Chapter XXXIII: Part II: Sonnet--Rydal with Wordsworth (10)

Is there any particular in which the Protestant Episcopal Church fairly takes hold of the family? We have seen that she abandons to politicians the sacred tie between the parents; what has she to do with the next domestic concern--the education of the child? Dr. Wharton holds it to be one of her distinguishing claims to public favor that she abandons this duty also to the secular power. The right to control education, according to him, is, like the right to sanction the marriage tie, one of the insolent pretensions of the Vatican usurper. The state, he thinks, is bound not only to educate all its subjects, but to decide what points a secular education shall cover, while the church may only add to this irreligious training such pious instruction as the child may have time and strength to receive after the more serious lessons are over. “The church,” he says, “concedes to the state the right and duty to require a secular education from all, while for itself it undertakes, as a free church in a free state, the right and duty to give a religious education to all within its reach.” Expressed in somewhat plainer English, this means that thirty hours a week ought to be given to the dictionary and multiplication table, and one hour to the catechism and the ten commandments. Send your children to schools all the week where they will hear nothing whatever of religion, where that most vital of all concerns will be a forbidden subject, where the idea will be practically, if not in so many words, impressed upon their tender minds that it is of no consequence whether they are Christians, or Jews, or infidels, so long as they master the various branches of worldly knowledge which promote success in the secular affairs of life; and then get them into Sunday-school if you can, for a wild and ineffectual attempt to counteract the evil tendencies of the previous six days’ teachings. This is trying to give a Christian education without the corner-stone of Christian doctrine; building a house upon the sand, and then running around it once a week with a hatful of pebbles and a trowel of mud to put a foundation under the finished structure. Dr. Wharton seems to embody in his own person a surprising variety of the inconsistencies for which the Protestant Episcopal Church has such a peculiar celebrity. For here, after he has claimed credit for his church as the champion of a secular education, he tells the Congress that secularism is one of the great dangers of the age, against which the church must fight with all her strength. “The battle with secularism has to be fought out.” It must be fought “by the church, and eminently by our own church. Our duty therefore is to fit ourselves for the encounter, and we must do this with the cause of religion, undertaking in its breadth and embracing all branches of religious, spiritual, and ethical culture.” Well, but, dear sir, you have just said that during the most important period of man’s intellectual development, when the mind is receiving impressions which are likely to last through life, the church ought to stand aside and let the state _teach_ secularism without hindrance. Are you going to cultivate secularism in the young until it becomes firmly rooted, and then fight against it with sermons and essays which your secularized young men will not listen to? How do you expect to impart religious, spiritual, and ethical culture when you have formally renounced your inestimable privilege and your sacred duty as a guide and teacher of children? You propose to wait until your boys have come to man’s estate before you attempt to exercise any influence upon them; and then, when they have grown up with the idea that religious influence ought to be avoided as one avoids pestilence, you wonder and complain that they are indifferent to the church and will not hear you. “The battle with secularism has to be fought out.” Your way of fighting is to abandon the outposts, leave front and rear and flanks unprotected, and throw away your arms.

It was one of the peculiarities of the Congress that whatever error was promulgated in the essays and debates, somewhere in the course of the sessions an antidote was sure to be furnished--this being an illustration, we suppose, of the extreme toleration of opinion to which Bishop Clarke referred as “somewhat singular” in a church “so fixed in its doctrines.” Hence we need not be surprised to find in the second day’s proceedings a refutation of the educational theories propounded during the first. Dr. Wharton made use of the principle of secular schooling as a weapon of offence against the Vatican. But when the delegates had relieved their minds and vindicated their Protestant orthodoxy by giving the poor Pope about as much as he could stagger away with, they turned their attention to their own condition, and one of their first subjects of inquiry was what secular education had done for them. The topic of consideration on the second morning was “The Best Methods of Procuring and Preparing Candidates for the Ministry.” Dr. Schenck of Brooklyn began by stating that the supply of candidates for holy orders was not only inadequate to the needs of the church, but it was falling off--a smaller number offering themselves to-day than six or seven years ago. This, said he, should excite the gravest concern of the church; and nobody seemed disposed to contradict him. Dr. Edward B. Boggs indeed presented some uncomfortable statistics which tell the whole story. In 1871, the number of resident presbyters of the Episcopal Church in the United States was 2,566; in 1874, it was only 2,530. Here, then while the population increases the clergy are diminishing. A great many reasons were suggested for the phenomenon. One thought the question of salary was at the bottom of the evil. Another blamed mothers for not giving their boys a taste for the ministry while they were young. A third believed the trouble was too little prayer and too much quarrelling over candles and ecclesiastical millinery. And more than one hinted in the broadest terms that the ministry was discredited by having too many fools in it.[174] The truth, however, which had been vaguely suggested by some of the earlier speakers, was plumply told by Dr. Edward Sullivan of Chicago. “The church,” said he, “must learn to supply the ranks of the ministry from her own material”--that is to say, by giving the children of the church a Christian education. He lamented the exclusion of the Bible from some of the common schools as a national calamity--not, if we understand him, because he has any overweening faith in the efficacy of Bible-reading _per se_, but because he knows that when positive religious teaching is banished from the school, the children can hardly fail to grow up without any religious feeling whatever. “_Until we establish parochial church schools_,” he continued, “_we can never solve this problem._” And he might have added that if the teaching of secularism is to be continued for a generation or two longer, the problem will solve itself: there will be no need of preachers when there cease to be congregations.

