The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-02-01

Sedan and sadowa-,and l-.ss safely venture
10 predict a siriilar catlstcophe for France
when it's passionate thirst for revenge shall
ptNAf 1t on to a new trial of strength with
thes,. curiously peaceable people, who, with
ali Their phlegmatic patience, are still the
same old Alemanni OF the forests, disguised
in modern clothes.
CATHEDRAL
Some pages back had intended to say
what 1 quite forgot to say in the proper con-
n~ection-that next to these old streets in
which have been dreamily wandering till l
have quite lost my way, / like the venerable
cathedrals ant churches, which nave stood
for ages in the heart of these old cities, the
mute witnesses of the daily life and secular
changes that have gone on around them.
Not exactly mute Witnesses, either.
For they have been %centers, not
only Of the religious devotions,
but social intercourse of the people;
they have been so much n 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 Il human heart
With all the tumult of passion and feeling
which has flowed through their portals and
aisles from every matin to every vesper bell,
from generation to generation. What inter
ests me most in those noble piles is not the
antique forms of Romanesque or Gothic
architectnre-@randly impressive as these
afe-nor the monuments of brass or stone
= NihNL IVY lllt sItllIttSs tttIllttl W utlSU DC-
meath them, nor the sculpturcd or painted
saints and angels, but the ghosts.
laedecker doesn't 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-tiine people l have been talking of
further back-sturdv knights and stout bur
ghers and Doors, with thcir 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-kneeline, noble and
simple, on the same stone slabs, before the
same shrines, and owing alleei-
auce, at least in form and pro
fcssion, to the same divine law.
| have been to-day in one of the oldest of
these catliedrals, that of st. Stephens, in this
ancient city of Vienna, where ] saw plenty
OF those same fourteenth century ghosts in
the dress OF the nineteenth. This cathedral,
like some Others | have visited, was built be-
fore Columbus discovered America or Gut
tenburg the art of printing, New worlds
have risen since its walls were raised, be-
You'd the then unknown seas. Empires and
dynasties have risen and fallen around it.
H%eresies, that all the armies of Alya aud the
Gulses, and the burning and slaughter of
millions OF l%lereticS could not stamp out,
have usurped the affairs of the old religion in
Northern Europe. Vienna itself has been
besteged and occupied by hostile armies.
And from the old towers of St Stephens
Went up the fiery signals of dis
tIess, when, only some 200 Years ago. the
beleaguered city was on the point of
s~urrendering to the Turks. Its old walls
slaYe never before or since resounded with
such grateful VACCINATIONS as greeted its de-
! ~liverer-John SobieSki. But the old weather.
beaten cathedral has survived ullinjured, ex-
cept by time, all those perils and changes,
and still stands as unchanged as the creed it
representative type and stronghold of con-
servatism, The same medieval people,
! thnntTnI .rn1p in pnStyYy,,F. ytil1 ,,,}tnr 1ln
same prayers before the same affairs, still
listen to the same ritual, and witness the same
ceremonial by priests and bishops clad in the
same yestinents as four or five centuries ago.
There is something exceedingly impressive to
me in this stendfast iInmobility of the Romish
church i'll the midst of all the progressive
revolutions of modern tim~es-something very
picturesque in the changeless integrity
or its forms and creed, and especially in
its superstitions. Nothing. in the lit
eratare OF romance Is more charmin
than its legends of saints and martyrs, which
have furnished the chief subjects of the great
masterpieces of art of which its churches and
lnonastarics have been despoiled to fill the
galleries of Europe. 1t happened to be the
, festival Of the Holy Mother of God, as was
explained to us. ON the day we visited the
cathedral, All che 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
crs, and each in turn received the homage of
II genuheXion or q prayer from the passing
worshippers. But there was one picture of
the Holy Mother, guarded bv Il network of
iron, with candles burning before it, which
seemed TO be the object of special alteration.
Crowds of k~neeling worshippers of
both sexes and all classes We're praying
with barred heads before it A well 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 We're the re~verently at
fectionate kisses that one might give his
mother. Smile as one may ut the supersti-
ton. there is solne-hing-let US Professionals
confess-very tender and touching in this
maternal element of the Catholic creed; and
its strong hold on the most primitive and
universal of human sylnpathies has, perhaps,
Fheeu more serviceable to the old church than
more orthodox articles of its creed.
FILE CAUSES OF THE
do not underrate the potency of the in
tiuences which have gone out of these grey
old piles in iinpressin2 some, at least, of the
elements of Christian morality on the man
ncrs and laws and institutions of Europe in
The formative epoch of its civilization. But
neither do l forget-how can l in the capital
Of Austria?-that they were the ~strongholds
Of those doctrines of absolutsm in church
and state which have been the main support
of despotism since Charlemagne 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-suited to the con
templative North German or the allied races
farther North. For the German livee
IN two worlds. He was quite willing to ac
aept and obey authority in the government
so long. ut least, as his essential rights
were respected. But in his other world-tht
world of mind-he would have no master
He would ut least be sovereign of his OWL
soul. No chains should shackle the freedom
of his thoughts. Hence Luther and the Ref
urmation. Not IhasLuther and his follow.
er> had the slightest idea that that they wert
struggling for intellectual freedom
: They thought they We're fighting for libert,
to believe the Augsburg confession. 4
great many good people still think they were
; fighting simply for religious liberty-b,
!, which they mean liberty to he Prot
I estants of some Evangelical sect
They understand this thing better in Ger
/, many. Limitless audacity in speculation
, and rigid conservatism in affairs was Ion.
ago recognized by Madame De Stael as a dis
: tinguishing trait OF the German character
and l don't think that, on the whole, tn
world is any worse for the Intellectual free
r dom which questions everything, re
solves or tries to resolve all problems int
! their fundamental data, and seeks to pene
: trate even the mysteries OF til
! infinite. These are sacrilegeous thought
! to be suggested by n Catholic cathe
dral nearly i've centuries old. No wonde
! my orthodox ghosts have vanished with
! parting sign of the cross, az if they smelt
! diabolical presence in the sacred precincts.
I A PARADISE OF HONESTY.
= AS | approach the land of thieves and beg
! gars, am strongly reminded by contrast 3
T one thing that RS struck me most agreeabl
= in the German people THE remark has s
. much of my favorite flavor of age about Il
, that it will, at least, have an Archaeological
: interest TO: YOU and that is the robust an
: wholesome genuineness, the sincerity an
simplicity of the German character. The
I are, far more generally than any other pee
pie that / know of, n truth-telling an