tricks of the sort, partly without any aim at all, partly in the
service of my friends whom I liked to please. For myself, I could not
say that I had once acted in this designedly, nor did I ever happen
to consider a feat of the kind as a subject for art. Had I, however,
seized upon and elaborated such materials, which were so close at hand,
my earliest labours would have been more cheerful and available. Some
incidents of this kind occur indeed later, but isolated and without
design. For since the heart always lies nearer to us than the head,
and gives us trouble when the latter knows well how to help itself,
so the affairs of the heart had always appeared to me as the most
important. I was never weary of reflecting upon the transient nature of
attachments, the mutability of human character, moral sensuality, and
all the heights and depths, the combination of which in our nature may
be considered as the riddle of human life. Here, too, I sought to get
rid of that which troubled me, in a song, an epigram, in some kind of
rhyme, which, since they referred to the most private feelings and the
most peculiar circumstances, could scarcely interest any one but myself.
In the meanwhile, my external position had very much changed after
the lapse of a short time. Madame Böhme, after a long and melancholy
illness, had at last died; she had latterly ceased to admit me to her
presence. Her husband could not be particularly satisfied with me;
I seemed to him not sufficiently industrious, and too frivolous. He
especially took it very ill of me, when it was told him that, at the
lectures on German Public Law, instead of taking proper notes, I had
been drawing on the margin of my note-book the personages presented
to our notice in them, such as the President of the Chamber, the
Moderators and Assessors, in strange wigs; and by this drollery had
disturbed my attentive neighbours and set them laughing. After the
loss of his wife he lived still more retired than before, and at last
I shunned him in order to avoid his reproaches. But it was peculiarly
unfortunate that Gellert would not use the power which he might have
exercised over us. Indeed he had not time to play the father-confessor,
and to inquire after the character and faults of everybody; he
therefore took the matter very much in the lump, and thought to curb us
by means of the church forms. For this reason, commonly, when he once
admitted us to his presence, he used to lower his little head, and,
in his weeping, winning voice, to ask us whether we went regularly to
church, who was our confessor, and whether we took the holy communion?
If now we came off badly at this examination we were dismissed with
lamentations; we were more vexed than edified, yet could not help
loving the man heartily.
[Side-note: Sacraments of the Church.]
On this occasion, I cannot forbear recalling somewhat of my earlier
youth, in order to make it obvious that the great affairs of the
ecclesiastical religion must be carried on with order and coherence,
if they are to prove as fruitful as is expected. The Protestant
service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the
congregation together; hence, it easily happens that members secede
from it, and either form little congregations of their own, or, without
ecclesiastical connexion, quietly carry on their citizen-life side
by side. Thus for a considerable time complaints were made that the
church-goers were diminishing from year to year, and, just in the same
ratio, the persons who partook of the Lord's Supper. With respect to
both, but especially the latter, the cause lies close at hand; but who
dares to speak it out? We will make the attempt.
In moral and religious, as well as in physical and civil matters, man
does not like to do anything on the spur of the moment; he needs a
sequence from which results habit; what he is to love and to perform,
he cannot represent to himself as single or isolated, and if he is to
repeat anything willingly, it must not have become strange to him.
If the Protestant worship lacks fulness in general, so let it be
investigated in detail, and it will be found that the Protestant has
too few sacraments, nay, indeed he has only one in which he is himself
an actor,--the Lord's Supper: for baptism he sees only when it is
performed on others, and is not greatly edified by it. The sacraments
are the highest part of religion, the symbols to our senses of an
extraordinary divine favour and grace. In the Lord's Supper earthly
lips are to receive a divine Being embodied, and partake of an heavenly
under the form of an earthly nourishment. This sense is just the same
in all Christian churches; whether the Sacrament is taken with more
or less submission to the mystery, with more or less accommodation as
to that which is intelligible; it always remains a great holy thing,
which in reality takes the place of the possible or the impossible,
the place of that which man can neither attain nor do without. But
such a sacrament should not stand alone; no Christian can partake
of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or
sacramental sense is not fostered within him. He must be accustomed
to regard the inner religion of the heart and that of the external
church as perfectly one, as the great universal sacrament, which again
divides itself into so many others, and communicates to these parts its
holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity.
