Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine. Auerbach Berthold
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without a positive Church; there must be something immovably fixed, and at this very day the Americans are free, only because they subject themselves to religion."
"Or, rather, enfranchise it," Eric interposed, without being heard.
The priest continued: —
"I think that you desire to make a free man of this youth. We also love free men, we want free men, but there can be no free men without a positive religion, and, in truth, without one requiring a strict, legal obedience. The highest result of education is equanimity – note it well – equanimity. Can your world-wisdom produce a harmony of all the tendencies and dispositions of the soul, a quietude of the spirit, a state of self-renunciation, because our whole life is one continual act of self-sacrifice? If you can produce the same result as religion, then, justified by the result, you agree with us. For my own part, I doubt whether you can; and we wait for the proof, which you have yet to give, while we have furnished it now for a thousand years, and still daily furnish it."
"Religion," replied Eric, "is a concomitant of civilization; but it is not the whole of civilization, and this is the distinction between us and the ecclesiastics. But we are not to blame for the opposition between science and religion."
"Science," interposed the priest, "has nothing to do with the eternal life. Although one has electric telegraphs and sewing machines, that has no relation to the eternal life. This eternal life is given only by religion, and its essence remains the same, no matter how many thousand, and thousand upon thousand, inventions he may devise in his finite existence."
Eric inquired now in a diffident tone, —
"But how can the Church itself possess riches?"
"The Church does not possess, it only administers," the priest sharply answered.
"I think that we are getting too far away from the point," Eric said, coming back to the subject. "As we cannot expect that Herr Sonnenkamp and his son Roland will give away all their property, the question returns, how shall we get the right hold?"
"Precisely so," cried the ecclesiastic, suddenly standing up, and walking with long strides up and down the room. "Precisely so; now are we on the very point. Hear me attentively. Observe well, there is something new started in the world, a still more homeless condition yet in the higher moral order, and that is the moneyed aristocracy. You look at me in amazement."
"Not amazed, but expecting what will come next."
"Very right. This moneyed aristocracy stands between the nobility and the people, and I ask what it is to do? Must not a rich young man of the middle-class, like Roland, thrown into the whirlpool of life, be inevitably ingulfed?"
"Why he," asked Eric, "any more than the noble youth in the civil or in the military service? Do you suppose that religion saves them from destruction?"
"No, but something positive of a different kind; the historic traditions of the nobility save them. The man of the nobility has the good fortune to complete the preliminary period of youthful training, with the least amount of detriment. He afterwards retires to his estates, becomes a worthy husband, and respectably maintains his position; and, even in the city, in the midst of the mad whirl, his position in regard to the court, and to the higher class in the community, keeps him within prescribed limits. But what does the rich young man of the middle-class have? He has no honorable rank, no social obligation, at least none of any stringency."
"Then it would be, perhaps, the greatest piece of good fortune to Roland, if his father could be ennobled?"
"I cannot say," replied the priest. He was vexed that he had allowed himself to be drawn so near to the subject of a very confidential conversation with Sonnenkamp a short time previous to this. "I cannot say," he repeated, adding besides, "If one could be ennobled with seventeen descents, it might be well; but a new noble – let us say no more of this. I desired to say, that the nobleman has honor, traditionary, inherited obligation; the nobleman has established and has to maintain the maxim, 'noblesse oblige,' 'nobility requires.' What great maxim have riches established? The most brutal of all maxims, one utterly bestial. And do you know what it is?"
"I don't know what you refer to."
"The maxim which this pursuit of gain sets up as its highest is, 'Help thyself.' The beast does that, every one helps himself. Riches thus stand between nobility and people; they occupy that morally homeless position, without a recognized obligation, between nobility and people. I understand by people, not only those who labor with the hands, but also the men of science, of art, and even of the church. The people have work; this moneyed class does not wish for honor, and only wants labor so far as it can have others labor for it, and appropriate to itself the product of their labor. What does it want? gold. What does it want to do with the gold? procure enjoyment. Who guarantees this? the State. What does it do for the State? There's the whole question! Have you any answer?"
Eric's lips trembled, and he replied: —
"If the nobility feels itself obliged and entitled to assume the leadership in the army for war, then are the young men of wealth to feel themselves called to become leaders in the army of peace; and they are to make good their position to the community, to their own circle, and to their fellows, serving without compensation, and actively engaged in entire subjection to authority, as a protection of the whole State, and a sacrifice in all works of beneficence."
"Stop!" cried the priest; "the last is our work. You will never be able to organize that without religion; you will never be able to effect, that people, out of their opulence, out of their luxury, or, as you would denominate it, out of purely humane emotions, shall visit the dying in the huts of the poor, the helpless, the sick, and the abandoned."
As if the ecclesiastic had invoked this high duty of his office, the sacristan now came, and said that an old vine-dresser desired extreme unction. The priest was speedily ready, and Eric departed.
When he came out into the road, and breathed the fresh air, he felt its influence anew. Did he not come out of the atmosphere of incense? No, here was more; here was a mighty power, which placed itself face to face with the great riddle of existence.
Eric sauntered away, lost in thought, and it occurred to him again how much more easy was the task of those who can impart some fixed dogmatic principles which they do not originate, but receive; he, however, must create all out of himself, out of his own cognition.
And can what comes out of your own cognition become a part of the cognition of another?
Eric stood still, and the thought that he would educate himself while educating another made his cheeks glow; the youth should acquire knowledge from himself; for what is all culture which must be imparted from one to another? nothing but help and guidance to him who has a self-moving power.
Half way up the mountain, Eric stopped at the road which led to the Major's. He looked down at the villa which bore the proud name of Eden, and the Bible story came to his memory. In the garden are two trees, the tree of life in the midst, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil; Eden is lost for him who eats of the tree of knowledge. Is it not always so?
Like a revelation the thought came to him, There are three things given to man upon earth, – enjoyment, renunciation, and knowledge.
Sonnenkamp yonder – what does he wish for himself and his son? enjoyment. The world is a spread table, and man has only to learn to find the right means and the right measure of enjoyment. The earth is a place of pleasure, and brings forth its fruits that we may delight ourselves therewith. Have we no other calling than to drive, to eat, to drink, and to sleep, and then to eat, drink, sleep, and drive again; and is the sun to shine just for this?
What does the priest want? renunciation. This world has nothing to offer, its enjoyments are only an illusive show, which tempt you hither and thither, therefore turn away from them.
And what do you desire? And what ought those to desire whom you wish to make like yourself? knowledge. For life is not divided into enjoyment and renunciation, and knowledge rather includes both in itself, – is the synthesis of both. It is the mother of duty and of all beautiful deeds.
In the old times, the combatants received out of an immeasurable height a protecting shield from the hands