The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 36

His better friend, Schiller, wrote of him to Koerner, 'His mind is not calm enough, because his domestic relations, which he is too weak to change, cause him great vexation.' Koerner answered, 'Men cannot violate morality with impunity.' Six years later, the 'n.o.ble' Goethe was married to his 'mistress' at Weimar. Goethe's detestable political principles are well known. He did not possess a spark of patriotism. He composed hymns of victory to Napoleon, the tyrant, the destroyer and desolator of Germany. These are the heroes of modern sentiment, the advance guard of liberty, morality, and true manhood! And these heroes so far succeeded that the n.o.ble Arndt wrote of his time, 'We are base, cowardly, and stupid; too poor for love, too listless for anger, too imbecile for hate. Undertaking everything, accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing; willing every thing, without the power of doing any thing.' So far has this boasted freethinking created disrespect for revealed truth. So far this modern civilization, which idealizes the pa.s.sions, leads to mockery of religion and lets loose the baser pa.s.sions of man. If they cast these representatives of the times in bronze, they should stamp on the foreheads of their statues the words of Arndt:

"'We are base, cowardly, and stupid; too poor for love, too listless for anger, too imbecile for hate. Undertaking every thing, accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing; willing every thing, without the power of doing any thing.'"

"You are severe, doctor."

"I am not severe. It is the truth."

"How does it happen that a people so weak, feeble, and base could overthrow the power of the French in the world?"

"That was because the German people were not yet corrupted by that shallow, unreal, hollow twaddle of the educated cla.s.ses about humanity.

It was not the princes, not the n.o.bility, who overthrew Napoleon. It was the German people who did it. When, in 1813, the Germans rose, in hamlet and city, they staked their property and lives for fatherland.

But it was not the enlightened poets and professors, not modern sentimentality, that raised their hearts to this great sacrifice; not these who enkindled this enthusiasm for fatherland. It was the religious element that did it. The German warriors did not sing Goethe's hymns to Napoleon, nor the insipid model song of 'Luetzows wilder Jagd,' as they rushed into battle. They sang religious hymns, they prayed before the altars. They recognized, in the terrible judgment on Russia's ice-fields, the avenging hand of G.o.d. Trusting in G.o.d, and nerved by religious exaltation, they took up the sword that had been sharpened by the previous calamities of war. So the feeble philanthropists could effect nothing. It was only a religious, healthy, strong people could do that."

"But the saints, doctor! We have wandered from them."

"Not at all! We have thrown some light on inimical shadows; the light can now s.h.i.+ne. The lives of the saints exhibit something wonderful and remarkable. I have studied them carefully. I have sought to know their aims and efforts. I discovered that they imitated the example of Christ, that they realized the exalted teachings of the Redeemer. You find fault with their contempt for the things of this world. But it is precisely in this that these men are great. Their object was not the ephemeral, but the enduring. They considered life but as the entrance to the eternal destiny of man--in direct opposition to the spirit of the times, that dances about the golden calf. The saints did not value earthly goods for more than they were worth. They placed them after self-control and victory over our baser nature. Exact and punctual in all their duties, they were animated by an admirable spirit of charity for their fellow-men. And in this spirit they have frequently revived society. Consider the great founders of orders--St. Benedict, St.

Dominic, St. Vincent de Paul! Party spirit, malice, and stupidity have done their worst to blacken, defame, and calumniate them. And yet, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, the sons of St. Benedict came among the German barbarians, to bring to them the enn.o.bling doctrines of Christianity. It was the Benedictines who cleared the primeval forests, educated their wild denizens, and founded schools; who taught the barbarians handiwork and agriculture. Science and knowledge flourished in the cloisters. And to the monks alone we are indebted for the preservation of cla.s.sic literature. What the monks did then they are doing now. They forsake home, break all ties, and enter the wilderness, there to be miserably cut off in the service of their exalted mission, or to die of poisonous fevers. Name me one of your modern heroes, whose mouths are full of civilization, humanity, enlightenment--name me one who is capable of such sacrifice. These prudent gentlemen remain at home with their gold-bags and their pleasures, and leave the stupid monk to die in the service of exalted charity. It is the hypocrisy and the falsehood of the modern spirit to exalt itself, and belittle true worth. And what did St. Vincent de Paul do? More than all the gold-bags together. St. Vincent, alone, solved the social problem of his time. He was, in his time, the preserver of society, or rather, Christianity through him. And to-day our gold-bags tremble before the apparition of the same social problem. Here high-sounding phrases and empty declamation do not avail. Deeds only are of value. But the inflated spirit of the times is not capable of n.o.ble action. It is not the modern state--not enlightened society, sunk in egotism and gold--that can save us. Christianity alone can do it. Social development will prove this."

