CHAPTER XI.
The Churches in Germany, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, suffered from the weakness of the nation. Both had to pass through struggles and sufferings, which threatened destruction to every exclusive Church system; they became too narrow to embrace the whole spiritual and intellectual life of men. Since the war, men had gradually felt the need of toleration. With the Protestants, Luther's principle again revived, that only inward conviction could bring men into the Church. It was later, that the old Church yielded a grumbling toleration. Science had discovered, amongst other things, that in spite of some passages of Holy Scripture, the sun does not turn round our earth, but our earth round the sun. Unwillingly did the Church receive this, after the discovery had occasioned her many a heart's pang.
The Protestant Church had fewer difficulties to overcome, but the aristocratic structure of the Roman Catholic Church, again so firmly united, and supported by great political interests, would naturally find it far more difficult to yield to necessity.
Whoever should wish to write a history of the religious conscience of Germans, would have to examine how it was, that after the war there arose in both confessions, precisely at the same time, a reaction of the heart against the ruling parties, which in spite of the difference of dogmas, shows a great similarity in the representations of this tendency. The need of elevation of soul, in a period which was poor in feeling, made the Protestant Spener, and the Catholic Spee and Scheffler into pietists, and mystics. It is true, the restraining power of the Protestant Church could no longer check the development of individuality. Through it the scientific man could easily satisfy himself, when he came, from the study of history, from observation of the heavens, from the secret of numbers, and through the weighing and measuring of the powers of the elements, to a new representation of the world of creation, and thereby to new views of the being of the Godhead. Thus the genius of the great Leibnitz was the growth of the Protestant Church. Any one also whose fancy took a wild flight, or to whom deep thought and meditation disclosed some peculiar aspect of the Deity, might easily release himself from Church-communion with his fellow-citizens, and unite himself perhaps with congenial spirits in some special community. Thus did Böhme, and the eccentric Kuhlmann, Zinzendorf, and Herrnhuter. This was incomparably more difficult in the Roman Catholic Church. Whoever attempted to go his own way, had to experience the anger of a strict mistress, and rarely did a powerful mind break loose from the restraint.
But the ruling majority of ecclesiastics had even in the old Church lost much of their energy. The warlike champion of the restored Church, the order of Jesuits, had itself suffered in its greatness; it had become powerful and rich, the connection between the provinces and Rome had been loosened, the independence of individual houses was greater, and the curse had fallen on it which pursues the prosperous. It became pre-eminently the representative of modern courtly splendour in church and school. Even in earlier times the order had not disdained brilliant displays, nor to enter into the feelings of the great world, but then it had been like the prophet Daniel, who only wore the Persian dress in order to serve his God among the heathen; now Daniel had become a satrap. Through the Westphalian peace, the great mission work of the order was limited. Still however, did it continue skilfully to draw within its circle the souls of individuals, whoever was rich or distinguished was firmly ensnared. Its main object was not the salvation of souls, but the fame which would accrue to the order. The greatest amount of work was done in the Emperor's territory. Wherever heresy still flickered, the lay authorities assisted. But one race, more stubborn and stiff-necked than the sons of the Hussites, or the Moravian brothers, incessantly excited the spirit of conversion in the order, it was the Jews.
Already in the time of the Romans, the Jews may have dwelt within the colonies on the Rhine, near the temple of Jupiter of golden Maintz, and the baths of the proud Agrippina; they afterwards established themselves within the German cities. In respect to German law they were as foreigners; they were placed under the protection of the Emperor, who transferred his power over them to the Archbishop of Maintz, the Chancellor of the Empire. As the Emperor's dear servitors, besides the other taxes, they had to pay him and the princes a penny offering, which was raised on Christmas-day. This tax, one of the sources of the Emperor's revenue, should have been security for his protection, but it became an opportunity for the worst oppression; and they were drawn upon for contributions on every occasion that money was wanted. Their taxes reached to an exorbitant height. On sudden money emergencies, or as an act of favour, the Emperor sold, or gave away his right of taxation to the Princes and cities; and the year's rent of three, four, or even one hundred Jews, was a secure and important income. Thus it was a source of gain to the Princes and Sovereigns to possess many Jews, from whom they raised money to the utmost.
