, etc. M. Laboulaye, 
 dans un int^ressant articte, 6crit k V occasion de la lutte remarqua- 
 ble qui 6ckta en 1845 en France sur le maintien du Manuel du 
 droit ecclesiastique de M. Dupin, a donn6 beaucoup de details sur 
 ces divers cas, tous figalement prSvus par la legislation frangaise.* 
 Quelques-uns de ces actes coupables sont traites fort sfevferement 
 dans le code penal de 1810, art. 199-207 ; la legislation p§nale 
 de r AUemagne est biens moins rigoureuse, et cependant 1' 6pis- ■ 
 copat s' en est plaint fort amferement. Les sermons, par exemple, 
 que r archeveque de Pribourg a ordonn§ de faire, auraient 6t6 
 dfifendns en Prance en vertu de 1' art. 199 du code penal; dans 
 le grand-duch6 de Bade on n' a poursuivi que les prStres qui s' y 
 etaient permis des invectives et des calomnies centre le gouveme- 
 ment. 
 
 B. 
 
 a project op law proposed by^ professor 
 
 warnkOnig concerning the external af- 
 fairs OP THE CHURCH IN THE PROVINCE OP 
 THE UPPER KHINKt 
 
 The free administration of the government of the CSiurch is 
 guarantied to tibe ^Bishop and his cathedral chapter. The meas- 
 ures he enacts are to be communicated to the Government; and 
 in so far as the co-operation of the civil executive is necessary to 
 carry them into effect, they are subject to the approbation of the 
 reigning prince. 
 
 * Ed. Laboulaye (Membre de V Institut, professeur au college du France) : 
 *^De V Egliao catholique et de V £!tat^*' dans la Itevue de Utjislalion et de jun's- 
 prudehce de M. "Wolowski, aim^e 1845, t. L, p. 446. 
 
 t Extracted from Schletter's " JahrbUcherh deutsohen Bechtgwissenscliaft «nd 
 Besetzgehurui." Bd. I., Heft. 3, S. 249. Anm. (Erlangen 1865.) 
 
402 APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 No public act of authority can be performed by an ecclesiastic, 
 nominated to a benefice by a Bishop, or the administrator of a 
 bishopric, without the sanction, express or tacit, of the sovereign. 
 
 ARTICLE in. 
 
 All examinations of students before reception into the semin- 
 aries for priests, and all the competitive examinations of ordained 
 clergymen for appointments, shall be attended by a commissioner 
 deputed by the Crown, who shall communicate to the Govern- 
 ment his opinion of the abilities and moral worth of the candi- 
 dates. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 The lUulus mensce, to be distributed and supphed from the 
 moneys of the State, or from a general ecclesiastical fund, is 
 guarantied to such candidates only as have been examined by the 
 commissioner of the Crown, and found worthy of the same. 
 
 The Convictus, or training institutions for future theologians, 
 estabUshed by Government grants, as also the theological faculty 
 in the universities, shall be under the inspection both of the State 
 and the Bishop. - No professor or master of such institutions shall 
 be appointed without the consent of the Bishop. 
 
 ARTICLE VI. 
 
 The Catholic Ecclesiastical Funds formed from the revenues of 
 vacant benefices or other moneys, are regarded as foundations of 
 a corporate character made by Oathohcs for their brethren in 
 religion. These moneys are to be administered by a Board, of 
 which half the members shall be noihinated by the Crown, and 
 half by the Bishop, and the revenues of which can not be apphed 
 without the consent of the Bishop. The management of all local 
 ecclesiastical funds and foundations is under the superintendence 
 of the Government 
 
 ARTICLE vn. 
 
 In cases where the co-operation of the civil power is required 
 to execute a sentence pronounced against an ecclesiastic, it is 
 necessary that the verdict, together with the minutes of the pro- 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER V. 403 
 
 ceedings, shovdd be submitted to the civil court which has cogni- 
 zance of such matters. And the court shall not proceed to carry 
 such sentence into effect until it have examined these documents 
 and found them regular and valid in point of law; if it find the 
 contrary it shall cancel th? verdict 
 
 ARTICLE vni. 
 
 Eeligious instruction, in the primary and other schools, is under 
 the exclusive superintendence of the Bishop : but in the secular 
 instruction, he and his clergy shall take no further share than 
 that assigned them by special regulations of the Grovemment. 
 
 ARTICLE IX. 
 
 Every- act of insubordination on the part of the Bishop ot other 
 clergyman to the laws of the State or the decrees of the Crown, 
 as also episcopal injunctions issued with the object of compelling 
 civil functionaries to lay down their office, or to refrain from ful- 
 filling its duties, shall be punished by a term of imprisonment not 
 under six months, or exceeding two years, and in case the offense 
 be repeated the penalty shall be doubled. 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 
 
 DOCUMENTS EELATING TO THE RECENT 
 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 A. 
 
 THE PERSECUTION OF DOMENIOO CECCHETTI 
 IN TUSCANY.* 
 
 SHORT NAREATIYE OF THE FACTS. 
 
 Ploeence, Marohr 30th, 1855. 
 
 Another Tuscan Protestant has been made to feel the venge- 
 ance of the Popish priests. Domenioo Cecchetti was seized last 
 Sunday morning at half-past four, hurried away from his children 
 to the prison of the Bargello, condemned without any trial, with- 
 out any witnesses, by the Council of Prefecture, to a year's con- 
 finement in the penitentiary of Imbrogiano, near Monte Lupo, 
 whither he was conveyed in chains the next moining ; the crimes 
 fot which he was consigned to a dungeon being, the possession 
 of one Bible, in Diodati's translation, and two Testaments, and 
 the avowal, when examined by the Chancellor of the Delegation 
 of Santa Maria Novella, that he considered Jesus Christ tbe sole 
 Head of the Church ! 
 
 The circumstances which led to this arrest are so characteristic 
 of the spy system now prevalent throughout Tuscany, that I 
 make no apology for communic'ating them in detaU. Domenico 
 Cecchetti is a workman employed in the tobacco manufactory of 
 Messrs. Emmanuel Fenzi and Co., the well-known bankers, who 
 
 * From the Chriattan Times of April 6, 1856, quoted In the Jourmil dea Debata 
 of the 28th May. Compare also the Allgemei-ne Zeitung of the 1 Rt and 5th June. 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 405 
 
 have for years fanned this monopoly. He was one of the best 
 ■workmen in the establishment, earning five pauls a-day, and en- 
 joyed the esteem and confidence of his employers in the highest 
 possible degree. His age is aboujt forty-three, and as he is a 
 widower, with four boys, of whom the eldest is sixteen, and the 
 youngest six, there has devolved on him not only the task of 
 maintaining his family, but of discharging all those domestic duties 
 which are a mother's peculiar province. And those duties he has 
 discharged so well, that his four boys are patterns of good conduct, 
 and the whole neighbtorhood is wont to speak of Cecchetti's 
 children as models of what children ought to be. The two eldest 
 were already employed in the tobacco manufactory, where they, 
 too, earned on an average a Ura a-day each. Cecchetti lived on 
 the first floor of a house in the Via Taddea, close to the tobacco 
 manufactory. In another small apartment on the same floor was 
 lodged a young man, the apprentice of a vintner in Borgo La 
 Noce. He was struck by the good conduct of the young 
 Oecchettis, and by the excellent and kind bearing of the father ; 
 and, in the course of conversation and famihar intercourse, at 
 length learned that the iathei was in the habit of reading, with 
 his children and his friends, the Bible. And in casual chat with 
 his own master, he repeated this circumstance to him, expressing 
 his beUef that the Bible could not be such a very bad book after 
 all, when it produced such happy fruits. 
 
 A few days afterward the vintner went to confession at San 
 Lorenzo, and there mentioned to his confessor that his apprentice 
 had been talking to him about Diodati's Bible, which he thought 
 not so bad as it had been represented. The priest immediately 
 interrupted the confession, and refused him absolution. Next 
 day he met the Priest Baratti, the head curate of San Lorenzo, 
 and one of the fiercest and most relentless persecutors of the Tus- 
 can Protestants. " What is the matter with you," asked the 
 Priest Baratti : " you seem so dull ?" " Ah, Curate, no wonder ; 
 yesterday I was refused absolution." "Refused absolution!" 
 rejoined the Curate, " impossible I refuse absolution to so good a 
 Cathohc as you! There must be some mistake; come to my 
 house, and confess to me, and I hope it will prove nothing." • 
 
 The vintner made his confession to Curate Baratti, and re- 
 ceived absolution aE snug and comfortable ; and Cutate Baratti 
 lost no time in denouncing Cecchetti to the Tuscan police as 
 
406 APPENDIX TO LETTER VU. 
 
 guilty of the crime of Protestant propagandism, and requiring 
 them to watch over his proceedings, and, if possible,' to seize him 
 in the act. 
 
