Conrad von Bolanden

“ Leave it to others to judge; they have more brains, more sense, more knowledge than you. Progress does the thinking: our place is to blindly follow its directions."
"But, Mr. Spitzkopf, mine is only the vote of a poor man; and what matters such a vote?"
"There is your want of sense again. We are living in a state that enjoys liberty. We are living in an age of intelligence, of moral advancement, of civilization and knowledge, in a word, we are living in an age of progress; and in an age of this sort the vote of a poor man is worth as much as that of a rich man." ”

“ The millionaires drove off.
"Pity for this Gerlach!" thought the official, as he strode through the street. "He is lost to progress, for he is too solidly rooted in superstition to be reclaimed. War against nature's claims; deny healthy physical nature its rights; re-establish terror of the seven capital sins; permit the priesthood to tyrannize over conscience; restore the worship of an unmathematical triune God--no! no!" cried he fiercely, "I shall all go to the devil!"
A carriage whirled past him. He caste a glance into the vehicle, and raised his hat to Mr. Hans Shund. ”

“ Angela returned after housing the steer. Frank went some steps toward her, as if to thank her on his knees for his life; but he concluded to stand, and a sad smile passed over his countenance.
"Fräulein Angela," said he, "I have the honor of introducing to you my friend, Herr Lutz, professor at our university."
"It gives me pleasure to know the gentleman," said she. "But I regret that, through the negligence of Louis, you have been in great danger. Great God! if I had not been in the yard." And her beautiful face became as pale as marble. ”

“ These words sounded enigmatically to Richard.
"I do not comprehend the meaning of your words, Fräulein Angela."
"Grief at the death of a relative is proper for us, because a beloved person has been taken from our midst. But the church, on the contrary, rejoices because an innocent, pure soul has reached the goal after which we all strive--eternal happiness. You see, Herr Frank, that the church considers the departure of a child from this world from a more exalted point of view, and comprehends it in a more spiritual sense, than the natural affection. ”

“ There is no spirit in man or anywhere else. Matter alone exists, because matter alone manifests its existence."
"I understand. The materialist will only be convinced by seeing and feeling. As a spirit is neither spiritual nor tangible, then there is none. Is it not so, friend Richard?"
"You have included in one sentence the whole of materialism," said Frank coolly.
"I cannot understand," said Klingenberg hesitatingly, "how the materialists can make assertions which are untenable to the commonest understandings. Why, thought can neither be seen nor felt; yet it is an existence." ”

“ The human mind will receive knowledge from the source of all knowledge--God, in proportion as it has been just and good. For this reason our Redeemer calls the world of the damned 'outer darkness,' and the world of the blessed, the 'kingdom of light.'"
"We sometimes see in that way even now," said Frank after a pause. "The wicked have ideas very different from those of the good. A frivolous spirit mocks at and derides that which fills the good with happiness and contentment. We might, then, say that even in this life man knows as he is known." ”

“ The proprietor, embarrassed, sipped his tea. Angela's blooming cheeks lost their color. Hamm did not even perceive the effect of his fatal words, and Frank was scarcely able to hide his secret pleasure at Hamm's sad mishap.
"We know no fate, no blind, unavoidable destiny," said Siegwart, who could not forgive the assessor his unchristian sentiment. "But we know a divine providence, an all-powerful will, without whose consent the sparrow does not fall from the house-top. We believe in a Father in heaven who, counts the hairs of our heads, and whose counsels rule our destiny." ”

“ Leicht, my poor fellow, I fancy I see in you a slave of Schwefel's. From dawn till late you are compelled to toil for the curmudgeon, Sundays not excepted. Your church is the factory, your religion working in straw, and your God is your sovereign master Schwefel. You are ruining your health amid the stench of brimstone, and not so much as the liberty of voting as you think fit is allowed you. It's just as I tell you--you factorymen are slaves. How strangely things go on in the world! In America slavery has been abolished ”

“ The rest of the year you pass in riding about on your lands, suffering yourself to be impressed by the stern rigor of nature's laws, and concluding that human society harmonizes in the same manner with the behests of fixed principles. I shall have to brush you up a little. I shall have to let you into the mysteries of progress, so that you may cease groping like a blind man in the noonday of enlightenment. Above all, let us have no narrow-mindedness, no scrupulosity, I beg of you. Whosoever nowadays walks the grass-grown paths of rigorism is a doomed man. ”

“ Do you think it possible?"
"Anything is possible," maintained Koth. "Didn't Shund preach that there isn't any God, or hell, or devil? Was that ever taught before? If the God of old has to submit to being deposed, the rich will have to submit to it. I tell you, the majority will settle the business for the rich. And if there's no God, no devil, and no life beyond, well then, you see, I'm capable of laying my hand to anything. If voting won't do, violence will. Do you understand?"
"Bravo! Hurrah for Koth!"
"There must be progress," cried Graeulich, "among us as well as others. ”

“ The repudiation of a Supreme Being and the violent extinction of the idea of the Divinity in the breast are of themselves grave offences against moral conscience. I grant you that, in the eyes of the public, thousands of men pass for moral who have no faith in religion. But public opinion is anything but a criterion of certainty when the moral worth of a man is to be determined. A man's interior is a region which cannot be viewed by the eye of the public. You know yourselves that there are men who pass for honorable, moral, pure men, whose private habits are exceedingly filthy and corrupt. ”