On the other hand it was an exclusive right of the Jews to lend out money on interest for notes of hand or mortgages, which was strictly forbidden to the Christians of the middle ages by the Pope and Emperor. Thus naturally the whole of the money dealing came into the hands of the Jews. And by the high interest which they received--especially on short loans--they must rapidly have acquired great wealth. But this boundless right was not secure against sudden attacks, both Pope and Emperor sometimes took the liberty of giving the creditor a dispensation from the payment of the interest, nay even of the capital.
Thus they became the financiers of the olden time in both great and little traffic, the richest persons in the country, in spite of monstrous imposts.
But this opulence stimulated still more the hate and covetousness of the multitude. In the early part of the middle ages they appear to have been seldom persecuted by Christian fanaticism. But after the Crusades, the declining Church and the populace of the towns vied with each other in seeking their lives and treasure. A tradition which continues up to the present day was brought forward against them. They were supposed to poison wells, to introduce the plague, to murder Christian children, use their blood at their Passover, and feed on their hearts; and to whip the consecrated host with rods, &c. Persecutions, plundering of houses, and extensive murders were almost periodical. Christianity was forced upon them by the sword, torments, and imprisonment, but usually in vain. No warlike people ever withstood brutal violence, with more heroic courage than this defenceless race. The most magnanimous examples of enduring heroism are mentioned by Christian writers themselves. Thus it went on during the whole of the middle ages, and still in the sixteenth century we find the Sovereigns endeavouring to fill their empty coffers from the money bags of the Jews, and the populace still storming their houses, as in the wild Jewish outbreak at Frankfort-on-Main in 1614. Some great scholars, physicians, and natural philosophers among them, acquired a repute which spread through all the countries of Europe, inspiring even Christians with involuntary respect, but these were rare exceptions.
Amidst all these adverse circumstances, the indestructible vital energies of this people still continued, as we find them among the Jews of the present day: privileged by the Emperor, helpless before the law of the country, indispensable, yet deeply hated, desired, but cursed, in daily danger of fire, robbery, and murder, yet the quiet, masters of the property and welfare of hundreds, in an unnatural adventurous position, and yet always steadily occupied, amidst the densest mass of Christians, yet separated from them by iron boundaries, they lived a twofold life; in presence of Christians they were cold, stubborn, patient, timid, cringing, and servile, bowed down under the oppression of a thousand years: yet all the pride of noble blood, great wealth, and superior talent, the full glow of southern feeling, every kindly emotion and every dark passion were to be found in that race.
After the Thirty years' war, the Jews obtained scarcely more protection from the fury of the multitude, and their spiritual trials became greater. If the Protestants, who were then weak and embarrassed, vexed them more by repulsive arrogance than by their arts of proselytism, the old Church was the more zealous. They were more prosperous in trade and usury since the Westphalian peace, indeed a splendid prospect had opened for them. The diminution of international wholesale business, the ruin of old commercial houses at Nuremberg and Augsburg, the continued depreciation of the coinage, the unceasing need of money, with the territorial lords, small and great, was favourable to the multifarious activity of the Jewish business, which found skilful instruments throughout all Germany, and connections from Constantinople to Cadiz. The importance to German trade of the close cohesion of the Jews amongst themselves, at a period when bad roads, heavy tolls, and ignorant legislation, placed the greatest limits upon commerce, is not yet sufficiently appreciated. With unwearied energy, like ants, they everywhere bored their secret way through the worm-eaten wood of the German Empire: long before the letter post and system of goods carriers had spread a great network over the whole circuit of the country, they had quietly combined for these objects; poor chafferers and travelling beggars, passed as trusty agents between Amsterdam and Frankfort, Prague and Warsaw, with money and jewels under their rags, nay concealed within their bodies. In the most dangerous times, in spite of prohibitions, the defenceless Jew stole secretly through armies, from one German territory into another; and he carried Kremnitzer ducats of full weight to Frankfort, while he circulated light ones among the people. Here he bought laces and new church vestments for his opponents, the ecclesiastics; there he smuggled through an enemy's territory, to some prince, arms and implements of war; then he guided and accompanied a large transport of leather from the interior of Russia to the fair of Leipzig, he alone being capable by flattery, money, and brandy, of overmatching the covetousness of the Sclave nobles. Meanwhile, the most opulent sat in the well-grated rooms of their Jewish town, concealing securely, under lock and key, the bills of exchange, and mortgages of the highest lords, they were great bankers, even according to our present standard.
