The foundations for the whole were well laid by the original architect: they have been examined, and found quite sound. Within ten years the whole gigantic structure could easily be completed. It is in the nature of things that against every good work there is raised up an enemy. Many objections are openly started against the plan, more are whispered, and endeavours made to freeze the liberality of the people. The ultra-Protestant shakes his head at the bounty which assists a Roman-Catholic temple; and the ultra-Romanist looks grim, and suspects that orthodoxy will flee from the edifice raised under the auspices of a Protestant king. Politicians will tell you that the national monument is a symptom of the deeply-laid scheme, by which all northern Germany is to be rendered a Prussian empire; and the French sneer and gibe, and are the willing prophets of the undertaking's utter failure. To every doubt, to every objection, no other answer is required than the unfinished walls, and the character of the honest and pious Sovereign. It is very instructive, with respect to this building, to trace the progress of opinion. In 1509 the works entirely ceased. It is hardly necessary to mention that this was the era of the greatest corruption of the members of the Western Church, when the Prelates had in fact secularised themselves; and the funds destined to the honour and glory of God were employed in pampering their vile vices or in aiding their ambition. Look on the unfinished tower, crowned by the crane projecting idly in the air. The axle of the wheel is rusted, the timber decays, rooks nestle unmolested amongst the beams;-who could anticipate that it ever would be set to work again, still less that the order would be given by a Protestant prince? Thenceforward, so long as the electorate subsisted, the very little which the archbishop and chapter did was nothing but mischief. They whitewashed the walls, removed the stained glass in order to give more light to the building, demolished the baldacchino and the high altar, a masterpiece of ancient German art, and introduced decorations in the vilest and most corrupted French Pompadour style, the outward tokens of the total loss of the ancient religious and ecclesiastical feeling. Matters thus continued till the Revolution. Elector, Dean and Chapter, are scared away by the tricolor. Horses are stabled in the aisle; heaps of forage stored in the choir. At this disastrous period the cathedral sustained so much of the damage which Victor Hugo laments; and, upon the accession of Napoleon, it was reported by its then bishop, Berdolet, as fast approaching to ruin. Napoleon refused the small sum of 40,000 francs, asked for the purpose of keeping the building up, and there there seemed no means of averting its destruction. At this juncture, Sulpice Boisserée, the artist, supported by Goethe, the Schlegels, and other men of letters, determined to endeavour to preserve at least a memorial of the building. He began his now well-known architectural work, which, for the first time, taught the German public to admire what they had hitherto neglected, contemned, or despised; and in 1816 the late King of Prussia directed surveys to be made of the structure, for the purpose of preserving the fragment by needful repairs. The first grant was made in 1824, and from that period up to 1841 the sum of 215,084 thalers has been issued from the Prussian treasury, showing how much remains to be supplied. This first impulse resulted from mere love of art and of antiquity. It was entirely secular and unsanctified; and the same spirit would have induced the elegant individuals who were the instruments to have craved aid for the temple of Theseus or the Parthenon. To this has succeeded the high and holy feeling which now actuates King and people; and, in the emphatic words by which the address of the association concludes, Der ALLMAECHTIGER GOTT, zu dessen Preis und Ehre das Werk gerreichen soll, möge demselben seinen Segen verleihen! Unser Wahlspruch aber sei, Eintracht, Ausdauer.' It is an old jest, that the pith of a lady's letter always lies in the postscript; and when you arrive at the conclusion' of Victor Hugo's work, consisting of a spirited essay of 150 pages upon the political state of Europe from the seventeenth century to the present time, you find that the whole intent of his correspondence is to show that the very stones on the left bank cry out Il faut que la France reprenne le Rhin.' It is the creed of all the generation, that the loss of that same left bank was to France the loss of the right arm. Hugo, who, as the newspapers say, is about to be created a peer of France, bestows his most unwilling praise upon the wisdom of the Congress of Vienna. He acknowledges that the AntiGallic diplomatists effected a chef-d'œuvre of policy in bestowing the Rhenish provinces upon Prussia. By so doing, they placed, as he truly says, the advanced guard of the enemy within five days' march of Paris, and, as he forcibly expresses it, formed a perpetual ulcer in what had hitherto been the empire of Napoleon. Let Hugo speak out and speak on :— 'Austria is on the decline; Prussia, on the advance: a nation scarcely of yesterday, but which looks forward to the morrow for her future glories: her eagle, young and vigorous, will never abandon, if she can help it, what she has once seized within her grasp. Moreover, by this policy, wily England has separated the two nations who are to each other other the most congenial in their feelings. France is a nation of the mouvement; Prussia is a nation of the mouvement. Both should be tending to the same end, both would work in the common cause of regeneration, Prussia in Germany, France in Europe, were it not for the antipathy raised by placing under the power of Prussia a territory which France must always covet, Prussia always jealously defend.