If such an alarming phenomenon as an actual falling off in the numbers of the clergy were noticed in our own holy church, it would perhaps occur to good Catholics to inquire whether the bishops were doing all that they ought to do for the souls of their people. But the Episcopal Congress at Philadelphia seems to have been vexed with the idea that the bishops were doing entirely too much. Looking at the assemblage from the outside, we cannot pretend to see the under-currents of opinion, or to comprehend the denominational politics; but it was plain both from the tone of the addresses in the session set apart for considering the “Nature and Extent of Episcopal Authority” and from the manner in which some of the remarks of the speakers were received, that a jealousy of episcopal authority prevailed with considerable bitterness. Dr. Vinton of Boston drew a parallel between the government of the church and the government of the state; both were ruled by executives appointed by law and controlled by law, and in each case the chief officer acted by the assumed authority of those he governed. The bishops therefore, we infer, have just as much power as the people choose to give them, and we see no reason why the congregations should not enlarge and restrict that power at pleasure--make a new constitution, if they wish, every year, and treat their prelates as the savage treats his idol, which he sets upon an altar for worship in the morning, and if things go not well with him, kicks into the kennel at night. Indeed, since the foundation of the Anglican Church the episcopate has always been treated with scant ceremony. Dr. Vinton tells us that it is a reflex of the political organization, and as that has varied a great deal in England and America, and is not unlikely in the course of time to vary a great deal more, we must not be surprised to find the system undergoing many strange modifications and holding out the promise of further change indefinitely. In the primitive church, the episcopacy was a despotism. In the Anglican Church, it is “merely an ecclesiastical aristocracy.” In the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, where the exigencies of politics have to be considered, it is--well, that is just what the Congress tried in vain to determine. For one thing, Dr. Vinton and other speakers after him laid great stress upon the fact that its authority was carefully circumscribed by statute, and that the church was a corporation--though whence it derived its charter nobody was good enough to tell us. In truth, we did not find the day’s proceedings edifying. Dr. Vinton declared that an organic evil of the church constitution, “boding more of mischief and sorrow to the body of Christ than any or all of the evils besides that our age makes possible,” was the liability of bishops to grow arrogant of power, to make their authority troublesome, to put on idle pomp, and set themselves “in conspicuous difference from the taste, the traditions, the educated and intelligent convictions which the providence of God has caused to rule in this land.” Dr. Fulton of Indianapolis inveighed with warmth against any bishop who ventured to intrude into another man’s diocese, and remarked that “some bishops were never at home unless they were abroad.” A bishop, continued the doctor, is subject to civil law. He should be tried for violation of the ninth commandment if he wilfully slander a clergyman either in or out of his own diocese. Bishops must not affect infallibility in doctrinal utterances. They must remember that in more than one respect they and their presbyters are equals. A bishop who would be respected must respect the rights of other bishops--not being an episcopal busybody in other men’s sees. Dr. Goodwin of Philadelphia thought that what our Lord meant to have was “a moderate episcopate.” Dr. Washburn of New York believed that even the powers granted to the apostles were not exclusive, and that ever since the apostolic age these powers had been gradually more and more distributed, until now, we should think, they must be so finely divided that no fragment of them is anywhere visible in the Episcopal Church.

Dr. J. V. Lewis convulsed the house with laughter by a speech in which he declared that the bishops had been so “tied hand and foot by conventions and canons that it was wonderful they had time to do anything but find out what they must not do”; and he called upon the church to “cut those bands and let the bishops loose.” We quote from the report of his remarks in the _Church Journal_: “What will they do? He would tell them what they would do. He had at home in his yard six chickens about half-grown. He had placed among them a turkey big enough to eat any of them up. But they all flew at him. One little fellow pecked him and spurred him savagely. The turkey looked on in perfect astonishment, apparently; but at length he spread out his wings and literally _sat down_ upon him. From that day to this, whenever that turkey stirs, these chickens cannot be kept from following him. And this is just what will happen in the church, if we will only let our bishops loose.” All this was the cause of much innocent hilarity among the brethren; but we fear that it was to Dr. Lewis that the _Churchman_ referred the next week in the following solemn strain: “It is a sad circumstance that the ministry has in it, here and there, a professional joker and cheap story-teller and anecdote-monger, one of the most tedious and least estimable types of foolishness that try Christian endurance and vex religious families. It is to be hoped no such melancholy-moving buffoon will ever propose himself as clown to the Church Congress; and, short of that, will it be wise to confer the award of the heartiest and loudest applause on a sort of comic pleasantry and ‘jesting not convenient’ which, at best, is outdone in its own line in whole columns of daily newspapers? We may smile, because it cannot be helped, but we can surely reserve our plaudits--if they must be given at all--for that species of superiority which manifests a chaste refinement and suits tastes that are intellectual rather than jovial.”