 Accordingly, some three months ago, four gens-d' armes sud- 
 denly entered Oeoohetti's house, about nine o'clock in the evening. 
 They expected to have found him, in company with other in- 
 quirers, reading the Scriptures ; they found only another fellow- 
 lodger named CioUi, who had come to repay Cecchetti the sum 
 of five pauls, which he borrowed from him on the previous day. 
 But they seized and carried off in triumph one copy of Diodati'a 
 Bible, and two copies of the New Testament.- 
 
 Cecchetti heard nothing more of the matter for nearly ten 
 weeks. On the morning of Wednesday, the 10th instant, he re- 
 ceived an order to appear before the Delegate of Santa Maria 
 Novella on the afternoon of the same day; then and there he 
 was examined by the Chancellor of the Delegation, and required 
 to declare why three copies of Diodati's Bible and Testament 
 were found in his possession. " Indeed, Signer Delegato," was 
 the answer, '^ I only wish there had been five instead of three, ' 
 for there are five of us, my four boys and myself, and we require 
 a Bible a-piece." The CanceUiere successively interrogated him 
 as to his opinion on mass, confession, the authority of the Pope — 
 on all which points he expressed his opinion without reserve. 
 He replied" that Jesus Christ had been once offered up as a sac- 
 rifice for the sins of mankind ; fio further sacrifice was or could 
 be wanted. He said, '' As for confession, when I have sinned, it 
 is my duty to confess my sin, first to Almighty Grod, and implore 
 his pardon; then to -my brother, if I have, acted wrongly against 
 my brother: to- you. Signer Cancelliere, for example, if I have 
 offended you. As to the Pope being Head of the Church, I 
 know," he said, " no headship but that of Jesus Christ. The 
 Pope is — a constituted authority, Uke you, Signer Cancelliere." 
 * * * But though he spoke thus freely on some matters, 
 neither wheedling nor bullying could induce him to reveal the 
 name of one of liie Christian brethren with whom he read and 
 discoursed upon the Scriptures. His answer invariably was: 
 " On all points regarding myself, I will answer you without the 
 slightest reserve ; but questions likely to commit my friends I can 
 not and will not reply to." The CanceUiere, finding the attempt 
 hopeless, then read Over the minutes of the examination. Ceo- 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTEB TIL 407 
 
 chetti himself perused it, and signed the same ; and so, for the 
 time, the' affair terminated with the dismissal of the accused. 
 The paper thus obtained was submitted to the Council of Pre- 
 fecture, which, on the avowals it contained, sentenced Domenioo 
 Oecohetti to a year's imprisonment in the Penitentiary of Im- 
 brogiano. 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, the 25th, the gens-d'armes were 
 charged with the execution of the sentence. They entered the 
 house of Cecchetti at half-past four, and told him that they had 
 been sent to convey him to the Bargello, from whence he was 
 not likely soon to return. Hastily kissing his four boys, he bade 
 them farewell, leaving them to the care of Him with, whom is 
 strength and wisdom, and whose are both the deceiver and the 
 deceived. On the following morning he was met, at a quarter to 
 seven, guarded by two gens-d'armes, and heavily ironed, pale, 
 but calm, on his way to the Leghorn railway, by which he was 
 to go to Monte Lupo. 
 
 IL 
 
 Copy of the Decree op the Prefecture of Florence, condemn- 
 ing Domenioo Cecchetti to a year's imprisonment in the House 
 of Correction. 
 
 ,(Prom the Christian limes, May 18, 1855.) 
 
 The Delegation of Grovemment of the Quarter, of San Maria 
 Novella, intimates to Domenioo, son of the late Pietro Cecchetti, 
 a widower, having children, cigar workman by profession, the 
 integral copy of a decree issued against him by the Council of 
 Prefecture of the Compartment of Florence, in the sitting of the 
 2l8t of March, 1855. 
 
 The most illuatrious gentlemen, the Cavaliere Piefetto, and the 
 Counselors of Prefecture of the Compartment of Florence having 
 met in full number, having seen the legal proceedings communi- 
 cated by the Delegation of Grovemment of the Quarter of Santa 
 Maria Novella, against the said Cecchetti for irregular conduct in 
 matters of rehgion; 
 
 Considering that on the evening of the 16th December, 1854, 
 the public force having proceeded to make a perquisition in the 
 house of Cecchetti, found him in the company of Ciolli, and of two 
 of bis own sOns, seated at a small table, on which there was lying 
 
408 APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 
 
 open a copy of the Bible translated by Diodati; another copy, 
 shut ; a third being found in the drawer of the said table ; 
 
 Considering that the possession of these books and of certain 
 papers (though pronounced by the judicial authorities to furnish 
 no grounds for legal proceedings) nevertheless occasioned the 
 communication of the facts to the administrative functionaries of 
 the G-ovemment, by whom the existence of the said facts has 
 been fuUy verified ; 
 
 Considering that while, from the inquiries made by the Gov- 
 ernment, no special charges of any weight have resulted respect- 
 ing CioUi, Augrisoni, and more particularly Veltroni, numerous 
 details have been obtained regarding Cecchetti, who has openly 
 avowed that he holds principles quite contrary to the Catholic 
 religion — ^principles which are, in fact, identical with the Cal- 
 vinistic faith; 
 
 Considering that the conduct of Cecchetti is still more blame- 
 able, from his custom of communicating to others his pecuHar 
 rehgious ideas, and from his own admission that he had not 
 taken the proper steps for making the eldest of his four sons, 
 who is 17 years of age, comply with — as in fact he has not com- 
 pUed with — the duties imposed by the Roman CathoUc Church, 
 and the rites of the Catholic rehgion ; that, on the contrary, he 
 procured for both his eldest and his second boy a Bible each, 
 adding, that he would have done the same for his other two sons 
 had he been able to obtain the books; 
 
 Considering that it equally results from the inquiries made, 
 that on certain fixed evenings there met at Cecchetti's house 
 persons not belonging to his own family ; and there is just reason 
 for believing that such meetings were held for the purpose of 
 propagating the anti-OathoUc ideas entertained by the accused, 
 Cecchetti having himself confessed, that while reading the Bible 
 according to his constant custom, there have ,been present not 
 only the members of his own family, but persons unconnected 
 with the same ; and that he did not refiise to give, but actually 
 held it to be his duty to impart explanation^ on religious subjects 
 to those who asked him ; 
 
 Considering that in this state of matters it appears necessary 
 that the efforts of Cecchetti to damage the Roman Catholic relig- 
 ion be rendered ineffectual, and that the Government authorities 
 are bound to take stfeps for the prevention of ftirther mischief; 
 
APPENDIZ TO LETTER VII. 409 
 
 for these reasons, having seen the articles of the law of No- 
 vember 16th, 1852, the Council hereby decree that Domenico 
 Cecchetti be condemned to imprisonment for one year in the 
 House of Correction. 
 
 m. 
 
 SoENB IN THE Prison. — (From the same.) 
 
 Cecchetti's eldest boy was allowed to visit him last Sunday in 
 his prison at Imbrpgiano. He was greatly shocked at seeing his 
 fether in the coarse prison-dress which by the rules of the estab- 
 lishment he was compelled to wear ; but Cecchetti assm'ed him 
 that in general he had no cause of complaint ; that he was well 
 treated, both by the Director and all the officers of the jaiL The 
 Director, indeed,, exhibited the greatest kindness to the boy him- 
 self; but die head inspector, I regret to say, did not manifest the 
 same kindly feelings. "It serves him right," he said: "what 
 business has he to mix himself up vrith the Protestant Propa- 
 ganda and abandon the reUgion of his fathers ? And then he is 
 so obstinate : we have tried to make him comply vrith- the relig- 
 ious ceremonies of the house ; but we have now g^f en it up as a 
 hopeless task." And on Cecchetti addressing a few words of 
 comfort and exhortation to his poor boy, and telling him to hold 
 fast to the principles in which he had brought him up, he at once 
 interrupted the conversation with the remark — " We can allow 
 no talk of this kind in the prison." 
 
 B. 
 
 THE PERSBCUTIOK OP JOHANNES EVANGELISTA 
 BORCZINSKI, LATE LAY BROTHER OP THE 
 ORDER OP BRETHREN OP MERCY IN PRAGUE. 
 
 I. 
 
 CoNNBOTED NARRATIVE of what has actually taken place, drawn 
 from authentic sources. (Written in Breslau, May 29th, 
 1855.) 
 The "ZeiC' of the 13th of this month, and since then, several 
 
 other papers, have already related an occurrence in Bohemia 
 18 
 
410 APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 
 
 which is making the greatest sensation in our proviace. It is the 
 persecution of the Bohemian monk Johannes Evangelista Bore- 
 zynski, on account of his conversion to the Protestant Okurch; a 
 persecution which far surpasses in odiousness, that of the Madiai 
 and Cecchetti, because the latter were at least assumed to have 
 transgressed certain, forms of law, while Borczjmski has acted 
 under the protection of an unrepealed statute, and his persecutors 
 are direct violators of the law. 
 
 Bqrczynski, a graduate in surgery and accoucheur, was a 
 Brother of Mercy, and provisional head physician in the convent 
 of that Order at Prague. For seventeen years he had belonged 
 to tliat Order, and had had ample opportunity of becoming ac- 
 quainted with its internal abuses. His own meditations forced 
 on his mind the untenableness of the doctrine of justification by 
 Works, and in the lessons from Holy Scripture which he read 
 from the Breviary, he found a complete confirmation of his 
 doubts. Thus he became a Protestant, vnthout any esntemal in- 
 fluence whatefuer, nay, even vnthout having been able to read the 
 Holy Scriptures, thp study of which was forbidden him. Con- 
 vinced by the fact of a recent reform in the Order,, being wholly 
 limited to its external, proceediugs, that no improvement could be 
 expected from Eome, he resolved formally to secede from the 
 Eomish Church. Conversion from the Romish to the Protestant 
 Church is, up to the present day, sanctioned by the law of 
 Austria. The only stipulation attached to.it is that the convert 
 should announce his change of religion to the minister of his 
 parish in the presence of two witnesses,. and that the clergyman 
 of the Protestant congregation which he joins should ftmiish him 
 with a certificate of his reception into that body. Never has this 
 legal privilege ieen repealed or modified in the case of the secular or 
 monastic clergy. Borczynski, therefore, acted simply in accord- 
 ance with the law when he. made this change. Nevertheless, he 
 was unable to find any Protestant clergyman in Bohemia who 
 had the courage to receive him, as ail feared that a law might 
 be applied to them which punishes illegal proselytism with a 
 term of imprisonment not exceeding four years. Borczynski 
 therefore entered the Protestant Church in Prussia. On occasion 
 of his removal to a house of the Order in Tetschen, he made the 
 required announcement before the Eomish parish priest, notified 
 his intended change to the superiors of the monastery in Prague, 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTEB VH. 411 
 
 Sind the Provincial of the Order in Vienna, and crossed the fron^ 
 tier into Prussia. On the 17th of January, 1855, he formally 
 declared his accession to the Protestant Church, receiving the 
 Holy Communion in both kinds in the parish Church of St. Peter 
 and St Andrev7, at Petershain, near Niesky, from the hands of 
 his fellow-countryman — himself a convert— Pastor Nowotzki, 
 who gave him the certificate required by law. 
 
