SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Potrnear. THEOLOGY, Notes on the Rise, Progress,Imd Prospects of the Schism from the Church of Rome, called the German-Catholic Church, instituted by Johannes Rouge and I. Czerski, in October 1844, on occasion of the Pilgrimage to the Holy Coat at Treves. By Samuel Laing, Esq., Author of " A Residence in Norway," &c. Longman and Co.

TRAYERs,

Sketches on the Shores of the Caspian, Descriptive and Pictorial Richard Holmes BIOGRAPHY, The Life and Travels of Thomas Simpson, the Arctic Discoverer. By his Brother,

' Alexander Simpson, Membre Titulaire de PInstitut d'Afrigue Bentley.

By William

Bentley.

LAING'S NOTES ON THE PILGRIMAGE TO TREVES.

THE subject of Mr. Laing's Notes on the religious schism in Germany is much more extensive than the title implies. Besides a condensed and

vigorous account of the facts connected with the movement, from the tale of the relic, the conduct of the pilgrims, the open dissent of Ronge, and the various congregations which have separated themselves from Rome, to a view of their sundry confessions or declarations, Mr. Laing discusses the deeper principles of the question, in order to estimate the probable result of the schism in Germany, and to point its moral in reference to the possible endowment of the Irish Church. This involves an

inquiry into the nature of the Prussian system of education,—which Mr. Laing pronounces nil, as not preventing the pilgrimage to Treves, or

raising the mind of its pupils one jot above that of the darkest part of the middle ages ; a very keen and searching examination of the character of the popular mind in Germany and England,—which, if the conclusion were true in the fall extent, would place the German people on the level of slaves trained to be players ; an inquiry into the prospects of the Irish people, and a consideration of the economy of the Romish Church in raising money, in order to show that the endowment of the Irish priests would be impolitic.

As regards the result of the movement in Germany Mr. Laing speaks doubtfully, and evidently thinks more doubtfully than he speaks. In this he may be right. The confessions of faith put forward by the various bodies are, for the most part, negations : their denials or disbeliefs are stated plainly—their belief vague, general, and loose. Mr. Laing affirms that almost any mechanic in Scotland would have drawn up better and more logical Scriptural confessions than has been done by the illuminati of Germany. There is perhaps exaggeration in this ; but some of the declarations Mr. Laing quotes have no doubt a mixture of' college- declamation and German transcendentalism, little indicative of manly earnestness. Then, too, they differ in views. Some stand by the seven sacraments and transubstantiation in direct terms ; the confession or declaration of Berlin rejects the bodily presence in the elements, but

holds a sort of spiritual presence at the ceremony ; * many do not greatly differ in creed from the Anglican Church, so far as their general mode of

speaking enables one to pronounce. They, however, unite in rejecting the authority of the Pope, the forced celibacy of the clergy, the service of the Church in a foreign language, the worship of relics, pilgrimages, and the denial of the Scriptures to the laity, (in any version they please, as we understand ;) though some are not very clear on relics, &c. In short, the different declarations rather appear to emanate from intelligent men disgusted with grievances, irritated by pupillage and constraint, and whose national vanity, as Mr. Laing intimates, has been wounded by the superstition of the pilgrimage to Treves, than from persons animated with a strong religious feeling, and prepared to sacrifice all, or indeed any- thing, for the cross. Of course there are individual exceptions to this remark ; but the nominal leader Ronge himself had been stimulated by per- secution, as well as by disgust at the pilgrimage, and at the gross delu- sion set on foot by a Bishop.

Mr. Laing, however, with his practical and literary knowledge of Ger- many, goes more deeply into the question, and doubts whether much more than a few nondescript congregations will result from the schism ;

because the German mind, enslaved and emasculated by its Governments, is incapable of rousing itself to any great effort of any kind. Every

one is educated; but, he says, it is an education like a parrot : he can do

what he is taught to do—read, write, cipher, sing, dance, and possibly play upon an instrument ; but to turn these things to an independent

account, or form an opinion of his own, is out of his power. The mass of the upper classes are in one way or another dependent upon the Government for bread, status, or advancement, and dare not do it if they would. The lower classes want mind to do it ; especially the Romanists, who are enslaved by their religion as well as their government. There re- mains only a very scanty middle class in a few commercial towns, and

learned or peculiar individuals, who are likely to take an independent course ; and most of these have done it already. If the Protestant Governments would speak out in favour of the movement, no doubt, it

would have many recruits from the upper classes ; but this would not form a church, or shake the Papal system, though it might set up a sort of establishment, and be a thorn in the Pope's side.

