Chapter C: L. S. C. Work 228 (1)

Outline of C. L. S. C. Readings 228
Sunbeams from the Circle 229
Local Circles 230
C. L. S. C. Round-Table 233
Questions and Answers 234
Chautauqua Normal Class 236
Editor’s Outlook
The Headquarters of the C. L. S. C. 238
Evangelists 239
The New Time Standards 240
Père Hyacinthe 241
Editor’s Note-Book 241
C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for January 243
Notes on Required Readings in “The Chatauquan” 245
Talk About Books 248

REQUIRED READING

FOR THE

_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4_.

JANUARY.

GERMAN HISTORY.

By REV. W. G. WILLIAMS, A.M.

IV.

The C. L. S. C. student is already aware that it is not pretended here to write the history of Germany, but properly these are entitled “Readings in German History.” To write with any degree of fulness or detail the history of a people which has played so large and important a part in the modern world, would require more volumes than are the pages allotted to us. It has been, and still remains the design to select those events and characters of greatest interest, and which have had the largest influence upon the current of subsequent history. The purpose, also constantly in view, has been to stimulate the reader to further study of the subject, by perusal of the best works accessible to the reader of English.

In this number no choice is left us but to pass, with only a glance or two, over the long period from the death of Charlemagne to that day-dawn of modern history, the Reformation. It is the period in which the historian traces, successively the beginning, vicissitudes, decay and extinction of the Carlovingian, Saxon, Franconian and Hohenstauffen houses. Following these is the great interregnum which precedes the Reformation. Included in this long stretch of time are what is known as the “dark ages.” Yet in Germany it was not all darkness, for now and then a ray of light was visible, prophetic of the rising sun, which heralded by Huss, appeared in the person and achievements of Martin Luther. It is about the work and character of the latter personage that we purpose to make the chief part of this chapter. Especially are we disposed so to do, now that protestant christendom is celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great reformer, and all civilized mankind has its attention called to his bold doctrines and brave career.

But, before we are prepared for Luther, we must note the change which has come in the claims and pretensions of the church. The different attitude which made possible a few centuries later, such a mission as Luther’s can not better be exhibited than during the reign of the Franconian Emperor, Henry the Fourth.

HENRY THE FOURTH—HIS SUPPLIANT VISIT TO CANOSSA.

The student of the history of the Romish church is aware that during the first five centuries after Christ the pope was vested with little, if any, other powers or dignities than those which pertained to him as Bishop of Rome. His subsequent claim to unlimited spiritual and political sway was then unthought of, much less anywhere advanced. Even for another five centuries he is only the nominal head of the church, who is subordinate to the political potentates and dependent upon them for protection and support in his office. But in the year 1073 succeeded one Gregory VII., to the tiara, who proposed to erect a spiritual empire which should be wholly absolved from dependency on kings and princes. His pontificate was one continuous struggle for the success of his undertaking. Of powerful will, great energy and shrewdness and with set purpose his administration wrought great change in the papal office and the relations of the church to European society. His chief measures by which he sought to compass his design were the celibacy of the priesthood and the suppression of the then prevalent custom of simony. The latter bore especially hard on the German Emperor, much of whose strength lay in the power to appoint the bishops and to levy assessments upon them when the royal exchequer was in need. In the year 1075 Gregory proclaimed his law against the custom, forbidding the sale of all offices of the church, and declaring that none but the pope might appoint bishops or confer the symbols of their authority. With an audacity unheard of, and a determination little anticipated, he sent word to Henry IV., of Germany, demanding the enforcement of the rule throughout his dominion under penalty of excommunication. The issue was a joint one, and a crisis inevitable. No pope had ever assumed such an attitude or used such language to a German Emperor. Henry was not disposed and resolved not to submit. So far as a formal disposition of the difficulty was concerned the case was an easy one. He called the bishops together in a synod which met at Worms. They proceeded with unanimity to declare Gregory deposed from his papal office and sent word of their action to Rome. The pope, who had used every artifice to gain popularity with the people, was prepared for the contest and answered back with the ban of excommunication. The emperor might have been able to carry on the struggle with some hope of success had he been in favor with his own subjects. But he had alienated the Saxons by his harsh treatment of them and the indignities heaped upon them; and others of his states looked upon him with suspicion. Pitted against the ablest foe in Europe, he found himself without the sympathy and aid of those to whom alone he could look for help. Meanwhile Gregory was sending his agents to all the courts of Europe and employing every intrigue to effect the emperor’s dethronement. In 1076 a convention of princes was called to meet near Mayence, Henry not being permitted to be present. So heavy had the papal excommunication fallen by this time that the emperor sent messengers to this convention offering to submit to their demands if they would only spare his crown. Gregory was inexorable, and they adjourned without any reconciliations being effected, to meet in a few months at Augsburg. Henry now realized the might of the hand that for centuries had been silently gathering the reins of spiritual power, only to grasp at last the political supremacy as well. With the burden of excommunication ready to crush out his imperial scepter he sued for pardon at any price. The pope had retired for a time to the castle of Canossa, not far from Parma. Thither went the Franconian Emperor of Germany to implore the papal forgiveness. He presented himself before the gate barefoot, clad in a shirt of sack-cloth, and prayed that he might be received and forgiven as a penitent sinner. But Gregory chose to prolong the satisfaction he had in witnessing his penitence. So throughout the whole day, without food, in snow and rain, he stood begging the pope to receive him. In the same condition and without avail, he stood the second and the third day. Not until the morning of the fourth day did the pope admit him, and then his pardon was granted on conditions which made his crown, for the time, a dependency of the Bishop of Rome.

