great difficulty, supported on the arms of two servants, came the aged
Jep Mundelstrup. He entered the guest-room and was accommodated with a
seat. When he got his breath, he said, extending a roll of parchment to
the incumbent of Roager, "You will not fail to remember that it was at
_my_ suggestion that the choice of a bishop was left with you. You are
deeply indebted to me. But for me you would not have been visited and
canvassed by the Dean, the Arch-deacon, and the Ascetic, either in
person or by their representatives. You will please to remember that I
was nominated, but seeing so many others proposed, I withdrew my name. I
think you will allow that this exhibited great humility and shrinking
from honour. In these worldly, self-seeking days such an example
deserves notice and reward. I am old, and perhaps unequal to the labours
of office, but I think I ought to be considered; although I did formally
withdraw my candidature, I am not sure that I would refuse the mitre
were it pressed on me. At all events it would be a compliment to offer
it me and I might refuse it. _Qui pacem habet, se primum pacat._ You
will not regret the return courtesy."
* * * * *
Boom! Boom! Boom! The cathedral bell was summoning all Ribe to the
minster to be present at the nomination of its bishop. All Ribe answered
the summons.
The cathedral stands on a hill called the Mount of Lilies, but the mount
is of so slight an elevation that it does not protect the cathedral from
overflow, and a spring tide with N.W. wind has been known to flood both
town and minster and leave fishes on the sacred floor. The church is
built of granite, brick and sandstone; originally the contrast may have
been striking, but weather has smudged the colours together into an ugly
brown-grey. The tower is lofty, narrow, and wanting a spire. It
resembles a square ruler set up on end; it is too tall for its base. The
church is stately, of early architecture with transepts, and the choir
at their intersection with the nave, domed over, and a small
semi-circular apse beyond, for the altar. The nave was crowded, the
canons occupied the stalls in their purple tippets edged with crimson;
purple, because the chapter of a cathedral; crimson edged, because the
founder of the See was a martyr. Fifteen, and the Dean, sixteen in all,
were in their places. On the altar steps, in the apse, in the centre,
sat Peter Nielsen in his old, worn cassock, without surplice. On the
left side of the altar stood the richly-sculptured Episcopal throne, and
on the seat was placed the jewelled mitre, over the arm the cloth of
gold cope was cast, and against the back leaned the pastoral crook of
silver gilt, encrusted with precious stones.
When the last note of the bell sounded, the Dean rose from his stall,
and stepping up to the apse, made oath before heaven, the whole
congregation and Peter Nielsen, that he was prepared to abide by the
decision of this said Peter, son of Nicolas, parish priest of Roager.
Amen. He was followed by the Archdeacon, then by each of the canons to
the last.
Then mass was said, during which the man in whose hands the fortunes of
the See reposed, knelt with unimpassioned countenance and folded hands.
At the conclusion he resumed his seat, the crucifix was brought forth
and he kissed it.
A moment of anxious silence. The moment for the decision had arrived. He
remained for a short while seated, with his eyes fixed on the ground,
then he turned them on the anxious face of the Dean, and after having
allowed them to rest scrutinisingly there for a minute, he looked at
Hartwig Juel, then at Olaf Petersen, who was deadly white, and whose
frame shook like an aspen leaf. Then he looked long at Jep Mundelstrup
and rose suddenly to his feet.
The fall of a pin might have been heard in the cathedral at that moment.
He said--and his voice was distinctly audible by every one present--"I
have been summoned here from my barren heath, into this city, out of a
poor hamlet, by these worthy and reverend fathers, to choose for them a
prelate who shall be at once careful of the temporal and the spiritual
welfare of the See. I have scrupulously considered the merits of all
those who have been presented to me as candidates for the mitre. I find
that in only one man are all the requisite qualities combined in proper
proportion and degree--not in Thomas Lange," the Dean's head fell on his
bosom, "nor in Hartwig Juel," the Archdeacon sank back in his stall;
"nor in Olaf Petersen," the man designated uttered a faint cry and
dropped on his knees, "nor in Jep Mundelstrup--but in myself. I
therefore nominate Peter, son of Nicolas, commonly called Nielsen,
Curate of Roager, to be Bishop of Ribe, twenty-ninth in descent from
Liafdag the martyr. _Qui pacem habet, se primum pacat._ Amen. He who has
to bless, blesses first himself."
