RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN GERMANY.• WE are glad we did not

review this book earlier. We read it under a stronger light in the rear of the events of the last few weeks, which have served to disperse not a few mists. The bulk

of this volume is probably familiar to most of our readers in the form under which it appeared as letters to the Times. The letters

themselves are the result of careful one-sided observation, and as all thoughtful notice of a nation's spiritual history, however erroneous the conclusions therefrom deduced, is worth attention, we propose to arrive at some idea of the results which present themselves to the author's mind. His view of the prospects of Christianity in Germany is certainly not encouraging. " If," he suggests in one page, " the religious malady of the age were to assume an acute character, and the mind of the nation earnestly to busy itself with the subject, downright atheism would probably gain the upper hand at first, and some time have to elapse before any beneficial result could be attained." Possibly. The lightest substance mostly finds its way to the top, and, may be, spreads there till the superficial looker-on thinks he sees the whole,— a mistake ancient as the days of Elijah, and at least as common in England as in Germany; but we must give our author's data. The centenary of Schleiermacher 's birthday is the occasion of his first letter, and its festivities were, he tells us, regarded coldly both by the orthodox and the anti-Christians,—a by no means improb- able attitude for either to assume, since Schleiermacher dwelt in a world equally removed from both, feeling with Milton that there is no heretic like the man whose faith is only hereditary, or more keenly still with Bacon, that it is useless to offer to the God of Truth the sacrifice of a lie. Yet never doubted that a God revealing truth was there for those who would seek after, if haply they might find Him ; and the attitude of his mind therefore was that of a humble inquirer after truth, who could lead and guide other men's minds in the same road, and had no affinity whatever with the phase of rationalistic apathy which has in some places grown like a fungus over the spiritual insight of the people. At a time like the present, we may not forget that it was " at the moment of the nation's need, when Germany was engaged in a hand-to-hand fight for her independence," that Schleiermacher was felt as a power in the land. The man who had broken the bonds of " petrified formulas," and had taught the people there could be no Christianity without Christ, that a holy life could alone pro- ceed from spiritual union with Him, was the same man who, in 1806, when the battle of Jena had been fought, and Halle was in the power of the French, could stir up the patriotism of the people with such words as these :—" You must remember that no one stands alone, that no one can save himself ; you must remember our very life is rooted in German freedom and German views, and it is these which are at stake Believe me, a struggle will arise in which we shall have to defend our sentiments, our religion, our intellectual culture, no less than our property and our personal

freedom. We cannot shun the conflict The crisis for Ger- many, and Germany is the heart of Europe, is as clearly before my eyes as this more limited one is before yours. There is thunder in the.air, and I wish a storm would hasten the explosion, for it is useless to think it will pass over." And the mind once more involuntarily pictures him as on that New Year's morning of 1807 he looked down on the assembled people and, in the midst of the general gloom, gave out the words, " Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." The name of Schleier- macher has led us into a digression from our immediate task, but as we read the tame, lukewarm celebration which in Berlin marked the day set apart to this man's memory, we look instinc- tively at the date (November, 1868). The cloud gathering over the Fatherland was not then to the unassisted eye big even as a man's hand, and, in spite of our author's estimate of German indifferentism, we venture to believe the result would have been • Reprinted by permission from the Times. London: Tinsley Brothers. 1870.

far other had the Schleiermacher centenary chanced to occur in July, 1870. The heart of this people was not dead, but sleeping. But in the next chapter a more serious evil is presented to us, no less a one than the attempt of the Prussian Minister of ecclesiastical and educational affairs to turn the nation's history back. We trace the course of this mode of action through a large portion of this book. Alarmed at the tendency to rationalism displayed in every class, fully aware of the outcome of that tendency if once it distinctly masters the mass of the people, the clergy, who had shared and openly avowed many of the tendencies of the day, with a sudden rebound tightened around themselves, and tried to tighten around the people, the cords of orthodoxy ; but how was their task to be accomplished? The pulpit was of small use, since the unbelieving simply stayed away ; there remained the great machine of education still controllable, and Government gladly stepped in with its aid. The Minister of Education is omnipotent in his department, and Herr von Miihler's orthodoxy was of the most stereotyped kind. Our author does not hesitate to turn into certainly deserved ridicule some of the formulas which, through the medium of primers, he forces on the scholars. We cannot but hope the following hymn, " by no means the worst in a hymn- book forced by this same authority upon certain Protestant con- gregations in the old provinces of Prussia," has suffered by translation

Almighty God, I am content to remain the dog I am. I am a dog, a despicable dog. I am conscious of revelling in sin, and there is no infamy in which I do not indulge. My anger and quarrelling are like a dog's. My envy and hatred are like a dog's. My abuse and snappish- ness are like a dog's. My robbing and devouring are like a dog's. Nay, when I come to reflect upon it, I cannot but own that in very many things I behave worse than the dogs themselves."

But if Herr von Miihler's interference has proved bad in the higher schools, it seems to have been infinitely worse in the elementary ones. Here it was in truth that the turning-back of the nation's history was to commence ; the steed was getting un- manageable, and his rider, with the consummate folly he mistook for wisdom, would try the effect of drugging it. There was to Herr von Miihler's mind too great intellectual activity among the people, and intellectual activity in the masses too often means an inconvenient amount of inquiry, a tendency towards radicalism, an impatience of despotism ; so at least thought the Minister.

