"Friends and former Colleagues.--Before writing these words to you,
I asked myself--shall I be listened to by those to whom I am about to
speak? or will my invitations strike in vain upon their ears? No, they
will not strike in vain upon your ears--I feel it and I know it, friends
and former colleagues! You, the so-called inferior clergy, have
been hitherto but little, if at all addressed, because, although you
constitute the real ground-work and the strength of the ecclesiastical
body, you have been, and you still are held, to be a mass inaccessible
to moral freedom--in fact, morally dead. But I have been compelled, by
sense of duty and by love of my country, to address you; and besides,
I speak to you at a time when the laity themselves--the
congregations--think and act, not according to the dead letter, but in
agreement with the spirit of religion. Can it then be, that you, the
priests--the teachers of the people, unlike them, can choose supinely
to remain in circumstances of blind surrender of your judgment? Can you
alone, and without exception, be so deeply sunk in slavery to Rome and
the deadness of the letter, that it is no longer possible for you to
arise and shake your spirits free! This I neither can nor will believe,
for this were to believe you had forgotten to be men--it were to doubt
the triumph of the kingdom of Christ--the triumph of righteousness,--it
were to doubt the improvement and the advancement of society, which you
are imperatively called on to promote. Oh, I have better thoughts
of you, for I have suffered, and still suffer with you; I know the
giant-yoke you wear, and to wear which is accounted (to you?) as the
fulfilment of a most sacred duty--as a merit--as _religion_. Many a one
of you has lamented to me, that the pain of blinded, passive slavery to
Rome burned incurably in his bosom, and I know how many among you writhe
in desperation, and await with longing the hour that is to set you free.
It is, therefore, upon you, and the triumphant strength of a righteous
cause, that I ground my confidence of an assured result. I know full
well that you will not all, of one accord, and at my earliest word,
strike off the shameful fetters of the Roman despotism, and stand forth
as independent German priests--although each one must feel that there
is inspiration in the very thought--but I entertain the hope that many
a one may be aroused from stupefaction at my call--that many a timid
one may be encouraged, and many a dazzled eye restored to clearer
vision--that many among you, moved by my example, will dare to cast
a bold and fearless glance within, and having done so, with a cry of
grief--a cry of horror, at your condition, to stride forward to the
contest, which is to make you once more men! It is to that that I invite
you; you must become men--independent men, for the sake of our holy
religion, for your own sakes, and for the happiness of our common
Fatherland,--I invoke your manhood! You must become men, filled with a
sense of your great dignity as such, as well as with the importance
of your mission--glowing with active zeal for the spiritual and moral
elevation of the nations of the earth! you must become men full of
love to your calling--burning to secure the happiness of your
fellow-mortals!--men full of holy ardour to establish the rights of all
your fellow-citizens without distinction--full of holy ardour for the
bringing in of the reign of righteousness and brotherly-love among all
the children of men; men full of ardour to exhibit your convictions in
your actions--to turn your words to truth and actual realization, that
all men may become brothers--as the children of one Father. In obedience
to your calling, you must become such men. But you are not so at
present--you are the hirelings of the Pope! Yes, you are hirelings,
without a feeling of your dignity as men, or of the importance of
your mission, although you call yourselves the chosen, honoured, and
consecrated servants of the Lord! You do not glow with zeal for the
honour, the moral freedom, the welfare of your fellow-citizens; you even
grind down the bourgeoisie and peasantry, who number in their ranks
your parents and their families--by whose sweat you are supported,--and
anathematize them when they raise their heads, impatient of Romish
interference with their consciences. You feast, while they are hungry;
you riot, while they pine! Is this falsehood? See here a bishop with
40,000 annual dollars (L6000)--religious institutions with incalculable
wealth, and not far from them a poor weaver, who can barely earn five
silver groschens (6d.) weekly for himself and for his family! You are
not filled with holy ardour to spread abroad righteousness, truth, and
light--although from desk and pulpit you deceitfully proclaim, 'with us
alone are truth, peace, civilization, education, and moral freedom; we
are the trusty friends and guides of the nations; it is to us men must
commit their faith, in order after earthly toil to become blessed!' Far
rather do many of you labour, some consciously, others unconsciously, to
promulgate superstition, darkness, and spiritual bondage! You will
say to me,--'Bring proof, bring proof,' and proof you shall have, an
hundred-thousand fold:--_the fruits of your words and of your actions!_
Look to your own consecrated class--what _corruption!_ Look to the
nations--what _misery!_ 'A good tree cannot bear evil fruit.'' The
corruption of your consecrated order is the fruit of your soul-killing
servitude to your superiors; the misery of the nations is, for the
most part, the result of your oppression. The pressure under which
you yourselves languish, is fearful and unspeakable, for you have been
robbed of freedom in the exercise of reason, will, and affection.