Then he sat down.
For a moment there was silence, and then a storm broke loose. Peter sat
motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground, motionless as a rock
round which the waves toss and tear themselves to foam.
Thus it came about that the twenty-ninth bishop of Ribe was Peter
Nielsen.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] In Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland, clerical celibacy was
never enforced before the Reformation. Now and then a formal prohibition
was issued by the bishops, but it was generally ignored. The clergy were
married, openly and undisguisedly.
The Wonder-Working Prince Hohenlohe.
In the year 1821, much interest was excited in Germany and, indeed,
throughout Europe by the report that miracles of healing were being
wrought by Prince Leopold Alexander of
Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst at Würzburg, Bamberg, and
elsewhere. The wonders soon came to an end, for, after the ensuing year,
no more was heard of his extraordinary powers.
At the time, as might be expected, his claims to be a miracle-worker
were hotly disputed, and as hotly asserted. Evidence was produced that
some of his miracles were genuine; counter evidence was brought forward
reducing them to nothing.
The whole story of Prince Hohenlohe's sudden blaze into fame, and speedy
extinction, is both curious and instructive. In the Baden village of
Wittighausen, at the beginning of this century, lived a peasant named
Martin Michel, owning a farm, and in fairly prosperous circumstances.
His age, according to one authority, was fifty, according to another
sixty-seven, when he became acquainted with Prince Hohenlohe. This
peasant was unquestionably a devout, guileless man. He had been
afflicted in youth with a rupture, but, in answer to continuous and
earnest prayer, he asserted that he had been completely healed. Then,
for some while he prayed over other afflicted persons, and it was
rumoured that he had effected several miraculous cures. He emphatically
and earnestly repudiated every claim to superior sanctity. The cures, he
declared, depended on the faith of the patient, and on the power of the
Almighty. The most solemn promises had been made in the gospel to those
who asked in faith, and all he did was to act upon these evangelical
promises.
The Government speedily interfered, and Michel was forbidden by the
police to work any more miracles by prayer or faith, or any other means
except the recognised pharmacopoeia.
He had received no payment for his cures in money or in kind, but he
took occasion through them to impress on his patients the duty of
prayer, and the efficacy of faith.
By some means he met Prince Alexander Hohenlohe, and the prince was
interested and excited by what he heard, and by the apparent sincerity
of the man. A few days later the prince was in Würzburg, where he called
on the Princess Mathilde Schwarzenberg, a young girl of seventeen who
was a cripple, and who had already spent a year and a half at Würzburg,
under the hands of the orthopædic physician Heine, and the surgeon
Textor. She had been to the best medical men in Vienna and Paris, and
the case had been given up as hopeless. Then Prince Schwarzenberg placed
her under the treatment of Heine. She was so contracted, with her knees
drawn up to her body, that she could neither stand nor walk.
Prince Hohenlohe first met her at dinner, on June 18, 1821, and the
sight of her distortion filled him with pity. He thought over her case,
and communicated with Michel, who at his summons came to Würzburg. As
Würzburg is in Bavaria, the orders of the Baden Government did not
extend to it, and the peasant might freely conduct his experiments
there.
Prince Alexander called on the Princess at ten o'clock in the morning of
June 20, taking with him Michel, but leaving him outside the house, in
the court. Then Prince Hohenlohe began to speak to the suffering girl of
the power of faith, and mentioned the wonders wrought by the prayers of
Michel. She became interested, and the Prince asked her if she would
like to put the powers of Michel to the test, warning her that the man
could do nothing unless she had full and perfect belief in the mercy of
God. The Princess expressed her eagerness to try the new remedy and
assured her interrogator that she had the requisite faith. Thereupon he
went to the window, and signed to the peasant to come up.
What follows shall be given in the Princess's own words, from her
account written a day or two later:--"The peasant knelt down and prayed
in German aloud and distinctly, and, after his prayer, he said to me,
'In the Name of Jesus, stand up. You are whole, and can both stand and
walk!' The peasant and the Prince then went into an adjoining room, and
I rose from my couch, without assistance, in the name of God, well and
sound, and so I have continued to this moment."
