Then, again, great difficulties about a pass; for to get out of Prussia by all means, as soon as possible, seemed now the only course. Saxony happily, though considerably infested with Rationalists (among whom Von Ammon, in Dresden, is well known to theological students), was still Lutheran; no mechanical union had been attempted there; possibly very few Calvinists were in the kingdom, and the king himself, being a Romanist, had no interest in the matter. To Saxony, therefore, Wehrhan fled, and was kindly treated by all parties, Rationalists as well as orthodox Lutherans, in and about Dresden. But the matter of the twenty-five dollars had not yet been brought to any satisfactory termination, and the cholera broke out in Liegnitz, where his wife, expecting the pension, had been left for a season. A decisive step was now necessary: another journey back to Liegnitz was made; house and household there were disposed of in one day; 200 dollars' worth of furniture sold on the urgency for forty, and our pastor found himself again in Dresden (the old pass having been sufficient), almost a beggar indeed, but free from the jealous supervisorship of the Prussian StateConscience; happy in the sympathies of many pious brethren in the faith, and allowed to baptize his own children, or get them baptized by Lutheran clergymen, without the fear of the church minister before him. How to shift for his daily bread, after the forty dollars shall have been expended, he does not exactly know. The government pension has become hopeless, because he has abstracted himself and family altogether from Prussian protection; and to grant pensions to Separatists living abroad would be an "abnormity unheard of," as a letter from the ministry of the interior declares. But a man with a good conscience seldom wants good hope; God feeds the ravens pastor Wehrhan is wandering somewhere in Baden, Bavaria, or Wurtemberg, on his way to France, where his wife's relations live, and where he hopes finally to receive an asylum. Portrait-painting he may try occasionally here and there in a village, as Goldsmith played the pipes; but he has given up all serious ideas of making himself a regular artist, and has taken himself again to literature, of which the history of his own spiritual adventures seems the first fruits. We have no doubt the book will sell beyond the bounds of Germany; it is likely to be interdicted in Prussia; but here is a copy of it on British editorial table, nourishing the Liberal stomach with choicest food a thousand miles from Berlin. A Silesian old Lutheran pastor may seem to have very small claims on the sympathies of an English Liberal, to whom even the "old lights" and "new lights" of scholastic divinity have become a matter of pretty considerable indifference; but the sufferers for conscience-sake form a sort of Freemasonry all over the world; the first Christians were Freemasons; and so long as church rates shall be paid in England, the most busy British heart (not sold to the State-Conscience) will have a tear and a smile to spare for the pains and pleasures of the German Voluntary. One word to the King of Prussia before we part. Professor Bulau, of Leipzig, a man very favourable to the Prussian policy generally, in a work which has lately appeared *, tells us, that in consequence of military interference with the Silesian churches, to compel the universal reception of the royal liturgy, and the Evangelical union, of which it is a part, several hundred Lutherans have taken themselves into a voluntary exile, and are at this moment worshipping GOD, according to the use of their fathers, in Australia and America. Now we ask Frederick William, in all seriousness, whether this is not a very unhappy result of his paternal policy, and that mad passion for uniformity by which intolerant absolutism strives to plane * Allgemeine Geschichte der Jähre, 1830 bis 1838. Leipzig, 1838, p. 299. -- down nature to a chess-board, human souls being figures thereon, with which kings may play a skilful game of centralisation? We may whisper in his ear if the voice of British Liberalism can by any magic reach him that it were better for himself, and the permanency of his own system, if he could now and then bate a little from the perfect consistency of his policy. Sir Robert Peel, who has as much of manhood about him as to make a statesman (so Macaulay said), might teach him a lesson here. It is not safe for politicians generally, least of all for Tories, to be perfectly consistent. This sponging out of the old Lutherans will not tell to the honour of Prussia any where. The simple story of a simple parson will make the paternal system suspected all over Europe, where he may chance to wander in search of bread, let the "Prussian Gazette" say what it will, or rather say nothing, for that is the wisdom of German newspapers. Meanwhile, we do not wish to part on ill terms with Frederick William, we blame his system, not himself. A better-hearted man, a more decent, respectable, church-going Christian king does not live in Europe. But in matters of state policy, he governs as his father governed before him, and cannot help thinking prayer-meetings exceedingly seditious. His character has been made FOR him, and not by him, as the Socialists say; his heart has been clear of evil intention, and the things that have been done in Germany were such as might be done there without surprise, and without much offence. In England, let Henry Exeter (for we know he does not want the WILL) try a like experiment if he DAre. Since this article was written, a short account of the persecution of the Lutherans in Prussia has been published in English by J. D. Löwenberg, briefly noticed in our last Number. The whole matter is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Churchestablishments that these latter times have seen. The Protestant persecution in Prussia forms a good side-scene to that famous one of the Romish priests in the Tyrol, of which the "Quarterly Review" lately gave us an edifying account. It had been well that the logic of the Reviewer had in any degree equalled his learning. Popish states do persecute in the nineteenth century, but not Popish states only. - Ed. SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. No. IV. "I