The Jews of that period were probably richer in proportion to the Christians than now, and at all events, from the peculiarities of their traffic, more indispensable. They had friendly protectors alike at the Imperial court, in the harem of the Sultan, and in the secret chamber of the Pope; they had an aristocracy of blood, which was still highly respected by their fellow-believers, and at bridal feasts they wore with pride, the jewels which some ancestor, long perhaps before the days of Marco Polo, had brought from India, while exposing his life to manifold dangers; or another had got by bartering, from the great Moorish king at Granada. But in the streets the Jew still bore the degrading mark of the unhonoured stranger; in the Empire, a yellow cockade on his coat, and in Bohemia the stiff blue cravat; as in the middle ages he had worn the yellow hat, and in Italy the red mantle. It is true he was the creditor and employer of numerous Christians, but in most of the greater cities he still lived closely confined to certain streets or portions of the city. Few German Jewish communities were larger or more opulent than that in Prague, and it was one of the oldest in Germany. Seldom does a traveller neglect to visit the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter, where the small houses, clustered together like the cells of a beehive, enclosed at once the greatest riches and the greatest misery of the country, and where the angel of death so long caused tears of gall to trickle into the mouth of the believer, till every inch of earth in the dismal churchyard became the ashes of men. At the end of the seventeenth century, near six thousand industrious men dwelt there in a narrow space; the great money lenders, as well as the poorest frippery dealers and porters, all closely united in firm fellowship and common interests, indispensable to the impoverished country, yet in continual warfare against the customs, coarseness, and religious zeal of the newly converted kingdom.
For the second generation were then living, of the new Bohemia, which the Hapsburgers by scaffolds, expulsion, and fearful dragooning, had won back after the battle of Weissen Berge. The old race of nobles was, for the most part, rooted out; a new Imperial nobility drove in gilded carriages through the black Hussite city; the old biblical learning had wandered into foreign lands, or died away in the misery of the long war; in the place of the chalice priests and the Bohemian preachers, were the holy fathers and begging monks; where once Huss defended the teaching of Wickliff, and Zisk rebuked the lukewarmness of the citizens of the old town, the gilded statue of the queen of heaven now rose triumphant. Little remained to the people of their past, except the dark stones of Königsstadt, a rough populace, and a harsh piety.
There remains to us a little pamphlet of this time, for which we are indebted to two of the Prague celebrities of the order of Jesuits, the Fathers Eder and Christel, the first of whom, wrote it in Latin, and the second translated it into German; both writers are otherwise known, the second as a zealous but insipid German poet. From this writing the following narrative is taken.
"Thus in a few years a hundred and seventy persons of the Jewish persuasion, were purified in the saving waters of baptism, by one single priest of our society, in the Academical church of Our Saviour, of the college of the Society of Jesus.
"I will by the way, here shortly mention, the wonderful bias of a Jewish child for the Christian faith. A Jewess in the Zinkower domain was in the habit of carrying her little daughter in her arms; one day she accidentally met a Catholic priest, to whom she proposed to show her child, and taking the veil off its little face, boasted what a finely-shaped child she had brought into the world. The priest took advantage of this preposterous and unexpected confidence, to bless the unveiled child with the sign of the holy cross, admonishing the mother at the same time to bring up the said child in the love and fear of God, but leaving all else in the hands of Divine Providence. And behold this little Jewess had hardly began to walk, when she forthwith considered herself a Christian, knelt with them when they knelt, sang with the singers, went out with them into the meadows and woods, made hay, plucked strawberries, and picked up wood with them; besides this, she learnt of them the paternoster and the angel's salutation, as also to say the belief; in short she made herself acquainted with Christian doctrine, and desired earnestly to be baptized. The high born and Right Honorable Countess of Zinkow, in order to fulfil this maiden's desire, to her great delight took her in her carriage to Prague, that she might there, out of sight of her parents, more securely obtain the privilege of baptism. But after the parents had discovered that their daughter, who had for so long a time carefully kept her designs secret, had become a Christian, they bitterly lamented it, and were very indignant with the priest who had blessed her in her mother's arms with the sign of the cross, for they ascribed to him all their daughter's inclination for Christianity.
