The Progressionists, and Angela.

"That is beyond all possibility," returned the banker. "Hans Shund is now chief-magistrate, has been nominated to the legislature, and in a few days will be elected. Mr. Hans will appear as a shining light to-morrow, when he is to state his political creed in a speech to his constituents. Of course, you and I shall go to hear him. Next will follow his election, then my groom will hasten to Chateau Hallberg to fetch the horses. Are you sorry you made the bet?"

"Not at all! I should regret very much to lose my span of bays. Still, the bet will be of incalculable benefit to me. I will have learned concerning men and manners what otherwise I could never have dreamed of. In any event, the experience gained will be of vast service to me during life.

"I am exceedingly glad to know it, my dear fellow," assured Greifmann. "Your acquaintance with the present has been very superficial. You have learned a great deal in a few days, and it is gratifying to hear you acknowledge the fact."

The banker had not, however, caught Gerlach's meaning.

But for the wager, Seraphin would not have become acquainted with Louise's intellectual standpoint. He would probably have married her for the sake of her beauty, would have discovered his mistake when it could not be corrected, and would have found himself condemned to spend his life with a woman whose principles and character could only annoy and give him pain. As it was, he was tormented by the fear that his father might not coincide in his opinion of the young lady. What if the old gentleman considered her hostility to religion as a mere fashionable mania unsupported by inner conviction, a girlish whim changeable like the wind, which with little effort might be made to veer round to the point or the most unimpeachable orthodoxy? He had not uttered a word condemning Louise's infatuation about Renan. On taking leave he had parted with her in a friendly, almost hearty, manner, proof sufficient that the young lady's doubtful utterances at tea had not deceived him.

Upon reaching home, Gerlach sat in his room with his eyes thoughtfully fixed upon a luminous square cast by the sun upon the floor. Quite naturally his thoughts ran upon the marriage, and to the prospect of having to maintain his liberty by hard contest with his inflexible parent. He was unshaken in his resolution not to accede to the projected alliance, and, when a will morally severe conceives resolutions of this sort, they usually stand the hardest tests. So absorbing were his reflections that he did not hear John announcing a visitor. He nodded mechanically in reply to the words that seemed to come out of the distance, and the servant disappeared.

Soon after a country girl appeared entrance of the room. In both hands she was carrying a small basket made of peeled willows, quite new. A snow-white napkin was spread over the basket. The girl's dress was neat, her figure was slender and graceful. Her hair, which was wound about the head in heavy plaits, was golden and encircled her forehead as with a nimbus. Her features were delicate and beautiful, and she looked upon the young gentleman with a pair of deep-blue eyes. Thus stood she for an instant in the door of the apartment. There was a smile about her mouth and a faint flush upon her cheeks.

"Good-morning, Mr. Seraphin!" said a sweet voice.

The youth started at this salutation and looked at the stranger with surprise. She was just then standing on the sunlit square, her hair gleamed like the purest gold, and a flood of light streamed upon her youthful form. He did not return the greeting. He looked at her as if frightened, rose slowly, and bowed in silence.

"My father sends some early grapes which he begs you to have the goodness to accept."

She drew nearer, and he received the basket from her hand.

"I am very thankful!" said he. And, raising the napkin, the delicious fruit smiled in his face. "These are a rarity this season. To whom am I indebted for this friendly attention?"

"The obligation is all on our side, Mr. Seraphin," she replied trustfully to the generous benefactor of her family. "Father is sorry that he cannot offer you something better."

"Ah! you are Holt's daughter?"

"Yes, Mr. Seraphin."

"Your name is Johanna, is it not?"

"Mechtild, Mr. Seraphin."

"Will you be so good as to sit down?" And he pointed her to a sofa.

Mechtild, however, drew a chair and seated herself.

He had noted her deportment, and could not but marvel at the graceful action, the confiding simplicity, and well-bred self-possession of the extraordinary country girl. As she sat opposite to him, she looked so pure, so trusting and sincere, that his astonishment went on increasing. He acknowledged to himself never to have beheld eyes whose expression came so directly from the heart-a heart whose interior must be equally as sunny and pure.

