Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1884-01-25

Sedan and SadOwal- and I.a,. Il SAT ,ly venture
Il 10 predicka siniila cataat ophe tor France
when its passionate thirst tor revenge shRlI
push IL on to q new tria strength with
Ill Their ars Til sh
same old Aemanm Of the forests. pulsed
I in modern clothes
ca 1azEDRA I. rHoU GHrs.
/ Some pages back 4 had Intended to say
what quite forgot 20 say. i. the proper CONE i,
which 7 have been drealnily wandering till i
have quite lost my way, Z Ike the venerable
cathedrals and churches which have stood
for ages In the heart OF these old cities, the
mute witnesses OF the dali " life and secular
Not exactly mute witnesses, either.
For they have been centers, net
only Of the religious delotions,
but social intercourse of the d people;
they have been so much Q part of all that
has been done and felt and suffered around
them and within them that we could ALMOST
fancy their old brown walls and pillared
arches have throbbed like human Heart
with all the tumult of passion and feeling
which has flowed through their portals and
aisles from every natin to every vesper bel,
from generation to generation, What inter
antique 'forms Of Romanesque or Gothic
architectnre-egrandly impressive as these
are-nOr the monuments of brass or stone
which mock the greatness turned to dust be-
meath them. nor the sculptured or painted
saints and angels, but the ghosts
Baedecker doesn't MENTION them, and the YER
gers don't show them, but all the same these
old churches are haunted with ghosts-none
of your CHASTITY, thin, sheeted specters of un-
forgiven crime, but the good, honest ghosts
OF the old-time people have been talking of
further back-sturdy knights and stout bur
ghers and boors with their fat wives and
chubby children-a vast procession Of them
moving with the dial shadow Of the centuries
through the dim religious light of these
stately vaulted aisles-kneeling, noble and
same shrines, and owing allegi-
fession, to the same divine law.
! have been to-day in one Of the oldest of
these cathedrals, that of ST. Stephens, in this
ancient city Of Vienna, where T saw plenty
of those same fourteenth century ghosts in
the dress OF the nineteenth This cathedral,
like some others I have visited, was built be-
fore Columbus discovered America or Gut
tenburg the art of printing, New worlds
have risen since it's walls were raised, be-
yond the then unknown seas. Empires and
dynasties have risen and fallen around it.
Heresies that all the armies OF Alva and the
Cruises, and the burning and slaughter of
millions of heretics could not stamp out,
have usurped the affairs of the old religion in
Northern Europe. Vienna itself has been
besieged and occupied by hostile armies.
And from the old towers of St Stephens
Went up the fiery signals of dis
tress, when, only some 200 years ago, the
beleaguered city was on the point of
surrendering to the Turks. It's old walls
such grateful acclamations as greeted it's de-
lvererJohn Sobieski But the old weather.
beaten cathedral has survived uninjured, ex-
| cept by time, all those perils and changes,
and still stands as unchanged as the creed it
represents--the type and stronghold of con-
servatlsu. The same medieval people,
changed only in costume still mutter the
same prayers before the same affairs, still
I listen to the same ritual and witness the same
ceremonial by priests and bishops clad in the
same vestments as four Or five centuries ago.
There is something exceedingly impressive to
church in the midst of all the progressive
revolutions of modern Understanding very
picturesque in the changeless integrity
Of it's forms and creed, and especially in
its supersatitlons Nothing in the lit
| erature OF romance is more charmin
than it's legends of saints and martyrs, which
have furnished the chief subjects of the great
masterpieces Of art Of which it's churches and
monastaries have been despoiled to fill the
galleries of Europe. It happened to be the
| lCSulf dl VI UllC IlDly HnOLSl VI NOu, IbS WtS
explained to us, on the day we visited the
cathedral All the numerous statues of the
! Virgin sculptured in relief ON the outside
| walls, and all the numerous pictures of her
| inside were crowned or Wreathed with flow
ers, and each in turn received the homage of
genuHe1ion or q prayer from the passing
worshippers. BAt there was one picture of
the Holy Mother, guarded by a network of
iron, with candles burning before it, which
seemed to be the object OF special alteration.
Crowds OF kneelng worshippers of
with barred heads before it. A wei dressed
| man, rising from his knees, crowned his de-
! votions by kissing the picture or the torn
veil which screened it. Others followed
his example. They were the reverently af-
fectionate kisses that one might give his
mother. Smile as one may at the supersti-
! ton there is something-let us Protestants
i cOnfess-very tender and touching in this
maternal element OF the Catholic creed; and
it's strong hold on the most primitive and
universal of human mpathies has, perhaps,
! been more serviceable to the old church than
t more orthodox articles of its creed.
! THE CAUSES OF 1HE REFORMATION
| do not underrate the potency of the in
Huences which have gone out of these grey
old piles in impressing some, at least, of the
elements of Christian morality on the man
ners and laws and institutions of Europe in
the formative epoch OF it's civilization. But
! neither do forget-how can in the capital
! of Austria?-that they were the strongholds
/ of those doctrines of absolutism in church
and state which have been the main support
/ Of despotism since Charlenagne received the
! imperial crown from the hands Of the sue
cessor of ST. Peter This regime, tolerable
enough as it turned out to the people of
Southern Europe, was ill-s,lited to the con-
/ templative North German or the allied races
farther North For the German lived
! in two worlds. He was quite willing to &C.
cept and obey authority in the government
! so long, at least as his essential rights
were respected But in his other world-the
world Of mind-he would have no master
He would at least be sovereign Of his own
/ soul: No chains should shackle the freedom
of his thoughts. Hence Luther and the Ref
; ormatlon. Not that Luther and his follow
ers had the slightest idea that that they were
struggling for intellectual freedom
to believe the Augsburg confession. A
great many good people still think they were
fighting simply for religious liberty-by
! which they mean liberty to be Prot
They understand this thing better in Ger
many. Li1nitless audacity in speculation
and rigid conservatism in affairs was long
ago recognized by Madame De Stael as dis
tinguishing trait Of the German character,
and I don't think that, on the whole the
world is any worse for the intellectual free
dem which questions everything, re
SOLVES oT lilies 10 resolve ali problems lnUO
their fundamental data, and seeks to pene-
trate even the mysteries of the
infinite These are sacrilegeous thoughts
to be suggested by a Catholic cathe-
tlral nearly five centuries old. No wonder
my orthodox ghosts have vanished with O.
parting sign Of the cross, as if they smelt a
diabolical presence in the sacred precincts :.
A PARADISE OF HONESTY \, VI
F AS approach the land OF thieves and beg
CARS, i am strongly reminded by contrast Of
one thing that has struck me most agreeabIy
in the German people (the remark has 80
that it Will, at least, have an archaeological