Clearly there was a great deal more in these essays on the limitations of episcopal authority than met the profane eye. Who are the trespassers upon other men’s sheepfolds, and the busybodies, and the slanderers, and the pompous bishops, and the infallible bishops, and the bishops who think themselves better than their presbyters, it is not for us to inquire. Neither perhaps would it be decorous to ask how the ten or twelve bishops in the Congress--none of whom opened their mouths during the debate--enjoyed the session. But there is excellent reason to believe that the presbyters had a very pleasant day, singing the opening hymn in the morning, “Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly dove,” with peculiar unction, and joyously dismissing their right reverend fathers in the afternoon with the verses, “Go forth, ye heralds, in my name.”

If the bishops are in disrepute and the inferior clergy are falling away, it can hardly be necessary to tell us that the church has no real hold upon the people; that follows as a matter of course. Accordingly, the most interesting of the debates were on the best methods of giving vitality to the work of the church--on ministrations to the laboring classes, on free churches and free preaching, on the abuses of the new system, and on the need of something equivalent to the preaching Orders and Congregations of our own church. Of all the papers read at the Congress the only one which was received with what we may fairly call enthusiasm was an essay by Mr. Francis Wells, editor of the Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, on the “Parochial System and Free Preaching,” at the close of which one of the reverend delegates jumped upon a bench and led the assembly in three cheers. We have seen no report which gives a fair abstract of Mr. Wells’ paper, or even explains what practical suggestions he had to offer, so that it is impossible to understand what it was that moved the feelings of the Congress. But if he drew a faithful picture of the average Episcopal Church of our day he may well have startled his audience. “The chief trouble,” he said, “lies in the spirit of exclusiveness which eyes the fashion of the dress and warns off strangers with a cold stare.” He was quite right in holding that the renting of pews and the expenditure of large sums of money for the adornment of the house of God are not necessarily obstacles to the influence of the church over the masses. Our own experience proves that. What poor and ragged sinner was ever repelled from a Catholic Church by imposing architecture, or gorgeous windows, or the blazing magnificence of lighted altars, or the strains of costly music? The rich have their pews--at least in this country, where it is only by pew-rents that we can meet the necessary expenses of the parish--but the most wretched beggar feels that he is welcome at all times in the splendid temple, and he may kneel there, feasting the senses, if he pleases, as well as refreshing the soul, without fear that his more comfortable neighbor will stare at his humble garments. Whatever the character of our churches, it is always the poor who fill them. It never occurs to a Catholic that the people who pay pew-rents acquire any proprietorship in the house of God, or have any better right there than those who pay nothing. The sermons are never made for the rich, and the Holy Sacrifice is offered for all indiscriminately. But in the Episcopal Church how different it is!

Imagine the feelings of a mechanic who approaches one of the luxurious Fifth-Avenue temples in his patched and stained working trowsers and threadbare coat. Carriages are setting down the _haut ton_ at the door, every lady dressed in the extreme of fashion, every gentleman carefully arrayed by an expensive tailor. A high-priced sexton, with rather more dignity than an average bishop, receives the distinguished arrivals just inside the lobby, and scrutinizes strangers with the air of an expert who has learned by long experience in the highest circles just what kind of company every casual visitor has probably been in the habit of keeping. The interior of the church somehow suggests a Madison-Avenue parlor, furnished in the latest style of imitation antique. The upholstery is a marvel of comfort. The pleasantly subdued light suits the eyes and softens the complexions of Christians who have been up late dancing. A decorous quiet pervades the waiting congregation, broken only by the rustle of five-dollar silks sweeping up the aisles. Such a handsome display of millinery can be seen nowhere else for so little money. What is a working-man to do in such a brilliant gathering as this? He looks timidly at the back seats, and he finds there perhaps two or three old women, parish pensioners, Sunday-school boys, or young men who keep near the door in order to slip out quietly when they are tired of the services, but nobody of his class. The prosperous people all around him listen to the choir, and the reader, and the preacher, with an indescribable air of proprietorship in all of them. The sermon is an elaborate essay addressed to cultivated intellects, not to his common understanding. He goes away with the uncomfortable consciousness that he has been intruding, and feels like a shabby and unkempt person who has strolled by mistake into the stockholders’ row at the Italian Opera, and been turned out by a high-toned box-keeper. “It is indeed hard to imagine,” said _The Nation_ the other day, “anything more likely to make religion seem repelling to a poor man than the sight of one of the gorgeous edifices in which rich Christians nowadays try to make their way to heaven. Working out one’s salvation clothed in the height of the fashion, as a member of a wealthy club, in a building in which the amplest provision is made for the gratification of all the finer senses, must seem to a thoughtful city mechanic, for instance, something in the nature of a burlesque. Not that the building is too good for the lofty purpose to which it is devoted, for nobody ever gets an impression of anything but solemn appropriateness from a great Catholic cathedral, but that it is the property of a close corporation, who, as it might be said, ‘make up a party’ to go to the Throne of Grace, and share the expenses equally, and fix the rate so high that only successful businessmen can join.”