 BorczynsH had already been warned not to return to Austria ; 
 but, confiding in the purity of his conscience and the justice of 
 his GrOvernment, he disregarded this warning. 
 
 A plot had been laid against him, however, ft'om the moment 
 of his declaration before the priest, and he was obhged to live in 
 concealment in Moravia, until at the end of February, he was 
 betrayed by agents of the police to the gens-d'armes, who ar- 
 rested him and conveyed him back to his monastery in Prague. 
 It is true the secular arm had not been put in motion by its own 
 vnll, but had acted at the demand of the ecclesiastical authori- 
 ties; but' it had not refiised to treat as a criminal a man who had 
 done nothing but what was allowed by law. BorczynsH is at 
 the present time in the monastery at Prague in strict confine- 
 ment^ from which he has no hope of release, unless he abjures 
 the Gospel, or unless the Imperial G-ovemment takes him under 
 its protection against his persecutors. But how can we venture 
 to hope for his Hberation when we know that another priest who 
 was converted to the Protestant faith, Joachim Zazule, has been 
 confined in the same convent for twenty yea/rs, and is treated as 
 fi lunatic because he- will not recant ? 
 
 Strict as is the confinement of Borczynski, the mode in which 
 he has been treated has been made no secret of If it reached 
 the light in no other way, it would become known by the tri- 
 umphant speeches of the other monks. Immediately after his 
 consignment to the convent in Prague, he was placed in a solitary 
 cell, next to the cells appropriated to the insane, and examined 
 by the Co-visitor of the Order, the Canon Dittrich, who, after 
 vainly trying to make him sensible of the greatness of his crime 
 (he represented to him that it was a worse sin than if he had 
 absconded firom the convent with ten thousand silver florins), 
 placed him in absolute soKtude, deprived him of- all his books, 
 even those on medicine, and forbade him any but the poorest 
 diet. Lastly, the Canon carried the matter before the Primate 
 
412 APPENDIX TO LETTER TIL, 
 
 qf Hungary, Cardinal Leitowsky, ect Gran. But ere the decision 
 of the Primate arrived, Borcyznski's position had altered for the 
 worse. During Passion Week he had petitioned the Canon Dit- 
 tiioh for permission to receive the communion from an Evangelical 
 clergyman. As a punishment he was thrown into anotiier prison, 
 doubly locked, and in perfect darkness, with the cells of two 
 madmen beside it, and the cesspools of the convent opposite, 
 and was placed on a diet of bread and water. The decision of 
 Cardinal Leitowsky ran thus : — The strictest confinement, with 
 days of fasting and penance ; the fast-days to-be Monday, Wed- 
 nesday and Friday, on bread and water; and the prisoner to be 
 visited by an ascetic priest: the result to be reported to the Car- 
 dinal. Such has been the treatment of BorozynsH since that 
 time, only that after two fruitless visits the ascetic priest had not 
 returned. Those who know the poor prisoner describe him as 
 an upright conscientious man and able physician, who had long 
 been a thorn in the side of a large portion of thp Order, because 
 he took up the cause of the patients, and had endeavored to 
 check the peculation of the convent funds. The fear that, if set 
 at liberty, he might pubKsh his experiences of the proceedings 
 within the convent seems to be one principal reason of Ms perse-, 
 eution. The more well-disposed, monks pity him, but have no 
 power to help. Thus does the Bomish clergy respect the laws 
 of the Empire ! 
 
 II. 
 
 ORAL DEPOSITION Or THE PRISONER. 
 
 8ih of AprU, 1855. 
 When Passion Week was approaching, I felt myself bound, as 
 an Evangfehcal Christian, to perform the devotions belonging to 
 that season in the Protestant Church, as far as it might be possi- 
 ble for a prisoner to do so. On the third of this month, therefore, 
 I besought the Prior, when he came to see me, that I might be 
 permitted to attend the Evangehcal Church of the Augsburg 
 Confession on. certain days, or that, at least, I might receive a 
 pastoral visit from a clergyman of that Church. The Prior an- 
 swered that I must apply by letter to the Canon Dittrich, which 
 I did as follows, word for word : 
 
 " Revebendisbiue Domhtb, Bomihb Canoniob, 
 
 ^' Since the sacred duty iB incumbent on me, as an actual member of the Evan- 
 gelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, to attend the prescribed services and 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER VH. 413 
 
 devotions during the present Holy week, and to strengthen my soul unt^ eternal 
 life by receiving the Holy Communion, 1 hereby , humbly entreat that your 
 Highness and Grace may be pleased graciously to permit me, either personally 
 to attend the Evangelical Church in this place, once in the day, on Holy Thurs- 
 day, Crood Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday; or, in case it should be 
 impossible to grant me this permission, to allow me to send a letter to one of the 
 clergymen of the same Church, by any messenger who may be appointed me, 
 asking him to pay me a pastoral visit in my prison ; in order that my present 
 confinement in the convent may not be the cause of depriving me wholly of the 
 means of grace. Bepeating once more this my most earnest entreaty, I subscribe 
 myself, with the deepest reverence and submission to your Highness and Grace, 
 
 *^J0HA2<2T ETA17GBLIBTA BOBOZTHBEI, 
 
 " liaU Member of the Order of Brethren of Mercy." 
 
 On the fourth of this month the Brother Beda Pickerle came 
 into my room with the Prior, and brought me the following 
 answer, which was spoken in an ironical tone : — The Canon sent 
 word that he was glad to hear that I wished to do penance, and 
 that I should be put on bread and water, and assigned another 
 room, darker than my present one, and provided with a padlock 
 as weE as an ordinary lock: in short that I should be treated like 
 the commonest felon — ^for he said my conversion. was a greater 
 crime than if I had absconded from the Order vrith 10,000 silver 
 florins. Also, the Canon said, that if I believed myself to be a 
 Protestant, I still should not give cause for provocation. So I 
 resolved to say no more for the future ; but I hope that every 
 Christian must approve my desire to hear the Word of my Evan- 
 gelical Church, and receive the Holy Sacrament — ^means of grace 
 from which the commonest criminal is not debarred, while I was 
 even punished for desiring them ; and the remark was added, 
 that I must wait until the Primate of Hungary should have de- 
 cided on my ultimate fate. I ask, what power has the Primate 
 of Hungary over a Protestant Christian at aU, still legs to inflict 
 further punishment, with which I am constantly threatened ? 
 
 Tou ask whether I am lodged with the priest, Pather Joachim 
 Zazule, who has EJready been confined here twenty years ? We 
 are never permitted to exchange a word, because his Protestant 
 views are known to all here. No one may visit me — ^not even 
 my own brother. My only companions are God and the dark 
 walls aroimd me. 
 
 LETTER PKOM 
 
 « 4: 4: H« 
 
 Qth AprUr 
 The prisoner is now more harshly treated than ever, because 
 he besought the Canon Dittrich that he might be allowed to hear 
 
414 APPENDIX TO LETTER TH. 
 
 the Word of G-od and perform his Easter devotions in the Evan- 
 gelical Church during Passion Week and Easter. Should this 
 state of things last Jong he must succumb, if only on account of 
 the impure and pestilential atmosphere which he is forced to 
 breathe. But this is not enougL After the holidays he is to be 
 placed in an even worse cell than the one he at present inhabits. 
 Prom hints that have escaped, it seems they would rather ill- 
 treat him, so that he should sink under it, than suffer him to be 
 released. The cell which he is now to enter is very dirty, and 
 full of the most horrible exhalations. Next to him are two of 
 the lowest idjots, who are perishing unconsciously in their room 
 in their own filth. These poor . creatures have sunk below the 
 level of the brute beasts, but are, indeed, much to be pitied. 
 Two steps fi:om the door of the den into which he is to be 
 thrown are the cesspools, which stand open the whole day. 
 Thus he is to be slowly destroyed. 
 
 FEOM THE PRISONER HIMSELF. 
 
 Prague, April 25ih. 
 Every hour in my horrible prison seems an eternity to me, and 
 for nine weeks already have I sat in my cell, deprived of all oc- 
 cupation, except prayer and converse with G-od. The decision 
 of the Primate of Hungary on my fate came, indeed, quickly 
 enough. It ran : " The strictest confinement, with days of pen- 
 ance and fasting — the latter to be Mondays, Wednesdays and 
 Fridays, on bread and water ; an ascetic priest to visit the prisoner. 
 The result to be communicated to the Primate." These means 
 were esteemed the most likely to succeed in re-converting me. 
 The office of the ascetic priest was assigned to the Carmelite 
 Father, Ambrosius Kas,.and, when he declined it, to the Knight 
 of the Cross, Father Hawraneck, who visited me for the first 
 time on the 23d of ApriL I told Tiim at the outset that he must 
 not think it amiss of me if I told him, once for all, tiiat he would 
 only waste his time and pains, and that I would rather allow 
 inyself to be tortured to death than recant, and that however 
 often he shoiild come, I could give him no further akswer, etc. He 
 said nothing this time, but will come again. Hardly had he left 
 me, when the parish priest of the Church of the Holy Ghost 
 visited me again; but departed without having accomplished his 
 object, and will, probably come no more. My prison sufferings, 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER YII. 415 
 
 it seems, ate not enough — I must be tortured in this mariner too I 
 May the faithful Grod take pity on me, and soon release me I 
 
 I must also mention that I am writing this letter by night, and 
 in the greatest danger ; and it is hardly likely that I shall be able 
 to write again, for my two friends and servants are also threatened 
 with imprisonment if they help me to hold the slightest communi- 
 cation with any one. The persons connected witia the household 
 are all searched when they enter or leave the house, and are threat- 
 ened with the loss of their situations if they carry away any thing 
 for me, or bring me any thing. Erom this you will see that, under 
 such circumstances, it will be scarcely possible to write to you 
 again. Should the'Saviour Jesus Christ lead me, a^he once led 
 Peter, out of prisonj you shall have a circiunstantial narrative of. 
 alL DaUy, when I awake, I wonder whether perhaps that most 
 liappy day may not have dawned on me, when Q-od will send 
 his angel to lead me out of my prison. Oh, with what long- 
 ing do I look forward to a day that will be ever memorable 
 to me I 
 
 , In case, then, that some time should elapse without any letter 
 from us, I trust you will bear in mind what has occurred already, 
 and will kindly continue to labor for my release. 
 
