BOOKS.

JOSEPH VON GO1tRES.*

[SECOND NOTICE.]

THE religious ideas which had always preoccupied Gorres assumed a more distinct form, and became predominant in his mind. His judgment remained impartial, his feelings entirely tolerant, but for himself he had made his choice "In many things your opinion differs from my own [be wrote to Jean Paul Richter, in a letter dated from Strasbourg in the autumn of 1822] ; it does not matter. The convictions of mon meet each other, and sepa- rate again without doing harm, if in the one important thing they remain united. So it is that I, for ono, found it better, after much and earnest reflection on religious subjects, to build on the old foundations laid so many centuries ago, long before the first monarchy existed, instead of constructing a little nest for myself out of gilt paper and straw, which would havo been fit to be inhabited only by myself, and but of little use in stormy weather. Moat likely that in this we don't agree, but I have room for every honest conviction."—(Ges. Briefe, III., 23.)

His return to the Catholic faith of his youth made at first no alteration in these feelings. The review Der Katholik, which had been started at Mayence in 1821, and continued to appear at Strasbourg, where it soon fell under the influence of Giirres, contains an article of his with the following remarkable judgment on the Reformation :—" Let the Latin nations indiscriminately reject it, we Germans cannot and dare not do so, because it was 'the work of the inmost spirit of our race. The very essence of it is the noble, ethic indignation against the desecration of what is holy, the horror of moral corruption, the revolt prompted by every abuse, the indestructible love of liberty, which knows how to free itself of every yoke imposed by faithless outward violence ; in one word, it is the reunion of all those antiseptical qualities which God has deposited in this nation, for the sake of pro- tecting her against the corruption so easily fostered under the more weakening influence of Southern climes." Nor did he in the least complain of the wrong inflicted on him, or regret what ho 'had done, and no victim of political persecution ever was so little tempted to attract attention or to excite pity. He 'cheerfully wrote to his friends that he deserved no com- miseration, and that not one hour of his life had been spoiled by what had befallen him. (Ges. Briefe, III., 24.) But the freer he felt from all selfish motives or personal recrimi- nations, the more he thought himself justified in passing con- demnation on the system itself whose victim he had become. His own experience of the arbitrary dealings of the State made 'him reluctant to confide to it the interests of the Church, to 'which he looked now as to the natural protector of liberty, unless the State bound itself to respect those interests. It was in that sense he wrote to Jacob Grimm :—" In our days, all those who are destined to live together must begin by measuring their forces. Now the turn has come for Catholicism, and therefore it must show itself exclusive. After having secured its rights, it will prove accommodating," (Ges. Briefe, III., 67.) And in another letter to the same person :—" It is necessary to force one's way

with one's elbows and fists, particularly if one has to deal with 'Germans." (Ges. Briefe, Ill., 24.) In 1825, Clemens Brentano

came to Strasbourg, on a visit to his friend. Like a modern Tannhiiuser, Brentano had come back to faith, after long and stormy wanderings ; but if his convictions had changed, his nature

remained unaltered. As in former times, it could in truth be 'said that it was not he who possessed imagination, but that Imagination possessed him. What attracted him most in the Catholic Church was the mystical element, much more than the .essential foundations of her doctrine. Just before that meeting 'with Gorres, he had spent five years at the bedside of an ecstatic

nun, Catharine Emerich , at Diilmen, and written down her religious visions and revelations on the life of Christ and the blessed Virgin, in which those who knew Brentano best traced the reminiscences of his poetical but pliantastie mind.

At all times of his life, Gorres, with his lively imagination and his tender and enthusiastic nature, had been open to exterior influences, and confessed to himself that it was part of the secret of his power to absorb within his soul the best of the spirit which animated a whole nation, and to express clearly and forcibly that 'which was but dimly felt by others. This explains the part played allrirfreecheal, Ban* VII„ VIII., 1X., der Geannintelten Sehriflen von I. von Odrres.

altt chon LiterarisoWArtistische Anstalt. Iforausgogeben von Mario von Giirros anad F. Binder.

thr—Gdrrea and eeine Zeitgenoseen. Book: NUrdlingon. 1877. G howl—Lobes von alma. Herder: Freiburg im Brefsgau. 1870. A. Donk.—Giirres und seine cloulung Jar den diekalltolioisinue. Hunan Nachfolgor, Mainz. 1870. e

by him as a young man during the French Revolution, and still more the success he earned during the national revival of 1814. Of the eccentricities of his friend Brentano, Gorres was perfectly aware, and often speaks of them in his letters, but he also had felt a secret attraction for the mystical elements in ancient creeds and mythologies long before he had any thought of making use of them for religious purposes. During many years lie had prepared materials for a great history of legends. This book was never written, but he had already contributed to the Catholic Review, at Strasbourg, an article on the great mystic of the middle-ages, St. Francis of Assisi, which was soon followed by another, on the Protestant mystic, Swedenborg. By-and-by, these studies engrossed his mind, and led to the composition of the work on Christian mysticism, which became the lasting preoccupation of his later years.