But we heed not enlarge upon the prevalence of this evil. The speakers at the Congress recognized it frankly, and they are undoubtedly aware, though they may not have deemed it prudent to confess, that the case is growing more and more serious all the time. As wealth concentrates in the large cities and habits of luxury increase, the Protestant Episcopal Church is continually becoming colder and colder towards the poor. No remedy that has been proposed holds out the faintest promise of stopping this alarming decline. No remedy proposed even meets the approbation of any considerable number of the Episcopal clergy. One speaker proposes a greater number of free congregations, and is met by the obvious objection that the result would be a still more lamentable separation between rich and poor, with a different class of churches for each set. Another recommends the bishops to send missionary preachers into every parish where there seems to be need of their labor, but does not tell us where the missionaries are to be found, and forgets that almost every parish in the United States would have to be supplied in this way before the evil could be cured. A third advises the rich and poor to meet together, and fraternize and help each other; and a fourth calls for more zeal all around. All these proposals are merely various ways of stating the disease; they do not indicate remedies. Perhaps it may occur to some people that if the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church correspond so closely in their outward operations, both striving to celebrate divine worship with all possible splendor, both building costly churches and supporting them by pew-rents, both employing highly paid choirs, both keeping up a system of parishes, and if all the while the one gathers people of every rank and condition into her fold, offering health and consolation to all alike, while the other is constantly losing the affections of the multitude and becoming a lifeless creature of forms and fashions, the explanation of the difference after all may be that the Holy Ghost lives and works in the one, while the other is only the device of man.

YULE RAPS.

_A CHRISTMAS STORY._

We once saw a picture of a wide, undulating snow-landscape, overspread with a pale rosy tint from the west, and we thought it a fancy picture of an Arctic winter. It hung in a pretty room in a Silesian country-house. The weather was lovely, warm but temperate; it was mid-June, and the woods were full of wild strawberries, and the meadows of forget-me-nots. Yet that landscape was simply Silesia in the winter; the same place, six months later, becomes a wilderness of snow. What shall we say of Mecklenburg, then, so much farther to the north of Silesia? But even there winter brings merriment; and as in these snow-bound countries there is less work to be got through in the winter, their people associate the ideas of pleasure and holiday with the cold rather than the warm weather. In Mecklenburg spring, summer, and autumn mean work--ploughing, sowing, haying, harvesting; winter means fun and frolic, peasants’ dances, farmers’ parties, weddings, christenings, harvest-homes, Christmas, New Year’s, and Epiphany presents, gatherings of friends, fireside talk, innocent games, and general merriment.

In a little village in this province the house of Emanuel Köhler was famous for its jollity. Here were old customs well kept up, yet always with decorum and a regard to higher matters. Emanuel was virtually master of the estate of Stelhagen, the absentee owner of which was a gay young officer who never wrote to his agent, except for a new supply of money. Clever and enlightened an agriculturist as old Köhler was, it was sometimes difficult for him to send the required sums, and yet have enough to farm the estate to his satisfaction. In the language of the country, he was called the inspector, and his house, also according to the local custom, was a kind of informal agricultural school. At the time of our story he had four young men under him--who were in all respects like the apprentices of the good old time--and two of his own relatives, his son and his nephew. His only daughter was busy helping her mother, and learning to be as efficient a housekeeper as the young men to be first-rate farmers; and this nucleus of young society, added to the good Köhler’s hearty joviality and the known good-cheer always provided by Frau Köhler, naturally made the large, cosey, rambling house a pleasant rendezvous for the neighborhood. The Köhler household was a host in itself, yet it always loved to be reinforced on festive occasions by the good people of the village and farms within ten miles round. So also the children, whether poor or pretty well off, were all welcome at old Emanuel’s, and knew the way to the Frau Inspectorin’s pantry as well as they knew the path to the church or the school. All the servant-girls in the neighborhood wanted to get a place in this house, but there was scarcely ever a vacancy, unless one of the dairy-maids or the house-girls married. Frau Köhler and her daughter did all the kitchen work themselves, and the latter, a thoughtful girl, though she was only fifteen, studied books and maps between-whiles. But her studies never interfered with the more necessary knowledge that a girl should have when, as Rika,[175] she has to depend upon herself for everything. In the country, in the Mecklenburg of even a very few years ago, everything was home-made, and a supply of things from the large town twenty or thirty miles off was the event of a life-time. Such things came as wedding-gifts; and though fancy things came every Christmas, even they were carefully and sacredly kept as tokens of that miraculous, strange, bewildering world outside, in which people wore their silk dresses every day, and bought everything they wanted at large shops a few steps from their own houses. Frau Köhler often wondered what other women did who had no farm-house to manage, no spinning, or knitting, or cooking, or dairy-work to do; and when her daughter Rika suggested that they probably read and studied, she shrugged her shoulders and said: “Take care, child; women ought to attend to women’s work. Studying is a man’s business.”

The honest soul was a type of many an old-fashioned German house-mother, of whose wisdom it were well that some of our contemporaries could avail themselves; and when Rika gently reminded her of the story of Martha and Mary, she would energetically reply:

“Very well; but take my word for it, child, there was a woman more blessed than _that_ Mary, and one who was nearer yet to her Lord; and we do not hear of _her_ neglecting her house. I love to think of that house at Nazareth as just a model of household cleanliness and comfort. You know, otherwise, it could not have been a fitting place for _Him_; for though he chose poverty, he must needs have surrounded himself with spotless purity.”

