The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-03-22
1nDnTERKNr1sn IN axR,rAHY.

A judiciOus writer, who mixed a great
deal in German society, thus describes the
in that country, a fitting addenda to a for
mer article on the same subject:
=" Beautiful women" says Heine, " beautiful
women without religion ara like flowers with
winch look upon us from their china vases as
though they were also of porcelain; and, if
they could speak, they would explain to us
sufficient it is for any one here below not to
smell badly, and how, so far perfume is con-
cerned, rational flower has no need of it
whatever"
His taste revolted at defect at which his
piety, since it did not exist, could take no ex-
ception. often thought of Heine's words
t When !. was in GsEmany and to me it seemed
their resemblance to the poets porcelain tulips.
Men often go to church because women take
them there. A mans religion IS often but the
reflected glow of a beloved wife's devotion, or
of revered mothers holiness though by de-
grees it may become his own. need not say
that amongst the men in Germany inadelity is
in all ages been the nursing mothers of re-
ligion from the days when Mary eagerly drank
in divine truths at the feet of her Lord, from
the time when the three stood weeping round
the Cross, from the days of virgin martyrs to
the poetic Middle Ages, from the Middle Ages
down to our own times, they have never for
gotten their faith OF been false to their love.
But in Protestant Germany it would almost
seem as though the women were too much
numbered about much serving" to have time
for the beautiful charities and loving kind
nesses of Christianity. The picture drawn by
q great German authority of the present con-
dition of the Protestant Church in that country
is gloomy and painful one indeed. He says
that % it is eaten to the core by unbelief, and
Slapped in it's very foundations by infdelity."
Germany does not want for theologians. Of
these she has enough, just as she has eminent
philosophers and biologists and naturalists,
historians, and mathematicians and chemists.
But talking of religion will not make a people
ton and faith in unbelievipg hearts. German
theologians, for all their congresses, seem I'M
able to awaken anything like true religious
feelings in the hearts of the people.
1t may be asked, why this should be the casei
The answer is not altogether easy but it lies
partly in this, that the clergy are neither re-
spected nor esteemed, as clergy, by those above
or by those below them. The cure of souls is,
alas! with them, sinecure. q
Germans of the upper class will tell you that
they cannot associate with their clergy
terms of equality, because their clergy have no
claim to be regarded as equals because their
manners are often offensy and generally I'M
deficiencies in their address and general way of
C enducting themselves which are offensive to
the prejudices of the more refined. No one
who has resided long in Protestant Germany
can ignore the general disregard in which tho
clergy are held. And yet the very persons who
are most eager to take exception at little in
congruities of word and deed, such as those to
in condemning the spiritual pride which could
prefer gospel truths ut the hands of the cOur-
teous and refined rather than ut those of the
uncouth and tactless. They say, " If you arc o
Christian you should mot be 90 hypercritical
about little things: your bskers son can