The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 20

"You have profited immensely by your opportunities," he said approvingly. "And the desire for learning has not yet left you?"

"This inordinate craving still continues to torment me," she acknowledged frankly.

"Inordinate--why inordinate?"

"Because, my station and calling do not require a high degree of culture. But it is so nice to know, and it is so nice to have refined intercourse with each others. For seven years I admired the elegant manners of the convent ladies, and I learned many a lesson from them."

"How old are you now?"

"Seventeen, Mr. Seraphin."

"What a pity you did not enter some higher educational inst.i.tution!"

said he.

A pause followed. He looked with reverence upon the artless girl whom G.o.d had so richly endowed, both in body and mind, Mechtild rose.

"Please accept, also, my most heartfelt thanks for your generous aid,"

she said, with emotion, "All my life long I shall remember you before G.o.d, Mr. Seraphin. The Almighty will surely repay you what alas! we cannot."

She made a courtesy, and he accompanied her through all the apartments as far as the front door. Here the girl, turning, bowed to him once more and went away.

Returning to his room, Seraphin stood and contemplated the grapes.

Strongly did the delicious fruit tempt him, but he touched not one. He then pulled out a drawer, and hid the gifts as though it were a costly treasure. For the rest of the day, Mechtild's bright form hovered near him, and the sweet charm of her eyes, so full of soul, continually worked on his imagination. When he again went into Louise's company, the grace and innocence of the country girl gained ground in his esteem. Compared with Mechtild's charming naturalness, Louise's manner appeared affected, spoiled; through evil influences. The difference in the expression of their eyes struck him especially. In Louise's eyes there burned a fierce glow at times, which roused pa.s.sion and stirred the senses. Mechtild's neither glowed nor flashed; but from their limpid depths beamed goodness so genuine and serenity so unclouded, that Seraphin could compare them to nothing but two heralds of peace and innocence. Louise's eyes, thought he, flash like two meteors of the night; Mechtild's beam like two mild suns in a cloudless sky of spring.

As often as he entered the room where the grapes lay concealed, he would unlock the drawer, examine the fragrant fruit, and handle the basket which had been carried by her hands. He could not himself help smiling at this childish action, and yet both great delicacy and deep earnestness are manifested in honoring objects that have been touched by pure hands, and in revering places hallowed by the presence of the good.

Next morning the banker asked his guest to accompany him to the church of S. Peter, where Hans Shund was to address a large gathering.

"In a church?" Gerlach exclaimed, with amazement.

"Don't get frightened, my good fellow. The church is no longer in the service of religion. It has been _secularized_ by the state, and is customarily used as a hall for dancing. There will be quite a crowd, for several able speakers are to discuss the question of common schools. The church has been chosen for the meeting on account of the crowd."

The millionaires drove to the desecrated church. A tumultuous ma.s.s swarmed about the portal. "Let us permit them to push us; we shall get in most easily by letting them do so," said the banker merrily. Two officious progressionists, recognizing the banker, opened a pa.s.sage for them through the throng. They reached the interior of the church, which was now an empty s.p.a.ce, stripped of every ornament proper to a house of G.o.d. In the sanctuary could yet be seen, as if in mournful abandonment, a large quadrangular slab, that had been the altar, and attached to one of the side walls was an exquisite Gothic pulpit, which on occasions like the present was used for a rostrum. Everywhere else reigned silence and desolation.

The nave was filled by a motley ma.s.s. The chieftains of progress, some elegantly dressed, others exhibiting frivolous miens and huge beards, crowded upon the elevation of the chancel. All the candidates for the legislature were present, not for the purpose of proving their qualifications for the office--progress never troubled itself about those--but to air their views on the subject of education. There were speakers on hand of acknowledged ability in the discussion of the doctrines of progress, who were to lay the result of their investigations before the people.