"How are your good parents?"

"They are very well, Mr. Seraphin. Father has gone to work with renewed confidence. The sad-ah! the terrible period is past. You cannot imagine, Mr. Seraphin, how many tears you have dried, how much misery you have relieved!"

The recollection of the ruin that had been hanging over her home affected her painfully; her eyes glistened, and tears began to roll down her cheeks. But she instantly repressed the emotion, and exhibited a beautiful smile on her face. Seraphin's quick eye had observed both the momentary feeling, and that she had resolutely checked it in order not to annoy him by touching sorrowful chords. This trait of delicacy also excited the admiration of the gentleman.

"Your father is not in want of employment?" he inquired with interest.

"No, sir! Father is much sought on account of his knowledge of farming. Persons who have ground, but no team of their own, employ him to put in crops for them."

"No doubt the good man has to toil hard?"

"That is true, sir; but father seems to like working, and we children strive to help him as much as we can."

"And do you like working?"

"I do, indeed, Mr. Seraphin. Life would be worthless if one did not labor. Man's life on earth is so ordered as to show him that he must labor. Doing nothing is abominable, and idleness is the parent of many vices."

Another cause of astonishment for the millionaire. She did not converse like an uneducated girl from the country. Her accurate, almost choice use of words indicated some culture, and her concise observations revealed both mind and reflection. He felt a strong desire to fathom the mystery-to cast a glance into Mechtild's past history.

"Have you always lived at home, or have you ever been away at school?"

She must have detected something ludicrous in the question, for suddenly a degree of archness might be observed in her amiable smile.

"You mean, whether I have received a city education? No, sir! Father used to speak highly of the clearness of my mind, and thought I might even be made a teacher. But he had not the means to give me the necessary amount of schooling. Until I was fourteen years old, I went to school to the nuns here in town. I used to come in of mornings and go back in the evening. I studied hard, and father and mother always had the satisfaction of seeing me rewarded with a prize at the examinations. I am very fond of books, and make good use of the convent library. On Sundays, after vespers, I wait till the door of the book-room is opened. I still spend my leisure time in reading, and on Sundays and holidays I know no greater pleasure than to read nice instructive books. At my work I think over what I have read, and I continue practising composition according to the directions of the good ladies of the convent."

"And were you always head at school?"

"Yes," she admitted, with a blush.

"You have profited immensely by your opportunities," he said approvingly. "And the desire for learning has not yet left you?"

"This inordinate craving still continues to torment me," she acknowledged frankly.

"Inordinate-why inordinate?"

"Because, my station and calling do not require a high degree of culture. But it is so nice to know, and it is so nice to have refined intercourse with each others. For seven years I admired the elegant manners of the convent ladies, and I learned many a lesson from them."

"How old are you now?"

"Seventeen, Mr. Seraphin."

"What a pity you did not enter some higher educational institution!" said he.

A pause followed. He looked with reverence upon the artless girl whom God had so richly endowed, both in body and mind, Mechtild rose.

"Please accept, also, my most heartfelt thanks for your generous aid," she said, with emotion, "All my life long I shall remember you before God, Mr. Seraphin. The Almighty will surely repay you what alas! we cannot."

She made a courtesy, and he accompanied her through all the apartments as far as the front door. Here the girl, turning, bowed to him once more and went away.

Returning to his room, Seraphin stood and contemplated the grapes. Strongly did the delicious fruit tempt him, but he touched not one. He then pulled out a drawer, and hid the gifts as though it were a costly treasure. For the rest of the day, Mechtild's bright form hovered near him, and the sweet charm of her eyes, so full of soul, continually worked on his imagination. When he again went into Louise's company, the grace and innocence of the country girl gained ground in his esteem. Compared with Mechtild's charming naturalness, Louise's manner appeared affected, spoiled; through evil influences. The difference in the expression of their eyes struck him especially. In Louise's eyes there burned a fierce glow at times, which roused passion and stirred the senses. Mechtild's neither glowed nor flashed; but from their limpid depths beamed goodness so genuine and serenity so unclouded, that Seraphin could compare them to nothing but two heralds of peace and innocence. Louise's eyes, thought he, flash like two meteors of the night; Mechtild's beam like two mild suns in a cloudless sky of spring. As often as he entered the room where the grapes lay concealed, he would unlock the drawer, examine the fragrant fruit, and handle the basket which had been carried by her hands. He could not himself help smiling at this childish action, and yet both great delicacy and deep earnestness are manifested in honoring objects that have been touched by pure hands, and in revering places hallowed by the presence of the good.