Brentano encouraged these studies, but he had other interests in view when he thought of his ardent friend. He urged that, like Christopher, the old Saint of the legend, who had always offered his help to the strongest, Giirres also ought to exchange the service of the world, whose faithlessness be had experienced, for the interests of Him who would alone prove true ; in one word, he wanted him to become in Germany the champion of the Catholic cause. Gorres answered that he was no theologian (Ges. Briefe, III., 172), that he knew the history of the Church only in a general way. (Ges. Briefe, III., 144.) A letter of his shows that up to 1825 Bossuet's Histoire des Variations was unknown to him. (Ges. Briefe,III., 169.) " All I can possibly do," he wrote, "is to speak from time to time on particular topics, as the spirit moves me." (Ges. Briefe, III., 172.) Nor did more seem required, the relations between Church and State being, on the whole, satis- factory. In printelple, Rome had protested against the secularisa- tion of the Church in Germany which had been effected at the beginning of the century, but practically she had found a modus vivendi, by concluding a concordat with Bavaria, and similar arrangements with other German States. However, a series of important questions were either left unsettled, or the German Governments proceeded in regard to them in a manner similar to that which Napoleon had adopted when he promulgated the "Articles Organiques." In various respects they also limited or annulled by special legislation that which had been granted in the concordats or conventions with Rome, and used to interfere in the details of ecclesiastical administration, in questions of mere Church discipline, and in the relations of the Bishops with Rome, in a manner which would be considered intolerable now, but which was not so much resented at a time when there existed a sincere desire to prevent conflicts between the two Powers. The Episcopate itself was, as a body, a liberal and patriotic one, and in Bavaria, which remained the natural centre of Catholicism for Germany, the prevailing influence was that of Sailer, who was, as theologian, priest, and bishop, a model of Christian virtue, and the head of a school of Catholic thought for which the development of Christian life and internal reform was of far greater importance than the promotion of the external power of the Church.

In 1825, King Lewis I. succeeded to the throne, and in 1829 Sailer, then seventy-eight years of age, was called upon to govern the diocese of Ratisbon. For years after his death, which occurred in 1832, it was his spirit which prevailed in the management of ecclesiastical affairs in Bavaria, and at the express wish of the King, Giirres was called to a Professorship of history at the University of Munich, in 1827. The first years he spent there were peaceful and pleasant enough. The patriotic King had always felt great sympathy with the author of the Merkur. His lectures at the University attracted a numerous audience, and his little house at Munich became a social centre for friends and visitors from far and near, who were received with cordial hospitality. The opinions of Gorres himself had, up to this time, undergone no change, and although a sincere and zealous Catholic, he had not renounced his liberal opinions. Clemens Brentano having protested against the severe judg- ment passed by him on the Popes of Avignon, in his intro- duction to Diepenbrock's Life and Writings of Suso, Gorres wrote in answer these lines, which have been recently so much quoted :—" C. Brentano and others are in the wrong, in so far as they want the truth to be suppressed. This was always the worst of policies, and is particularly so now, besides being an impossible one to maintain. I am always and every- where for bright, outspoken truth, which fears nothing." These words were written in 1829. A year later, a momentous change had taken place in the position of the Catholic Church. In England, Catholic emancipation had at last been carried ; in France, the new Ultramontane school, which, since the death of its chief theoretical writer, Do Maistro, bad passed under the guidance of La Mennais, found itself at liberty, after the Revo- lution of 1830, to conclude that alliance with freedom and democracy, from which her enthusiastic leader expected a new era for the Church, but which had till then been strenu- ously opposed by the remnants of the old Galilean and Royalist clergy. In Belgium, the alliance of the Catholics with the Liberals secured the success of the Revolution, and won for them all the privileges of modern freedom. The deep im- pression produced by these events throughout the Catholic world made itself felt with particular force in the disaffected Rhenish provinces. The review Der Katliolik, in which French influence made itself strongly felt, propagated the new ideas ; the opposition against the State took a more distinct form, and careful observers, like Eilers and Perthes, expressed their concern at seeing the good understanding and amicable relations between the Churches coming to an end. Nor were their fears exaggerated. The reactionary party within the Catholic Church openly accused the elder generation of having neglected, through weakness and in- difference, the most sacred interests of the faith, and only waited for an opportunity to enter into open conflict with the State. Such an opportunity was already being prepared. Negotiations had been pending for years between the Prussian Government, the Catholic Bishops, and Rome, on the subject of mixed mar- riages. What the Government wanted was, in the main, this,— that marriages between Protestants and Catholics should receive the sanction of the Catholic Church, without any promise as to the religious faith of the children born of such marriages. In answer to its appeal, Pope Pius VIII. decided, by a Brief of March 29, 1830, that such marriages could only be sanctioned if the children were brought up in the Catholic faith ; but that to prevent greater evils, " the passive assistance of a Catholic priest should be granted, even if such a promise had not been given." At Berlin, the Papal decision was considered unsatisfactory, the Brief sent back, and negotiations continued under the new Pope, Gregory XVI., but without leading to a more satisfactory result. It was then that the Prussian Ministers tried to obtain from the Bishops what had been refused by Rome. Since 1824, Count Spiegel had been Archbishop of Cologne. He had always enjoyed a good reputation, was a man of a highly culti- vated mind, liberal in his opinions, and who constantly endea- voured to secure for the Church an, honourable independence from State control, as well as guarantees against the ever- encroaching pretensions of the Roman Curia. The negotiator sent froin Berlin to the Archbishop was Bunsen, and they both came to an agreement to accept the Papal Brief theoretically, but to interpret it practically in such a way that nearly in all cases the benediction of mixed marriages by the Catholic priest was secured, a so-called " convention " for which Spiegel asked and obtained the consent of his suffragan bishops in the western provinces. Before it had been carried out and Rome apprised of it, however, the Archbishop died ; and in 1836, Clemens August von Droste- Vischering succeeded him, by the choice of the Government and of the Chapter of Cologne, although he was well known to belong to the uncompromising party, and therefore quite