In these views there is doubtless some exaggeration both of fact and of judgment, as well as much onesidedness, arising from " truly British' prejudices, and the national tendency to find everything wrong which is contrary to home customs. But the views are urged in a striking and powerful manner, in their historical, social, and philosophical

aspects. The reader who would comprehend the whole scope of Mr. Laing's argument must consult his little volume : we will give a few examples of his-manner.

SOCIAL STATE OF GERMANY.

Between the higher and lower classes in such a social body as the German, the intercourse, and even familiarity, may be great, yet the common feeling and inter- change of opinion very small. It is as in a ship, or a regiment, in which the offs-

* Article IV. " We reject, however, the doctrine of transubstantiation; that is, the change of the substances of bread and wine into the substances of the body and blood of Christ. We acknowledge, however, that we partake of the substances in the real spiritual presence of the Saviour," core know the men only through their duties and discipline, know them well in that one capacity, but know in reality less of them as their fellow-citizens or their fellow men, less of their opinions, their sentiments, and home affairs, than any third person who stands in no such artificial relation to them. This kind of mili- tary relation between the different classes of society keeps men far more apart from each other in reality, although in appearance there may be more of familiarity between them than in our less feudalized structure of society in England. The want of a common feeling and common interests and objects is best illustrated by the effects it has produced in the German language. The usages, or idiomatio expressions of the language of a people, display, perhaps, better than any other indication, the social relations of the different classes in a country. In English and French the same form of language is used in addressing all, from the sove- reign to the meanest beggar. All are addressed equally by the personal pronoun you, or your. In French, the singular number of the pronoun is used from fond- ness or familiarity—tu, and, although rarely, it is sometimes used to inferiors. The usage of the English language admits of no such difference of expression, no such inferiority between the classes of society, or between man and man, as enti- tles the highest to address the lowest in any other terms than are used in com- munication between equals. The German language has no less than four very distinct modes and gradations of expressing the different relative social positions of the person addressed. Sie, the third personal pronoun in the plural number, is the equivalent to you or eons the plural of the second personal pronoun used in English or French, and is Used in the same way between equals. Du is also equivalent to the French to, in expressing not only affection between the persons speaking, bat also, when applied to an inferior, in expressing the inferiority of the person spoken to, as when an officer speaks to a private soldier. The use of du m speaking to the privates in the Prussian Landwehr by their officers, is at pre- sent highly resented, and a subject of great dispute, it being considered degrading, because the ranks of the Landwehr are filled by gentlemen often superior to their officers in birth, education, and fortune, and who think themselves therefore enti- tled to be addressed by their officers with sic, not du. But German has two forms of speech more in addressing inferiors, and marking the difference of social station between the speaker and the person he is speaking to. The third person singular er, is used instead of sie, by a person of the higher class addressing an inferior. It is an usage of language, not the pride or arrogance of the individual; and is formed from the state of society. The person of the upper class addresses the person of the lower with er, the master his menial, the noble or man of rank the non-noble or inferior. A still more contemptuous form of expression for indi- cating the distance between the talker and the person addressed, in social station, is man, viz. one, used instead of er or sie. The inferior is not addressed in the personal pronoun when speaking to him, but as a thing having no personal station or existence—man. The noble addresses his labourer or menial with man; his bailiff, tenant, tradesman, with er; his equal with sie; but it would be a gross in- sult if he were to use er to an equal, or to a person claiming to be above the lower or middle classes, and still more if he were to address such a person with

yet he applies these forms to persons of the lower and middle classes, by the us

of the language, without perhaps any personal pride or arrogance in the speaker."? This form of language may be thought a matter very unimportant in itself—a mere.grammatical difference from the English or French; but language is the ex- pression of mind, of the public mind, and it indicates more truly than any other expression of it, the manners and state of society, the civilization and independ- ence, and the social spirit of a people. These forms of expression mark a distance, a non-intercourse, a want of mutual communication and feeling, and of interchange of ideas, and sympathies, and knowledge of each other, between the classes using them. They indicate the state of society in Germany—the rela-

between its classes.

GERMAN EDUCATION AND ITS RESULTS.

A great part of the education in Germany, and almost all mind, is directed to aesthetic objects,—to the cultivation of the fine arts—to taste and production in poetry, dramatic works,. romance, and other imaginative or speculative litera- ture—to music, theatrical representation painting architecture and all that comes under the name of the esthetic—all the intellectual objects 'that embellish civilized life, and add to its enjoyments. Valuable as the esthetic is, when it is a flower growing spontaneously out of a high state of civilization, it is but a poor crop to cultivate instead of more essential things. We do not care to see a bed of tulips where the wheat and potato crops have evidently been robbed of manure and neglected in order to raise them. The esthetic is not the moral, nor the re- ligious nor, in many of its objects, such as music, painting, architecture, the in- lectual, in a people or in an individual, and it may be cultivated at the expense of higher objects and principles. This is particularly true with regard to edupecation in Germany. The public mind, debarred from free action in public interests or private affairs, naturally occupies itself in those secondary pursuits which alone are open to it, and the autocratic governments in their educational systems favour the cultivation and diffusion of taste in the fine arts—of the development of the esthetic among the multitude—as a means of keeping them contented and happy. It is the old Roman policy of providing games and bread for the people, to keep them quiet under the misrule of the Emperors. The preponderance of the esthetic in the education, literature, and daily life of the German people, has not worked favourably on thepresent generation. It has diffused a weakness and frivolity of character, a turn for ease and present enjoyment, and a disregard for, or ignorance of, higher objects than it presents to the mind.

