degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is
not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or
descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded
with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such
marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially
for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the
Germans are richly endowed. The influence of the mother in the family
is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always
exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a
pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay
raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On
the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect,
looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but
of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose
the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their
wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too
utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the
Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one
bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful
or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with
economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden
of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the
West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he
will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the
husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing
his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a
beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income,
and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune.
The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic
affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the
husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; he
shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more
pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on _fête_ days or on
summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens.
The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of
the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of
conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of
living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without
wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner
and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal
and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display,
nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The
daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families,
are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are
thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women
these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and
dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead
happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for
themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors.
There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them;
and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American
side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.
The limits of our space and the scope of our article forbid us to do
more than merely glance at a branch of our subject which is in itself
worthy of a separate essay—the influence exerted by our German
fellow-citizens upon the rest of us by their works in music and in the
fine arts. Here the barrier of language does not exist; the genius of
music and of art is universal. A certain degree of cultivation of the
ear and eye is necessary, of course; but, this being attained, the
music of a German composer, the painting, the sculpture, the
architecture, or the decoration of a German artist, is appreciated,
admired, and imitated as well by those ignorant of his language as by
those of his own nationality. There is reason to believe that American
taste in music and in art owes vastly more to German influence than is
generally supposed or conceded. Perhaps the strongest evidences of this
would result from a critical examination of the extent to which German
ideas have modified, enlarged, beautified, and spiritualized our
architecture, our dramatic, domestic, and ecclesiastical music, and all
those phases of our daily life wherein the fine arts play a part.
Among German-American architects may be mentioned G. F. Himpler, a
student at Berlin and Paris, and a thoroughly-educated master of his
art—the builder of fine churches in St. Louis, Detroit, Sandusky,
Elizabeth, Rome (New York), Atchison, and other places; among
historical painters, Leutz—now dead, but whose works at Washington and
elsewhere have given him a national fame—Lamprecht and Duvenech (the
latter a native of this country), Biermann and Lange; among decorative
painters, Thien, Ertle, and Muer; among sculptors and designers,
Schroeder, Allard, and Kloster—the latter a very distinguished young
artist; among German singers, as well known here as in Germany,
Wachtel, Hainamns, Lichtmay, and Tuska; among actors. Seebach,
Janauschek, Taneruscheck, Lina Meyer, and Witt.
But we can only hint at these things, and hasten on to remark, in
passing, that our German citizens, even more generally and zealously
here than in Germany, seek to provide for and to secure the education
of their children. “The first thing that a colony of German emigrants
settling in America seeks to establish is the school,” said to us a
high authority. “If they are Catholics, or even zealous Lutherans, the
church is built simultaneously with the school; but in every case the
school must be set up, and the children must attend it at whatever cost
to the parents.”
Thus far we have written of our German population as a whole. We now
turn our attention to that portion of it which belongs to
ourselves—_i.e._, the German Catholics of the United States. United
with us by the bond of faith, their welfare is especially dear to us,
and in their spiritual and material progress, prosperity, and happiness
we have a deep and abiding interest.
Prior to 1845 the German emigration to the United States had been
numerically insignificant, and consisted chiefly of the peasant class.
The revolution of 1848 had the effect not only of greatly increasing
this emigration but of materially changing its character. An official
report recently made by Dr. Engel, Director of the Bureau of Statistics
at Berlin, states that the number of Germans who emigrated to the
United States from 1845 to 1876, both years inclusive, was 2,685,430.