And Rika, as humble and docile as she was thoughtful, saw in this reverent and practical surmise a proof that it is not learning that comes nearest to the heart of truth, but that clearer and directer knowledge which God gives to “babes and sucklings.”

This particular Christmas there was much preparation for the family festival. The kitchen was in a ferment for a week, and mighty bakings took place; gingerbread and cake were made, and various confectionery-work was done; for Frau Köhler expected a friend of her own early home to come and stay with her this last week of the year. This was the good old priest who had baptized her daughter; for neither mother nor daughter were natives of Mecklenburg, though the latter had grown up there, and had never, since she was six months old, gone beyond the limits of the large estate which her father administered. Frau Köhler was a Bavarian by birth, and had grieved very much when her Mecklenburg husband had taken her to this northern land, where his position and wages were so good as to make it his duty to abide and bring up his family. But the worthy old creature had done a wonderful deal of good since she had been there, and kept up her faith as steadfastly as ever she had at home. Frederika had been her treasure and her comfort; and between the mother’s intense, mediæval firmness of belief, and the child’s naturally deep and thoughtful nature, the little farm-maiden had grown up a rare combination of qualities, and a model for the young Catholic womanhood of our stormy times. The old priest whom Frau Köhler had looked up to before her marriage as her best friend, and whom Rika had been taught to revere from her babyhood, had been very sick, and was obliged to leave his parish for a long holiday and rest. His former parishioner was anxious that he should see Christmas kept in the old-fashioned northern style, more characteristic than the Frenchified southern manners would now allow, even in her remote native village. Civilization carries with it the pick-axe and the rule; and when young girls begin to prefer Manchester prints and French bonnets to homespun and straw hats, most of the old customs slip away from their homes.

In the sturdy Mecklenburg of twenty years ago, even after the temporary stir of 1848, things were pretty much as they had been for centuries, and it was Emanuel’s pride that his household should be, if needful, the last stronghold of the good old usages. He heartily acquiesced in his wife’s invitation to the southern guest, and resolved to have the best Christmas that had been known in the country since he had undertaken the care of the Stelhagen estate. In truth, he lived like a patriarch among his work-people; his laborers and their families were models of prosperity and content, and the children of all the neighborhood wished he were their grandfather. Indeed, he was godfather to half the village babies born during his stay there.

The sleighs of the country were the people’s pride. Some were plain and strong, because their owners were not rich enough to adorn them, but others were quite a curiosity to the visitor from the south. They partook of the same quaintness as the old yellow family coaches that took the farmers to harvest-homes and weddings before the early snows came on. Lumbering, heavy-wheeled vehicles these were, swinging on high like a cradle tied to a couple of saplings in a storm; capacious as the house-mother’s apron-pockets on a baking day; seventy years old at least, barring the numerous patchings and mendings, new lining or new wheel, occasionally vouchsafed to the venerable representative of the family dignity. The sleighs were much gayer and a little less antiquated, because oftener used, and therefore oftener worn out; besides, there were fashions in sleighs even in this remote place--fashions indigenous to the population, each individual of which was capable of some invention when sleighs were in question. On Christmas Eve, long before it grew dark, many of these pretty or curious conveyances clattered up to the farm-house door. Some were laden with children two rows deep, all wrapped in knitted jackets, blankets, boas, etc., and here and there covered with a fur cap or furred hood; for knitting in this neighborhood supplied all with warm winter wraps, even better than woven or machine-made stuffs do nowadays. There were no single sleighs, no tiny, toy-like things made to display the rich toilet of the occupant and the skill of the fast driver by her side; here all were honest family vehicles, full of rosy faces like Christmas apples; hearty men and women who at three-score were almost as young as their grandchildren on their bridal day; and young men and maidens who were not afraid to dance and move briskly in their plain, loose, home-spun and home-made clothes, nor to fall in love with German downrightness and honest, practical intentions. Most of these sleighs were red, picked out with black, or black liberally sprinkled with red; some were yellow and black, some yellow and blue, and in most the robe and cushions were of corresponding colors. Some of these robes had eagles embroidered in coarse patterns and thick wool, while others were of a pattern something like those used for bed-quilts; and some bore unmistakable witness to the thrift of the house-mother, and were skilfully pieced together out of carpet, curtain, blanket, and dress remnants, the whole bordered with some inexpensive fur. One or two sleighs bore a sort of figure-head--the head of a deer, or a fox, or a hawk--carved and let into the curling part of the front; while one party, who were gazed upon with mingled admiration and disapproval, went so far as to trail after them, for three or four feet behind the sleigh, and sweeping up the snow in their wake, a thick scarlet cloth of gorgeous appearance, but no very valuable texture. This was the doing of a young fellow who had lately been reading one or two romances of chivalry, and been much pleased with the “velvet housings of the horses, sweeping the ground as the knight rode to the king’s tournament.” His indulgent old mother and admiring sisters had but faintly remonstrated, and this was the consequence. The horses were not less bedecked than the vehicles. Silver bells hung from their harness and belted their bodies in various places; shining plates of metal and knobs driven into the leather made them as gay as circus-horses; while horse-cloths of variegated pattern were rolled up under the feet of their masters, ready for use whenever they stopped on the road.