A much fuller and minuter account of the proceedings was published,
probably from the pen of the governess, who was present at the time;
but as it is anonymous we need not concern ourselves with it.
The news of the miraculous recovery spread through the town; Dr. Heine
heard of it, and ran to the house, and stood silent and amazed at what
he saw. The Princess descended the stone staircase towards the garden,
but hesitated, and, instead of going into the garden, returned upstairs,
leaning on the arm of Prince Hohenlohe.
Next day was Corpus Christi. The excitement in the town was immense,
when the poor cripple, who had been seen for more than a year carried
into her carriage and carried out of it into church, walked to church,
and thence strolled into the gardens of the palace.
On the following day she visited the Julius Hospital, a noble
institution founded by one of the bishops of Würzburg. On the 24th she
called on the Princess Lichtenstein, the Duke of Aremberg, and the
Prince of Baar, and moreover, attended a sermon preached by Prince
Hohenlohe in the Haugh parish church. Her recovery was complete.
Now, at first sight, nothing seems more satisfactorily established than
this miracle. Let us, however, see what Dr. Heine, who had attended her
for nineteen months, had to say on it. We cannot quote his account in
its entirety, as it is long, but we will take the principal points in
it:--"The Princess of Schwarzenberg came under my treatment at the end
of October, 1819, afflicted with several abnormities of the thorax, with
a twisted spine, ribs, &c. Moreover, she could not rise to her feet from
a sitting posture, nor endure to be so raised; but this was not in
consequence of malformation or weakness of the system, for when sitting
or lying down she could freely move her limbs. She complained of acute
pain when placed in any other position, and when she was made to assume
an angle of 100° her agony became so intense that her extremities were
in a nervous quiver, and partial paralysis ensued, which, however,
ceased when she was restored to her habitual contracted position.
"The Princess lost her power of locomotion when she was three years old,
and the contraction was the result of abscesses on the loins. She was
taken to France and Italy, and got so far in Paris as to be able to hop
about a room supported on crutches. But she suffered a relapse on her
return to Vienna in 1813, and thenceforth was able neither to stand nor
to move about. She was placed in my hands, and I contrived an apparatus
by which the angle at which she rested was gradually extended, and her
position gradually changed from horizontal to vertical. At the same time
I manipulated her almost daily, and had the satisfaction by the end of
last April to see her occupy an angle of 50°, without complaining of
suffering. By the close of May further advance was made, and she was
able to assume a vertical position, with her feet resting on the ground,
but with her body supported, and to remain in this position for four or
five hours. Moreover, in this situation I made her go through all the
motions of walking. The extremities had, in every position, retained
their natural muscular powers and movements, and the contraction was
simply a nervous affection. I made no attempt to force her to walk
unsupported, because I would not do this till I was well assured such a
trial would not be injurious to her.
"On the 30th of May I revisited her, after having been unable, on
account of a slight indisposition, to see my patients for several days.
Her governess then told me that the Princess had made great progress.
She lay at an angle of 80°. The governess placed herself at the foot of
the couch, held out her hands to the Princess, and drew her up into an
upright position, and she told me that this had been done several times
of late during my enforced absence. Whilst she was thus standing I made
the Princess raise and depress her feet, and go through all the motions
of walking. Immediately on my return home I set to work to construct a
machine which might enable her to walk without risk of a fall and of
hurting herself. On the 19th of June, in the evening, I told the
Princess that the apparatus was nearly finished. Next day, a little
after 10 A.M., I visited her. When I opened her door she rose up from a
chair in which she was seated, and came towards me with short, somewhat
uncertain steps. I bowed myself, in token of joy and thanks to God.
"At that moment a gentleman I had never seen before entered the room and
exclaimed, 'Mathilde! you have had faith in God!' The Princess replied,
'I have had, and I have now, entire faith.' The gentleman said, 'Your
faith has saved and healed you. God has succoured you.' Then I began to
suspect that some strange influence was at work, and that something had
been going on of which I was not cognizant. I asked the gentleman what
was the meaning of this. He raised his right hand to heaven, and replied
that he had prayed and thought of the Princess that morning at mass, and
that Prince Wallerstein was privy to the whole proceeding. I was puzzled
and amazed. Then I asked the Princess to walk again. She did so, and
shortly after I left, and only then did I learn that the stranger was
the Prince of Hohenlohe.