"I do not dispute the services of the saints to humanity," said Frank.

"But the question is, Whether society would be benefited if the fanatical, dark spirit of the middle ages prevailed, instead of the spirit of modern times?"

"The fanatical, dark spirit of the middle ages!" cried the doctor indignantly. "This is one of those fallacious phrases. The saints were not fanatical or dark. They were open, cheerful, natural, humble men.

They did not go about with bowed necks and downcast eyes; but affable, free from hypocrisy, and dark, sullen demeanor, they pa.s.sed through life. Many saints were poets. St. Francis sang his spiritual hymns to the accompaniment of the harp. St. Charles played billiards. The holy apostle, St. John, resting from his labors, amused himself in childish play with a bird. Such were these men; severe toward themselves, mild to others, uncompromising with the base and mean. They were all abstinent and simple, allowing themselves only the necessary enjoyments. They concealed from observation their severe mode of life, and smiled while their shoulders bled from the discipline. Pride, avarice, envy, voluptuousness, and all the bad pa.s.sions, were strangers to them; not because they had not the inclinations to these pa.s.sions, but because they restrained and overcame their lower nature.

"I ask you, now, which men deserve our admiration--those who are governed by unbounded selfishness, who are slaves to their pa.s.sions, who deny themselves no enjoyment, and who boast of their degrading licentiousness; or those who, by reason of a pure life, are strong in the government of their pa.s.sions, and self-sacrificing in their charity for their fellowmen?"

"The preference cannot be doubtful," said Frank. "For the saints have accomplished the greatest, they have obtained the highest thing, self-control. But, doctor, I must condemn that saint-wors.h.i.+p as it is practised now. Human greatness always remains human, and can make no claims to divine honor."

The doctor swung his arms violently. "What does this reproach amount to? Where are men deified? In the Catholic Church? I am a Protestant, but I know that your church condemns the deification of men."

"Doctor," said Frank, "my religious ignorance deserves this rebuke."

"I meant no rebuke. I would only give conclusions. Catholicism is precisely that power that combats with success against the deifying of men. You have in the course of your studies read the Roman cla.s.sics.

You know that divine wors.h.i.+p was offered to the Roman emperors. So far did heathen flattery go, that the emperors were honored as the sons of the highest divinity--Jupiter. Apotheosis is a fruit of heathen growth; of old heathenism and of new heathenism. When Voltaire, that idol of modern heathen wors.h.i.+p, was returning to Paris in 1778, he was in all earnestness promoted to the position of a deity. This remarkable play took place in the theatre. Voltaire himself went there. Modern fanaticism so far lost all shame that the people kissed the horse on which the philosopher rode to the theatre. Voltaire was scarcely able to press through the crowd of his wors.h.i.+ppers. They touched his clothes--touched handkerchiefs to them--plucked hairs from his fur coat to preserve as relics. In the theatre they fell on their knees before him and kissed his feet. Thus that tendency that calls itself free and enlightened deified a man--Voltaire, the most trifling scoffer, the most unprincipled, basest man of Christendom.

"Let us consider an example of our times. Look at Garibaldi in London.

That man permitted himself to be set up and wors.h.i.+pped. The saints would have turned away from this stupidity with loathing indignation.

But this boundless, veneration flattered the old pirate Garibaldi. He received 267,000 requests for locks of his hair, to be cased in gold and preserved as relics. Happily he had not much hair. He should have graciously given them his moustaches and whiskers."

Frank smiled. Klingenberg's pace increased, and his arms swung more briskly.

"Such is the man-wors.h.i.+p of modern heathenism. This humanitarianism is ashamed of no absurdity, when it sinks to the wors.h.i.+p of licentiousness and baseness personified."

"The senseless aberrations of modern culture do not excuse saint-wors.h.i.+p. And you certainly do not wish to excuse it in that way.

There is, however, a reasonable veneration of human greatness.

Monuments are erected to great men. We behold them and are reminded of their genius, their services; and there it stops. It occurs to no reasonable man to venerate these men on his knees, as is done with the saints."