You are slaves--and therefore wish your fellow-citizens to share your
bondage. Your spirit lies enchained by despotic bulls and edicts--the
unfettered flight of thought is restrained by curses. Your reason is the
venal slave of selfishness and terror. The so-called Romish Church--more
properly Rome's _despotism_, has placed your faith within such narrow
bounds that you are forced to tremble at each rising thought, and ask
if it be 'orthodox?'--for these bounds of faith are beset by fiends who
threaten your salvation when your spirit thinks to over-step them. Is it
not so? Does not the fear of devils and of hell exert a widely greater
influence than the love of God and of your fellow-men? And what
absurdities are you not commanded to believe and teach!
"You have, further, been deprived of your _free agency_. You must yield
blind obedience to your superiors, and this requirement of passive,
blind obedience is the prime injunction of the Roman Church! Without
this blind obedience, all your virtues are of no avail--without it you
are criminals. The Roman Church, that kindly mother, has seized your
rights as men; you have not, as my example may convince you, even such
privileges as are accorded to the worst of criminals in your fatherland.
And of whom is this Church composed? You tremble before her and her
edicts? Do you know that it is before yourselves you tremble? for you
no less belong to the Church than those among your colleagues who sit in
the chapter-houses or in the episcopal seats--no less than that Italian
Bishop who is called the Pope! Have you forgotten that your colleagues,
to whom you are now required to offer almost idolatrous regard, neither
were, nor wished to be, above yourselves in the early centuries of
Christianity? Have you forgotten that the bishops and priests of those
days were chosen from among the congregations,--that is, the people; and
that the people sat in council with them both! The inferior clergy had
their synods even in the gloomy centuries of the middle ages, and, when
they acted in concert, could give due weight to their desires. And
what have you now, in the nineteenth century? Lordly Presbyterial
Assemblies?! Each one among you fears to utter an honest word in
presence of a right reverend brother. You are mere automata. You have
no will in opposition to your superiors. _Demand your rights as men!_
"Your _freedom of affection_ also has been destroyed; your heart is
stifled and perverted. And how! Shall I hesitate freely to speak out,
because I may subject myself to suspicion--because I expose myself to
the attacks of vulgar-minded men? Ah, no! the principle at stake is too
important, too elevated, and too holy,--it involves nature's highest
ordinance, the holiest concerns of man; from it depends the happiness,
the welfare of many millions--the virtue, honour, and freedom of
the nations; so that I would gladly expose myself on its account to
suspicion and attack! It is _love, marriage, and the family-tie_; you
have been robbed of these--robbed of them by the Rule of Celibacy! It is
by this Rule that your affections are stifled and perverted. Yes, your
hearts are corrupted by the ordinance of celibacy, which has no warrant
in the Gospel, but has been introduced with blood and murder by an
imperious Pope. This ordinance deprives you of your claim to the
possession of a virtuous wife, whose love would render you far happier
and more honourable; it robs you of the joys, the hopes, the love, which
bless the family-tie; it impoverishes and desolates your breast. This
ordinance demoralizes your natural instinct, hands you over to those
outcasts of womankind, through whom so many fall into the deepest mire
of immorality, and become an offence and mockery to their congregations.
