On the other hand, I have heard the objection made, that though I only
wrote the truth, it was still unbecoming in me to write it as I did
(?) Those good folks who so degrade the truth, and whose knees tremble
before every tribunal, are informed, that it was not only my privilege,
but my sacred duty so to write. The paper in question was written with
the feeling of a _German_, who was ashamed and irritated, by seeing
the despotic sway of Rome ever extending, wider and more boldly, and
constantly employing for its extension (an extension which brings
all vices in its train,) Germans--men whose paramount duty it is, as
teachers of the people, to lead them to freedom and independence--since
without _these_ no virtue is conceivable. I wrote that article as a
teacher of the people, and as a teacher of religion, who holds it as his
most sacred duty to oppose all injustice, and to call it by its proper
name, should it even be perpetrated under the shelter of the altar, and
the hypocrisy of the more than millennial supremacy of Rome. There
was besides somewhat peculiarly novel in Dr. Ritter's distinctive
characterizing of the peculiar word of honour. He puts questions to me
which I am called upon to answer on my _priestly_ word of honour.
Does Dr. Ritter always rate the quality of honour by the office of the
individual? If so, are those who have no office also without honour!
My honour is one and indivisible--that which God has implanted within
me--the honour of being a man. This honour I esteem more highly than
that priestly conceit with which, instead of love, Rome seeks by
consecration to inoculate her slaves, and which generally sinks them far
below the level of their fellow-men, though they may dream that they are
high above them. My honour and my manly dignity are of greater value in
my eyes than all your livings, prelacies, and mitres; and I am ready to
defend my honour against every one, even against Dr. Ritter. Dr. Ritter
will perceive from this that I was not lying bound, as he supposed, by
that hierarchic spell which extinguishes reason, and de grades man's
will to the condition of a limping slave. No, I had seen the Church
beneath the screen of her hypocrisy--I had seen her in all her
deformity, and I felt myself called on, at once by my manly dignity, and
my love to my neighbour, to assist in tearing off her curse-laden mask.