fair world, namely, that everything consecrated or vowed must die. This
also was probably an usage of war transferred to peace. The inhabitants
of a city which forcibly defends itself are threatened with such a
vow; it is taken by storm or otherwise. Nothing is left alive;--men
never, and often women, children, and even cattle, share a similar
fate. Such sacrifices are rashly and superstitiously and with more or
less distinctness promised to the gods, and those whom the votary would
willingly spare, even his nearest of kin, his own children, may thus
bleed, the expiatory victims of such a delusion.
[Side-note: The Old Testament.]
In the mild and truly patriarchal character of Abraham, such a savage
kind of worship could not arise; but the Godhead,[3] which often, to
tempt us, seems to put forth those qualities which man is inclined to
assign to it, imposes a monstrous task upon him. He must offer up his
son as a pledge of the new covenant, and, if he follows the usage,
must not only kill and burn him, but cut him in two, and await between
the smoking entrails a new promise from the benignant Deity. Abraham
blindly, and without lingering, prepares to execute the command; to
Heaven the will is sufficient. Abraham's trials are now at an end,
for they could not be carried further. But Sarai dies, and this gives
Abraham an opportunity for taking typical possession of the land of
Canaan. He requires a grave, and this is the first time he looks out
for a possession in this earth. He had before this probably sought
out a two-fold cave by the grove of Mamre. This he purchases with the
adjacent field, and the legal form which he observes on the occasion,
shows how important this possession is to him Indeed it was more so,
perhaps, than he himself supposed; for there he, his sons and his
grandsons, were to rest, and by this means, the proximate title to the
whole land, as well as the everlasting desire of his posterity to
gather themselves there, was most properly grounded.
From this time forth the manifold incidents of the family life become
varied. Abraham still keeps strictly apart from the inhabitants, and
though Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian woman, has married a daughter
of that land, Isaac is obliged to wed a kinswoman of equal birth with
himself.
Abraham despatches his servant to Mesopotamia, to the relatives whom
he had left behind there. The prudent Eleazer arrives unknown, and, in
order to take home the right bride, tries the readiness to serve of
the girls at the well. He asks to drink himself, and Rebecca, unasked,
waters his camels also. He gives her presents, he demands her in
marriage, and his suit is not rejected. He conducts her to the home
of his lord, and she is wedded to Isaac. In this case, too, issue has
to be long expected. Rebecca is not blessed until after some years of
probation, and the same discord which in Abraham's double marriage
arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. Two boys of opposite
characters wrestle already in their mother's womb. They come to light,
the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The
former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's favourite. The
strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on.
Esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given
him; Jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. Watching
every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege, he buys the
birthright of his brother, and defrauds him of their father's blessing.
Esau is indignant, and vows his brother's death; Jacob flees to seek
his fortune in the land of his forefathers.
Now, for the first time, in so noble a family appears a member who
has no scruple in attaining by prudence and cunning the advantages
which nature and circumstances have denied him. It has often enough
been remarked and expressed, that the Sacred Scriptures by no means
intend to set up any of the patriarchs and other divinely-favoured
men as models of virtue. They, too, are persons of the most different
characters, with many defects and failings. But there is one leading
trait, in which none of these men after God's own heart can be
wanting--that is, an immovable faith that God has special care of them
and their families.
[Side-note: The Old Testament.]
General, natural religion, properly speaking, requires no faith; for
the persuasion that a great producing, regulating, and conducting
Being conceals himself, as it were, behind Nature, to make himself
comprehensible to us--such a conviction forces itself upon every one.
Nay, if we for a moment let drop this thread, which conducts us through
life, it may be immediately and everywhere resumed. But it is different
with a special religion, which announces to us that this Great Being
distinctly and pre-eminently interests himself for one individual, one
family, one people, one country. This religion is founded on faith,
which must be immovable if it would not be instantly destroyed. Every
doubt of such a religion is fatal to it. One may return to conviction,
but not to faith. Hence the endless probation, the delay in the
fulfilment of so often repeated promises, by which the capacity for
faith in those ancestors is set in the clearest light.
It is in this faith also that Jacob begins his expedition, and if by
his craft and deceit he has not gained our affections, he wins them by
his lasting and inviolable love for Rachel, whom he himself woos on
the instant, as Eleazar had courted Rebecca for his father. In him the
promise of a countless people was first to be fully unfolded; he was
to see many sons around him, but through them and their mothers was to
endure manifold sorrows of heart.