"But by what intrigues the perfidious Jews endeavoured to frustrate every conversion, I have myself not long since had experience, when for the first time, a disciple in the faith of the Jewish race, Samuel Metzel, was placed under me for instruction. The father, who had four children yet minors, was a true Israelite, out of the Egypt of the Jewish town, and had endeavoured, much and zealously, to bring them all, together with himself, out of bondage. But, behold! Rosina Metzelin, his wife, who then had a great horror of the Christian faith, would not obey him; and when she found that the four children were immediately withdrawn from her, this robbery of her children, was, like the loss of her young to a lioness, hard to bear. She summoned her husband before the Episcopal consistory, where she sued for at least two of the four purloined children, which she had given birth to, with great labour, pain, and weariness, both before, at, and after the time. But the most wise tribunal of the Archbishop, decided that all the children belonged to the husband, who was shortly to be baptized. Then did the wife lament piteously, indeed more exceedingly than can be told or believed; and as she was afeard that her fifth offspring, which was yet unborn, would be stolen from her after its birth, she endeavoured earnestly to conceal from the Christians the time of her delivery. Therefore she determined first of all to change her place of abode, as her present one was known to her husband and children. But there is no striving against the Lord! The father discovered it by means of his innocent little daughter, who for some months had been constantly kept in a Christian lodging, and was unwarily admitted by her mother into her concealed dwelling. On receiving this information, I sought out the Imperial Judge of theAltstadtof Prague, who, without delay, despatched his clerk to the house, to demand the new-born child from the woman, and (in case she refused) from the Elder of the Jewish people, as belonging to the now baptized father. But as these crafty Jews would not consent to deliver up the child, a Christian midwife was ordered for the Jewish woman, that the same might, by some womanly, pious contrivance, carry off the child from the mother. This midwife was accompanied by certain prudent matrons. The conductress was to be Ludmilla, well known for her great godliness, wife of Wenzeslaus Wymbrsky, who had gone through the baptism of water and blood. Her husband Wenzeslaus was, with this his wife and five children, baptized in our church by his Eminence the Cardinal and Archbishop of Prague in 1464. It was above all displeasing to the furious Jews, to see thirteen men of other families, following the example of Wenzeslaus, abjuring Judaism the same year. At last it became insupportable to them that Wenzeslaus, by whose shop many Jews had daily to pass to their frippery market, should publicly set up in it the image of the crucified Saviour, and every Friday keep a burning lamp before it. Therefore he was greatly hated by the Jewish rabble, and often assailed with derision and scoffing. Now, once when he went, according to his daily custom, to the Teynkirche, an hour before day, three armed Jews fell on him, by whom he was mortally wounded with two poisoned pistol-balls, so that on the fifth day thereafter, he devoutly departed this life, without having been persuaded to name the murderers. The ringleader was caught later, and condemned to the wheel, but acting as his own executioner hanged himself with a rope. Now the widow of the deceased man, Ludmilla, could not slip in, with the little troop of pious women, unperceived, because the Hebrews with their sharp lynx-eyes watched narrowly. At that moment, many of them combined together and pushed their way into the room of the Jewish woman about to be confined. But Ludmilla did not take alarm at their presence, nor at the possible danger of death. She handed over the consecrated water she had brought with her, to the midwife, calling upon her in strong language, to deliver the woman and baptize the child. And so it took place, and the nurse took the child and baptized it. But the woman who had been confined sprang frantically from her bed, and with vehement cries, tore the child violently from the hands of the midwife. Forthwith, the city judge made his appearance with armed men, in order to separate the now little Christian son from the mother. But as she, like a frantic one, held the child so firmly clasped in her arms, that it was feared it would be stifled in extricating it from her, the judicious judge of the city contented himself with strictly forbidding the old Jews there assembled, to make the child a Jew. Thereupon it was commanded, by his Excellence, the Lord Count of the Empire, Von Sternberg, Chief Burgrave of the Kingdom of Bohemia, that this fifth child should be delivered over to the father. Not long after, the mother also, who had so stubbornly adhered to Judaism, gave in, and was baptized.
"The father of the Jewish boy Simon Abeles, was Lazarus, and his grandsire Moses Abeles who for many years had been Chief Rabbi of the Jews. Whilst already of tender years, there had been discovered in this boy a special leaning of the spirit towards Christianity. Whenever he could, he separated himself from the Jewish youths, and associated with the Christian boys, played with them, and gave them sweets which he had collected from his father's table, in order to gain their good will. The Jewish cravat, stiffened with blue starch, which the Jews wear round the neck, thereby distinguishing themselves here in Bohemia from the Christians, was quite repugnant to Simon. As the light of his reason became brighter, he took every opportunity of learning the Christian mysteries. It happened that he was many times sent by his father, who was a glove dealer, on business to the house of Christopher Hoffman, a Christian glover. There he tarried in contemplation of the sacred, not the profane, pictures that hung on the walls, although the last were more precious and remarkable as specimens of artistic painting, and he inquired with curiosity of the Christian inmates, what was signified in these pictures. When in reply they told him, that one was a representation of Christ, another of the mother of Christ, the miracle-working mother of God, by Buntzel, and another, the holy Antonius of Padua, he exclaimed, from his heart, sighing: 'Oh, that I could be a Christian!' Moreover, a Jew called Rebbe Liebmann bore witness, that the boy sometimes passed whole nights among Christians, and did not appear at his father's house.