Here a youthful pair give their hands to one another, not for a passing
salutation or for the dance; the priest pronounces his blessing upon
them, and the bond is indissoluble. It is not long before this wedded
pair bring a likeness to the threshold of the altar; it is purified
with holy water, and so incorporated into the church, that it cannot
forfeit this benefit but through the most monstrous apostacy. The
child in the course of life practises himself in earthly things of his
own accord, in heavenly things he must be instructed. Does it prove
on examination that this has been fully done, he is now received into
the bosom of the church as an actual citizen, as a true and voluntary
professor, not without outward tokens of the weightiness of this act.
Now is he first decidedly a Christian, now for the first time he knows
his advantages, and also his duties. But, in the meanwhile, much that
is strange has happened to him as a man; through instruction and
affliction he has come to know how critical appears the state of his
inner self, and there will constantly be a question of doctrines and of
transgressions; but punishment shall no longer take place. For here,
in the infinite confusion in which he must entangle himself, amid the
conflict of natural and religious claims, an admirable expedient is
given him, in confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his infirmities and
doubts, to a worthy man, appointed expressly for that purpose, who
knows how to calm, to warn, to strengthen him, to chasten him likewise
by symbolical punishments, and at last by a complete washing away of
his guilt, to render him happy and to give him back, pure and cleansed,
the tablet of his manhood. Thus prepared, and purely calmed to rest by
several sacramental acts, which, on closer examination, branch forth
again into minuter sacramental traits, he kneels down to receive the
host; and that the mystery of this high act may be still enhanced,
he sees the chalice only in the distance; it is no common eating and
drinking that satisfies, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst
after heavenly drink.
Yet let not the youth believe that this is all he has to do; let not
even the man believe it. In earthly relations we are at last accustomed
to depend on ourselves, and, even there, knowledge, understanding,
and character, will not always suffice; in heavenly things, on
the contrary, we have never finished learning. The higher feeling
within us, which often finds itself not even truly at home, is,
besides, oppressed by so much from without, that our own power hardly
administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help.
But, to this end, that remedy is instituted for our whole life, and an
intelligent, pious man is continually waiting to show the right way to
the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed.
[Side-note: Catholic Sacraments.]
And what has been so well tried through the whole life, is now to
show forth all its healing power with tenfold activity at the gate of
Death. According to a trustful custom, inculcated from youth upwards,
the dying man receives with fervour those symbolical, significant
assurances, and there, where every earthly warranty fails, he is
assured, by a heavenly one, of a blessed existence for all eternity. He
feels himself perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a
malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified
body, so that, in immediate relation with the Godhead, he may partake
of the boundless happiness which flows forth from Him.
Then in conclusion, that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are
anointed and blessed. They are to feel, even in the event of possible
recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable
soil. A wonderful nimbleness is to be imparted to them, by which they
spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them.
And so, through a brilliant circle of equally holy acts, the beauty of
which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however
far asunder they may chance to be, are bound in one continuous circle.
But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from
the natural soil, where they can neither be sown, nor planted, nor
cherished. We must supplicate for them from another region, a thing
which cannot be done by all persons, nor at all times. Here we meet
the highest of these symbols, derived from pious tradition. We are
told that one man can be more favoured, blessed, and sanctified from
above than another. But that this may not appear as a natural gift,
this great boon, bound up with a heavy duty, must be communicated to
others by one authorized person to another; and the greatest good that
a man can attain, without his having to obtain it by his own wrestling
or grasping, must be preserved and perpetuated on earth by spiritual
heirship. In the very ordination of the priest, is comprehended all
that is necessary for the effectual solemnizing of those holy acts, by
which the multitude receive grace, without any other activity being
needful on their part, than that of faith and implicit confidence.
And thus the priest steps forth in the line of his predecessors and
successors, in the circle of those anointed with him, representing the
highest source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not
he, the priest, whom we reverence, but his office; it is not his nod
to which we bow the knee, but the blessing which he imparts, and which
seems the more holy, and to come the more immediately from heaven,
because the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by
its own sinful, nay, wicked nature.
How is this truly spiritual connexion shattered to pieces in
Protestantism, by part of the above-mentioned symbols being declared
apocryphal, and only a few canonical;--and how, by their indifference
to one of these, will they prepare us for the high dignity of the
others?