Emanuel himself had gone to the nearest town at which a stage-coach stopped, to welcome his wife’s friend and special guest, and entertained him with a flow of agricultural information and warm eulogy of the country through which they were speeding on their way home. He arrived at Stelhagen before the rush of country visitors, and was triumphantly taken through every part of the well-kept farm, while his meal was being prepared by Rika and the maids. But more than all, Frau Köhler, in her delight, actually made him “free” of the sacred, secret chamber where stood the _Christbaum_, already laden but unlighted, among its attendant tables and dishes. The old man was as innocently charmed as a seven-year-old child; it reminded him so of his own Christmas-tree in days when the simple customs of Germany were still unimpaired, and when it was the fashion to give only really useful things, with due regard to the condition and needs of the recipients.

“But at the feasts to which my people ask me now,” said he, “I see children regaled with a multitude of unwholesome, colored _bonbons_ in boxes that cost quite as much as the contents, and servants given cheap silks or paste jewelry, and the friends or the master and mistress themselves loaded with pretty but useless knick-knacks, gilded toys that cost a great deal and make more show than their use warrants. Times are sadly changed, Thekla, even since you were married.”

“Well, Herr Pfarrer, I have had little chance, and less wish, to see the change; and up here I think we still live as Noah’s sons after they came out of the ark,” said good Frau Köhler, with a broad smile at her own wit. As the day wore on, she and Rika left the _Pfarrer_ (_curé_) to Emanuel’s care, and again busied themselves about the serious coming festivity. She flew around, as active as a fat sparrow, with a dusting-cloth under her arm, whisking off with nervous hand every speck of dust on the mantel-piece or among the few books which lay conspicuously on the table in the best room; giving her orders to the nimble maids, welcoming the families of guests, and specially petting the children. Emanuel took the men under his protection, and gave them tobacco and pipes, and talked farming to them, while his own young home-squad whispered in corners of the coming tree and supper.

At last Rika came out from the room where the mystery was going on, and, opening the door wide, let a flood of light into the dark apartment beyond. There was a regular blaze. The large tree stood on a low table, and reached nearly up to the ceiling. There were only lights, colored ribbons, and gilded walnuts hung upon it, but it quite satisfied the expectation of the good folk around it. Round the room were tables and stands of all kinds, crowded together, and barely holding all the dishes apportioned to each member of the party. The guests had secretly brought or sent their mutual presents; one family generally taking charge of its neighbor’s gifts, and _vice-versa_, that none might suspect the nature of their own. The tree, too, was a joint contribution of the several families; all had sent in tapers and nuts, and this it was that made it so full of bright things and necessitated its being so tall.

On the middle table, under the tree itself, were dishes for the Köhler household, each one having a liberal allowance of apples, nuts, and gingerbread. Besides these, there were parcels, securely tied, laid by the dishes, and labelled with the names of their unconscious owners. Köhler was seized upon by his wife and daughter before anyone else was allowed to go forward--for in this old-fashioned neighborhood the head of the house is still considered in the light of an Abraham--and a compact parcel was put into his hands by Rika, while Thekla kissed him with hearty loudness. Next came the guest, whom Rika led to the prettiest china dish, and presented with a small, tempting-looking packet. Leaving him to open it at his leisure, she joined her young friends, and a good-natured scramble now began, each looking for his own name in some familiar handwriting, finding it, and opening the treasure with the eagerness of a child. It would be impossible to describe every present that thus came to view; but though many were pretty and elaborate, none were for mere show. Presently Frau Köhler was seen to take possession of her husband, and, pulling off his coat, made him try on the dressing-gown he had just drawn from his parcel. She turned him round like a doll, and clapped her hands in admiration at the perfect fit; then danced around to the other end of the room, and called out to the maids:

“Lina! Bettchen! it is your turn now; you have not been forgotten. Those are your dishes where the silver dollars are sticking in the apples.” The maids opened their parcels, and each found a bright, soft, warm dress, crimson and black. Then came George, the man who did most of the immediate work round the house, and found a bright red vest with steel buttons in his parcel. Frau Köhler was busy looking at other people’s things, when her husband slipped a neat, long packet on her dish, and, as she turned and saw the addition, she uttered an exclamation of joy. Rika helped her to unfold the stiff, rustling thing, when it turned out to be a black silk dress. Not every housewife in those days had one, and her last was nearly worn out. Then the old priest came forward to show the company his Christmas box; and what do you think it was? There was no doubt as to where it came from. It was a set of missal-markers, and in such taste as was scarcely to be expected in that time and neighborhood. Rika had designed it, and her mother had worked it; but many an anxious debate had there been over it, as the Frau Inspectorin had been at first quite vexed at what she called its plainness. It was composed of five thick _gros-grain_ ribbons, two inches wide and fifteen long. There was a red, a green, a white, a purple, and a black ribbon; and on each was embroidered a motto--on the red and green, in gold; on the white, in red; and on the black and purple, in silver. The letters were German, though the mottoes were in Latin, and each of the five referred to one of these events: our Lord’s birth, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost. At the end of each ribbon, instead of fringe or tassels, hung a cross of pure silver, into the ring of which the ribbon was loosely gathered. Every one crowded round this novel Christmas gift, and examined it with an admiration equally gratifying to the giver and the receiver. But Emanuel’s jolly voice soon broke the spell by saying:

“These fine presents are very delightful to receive, no doubt, and the women-folk would not have been happy without some such thing; but we are all mortal, and I have not forgotten that my guest has feet and hands, and needs warmth and comfort as much as we of grosser clay.”

And with this he thrust a large parcel into the _Pfarrer’s_ arms. Every one laughed and helped him to open it; every one was curious to see its contents. They were, indeed, of a most substantial and useful kind: a foot-muff of scarlet cloth, lined and bordered with fur, and a pair of huge sealskin gloves.

Scarcely had the parcel been opened when a hum of measured sound was heard outside, and presently a Christmas carol was distinctly audible. Everyone knew the words, and many joined in the song before the singers became visible. Then the door opened, and a troop of children came in, dressed in warm white furs and woollen wrappings, and carrying tapers and fir-branches in their hands. They sang a second carol, quaint and rustic in its words, but skilfully set to anything but archaic music, and then, in honor of their southern guest, they began _the_ song of the evening, a few stanzas from the “Great Hymn” to the Blessed Virgin, by the Minnesinger, Gottfried of Strasburg, the translation of which, according to Kroeger, runs thus:

XXV.

“God thee hath clothed with raiments seven;
On thy pure body, drawn from heaven,
Hath put them even
When thou wast first created.
The first one Chastity is named;
The second is as Virtue famed;
The third is claimed
As Courtesy, well mated;
The fourth dress is Humility;
The fifth is known as Pity;
The sixth one, Faith, clings close to thee;
The seventh, noble Modesty,
Leads gratefully
Thee in the path of duty.

XXVII.

“Thou sun, thou moon, thou star so fair,
God took thee from his own side there,
Here to prepare
The birth of Christ within thee.
For that his loved Child and thine,
Which is our life and life’s sunshine,
Our bread and wine,
To stay chaste, he did win thee;
So that sin’s thorns could never touch
Thy fruitful virtue’s branches.
His burning love for thee did vouch,
He kept thee from all sins that crouch:
A golden couch,
Secured by his love’s trenches.

XLVII.

…
“Rejoice now, thou salvation’s throne,
That thou gavest birth to Him who won
Our cause, thy Son,
Our Saviour and our blessing.
…

XLVIII.

“Rejoice now, O thou sunshine mild,
That on thy blessed breasts there smiled
God’s little Child--
Its earthly destination.
Rejoice that then drew near to thee
From foreign lands the wise kings three,
Noble and free,
To bring their adoration
To thee and to that blessed Child,
With many a graceful off’ring.
Rejoice now, that the star beguiled
And to that place their pathway smiled
Where, with thy Child,
They worshipped thy sweet suff’ring.”

“You are not so utterly unknowing of all gentle and learned pursuits as you would have had me believe,” said the _Pfarrer_ to Frau Köhler. “It is not every child in Bavaria that could sing so well this Old-World poem, so graceful in its rhyming and so devout in its allusions. Our old XIIth-century poetry, the most national--_i.e._, peculiar to our country--is too much superseded by noisy modern rhymes or sentimental ballads copied from foreign models. Have you any unknown scholar among your farmers and agents, who, you told me, made up a hearty but not a learned society here?”

“Well,” said Frau Köhler, “there is the school-master, Heldmann, who is always poring over old useless books, but never can have a good dinner unless his friends send it to him, poor man! He is a bachelor, and cannot afford to have a housekeeper. And then there is one of our young gentlemen, who Köhler says is always in the clouds, and who spends all his spare time with Heldmann, while the other boys spend theirs with their pretty, rosy neighbors. By the way, Heldmann is coming to-night; but he said he could not come till late, as he had some important business which would detain him for an hour or two.”

“You forget our Rika, mother,” said Emanuel, not heeding the last part of his wife’s sentence; “she is as wise as any of them, though she says so little. She knows all the old legends and poetry, and more besides, I warrant.”

“Rika designed that missal-marker,” said the Frau Inspectorin proudly (she had found out, since it had been so admired, that her daughter’s instinct had guided her aright in the design).

But Rika, hearing her name mentioned, had slipped away among the white-wrapped children, and was laying their tapers and fir-branches away, preparatory to giving them cakes and fruit. This was quite a ceremony, and when they were ready Frau Köhler, handing the large dish of nuts to the _Pfarrer_, begged him to distribute them, while she took charge of the gingerbread and Rika of the apples.