"Now many maintained that this leaning to Christianity arose from a supernatural source, and was produced by the baptismal sign, which had been impressed upon him by a Christian, whilst he was in the cradle. When later this report had been carefully investigated, it was certified that a preceptor, Stephen Hiller, was once sent to Lazarus Abeles to obtain payment of a debt, that he there found a child lying alone in the cradle, and had, from deep impulse of heart, baptized him with the elemental water which was at hand. On being examined by the consistory of the Right Reverend the Archbishop, this preceptor, who is now invested with a chaplaincy, said that he did not know whether the child was the little son of Lazarus; nay, his supposition had been far stronger, that it was the son of a Jewish tailor. From such evidence this weighty point remained doubtful.
"After some years, the steadfast leaning of Simon's spirit to Christianity, having so much increased that it began to be clearly perceived at home, the astute boy, foreseeing well that his parents and relations would spare no pains to put impediments in his way, was minded to prevent this, by flying from his father's house and Jewish friends, before the path was closed against him. Now while, on the 25th of July, 1693, Lazarus the father, kept the solemn day of rest in the Jewish school, his son betook himself to a Christian house near the Jewish town, which was inhabited by the newly baptized Jew, Kawka, and that same evening summoned to him Johannes Santa, a Jew who many years before had been converted with his whole family, of whom he had already heard a good repute, as a zealous man and assiduous guide. For this man had, at the risk of his life, brought away Jews who had a desire for the Christian faith, and their newly baptized children from the Jewish town, had placed them under instruction in our college of St. Clement, had provided them with food, clothes, and lodging, and had for hours together read spiritual books, especially the Life of Christ, with deep devotion to such as could not read, and whose greatest pleasure it was to see them cleansed in holy baptism. To him Simon honestly opened his heart, and entreated that Johannes would take him to the college of the Society of Jesus.
"There was no necessity for entreating, the man borrowed clothes of a Christian youth, covered Simon's head, which was shorn after the Jewish fashion, with a peruke, and conducted him across the Altstadter Platz to the college. In the middle of the said Platz, stands the large richly-gilded image of the holy mother of God, carved out of one stone. Johannes explained to his Christian scholar, that this richly-gilded image represented the Queen of heaven, the faithful mediator of believers with God. This Simon listened to with great eagerness, took off his hat without delay, bowed his whole body low, and commended himself with pious sighs, to the blessed mother of God, as her foster child. Hereupon he turned to his guide and thus addressed him: 'If my father saw this, he would straightway kill me.' Thus they reached our college between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. I was called to the door, and Simon imparted to me his desires with marvellous eloquence, and at the same time begged with such fervent zeal to be instructed in the Christian faith, that I was much amazed. I presented him the same evening to the Reverend Father Rector of the college. It almost seemed as if this twelve-year-old boy behaved himself, as afore time Jesus among the doctors, seeing that he answered various questions with an eloquence, acuteness, and judgment which far surpassed his age. When it was objected to him, that his arrival excited a suspicion that he had committed some evil deed in the Jewish town, and sought a refuge in the ecclesiastical house, Simon answered with cheerful countenance: 'If there is a suspicion of any misdeed, let the truth be searched out by proclamation, as is usual in the Jew town. If I were conscious of any evil deed, I should have more hope of remaining unpunished among the Jews than among the Christians, for I am a grandson of Moses Abeles, their chief Rabbi.' Then when it was suggested that he had come among the Christians in order to wear a peruke, a little sword, and fashionable dress, the boy made a face and said: 'I must confess that for a long time, I have not worn the Jewish collar. Nevertheless, I do not desire to shine among Christians in any fashionable clothes, and will be content with my old rags.' After he had given this earnest answer, he began to strip his hands of his gloves, to ungird his little sword, to tear the peruke from his head, and to unhook the clean, little upper coat, determined were it necessary to follow the destitute Jesus, unclothed.