Seven years he serves for his beloved, without impatience and without
wavering. His father-in-law, crafty like himself, and disposed, like
him, to consider legitimate this means to an end, deceives him, and so
repays him for what he has done to his brother. Jacob finds in his arms
a wife whom he does not love. Laban, indeed, endeavours to appease him,
by giving him his beloved also after a short time, and this but on the
condition of seven years of further service. Vexation arises out of
vexation. The wife he does not love is fruitful, the beloved one bears
no children. The latter, like Sarai, desires to become a mother through
her handmaiden; the former grudges her even this advantage. She also
presents her husband with a maid; but the good patriarch is now the
most troubled man in the world--he has four women, children by three,
and none from her he loves. Finally she also is favoured, and Joseph
tomes into the world, the late fruit of the most passionate attachment.
Jacob's fourteen years of service are over, but Laban is unwilling to
part with him, his chief and most trusty servant. They enter into a new
compact, and portion the flocks between them. Laban retains the white
ones as most numerous, Jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as
the mere refuse. But he is able here too to secure his own advantage;
and as by a paltry mess (_of pottage_) he had procured the birthright,
and by a disguise his father's blessing, he manages by art and sympathy
to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and
on this side also he becomes the truly worthy progenitor of the people
of Israel, and a model for his descendants. Laban and his household
remark the result, if not the stratagem. Vexation ensues; Jacob flees
with his family and goods, and partly by fortune, partly by cunning,
escapes the pursuit of Laban. Rachel is now about to present him
another son, but dies in the travail: Benjamin, the child of sorrow,
survives her; but the aged father is to experience a still greater
sorrow from the apparent loss of his son Joseph.
* * * * *
Perhaps some one may ask why I have so circumstantially narrated
histories so universally known and so often repeated and explained. Let
the inquirer be satisfied with the answer, that I could in no other
way exhibit, how with my distracted life and desultory education, I
concentrated my mind and feelings in quiet action on one point; that
I was able in no other way to depict the peace that prevailed about
me, even when all without was so wild and strange. If an ever busy
imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and
thither, if the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion,
threatened to bewilder me, I readily fled to those oriental regions,
plunged into the first books of Moses, and there, amid the scattered
shepherd-tribes, found myself at once in the greatest solitude and the
greatest society.
[Side-note: History of Joseph.]
These family scenes, before they were to lose themselves in a history
of the Jewish nation, show us now, in conclusion, a form by which the
hopes and fancies of the young in particular are agreeably excited:
Joseph, the child of the most passionate wedded love. He seems to us
tranquil and clear, and predicts to himself the advantages which are to
elevate him above his family. Cast into misfortune by his brothers, he
remains steadfast and upright in slavery, resists the most dangerous
temptations, rescues himself by prophecy, and is elevated according
to his deserts to high honours. He shows himself first serviceable
and useful to a great kingdom, then to his own kindred. He is like
his ancestor Abraham in repose and greatness, his grandfather Isaac
in silence and devotedness. The talent for traffic inherited from his
father he exercises on a large scale. It is no longer flocks which are
gained for himself from a father-in-law, but people, with all their
possessions, which he knows how to purchase for a king. Extremely
graceful is this natural story, only it appears too short, and one
feels called upon to paint it in detail.
Such a filling-up of biblical characters and events given only in
outline, was no longer strange to the Germans. The personages of both
the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and
affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the Boy as well as to many
of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer's efforts in this line little or
nothing came to him; but _Daniel in the Lion's Den_, by Moser, made
a great impression on the young heart. In that work a right-minded
man of business and courtier arrives at high honours through manifold
tribulations, and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him
became early and late his sword and buckler. It had long seemed to
me desirable to work out the history of Joseph, but I could not get
on with the form, particularly as I was conversant with no kind of
versification which would have been adapted to such a work. But now I
found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and I applied all my
strength to its execution. I now endeavoured to discriminate and paint
the characters, and by the interpolation of incidents and episodes,
to make the old simple history a new and independent work. I did not
consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter
was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the
perceptions of experience. Suffice, it to say, that I represented to
myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated
them accurately to myself in their succession.