But the struggle of the German rulers with popedom was not ended at Canossa. Henry himself renewed it a few years later with far better results to his side. The spirit of protestantism was ever alive in some form in Germany, and, as we have said, was prophetic of him who should rise in the fifteenth century and dare to protest against the claim of spiritual supremacy by the autocrat of Rome. From that time till now it has been a by-phrase with German princes in their conflicts with the church that they “will not go to Canossa.”

BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

At this time superstition and dense ignorance were widespread. Stories of magic were constantly told and believed, and the miracles with which the church offset them were hardly less absurd. Other terrors were added. Public justice was administered so imperfectly that private and arbitrary violence took its place; while the tribunals which formerly sat in the open sunlight before the people now covered themselves with night and secrecy. “The Holy Feme” sprang up in Westphalia. Originally a public tribunal of the city, such as is found in Brunswick, and in other places, it afterward spread far and wide, but in a changed form. Its members held their sessions in secret and by night. Unknown messengers of the tribunal summoned the accused. Disguised judges, volunteer officers, from among “the knowing ones,” gave judgment, often in wild, desolate places, and often in some ancient seat of justice, as at the Linden-tree at Dortmund. The sentence was executed, even if the criminal had not appeared or had made his escape. The dagger, with the mark of the Feme, found in the dead body, told how surely the avenging arm had struck in the darkness. It was a fearful time, when justice, like crime, must walk in disguise.

The habits of thought which made possible such beliefs and actions as these were part of the same movement to which the corruption of church doctrine and government must also be referred. The perverted Roman Christianity from which the Reformation was a revolt was not the Christianity of Charlemagne, nor even that of Hildebrand. Hasty readers sometimes imagine that the church, for many centuries before the Reformation, had firmly held the doctrines which Luther rejected. But, in fact, most of them were recent innovations. Peter the Lombard, Bishop of Paris in the twelfth century, was the first theologian to enumerate “the Seven Sacraments,” and Eugene IV., in 1431, was the first of the popes to proclaim them. The doctrine of transubstantiation was first embodied in the church confession by the Lateran Council of November, 1215, the same which first required auricular confession of all the laity. It was more than a century later before the celibacy of the clergy and the denial of the sacramental cup to all but priests became established law, and the idea that the pope is the vicar of Christ upon earth, and the bearer of divine honors, was accepted. All these corruptions of the earlier faith were the results of ambition in the hierarchy, and of gross and sensual modes of thought in the people; and the same causes led to the rapid development, in the fifteenth century especially, of the worship of the Virgin Mary, who was honored with ceremonies and prayers from which Christians of earlier ages would have shrunk as blasphemous. Nor can the church of the beginning of the sixteenth century be understood by studying the confession adopted by the Council of Trent a generation or more afterward. The teachings and practices which called forth Luther’s protest were far too gross, when once explained, to bear the examination of sincere friends of Romanism; who, without knowing it themselves, were greatly influenced, even in their formal statements of belief, by the controversies of the Reformation. The value of that great event to the world can not be comprehended without a knowledge of what it has done for the Catholic church within its own boundaries.[A]

PREPARING FOR THE REFORMATION.

Prior to the fourteenth century all learning was monopolized by the church. Its power was exercised to make every branch of knowledge harmonize itself with the teachings of Catholic Christianity. In revolt against these shackles arose a few independent spirits who sought to rest religious doctrine on the foundations of reason to some degree, at least. Nevertheless, superstitions still clung to and mingled with all these new studies, and the age did not witness their separation. The higher intelligence traveled gradually, but very slowly. The art of printing came to its assistance and proved to be its strongest auxiliary. To Germany belongs the glory of this invention, and she can boast no higher service rendered to mankind. The art of wood-engraving was the preliminary step which led to it. It was soon employed for pictures of sacred scenes and persons; so that the many who could neither read nor write had a sort of Bible in their picture collections. But the grand conception of making movable types, each bearing a single letter, and composing the words of them, was first formed by John Gutenberg, of the patrician family of Gänsefleisch, of Mayence. He was driven from his native city by a disturbance among the guilds, and went to Strasburg, where he invented the art of printing about the year 1450. Great trouble was experienced in discovering the proper material in which to cut the separate letters; neither wood nor lead answered well. Being short of resources, Gutenberg formed a partnership with John Faust, also of Mayence. Faust’s assistant, Peter Schöffer, afterward his son-in-law, a skillful copyist and draughtsman, discovered the proper alloy for type-metal, and invented printing-ink. In 1461 appeared the first large book printed in Germany, a handsome Bible, exhibiting the perfection that the art possessed at its very origin.