say, boys, who will go into the porch with me? Come along! There she sits there sits Lady Bowles in a white sheet-there she is! Now she moves now, now! She is going back into the church again. No, she is not; there she sits; who will go? Come along!" It was nearly nine o'clock on a cloudy evening in the middle of August; the moon, which was almost full, shone by fits, and for some minutes her light fell with great brightness upon the porch of the village church. Within the porch some white object was visible; and being seen from a distance through the window, across the garden, across the road, and the churchyard, it certainly seemed to move. A lively noisy boy watched it, as he stood in the window-seat, and loudly invited his schoolfellows to go with him to the porch. Some of the boys still ventured to look through the window, crying, "It moves, it moves!" Others withdrew, hiding their faces with their hands, or shrinking into the darkest corners of the room; and many many declared they would not enter the churchyard for the whole world-not for twenty worlds. The courage of the boy on the window-seat was inflamed by the apprehensions of his comrades. He repeated the invitation boastingly, and in a louder voice, when the words "I will go, Sam, if you like," fell upon his ear. "You would not be such a fool, I hope, would you, as really to go?" he eagerly inquired, having overcome his surprise, descended from his elevation, and presented himself in the doorway to him who accepted the invitation, and who was a younger boy and a new-comer. "Yes, to be sure! Why not?" "Well, if you are going to be such a fool, you shall go first; I am quite determined upon that!" "Very well, I go first then." Away ran the younger boy along the straight broad walk of the garden, which lay in the full light of the moon, and quickly opened the gates. Here he paused a moment; for the narrow hollow road, being shaded by the walls of the garden and of the churchyard, was shrouded in blackness. He crossed the dark road cautiously, fearing a fall, and then ran up the stone steps, and halted at the little white gate of the churchyard, which stood high above the road, and glittered with the moon's brightness. Gravestones of a glistening whiteness threw their black shadows across the narrow path paved with single flagstones : here he halted through dread, not of spectres, but of the birch, and in doubt whether it was lawful to proceed further. "Ah! ah! Sam, Sam! Before I would be such a coward! Ah! ah! The elder boy still lingered in the doorway; and his companions, offended by his boastful challenge, rejoiced to find that he shrunk from the test, and loudly hooted at his reluctance to follow. The last new-comer, the fag of the school, had gone before, and the head-boy and captain hesitated to go after him fear yielded at length to pride. Sam advanced with tolerable composure along the broad walk, whilst his friends, who had thrown up the windows, cheered him. He stopt suddenly at the garden gates, being startled at the black hollow road." I say, come back! What nonsense!" "No, no! Come on!" The cheerful voice of the younger boy, who stood at his ease and in safety in the bright light, encouraged him; he slowly crossed the road and climbed the stone steps; the cheers of the boys in the windows were distinctly heard, when their captain emerged from darkness. "May we go farther-may we go any farther without being flogged?" "Yes, yes! if we are going to be such infernal fools! "Come on, then come on!" The little white gate was thrown open, and the younger boy proceeded steadily along the narrow paved path, dragging after him his senior, who shrunk behind, and with his right hand firmly grasped the left elbow of his junior. My God! there she sits! Now I'll be hanged if you shall go a step further! She moves she moves!" 66 At a turn of the narrow path the inside of the porch, which had been hidden before, suddenly appeared; it was filled with intense black darkness, except that the moonlight fell in exceeding brightness upon the lower part of the whitened pillars on the left of the door. As the light clouds flitted over the moon, their light shadows flitted over the illumined pillars, upon which other and stronger shadows also played, whenever the gentle breeze waved to and fro the branches of the ancient trees. "She moves she moves! Now, now she wastes away! she vanishes!" The clouds had concealed the moon, and the light in the porch disappeared. "Now, I say, let us go back-let us run!" "Very well! But I will just have a touch at her first." And the younger boy stooped for a boy's argument - a stone, anticipating the deep reverberation of the oaken doors, and the echoes of the hollow porch and empty church. "What are you about? are you mad? Don't throw for God's sake!" come back And the elder boy, as he spoke, seized with his left hand the right hand of the other.. "Come here, young gentlemen come in come home; what in the world are you doing?" At the well-known and angry voice, both hastened, not without alarm, to the garden gates, from which spot the usher, not deeming it prudent to cross the black hollow road, recalled the two stray boys. Having locked, bolted, and fastened the gates very carefully, he drove the boys before him slowly towards the house along the broad walk, mingling sage expostulations with the alternate strokes of a thin hazel wand. "A pretty business, indeed! Very fine! A nice piece of work! The master and mistress go away on a visit, leaving every thing under my care, all the young gentlemen in my charge; and when they return I am to tell them, I suppose, that the devils have carried off two of them, as they certainly would all persons, except clergymen, who should go into a churchyard at this time of night." Some time before reaching the door the blows had ceased; and the elder boy, presuming somewhat on his seniority, anxiously inquired, "Pray, sir, would it not be a very dangerous thing to throw a stone amongst them?" The usher was silent. The gentle breeze of a summer's evening waved to and fro the long branches of the ancient trees, and the moonbeam carried their shadows, together with its own brightness, into the porch. Ancient trees sheltered