An occurrence, unique of its kind, is reported from Berlin.
The Rev. H. Heinrici, Lutheran minister, was reading the Creed in the Cathedral, and had reached the words, " I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost," when a voice was heard to say, " You lie !" and a shot was fired at the clergy- man, which, however, missed him, and only grazed a little boy of the choir, who, like a thorough Prussian, went on with his sing- ing unmoved. The shot was fired by a man named Biland, 19 years old, who, when arrested, said that he had been bred to the ministry, but had seen the falsehood of Christianity, had wearied of the lying he saw all around, had come to the conclusion that some striking deed was necessary to wake the public mind, and thought the most striking would be "to shoot a clergyman while in the act of uttering his accursed perjuries." The Berlin corre- spondent of the Times, who forwards this confession, on which we have remarked elsewhere, says that three-fourths of the Prussian people agree with Biland in his view of Christianity. So rooted is their contempt for dogma, that they do not remonstrate against the teaching of the Catechism, confident that their children will repudiate it all before they are fifteen.
Previous page