Next morning the banker asked his guest to accompany him to the church of S. Peter, where Hans Shund was to address a large gathering.

"In a church?" Gerlach exclaimed, with amazement.

"Don't get frightened, my good fellow. The church is no longer in the service of religion. It has been secularized by the state, and is customarily used as a hall for dancing. There will be quite a crowd, for several able speakers are to discuss the question of common schools. The church has been chosen for the meeting on account of the crowd."

The millionaires drove to the desecrated church. A tumultuous mass swarmed about the portal. "Let us permit them to push us; we shall get in most easily by letting them do so," said the banker merrily. Two officious progressionists, recognizing the banker, opened a passage for them through the throng. They reached the interior of the church, which was now an empty space, stripped of every ornament proper to a house of God. In the sanctuary could yet be seen, as if in mournful abandonment, a large quadrangular slab, that had been the altar, and attached to one of the side walls was an exquisite Gothic pulpit, which on occasions like the present was used for a rostrum. Everywhere else reigned silence and desolation.

The nave was filled by a motley mass. The chieftains of progress, some elegantly dressed, others exhibiting frivolous miens and huge beards, crowded upon the elevation of the chancel. All the candidates for the legislature were present, not for the purpose of proving their qualifications for the office-progress never troubled itself about those-but to air their views on the subject of education. There were speakers on hand of acknowledged ability in the discussion of the doctrines of progress, who were to lay the result of their investigations before the people.

Seraphia also noted some anxious faces in the crowd. They were citizens, whose sons were alarmed at the thought of yielding up the training of their children into the hands of infidelity. And near the pulpit stood two priests, irreverently crowded against the wall, targets for the scornful pleasantries of the wits of the mob. Leader Schwefel was voted into the chair by acclamation. He thanked the assembly in a short speech for the honor conferred, and then announced that Mr. Till, member of the former assembly, would address the meeting. Amid murmurs of expectation a short, fat gentleman climbed into the pulpit. First a red face with a copper-tipped nose bobbed above the ledge of the pulpit, next came a pair of broad shoulders, upon which a huge head rested without the intermediary of a neck, two puffy hands were laid upon the desk, and the commencement of a well-rounded pauch could just be detected by the eye. Mr. Till, taking two handfuls of his shaggy beard, drew them slowly through his fingers, looked composedly upon the audience, and breathed hotly through mouth and nostrils.

"Gentlemen," he began, with a voice that struggled out from a mass of flesh and fat, "I am not given to many words, you know. What need is there of many words and long speeches? We know what we want, and what we want we will have in spite of the machinations of Jesuits and the whinings of an ultramontane horde. You all know how I acquitted myself at the last legislature, and if you will again favor me with your suffrages, I will endeavor once more to give satisfaction. You know my record, and I shall remain staunch to the last."

Cries of "Good!" from various directions.

"Gentlemen! if you know my record, you must also be aware that I am passionately fond of the chase. I even follow this amusement in the legislative hall. Our country abounds in a sort of black game, and for me it is rare sport to pursue this species of game in the assembly."

A wild tumult of applause burst forth. Jeers and coarse witticisms were bandied about on every side of the two clergymen, who looked meekly upon these orgies of progress.