When Adolphus of Nassau captured Mayence in 1462, the workmen skilled in the art, which had been kept a secret, were scattered through the world; and by the end of the fifteenth century the principal nations of Europe, and especially Italy, France, and England, had become rivals of Germany in prosecuting it. Books had previously been transcribed, chiefly by monks, upon expensive parchment, and often beautifully ornamented with elaborate drawings and paintings. They had therefore been an article of luxury, and confined to the rich. But a book printed on paper was easily made accessible to all classes, for copies were so numerous that each could be sold at a low price. Beside books of devotion, the writings of the Greek and Latin poets, historians and philosophers, most of which had fallen into oblivion during the Middle Ages, now gradually obtained wide circulation. After the fall of Constantinople, and the subjugation of Greece by the Turks, fugitive Greeks brought the works of their forefathers’ genius to Italy, where enlightened men had already begun to study them. This branch of learning, called “the Humanities,” spread from Italy through Germany, France, England, and other countries, and contributed powerfully to produce a finer taste and more intelligent habits of thought, such as put to shame the rude ignorance of the monks. It was the art of printing that broke down the slavery in which the blind faith of the church held the human mind; and even the censorship which Rome set up to oppose it was not able to undo its work.

Just as the convents fell before the art of printing, so did the castles of the robber knights before the invention of gunpowder. Thus, at the coming of the Reformation, these degenerate remnants of the once noble institutions of knighthood were swept away. It is supposed by many that the knowledge of gunpowder was brought into Europe from China during the great Mongolian emigration of the thirteenth century, the Chinese having long possessed it. The Arabs, too, understood how to make explosive powder, by mixing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur. But all the Eastern makers produced only the fine powder, and the art of making it in grains seems to have been the device of Berthold Schwarz, a German monk of the Franciscan order, of Freiburg or Mayence, in 1354; and he is commonly called the inventor of gunpowder. He had a laboratory, in which he devoted himself to alchemy; and is said to have made his discovery by accident. But as early as 1346, a chronicle reports that there was at Aix “an iron barrel to shoot thunder;” and in 1356 the armory at Nuremberg contained guns of iron and copper, which threw missiles of stone and lead. One of the earliest instances in which cannon are known to have been effectively used in a great battle was at Agincourt in 1415. But gunpowder was long regarded with abhorrence by the people, and made its way into general use but slowly.[B]

MARTIN LUTHER.

Martin Luther was born at Eisleben on the 10th of November, 1483, on the eve of St. Martin’s day, in the same year as Raphael, nine years after Michael Angelo, and ten after Copernicus. His father was a miner and possessed forges in Mansfield, the profits of which enabled him to send his son to the Latin school of the place. There Martin distinguished himself so much that his father intended him for the study of law. In the meantime Martin had often to go about as one of the poor choristers singing and begging at the doors of charitable people at Magdeburg and at Eisenach, to the colleges of which towns he was successively sent. His remarkable appearance and serious demeanor, his fine tenor voice and musical talent procured him the attention and afterward the support and maternal care of a pious matron, into whose house he was taken. Already, in his eighteenth year, he surpassed all his fellow-students in knowledge of the Latin classics, and in power of composition and of eloquence. His mind took more and more a deeply religious turn; but it was not till he had been two years studying at Eisenach that he discovered an entire Bible, having until then only known the ecclesiastical extracts from the sacred volume and the history of Hannah and Samuel. A dangerous illness brought him within the near prospect of death; but he recovered and tried hard to obtain inward peace by a pious life and the greatest strictness in all external observances.[C] He then determined to renounce the world, and in spite of the strong opposition of his father, became a monk of the Augustine order of Erfurt. But in vain; he was tormented by doubt, and even by despair, until he turned again to the Bible. A zealous study of the exact language of the gospels gave him not only a firm faith, but a peace and cheerfulness which was never afterward disturbed by trials or dangers.[D]

In the year 1508 the elector of Saxony nominated him professor of philosophy in the university of Wittenberg; and in 1509 he began to give biblical lectures. These lectures were the awakening cause of new life in the university, and soon a great number of students from all parts of Germany gathered round Luther. Even professors came to attend his lectures and hear his preaching. The year 1511 brought an apparent interruption, but in fact only a new development of Luther’s character and knowledge of the world. He was sent by his order to Rome on account of some discrepancies of opinion as to its government. The tone of flippant impiety at the court and among the higher clergy of Rome shocked the devout German monk. He then discovered the real state of the world in the center of the Western church. He returned to the university and took the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the end of 1512. The solemn oath he had to pronounce on that occasion, “to devote his whole life to study, and faithfully expound and defend the Holy Scripture,” was to him the seal of his mission. He began his biblical teaching by attacking scholasticism, at that time called Aristotelianism. He showed that the Bible was a deeper philosophy. His contemporaries praised the clearness of his doctrine. Christ’s self-devoted life and death was its center; God’s eternal love to mankind, and the sure triumph of Faith, were his texts.[E]

SALE OF PAPAL INDULGENCES—LUTHER’S RESISTANCE.