"The bending of the knee, according to the teaching of your church, does not signify adoration, but only veneration," replied Klingenberg.

"Before no Protestant in the world would I bend the knee; before St.

Benedict and St. Vincent de Paul I would willingly, out of mere admiration and esteem for their greatness of soul and their purity of morals. If a Catholic kneels before a saint to ask his prayers, what is there offensive in that? It is an act of religious conviction. But I will not enter into the religious question. This you can learn better from your Catholic brethren--say from the Angel of Salingen, for example, who appears to have such veneration for the saints."

"You will not enter into the religious question; yet you defend saint-wors.h.i.+p, which is something religious."

"I do not defend it on religious grounds, but from history, reason, and justice. History teaches that this veneration had, and still has, the greatest moral influence on human society. The spirit of veneration consists in imitating the example of the person venerated. Without this spirit, saint-wors.h.i.+p is an idle ceremony. But that true veneration of the saints elevates and enn.o.bles, you cannot deny. Let us take the queen of saints, Mary. What makes her worthy of veneration? Her obedience to the Most High, her humility, her strength of soul, her chast.i.ty. All these virtues s.h.i.+ne out before the spiritual eyes of her wors.h.i.+ppers as models and patterns of life. I know a lady, very beautiful, very wealthy; but she is also very humble, very pure, for she is a true wors.h.i.+pper of Mary. Would that our women would venerate Mary and choose her for a model! There would then be no coquettes, no immodest women, no enlightened viragoes. Now, as saint-wors.h.i.+p is but taking the virtues of the saints as models for imitation, you must admit that veneration in this sense has the happiest consequences to human society."

"I admit it--to my great astonishment, I must admit it," said Richard.

"Let us take a near example," continued Klingenberg. "I told you of the singular qualities of Angela. As she pa.s.sed, I beheld her with wonder.

I must confess her beauty astonished me. But this astonis.h.i.+ng beauty, it appears to me, is less in her charming features than in the purity, the maidenly dignity of her character. Perhaps she has to thank, for her excellence, that same correct taste which leads her to venerate Mary. Would not Angela make an amiable, modest, dutiful wife and devoted mother? Can you expect to find this wife, this mother among those given to fas.h.i.+ons--among women filled with modern notions?"

While Klingenberg said this, a deep emotion pa.s.sed over Richard's face.

He did not answer the question, but let his head sink on his breast.

"Here is Frankenhohe," said the doctor. "As you make no more objections, I suppose you agree with me. The saints are great, admirable men; therefore they deserve monuments. They are models of virtue and the greatest benefactors of mankind; therefore they deserve honor. '_Quod erat demonstrandum._'"

"I only wonder, doctor, that you, a Protestant, can defend such views."

"You will allow Protestants to judge reasonably," replied Klingenberg.

"My views are the result of careful study and impartial reflection."

"I am also astonished--pardon my candor--that with such views you can remain a Protestant."

"There is a great difference between knowing and willing, my young friend. I consider conversion an act of great heroism, and also as a gift of the highest grace."

Richard wrote in his diary:

"If Angela should be what the doctor considers her! According to my notions, such a being exists only in the realm of the ideal. But if Angela yet realizes this ideal? I must be certain. I will visit Siegwart to-morrow."

CHAPTER IV.

THE BUREAUCRAT AND THE SWALLOWS.

Herr Frank returned to the city. Before he went he took advantage of the absence of Richard, who had gone out about nine o'clock, to converse with Klingenberg about matters of importance. They sat in the doctor's studio, the window of which was open. Frank closed it before he began the conversation.

"Dear friend, I must speak to you about a very distressing peculiarity of my son. I do so because I know your influence over him, and I hope much from it."

Klingenberg listened with surprise, for Herr Frank had begun in great earnestness and seemed greatly depressed.

"On our journey from the city, I discovered in Richard, to my great surprise, a deep-seated antipathy, almost an abhorrence of women. He is determined never to marry. He considers marriage a misfortune, inasmuch as it binds a man to the whims and caprices of a wife. If I had many sons, Richard's idiosyncrasy would be of little consequence; but as he is my only son and very stubborn in his preconceived opinions, you will see how very distressing it must be to me."

"What is the cause of this antipathy of your son to women?"

Herr Frank related Richard's account of his meeting with Isabella and his knowledge of the unhappy marriage of his friend Emil.