What greatly lightened this labour was a circumstance which threatened
to render this work, and my authorship in general, exceedingly
voluminous. A young man of various capacities, but who had become
imbecile from over exertion and conceit, resided as a ward in my
father's house, lived quietly with the family, and if allowed to go
on in his usual way, was contented and agreeable. He had with great
care written out notes of his academical course, and had acquired a
rapid legible hand. He liked to employ himself in writing better than
in anything else, and was pleased when something was given him to
copy; but still more when he was dictated to, because he then felt
carried back to his happy academical years. To my father, who was
not expeditious in writing, and whose German letters were small and
tremulous, nothing could be more desirable, and he was consequently
accustomed, in the conduct of his own and other business, to dictate
for some hours a day to this young man. I found it no less convenient,
during the intervals, to see all that passed through my head fixed
upon paper by the hand of another, and my natural gift of feeling and
imitation grew with the facility of catching up and preserving.
As yet I had not undertaken any work so large as that biblical
prose-epic. The times were tolerably quiet, and nothing recalled my
imagination from Palestine and Egypt. Thus my manuscripts swelled more
and more every day, as the poem, which I recited to myself, as it were,
in the air, stretched along the paper; and only a few pages from time
to time needed to be rewritten.
When the work was done--for to my own astonishment it really came to an
end--I reflected that from former year, many poems were extant, which
did not even now appear to me utterly despicable, and which, if written
together in the same size with JOSEPH, would make a very neat quarto,
to which the title "Miscellaneous Poems" might be given. I was pleased
with this, as it gave me an opportunity of quietly imitating well-known
and celebrated authors. I had composed a good number of so-called
Anacreontic poems, which, on account of the convenience of the metre
and the easiness of the subject, flowed forth readily enough. But these
I could not well take, as they were not in rhyme, and my desire before
all things was to show my father something that would please him. So
much the more, therefore, did the spiritual odes seem suitable, which
I had very zealously attempted in imitation of the _Last Judgment_
of Elias Schlegel. One of these, written to celebrate the descent of
Christ into hell, received much applause from my parents and friends,
and had the good fortune to please myself for some years afterwards.
The so-called texts of the Sunday church-music, which were always to be
had printed, I studied with diligence. They were, indeed, very weak,
and I could well believe that my verses, of which I had composed many
in the prescribed manner, were equally worthy of being set to music,
and performed for the edification of the congregation. These and many
like them I had for more than a year before copied with my own hand,
because through this private exercise I was released from the copies of
the writing-master. Now, all were corrected and put in order, and no
great persuasion was needed to have them neatly copied by the young man
who was so fond of writing. I hastened with them to the bookbinder, and
when very soon after I handed the nice-looking volume to my father, he
encouraged me with peculiar satisfaction to furnish a similar quarto
every year; which he did with the greater conviction, as I had produced
the whole in my spare moments alone.
[Side-note: Plitt's Sermons.]
Another circumstance increased my tendency to these theological, or
rather biblical studies. The senior of the ministry, JOHN PHILIP
FRESENIUS, a mild man, of handsome, agreeable appearance, who was
respected by his congregation and the whole city as an exemplary
pastor and good preacher, but who, because he stood forth against the
Herrnhuters, was not in the best odour with the peculiarly pious;
while, on the other hand, he had made himself famous, and almost
sacred, with the multitude, by the conversion of a free-thinking
General who had been mortally wounded--this man died, and his
successor, Plitt, a tall, handsome, dignified man, who brought from
his _Chair_ (he had been a Professor in Marburg) the gift of teaching
rather than of edifying, immediately announced a sort of religious
course, to which his sermons were to be devoted in a certain methodical
connexion. I had already, as I was compelled to go to church, remarked
the distribution of the subject, and could now and then show myself
off by a pretty complete recitation of a sermon. But now as much was
said in the congregation, both for and against the new senior, and
many placed no great confidence in his announced didactic sermons,
I undertook to write them out more carefully, and I succeeded the
better from having made smaller attempts in a seat very convenient for
hearing, but concealed from sight. I was extremely attentive and on the
alert; the moment he said Amen I hastened from the church and consumed
a couple of hours in rapidly dictating what I had fixed in my memory
and on paper, so that I could hand in the written sermon before dinner.
My father was very proud of this success, and the good friend of the
family, who had just come in to dinner, also shared in the joy. Indeed,
this friend was very well-disposed to me, because I had so made his
_Messiah_ my own, that in my repeated visits to him to get impressions
of seals for my collection of coats-of-arms, I could recite long
passages from it till the tears stood in his eyes.