In the year 1517, the pope, Leo X., famous both for his luxurious habits and his love of art, found that his income was not sufficient for his expenses, and determined to increase it by issuing a series of absolutions for all forms of crime, even perjury, bigamy and murder. The cost of pardon was graduated according to the nature of the sin. Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, bought the right of selling absolutions in Germany, and appointed as his agent a Dominican monk of the name of Tetzel. The latter began traveling through the country like a peddler, publicly offering for sale the pardon of the Roman church for all varieties of crime. In some places he did an excellent business, since many evil men also purchased pardons in advance for the crimes they _intended_ to commit; in other districts Tetzel only stirred up the abhorrence of the people, and increased their burning desire to have such enormities suppressed.

Only one man, however, dared to come out openly and condemn the papal trade in sin and crime. This was Dr. Martin Luther, who, on the 31st of October, 1517, nailed upon the door of the church at Wittenberg a series of ninety-five theses, or theological declarations, the truth of which he offered to prove, against all adversaries. The substance of them was that the pardon of sins came only from God, and could only be purchased by true repentance; that to offer absolutions for sale, as Tetzel was doing, was an unchristian act, contrary to the genuine doctrines of the church; and that it could not, therefore, have been sanctioned by the pope. Luther’s object, at this time, was not to separate from the church of Rome, but to reform and purify it.

The ninety-five theses, which were written in Latin, were immediately translated, printed, and circulated throughout Germany. They were followed by replies, in which the action of the pope was defended; Luther was styled a heretic, and threatened with the fate of Huss. He defended himself in pamphlets, which were eagerly read by the people; and his followers increased so rapidly that Leo X., who had summoned him to Rome for trial, finally agreed that he should present himself before the Papal Legate, Cardinal Cajetanus, at Augsburg. The latter simply demanded that Luther should retract what he had preached and written, as being contrary to the papal bulls; whereupon Luther, for the first time, was compelled to declare that “the command of the pope can only be respected as the voice of God, when it is not in conflict with the Holy Scriptures.” The Cardinal afterward said: “I will have nothing more to do with that German beast, with the deep eyes and the whimsical speculations in his head!” and Luther said of him: “He knew no more about the Word than a donkey knows of harp-playing.”

The Vicar-General of the Augustines was still Luther’s friend, and, fearing that he was not safe in Augsburg, he had him let out of the city at daybreak, through a small door in the wall, and then supplied with a horse. Having reached Wittenberg, where he was surrounded with devoted followers, Frederick the Wise was next ordered to give him up. About the same time Leo X. declared that the practices assailed by Luther were doctrines of the church, and must be accepted as such. Frederick began to waver; but the young Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and other distinguished men connected with the university exerted their influence, and the elector finally refused the demand. The Emperor Maximilian, now near his end, sent a letter to the pope, begging him to arrange the difficulty, and Leo X. commissioned his Nuncio, a Saxon nobleman named Karl von Miltitz, to meet Luther. The meeting took place at Altenburg in 1519; the Nuncio, who afterward reported that he “would not undertake to remove Luther from Germany with the help of 10,000 soldiers, for he had found ten men for him where one was for the pope”—was a mild and conciliatory man. He prayed Luther to pause, for he was destroying the peace of the church, and succeeded, by his persuasions, in inducing him to promise to keep silence, provided his antagonists remained silent also.

This was merely a truce, and it was soon broken. Dr. Eck, one of the partisans of the church, challenged Luther’s friend and follower, Carlstadt, to a public discussion in Leipzig, and it was not long before Luther himself was compelled to take part in it. He declared his views with more clearness than ever, disregarding the outcry raised against him that he was in fellowship with the Bohemian heretics. The struggle, by this time, had affected all Germany, the middle class and smaller nobles being mostly on Luther’s side, while the priests and reigning princes, with a few exceptions, were against him. In order to defend himself from misrepresentation and justify his course, he published two pamphlets, one called “An Appeal to the Emperor and Christian Nobles of Germany,” and the other “Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” These were read by tens of thousands, all over the country.

Pope Leo X. immediately issued a bull, ordering all Luther’s writings to be burned, excommunicating those who should believe in them, and summoning Luther to Rome. This only increased the popular excitement in Luther’s favor, and on the 10th of December, 1520, he took the step which made impossible any reconciliation between himself and the papal power. Accompanied by the professors and students of the university, he had a fire kindled outside of one of the gates of Wittenberg, placed therein the books of canonical law and various writings in defence of the pope, and then cast the papal bull into the flames, with the words: “As thou hast tormented the Lord and His saints, so may eternal flame torment and consume thee.” This was the boldest declaration of war ever hurled at such an overwhelming majority; but the courage of this one man soon communicated itself to the people. Frederick the Wise was now his steadfast friend, and, although the dangers which beset him increased every day, his own faith in the righteousness of his cause only became firmer and purer.[F]

LUTHER AT WORMS.