 EITBACT FEOM A LETTER bT * * * *. 
 
 2m- May, 1855. 
 In this ease the proverb is exemplified that a man in need is 
 forsaken by his best friends. Even those who were m favor of 
 his converaon, and rejoiced over it, now say that it would be 
 better for Mm to recant, which, however, is not to be tiiought o^ 
 for his convictions are as firm as a rocli. He is bitterly tor- 
 •mented. The superiors say, "If it had been some other man, 
 who had conducted himself improperly vnthin the Order, they 
 would not have troubled themselves at aU about it; but this is 
 not the case with Johann Borozynski, so they can not allow the 
 affair to blow over." This was said on the 20th of April by the 
 Prior of the convent to the father of the prisoner, who had come 
 to Prague to see whether the accounts of his son's ill-treatment, 
 which he had heard from'Strangers, were true. The poor father 
 was forced to behold it for himself vrith weeping eyes, when he 
 found his son confined among idiots. What pain to a father to 
 see his son shut up, while perfectly sound of mind, among idiots I 
 
416 APPENDIX TO LETTER VH. 
 
 The next day the Prior wished to take the father to Canon Dit- 
 trioh, that the latter might persuade him to use his influence to 
 make his son recant. But the old man, now eighty years of age, 
 would have nothing to do with it, and set off the same day for 
 his home. ' 
 
 These are our last jaews, siace which we have heard nothing 
 of this steadfast confessor and captive. 
 
 Extract feom a Letter of the Pkisoneb, writtek in "The 
 Prison or tbe Order of the Brethren of Mercy."* 
 
 Prague, Jime 25th, 1855. 
 
 My sufferings seem as far as ever from their end, though I 
 have already languished four months a captive in. the prison of 
 the Order. On the 10th of June, the Pather Hawranek again 
 visited me with the Prior. Both made me the bitterest reproaches 
 for having left the only saving Church, and gone over to the 
 " impious faqtion" for help. On the 20th of this month, an officer 
 of police came to me with the Prior, looked round my room, and 
 went away without having addressed a single question to me. 
 On the 24th, the Prior came again, and I besought him repeal^- 
 edly that I might be allowed to write some medical preseripti.ons 
 foi" myself that my health might not be entirely neglected. The 
 Prior answered shortly, that it could not be allowed — all the less 
 because some scandalous things about the Order had got into the 
 newspapers. This they do not like ; but to torture an innocent 
 man to death, and then say, " Our Almighty God has punished 
 him," is quite right in their eyes ; and that this is their intention 
 toward me I can not but conclude and assert, from the treatment 
 they employ. I can not even have my most necessary articles of • 
 clothing repaired when they are torn without entreating t(x 
 "gracious permission," although I pay for it myself; and then it 
 passes through several hands. 
 
 I have already been unwell several times, in consequence of 
 their treatment, and must be constantly prepared fear fresh suffer^ 
 ings ; but I hope and pray to God that He wiB put to shame the 
 designs of my enemies. 
 
 JOHANN BvANGELISTA BoROZTNSKI. 
 * Taken from the Fnmli^urter Journal of the ITth July. Supplement 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER VII. 417 
 
 c. 
 
 THE MOST RECENT LEaiSLATION OP AUSTRIA ON 
 ECCLESIASTIOAl APPAIRS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Imperial Letter Patent of the 31st October, 1851. 
 
 In this PubKc Letter, the Emperor of Austria, while repealing 
 the Constitution of the 4th of March as endangering the unity of 
 the Empire, and likewise the so-called Pundamental Rights as 
 incapable of being carried into practice, proclaims the following 
 as law for all the countries under his crown : 
 
 "We nevertheless expressly declare, that we wiU uphold and 
 protect every church or religious body recognized by law, in the 
 exercise of its rights ; first, of common public religious worship ; 
 secondly, of the indq>endent regulation of its own affairs; thirdly, 
 of the possession and enjoyment of the institutions, foimdations, 
 and funds appropriated to its special worship, and works of in- 
 struction and benevolence ; such institutions remaining as here- 
 tofore subject to the general laws of the State." 
 
 n. 
 
 Provisional ordinances on ecolesiastical atpairs, decreed on 
 THE 30th of January, 1849, prior to the Constitution 
 
 WHICH has since BEEN REPEALED. 
 
 I. The members of the allied Protestant Confessions in Austria, 
 who have hitherto been comprised under the term of non-Cath- 
 olics, are henceforward to-be designated, in al official documents, 
 as "Evangelicals of the Augsburg, or Evangelicals of the Hel- 
 vetic Confession." 
 
 n. Conversion from one Christian Confession to another is fi'ee 
 and open to every person who has passed his eighteenth year, 
 under the observance of the following regulations : — ^The intend- 
 ing convert is bound to announce his purpose to the pastor of the 
 congregation to which he has hitherto belonged, in the presence 
 of two witnesses, chosen by himself; and, at the end of four, 
 weeks, to make another declaration to the pastor of the same 
 18* ^ 
 
418 APPENDIX TO LETTER VIL 
 
 congregation, in the presence of the same or other two witnesses, 
 also chosen by himself, that he abides by the same intention. The 
 pastor is bound to give the intending convert a certificate of each 
 of these declarations. Should the certificate be refused on any 
 ground whatsoever, the witnesses are empowered to furnish it. 
 These two certificates are to be shown by the convert to the pas- 
 tor of the congregation which he wishes to join ; whereby the 
 act of transition is completed. AH previous regulations with re- 
 gard to change of confession, are declared void. 
 
 in. Registers of the ecclesiastical acts performed by them on 
 occasion of births, marriages, and deaths, shall be kept by the 
 pastors of all EvangeKcal congre|ations of the Augsburg and 
 Helvetic Confessions, and extracts fi:om these registers, made 
 under their supei-vision, shall possess the same legal vahdity 
 which is given to those of Catholic pastors. 
 
 rV. Suiphce fees, and other dues, whether of money or 
 natural products, paid for clerical oflces by Evangelicals of the 
 Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions to the Catholic clergy, are 
 abolished ; except where they are demanded for clerical oflices 
 actually performed by CatiioHc pastors, or when they are taxes 
 in kind charged on real property. The same is enacted of all fees 
 due to the sacristan. 
 
 V. The fees paid in many places by Evangelicals of the Augs- 
 burg and Helvetic Confessions to Catholic schoolmasters shall 
 cease, wherever the Evangelicals have their own schools, and do 
 not send their children to Catholic schools. 
 
 VI. In c?Be of marriages between non-Catholic Christians, the 
 banns shall be published only in the public assembly fbr religious 
 worship of the betrothed parties; in case of marriages between 
 Catholics and non-Cathohcs, the banns shall be published in the 
 respective churches of each party ; and schedule 71 of the civil 
 code on this point is hereby repealed. 
 
 D. 
 
 REPORT OF THE RECENT PERSECUTION OP A 
 PROTESTANT FATHER IN PRANCE. 
 
 A very estimable ofBcer of the French army, in actual service, 
 Captain G — -, was declared, by the decision of a family council, 
 
APPENDIX to LETTEE VIl 419 
 
 unworthy longer to have the legal guardianship of his two chil» 
 dren, who were minora, being six and eight years of age. The 
 same council also determined to withdraw the children from the 
 care of their father, and intrust them to that of another guardian. 
 The father refused to yield obedience to these violent measures. 
 In order to force liim to surrender his authority over his children, 
 
 the family council summoned Captain G before the civil 
 
 court of the city of Orleans, the seat of the guardianship. Here 
 is the official copy of this legal summons hteraUy given: 
 
 '^Invirtae of Article 444 of the Codex Napoleon; and whereas, according to 
 the express vords of the same article, those persons are excluded from the office 
 of guardian, or may he deposed from the exercise thereof, whose management 
 testifies unfaithfulness or incapacity ; 
 
 ** Whereas the word management applies to the moral as well as to the material 
 interests of the wards; so that an incapacity takes place on the part of the 
 ^ardian, when he is unable to conduct or watch orer the education of the chil- 
 dren, or when he conducts it in a manner prejudicial to their moral interests; 
 which circumstances exist in the present case; 
 
 ** Whereas Captain G , after having hitherto educated his children In the 
 
 Catholic Church, has now the full purpose to ^re their religious education 
 another tendency, according to the principles of the Protestant Confes^on; 
 
 *' Whereas the deceased mother of these zoinors belonged to the Catholic 
 religion, which is also that of the whole family, and the change of religion pur- 
 
 posed by Captain G , will dishonor the memory of the mother, and separate 
 
 the children firom their &mily, and constitutes, moreover, an interference with 
 th^consciences of the children, which is an abuse of the pat«mal authority,** 
 eta, etc. 
 
 The family council which came to this resolution took place on 
 the 4th of August; and the father is summoned to appear on the 
 27th. To fiimish a pretext for this haste, it is stated in the sum- 
 mons, " that it is imperative for the welfare of the children to 
 obtain the legal confirmation of the family decision, in order that 
 ihey may be withdrawn as soon as possible from the new relig- 
 ious tendency which has aheady begun to be given to their 
 education." 
 