Dr. Engel remarks that a very large proportion of these emigrants
(considerably more than 1,000,000 of them) were “strong men”; there
were few old or infirm people among them; those of them who were not
adult males in the vigor of their manhood were chiefly young and
middle-aged women and children. A goodly proportion of these emigrants
must now be living among us; we know by the census of 1870 that our
German-born population even then numbered 1,690,410. The German race is
hardy and prolific; its women are good mothers; their thrift, industry,
and economical habits enable them to live in comfort upon modest
resources; without being teetotalers, they are seldom intemperate. The
German-born and German-descended population of the United States at
present—including in the latter class only those whose parents on both
sides or on one side or the other were natives of Germany, but who were
themselves born here—is believed to be about 5,500,000 souls. The great
bulk of this population is in the Central, Western, and Northwestern
States; the six States of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania, and Missouri contain nearly two-thirds of the whole
number.[86]
The German Empire as at present constituted contained at the latest
census (1875) 42,723,242 people. Of these not quite one-third are
Catholics. Had the immigration from the states which now form the
German Empire borne this proportion, we should have in the United
States a German Catholic population of about 1,800,000 souls. But the
immigration was largely from the Protestant states, or from those in
which the Protestants were in the majority. We should be satisfied, and
more than satisfied, when we learn that the German Catholics in the
United States, according to the latest and most accurate computation,
numbered 1,237,563 souls. It is a very large number—large enough to
establish the fact that the Catholic Germans arriving here have not
lost their faith, but have preserved and guarded it for themselves and
their children. These 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are not
mythical or hypothetical persons; in making up the numeration care was
taken to include only those who were known as practical Catholics,
frequenters of the sacraments, careful observers of their duties as
Catholic parents or Catholic children. In this connection we may add
some figures for which we are indebted to the courtesy of a German
priest and statistician, and on the accuracy of which our readers may
depend. First, however, let us state, upon the best authority, that the
church in America loses very few of her German children. We were
extremely gratified with the unanimous testimony which rewarded our
inquiries on this matter. It very rarely occurs that a young German
Catholic of either sex strays or is stolen from the fold. Neither the
false philosophy of the infidel or Protestant German schools, nor the
seductions and ridicule of their infidel or Protestant American
neighbors, lure them from the faith. We have observed in our own visits
to the German churches in New York, especially at the early Masses, the
large proportion of male adult worshippers. “Our old people, of course,
never leave us,” said a learned German priest, “and our young people
rarely, very rarely, stray away. They are faithful in their duties, and
they appear to love their religion with all their hearts. When they
marry and have children, they look after them as Catholic parents
should do. Our parochial schools are well attended; our higher schools
and academies are prosperous. Our teaching orders, of men and women,
have their hands full of work, and they are almost without exception
well supported. One of the bishops in a Western diocese, the greater
part of whose flock are Germans, has the happiness of knowing that all
the children of his people are in attendance either in his parochial
schools or in other schools of which the teachers are Catholics.”
Our 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are ministered to in
spiritual things by 1,373 German priests. They have 930 church
edifices, while there are 173 other congregations of them regularly
visited by priests, but as yet without church buildings. The whole
number of Catholic priests in the United States, according to the
_Catholic Directory_ for this year, is 5,297, of churches 5,292, and of
chapels and stations 2,768. Thus it will be seen that the German
priests number a little more than one-fourth of our American
ecclesiastical army. There is a German priest for every 900 German
Catholics. How faithfully they discharge their duties, and how
zealously the people, on their part, assist their pastors, may be
estimated by the fact that the baptisms by these German priests last
year numbered 71,077—an average of more than one each week for each
priest; and that the number of children in the German parochial schools
was 137,322—an average of almost exactly 100 children for each priest.
The following table will show with approximate exactness the number of
German Catholic priests and German Catholic laymen in the various
States or dioceses:
_Priests_. _Laymen_.
New York 149 134,100
Baltimore 103 92,700
Pennsylvania 75 67,500
Ohio 200 180,000
Indiana 132 118,800
Michigan 33 29,700
Kentucky 43 38,700
Wisconsin 163 146,700
Kansas 13 11,700
Illinois 135 121,500
Missouri 80 72,000
Minnesota 74 69,600
Louisiana 38 34,200
Other 135 120,363
localities
—— ————
1,373 1,237,563
The education of the juvenile portion of this large army of
German-American Catholics is partly in the hands of the teaching orders
of the church, male and female; partly in the hands of the parish
priests; and partly confided to private instructors. The “German
Sisters of Notre Dame,” for example, 923 in number, in 79
congregations, have charge of the parochial schools and instruct 25,557
children. They have also 15 academies, in which 1,375 pupils are
receiving higher education; and 11 orphan asylums with 1,400 children.
Another branch of the same sisters have their houses in 17
congregations, and in these 63 teaching sisters are instructing 9,000
children; they have also 3 academies with 700 pupils. The German
Franciscan Sisters, in 19 congregations, have 53 teaching sisters
educating 5,700 children; and one academy. The Sisters of the Precious
Blood, in 11 congregations, employ 17 of their number in teaching 900
children. The German Dominican Sisters, whose houses are in New York,
Williamsburg, and Racine, Wisconsin; and the Sisters of Christian
Charity, at Melrose and elsewhere, are among the many religious orders
chiefly engaged in educational work among the German Catholics. Prince
Bismarck has done us a very good turn without wishing it. The expulsion
of the religious orders of men and women caused by the persecution of
the church in Germany compelled these servants of God to seek new
homes. Many of these orders already had houses in this country; driven
from Germany, they found not merely a refuge but a warm welcome and
abundant work with their brothers and sisters here. Others of them, not
previously established in this country, and being robbed by the
paternal government of Prussia of all their property, arrived here in
poverty; but they were joyfully received and speedily supplied with
means for commencing their work in these new and inviting fields. The
German branch of the Christian Brothers—“Christliche Schulbrüder”—has
experienced a marvellous growth, and is accomplishing splendid results
in the primary and higher education of the German Catholic youth.[87]
A visit to a German Catholic church can scarcely fail to be interesting
and profitable to an American Catholic. He will see much that is
edifying and highly pleasing. The congregations at the early Masses on
week-days—we speak now only of what we have ourselves observed in New
York—are generally large and are composed of a fair share of men; at
all the Masses on Sundays the attendance is still more numerous. On
days of obligation, other than Sundays, these churches are thronged to
their utmost capacity; at the nine o’clock Mass on last Corpus Christi
we saw the great Church of the Redemptorists, on Third Street, packed
from the altar rails to the doors, and even the spacious vestibule
filled with kneeling worshippers. On this occasion, as on many others,
nearly or quite one-half of the congregation were men—a fact which we
emphasize, as it contradicts the mistaken idea that the faith is losing
its hold upon our men and is mainly cherished only by women. There are
thirteen German Catholic churches in this city. The good sense, thrift,
and wise management of the Germans have borne their natural fruit in
their churches and religious houses as well as elsewhere. For example,
attached to each of the two Capuchin churches is a large, handsome, and
substantial convent for the use of the fathers and for their schools.