different from his predecessor. A few months later, the question of mixed marriages had already given rise to serious conflicts, and the Archbishop declared himself bound in his con- science to decide in favour of the strictest interpretation of the Brief, and to refuse to sanction any mixed marriage in which the condition of bringing up the children in the Catholic faith had not been accepted beforehand. It is not possible here to enter into the details of the quarrel which ensued, but Protestant as well as Catholic writers have been, on the whole, favourable to the Archbishop, and acknowledged that from his point of view his conduct was justified. It led to his imprisonment in the fortress of Minden, on November 20, 1837, and two months afterwards, Correa settled his long-outstanding account with the Prussian Government by the publication of Atlianusi'lls, the effect of which on the Catholic population on the Rhine is only to be compared with the success once obtained by the Rlieinische Merkur. The pamphlet of Gorres appeared at a critical moment in the history of the Church in Germany. Even amongst his coreligionists, the line taken by the Archbishop had not met at first with unani- mous approval. On the very day of his arrival at Minden, his Chapter at Cologne complained bitterly of his administration in a special letter to the Pope ; and if the report of Bunsen, during all these negotiations the diplomatic agent of Prussia at Rome, is to be trusted, the resistance of Clemens August was not welcome there at first, and it was only when it became evident

that with every day that passed public opinion was pronouncing- itself more and more on his side, that the Papal See solemnly approved of his course. Another fact worthy to be noticed, as illustrating the difference between those times and ours, is to be found in the correspondence of Giirres. It is stated repeatedly that the tone of the Archbishop in his written communications with Rome gave great offence there, as being cold and formal, and it was found necessary to remind him that a different language had to be used with one's friends than with one's enemies. (Ges,. Thiele, I., 449-466.) The interference of Gorres did much to turn the scale, but there is no doubt that the faults of the Prussian Government rendered his task a comparatively easy one. The mis- take it committed was in the main this, that it underrated the strength of the religious convictions to which the Archbishop appealed, and that it thought the spiritual power of the Church weakened in proportion to the temporal losses she had experienced. The want of straightforwardness and veracity in its diplomatic rela- tions with Rome, and the absence of constitutional means by which the existing differences might have been settled, made it possible for Giirres to shelter the position of the Archbishop behind the cause of liberty, and to secure for him the enthusi- astic support of his countrymen, who proved soon ready to go further than the Archbishop himself had wished them to go. The conflict came to an end after the death of the King, and the accession to the throne of his son, the mild and refined Frederick William IV., who consented to give up all the important modifi- cations claimed by the former government in the question of mixed marriages, and at that cost restored for a time peace be- tween Church and State. Giirres celebrated that event in the pamphlet Ifirelle and Stoat each der lialner lrrung, 1843, the most elaborate of his political writings, in which he came to the con- clusion that continued war, and not peace, was to be the result of the reawakening of Catholic consciousness to which the. Cologne affair had given the impulse. He might have added, with equal truth, that the first symptom of this change is to be traced back to the exclamation of the Archbishop, taken up and pro- claimed by the fiery eloquence of ilthanasius,—,, Thank God,. violent means have been employed !"