ENGLISH AND GERMAN TASTES COMPARED.

The occupations and amusements of the upper classes in Germany being much more sedentary and refined than with us, consisting much more in music, reading, theatrical entertainment, conversation, visiting, and social enjoyment, and much less in hunting, shooting, riding, racing, boating, and all the active rough sports and tastes which occupy our young men of the higher classes, and bring them into daily familiar intercourse with the lower, as assistants and partakers in their com- mon pursuit, keep those classes in Germany much more apart from, and ignorant of, each other than they are in England. The son of a nobleman or country gentleman of the largest fortune and highest family in England is intellectually, and in his tastes and habitual enjoyments not very different, or rather is very much the same as the son of a farmer or of a man of the lower class. The difference is more in the means and scale of enjoyment than in the tastes of the two persons at the extreme ends of our social fiody. They have many objects, pursuits, feelings, occupations, sports in common, and bringing them together. These are, perhaps, low in taste, and denote a low standard of intellectual de- velopment among our higher classes; but they bring the lower up to that standard, establish a wholesome intercourse and exchange of ideas between them—for the lowest can understand and talk of horses, dogs, guns, or yachts, as well as the highest—and denote a higher social state of the whole, than if the upper class were so far refined and educated beyond the mass of the people below, as to be, as in Germany, a froth without spirit or flavour, swimming on the surface, and alto- gether different in substance from the good liquor at the bottom.

The social state of Germany is similar to that of British India. The upper en- lightened class, consisting of civil and military functionaries, lawyers, judges, and officers connected with the administration of law and collection of revenue, bankers, merchants, and professional men, is different in language, habits, ideas, and feelings, from the Hindoo people whom it governs; is little acquainted with them—does not mix with them—has little knowledge of them but what circum- stances may force upon its notice, yet governs them tolerably well, and the great i mass of the inert Indian population below it is submissive, and contented with the state of pupillage in which they exist.

To this great lower mass of the people in Germany, the opinions, political or religious, of the upper class, scarcely penetrate. They do not at all take up the German Catholic church. On the contrary, they are evidently in the same in- tellectual and religious condition in which they were four centuries ago—quite as ready for pilgrimages or crusades, or whatever superstition or belief the Church of Rome may impose on them. They are not ripe for this movement.

Mr. Laing's views on Ireland may be thus stated. Notwithstanding their book-ignorance, rags, and wretchedness, the Irish are really a better- educated people than the Germans in all that concerns independent judg- ment and activity of mind. In this point of view, the monster-meetings, useless as they are for their avowed purpose, accustom the peasantry to take a part in public questions, and give to them a consideration which is altogether denied to the Germans. This growing disposition to con- sider public affairs, the extension of railways to Ireland, and of steam- communication in general, will carry both money and information into the country, and offer the prospect of a conversion to Protestantism or a modification of Romanism. The endowment of the priests will do as much as the State eau do to destroy this probability ; will give greater power to the priests over their flocks than they already possess ; without, Mr. Laing maintains, procuring for the Government any efficient control over them (as may be seen by the facts that are occurring in Germany,) or relieving the Irish people from the present demands upon them.

" The endowment of the Catholic clergy would not relieve the people, but only furnish the Church of Rome with funds for supporting another body of 2,200 ests in the country. The Catholic Bishops could not renounce or make a tariff diminishing those payments, because they are held essential by the giver to his own religious welfare, in whatever way they are applied. The people would not be relieved from these onerous and impoverishing payments, if they are as onerous, impoverishing. and oppressive to the lower classes as the Irish landholders re- present them to be, by any provision made for their clergy. They must first be relieved from the superstition which makes them believe that such payments are salutary to their own souls in a future state. It is besides a gross exaggeration, equalled only by the credulity which believes it, that six millions and a half of people are impoverished by the sustentation of two-and-twenty hundred single men."