 The facts of the case are as follows : 
 
 Four years ago the first wife of Captain G , the mother of 
 
 the children in question, died after a marriage of five yeara. Five 
 
 .years ago a pastor of Alsace gave Captain G^ a New Testar 
 
 ment, and made those first impressions on his mind which deter- 
 mined him, two years later, to withdraw from the Eoman 
 ■Catholic and attach himself to the Protestant Church. His two 
 children at that time were — ^the one five, the other three years 
 
420 APPENDIX TO LETTER TIL 
 
 old. By this we may judge of the value of that assertion of the 
 family council, " that an interference had taken place with the 
 consciences of the children which constituted an abuse of the 
 paternal authority.'' 
 
 The father acts upon his rights from conscientious motives. 
 He is no longer a member of the Romish Church, but professes 
 the Evangelical doctrines of the Augsburg Confession ; and as 
 such has contracted, eight months ago, a second marriage with a 
 pious and estimable Protestant lady. He lives at home in accord- 
 ance with his religious profession, with the young children given 
 him by God, and provides for their education in virtue of the 
 paternal rights recognized by the State. But because he does so 
 — ^because he acta as every conscientious head of a family must 
 do — he is to be declared by a court of justice to have forfeited 
 his paternal rights, as much as though he had committed a breach 
 of trust, or were a lunatic, incapablff of possessing legal rights ; 
 he is to be pronounced unworthy to educate his own children I 
 
 This is the case as it stands at present. How far is it from 
 such a case to the murder of Jean Galas ? This attack on Captain 
 G threatens every father of a family in France. 
 
 The celebrated jurisconsult, M. Bethmont, the President of the 
 Society of Advocates, has undertaken to conduct the defense of 
 the father. As, however, the iU-health of the latter has obliged 
 bim to visit the baths, he has petitioned for a delay, which has 
 been accorded. This case wUl, therefore, come under discussion 
 after the autumn vacation. It has excited a great sensation, and 
 throughout Prance all the fathers of families, whatever may be 
 their religious views, who are earnestly intent on preserving their 
 duties and rights, and especially all Protestant believers, are 
 awaiting the issue of the transaction in the most anxious suspense. 
 The latter rely on the justice of the courts of law, but they see 
 clearly how far the aims of a certain number among the antagon- 
 ists of th^ir Church would carry tiiem. 
 
 The first question which arises on such a manifestation of that 
 spirit which led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but whose 
 re-appearance had seemed impossible since 1789 and Napoleon, 
 is this — WiU any court in Frcmce declare itself competent to enter- 
 tain such a question ? 
 
 (Compare, vsdth regard to this unprecedented attack, the 
 article by M. Sylvestre de Sacy in the Journal des Dihats.) 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER VIII. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL MAGNA CHARTA OP PRUSSIA, 
 OR THE ARTICLES OP THE PRUSSIAN CONSTITU- 
 TION OP THE 31ST OP JANUARY, 1850, TOUCHING 
 ECCLESIASTICAL APPAIRS. 
 
 ARTICLE Xn. 
 
 The liberty of religious confession, and of iinion in religious 
 societies, or of social worship, domestic and public, is guarantied. 
 The enjoyment of civil and political rights is independent of 
 religious creed. No damage shaU accrue to the civil and poUtical 
 rights of any individual from the exercise of religious liberty. 
 
 ARTICLE xm. 
 
 Those rehgious societies or clerical bodies which have no cor- 
 porate rights, can obtain such rights only by means of special 
 laws. 
 
 ARTICLE XIT. 
 
 The Christian religion is made the basis of those regulations 
 of the State which are connected with the exercise of religion, 
 without prejudice to the religious liberty guarantied in Article XII. 
 
 ARTICLE XV. 
 
 The Evangelical and the Roman Catholic Churches, together 
 with every other religious society, regulate and administer their 
 affairs for themselves, and remain in the possession and enjoy- 
 ment of the institutions, foundations, and funds, destined for the 
 maintenance of their worship, schools, and works of charity. ' 
 
422 APPENDIX TO LETTER VHI. 
 
 ARTICLE XVI. 
 
 The intercourse of religious societies with their superiors is un- 
 restricted. The pubUoation of ecclesiastical ordinances is subject 
 only to the same restrictions as al other pubhc announcements. 
 
 ARTICLE xvn. 
 
 With regard to Church patronage, and the conditions under 
 which it may be abrogated, a special law shall be issued. 
 
 ARTICLE xvra. 
 In appointments to ecclesiastical offices, the right of nomination, 
 proposal, election, and confirmation, in so far as it appertains to 
 the State, and not to private patrons on special legal titles, is 
 aboKshed. Prom the provisions of this regulation are excepted 
 the clerical appointments to the army and pubhc institutions. 
 
 ARTICLE XIX. 
 
 The introduction of civil marriage will take place in accordance 
 with the provisions of a special law, which will also regulate the 
 mode of civil registration in general. 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER IX. 
 
 EXTEACT FEOM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE EVAN- 
 GBLIOAl KIKCHENTAG HELD IN BERLIN m SEP- 
 TEMBER, 1853. 
 
 Second Sitting of the 21st Septemh&r. President, Professor Stahl, 
 Meniher of the Supreme JScdesiastical Cowndl. 
 
 On the conduot op the Church toward dissent and seo- 
 taeianism, espboiallt with reference to the baptists and 
 Methodists. 
 
 The gentleman appoin^d to draw up a report on liiis subject^ 
 Dr. Snethlage, Member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, 
 sums up hia view in the following five theses : 
 
 " I. The Church' ought to have heither the will nor the power 
 to coerce or oppress, by external means, separatists and 
 sectarians who, on any pretext of Uberty or purity, take 
 offense at her, and reject or regard as indififerent either 
 one or all the means of grace, aH the ordinances of the 
 Church, pr merely the regular office of the ministry. 
 
 " n. So long as a separation is only impending, or a sect only 
 in embryo, or so long as merely individual members of 
 the Church betray a leaning toward the leaders or propa- 
 gators of such sects, or, perhaps, also attend their meet- 
 ings, no steps are to be taken except in the way of 
 pastoral care, of special pastoral visits, instruction, and 
 testimony ; but if circumstances re.quire, it will also be 
 right repeatedly to draw the attention of the congregation 
 at large to the danger menacing them, and tO| warn them 
 against the seductions of error. 
 
424 APPENDIX TO LETTER IX. 
 
 " HE A different course is to be pursued toward the families 
 and persons belonging to schisms which have definitely 
 taken place, and sects which have assumed an independ- 
 ent existence. 
 
 "They are not indeed to be forsaken temporally or 
 spiritually in their distresses, nor are their petitions to be 
 utterly disregarded; but the Church must give them to 
 feel that by their acts they have forfeited the right to 
 brotherly communion on equal terms, so that it is necessary 
 and right, even for their own sakes, to deny them the 
 blessings and privileges of the Church, should they never- 
 theless for any reason lay claim to them, so long as they 
 continue to deny her authority. 
 
 "IV. Whoever, therefore, fi-om declared sectarianism, should 
 withdraw his children from catechetical instruction in the 
 Church, can lay no claim to have them confirmed in the 
 Church. He who rejedts infant baptism can not reckon 
 himself as one of her communicants. He who does not 
 choose to belong to her communicants, nor to recognize 
 the authority of her ministers, can not claim from her the 
 rites of marriage and Christian burial. Least of all, can it 
 be allowed that a clergyman or schoolmaster, a sacristan, 
 a precentor, an organist, should f ontinue to retain and ex- 
 ercise his office after he has joined a schism or a sect. 
 
 "V. But, above aU, the true and effectual counteraction to dis- 
 sent and sectarianism will consist in the endeavor of the 
 Church to satisfy, by suitable means, the profound need 
 of the human heart for Christian communion and fellow- 
 ship, and for the mutual co-operation of the living mem- 
 bers of the Congregation; and in her making it her object 
 to turn to the greatest possible advantage their many 
 powers and gifts to the edification of the community. 
 For it is especially in these points that the power and at- 
 tractiveness of the minor sects consist." 
 
 Dr. Sack, of Magdeburg, a Consistorial Counselor, remarks on 
 the fourth thesis of the Report: "Hence the Baptist party, 
 whom we can not cal sectarian, although they, erroneously as we 
 believe, reject infant baptism, ought not to be excluded fi-om the 
 Lord's Table in our Churches." 
 
 Professor Lange, froni Zurich (now of Bonn), wished to make 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER IX. 425 
 
 the following addition to the theses : " The sects are a sign of 
 some definite malady in the body of the Churoh, and of the cor- 
 responding curative impulse." 
 
 Gieneral-Superintendent Biichsal, of Berlin, agrees with this 
 view, and says : " There exists one means for the clergy to avert 
 dissent ; go into thy closet and ftdfiU the duties of thy office more 
 zealously than heretofore. This is the only course which can be 
 advised." 
 
 Bishop von Kapff (fi:om Stutgardt) declares himself all the 
 more entirely in accordance with the tbeses of the Report, as 
 they have been carried into practice with good effect in his native 
 country of Wurtemberg. All that the Report desires has been 
 ateady, for a considerable time, carried out in practice there ; 
 and experience has proved that the niunerous meetings held, and 
 societies existing in that country, are the safety-valves which 
 avert dissent. Further, it has been everywhere found in Wurt- 
 emberg that kind and brotherly treatment, and Christian inter- 
 course, have the effect of bringing back schismatics to ttie 
 Church ; while harsh treatment has led to their separating them- 
 selves altogether from her communion. 
 
 Upon this the President, Dr. Stahl, says, that no dissentient 
 voice had been raised against the theses of the Report. The 
 proposal of two of the speakers, " that Baptists, i. e., those who 
 reject infant baptism, ought not to be refused admission to the 
 Lord's Supper if they desire it, and -are separated from those of 
 their own denomination," was liable to the following grave objec- 
 tion : " Did it become the evangelical Church to enter into the 
 closest bond of Christian fellowship, by partaking of the com- 
 munion with those who in such a glaring manner rejected her 
 doctrine ?" 
 