This ordinance deprives you of the stamp of open manliness, and makes
you _hypocrites!_
"If the free exercise of reason, will, and affection, has been taken
from you, what have you left worth living for? Can your luxurious tables
compensate for the loss of life's best blessings? Compensate! when your
feast is interrupted by the needy, wretched cries of thousands of your
starving fellow-creatures! or are your revels only seasoned by the
groans of your necessitous brethren? You call yourselves the fathers,
the teachers of the people; arise, then! conduct yourselves as such,
and help to extricate them from their depth of spiritual and physical
misery! Such is your duty, before all others!--'But how can we help
them,' do you ask? Not by the bit of silver, thrown to the poor man with
an ostentatious air, which, in most instances, but tends to lower or
extinguish self-respect; and is besides, but as a drop in the
great furnace. Stand forth against the despotism of Rome! abolish
superstition, that barrier to free agency, and the free practice of
virtue! break down the dishonouring restrictions upon conscience and
religion! contend for the spiritual and physical wellbeing of your
fellow-citizens, and you will aid the people and yourselves! Yes, arise
and burst the chains of cowardice and shame; tear asunder the web of
dissimulation which Rome has woven round you, and become unfettered,
honest priests--true teachers of the German people! You will become
everything! for at present you are _nothing_; become _men!_ attain at
last to the conviction, that the priests exist for the people, and not
the people for the priests; that Christ established his religion, and
enjoined brotherly love, that mankind might be rendered holy and happy
even while on earth; and that it is not his wish that they should pine
in soul and body here, in order to be saved at last, as Romish despotism
teaches;--dare to achieve this conviction, and act upon it, as in duty
bound! Cast off the silly bigotry with which Rome knows how to inoculate
you, and live and labour, not for Rome's Bishop and her ambitious
prelates, but with and for your fellow-citizens!
"Seek rather to attain an honourable place among your fellow-citizens,
and their respect and love--by activity, unblemished character, and a
virtuous--life, than to way-lay or supplicate an indolent and hateful
benefice. Scorn at length that slave-like prejudice, which would rather
follow in the worshipful footprint of its right reverend master, than
listen to the unbiassed judgment and opinion of a freeman! Venture to
contend for your own and the peopled independence and moral freedom--you
will be cordially supported by your fellow-citizens! Employ the pulpit,
the confessional,* and the teacher's desk, which long have been
abused for the darkening and degrading of your countrymen--for their
improvement and emancipation! With and by the people you may become
independent! Assist, therefore, first of all, in emancipating the
national schools, and in securing for the community the free choice of
pastors, and keep abreast of the spirit of the people and of the
times. Yes, yes! go hand in hand with your people, and you will be
invincible--you will work wonders!
* It must be borne in mind, that this letter is of prior
date to Ronge's Justification, in which he unhesitatingly
condemns the use of the Confessional.--Trans.
"Am I dreaming? Look into the world, and mark the results of temperance
societies! Here, to a certain extent, you have aided in the moral
improvement of the people, although many of you have employed means by
which your congregations have been more injured than they could have
been by the most intoxicating drink.
"Do you fear the Chapters, the Bishops, the Pope? All these are
powerless without you--in you alone their strength consists; their
despotism has been erected on your cowardice and ignorance. Demand
general councils, and hold them, as they once were held, in union with
your congregations. Demand of your spiritual superiors that they rule
according to law and privilege, and not after their own caprice; be no
longer their tame and passive slaves.
"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the apparent growth of the
Hierarchy; it will, it must fall, for its watchwords are retrogression
and degradation, while providence has ordained improvement for the
world--'Be ye therefore perfect, as my father is perfect.'