Meanwhile Charles of Spain had succeeded Maximilian and became Karl V. in the list of German emperors. Luther wrote to the new emperor asking that he might be heard before being condemned. The elector Frederick also interceded, and the diet of Worms was convened January 6, 1521. Luther was summoned to appear. “I must go; if I am too weak to go in good health, I shall have myself carried thither sick. They will not have my blood after which they thirst unless it is God’s will. Two things I can not do—shrink from the call, nor retract my opinions.” The emperor tardily granted him the safe conduct on which his friends insisted. In spite of all warnings he set out with the imperial herald on the 2nd of April. On the 16th he entered the city. On his approach to Worms the elector’s chancellor entreated him in the name of his master not to enter a town where his death was already decided. Luther returned the simple reply, “Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.” When surrounded by his friends on the morning of the 17th, on which day he was to appear before the august assembly, he said, “Christ is to me what the head of the gorgon was to Perseus; I must hold it up against the devil’s attack.” When the hour approached he fell on his knees and uttered in great agony a prayer such as can only be pronounced by a man filled with the spirit of him who prayed at Gethsemane. He rose from prayer, and followed the herald. Before the throne he was asked two questions, whether he acknowledged the works before him to have been written by himself, and whether he would retract what he had said in them. Luther’s address to the emperor has been preserved, and is a masterpiece of eloquence as well as of courage. The following is a part of his words: “I have laid open the almost incredible corruptions of popery, and given utterance to complaints almost universal. By retracting what I have said on this score, should I not fortify rank tyranny, and open a still wider door to enormous impieties? I can only say with Jesus Christ, ‘If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil.’” Addressing himself directly to the emperor, he said: “May this new reign not begin, and still less continue, under pernicious auspices. The Pharaohs of Egypt, the kings of Babylon and of Israel never worked more effectually for their own ruin than when they thought to strengthen their power. I speak thus boldly, not because I think such great princes want my advice, but because I will fulfill my duty toward Germany as she has a right to expect from her children.” The contemptible emperor, seeing his physical exhaustion, and thinking to confound him, ordered him to repeat what he had said in Latin. Luther did so. It was, however, when again urged to retract that we witness what seems the highest point of moral sublimity in Luther’s career. “I can not submit my faith either to the pope or to councils, for it is clear that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I will retract nothing unless convicted by the very passages of the word of God which I have just quoted.” And he concluded by saying: “Here I take my stand. I can not do otherwise: so help me God. Amen.”[G]

From that day Luther’s life was in greatest and constant danger. The papal dogs had scented the blood of a heretic, and were on his track. Leaving Worms, he was seized by friends under the guise of enemies, as he was passing through the Thuringian forest, and carried away and hid in the castle of Wartburg. Here, secreted from his enemies for many months, he busied himself with translating the New Testament into German. His version proved to be among the most valuable of the services he rendered. In many respects it is superior to any other translations yet made. With all his scholarship, he ignored the theological style of writing, and sought to express the thoughts of the inspired writers in words comprehensible by the commonest people. To this end he frequented the marketplace, the house of sorrow, and of rejoicing, in order to note how the people expressed themselves in all the circumstances of life. “I can not use the words heard in castles and courts,” he said; “I have endeavored in translating to give clear, pure German.”

Luther lived twenty-five years after the diet of Worms—years of heroic battle, sometimes against foes inside of his movement of reform as well as against the church, which never gave up the struggle. He wrote many works, some controversial, others expository of the Bible. His “Battle Hymn” also revealed him the possessor of rare poetic genius.

He died at Eisleben, February 17, 1546. For some time, under the weight of his labors and anxieties, his constitution had been breaking down. The giant of the Reformation halted in his earthly course, but the gigantic spirit and work moved on. As the solemn procession which bore his body from Eisleben to Wittenberg passed, the bells of every village and town were tolled, and the people flocked together, crowding the highways. At Halle men and women came out with cries and lamentations, and so great was the throng that it was two hours before the coffin could be laid in the church. An eye-witness says: “Here we endeavored to raise the funeral psalm, ‘Out of the depths have I called unto thee,’ but so heavy was our grief that the words were wept rather than sung.” Mr. Carlyle closes his “Spiritual Portrait of Luther” with the following words of noble and beautiful tribute: “I call this Luther a true great man; great in intellect, in courage, affection and integrity; one of our most lovable and precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain—so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting up to be great at all; there for quite another purpose than being great! Ah yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the heavens; yet in the clefts of it fountains, green, beautiful valleys with flowers! A right spiritual hero and prophet; once more, a true son of nature and fact, for whom these centuries, and many that are to come yet, will be thankful to heaven.”

[To be continued.]

EXTRACTS FROM GERMAN LITERATURE.

JOHANN JOACHIM WINCKELMANN.

No critic has displayed a keener feeling for the
beauty and significance of such works as came within
his knowledge, or a truer imagination in bridging over
the gulfs at which direct knowledge failed him. And
his style, warm with the glow of sustained enthusiasm,
yet calm, dignified, and harmonious, was worthy of his
splendid theme.—_Sime._

More artistic and æsthetic views have prevailed in
every direction since Winckelmann became a recognized
authority.—_Schlegel._

The Apollo of the Vatican.

Among all the works of antiquity which have escaped destruction the Apollo of the Vatican reaches the highest ideal of art. It surpasses all other statues as Homer’s Apollo does that of all succeeding poets. Its size lifts it above common humanity, and its altitude bespeaks its greatness. The proud form charming in the manliness of the prime of life seems clothed with endless youth.

Go with thy soul into the kingdom of celestial beauty and seek to create within thyself a divine nature, and to fill thy heart with forms which are above the material. For here there is nothing perishable, nothing that mortal imperfection demands. No veins heat, no sinews control this body; but a heavenly spirit spreading like a gentle stream fills the whole figure.