“ But did progress suffer itself to be disconcerted by episcopal protests and the agonizing screams of the ultramontanes? Not at all. It calmly pursued the even tenor of its way. Be logical, Mr. Schwefel: progress reigns supreme and decrees with absolute authority--why should it not summarily relegate this election law among the things that were, but are no more?"
"You are right, Greifmann!" exclaimed Gerlach, in a feeling of utter disgust. "What need has the knout of Russian despotism of the sanction of constitutional forms? Progress is lord, the rest are slaves!" ”

“ Shund, then, accurately summed up the creed of the present age when he said, 'Progress conquers death, destroys hell, rejects heaven, and finds its god in the sweet enjoyment of life.' It is to be hoped that all-powerful progress will next decree that there are no death and no suffering upon earth, that all the hostile forces of nature have ceased, that want and misery are no more, and that earth is a paradise of sweet enjoyment for all. ”

“ These are the heroes of modern sentiment, the advance guard of liberty, morality, and true manhood! And these heroes so far succeeded that the noble Arndt wrote of his time, 'We are base, cowardly, and stupid; too poor for love, too listless for anger, too imbecile for hate. Undertaking everything, accomplishing nothing; willing every thing, without the power of doing any thing.' So far has this boasted freethinking created disrespect for revealed truth. So far this modern civilization, which idealizes the passions, leads to mockery of religion and lets loose the baser passions of man. ”

“ Laborers and factory men were maintaining that wealth is unequally distributed; that, whilst a small number are immensely rich, a much greater number are poor and destitute; that progress will have to advance to a point when an equal division of property must be made. Now, the poor and the laboring population are in the majority. Should they vote for a partition, should they demand from us what hitherto we have regarded as exclusively our own, we, gentlemen, will in consistency be forced to accept the decree of the majority as perfectly moral and just--will we not? ”

“ Now, why is a man to be despised who has indeed done wrong, but not worse than others whose sins have long since been forgotten? Why condemn to obscurity a man that possesses the most brilliant kind of talent for public offices? The contempt felt for Shund on the part of a population who boast of their progress is unaccountable--may be it would not be far from the truth to believe that some influential persons are jealous of the gifted man," concluded the banker reproachfully.
"Pardon me, please! The thief and usurer it might perhaps be possible to elect," conceded Erdblatt. ”

“ In unpretending guises like these, the spirit of the age circulates among the crowd travestied in the fashionable epithet progressive. Were you, however, to remove the shell from around the kernel of progress, were you to exhibit it to the multitude undisguised as the nullification of religion, as the denial of the God of Christians, as the rejection of immortality, and of an essential difference between man and the beast--were you to venture thus far, you would see the millions flying in consternation before the monster Progress. ”

“ You have convinced yourself of the injustice of your opinion of women. You have found a noble woman. I am willing to believe that Angela is a magnificent and faultless creature, although she have an ultramontane father. But my consent to your union with Siegwart's daughter you will never receive. Now, Richard, you can without trouble find a woman that will suit you, and who is as beautiful and as noble-minded as the Angel of Salingen. ”

“ The banker had not uttered an exaggeration. It sometimes happens that a first love bursts forth with an impetuosity so uncontrollable, that, for a time, every other domain of the intellectual and moral nature of a young man is, as it were, submerged under a mighty flood. This temporary inundation of passion cannot, of course, maintain its high tide in presence of calm experience, and the sunshine of more ripened knowledge soon dries up its waters. But Seraphin possessed only the scanty experience of a young man, and his knowledge of the world was also very limited. ”

“ While thrones are tumbling, and Pius IX. is not master in his own house, that remarkable man does not make the least concession to the man in power. The powers have broken treaties, trampled on justice, and there is no longer any right but the right of revolution--of force. There is nothing any longer certain; all is confusion. The pope alone holds aloft the banner of right and justice. In his manifestoes to the world, he condemns error, falsehood, and injustice. The pope alone is the shield of those moral forces which have for centuries given stability and safety to governments. ”

“ On earth, however, no spring, be it ever so beautiful, is entirely safe from storms. Evil spirits lie in waiting in the air, dark powers threaten destruction to all blossoms and all incipient life. And the more inevitable is the dread might of those lurking spirits, that in every blossom of living plant lies concealed a germ of ruin, sleeps a treacherous passion--even in the heart of the innocent Seraphin. ”

“ We find decayed peoples in the Christian era, but the church has always rescued and regenerated them. While the acquisitions of modern times--industrialism, enlightenment, humanitarianism, and whatever they may be called--are, on the one hand, of little advantage or of doubtful worth, they are, on the other hand, the graves of true prosperity, liberty, and morality. They are the cause of shameful terrorism and of degrading slavery, in the bonds of the passions and in the claws of plutocracy. ”

“ Greifmann! You may rest assured that we can boast all the various conquests made by modern advancement. Religious enthusiasm and foolish credulity are poisonous plants that superannuated devotees are perhaps still continuing to cultivate here and there in pots, but which the soil will no longer produce in the open air. The sort of education prevailing hereabout is that which has freed itself from hereditary religious prejudices. Our town is blessed with all the benefits of progress, with liberty of thought, and freedom from the thraldom of a dark, designing priesthood. ”