The next Sunday I prosecuted the work with equal zeal, and as the
mechanical part of it mainly interested me, I did not reflect upon
what I wrote and preserved. During the first quarter these efforts
may have continued pretty much the same; but as I fancied at last,
in my self-conceit, that I found no particular enlightenment as to
the Bible, nor clearer insight into dogmas, the small vanity which
was thus gratified seemed to me too dearly purchased for me to pursue
the matter with the same zeal. The sermons, once so many-leaved, grew
more and more meagre; and before long I should have relinquished this
labour altogether, if my father, who was a fast friend to completeness,
had not, by words and promises, induced me to persevere till the last
Sunday in Trinity--though, at the conclusion, scarcely more than the
text, the statement, and the divisions were scribbled on little pieces
of paper.
My father was particularly pertinacious on this point of completeness.
What was once undertaken must be finished, even if the inconvenience,
tedium, vexation, nay, uselessness of the thing begun were plainly
manifested in the meantime. It seemed as if he regarded completeness
as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. If in our family
circle, in the long winter evenings, we had begun to read a book aloud,
we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it,
and my father himself was the first to yawn. I still remember such a
winter when we had thus to work our way through Bower's _History of
the Popes._ It was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs
in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people.
Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading
remained in my mind that I was able, in after times, to take up many
threads of the narrative.
[Side-note: Lessons in Fencing.]
Amid all these heterogeneous occupations and labours, which followed
each other so rapidly that one could hardly reflect whether they
were permissible and useful, my father did not lose sight of the
main object. He endeavoured to direct my memory and my talent for
apprehending and combining to objects of jurisprudence, and therefore
gave me a small book by Hopp, in the shape of a catechism, and worked
up according to the form and substance of the Institutions. I soon
learned questions and answers by heart, and could represent the
catechist as well as the catechumen; and, as in religious instruction
at that time, one of the chief exercises was to find passages in the
Bible as readily as possible, so here a similar acquaintance with the
_Corpus Juris_ was found necessary, in which, also, I soon became
completely versed. My father wished me to go on, and the little STRUVE
was taken in hand; but here affairs did not proceed so rapidly. The
form of the work was not so favourable for beginners, that they could
help themselves on, nor was my father's method of illustration so
liberal as greatly to interest me.
Not only by the warlike state in which we lived for some years, but
also by civil life itself, and the perusal of history and romances, was
it made clear to me that there were many cases in which the laws are
silent and give no help to the individual, who must then see how to get
out of the difficulty by himself. We had now reached the period when,
according to the old routine, we were, besides other things, to learn
to fence and ride, that we might guard our skins upon occasion, and
have no pedantic appearance on horseback. As to the first, the practice
was very agreeable to us; for we had already, long ago, contrived to
make broad-swords out of hazel-sticks, with basket-hilts, neatly woven
of willow, to protect the hands. Now we might get real steel blades,
and the clash we made with them was very merry.
There were two fencing-masters in the city: an old earnest German,
who went to work in a severe and solid style, and a Frenchman, who
sought to gain his advantage by advancing and retreating, and by light
fugitive thrusts, which he always accompanied by cries. Opinions varied
as to whose manner was the best. The little company with which I was
to take lessons sided with the Frenchman, and we speedily accustomed
ourselves to move backwards and forwards, make passes and recover,
always breaking out into the usual exclamations. But several of our
acquaintance bad gone to the German teacher, and practised precisely
the opposite. These distinct modes of treating so important an
exercise, the conviction of each that his master was the best, really
caused a dissension among the young people, who were of about the same
age, and the fencing-schools occasioned serious battles,--for there
was almost as much fighting with words as with swords; and to decide
the matter in the end, a trial of skill between the two teachers
was arranged, the consequences of which I need not circumstantially
describe. The German stood in his position like a wall, watched his
opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again
with his cut and thrust. The latter maintained that this mattered not,
and proceeded to exhaust the other's wind by his agility. He fetched
the German several lunges, too, which, however, if they had been in
earnest, would have sent himself into the next world.
On the whole, nothing was decided or improved, except that some went
over to our countryman, of whom I was one. But I had already acquired
too much from the first master; and hence a considerable time elapsed
before the new one could break me of it, who was altogether less
satisfied with us renegades than with his original pupils.