 With regard to the theses themselves, the President added : 
 
 "I must, for my own part, beg you to observe further, that 
 there is one aspect of the matter which, has not been exhausted 
 by the Report ; namely, the question of coercive measures. 
 The reporter says, very justly, that the Church can not compel 
 any to remain within her pale, and that it must he left to the State 
 to decide wJiether or not to %ise constraint where its oum order and 
 laws may require it. But he overlooks a third aspect, in which 
 the question may present itself — ^whether it is not the business 
 of the State to resort to measures of coercion, not for the sake 
 
426 APPENDIX TO LETTER IX. 
 
 of its own order, but for the protection of the Church. If a 
 Christian governor turns to the Evangelical Church and says — ' I 
 demand from thee a decision; thou must derive it from the 
 Word of G-od and the depths of thy own religious knowledge. 
 Shall I do nothing whatever for thy protection ? Of course it is 
 understood that I constrain no one by violence or force of arms 
 to remain in the Church, But shall I alow sects of this kind to 
 lead away thy members into apostacy by colporteurs and similar 
 agencies ? Shall I allow that even from foreign countries mis- 
 sionaries shall be sent out to plant sectarianism in thy very midst ? 
 Shall I thus aUow all persons indiscriminately to exert intellectual 
 influence upon^ach other unimpeded, or shall I recognize that 
 the Church of whose rightful claims I have the certainty is com- 
 mitted to my hands for external protection ? I will make no de- 
 cision on this point, for opposite views are possible.' I have only 
 made these few remarks lest it should appear as if the question of 
 the relation of the State to the Church were entirely eoAausted and 
 set at rest by the declaration, that the Ghwch can not apply any 
 means cf coercion; and hence the Kirchemhig should seem to home 
 declared against aU protective measures on the part of the dvil 
 poioer. I perfectly concur with the gentleman who lias brought 
 up the Report, that the Church must bethink herself seven times 
 before she petitions the State to make use of any external force 
 for her protection." 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 LEGAL DOCUMENTS AEPEOTING THE UNION/ 
 
 KoTAL Cabinet Oedeb op the 27th op September, 1817. 
 
 My illustrious forefathers, now resting in Grod, the Elector 
 John Sigismund, the Elector George William, the Great Elector 
 King Frederic L, and King Frederic William I., have with pious 
 solicitude, as is proved by the history of their reigns, bestowed 
 their earnest attention on the subject of uniting the two separate 
 Protestant Churches, the Reformed and the Lutheran, into one 
 Evangelical and Christian Church throughout their dominions. 
 Honoring their memory and their wholesome purpose, I gladly 
 follow in their footsteps, and desire that a work so weU-pleasing 
 to God, but which encountered insuperable difiSculties in their 
 - days ii'om the unhappy sectarian spirit then prevailing, may be 
 brought to pass in my States, to the glory of God and the wel- 
 fere of the Christian Church, under the influence of a better 
 spirit, which looks not to non-essential points, and cleaves to 
 liiose main truths of Christianity in which both Confessions are 
 agreed ; and I further desire to see the first steps taken to this 
 good work, on occasion of the .approaching Tricentenary of the 
 Eeformation. Such a truly religious union of the two Prot- 
 estant Churches, now only divided by outward differences, is in 
 harmony with the great objects of Christianity; it corresponds 
 to theearUest views of the Beformers ; it is inherent in the spirit 
 of Protestantism; it promotes a rehgious spirit ; it aids domestic 
 
428 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 piety ; it will become £he source of many desirable reforms in 
 Clmrcli and school, wbich have been hitherto prevented only by 
 the difference of the Confessions. 
 
 Such a union, long desired and now called for more loudly than 
 ever, yet which has been so often attempted in vain — a union 
 in which the Reformed Chuirch shall not go over to the Lutheran, 
 nor vice vend,, but both shall form a revivified Evangehcal Chris- 
 tian Church in the spirit of their holy Pounder — ^wiU encounter 
 no insuperable obstacle, if only both parties earnestly and sincerely 
 come to desire it in a truly Christian spirit. If really -the offspring 
 of such a spirit, it would be a worthy expression of our thank- 
 fulness to Divine Providence for the invaluable blessing of 
 the Reformation, and a suitable mode of honoring in act the 
 memory of its great founders, by continuing their immortal 
 work. 
 
 But while I can not but earnestly wish that the Reformed and 
 Lutheran Churches in my dominions may share this, my weU- 
 considered conviction — esteeming, as I do, their rights and hber- 
 ties, I am far from desiriag to press it upon them, or to ma,ke any 
 regulations or determinations in this matter. For a union wiU 
 only possess a real value if it be not the product of persuasion 
 or indiBferentism ; and if it be a union, not merely in outward 
 form, but having its roots and vital energy in the oneness of 
 hearts, in harmony with genuine scriptural principles. 
 
 In this spirit, I therefore propose to celebrate the Tricentenary 
 of the Reformation, by uniting the Lutheran and Reformed Con- 
 gregations of the Court and garrison of Potsdam into one Evan- 
 gelical Christian Church, and partaking with them of the Holy 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; and I hope that this, my own 
 example, may have a salutary effect upon aE the Protestant con- 
 gregations in my land, and find universal imitation in spirit and 
 in truth. To the wise guidance of the Consistories — ^to the pious 
 zeal of the clergy and their Synods — I leave the outward form 
 of the agreement to be entered into, assured that the congrega^ 
 tion vriU willingly follow their proper leaders ; and that, above 
 * all, wherever the eye is directed in earnestness and sincerity, 
 and clear from all interested views, to what is essential, and to 
 the great and holy cause itself, a form will readily be found, and 
 thus the outward shape wiU spontaneously spring forth fi-om the 
 inward essence, and assume a simple and dignified aspect. May 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X 429 
 
 that promised era not be far distant, when all shall be gathered 
 under one shepherd into one fold, with one faith, one hope, one 
 love. 
 
 Fkederio William. 
 
 B. 
 
 The Cabinet Obder of ms Majesty the EIikg, totjohing the 
 
 ESSENCE AND OBJECT Or THE UnION AND THE LlTUEGT. 
 
 It can not but excite my just displeasure that titie attempt has 
 been made by some enemies of the peace of our Church, to mis- 
 lead others by the misconceptions and incorrect views into which 
 they themselves have fallen, vrith regard to the essence and ob- 
 ject of the Union and the Liturgy. It certainly may be hoped 
 that the power of truth, and the sound judgment of the multitude 
 of well-informed persons, will prevent this mischievous attempt 
 from meeting with any general success, and that your scrupulous 
 ftdfillment of the commands which I have issued in my Cabinet 
 Order of this day, touching the suppression of separatistic ir- 
 regularities, will result in bringing back from their errors the few 
 who have allowed themselves to be deceived by false representa- 
 tions. In order, however, to assist those whose objections arise 
 from scruples of conscience to form a correct judgment on the 
 subject in question, it will be advisable to exhibit in their con- 
 nection the main principles, in accordance with which I have on 
 repeated occasions enjoined you to promote the introduction of 
 the Liturgy and the spread of the Union. 
 
 The Union does not signify or aim at any surrender of the 
 existing Confessions of Faith, nor does it derogate from the 
 authority they have hitherto possessed. In acceding to the 
 Union, nothing is expressed but that spirit of cWity and mod- 
 eration which reftises to allow that the differences on certain 
 dogmatical points are a sufScient ground for denying to the 
 members of another Confession external Chiffch-feUowship. The 
 joming the Union is a matter of free choice ; and the opinion is 
 therefore erroneous, that the introduction of the new Liturgy is 
 necessarily connected therewith, or indirectly aims at that end. 
 
430 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 The latter'rests on orders given by me ; the former, as has been 
 said, is a matter left to the voluntary decision of each person. 
 The Liturgy, is only so far connected vrith the Union, that the 
 order of Divine Service prescribed in it, and the formularies set 
 forth for the different rites of religion, inasmuch as they are 
 according to Scriptpre, may be used to the common furthering 
 of Christian piety and fear of God in those congregations which 
 are composed of members of both Confessions, without causing 
 offense and objection. Further, the Liturgy is by -no means 
 intended as a substitute for the Confessions of Faith in the 
 IlvangeKcal Church, nor yet to be added to these as of like 
 nature. Its sole object is to provide against aU injurious license 
 and confiision, and to establish an order for public worship and 
 the oflttcial acts of the clergy which shall be in accordance with 
 the spirit of the Symbolical Books, and is based on the authority 
 of the Evangelical Litvirgies of the first period of the Keforma- 
 tion. Consequently the prayer of those who, from disUke to the 
 Union, also resist the introduction of the Liturgy, is to be rejected 
 most earnestly and decidedly as one that can not be entertained. 
 Even in those Churches which have not joined the Union, the 
 use of the national Liturgy must take place, with the modifications 
 allowed to each province in particular. Least of all, however, 
 because it would be most unchristian, can it be permitted to the 
 enemies of the Union, in contradistinction to its fi-iends, to con- 
 stiitute themselves as a separate religious body. I commission you 
 to make this Edict pubUc, by means of the government gazettes. 
 (Signed) Frederic William. 
 
 To the Minister of State, Baron von Altenstein.* 
 Berlin, the 2Sth of February, 1834 
 
 c. 
 
 Cabinet Order of the 6th of March, 1852. 
 
 From the memorial handed in to me with the report of the 
 19th December last, I perceive that the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council of the Evangehcal Church has understood the ofiBcial 
 
 * See Armals of the Internal Administration of Prussia. Edited by E. A. 
 von Kamptz, voL xviii., for 1834, p. 74. 
 