It was funny to see the solemn expectancy with which the children brought out dishes, mugs, pitchers, etc., in which to receive these Christmas gifts. Some of the girls held out their aprons, as more convenient and capacious receptacles than anything else they could lay hands on. One boy brought a large birthday cup, and another a wooden milk-bowl; another a small churn, while a fourth had carried off his father’s peck-measure, and a fifth calmly handed up a corn-sack, which he evidently expected to get filled to the brim. As Frau Köhler came to one of the children, she said:

“Fritz, I saw you in the orchard last autumn stealing our apples. Now, naughty boys must not expect to get apples at Christmas if they take them at other times; so, Rika, don’t give him any. He shall have one piece of gingerbread, though.” A piteous disclaimer met this sentence; but the _Pfarrer_ thrust a double quantity of nuts into the culprit’s basket, and passed on. Then once again Frau Köhler stopped and said; “Johann, didn’t I see you fighting with another boy in the churchyard two weeks ago, and told you that Santa Claus would forget you when he came to fill the stockings on Christmas night? I shall not give you any gingerbread.”

“Franz knows we made it up again,” whined the boy, and Franz, with a roguish look, peeped out from his place in the row and said: “Yes, we did, Frau Inspectorin”; so both got their gingerbread. At last, this distribution being over, the children, laden with their gifts, went home to their own various firesides, not without many thanks to the “stranger within the gates” and his parting reminder, as he showed them the stars:

“Look up at God’s own Christmas-tree, lighted up with thousands of tapers, children, and at the smooth, white snow spread over the fields. That is the white table-cloth which he has spread for the beautiful gifts which spring, and summer, and autumn are going to bring you, all in his own good time.”[176]

Then came another batch of visitors--the old, sick, and infirm people of the village; the spinning-women, the broom-tyers, the wooden bowl and spoon carvers, and the makers of wooden shoes; and some who could no longer work, but had been faithful and industrious in their time. They had something of the old costume on: the men wore blue yarn stockings and stout gray knee-breeches (they had left their top-boots outside; for the snow was deep and soft, and they needed them all the winter and through most of the spring); and the women had large nodding caps and black silk handkerchiefs folded across their bosoms. Each of these old people got a large loaf of plain cake and some good stout flannel; and these things, according to the local etiquette, the inspector himself delivered to them as the representative of his young master. This distribution was an old custom on the Stelhagen estate, and, though the present owner was careless enough in many things, he wished this usage to be always kept up. Even if he had not, it is not likely that as long as Köhler was inspector the old people would not have been able to rely on the customary Christmas gift. After this some bustle occurred, and two or three people went and stationed themselves outside the door. Presently the expectant company within were startled by a loud rap, and the door flew open, a parcel was flung in, and a voice cried out:

“Yule rap!”

This was a pair of slippers for the inspector. No one knew where they came from; no one had sent them. Yule raps are supposed to be magical, impersonal causes of tangible effects; so every one looked innocent and astonished, as became good Mecklenburgers under Christmas circumstances.

“Yule rap!” again, and the door opened a second time; a smoking-cap, embroidered with his initials, was evolved out of a cumbrous packet by one of the young apprentices, and scarcely had he put it on than another thundering knock sounded on the door.

“Yule rap!” was shouted again, and in flew a heavy package. It was a book, with illustrations of travel scenes in the East, and was directed to Rika.

“Yule rap!”

This time it was only a little square envelope, with a ticket referring Frau Köhler to another ticket up in the bureau drawer in her bedroom; but when one of the boys found it, that referred again to another ticket in the cellar; and when another boy brought this to light, it mysteriously referred her to her husband’s pocket. Here, at last, the hidden thing was revealed--an embroidered collar, and a pair of larger cuffs to match. Köhler had no idea what sprite had put it there, so he said.

“Yule rap!” and this time it was for the guest--a black velvet skull-cap, warm and clinging. Then came various things, all heralded by the same warning cry of “Yule rap!” and a knock at the door, generally in George’s strong voice. The two maids got the packages ready, and peeped in at the keyhole to see when it was time to vary the sensation by throwing in another present. Again, a breakfast-bell came rolling in, ringing as it bounded on, with just a few bands of soft stuff and silver paper muffling its sound. Once a large meerschaum pipe was laid gently at the threshold of the door, and one of the apprentices fetched it as carefully. Then a violin was pushed through the half-open door, and the eager face of the one for whom it was intended peeped anxiously over his neighbor’s shoulder, wondering if any one else were the happy destined one, and as much surprised as delighted when he found it was himself. That violin has since been heard in many a large and populous town, and, though its owner did not become as world-known as Paganini or Sivori, he did not love his art less faithfully and exclusively. We cannot enumerate all the gifts which Yule brought round this year; but before the evening was over, a different voice cried out the magic words, “Yule rap!” and the door being slightly opened and quickly closed again, a tiny, white, silky dog stood trembling on the carpet. Rika jumped up and ran to take it in her arms; then pulling open the door, “Herr Heldmann! Herr Heldmann!” she cried. “I know it is you!”

The schoolmaster came forward, his rough face glowing with the cold through which he had just come.

“I promised you a dog, Rika,” he said rather awkwardly, “but they would not let me have it till this very day, and I had no time to go for it but this evening. I kept it under my coat all the time; so it is quite warm. It is only two months old.”