We were astonished at the extent, the good arrangement, and the
solidity of these edifices, and our astonishment was not lessened when
we learned that they had both been erected within the last ten years.
It would be well, we think, if the relations between our German
Catholics and the rest of us were made more close and intimate. The
bond of faith, we know, unites us in all essential things; but it would
be well for us to come nearer together in every way. Our German
co-religionists are worthy of all esteem. They are already strong in
numbers. They will constantly became stronger. The _Pall Mall Gazette_
recently contained a most interesting summary of a report made by
Vice-Consul Kruge upon the subject of German emigration. We quote the
following portion of this summary:
“Emigration from Germany, particularly to the United States,
increased steadily after the memorable year 1848, and assumed
very large proportions immediately after the chances of a war
between Austria and Prussia in 1852 and 1853. The largest
number of emigrants of any year left in summer, 1854, or after
the declaration of the Crimean war—the United States alone
receiving 215,009 German immigrants in that year. There appears
a considerable falling off from 1858 to 1864, but already in
1865, when a probability of a war between Austria and Prussia
became more and more visible, the number of emigrants began to
increase very much. The years from 1866 to 1870, most likely in
consequence of the suspicious relations between France and the
North German Confederation, which ultimately brought on the war
in 1870, give very large figures. Even the year 1870 has the
large number of 91,779 emigrants. ‘Strange to witness,’ says
Consul Kruge, ‘after the close of the Franco-German war, when
the German Empire had been created, and a prosperity seemed to
have come over Germany beyond any expectation, when wages had
been almost doubled, and when, in fact, everything looked in
the brightest colors, a complete emigration fever was raging in
all parts of Germany’; and the years 1871, 1872, 1873 show an
almost alarming tendency to quit the Fatherland. This movement
would no doubt have continued but for the natural check it
received through the financial and commercial crisis in the
United States. There are however, at present again
unquestionable signs that a very large emigrating element is
smoldering in Germany, stimulated by political and economical
embroilments which will break forth as soon as sufficient hope
and inducements offer themselves in transatlantic countries in
the eyes of the discontented and desponding Germans. The
general political aspect and the decline of German commerce and
industry at the present period are, observes Consul Kruge, such
that an emigration on a large scale must be the natural
consequence of the ruling state of affairs. Among other
illustrations of the causes of a desire on the part of the
Germans to leave their native land, Consul Kruge mentions the
religious ‘Kulturkampf,’ which, he says, in its practical
results may, at least up till now, be rightly termed an
unsuccessful move on the political chessboard, and has been
brought home by degrees to the Roman Catholic population in an
irritating, harassing form. Between the priests on the one hand
and the Government on the other the lives of the Roman Catholic
peasantry are made one of ‘perfect torment’; and these people
naturally desire to leave that country where, rightly or
wrongly, they believe their religion attacked or endangered.
The relations between France and Germany also act powerfully to
promote emigration, and the huge expenses of maintaining the
army, besides a navy of considerable size, contribute to swell
the emigration tendency of the country. Consul Kruge thinks
that if the Australian colonies care to have the largest
portion of the coming German emigration, at no time have they
had a better chance of creating an extensive movement to their
shores than at present.”
These remarks strongly confirm the opinions expressed by ourselves when
writing on the same subject four months ago.[88] But when the wave of
German emigration again rises to its former height, it will turn toward
this country, as before, and not to Australia. Here the German
population is already so large and so well-to-do that the new-comers
will find themselves at home upon their arrival. Especially will the
United States be attractive to the German Catholics; for here they will
find their exiled priests and nuns, already settled in their new homes,
with churches and schools prepared for them. The return of moderate
prosperity to the United States will probably give the signal for the
commencement of the new German exodus; and we are scarcely too sanguine
in believing that this return to prosperity will not be delayed much
longer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.