He has foiled the Python against which he has just drawn his bow, and the powerful dart has overtaken and killed it. Satisfied, he looks far beyond his victory into space; contempt is on his lip and the rage which possesses him expands his nostrils and mounts to his forehead. Still the peace which hovers in holy calm upon his forehead is undisturbed; his eye like the eyes of the muses is full of gentleness.

In all the statues of the father of gods which remain to us in none does he come so near to that grandeur in which he has revealed himself to the poets as he does here in the face of his son. The peculiar beauties of the remaining gods are united here in one: the forehead of Jupiter, pregnant with the goddess of wisdom, eyebrows which reveal his will in their arch, the full commanding eyes of the queen of the gods, and a mouth of the greatest loveliness. About this divine head the soft hair, as if moved by a gentle breeze, plays like the graceful tendrils of a vine. He seems like one anointed with the oil of the gods, and crowned with glory by the Graces.

Before this wonderful work of art I forget all else. My bosom throbs with adoration as his with the spirit of prophecy. I feel myself carried back to Delos and to the lyric halls, the places which Apollo honored with his presence; then the statue before me seems to receive life and motion like Pygmalion’s beauty; how is it possible to paint, to describe it? Art itself must direct me, must lead my hand, to carry out the first outlines which I attempt. I lay my effort at its feet as those who would crown the god-head, but can not attain the height, do their wreaths.

FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER.

He was a seer—a prophet. A century has passed since his
birth, and we revere him as one of the first among the
spiritual heroes of humanity.—_Vischer. Speech at the
Centenary Festival of Schiller’s birthday (1859)._

That Schiller went away early is for us a gain. From
his tomb there comes to us an impulse, strengthening
us, as with the breath of his own might, and awakening
a most earnest longing to fulfill, lovingly, and more
and more, the work that he began. So, in all that
he willed to do, and in all that he fulfilled, he
shall live on, forever, for his own nation, and for
mankind.—_Goethe._

Goethe and Schiller greatly excelled in their department of literary labor, becoming oracles in all such matters. And since their names have gone into history, they share, perhaps not quite equally, the highest niche in the pantheon of German literature. Schiller was, at once, a fine thinker, and poet, able to weave his own subtle thoughts, and the philosophies of other transcendentalists into verse, as exquisite as their speculations were, at times, dreamy and incomprehensible. Carlyle, in a glowing tribute to Schiller, concedes to Goethe the honor of being the poet of Germany; and so perhaps he was, though it is difficult to compare men so widely different. They differed in this: Goethe, with his rich endowment of intellect, was born a poet—an inspired man; the everspringing fountain within him poured forth copiously; Schiller, with genius hardly surpassed, seems a more laborious thinker, ever seeking truth, while his finely wrought stanzas are a little more artificially melodious. He is the most beloved because his countrymen think he had more heart, and breathed out more ardent aspirations for political freedom. We commend what is excellent in his works; the facts and truths expressed with refreshing clearness, and usually of good moral tendency, but we can not ignore his philosophical skepticism, and warn the admiring reader against its pernicious influence. In the supreme matter of religious faith our captivating author was evidently much of his life adrift on stormy seas, “driven of the winds and tossed.” If the fatuity of the venture was not followed by dismal and utter shipwreck, he was near the fatal rocks, and suffered great loss. The beginning was in this respect most full of promise, and his environment favorable. The home training in a devout religious family, and the teachings of the sanctuary had made a deep impression on the mind of the thoughtful youth, and as solemn vows were made as ever passed from human lips. His was for a season really a life of prayer and consecration to Christian service. But all that passed away. And how the change was brought about it is not hard to discover. Though blameless in character, and full of noble aspirations while yet in his adolescence, quite too early, he became acquainted with infidel writings of Voltaire—a perilous adventure for any youth. The foundations on which he rested were shaken, and he fled to the positive philosophy of Kant and others, who interpreted away all that was distinctively true and life-giving in the Scriptures. Faith, whose mild radiance brightened the morning, suffered a fearful eclipse before it was noon: and thence, like a wanderer, he groped for the way; “daylight all gone.” The great man needed God, but turned from him—sought truth with worshipful anxiety, but, in his sad bewilderment, found it not. The difference between his states of faith and unfaith is strongly stated in his own words that we here give. The first extract was written on a Sabbath in 1777. The other tells, about as forcibly as words can, of the unrest and disappointment that were afterward felt.

Sabbath Morning.