APPBITDIX TO LETTBK X. 43^ 
 
 duties imposed on the ecdesiastical courts aa regards the ques- 
 tions of Union and Confession in the sense and q)irit of that 
 fidelity to the Confessions which guided his late Majesty, my 
 father, now resting with Grod, when, according to the views 
 expressed in his Cabinet Orders of the 27th of September, 1817 
 and 28th of February, 1834, he iendeavored to accomplish that 
 highly important work in the history of the Christian Church — 
 the Union. It is indubitably clear, both from the above-men- 
 tioned manifestoes, and from what he repeatedly expressed to 
 myself, that he never designed the Union to effect a transition from 
 one Confession to another, still less the formation of a third new 
 Confession, but was simply actuated by the wish to unite both 
 Confessions into one National Church, to break down the lament- 
 able barriers which had hitherto prevented the union of the 
 members of both Confessions around the table of the Lord, for 
 all those who in the fiving sense of their communion in Christ 
 longed for this outward fellowship. If the rules of Church 
 government dictated by those views have, in course of time, 
 been frequently misconceived and misunderstood by the adminis- 
 trating functionaries, it affords me particular gratification on this 
 occasion to express my sense that the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council, from the time of their entrance on their onerous duties, 
 have ever made it their earnest endeavor to enlighten the public 
 mind with regard to the Union, and to set the questions con- 
 nected therewith in their true light. I, however, judge that it is 
 now due time to give these principles a definite expression in the 
 organization of the ecclesiastical authorities, which shall, more- 
 over, serve as a rule of action to the latter, and by this act'to give 
 a pledge that in the government of the National Evangelical 
 Church there shall be an equal regard paid to the maintenance 
 of the fellowship subsisting by Grod's grace between the two 
 Confessions in the Union, and to the independence of each of the 
 two Confessions. Conformably to which, I hereby give my royal 
 sanction to the follovring principles laid before me by the Evan- 
 gelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council. 
 
 I. The Supreme Ecclesiastical Council is charged with the 
 duty of representing the Evangelical National Church in its col- 
 lective character and administering its affairs, and at the same 
 time with that of watcHng over and defending the rights of the 
 separate Confessions and the regulations based upon those rights. 
 
432 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 n. The EviJiGEEicAL Supreme Eoclesustical CouNciii con- 
 sists of members of both Confessions ; but none are eligible to be 
 appointed members thereof, except such persons as conscientiously 
 approve of the co-operation of members of the two Confessions 
 in the government of the Church. 
 
 III. In aH matters brought before it for decision, the Supreme 
 EoCLESiASTiOAii CoTTNOiL passes rcsolutions by a vote of the ma^ 
 jority of its' members. But if the matter brought before it be of 
 such a nature that its decision affects only one of the two Con- 
 fessions, the previous confessional question shall not be decided 
 by the collective votes of the members, but only by the votes of 
 the members belonging to the Confession in question, and this 
 decision shall form the basis of ihe collective resolution of the 
 Board. This is the mode of procedure to be observed in the 
 measures passed relating to the matter in question. 
 
 I, accordingly, hereby commission the 'Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council for the fiiture to guide their conduct in accordance with 
 these princij)les, and to communicate this my Edict to the Pro- 
 vincial Consistories for their observance also, and further to pre- 
 pare, in concert with my Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, a set 
 of instructions .by which their proceedings shall be regulated, 
 which instructions are to be laid before me for my royal sanc- 
 tion. 
 
 (Signed) Frederic William. 
 
 Charlottenburg, 6Ui March, 1853. 
 
 D. 
 
 Cabinet Order of the 12th of July, 1853. 
 
 On reading the report presented by the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council on the 4th of November of this year, I concur witli the 
 views therein expressed, that for the prevention of any further 
 fruitless disputes concerning principles, it is advisable to issue no 
 further explanations of a general nature with regard to the vari- 
 ous and often contradictory misconceptions which have attached 
 themselves to my Edict of March the 6th, 1852, but in all in- 
 stances to attend only to complaints and suggestions referring to 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 433 
 
 particular and actual cases. I, nevertheless, take occasion from 
 this Eeport to make the foUowing declaration to the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council It has excited my just xiispleasure that, 
 as I gather from the document laid before me, my Edict of the 
 6ih of March, 1852, has been perverted in various inadmissible 
 ways, and in particular that many clergymen, identifying their 
 subjective point of view vrith that of the flock intrusted to them, 
 and imputing to the latter their own personal views, have dis- 
 turbed people's minds by exciting the fear of dangers to be ap- 
 prehended on the one side for the Confessions, or on the other 
 for the Union. Although it was certaiuly the object of my Edict 
 to guaranty that protection to the Confessions within the pale 
 of the Bvangehcal National Church, to which they have an un- 
 doubted claim, it could never be my intention to disturb, still less 
 to repeal, the Union of the two EvangeKcal Confessions founded 
 by my royal father, now resting in God ; and thereby to bring 
 about a schism in the National Church, which, as is shown in the 
 Eeport of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, could not tak^ 
 place without throwing into confusion legal relations that have 
 subsisted for a long series of years, laying burdens on many con- 
 sciences, and renewing the old hostility between the Confessions. 
 I expect that the members of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Ooundl 
 and of the Provincial Consistories wiU ever adhere to this point 
 of view, and wiU set themselves against al the inferences at va- 
 riance therewith which have been drawn from my Edict. In 
 particular, however, it is requisite most conscientiously to watch 
 that the order of the Church be not undermined by efforts in 
 behalf of the distinctive Confessions ; and there should be no re- 
 currence of such cases as are said to have taken place, where 
 Synodal Assemblies, or even single clergymen, have resolved to 
 renounce on behalf of the congregation the title of " Evan- 
 gehcal," and the use of the Union-LituTgy. It is the duty of the 
 ecclesiastical authorities to take care that such attempts to in- 
 fringe the order of the Church do not remain unpunished, and 
 that departures from the regulations of the Evangehcal National 
 Church in the case of single congregations be not taken into 
 consideration by them except upon the unanimous petition of 
 the clergyman and congregajiin, and be not suffered to take 
 place until after all means of admonition be exhausted, and after 
 they have represented in the liveliest colors the heavy responsi- 
 
 19 
 
434 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 bility in the eye of the Lord, which a division of his .Church 
 calls down upon the head of its authors, and all who take part 
 in it. 
 
 (Signed) Fkedeeio William. 
 
 Sans Souci, July 12th, 1853. 
 
 E. 
 
 EoTAL Cabinet Letter to the 'Pastors or the Wittenbeeo 
 Conference or the 11th op October, 1853. 
 
 The Address which has been presented to me by the Witten- 
 berg Conference of Evangelical Pastors of the Lutheran Con- 
 fession, dated the 27th of September, has on the one hand been 
 received by me with pleasure, as a testimony to the authority of 
 'the regulations of the National Church, but on the other has 
 caused me profound pain, as a proof of 'the misleading influences 
 exerted by the mistrust of authority peculiar to our age, even on 
 behoving and faithful servants of lie Word. Por it is at once a 
 confession of mistrust and of pusillanimity, when you say that 
 the words of my order of the 12th of last July admit the con- 
 struction " that it is only the disorders which have arisen from 
 the efforts in behalf of the distinctive Confessions against which 
 steps are to be taken," and yet, influenced by weakness and ill- 
 disposed persons, suffer yourselves to doubt if this be the true 
 construction, instead of trusting in your King, while looking 
 back to. all that I have done during the thirteen years of my 
 reign for the protection of the righteous, and even of the erro- 
 neous, efforts on behalf of the distinctive Confessions within the 
 Evangelical Church. Had you taken such a retrospect, as your 
 duty toward me would have led you to do, you would have ad- 
 hered to the correct interpretation of my said order of the 12th 
 of July, and would not have allowed yourselves to be shaken in 
 your well grounded conviction, that my order of the 6th of 
 March, 1852, remains inviolate. Having thus put you in mind 
 of your duty toward myself, I re%ure from you that you should, 
 each in his own Circle, give your public testimony to the true 
 interpretation of the order of the 12th of July, as you ought to 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 435 
 
 have done ere now. WMle thus recalling to your remembrance 
 how clearly I have displayed, &om the commencement of my 
 reign, and especially by my order of the 6th of March, 1852, 
 my firm resolve that the liberties and peculiarities of the Con- 
 fessions existing in the Evangelical National Church of Prussia 
 be held saered, I must at the same time warn you against the at- 
 tempt to impart to the distinctive Confessions such a degree of 
 authority as to endanger the unity of the Church,' or render its 
 government impossible. By taking such a course you would 
 soon arrive at a point in which you would find yourselves no 
 longer able to yield that respect and obedience to the regulations 
 of the Church which you now acknowledge to be your duty. 
 Tou would thereby draw down upon your heads a responsibility 
 at aU times heavy, but which would be overwhelming in these 
 days, when the foes of the GTospel are rising up on all sides 
 against the Word. Remember the threatenings which this very 
 Word of God contains against those who divide the Church, and 
 thank the Lord of the Church, that he has placed you in an age 
 in which, after long waiting, longing, and praying, ,on the part 
 of behevers, a Union of the Churches has started into life instead 
 of division, and has already existed for thirty-six years in many 
 parts of our fatherland. Let the sore calamities which the hos- 
 tility of the two Confessions brought upon the Evangelical 
 Churches during the 16th and 17th centuries be a warning to 
 you ; let the strength which you derive from your strict and un- 
 faltering adherence to the Symbols of syour own Confession be 
 devoted to the service of the collective Evangelical Church, and 
 do not turn this strength against that Church within which both 
 the Evangelical Confessions are well able to find room, and are 
 sure of mutual protection and defense against their common 
 enemies. And at all times examine most seriously where the 
 dangers to the Lutheran Confession which you apprehend are 
 ■really to be found, that you may not be induced by imaginary 
 grievances to take steps which might easily be interpreted by 
 your enemies as attempts to break down ecclesiastical order. 
 
 Griven at Sans Souci, 11th October, 1853. 
 
 (Signed) Peedeeio William. 
 
 To Deacon Hoffinan in Wittenberg, and his companions. 
 
436 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 F. 
 
 BVANGBLIOAl CONSENSUS AS AGREED UPOIT BY 
 THE GENERAL SYNOD OE PRUSSIA OP 1846. 
 