Seraphia also noted some anxious faces in the crowd. They were citizens, whose sons were alarmed at the thought of yielding up the training of their children into the hands of infidelity. And near the pulpit stood two priests, irreverently crowded against the wall, targets for the scornful pleasantries of the wits of the mob. Leader Schwefel was voted into the chair by acclamation. He thanked the a.s.sembly in a short speech for the honor conferred, and then announced that Mr. Till, member of the former a.s.sembly, would address the meeting. Amid murmurs of expectation a short, fat gentleman climbed into the pulpit. First a red face with a copper-tipped nose bobbed above the ledge of the pulpit, next came a pair of broad shoulders, upon which a huge head rested without the intermediary of a neck, two puffy hands were laid upon the desk, and the commencement of a well-rounded pauch could just be detected by the eye. Mr. Till, taking two handfuls of his s.h.a.ggy beard, drew them slowly through his fingers, looked composedly upon the audience, and breathed hotly through mouth and nostrils.

"Gentlemen," he began, with a voice that struggled out from a ma.s.s of flesh and fat, "I am not given to many words, you know. What need is there of many words and long speeches? We know what we want, and what we want we will have in spite of the machinations of Jesuits and the whinings of an ultramontane horde. You all know how I acquitted myself at the last legislature, and if you will again favor me with your suffrages, I will endeavor once more to give satisfaction. You know my record, and I shall remain staunch to the last."

Cries of "Good!" from various directions.

"Gentlemen! if you know my record, you must also be aware that I am pa.s.sionately fond of the chase. I even follow this amus.e.m.e.nt in the legislative hall. Our country abounds in a sort of black game, and for me it is rare sport to pursue this species of game in the a.s.sembly."

A wild tumult of applause burst forth. Jeers and coa.r.s.e witticisms were bandied about on every side of the two clergymen, who looked meekly upon these orgies of progress.

"Gentlemen!" Till continued, "the _blacks_ are a dangerous kind of wild beast. They have heretofore been ranging in a preserve, feeding on the fat of the land. That is an abuse that challenges the wrath of heaven.

It must be done away with. The beasts of prey that in the dark ages dwelt in castles have long since been exterminated, and their rocky lairs have been reduced to ruins. Well, now, let us keep up the chase in both houses of the legislature until the last of these _black_ beasts is destroyed. Should you entrust to me again your interests, I shall return to the seat of government, to aid with renewed energy in ridding the land of these creatures that are enemies both of education and liberty."

Amid prolonged applause the fat man descended. The chieftains shook him warmly by the hand, a.s.suring him that the cause absolutely demanded his being reelected.

Gerlach was aghast at Till's speech. He hardly knew which deserved most scorn, the vulgarity of the speaker or the abjectness of those who had applauded him. Their wild enthusiasm was still surging through the building, when Hans Shund mounted the pulpit. The chairman rang for order; the tumult ceased. In mute suspense the mult.i.tude awaited the great speech of the notorious usurer, thief, and debauchee. And indeed, progress might well entertain great expectations, for Hans Shund had read a pile of progressionist pamphlets, had extracted the strong pa.s.sages, and out of them had concocted a right racy speech. His speech might with propriety have been designated the Gospel of Progress, for Hans Shund had made capital of whatever freethinkers had lucubrated in behalf of so-called enlightenment, and in opposition to Christianity.

The very appearance of the speaker gave great promise. His were not coa.r.s.e features and goggle eyes like Till's; his piercing feline eyes looked intellectual. His face was rather pale, the result, no doubt, of unusual application, and he had skilfully dyed his sandy hair. His position as mayor of the city seemed also to ent.i.tle him to special attention, and these several claims were enhanced by a white necktie, white vest, and black cloth swallowtail coat.

"Gentlemen," began the mayor with solemnity, "my honorable predecessor in this place has told you with admirable sagacity that the kernel of every political question is of a religious character. Indeed, religion is linked with every important question of the day, it is the _ratio ultima_ of the intellectual movement of our times. Men of thought and of learning are all agreed as to the condition to which our social life should be and must be brought. The friends of the people are actively and earnestly at work trying to further a healthy development of our social and political status. Nor have their efforts been utterly fruitless. Progress has made great conquests; yet, gentlemen, these conquests are far from being complete. What is it that is most hostile to liberalism in morals, to enlightenment, and to humanity? It is the antiquated faith of departed days. Have we not heard the language of the Holy Father in the Syllabus? But the Holy Father at Rome, gentlemen, is no father of ours--happily he is the father only of stupid and credulous men."