The city lights still glimmered in the square,
Shivered with morning’s chill the winter air,
Scarce yet the eastern line of light broke through
The starlit darkness of the deep skies’ blue.
Upon the sparkling snow clear shadows lay
The moon flung eastward,—as if so the day,
Whose unseen coming seemed to fill the air,
They yearning sought with outstretched arms of prayer.
A sound of bells from far-off towers broke,
The frosty silence with their pealing woke,
And answering bells flung back across the sky
The Christmas morning’s glad, earth-echoed cry.
Dark, muffled figures with quick, constant tread
O’er glittering ice and snowy pathway sped—
A gathering train, crowding from lane and street,
To lay love’s homage at the Child-Christ’s feet.
A soft gleam from the church’s windows fell
Across the square, as if in peace to tell
Of light less clouded shining pure within,
Of peace more eloquent cleansed souls should win.
As, with the thronging crowd, my feet drew near
The open doorway whence the light streamed clear,
The accents of a language not my own
Broke through the hurrying footsteps’ monotone—
Quick-spoken words of soft Italian speech:
So far the simple utterance seemed to reach,
To Roman skies my dreaming thoughts it bore,
While home’s familiar walls new aspect wore.
Seemed it almost, beneath that dark of dawn,
As if my feet fell Roman pavement on,
The lights that twinkled through the open door
Burning some altar, centuries old, before,
Whose glow, in truth, fell soft on northern fir
O’er whose dark shadow shone the face of her,
The lowly Mother-Maid, Lady of Grace,
Foligno’s Queen watching the holy place.
And shrined within lay martyr-saint of Rome—
Vial and bones from ancient catacomb
Of that far city that seemed far no more,
Whose faith and speech met at the low church-door.
Seeming that speech true witness of the peace
Won years ago, when weary earth’s release
The angels chanted in the midnight sky,
And earth’s Redeemer waked with infant cry:
He who had come the narrow bonds to break
Of race and nation, who frail flesh did take
That Jew and Gentile might one Father claim,
And win all sweetness through one Brother’s name.
Scarce foreign seemed the stranger’s vivid word;
Nay, rather was it as if so I heard
The Christian speech of some old saintly age
Claiming in faith an earlier heritage.
Before one altar soon our knees should bend,
In one heart’s-worship soon our prayers ascend,
Within those sacred walls—our common home—
As children kneel of one true mother—Rome.
One faith was ours, one country all our own,
Wherein all petty landmarks are o’erthrown:
Not worshipping as Latin, Saxon, Gaul—
The children of one God who made us all.
Ours an inheritance so full and great,
Each lowliest handmaid clothed in royal state;
No heart so poor but that it throne may be
For Heaven’s King in his infinity.
From Rome this guerdon of our faith we hold:
What though its light o’er broken seas is rolled?
Unfaltering it shines through storm-clouds’ shade,
Unfailing beacon! by God’s Spirit fed.
A foreign faith! Ay, so, of that strange land
Whereof as citizens our free souls stand,
Whose earthly pasture is the church’s shrine—
Earth’s limits lost within her realm divine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SWEET REVENGE.
CONCLUSION.
IV.
At this moment the door-handle was touched on the outside, and M.
Rouvière sprang hastily from his chair and stationed himself with his
back to the fire, looking very straight and stiff and aggressive. The
door slowly opened and Mme. Dupuis entered, pushing out, at the same
time, the unfortunate cat which was trying to slip in with her.
“No, no, pussy,” said the lady, “you got yourself turned out, and you
must stay out. O the naughty men!” she exclaimed, laughingly, as she
closed the door, “they have been smoking.”
“Have we been smoking?” said Rouvière, sniffing. “Bless me! I really
believe we have; it shows how absent-minded one can be. I hadn’t
perceived it, so absorbed were George and I in our great project.”
“What project?” asked madame as she took off her hood and cloak. “Are
you going to stay with us, M. Rouvière?”
“Not exactly,” replied the guest, “but for George and me the result is
the same. Are you good at guessing riddles, madame?”
“You are not going to take George away with you, are you?” asked the
wife, her brown eyes resting firmly on his.
“With your permission, dear lady,” answered Rouvière, bowing with
ironical politeness.
“No, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, with a forced,
flickering smile, looking at him inquiringly and speaking low and
hurriedly. “You will think me very silly to take a joke so seriously,
but I cannot help it. You are playing with my life-spring. Tell me—I
pray you tell me, dear M. Rouvière, that you are _not_ going to take my
husband away.”