"Do not allow yourselves to be persuaded that the ecclesiastical power
is increasing, because you hear of numerous conversions to the Romish
creed in individual German States! The nation must and shall learn that
these conversions are, for the most part, brought about by the intrigues
and money of the Jesuits--by money which these spiritual and consecrated
bands of freebooters of the Romish Hierarchy, wring from the poor by
means of Rosary and Prayer-associations, and of which they rob the rich
by mortmain. When our people shall have learned this--when they shall
have discovered how fearfully all that they hold most sacred--their
religion--is abused by the Romish Church, they will cast off Rome and
her hypocrites with inexorable indignation. Still you may object,--'A
great portion of our people is more attached than ever to the formal
mummeries of Rome--to the doctrine of works; they hasten more than ever
to places of Pilgrimage and Indulgence, and these processions are not
confined to the ignorant populace, but are joined by educated wives and
maidens, while the younger clergy are full of fanaticism! Does not
this indicate the increase and the triumph of the Romish Creed?' Such
phenomena there are indeed--phenomena belonging to the sixteenth, not
the nineteenth century--but these phenomena are the curse upon your
cowardice, the consequences of a want of moral courage to contend
against the hirelings of the Pope. You have not dared encounter these
Roman wolves in German fleeces; you have not dared to honour God and his
truth; you have not dared to sacrifice your benefices to your heart's
convictions, to the welfare of your congregations--of the nation! The
slaves of Rome have therefore been enabled to rule at pleasure in the
Catholic States of Germany, speaking big words--shamelessly insulting
and intriguing--disseminating darkness and superstition. They have
been free to rage in their congregations, to mislead, unpunished and
unchecked, the credulous multitude, and to excite them and the younger
clergy to fanaticism; they have been at liberty to proclaim the grossest
abuses as the actual substance of Christianity, announcing follies and
absurdities as Christian truths--for it is but seldom that any one, now
and then, has ventured to raise his voice against them, or at least it
has been speedily reduced to silence when once raised.
"Hence the insolence of these creatures of Rome, who dare, with
unblushing front, here in the midst of Germany, to call the greater part
of the nation, which refuses to do them homage--_a vulgar mob!_ But, woe
to them! the day has dawned at length,--the mask of their hypocrisy will
be torn aside,--the confidence betrayed of our people and the younger
clergy will burst forth in flames of merited indignation,--truth will
shed a purer and a purer light, until at last the lying fabric shall
fall down, and the rotten timbers of the Hierarchy shall crumble into
dust! For it cannot be, that the spirit of truth, and justice, and
brotherly love, is to be crushed for ever,--the spirit which Christ
promised to _His Church_, and not to _Romish ambition_: 'The spirit
remains with you till the end, and the spirit will make you free.' But
you must seek for and follow after this spirit; then you shall have
nought to fear--you shall triumph. This spirit will not greet you on
your silken couches of indolence, He will not visit your licentious
pillows--the Spirit discovers Himself now and ever as formerly,
working in and through human agents. Strive earnestly and zealously
for intellectual advancement and moral freedom, in union with your
fellow-men,--lend a ready ear to the cries of the needy, enter heartily
into the wishes of your fellow-citizens,--and you shall find the Holy
Spirit, who shall declare Himself to you--you shall hear Him in the
voice, in the call of your people, of your native country! The nation
calls you now to a great and holy work. 'You must,' such is its call,
'cast off the degrading and unchristian despotism of the Roman Bishop;
you must, in union with your fellow-citizens, the laity, restore,
without fear of men, the Christian-Catholic religion, in all its purity
and simple elevation; you must establish a German-Catholic (i. e.
universal) Christian Church; you must be no longer Romish, but honest
German priests and teachers. Such is the voice of your people,--the
call of your country! Will you obey the call? Will you begin the work
without fear of men? Oh, I entreat you, I conjure you to obey the call;
go promptly to the work, now, while there yet is time! I beg of you to
set to the work, and I am not ashamed to beg,--the boon is so elevated
and important! I implore you in the name of our religion, for the sake
of honour, independence, and the peace of Germany,--I implore you, for
your own sakes, by your dignity, honour, virtue,--by your happiness as
men!
"Some of you will object--'But then we must cast off the Pope, and that
were contrary to the Gospel; for Christ says to Peter,--"Thou art a
rock, and upon thee will I build my Church;" Peter was Bishop of Rome,
and the Pope is his successor!' What, brethren? Do you interpret the
saying of the elevated founder of our religion according to the deadness
of the letter? Are you not aware that Christ based His Church upon the
faith and love of Peter, and of his other disciples and followers, but
not upon his person? Do you not know that Rome has spared, and spares,
no fraud to aggrandize herself, and that as history informs us, her
prelates and her slaves have availed themselves of any means, however
inadmissible, for the attainment of the self-same end? Do you not know
that power and riches are the chief objects of the Court of Rome! and,
therefore, must no Catholic either think or speak freely on religious
matters, but blindly, like an animal, embrace and act upon the opinions
of his priest! Ah! you know all this and more;--you know that you even
act in direct opposition to the religion of Christ in bringing mankind
under the unworthy dominion of the Pope, and in the degrading of your
fellow-citizens; but you want the moral courage to shake yourselves
free, you fear to lose your livelihood, you shrink from want and labour!