 In its leading principles this Consensus consists : 
 
 PiBST, in the Confession by which the Reformation asserts its 
 agreement with the ancient Apostolic Christian Church, and re- 
 nounces the heresies which destroy or alter the historical ground- 
 work and character of Christianity, namely, in the confession of 
 the triune, eternal, omniscient, and holy God, the Creator and 
 Preserver of the world, who has revealed Himself to us as 
 Pather, Son, and Holy Ghost; likewise of the Incarnation of 
 the only-begotten Son of God in Jesus Christ, and of the other 
 facts of the Gospel on which the Apostles based their preaching 
 and the Christian Chmch, and which are contained in the uni- 
 versal Creeds of Christendom. 
 
 Seoondlt, this Consensus consists in the principle unanimously 
 declared that all the traditions of the Church are made condi- 
 tional on, and are limited by, the supreme respect due to the 
 canonical Holy Scriptures ; that the decision of all doctrinal con- 
 troversies which may arise in the Church does not rest on the 
 verdict of an infallible oflce of teaching, but on the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, which are of themselves sufficient and intelligible j and 
 that the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, although more 
 or less made use of by the two Evangelical Confessions, yet do 
 not belong to this basis of doctrines concerning Paith and the 
 Commandments of God. 
 
 PuRTHBE, the Consensus consists in the doctrine that man has 
 feUen into sin, not by the vrill and according to the providential 
 dispensation of God, who is not the author of evil, but by 'the 
 self-will of the creature ; and that he is worthy of condemnation 
 on account of sin; that the same natural man, though, indeed, 
 of his own power able to work out a righteousness for himself as 
 a citizen of this world, is not able to fulfill the Divine law in its 
 essence, or to merit forgiveness of his sins from God ; that, never- 
 theless, the mercy of God has not forsaken the human race, but 
 has been manifested to it in various ways, and finally -by the 
 sending of His Son into the world^ who has accomplished our 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 437 
 
 redemption, as our only mediator, and -whose work as our High 
 Priest excludes every other satisfaction for sin, whether re- 
 garded as necessary to complete that satisfa,ction, or in any way 
 to be added to it ; while his kingly office excludes any human 
 sovereignty over the Church. The Evangelical Church of both 
 Confessions is no less agreed in the doctrine that Q-od justifies 
 the sinner of His mere mercy, through faith in the reconciliation 
 ^made by Christ; and in their doctrine concerning good works, 
 which proceed fiwm love as the fruits and testimonies of a Uving 
 faith, and are necessary for Q-od's sake, who has commanded them, 
 and to whose glory they are performed. 
 
 From these propositions it is clear that the two Confessions are 
 in harmony with each other as regards the doctrines of Kepent- 
 ance. Regeneration, and daily Eenewal. 
 
 This CoNSENStrs consists further in the declaration unanimously 
 put forth by the Reformers concerning the impossibih y of any 
 good works which exceed the demands of the law, as also that 
 the perfect imitation of- Christ to be striven after by Hia servants 
 is not to be attained external to, but vrithin the natural conditions 
 of life ordained by G-od, such as marriage, and aE the domestic 
 and civil relations. 
 
 It consists further in the doctrines acknowledged by the Chin:ch 
 with regard to the means of grace and the ordinances of the 
 Church ; that the Church, whose truth is to be recognized by the 
 purity of her doctrine and the scriptural administration of the 
 Sacraments, is, indeed, essentially the Congregation of the Saints 
 or Believers, but that she does not presume to judge men's hearts, 
 nor to make the efficacy of the means of grace dependent on the 
 dispositions and worthiness of those who administer them ; that, 
 nevertheless, she has authority to build up those whom Grod has 
 called into her fold by instruction and exhortation, as also by her 
 order and discipline, and to purify herself from offenses ; that 
 the Office of the Ministry is of Divine institution, and to be filled 
 up by men regularly appointed thereunto ; that she can not rec- 
 ognize any mission or illumination which departs from the out- 
 ward Word of G-od as contained in Holy Scripture ; that Bap- 
 tism and the Lord's Supper, as the only sacramental institutions 
 of the New Testament, are to continue till the coming of the 
 Lord ; that they do not bring blessing and grace by virtue of 
 the external performance of the rites, but by virtue of the 
 
438 APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 
 
 promises of God, which demand and enkiadle faith; and that 
 it is incumbent on the Church to estabUsh institutions . for 
 the celebration of pubhc worship — ^the administration of the 
 sacraments — ^the regulation of morahty — and also the care of the 
 poor ; remembering only that such works and institutions shall 
 not offend against the Gospel, nor be regarded as essential to 
 salvation, nor unalterable iu their pature. 
 
 Lastly, the Oonsenstjs consists in those doctrines concerning _ 
 things to come, which are already contained in the Creeds of 
 universal Christendom, and in aU that appertains to our hope in 
 Christ under crosses and sufferings, and in the general doctrine 
 concerning the Christian life and a blessed death. 
 
 Side by side with the Consensus, which lays the deepest 
 foundation for Christian brotherhood in the EvangeKcal Churches, 
 there does, indeed, subsist a difference of doctrine concerning the 
 Sacraments in general, and more especially concerning the Lord's 
 Supper, concerning Confession and the office of the Keys, and 
 concerning the Election of Grace ; which difference has arisen 
 within the pale of the Reformation, and is expressed more or less 
 clearly in the distinctive Creeds of the Protestant Churches. 
 Apart, however, from the circumstance that these differences are 
 not found in their most stringent form in those German Confes- 
 sions of faith which have obtained the most wide-spread author- 
 ity, and that for the most part they have gradually resolved 
 themselves into a multiplicity of theological interpretations and 
 private opinions of individual Christians, and a fresh exposition 
 of the points of disagreement having been made by both sides, 
 in* the manner indicated at the Conference held in Leipzig, 
 coiiceming the Articles of the Augsburg Coiffession and other 
 documents, it appears that, even with regard to these distinctive 
 doctrines themselves, a Consensus of considerable extent may be 
 attained, which points toward a common foundation in Scripture, 
 and may be now declared in the following terms, subject to any 
 further modification that may be agreed upon : Namely, as re- 
 gards the doctrine of Election, that which is contained in the fol- 
 lowing propositions, and which constitutes the practical aspect of 
 the dogma, may be regarded as the unambiguous Confession of 
 the Evangehcal Church: 
 
 1. Since it is the will of God, as revealed in Christ, that the 
 sinner should not die, but live — ^namely, that he should, suffer 
 
APPENDIX TO LETTER X. 43.^ 
 
 himself to be converted by the preaching of the cross, and be 
 saved by faith — ^the gracious calling of God is truly, and indeed, 
 extended to aU hearers of the Gospel. 
 
 2. Those,' however, who are effectually called, ought not to 
 ascribe it to their running or the merits of their faith, but solely 
 to the mercy and election of their God, who has made them ac- 
 ceptable in the Beloved, and those who do not obtain salvation 
 have not to ascribe it to the impotence of the Gospel, nor the in- 
 efficacy of God's gracious calling, but to their own disobedience 
 toward the Gospel, and their own striving against the spirit of 
 grace. 
 
 3. Those, however, who, being justified by faith, have peace 
 vnth God, and bring forth the fruits of righteousness, may, under 
 heavy assaults, take comfort in beUeving that the grace which 
 they have received in becoming believers is not temporal and 
 perishable, but that an eternal purpose and counsel of the love of 
 GcoA has been revealed ia them, and in the strength of this con- 
 solation strive to make their calling and election sure. 
 
 As touching the Sacraments, the same Evangelical Church 
 teaches with one. accord that : 
 
 1. Christ, in fellowship with whom is our salvation, has ob- 
 tained this salvation for us, and„appropriates it to us. The means 
 by which His grace operates are preaching and the seals of His 
 covenant. The seals of the covenant of grace are two, namely. 
 Baptism, and the Lord's Supper; the former serves to lay the 
 foundation of the whole life in covenant with the Saviour, the 
 latter aids the fulfilling, , renewal, and perfecting of the same. 
 What is aUke in both is that they are acts ordained by Christ in 
 the Church, to which are attached a mystery and a promise, and 
 are performed in the words which He has prescribed, by which a 
 participation in Him and His salvation is not merely typified and 
 offered, but pledged and secured. It is not the faith of the re- 
 cipient, but the grace of the invisible giver which works this 
 blessing, which blessing can neither be secm:ed nor frustrated at 
 the will of the visible administrant, but may be changed into a 
 curse and a judgment by the impenitence and hypocrisy of the 
 recipient. 
 
 2. Baptism is a holy rite of the Christian Church, by which a 
 justifying and quickening fellowship with the Redeemer is com- 
 menced in the hearts of the Called ; and since the Lord Himself 
 
440 APPENDIX TO LETTBB, X 
 
 has commanded us to bring children to Him that He may bless 
 them and give them his salvation, it may, and ouglit to be im- 
 parted to those of tender years, who are thereby received into 
 the sphere of the operations of His grace. 
 
 3. The Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is the seal and 
 means of a personal and a common covenant of grace with the 
 Lord, or the true communion of His Body and Blood, founded . 
 by Christ when He instituted the blessing of the Bread and of 
 the Gup, in which He conununicates to us the virtues of His life 
 and the blessings of His redemption from sin and death, that we 
 may be able to renew our strength, and to come off more than 
 conquerors in the warfare with the flesh, the world, and the 
 deviL 
 
 Finally, as touching Confession and the ofllce of the Keys, we 
 confess that the Church has, through the Apostles, received 
 authority, not only to preach the word of repentance to recon- 
 ciliation, but also to announce to such as confess their sins and 
 turn to God, forgiveness in Grod's name, on condition of a re- 
 pentant and beheving temper of mind, and to refuse it to such as 
 live in open vice, and neither confess mito repentance, nor ex- 
 hibit any fruits thereof. 
 
 THE END.