"Bravo! Well said!" resounded from the audience. Flaschen nudged Spitzkopf, who sat next to him. "Shund is no mean speaker. Even that fellow Voelk, of Bavaria, cannot compete with Shund."

"Gentlemen, our good sense teaches us to smile with pity at the infallible declarations of yon Holy Father. We are firmly convinced that papal decrees can no more stop the onward march of civilization than they can arrest the heavenly bodies in their journeys about the sun. 'Tis true, an [oe]c.u.menical council is lowering like a black storm-cloud. But let the council meet; let it declare the Syllabus an article of faith; it will never succeed in destroying the treasures of independent thought which creative intellects have been h.o.a.rding up for centuries among every people. Since men of culture have ceased to yield unquestioning submission, like dumb sheep, to the church, they have begun to discover that nowhere are so many falsehoods uttered as in pulpits."

Tremendous applause, clapping, and swinging of hats, followed this eloquent period. A distinguished gentleman, laying his hand upon Till's shoulder, asked: "What calibre of ammunition do you use in hunting _black_ game?"

"Conical b.a.l.l.s of two centimetres," replied Till, with no great wit.

"Yon fellow in the pulpit fires sh.e.l.ls of a hundredweight, I should say. And if in the legislative a.s.sembly his sh.e.l.ls all explode, not a man of them will be left alive."

Till thought this witticism so good that he set up a loud roar of laughter, that could be heard above the general uproar.

Stimulated by these marks of appreciation, Shund waxed still more eloquent. "Gentlemen," cried he, "no body of men is more savagely opposed to science and culture than a conventicle of so-called servants of G.o.d. Were you to repeat the multiplication table several times over, there would be as much prayer and sense in it as in what is designated the Apostles' Creed."

More cheering and boundless enthusiasm. "Gentlemen!" exclaimed the speaker, with thundering emphasis and a hideous expression of hatred on his face, "the significance of religious dogmas is simply a sort of hom[oe]opathic concoction to which every succeeding age contributes some drops of fanaticism. Subjected to the microscope of science, the whole basis of the Christian church evaporates into thin mist. We must s.h.i.+eld our children against religious fables. Away with dogmas and saws from the Bible; away with the Trinity; the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and other such stuff! Away with apothegms such as this: _Christ is my life, my death, and my gain._ Such things are opposed to nature.

Children's minds are thereby warped to untruthfulness and hyprocrisy.

In this manner the child is deprived of the power of thinking; loses all interest in intellectual pursuits, and ceases to feel the need of further culture. The times are favorable for a reformation. Our imperial and royal rulers have at length realized that minds must be set free. For this end it was as unavoidable for them to break with the church and priesthood as it is necessary for us. If we cherish our fatherland and the people, we must take the initiative. We are not striving to effect a revolution; we want intellectual development, profounder knowledge, and healthier morality.

"Shall peace be seen beneath our skies, The spirit's freedom first must rise,"

concluded the orator poetically, and he came down amidst a very hurricane of applause.

There followed a lull. In the audience, heads protruded and necks were stretched that their possessors might obtain a glimpse of the great Shund. In the chancel, the chiefs and leaders crowded around him, smiling, bowing, and shaking his hand in admiration.

"You have won the laurels," smirked a fellow from amidst a wilderness of beard.

"Your election to the a.s.sembly is a certainty," declared another.

"You carry deadly weapons against Christ," said a professor.

Mr. Hans smiled, and nodded so often that he was seized with a pain in the muscles of the face and neck. At length, the chairman's bell came to the rescue.

"The Rev. Mr. Morgenroth will now address the meeting."

The clergyman mounted the rostrum, but scarcely had he appeared there, when the crowd became possessed by a legion of hissing demons.

"Gentlemen," began the fearless priest, "the duty of my calling as well as personal conviction demands that I should enter a solemn protest against the sundering of school and church."

Further the priest was not allowed to proceed. Loud howling, hissing, and whistling drowned his voice. The president called for order.

"In the name of good-breeding, I beg this most honorable a.s.sembly to hear the speaker out in patience," cried Mr. Schwefel.

The mob relaxed into unwilling silence like a growling beast.