God of truth, Father of light, I look to thee with
the first rays of the morning sun, and I bow before
thee. Thou seest me, O God! Thou seest from afar every
pulsation of my praying heart. Thou knowest well my
earnest desire for truth. Heavy doubt often veils my
soul in night; but thou knowest how anxious my heart
is within me, and how it goes out for heavenly light.
Oh yes! A friendly ray has often fallen from thee upon
my shadowed soul. I saw the awful abyss on whose brink
I was trembling, and I have thanked the kind hand that
drew me back in safety. Still be with me, my God and
Father, for there are days when fools stalk about and
say, “there is no God.” Thou hast given me my birth, O
my Creator, in these days when superstition rages at
my right hand, and skepticism scoffs at my left. So I
often stand and quake in the storm; and oh, how often
would the bending reed break if thou didst not prevent
it; thou, the mighty Preserver of all thy creatures and
Father of all who seek thee. What am I without truth,
without her leadership through life’s labyrinth? A
wanderer through the wilderness overtaken by the night,
with no friendly hand to lead me, and no guiding star
to show me the path. Doubt, uncertainty, skepticism!
You begin with anguish, and you end with despair. But
Truth, thou leadest us safely through life, bearest the
torch before us in the dark vale of death, and bringest
us home to heaven, where thou wast born. O my God,
keep my heart in peace, in that holy rest during which
Truth loves best to visit us. If I have truth then I
have Christ; If I have Christ then have I God; and if
I have God, then I have everything. And could I ever
permit myself to be robbed of this precious gem, this
heaven-reaching blessing by the wisdom of this world,
which is foolishness in thy sight? No. He who hates
truth will I call my enemy, but he who seeks it with
simple heart I will embrace as my brother and my friend.

Later in life his anguish is openly expressed in his philosophical letters. “I felt, and I was happy. Raphael has taught me to think, and I am now ready to lament my own creation. You have stolen my faith that gave me peace. You have taught me to despise what I once reverenced. A thousand things were very venerable to me before your sorry wisdom stripped me of them. I saw a multitude of people going to church; I heard their earnest worship as they united in fraternal prayer; I cried aloud, ‘That truth must be divine which the best of men profess, which conquers so triumphantly and consoles so sweetly.’ Your cold reason has quenched my enthusiasm. ‘Believe no one,’ you said, ‘but your reason; there is nothing more holy than truth.’ I listened, and offered up all my opinions. My reason is now become everything to me; it is my only guarantee for divinity, virtue, and immortality. Woe unto me henceforth, if I come in conflict with this sole security!”

The following lines are given as a specimen of his verse. They are taken from Carlyle’s translation of the “Song of the Alps:”

By the edge of the chasm is a slippery track,
The torrent beneath, and the mist hanging o’er thee;
The cliffs of the mountains, huge, rugged, and black,
Are frowning like giants before thee;
And, would’st thou not waken the sleeping Lawine,
Walk silent and soft through the deadly ravine.

That bridge with its dizzying, perilous span,
Aloft o’er the gulf and its flood suspended,
Think’st thou it was built by the art of man,
By his hand that grim old arch was bended?
Far down in the jaws of the gloomy abyss
The water is boiling and hissing—forever will hiss.

Duty—Fame of.

What shall I do to be forever known?
Thy duty ever.
This did full many who yet slept unknown—
Oh! never, never!
Thinkest thou, perchance, that they remain unknown
Whom _thou_ knowest not?
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown,
Divine their lot.

What shall I do to gain eternal life?
Discharge aright
The simple dues with which each day is rife?
Yea, with thy might.
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise,
Life will be fled,
While he who ever acts as conscience cries
Shall live, though dead.

The following verse is from the oft-recited “Song of the Bell,” and is exquisite:

Ah! seeds how dearer far than they
We bury in the dismal tomb,
When hope and sorrow bend to pray,
That suns beyond the realm of day
May warm them into bloom.

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE.

Goethe differs from all other great writers, except
perhaps Milton, in this respect, that his works can not
be understood without a knowledge of his life, and that
his life is in itself a work of art, greater than any
work which it created. . . . He is not only the greatest
poet of Germany; he is one of the greatest poets of any
age. . . . He was the apostle of self-culture.—_Sime._

A Criticism on the Poems of J. H. Voss.

Every author, in some degree, portrays himself in his works even be it against his will. In this case he is present to us, and designedly; nay, with a friendly alacrity, sets before us his inward and outward modes of thinking and feeling; and disdains not to give us confidential explanations of circumstances, thoughts, views, and expressions, by means of appended notes.

And now, encouraged by so friendly an invitation, we draw nearer to him; we seek him by himself; we attach ourselves to him, and promise ourselves rich enjoyment, and manifold instruction and improvement.

In a level northern landscape we find him, rejoicing in his existence, in a latitude in which the ancients hardly expected to find a living thing.

And truly, winter there manifests his whole might and sovereignty. Storm-borne from the pole, he covers the woods with hoar frost, the streams with ice—a drifting whirlwind eddies around the high gables, while the poet rejoices in the shelter and comfort of his home, and cheerily bids defiance to the raging elements. Furred and frost-covered friends arrive, and are heartily welcomed under the protecting roof; and soon they form a cordial confiding circle, enliven the household meal by the clang of glasses, the joyous song, and thus create for themselves a moral summer.

And when spring herself advances, no more is heard of roof and hearth; the poet is always abroad, wandering on the soft pathways around his peaceful lake. Every bush unfolds itself with an individual character, every blossom bursts with an individual life, in his presence. As in a fully worked-out picture, we see, in the sun-light around him, grass and herb, as distinctly as oak and beech-tree; and on the margin of the still waters there is wanting neither the reed nor any succulent plant.