And with a word the educational fabric it had taken a century to rear was reduced to its elements, "instruction in natural science, history, and geography reduced to a minimum in elementary schools ; and practically the children learn little beyond reading, writing, and ciphering, with very many hymns and texts." As a natural result, the seminaries in which the teachers are reared have suffered also. It is the demand which creates the supply, and it takes little effort to perceive that with so much less to teach an inferior teacher would suffice. Our author goes on to assert that candidates for the office of schoolmaster in these lower schools are " strictly forbidden to read Goethe, Schiller, or any of the modern classics, the boast of the nation." We are not prepared to con- tradict this statement, but we hope, for the credit of the Prussian nation, that it is an exaggeration. So repugnant has the present system proved to the large class who formerly cheerfully took poverty as a necessary but by no means dishonourable adjunct of a much loved office, that Government has been compelled to have recourse to a kind of recruiting system to supply teachers for its elementary schools, and even field hands and artizans have, by a procesas more speedy than wise, been converted into school- masters. It is a dark picture, this ; and the shadows deepen as we come upon the incident which, at the moment of its occurrence, seemed to light up as with a flash of light- ning the darkness of the situation ; we allude, of course, to the attempt to shoot Dr. Heinrici by Carl Biland. That event received too full notice at the time to need much comment now.

It was regarded everywhere as a representative act ; we do not quite agree ; underneath the conviction that the teachers of orthodoxy are teaching what they don't believe lies another too

subtle to be analyzed here, but which has its roots far down in human nature itself, and secures Conservatism, whether in political or religious form, from more than partial hate.

History has been writing itself rapidly in the last few weeks,

and events big with the fate of the future have been the work almost of hours. When the Times' correspondent from Berlin wrote these letters on the (Ecumenical Council in Rome, at the

beginning of the present year, be could say, " all German Sovereigns and many German Bishops are arrayed against the Pope ;" could quote the ecclesiastical authorities who set their faces steadfastly against it, even Ultramontanes who declared, " we will never suffer the Head of the Church to be made the Dalai Lama of the Occident." And when all the talking was done, the canon enforcing the dogma of infallibility was passed with a.

minority of two.

But the " day is darkest before the dawn." We have dwelt on the dark side, but there is a brighter page to turn. The Ultra- montanes have, in the Bavarian elections, shunned no lie, no- calumny that could serve to disengage the hearts of the people from the thought of a united Fatherland

Just to afford a specimen of their achievements in this particular department of rhetoric, I will quote an electioneering article from the Munich Volksbote, a famous and favourite organ of theirs, edited for the benefit of the lower classes. Cautioning its readers not to choose Liberal, members, this paper thus alludes to the dreadful consequences of a. Pro-Prussian' majority in the Chambers :—' Are our constitutional liberties to be destroyed by the Prussian cat-o'-nine-tails? Is the coarse, brutal, and infamous military rabble that forms the army of our Northern neighbour to infect our gallant troops with its spirit of haughty wicked- ness ? Will you consent to see your pockets emptied to the last penny,. and yourselves skinned into the bargain, in order that Prussia may- fulfil its divine mission ?' "

And, adds our author, the Prussians certainly regret that the-

Ultramontane majority in the Bavarian Chamber will have the power to render the military alliance between the two countries• less practically useful than it might be ;" but he suggests that should.

the Bavarian Army ever be summoned to support the Prussian; it is scarcely the illiterate peasants or the Ultramontane clergy who. will be able to stop the progress of the world's affairs. The ink

on these pages is scarcely dry when Bavaria leaps up to meet a summons in the face of which the shadows conjured up by Ultra- montanism dwindle away, and 30,000 Bavarians, under the Crown. Prince, inaugurate the policy of Prussia in the war.

In the appendix to this work we have the correspondence

induced by the first publication of these letters in the rmes„ including the interesting letters of Mr. Ernest de Bunsen, and Mr. Wright, of Boulogne, formerly chaplain in Dresden. Both have-

gauged more deeply than the author of this volume the true depth of Christian life in Germany, both, though from very distant• stand-points, have seen through the natural fogginess of the German, mind to the soundness of the vital principle beneath. Mr. Anketell indignantly replies to Mr. Wright's statement " that very few of the Dresden clergy are rationalists," by stating that at a gathering of the Protestant clergy of Dresden " the sentiment was broached that the Lord's Prayer is creed enough for Christendom." To judge- such a statement apart from its context were absurd, but would Christ have considered that a specially "rationalistic sentiment " The truth is, " the exhausted air-bell of the critics," however much favour it may have found with a certain class, and that the class. with whom, perhaps, writers come most in contact, is impossible to.

live in, and so, as Mr. Browning not inaptly tells us :-

" When the Critic had done his best

And the Pearl of Price, at reason's teat, Lay dust and ashes levigable, On the Professor's lecture-table ;

When we looked for the inference and monition

That our faith, reduced to such condition, Be swept forthwith to its natural dusthole,— He bids us, when we least expect it, Take back our faith.

" Go home and venerate the Myth I thus have experimented with,— This Man, continue to adore him, Rather than all who went before him, And all who ever followed after !' "

Smoking and dreaming are dear to the heart of the German,. and he talks a great deal in his sleep ; but France and the Pope between them have wakened him before, and seem likely to. waken him again, and both are likely to find it is no nation of apathetic rationalists who gird on their armour for the fight.