the ancient and graceful Gothic church, and surrounded, except a part of the southern side, the lonely churchyard. Nor were these vulgar timber trees--ashes, sycamores, or elms; the generous luxuriance of the widely spreading boughs bespoke, in the universality of extension and influence, a patrician dignity: equally expansive with the free-born oak, these noble trees wanted the rude energy and blunt confidence of that hardy forester. The smooth surface and the delicate hue of the bark indicated a certain gentility of growth; and the texture, and colour, and charming odour of the leaves looked and breathed refinement. The younger boy was never weary of gazing upon and admiring these lordly trees: in the month of August they were in their utmost glory and beauty; and, morcover, their aspect was altogether new to him. Some two degrees of latitude further towards the north, at the distance of some seven or eight miles from the eastern coast, it must not be too positively affirmed that this kind of tree will not flourish, for subsequent experiments tend to show that it will; but it is certain that forty years ago there were not any specimens in the immediate neighbourhood of the precise spot to which he inwardly refers, although it is believed there were then such trees still farther north in more favourable or more fortunate situations. To the advantage of latitude may be added that of being removed seventy, or eighty, or a hundred miles from the sea and its blighting north-east winds, and also that of the limestone rock, of a most genial foundation. Accordingly, the ancient trees in the lonely churchyard were admired equally by strangers from the south, as from the north. Visitors were invariably informed that they were reserved for the sole use of the young gentlemen; and the young gentlemen were told, on the other hand, that if any boy should dare to set his foot within the churchyard, which at other times was the permitted and frequented play-ground, from the end of the midsummer holidays until express notice was given, he should have a sound flogging, and good reason to remember it. The latter communication was made with such an air of candour and earnestness, that the prohibition was never violated; besides, the churchyard and the only way to it were in full view of the windows of the vicarage. One fine day in October, the lessons ceasing as usual at noon, the ser vants of the vicar, farming men, for he was a considerable farmer as well as a clergyman and a schoolmaster, had been busily employed upon the trees for three or four days before, with ladders and sacks; on a fine day in October at noon, the usher said aloud in the schoolroom, with much gravity, rising from his desk as he spoke, "Young gentlemen, I have the pleasure to inform you that the churchyard is free! You may all go there as soon as you please!" A sudden noise at once tore into a thousand pieces the solemn stillness of the school; there was a loud cheering, a simultaneous rushing, and in a moment all the boys were in the churchyard, shouting under the ancient trees, climbing, pelting, seeking amidst the long grass, and pocketing. The younger boy, the new-comer and fag of the school, went with the rest, wondering at the joyous riot, and ignorant of the object of the keen pursuit; a true schoolboy scorns to communicate with any being so immeasurably his inferior as a boy who happens to be his junior in the school by half a year; consequently he had not yet learned the name and nature of the trees, the comely and dignified aspect of which he had already admired for several weeks. He ventured, however, to search, like some of the younger boys, in the long grass, and found, after a time, a large plum, green and brown, somewhat resembling a very ripe green-gage; he bit it twice and once, but the flavour did not encourage him to proceed. Presently the first dinnerbell rung, and the boys reluctantly approached the vicarage to wait before the door for the second signal. "Well! how many have you got?" A slight acquaintance formerly contracted at home, and a distant family connection, induced a good-natured boy of a little higher standing to condescend to address to the fag other words than those of imperious command. "How many have you got? Is this all? But it is a fine one. Why, you have been biting it! Is it good to eat?" A pocket-knife was produced, the husk at once removed, the shell neatly opened, and the kernel dexterously peeled without breaking it; for the boy was from Essex, and it is said to be the privilege of an Essex man to peel the kernel of a walnut whole. "There!" With the word, the white unbroken kernel lay shining on a low wall, and the Essex boy had departed. Walnuts grow upon trees, and so do cocoa nuts: a few walnuts in a china dish had been seen before occasionally, and some pieces of cocoa nut in another; they had been brought from a distance by sea, and had been bought at the fruiterer's as rarities, together with oranges and lemons, almonds, chestnuts, and raisins; or, perhaps, at the grocer's, with tea, sugar, and coffee, and all delicious and outlandish things. The growth of walnuts, therefore, was as little known as that of cocoa nuts -as mysterious as the discovery of babies in parsley-beds, until the unexpected and delightful revelation. How intense and how delicious was the surprise! and the vivid recollection of this striking passage in childhood is still sweet. Another and a very different revelation, of which the recollection is not less vivid, was made, but more gradually, the same autumn. Respecting its value there is a considerable diversity of opinion, a very great majority, however, as is usual on divisions, being on one side, especially if the voices of the present generation only, as is also usual on divisions, are to be reckoned. A church had hitherto been considered merely as a large and lofty room, wherein twice every Sunday, and once on a few other days in the year, prayers and sermons are to be heard at a length and under a degree of extreme restraint, which are exceedingly irksome to young persons; and a churchyard appeared to be but a small field adjoining the church, wherein now and then coffins are slowly deposited with much ceremony by a con |