In my time I had been confided to the religious instruction of a good
old infirm clergyman, who had been confessor of the family for many
years. The _Catechism_, a _Paraphrase_ of it, and the _Scheme of
Salvation_, I had at my fingers' ends, I lacked not one of the strongly
proving biblical texts, but from all this I reaped no fruit; for as
they assured me that the honest old man arranged his chief examination
according to an old set form, I lost all pleasure and inclination for
the business, spent the last week in all sorts of diversions, laid in
my hat the loose leaves borrowed from an older friend, who had gotten
them from the clergyman, and unfeelingly and senselessly read aloud all
that I should have known how to utter with feeling and conviction.
[Side-note: Religious Apprehensions.]
But I found my good-will and my aspirations in this important matter
still more paralyzed by a dry, spiritless routine, when I was now
to approach the confessional. I was indeed conscious to myself of
many failings, but of no great faults; and that very consciousness
diminished them, since it directed me to the moral strength which
lay within me, and which, with resolution and perseverance, was at
last to become master over the old Adam. We were taught that we were
much better than the catholics for this very reason: that we were not
obliged to acknowledge anything in particular in the confessional,
nay, that this would not be at all proper, even if we wished to do it.
This last did not seem right to me; for I had the strangest religious
doubts, which I would readily have had cleared up on such an occasion.
Now as this was not to be done, I composed a confession for myself,
which, while it well expressed my state of mind, was to confess to an
intelligent man, in general terms, that which I was forbidden to tell
him in detail. But when I entered the old choir of the Barefoot Friars,
when I approached the strange latticed closets in which the reverend
gentlemen used to be found for that purpose, when the sexton opened the
door for me, when I now saw myself shut up in the narrow place face
to face with my spiritual grandsire, and he bade me welcome with his
weak nasal voice, all the light of my mind and heart was extinguished
at once, the well-conned confession-speech would not cross my lips;
I opened, in my embarrassment, the book which I had in hand, and
read from it the first short form I saw, which was so general, that
anybody might have spoken it with quite a safe conscience. I received
absolution, and withdrew neither warm nor cold; went the next day with
my parents to the Table of the Lord, and, for a few days, behaved
myself as was becoming after so holy an act.
In the sequel, however, there came over me that evil, which from the
fact of our religion being complicated by various dogmas, and founded
on texts of scripture which admit of several interpretations, attacks
scrupulous men in such a manner, that it brings on a hypochondriacal
condition, and raises this to its highest point, to fixed ideas. I have
known several men who, though their manner of thinking and living was
perfectly rational, could not free themselves from thinking about the
sin against the Holy Ghost, and from the fear that they had committed
it. A similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the communion,
for the text that one who unworthily partakes of the Sacrament _eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself_, had, very early, already made a
monstrous impression upon me. Every fearful thing that I had read in
the histories of the middle ages, of the judgments of God, of those
most strange ordeals, by red-hot iron, flaming fire, swelling water,
and even what the Bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with
the innocent, but puffs up and bursts the guilty,--all this pictured
itself to my imagination; and formed itself into the most frightful
combinations, since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all
seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which
was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pronounce
himself worthy, and the forgiveness of sins, by which everything was to
be at last done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one
could not with certainty dare appropriate it to oneself.
This gloomy scruple troubled me to such a degree, and the expedient
which they would represent to me as sufficient, seemed so bald and
feeble, that it gave the bugbear only a more fearful aspect, and, as
soon as I had reached Leipzig, I tried to free myself altogether from
my connexion with the church. How oppressive then must have been to me
the exhortations of Gellert, whom, considering the generally laconic
style with which he was obliged to repel our obtrusiveness, I was
unwilling to trouble with such singular questions, and the less so as
in my more cheerful hours I was myself ashamed of them; and at last
left completely behind me this strange anguish of conscience, together
with church and altar.
[Side-note: Decline of Gellert's Authority.]
Gellert, in accordance with his pious feelings, had composed for
himself a course of ethics, which from time to time he publicly read,
and thus in an honourable manner acquitted himself of his duty to the
public. Gellert's writings had already, for a long time, been the
foundation of German moral culture, and every one anxiously wished to
see that work printed; but as this was not to be done till after the
good man's death, people thought themselves very fortunate to hear him
deliver it himself in his lifetime. The philosophical auditorium[4]
was at such times crowded, and the beautiful soul, the pure will,
and the interest of the noble man in our welfare, his exhortations,
warnings, and entreaties, uttered in a somewhat hollow and sorrowful
tone, made indeed an impression for the moment, but this did not last
long, the less so, as there were many scoffers, who contrived to make
us suspicious of this tender, and, as they thought, enervating manner.