"By such unexpected answers and heroic resolution, he drew tears from the eyes of all present. But when he was commanded to put his clothes on again, he soon dressed himself, and declared in strong words, which he oft repeated, that he withdrew from the Jews on account of their wicked course of life, and associated himself with Christians to secure his salvation, because he knew well it was impossible to be blessed without faith. But when he was asked who had taught him, that faith was necessary to gain eternal life, he answered seven or eight times: 'God, God, God alone,' therewith he oft sighed and smote his breast with both hands. Then he went first to one priest, then to another, kissed their hands, fell on his knees to them, exclaiming: 'Fathers, abandon me not; do not reject me, do not send me again among the Jews; instruct me quickly, quickly and' (as if he had a foreboding, and saw the impending evil floating before his eyes), 'baptize me quickly.' Now when Simon received the assurance that he would be reckoned among the scholars in the Christian faith, he clapped his hands, and jumped for joy. His whole discourse was as mature and discreet, as ready and free from hesitation, as if he had long beforehand reflected upon it in his mind, and learnt it by heart from his tablets, so that one of the four priests present turned with astonishment to another, and said in Latin: 'This boy has a miraculous understanding, which if not supernatural, is yet truly beyond his age.'
"Meanwhile, the darkness of night had come on. But as there was not convenient sleeping room at present for this new little Nicodemus, he was with much inward striving of my spirit, left again in that Christian house from whence he had been brought hither, in order to spend the night in peace with the newly baptized Jew, George Kawka. This one was called to the door of the college, and the boy was intrusted to him, with an express order to bring him again to the college at the earliest hour on the following morning, that they might provide him with a secure dwelling.
"In the interim, Lazarus became aware of the absence of his son. Not finding him either with his friends nor among other Jews, and being a person of sound judgment, it occurred to him that his son must have gone over to the Christians. Early on Sunday Lazarus betook himself to the Christian house of the glove-maker Hoffmann, whom he did not find at home. He concealed the loss of his son and his sorrow, and begged the glove-maker's wife Anna, instantly to call George Kawka there, because he had some weighty business to transact with him who was his debtor. After a long Hebrew conversation with Lazarus, George Kawka came in all haste to the college, but to my great sorrow, unaccompanied by the Christian disciple. He appeared painfully disquieted, but did not tell me a word of his conference with the father, but only said that Simon was not sufficiently secure in his dwelling, and that it was necessary to take good heed, or he would be entrapped by the crafty devices of the Jews. After a sharp reproof for not bringing the boy with him when in such danger, according to my strict orders, I commanded him to go to the house forthwith and bring the boy hither. This he promised but did not perform. Now when George Kawka returned home, he pretended that he wished to go to church, and Simon prayed of him, as though he foreboded some impending treachery, with many words and tears, not to leave him behind, as the Jews would without fail lie in wait for him that day, and seize him in the house; but that he would take him with him to church and so bring him to the college. Now when he with great sorrow of spirit perceived that George Kawka only answered with subterfuges, he withdrew himself again, after the departure of the same, into his hiding-place under the roof.
"Hardly had George crossed the threshold, when Katherina Kanderowa, a lodger, came from the country into her lodging-room, which was close to Simon's hiding-place, and saw the boy in his little Jewish coat, which he had again been obliged to put on. As therefore the said Katherina understood from the Jews who were standing round the house-door that they were seeking for the son of a Jew, who had fled from his father, and as she did not know that Simon was a disciple of the Christian faith, she drew him out of his corner, and dragged him down to the front part of the house. When the father saw his son, he presented to this woman thirty silver groschen, that she might thrust the boy, who was not strong enough to free himself from her hands, over the threshold. The boy called upon the Christians to support him against such violence, but in vain, for two robust Jews seized upon him each by an arm, and bore him along as if he floated through the air, to the Jew town and his father's house. But the father went craftily step by step slowly behind, in order to chat with the Christians, and make them believe that his son had only fled to the Christians, in order to escape lawful and deserved punishment. He easily persuaded the populace of this.