"Next month, on July 21, her aunt, the Princess Eleanor of
Schwarzenberg, came with three of the sisters of Princess Mathilde to
fetch her away and to take her back to her father. Her Highness did me
the honour of visiting me along with the Princesses on the second day
after their arrival, to thank me for the pains I had taken to cure the
Princess Mathilde. Before they left, Dr. Schäfer, who had attended her
at Ratisbon, Herr Textor, and myself were allowed to examine the
Princess. Dr. Schäfer found that the condition of the thorax was
mightily improved since she had been in my hands. I, however, saw that
her condition had retrograded since I had last seen her on June 20, and
it was agreed that the Princess was to occupy her extension-couch at
night, and by day wear the steel apparatus for support I had contrived
for her. At the same time Dr. Schäfer distinctly assured her and the
Princess, her aunt, that under my management the patient had recovered
the power of walking _before_ the 19th of June."
This account puts a different complexion on the cure, and shows that it
was not in any way miraculous. The Prince and the peasant stepped in
and snatched the credit of having cured the Princess from the doctor, to
whom it rightly belonged.
Before we proceed, it will be well to say a few words about this Prince
Alexander Hohenlohe. The Hohenlohe family takes its name from a bare
elevated plateau in Franconia. About the beginning of the 16th century
it broke into two branches; the elder is Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, the
younger is Hohenlohe-Waldenburg.
The elder branch has its sub-ramifications--Hohenlohe-Langenburg, which
possesses also the county of Gleichen; and the Hohenlohe-Oehringen and
the Hohenlohe-Kirchberg sub-branches. The second main branch of
Hohenlohe-Waldenburg has also its lateral branches, as those of
Hohenlohe-Bartenstein and Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst; the last of these
being Catholic.
Prince Leopold Alexander was born in 1794 at Kupferzell, near
Waldenburg, and was the eighteenth child of Prince Karl Albrecht and his
wife Judith, Baroness Reviczky. His father never became reigning prince,
from intellectual incapacity, and Alexander lost him when he was one
year old. He was educated for the Church by the ex-Jesuit Riel, and went
to school first in Vienna, then at Berne; in 1810 he entered the
Episcopal seminary at Vienna, and finished his theological studies at
Ellwangen in 1814. He was ordained priest in 1816, and went to Rome.
Dr. Wolff, the father of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, in his "Travels and
Adventures," which is really his autobiography, says (vol i. p. 31):--
"Wolff left the house of Count Stolberg on the 3rd April, 1815, and
went to Ellwangen, and there met again an old pupil from Vienna, Prince
Alexander Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, afterwards so celebrated for his
miracles--to which so many men of the highest rank and intelligence have
borne witness that Wolff dares not give a decided opinion about them.
But Niebuhr relates that the Pope said to him himself, speaking about
Hohenlohe in a sneering manner, '_Questo_ far dei miracoli!' _This_
fellow performing miracles!
"It may be best to offer some slight sketch of Hohenlohe's life. His
person was beautiful. He was placed under the direction of Vock, the
Roman Catholic parish priest at Berne. One Sunday he was invited to
dinner with Vock, his tutor, at the Spanish ambassador's. The next day
there was a great noise in the Spanish embassy, because the mass-robe,
with the silver chalice and all its appurtenances, had been stolen. It
was advertised in the paper, but nothing could be discovered, until Vock
took Prince Hohenlohe aside, and said to him, 'Prince, confess to me;
have you not stolen the mass-robe?' He at once confessed it, and said
that he made use of it every morning in practising the celebration of
the mass in his room; which was true." (This was when Hohenlohe was
twenty-one years old.) "He was afterwards sent to Tyrnau, to the
ecclesiastical seminary in Hungary, whence he was expelled, on account
of levity. But, being a Prince, the Chapter of Olmütz, in Moravia,
elected him titulary canon of the cathedral; nevertheless, the Emperor
Francis was too honest to confirm it. Wolff taught him Hebrew in
Vienna. He had but little talent for languages, but his conversation on
religion was sometimes very charming; and at other times he broke out
into most indecent discourses. He was ordained priest, and Sailer[16]
preached a sermon on the day of his ordination, which was published
under the title of 'The Priest without Reproach.' On the same day money
was collected for building a Roman Catholic Church at Zürich, and the
money collected was given to Prince Hohenlohe, to be remitted to the
parish priest of Zürich (Moritz Mayer); but the money never reached its
destination. Wolff saw him once at the bed of the sick and dying, and
his discourse, exhortations, and treatment of these sick people were
wonderfully beautiful. When he mounted the pulpit to preach, one
imagined one saw a saint of the Middle Ages. His devotion was
penetrating, and commanded silence in a church where there were 4,000
people collected. Wolff one day called on him, when Hohenlohe said to
him, 'I never read any other book than the Bible. I never look in a
sermon-book by anybody else, not even at the sermons of Sailer.' But
Wolff after this heard him preach, and the whole sermon was copied from
one of Sailer's, which Wolff had read only the day before.