"Gentlemen!" Till continued, "the blacks are a dangerous kind of wild beast. They have heretofore been ranging in a preserve, feeding on the fat of the land. That is an abuse that challenges the wrath of heaven. It must be done away with. The beasts of prey that in the dark ages dwelt in castles have long since been exterminated, and their rocky lairs have been reduced to ruins. Well, now, let us keep up the chase in both houses of the legislature until the last of these black beasts is destroyed. Should you entrust to me again your interests, I shall return to the seat of government, to aid with renewed energy in ridding the land of these creatures that are enemies both of education and liberty."

Amid prolonged applause the fat man descended. The chieftains shook him warmly by the hand, assuring him that the cause absolutely demanded his being reelected.

Gerlach was aghast at Till's speech. He hardly knew which deserved most scorn, the vulgarity of the speaker or the abjectness of those who had applauded him. Their wild enthusiasm was still surging through the building, when Hans Shund mounted the pulpit. The chairman rang for order; the tumult ceased. In mute suspense the multitude awaited the great speech of the notorious usurer, thief, and debauchee. And indeed, progress might well entertain great expectations, for Hans Shund had read a pile of progressionist pamphlets, had extracted the strong passages, and out of them had concocted a right racy speech. His speech might with propriety have been designated the Gospel of Progress, for Hans Shund had made capital of whatever freethinkers had lucubrated in behalf of so-called enlightenment, and in opposition to Christianity. The very appearance of the speaker gave great promise. His were not coarse features and goggle eyes like Till's; his piercing feline eyes looked intellectual. His face was rather pale, the result, no doubt, of unusual application, and he had skilfully dyed his sandy hair. His position as mayor of the city seemed also to entitle him to special attention, and these several claims were enhanced by a white necktie, white vest, and black cloth swallowtail coat.

"Gentlemen," began the mayor with solemnity, "my honorable predecessor in this place has told you with admirable sagacity that the kernel of every political question is of a religious character. Indeed, religion is linked with every important question of the day, it is the ratio ultima of the intellectual movement of our times. Men of thought and of learning are all agreed as to the condition to which our social life should be and must be brought. The friends of the people are actively and earnestly at work trying to further a healthy development of our social and political status. Nor have their efforts been utterly fruitless. Progress has made great conquests; yet, gentlemen, these conquests are far from being complete. What is it that is most hostile to liberalism in morals, to enlightenment, and to humanity? It is the antiquated faith of departed days. Have we not heard the language of the Holy Father in the Syllabus? But the Holy Father at Rome, gentlemen, is no father of ours-happily he is the father only of stupid and credulous men."

"Bravo! Well said!" resounded from the audience. Flaschen nudged Spitzkopf, who sat next to him. "Shund is no mean speaker. Even that fellow Voelk, of Bavaria, cannot compete with Shund."

"Gentlemen, our good sense teaches us to smile with pity at the infallible declarations of yon Holy Father. We are firmly convinced that papal decrees can no more stop the onward march of civilization than they can arrest the heavenly bodies in their journeys about the sun. 'Tis true, an œcumenical council is lowering like a black storm-cloud. But let the council meet; let it declare the Syllabus an article of faith; it will never succeed in destroying the treasures of independent thought which creative intellects have been hoarding up for centuries among every people. Since men of culture have ceased to yield unquestioning submission, like dumb sheep, to the church, they have begun to discover that nowhere are so many falsehoods uttered as in pulpits."

Tremendous applause, clapping, and swinging of hats, followed this eloquent period. A distinguished gentleman, laying his hand upon Till's shoulder, asked: "What calibre of ammunition do you use in hunting black game?"

"Conical balls of two centimetres," replied Till, with no great wit.

"Yon fellow in the pulpit fires shells of a hundredweight, I should say. And if in the legislative assembly his shells all explode, not a man of them will be left alive."

Till thought this witticism so good that he set up a loud roar of laughter, that could be heard above the general uproar.

Stimulated by these marks of appreciation, Shund waxed still more eloquent. "Gentlemen," cried he, "no body of men is more savagely opposed to science and culture than a conventicle of so-called servants of God. Were you to repeat the multiplication table several times over, there would be as much prayer and sense in it as in what is designated the Apostles' Creed."