" The smallness of the expense to the community at large is an argument against it, not in its favour, because this shows that there is no real necessity for it. If so paltry a sum as 250,0001. or 300,0001. be all the expense of making a suitable provision for the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, it is altogether absurd to iniantain that six millions and a half of people are impoverished by this trifling ye4c11 y drain upon their substance, are reduced to misery by it, while in the naturally much poorer country of Scotland one million of their fellow-subjects are voluntarily raising 300,000/.yearly for the support of their church; and the whole body of English Dissenters of all denominations are supporting their Ministers at a vastly greater sacrifice than eleven-pence halfpenny a head, which is about the amount of this impoverishing drain on the Irish Catholic population. On what principle—for it is a question of principle, not of expense—is one class of British subjects to be relieved of the burden of supporting their clergy, and not another? And how is this relief to be administered? Is it to be a region donum of 300,0001. yearly, to be paid to the heads of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ire- land, to be by them applied to the sustentation of their parochial clergy ? In that care it would be only an apparent, not a real relief The parochial clergy would apparently be sustained and paid out of this yearly fund, but the people would pay the same as before for masses, remissions, offerings, &c., because these payments are essential to the spiritual welfare of the giver, according to his religious views and feelings, independently altogether of the application of them to the support of the priest. The money may be applied to adorning a relic, gilding an image, fur- nishing out a procession, or supporting the priest; it is the giving that is the meritorious soul-saving act. No stipulation can be made with the higher clergy of the Church of Rome that such contributions shall cease in Ireland, because they are of the very nature of the Roman Catholic faith, and are pious sacrifices. But if they are not to cease, where would be the relief? The regime danum of 300,0001. a year would only be, in effect, a subscription for the propagation of the Roman Catholic religion, as the same sum that is now raised, and applied to the support of the priest, would, from the very nature of the religion, be raised as be- fore, and applied to the support of an assistant priest. It would only have the effect of don-Ming the number of the priests. The grant to Maynooth even will probably only have the effect of increasing the number of students, not of raising their habits and intellectual andphysical condition, if care be not taken by government to have the money applied in the way, and on the objects, for which at was granted."

The only mode in which Government really can relieve the distress in Ireland, Mr. Laing maintains, is by establishing a fixity of tenure, giving the present tenants an absolute interest in the soil on the terms upon which they at present hold, similar to that change which Hardenberg established in Prussia at the beginning of the century.

" It is evident that such a measure involved the direct violation of all the rights of property, and could only be justified by the most extreme necessity—for the very preservation of society, or of the state itself. But this necessity had, as re- gards the existence of Prussia, evidently set in. The campaigns of the preceding years had already shown, that although Prussia could bring armies into the field, her people had nothing to fight for, had no interest in the soil they were called out to defend; but, on the contrary, the people were much better off in Westphalia, and the provinces occupied by the French, than under their German social system. A similar necessity exists in Ireland for a similar measure. The sacred rights of property themselves must give way before the necessity of the preservation of society from a state of anarchy and barbarism; and if the rents and estates of a few thousand great landowners on one side, and the existence in a civilized state of nine millions of inhabitants on the other side, are to be weighed against each other, it is evident that either by some sudden convulsion tearingup society by the roots, or by the timely interposition of government, while it has the power, and has no external enemies, the same revolution in the state of landed property, that has been effected in Prussia, must take place at no distantperiod in Ireland."

The extent and character of the subjects treated of, and the manner in which they are handled by Mr. Laing, render it superfluous to recom- mend his work to the attentive consideration of the reader. He will find in it a close and succinct statement of well-selected facts, a living knowledge of Germany derived from practical observation and kept up by the perusal of its periodical and fugitive literature, together with great shrewdness of perception and vigour of style, enforcing atten- tion though not always commanding assent. As regards the Romish Church and the Irish questions, his views are less conclusive. He instances the pilgrimage to Treves, an unlawful assemblage according to Prussian law, as a proof of the power of the Romish priesthood when recog- nized by the State : but if. the assembly was unlawful, the status of the parties would give them no advantage. Whether Bishop Arnoldi was tolerated by the State or supported by the State, he was equally. obnoxious to prosecution, if the State deemed it prudent to prosecute. We doubt, too, whether the Irish are not equally ignorant and superstitious with the Germans. They have no pilgrimages so numerous as that of Treves ; but, if tourists are to be believed, journies are made to holy wells and similar spots for purposes equally futile, and ceremonies are performed which indicate as great a prostration of the understanding. Nor are the author's Irish facts always correct. Surely Sir Robert Peel did not con- sult the Romish Prelates on the College Bills : his refusal to do so is a trading grievance. Nor is the hacknied argument of much weight, that if the Irish priesthood be paid the Dissenters have a right to require assistance. As an abstract rule, no class has any right to the public money : it is a question of public expediency—that is, of public benefit. But the Dissenters themselves settle the question. The Romanist seem willing to take whatever is given them : the Dissenters repudiate the idea upon principle. The proposal to vote them money would be an affront; its acceptance, a sin.