"With all his faults, Hohenlohe cannot be charged with avarice, for he
give away every farthing he got, perhaps even that which he obtained
dishonestly. They afterwards met at Rome, where Hohenlohe lodged with
the Jesuits, and there it was said he composed a Latin poem. Wolff,
knowing his incapacity to do such a thing, asked him boldly, 'Who is the
author of this poem?' Hohenlohe confessed at once that it was written by
a Jesuit priest. At that time Madame Schlegel wrote to Wolff: 'Prince
Hohenlohe is a man who struggles with heaven and hell, and heaven will
gain the victory with him.' Hohenlohe was on the point of being made a
bishop at Rome, but, on the strength of his previous knowledge of him,
Wolff protested against his consecration. Several princes, amongst them
Kaunitz, the ambassador, took Hohenlohe's part on this occasion; but the
matter was investigated, and Hohenlohe walked off from Rome without
being made a bishop. In his protest against the man, Wolff stated that
Hohenlohe's pretensions to being a canon of Olmütz were false; that he
had been expelled the seminary of Tyrnau; that he sometimes spoke like a
saint, and at others like a profligate."
And now let us return to Würzburg, and see the result of the cure of
Princess Schwarzenberg. The people who had seen the poor cripple one day
carried into her carriage and into church, and a day or two after saw
her walk to church and in the gardens, and who knew nothing of Dr.
Heine's operations, concluded that this was a miracle, and gave the
credit of it quite as much to Prince Hohenlohe as to the peasant Michel.
The police at once sent an official letter to the Prince, requesting to
be informed authoritatively what he had done, by what right he had
interfered, and how he had acted. He replied that he had done nothing,
faith and the Almighty had wrought the miracle. "The instantaneous cure
of the Princess is a _fact_, which cannot be disputed; it was the result
of a living faith. That is the truth. It happened to the Princess
according to her faith." The peasant Michel now fell into the
background, and was forgotten, and the Prince stood forward as the
worker of miraculous cures. Immense excitement was caused by the
restoration of the Princess Schwarzenberg, and patients streamed into
Würzburg from all the country round, seeking health at the hands of
Prince Alexander. The local papers published marvellous details of his
successful cures. The blind saw, the lame walked, the deaf heard. Among
the deaf who recovered was His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of
Bavaria, three years later King Ludwig I., grandfather of the late King
of Bavaria. Unfortunately we have not exact details of this cure, but a
letter of the Crown Prince written shortly after merely states that he
heard _better_ than before. Now the spring of 1821 was very raw and wet,
and about June 20 there set in some dry hot weather. It is therefore
quite possible that the change of weather may have had to do with this
cure. However, we can say nothing for certain about it, as no data were
published, merely the announcement that the Crown Prince had recovered
his hearing at the prayer of Prince Hohenlohe. Here are some
better-authenticated cases, as given by Herr Scharold, an eye-witness;
he was city councillor and secretary.
"The Prince had dined at midday with General von D----. All the
entrances to the house from two streets were blocked by hundreds of
persons, and they said that he had already healed four individuals
crippled with rheumatism in this house. I convinced myself on the spot
that one of these cases was as said. The patient was the young wife of a
fisherman, who was crippled in the right hand, so that she could not
lift anything with it, or use it in any way; and all at once she was
enabled to raise a heavy chair, with the hand hitherto powerless, and
hold it aloft. She went home weeping tears of joy and thankfulness.