Such fear is unworthy of the disciples of Christ and of the Truth. As
such, you ought to fear nothing so much as the degradation of yourselves
and of your fellow-men, to which the Papal yoke constrains you; and it
is, therefore, your most sacred duty to renounce the Pope, and to become
the true priests of your people. Or are you, perhaps, not in a condition
to promote the welfare and prosperity of your fellow-citizens? Do you
require the aid of a distant Italian Bishop,--of a foreign power? You
are better able to promote it than a distant Italian Bishop can be! Do
you fear that the renunciation of Rome would lead to discord! Certainly
not; for we are men, and we will act like men! With manly energy and
discretion, in union with our fellow-citizens, will we call together the
communities, freely to deliberate and determine what steps are needful
for us all. In such a work there is no room for discord, for all
violence is done away. Discord and violence are occasioned only by the
Romish despotism, which knows no other law than its own advantage and
aggrandizement. The Romish Hierarchy repels that German maiden from the
altar, who gives her heart to one who owns a different creed,--profanes
the virgin modesty of our sisters by wanton questions under the cloak
of religion,--takes upon itself, here in the midst of Germany, to refuse
the sacraments to mothers, if their children be not nurtured in the
faith of Rome,--rages against all attempts at reconciliation between
German Catholics and Protestants,--it is the Romish Church that will not
hear of peace, however longed for by the people!
"The Romish Government has likewise brought us under an unchristian
constraint, and introduced abuses into our religion, which lead to
superstition and to vice, and which deprive us of the blessings of the
Christian doctrine. We must first of all sweep away these abuses, we
must dismiss, as unintelligible to our people, from all the houses of
God in Germany, the Latin language,--that monument of our subserviency
and spiritual bondage, that unholy constraint which outrages the
clearest injunctions of the Gospel; for Paul says, (1st Cor. 14, 19,)
'I had rather speak five words with my understanding, than ten thousand
words in an unknown tongue,' and in the 23d verse he justly and directly
denounces as madness the use of a foreign and unknown language. We
must besides abolish the confessional, that moral torture-chamber, that
degrading tribunal of Inquisition,--which stamps men hypocrites and
blinded slaves to priestcraft,--which expels from the Supper of the
Lord so many thousand Catholics who nevertheless feel themselves
invited,--and which without a warrant in the Gospel, was first
introduced by one of the most power-loving Popes, twelve hundred years
after Jesus Christ. We must abolish all those mischievous contrivances
of Rome, which are only intended for the extortion of money,--which
undermine true piety, and degrade the priest to a farmer and a
trafficker in salvation! The pure and true and Catholic Christian
religion, shall alone remain, and its fundamental law--the law of
love,--shall not only be expressed in words, but practically evidenced
in our dealings with all our fellow-men of every faith and creed.
"I have been constrained, my friends, to address you in these few words,
to which I have felt myself called by a sense of the duty imposed on
me as preacher of religion, as a disciple of the truth,--these words,
dictated by love to my fellow-citizens, and anxiety for their salvation,
honor, and welfare,--and love to yourselves who languish under the yoke
of Rome! It depends now upon yourselves whether you will obey the
call of your religion, and of your fellow-citizens, and your improved
convictions. Woe! woe! to you, who hear not this appeal! and rest in
error and hypocrisy!--the righteous indignation of your countrymen,
who are now awaking to consciousness, will condemn you in a voice of
thunder, and the sentence will be indelibly engraved upon the page of
history! The work, besides, will be achieved without you.
"To you, who obey this call, eternal joy and blessing! You, who armed
with the moral courage of your calling, shun no labour and no sacrifice!
Yes, eternal joy and blessing to you! Your own consciences will reward
you, the love of your countrymen, the enduring gratitude of history,
shall secure you a millennial fame!"
In this letter, as in the former, it is easy to trace the same spirit
which so evidently characterizes the author as an honest and fearless
assertor of what he believes to be the truth. The event soon shewed
that he had not to fight single-handed. Previously, he had received
assurances of the sympathies of thousands; and now, when the period for
action came, there were not wanting many to cast in their lot with him,
as fellow-workers in overturning the great system of idolatrous worship.