Around him, like a dweller in Eden, sport, harmless, fearless creatures—the lamb on the meadows, the roe in the forest. Around him assemble the whole choir of birds, and drown the busy hum of day with their varied accents.

The summer has come again; a genial warmth breathes through the poet’s song. Thunders roll; clouds drop showers; rainbows appear; lightnings gleam, and a blessed coolness overspreads the plain. Everything ripens; the poet overlooks none of the varied harvests; he hallows all by his presence.

And here is the place to remark what an influence our poets might exercise on the civilization of our German people—in some places, perhaps, have exercised.

His poems on the various incidents of rural life, indeed, do represent rather the reflections of a refined intellect than the feelings of the common people: but if we could picture to ourselves that a harper were present at the hay, corn, and potato harvests—if we recollected how he might make the men whom he gathered around him observant of that which recurs to them as ordinary and familiar; if, by his manner of regarding it, by his poetical expression, he elevated the common, and heightened the enjoyment of every gift of God and nature by his dignified representation of it, we may truly say he would be a real benefactor to his country. For the first stage of a true enlightenment is, that man should reflect upon his condition and circumstances, and be brought to regard them in the most agreeable light.

But scarcely are all these bounties brought under man’s notice, when autumn glides in, and our poet takes an affecting leave of nature, decaying, at least in outward appearance. Yet he abandons not his beloved vegetation wholly to the unkind winter. The elegant vase receives many a plant, many a bulb, wherewith to create a mimic summer in the home seclusion of winter, and, even at that season, to leave no festival without its flowers and wreaths. Care is taken that even the household birds belonging to the family should not want a green fresh roof to their bowery cage.

Now is the loveliest time for short rambles—for friendly converse in the chilly evening. Every domestic feeling becomes active; longings for social pleasures increase; the want of music is more sensibly felt; and now, even the sick man willingly joins the friendly circle, and a departing friend seems to clothe himself in the colors of the departing year.

For as certainly as spring will return after the lapse of winter, so certainly will friends, lovers, kindred meet again; they will meet again in the presence of the all-loving Father; and then first will they form a whole with each other, and with everything good, after which they sought and strove in vain in this piece-meal world. And thus does the felicity of the poet, even here, rest on the persuasion that all have to rejoice in the care of a wise God, whose power extends unto all, and whose light lightens upon all. Thus does the adoration of such a being create in the poet the highest clearness and reasonableness; and, at the same time, an assurance that the thoughts, the words, with which he comprehends and describes infinite qualities, are not empty dreams and sounds, and thence arises a rapturous feeling of his own and others’ happiness, in which everything conflicting, peculiar, discordant, is resolved and dissipated.

Faustus.

_Faustus._ Oh, he, indeed, is happy, who still feels,
And cherishes within himself, the hope
To lift himself above this sea of errors!
Of things we know not, each day do we find
The want of knowledge—all we know is useless:
But ’tis not wise to sadden with such thoughts
This hour of beauty and benignity:
Look yonder, with delighted heart and eye,
On those low cottages that shine so bright
(Each with its garden plot of smiling green),
Robed in the glory of the setting sun!
But he is parting—fading—day is over—
Yonder he hastens to diffuse new life.
Oh, for a wing to raise me up from earth,
Nearer, and yet more near, to the bright orb,
That unrestrained I still might follow him!
Then should I see, in one unvarying glow
Of deathless evening, the reposing world
Beneath me—the hills kindling—the sweet vales,
Beyond the hills, asleep in the soft beams
The silver streamlet, at the silent touch
Of heavenly light, transfigured into gold,
Flowing in brightness inexpressible!
Nothing to stop or stay my godlike motion!
The rugged hill, with its wild cliffs, in vain
Would rise to hide the sun; in vain would strive
To check my glorious course; the sea already,
With its illumined bays, that burn beneath
The lord of day, before the astonished eyes
Opens its bosom—and he seems at last
Just sinking—no—a power unfelt before—
An impulse indescribable succeeds!
Onward, entranced, I haste to drink the beams
Of the unfading light—before me day—
And night left still behind—and overhead
Wide heaven—and under me the spreading sea!—
A glorious vision, while the setting sun
Is lingering! Oh, to the spirit’s flight,
How faint and feeble are material wings!
Yet such our nature is, that when the lark,
High over us, unseen in the blue sky
Thrills his heart-piercing song, we feel ourselves
Press up from earth, as ’twere in rivalry;—
And when above the savage hill of pines,
The eagle sweeps with outspread wings—and when
The crane pursues, high off, his homeward path,
Flying o’er watery moors and wide lakes lonely!
_Wagner._ I, too, have had my hours of reverie;
But impulse such as this I never felt.
Of wood and fields the eye will soon grow weary;
I’d never envy the wild birds their wings.
How different are the pleasures of the mind;
Leading from book to book, from leaf to leaf,
They make the nights of winter bright and cheerful;
They spread a sense of pleasure through the frame,
And when you see some old and treasured parchments,
All heaven descends to your delighted senses!

FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL.

His most important work is his “History of Ancient
and Modern Literature.” Throughout his exposition he
is a propagandist of his special ideas; but the book
is of lasting importance as the earliest attempt to
present a systematic view of literary development as a
whole.—_Sime._

Extracts from History of Literature.