Once again Gorres took an active part in the religious questions of the day. It was in 1844, when Bishop Arnoldi, of Treves, resolved to expose to public veneration a relic which an ancient tradition described as the tunic of our Lord. The affiux of an immense number of pilgrims and popular enthusiasm, heightened by the recollection of the recent political success, transformed the devotional act into a great Catholic demonstration. Criticism, however, did not remain silent, and objections were raised against the authenticity of the relic. In its defence, Gorres wrote the Pilgrimage to Treves, in which he gave, after his own fashion, an account of the relic, more symbolical and ingenious than histori- cal, at the end of which he made the dangerous admission that, even if the arguments of his opponents proved true, and the relic offered to public veneration at Treves was not identical with the tunic once worn by our Lord, the veneration of so many centuries would be sufficient to secure his. If Giirres had lived long enough to witness the strange aberrations of Catholic devotion in our time, we venture to say that he would have retracted such words as these. His last years were devoted to the pursuit of his studies on the Mystics, in which the absence of the critical sense, which had more than once led him into serious error, made itself

more and more felt, his style also became intricate and overcharged with imagery, and it is recorded that one of his friends having been asked if he had read the Mystilc, answered that he waited for its being translated into German. He also wrote a series of scientific dissertations for the Munich Academy, and started at the time of the Cologne conflict a periodical, Die Ilisturiseli-Politisclien Bleirter, which, although it has become partial and unscientific, still exists, and is now the principal Ultramontane review of Germany. That quiet dignity which had never deserted Gorres through life gave a peculiarly noble character to the closing days of his career. Those who surrounded his death-bed received the impression of a calm courage and serenity undaunted by the approach of death, and the only expression of regret they heard from his lips was that in the heat of controversy he had sometimes let himself be carried beyond the limits of moderation and forbearance. His coun- tenance having suddenly brightened up before he breathed his last, he replied to the questions of those who surrounded him that he had had a vision of St. Paul, and then peacefully expired.

Much as those who knew him differed in their appreciation of the isolated works or deeds of his life, they all agreed in their judgment of Gorres himself. In youth as in old age, in exile and persecution, no less than at the height of his popularity, they all testified that he never thought of himself. With the exception of the pamphlet la Saclien der 1Theinprovivz, and in eigenen Angele- genheiten, which, under the pressure of outer circumstances, he wrote in sell-defence, there is neither in his letters nor in his writings a word relating to himself. Those who knew him best affirm that not only was he absolutely indifferent•to his interests, his fortune, and all the outer advantages of life, but also to literary fame ; and that he sacrificed without difficulty, at the advice and criticism of a friend, the toil and labour of months. In every-day life this ardent champion of the Church, who has been called the German O'Connell, was the most tolerant of men. His own wife never shared his Christian faith ; nevertheless the married life of Gorres remained a happy one, and he never interfered with her ideas in that respect. His friends had such an unbounded con- fidence in his sincerity, that when the Protestants, among them Perthes, Grimm, and Arnim, heard that he had chosen the exclusively Catholic point of view, he met at their hands the same tolerance with which he treated others, and the great change which henceforth divided their thoughts left their friendly feelings untouched. "You, my dear Giirres," wrote the refined and chivalrous Arnim, "you who'have always erred in sincerity, have enlightened and advanced yourself in truth. Lot others call you changeable in your faith,—this is just what I honour in you, that you have sacrificed nothing to vanity, as if you had been com- plete from the beginning. The sound of political prophecy has died away, and does not strengthen you any more. You strive upwards by other paths, and whether they are the right ones will be made known to you at the right hour." (Ges. Briefe, I., 806.) Gorres left an only son, Guido, known as a lyric poet, and as the author of the first detailed biography of Joan of Arc. He was of a particularly mild and amiable disposition, but ho had not inherited the great gifts of his father, and died a few years after Lim, and there is nobody left to bear the name of Gorres.

Thoso'who visit the Cathedral of Cologne will notice on one of its painted windows the figures of Charlemagne and St. Boniface, the two founders of German Christianity. Next to them, in the plain attire of our days, with his strong, energetic features and rich mass of hair, is the portrait of him whose life we have tried briefly to sketch. If he had had to decide for himself, Gorres would have wished for no other memorial than that chosen by his friends for him who devoted his life to the lofty ideal, both Christian and patriotic, which is embodied for Ger- many in the majestic structure of its great cathedral on the banks of the Rhine.