-Le partage du Rhin, crée une haine. Brouiller la France avec l'Allemagne c'était quelque chose: brouiller la France avec la Prusse, c'était tout; donner la rive gauche du Rhin à l'Allemagne, c'était une idée; l'avoir donné à la Prusse, c'est un chef-d'œuvre de haine, de ruse, de discorde et de calamité.' Yet, in rapid perspective, his imagination discovers an easy remedy. He will hold out a morsel to the black eagle, which shall tempt her to relax the grip of her talons: Hanover is separated from the British crown, and her speedy moral and physical extinction predicted. The house of Brunswick is struck with moral and physical imbecility. Let Prussia seize Hanover, and something more, such as Hamburgh, Oldenburgh, and other convenient arrondissements, so as to render the whole Baltic a Prussian shore; and she may then cheerfully surrender the Rhine to France!' And so he runs on. That the lowest prejudices of the lowest of English factions against the King of Hanover, and his afflicted but admirable son, should be taken up by French rhapsodists -all this was to be expected! Hugo nevertheless says some disagreeable truths. He stigmatises not too hardly-perhaps not hardly enough-the utter disregard with which the Congress of Vienna treated equally the rights of the smaller states and the feelings of the people. Instead of the natural divisions, which not unfrequently were conterminous with political boundaries, and the still more important lines traced out by habits, customs, opinions, races, and, above all, by religion, you have now nothing but purely artificial demarcations. Here a black and white striped post shows you that you enter Prussia; there a yellow and red striped post, Hesse; here a green and white striped post, Nassau; there a yellow and black post, Austria; but no sense or reason in the formation of the frontier, except the arbitrary will and pleasure of a certain number of diplomatists, dividing amongst themselves, with a map of Europe outspread on the green-cloth table, the property which did not belong to them-a very convenient and pleasant employment; but when such a transaction is not diplomatical, folks, if the act concerns a sheep, or a horse, or a pig, or a purse, give it quite another name. Certainly, with all its weaknesses, errors, and incongruities, the constitution of the departed Roman Empire, the last phase of the Fourth Monarchy which we have seen come to an an end, did at least effect what regenerated Europe does not afford, the protection of the weak against the strong. The flag of the Count of Bentheim Steinfurth was as respected as the union jack of Great Britain. The abbot of St. Emmeran, with no more land than might have been covered by the copes in his sacristy, was as sure of his possessions as the Prince-Archbishop of Maintz. Hamburgh and Bremen were not more inviolate than Kempten or Lindau; and the Margrave of Anspach, whose sovereignty might have been included in Hammersmith parish, held his dominion by as good a title as the houses of Brandenburgh or Hapsburgh. That the seeds of great political changes, and of changes more than political, are now germinating in northern Germany, is highly probable. Germany, the father-land of gunpowder, printing, and Luther, may again convulse the world. But of one thing we are sure, and of one thing the French may be sure, that, whatever changes take place, there will be but one heart and mind in defending every hill or dale, every town or tower which bears the impress of German nationality. Dynasties may be raised or overturned; you may have a German commonwealth or a German empire; but on German ground the power of France is gone, and for ever. Let the standard of Arminius be unfurled, and every jealousy, every rivalry between king and king, state and state, people and people, will be appeased. The National Confederation will be cemented by the blood of the enemy; and whenever the Welschen may be emboldened to the assault, all Germany will, with one voice, join in the chorus: No-they shall never win it, Our free, our German stream; 'Sie sollen ihn nicht haben Den deutschen freien Rhein; Ob sie wie gierige Raaben Sich heiser darnach schrei'n.' 2 A ART. VOL. LXXI. NO. CXLII. ART. II.-1. The Catechetic Lectures of St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem. Translated, with Notes and Indices. (Library of the Fathers, vol. ii.) Oxford. 1838. 2. A Help to Catechising. By James Beaven, M.A. London. 1842. 3. A Catechism for the Use of St. John's Chapel, Edinburgh. By the Rev. E. B. Ramsay, M. A. London. 1841. (Third Edition.) 4. Hints on Scriptural Education and on Catechising: a Charge, by E. Bather, M.A., Archdeacon of Salop. London. 1842. (Second Edition.) 5. Documents and Authorities on Public Catechising. the second chapter of St. Luke's Gospel; where we are told that the child Jesus was found in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions; and they were astonished at his understanding and answers.' These words of our version describe the process with sufficient clearness; but it may be noticed that, in the original, the same word (EπEρwτav, ETTEρτnua) is here interpreted of questions, which, in St. Peter's 1st Epistle (iii. 21, speaking of the promises made in baptism*), is translated answer; comprehending, as in fact it does, the mutual questions and answers which make up the teaching in the one case, and the stipulation in the other. Of course this part of the teaching, from its humble character and its necessary variety, is the part least likely to be preserved to after ages; so that we need not wonder if, in point of form, the Catechetic Lectures of St. Cyril differ but little from ordinary homilies. They rather accompanied the catechising than comprised it; their peculiarity being in the character of those to whom they were addressed, and the consequent choice of their subjects. They were delivered to those catechumens who, though still unbaptised, were to receive the sacrament of baptism immediately afterwards; and their subjects, consequently, lie between the ordinary instructions of the catechumen, and those which were reserved for the edification of the baptised. The peculiar *Compare St. Luke, iii. 10, 14. It was a legal term in stipulations. In the controversy in which this word has become technical, much confusion on both sides would have been avoided, had the broad distinction been made clear between the absolute reserve used towards unbaptised catechumens, and the discretion with which the milk and strong meats of the Gospel were imparted to the Illuminated. The former part of the system has no parallel among us: the latter is what every clergyman must use; and the only question is, whether he does so consciously or unconsciously, systematically or empirically, well or ill. position |