I remember a Frenchman travelling through the town, who inquired after
the maxims and opinions of the man who attracted such an immense
concourse. When we had given him the necessary information, he shook
his head and said, smiling, _Laissez le faire, il nous forme des dupes._
And thus also did good society, which cannot easily endure anything
estimable in its neighbourhood, know how to spoil on occasion the moral
influence which Gellert might have had upon us. Now it was taken ill of
him that he instructed the Danes of distinction and wealth, who were
particularly recommended to him, better than the other students, and
had a marked solicitude for them; now he was charged with selfishness
and nepotism for causing a table d'hôte to be established for these
young men at his brother's house. This brother, a tall, good-looking,
blunt, unceremonious and somewhat rude man, had, it was said, been
a fencing-master, and notwithstanding the too great lenity of his
brother, the noble boarders were often treated harshly and roughly;
hence the people thought they must again take the part of these young
folks, and pulled about the good reputation of the excellent Gellert
to such a degree, that, in order not to be mistaken about him, we
became indifferent towards him, and visited him no more; yet we always
saluted him in our best manner when he came riding along on his tame
grey horse. This horse the Elector had sent him, to oblige him to take
an exercise so necessary for his health;--a distinction which was not
easily forgiven him.
And thus, by degrees, the epoch approached when all authority was to
vanish from before me, and I was to become suspicious, nay, to despair,
even of the greatest and best individuals whom I had known or imagined.
Frederick the Second still stood at the head of all the distinguished
men of the century, in my thoughts, and it must therefore have appeared
very surprising to me, that I could praise him as little before the
inhabitants of Leipzig as formerly in my grandfather's house. They had
felt the hand of war heavily, it is true, and therefore they were not
to blame for not thinking the best of him who had begun and continued
it. They therefore were willing to let him pass, as a distinguished,
but by no means as a great man. "There was no art," they said, "in
performing something with great means; and if one spares neither
lands, nor money, nor blood, one may well accomplish one's purpose
at last. Frederick had shown himself great in none of his plans, and
in nothing that he had, properly speaking, undertaken. So long as it
depended on himself, he had only gone on making blunders, and what was
extraordinary in him, had only come to light when he was compelled to
make these blunders good again. It was purely from this that he had
obtained his great reputation, since every man wishes for himself that
same talent of making good, in a clever way, the blunders which he
frequently commits. If one goes through the Seven Years' War, step by
step, it will be found that the king quite uselessly sacrificed his
fine army, and that it was his own fault that this ruinous feud had
been protracted to so great a length. A truly great man and general
would have got the better of his enemies much sooner." In support of
these opinions they could cite infinite details, which I did not know
how to deny; and I felt the unbounded reverence which I had devoted to
this remarkable prince, from my youth upwards, gradually cooling away.
[Side-note: Behrisch.]
As the inhabitants of Leipzig had now destroyed for me the pleasant
feeling of revering a great man, so did a new friend whom I gained at
the time very much diminish the respect which I entertained for my
present fellow-citizens. This friend was one of the strangest fellows
in the world. He was named Behrisch, and was tutor to the young Count
Lindenau. Even his exterior was singular enough. Lean and well-built,
far advanced in the thirties, a very large nose, and altogether marked
features; he wore from morning till night a scratch which might well
have been called a peruke, but dressed himself very neatly, and never
went out but with his sword by his side, and his hat under his arm. He
was one of those men who have quite a peculiar gift of killing time,
or rather, who know how to make something out of nothing, in order to
pass time away. Everything that he did must be done with slowness,
and a certain deportment which might have been called affected, if
Behrisch had not even by nature had something affected in his manner.
He resembled an old Frenchman, and also spoke and wrote French very
well and easily. His greatest delight was to busy himself seriously
about drolleries, and to follow up without end any silly notion. Thus
he was constantly dressed in grey, and as the different parts of his
attire were of different stuffs, and also of different shades, he could
reflect for whole days as to how he should procure one grey more for
his body, and was happy when he had succeeded in this, and could put
to shame us who had doubted it, or had pronounced it impossible. He
then gave us long severe lectures, about our lack of inventive power,
and our want of faith in his talents.