When first suspended, his whole flock petitioned that his services might
still be continued to them--the best practical reply to the charges
advanced against him. Several secessions speedily took place;
congregations were formed at _Schneidemuehl_, under pastor _Czerski_,
and at Breslau, where Ronge now is occupied with the constitution and
settlement of the new community. In most cases, the ultra-Catholic party
have done what they could to create disturbance in the meetings, and
generally to obstruct the progress of business; but such attempts have
proved ineffectual. Of course, much in the constitution of the Church
must for a long time remain incomplete, but great unity, as well as
zeal, has hitherto characterized their proceedings.
The principal places where congregations are being formed are Breslau,
Schneidemuehl, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Magdeburg, Halberstadt,
Offenbach, Brunswick, Coblentz, Worms, and even Cologne, where priestly
influence is at its _maximum_. Other places it would be useless to name;
in fact, accounts have been received from a vast number of quarters; but
definite and final steps have not yet been taken, and, on all hands, it
is found to be the ease, that great numbers, including clergy as well as
laity, desire the formal recognition of the Church by the State, before
they openly avow their separation from the Roman See. The documents
connected with the origin, constitution, and principles of the Church
have now been laid before the Prussian Government; but, while we write,
no final answer has been returned.
The following remarks will so far explain the relation of this
Government to the new movement:--Hitherto they have maintained the
position of strict neutrality. The law of the land guarantees full
freedom of conscience to every Prussian citizen; and as the new
doctrines involve no principles of danger to the common safety, their
defenders are entitled to demand that no police restrictions be put in
the way of their progress. The law draws a distinction between religious
societies merely _tolerated_, and those formally _acknowledged_ by the
State; the latter only having corporate rights and privileges. The two
Protestant Churches--the Reformed and Lutheran--have been united into
one Church, generally called the Evangelical, which, with the Catholic,
have alike the full sanctions of State protection. It is manifest, that
where such strenuous efforts have been made to bring about this
singular union, and where _unity of creed_ is the avowed object of the
Government, the sanctioning a new class of separatists, whether from
the Catholic or Protestant Church, might lead to serious political
consequences. The party of the _Old Lutherans_, who refused to
co-operate in the scheme of union, have, strictly speaking, no legal
standing in the constitution of Prussia. They are tolerated, but not
acknowledged by the State. It seems exceedingly probable that such will
be the position of the new German Catholic Church, which would at once
secure the legally guaranteed rights of conscience, and, at the same
time, form no exception to the determination of the Government, as such,
to have only the two great antagonist Churches and Confessions.
Meanwhile, the King of Saxony, though a Catholic, has more openly avowed
his principles in connection with the movement. He was waited on by the
Bishop and Catholic Clergy of Leipsic, for the purpose of impressing
on him the duty of putting down the new sect by law. His reply was as
follows:--"I wonder much at the demand you have made; and all the more,
as you know that nineteen-twentieths of my subjects are Protestants,
whose conduct of late to my Catholic fellow-citizens has greatly
rejoiced my heart. You know, moreover, that I am King of a
_constitutional State_, and, as such, have promised and sworn to secure
full religious freedom to my subjects, of whatever faith. I shall, then,
place no obstruction in the way of what has taken place, but give events
their free course, because _I will not, and dare not_, make any
one swerve from that faith and worship from which alone he expects
salvation. This is my firmly-settled resolution." And with these
memorable words, the Bishop and Clergy were most graciously dismissed.
The joy in Leipsic at the answer of the King was unbounded, As an
off-set to this state of matters in Prussia and Saxony, we have to
state, that the papal influence has been brought to bear upon the
Governments of Austria and Bavaria--we believe with success--to prevent
_by law_ the formation of any Church in connection with the new sect,
throughout both kingdoms.
It is, of course, not to be expected that these congregations can as
yet have had time or opportunity to draw up a full and duly authorized
Confession of Faith. As matters stand, one congregation has adhered
to the Apostolical Creed--another to the Nicene Creed (a.d. 325). The
following is the Confession drawn up, and which has been generally
adhered to by the congregation of Schneidemuehl:--