More cheering and boundless enthusiasm. "Gentlemen!" exclaimed the speaker, with thundering emphasis and a hideous expression of hatred on his face, "the significance of religious dogmas is simply a sort of homœopathic concoction to which every succeeding age contributes some drops of fanaticism. Subjected to the microscope of science, the whole basis of the Christian church evaporates into thin mist. We must shield our children against religious fables. Away with dogmas and saws from the Bible; away with the Trinity; the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and other such stuff! Away with apothegms such as this: Christ is my life, my death, and my gain. Such things are opposed to nature. Children's minds are thereby warped to untruthfulness and hyprocrisy. In this manner the child is deprived of the power of thinking; loses all interest in intellectual pursuits, and ceases to feel the need of further culture. The times are favorable for a reformation. Our imperial and royal rulers have at length realized that minds must be set free. For this end it was as unavoidable for them to break with the church and priesthood as it is necessary for us. If we cherish our fatherland and the people, we must take the initiative. We are not striving to effect a revolution; we want intellectual development, profounder knowledge, and healthier morality.

"Shall peace be seen beneath our skies,The spirit's freedom first must rise,"

concluded the orator poetically, and he came down amidst a very hurricane of applause.

There followed a lull. In the audience, heads protruded and necks were stretched that their possessors might obtain a glimpse of the great Shund. In the chancel, the chiefs and leaders crowded around him, smiling, bowing, and shaking his hand in admiration.

"You have won the laurels," smirked a fellow from amidst a wilderness of beard.

"Your election to the Assembly is a certainty," declared another.

"You carry deadly weapons against Christ," said a professor.

Mr. Hans smiled, and nodded so often that he was seized with a pain in the muscles of the face and neck. At length, the chairman's bell came to the rescue.

"The Rev. Mr. Morgenroth will now address the meeting."

The clergyman mounted the rostrum, but scarcely had he appeared there, when the crowd became possessed by a legion of hissing demons.

"Gentlemen," began the fearless priest, "the duty of my calling as well as personal conviction demands that I should enter a solemn protest against the sundering of school and church."

Further the priest was not allowed to proceed. Loud howling, hissing, and whistling drowned his voice. The president called for order.

"In the name of good-breeding, I beg this most honorable assembly to hear the speaker out in patience," cried Mr. Schwefel.

The mob relaxed into unwilling silence like a growling beast.

"Not all the citizens of this town are affected with infidelity," the reverend gentleman went on to say. "Many honorable gentlemen believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and in his church. These citizens wish their children to receive a religious education; it would, therefore, be unmitigated terrorism, tyrannical constraint of conscience, to force Christian parents to bring up their children in the spirit of unbelief."

This palpable truth progress could not bear to listen to. A mad yell was set up. Clenched fists were shaken at the clergyman, and fierce threats thundered from all sides of the church. "Down with the priest!" "Down with the accursed blackcoat!" "Down with the dog of a Jesuit!" and similar exclamations resounded from all sides. The chairman rang his bell in vain. The mob grew still more furious and noisy. The clergyman was compelled to come down.

"Such is the liberty, the education, the tolerance, the humanity of progress," said he sadly to his colleague.

Once more the bell of the chairman was heard amid the tumult.

"Mr. Seicht, officer of the crown, will now address the meeting," Schwefel announced.

The audience were seized with amazement, and not without a cause. A dignitary of a higher order, a member of the administration, ascended the pulpit for the purpose of making an assault upon Christian education. He was about to make war upon morals and faith, the true supports of every solid government, the sources of the moral sentiment and of the prosperity of human society. A remnant of honesty and a lingering sense of justice may have raised a protest in Seicht's mind against his undertaking; for his bearing was anything but self-possessed, and he had the appearance of a wretch that was being goaded on by an evil spirit. Besides, he had the habit peculiar to bureaucrats of speaking in harsh, snarling tones. Seicht was conscious of these peculiarities of his bureaucratic nature, and labored to overcome them. The effort imparted to his delivery an air of constraint and a sickening sweetness which were climaxed by the fearfully involved style in which his speech was clothed.