"But George Kawka betook himself after the end of this tragedy to me, and related the lamentable kidnapping of Simon with many light worthless excuses. But I spoke sharply to him, put clearly before his eyes, how evident it was that he had played with the Jews under the rose, and sternly charged him if he would not be made answerable before the tribunal, for the treacherous betrayal of Simon, to use all means without delay, and on the requisition of a Christian judge to recover him from the hand, of the Jews, and deliver him up to the college. And truly it appeared as if he obeyed the command faithfully and assiduously. Ha searched the whole Jew town many days, and examined almost all the houses, as was testified of him by the person who accompanied and was associated with him. He thereby turned almost all the suspicion of treachery from him; and as Simon was nowhere to be found, he confirmed the report that he had secretly been removed to Poland. At a later period, George Kawka himself was driven, by a bad conscience to take refuge in Poland, and has remained invisible to this day.
"But Simon was dragged with violence to his father's house, and after that day, was never seen outside the threshold. After their arrival at home, the father could no longer control his anger, and beat his son with a stick so savagely, that the Jews present began already to fear that he would kill him. They therefore locked up Simon in a room in which lived Sarah Bresin, afterwards a witness. But the father endeavoured to break open the door of the room by repeatedly running at it with violence, and at last angrily left the house. When his anger was a little allayed, the Jews gave up to him the severely-beaten boy, advising to tame him by fasting. So Simon was locked up in another room. There he passed seven painful months, in hunger and imprisonment, daily loaded with curses and oft threatened with death. But when the father saw that his son's spirit was inflexible, and that on the Saturday before Shrove Sunday, Simon again, before all the family, declared undauntedly, that he would be baptized; he determined to go to extremities. And that affection might not restrain his hand, he chose for assistant a Jew, Levi Kurtzhandl, a man of savage spirit and in the vigour of youth, who had already before advised him to poison the boy. Levi Kurtzhandl invited the boy into the room of his step-mother, and held converse with him out of the Talmud, in order to convert him. But when Simon persevered in his intentions, he was knocked down by Levi, and dragged by him and the father into the next room; there both fell upon him furiously, broke his neck, and drove his head violently against the corner of a wooden chest, whereby the glorious soldier of Christ received a last blow on the left side of the temple.
"Whilst this barbarity was going on, Lia, the stepmother of Simon, together with the journeyman Rebbe Liebmann, were occupied in the next room making gloves. On hearing the moaning of the boy, and the noise of the murderers, she hastened into the room. There she saw the dead body on the floor, and both the murderers on their knees by him. Thereupon the woman was so frightened, that she fainted, and had to be restored to her senses by Kurtzhandl pouring vinegar over her.
"After the deed, Hennele, Lazarus's cook, came back, who had been sent out of the house with the little children. These, when supper-time was approaching, inquired where Simon was. They were obliged to take an oath to keep the affair secret; whereupon, their father himself told them that he, with Levi Kurtzhandl, had deprived the boy of life as an apostate from the law of Moses, after the example of the patriarch Phineas.
"After that, Lazarus took counsel with Levi how to keep the crime secret, not only from the Christians, but also from the Jews, especially from the family of Burianer, who were very hostile to all that belonged to the Abeles. Levi offered while it was yet night, to carry the body of Simon to his own house, and bury it himself in the cellar. But Lazarus feared lest some of the Burian adherents should discover it. They therefore decided on having the corpse buried in the public burial-ground of the Jews. And truly, the neck of the body was discoloured with blood, but otherwise there was no open wound to be seen, with the exception of a blow on the left temple of about the size of a ducat; so Lazarus called his household together, instructed and made them swear, that they would say unanimously that Simon had become insane, and in that state had fallen against the corner of the chest, whereby he had been mortally wounded on the left temple.
"On the following morning early, this glorious soldier of Christ was buried in great secrecy by two Jews, Jerochem and Hirsches Kesserlas, the coroners.
"After the burial of Simon, from his grave arose the first great summoner, the worm of conscience, which began to gnaw the heart of the godless Lazarus. Memory unceasingly persecuted his conscience, and the fear of worldly punishment ever hovered before his eyes. This fear was much increased by the journeyman glove-maker, Rebbe Liebmann. The same had after the deed, straight left Abele's house and made off, and had only again returned to his work after the burial. When Lazarus began to relate the particulars, Rebbe interrupted him, protesting that he did not desire to hear a word about the evil deed, as he had already heard the whole of yesterday's tragedy, related by the Jewish children in the public streets. This burst upon the astonished Lazarus like a thunder clap; without delay he collected and packed up all his light goods, sold his house in the Jew town, and resigned his hired shop in an aristocratic house, in order to settle himself in Poland. He was already prepared, on the following day, to take flight; but it was providentially ordained that the noble landlord of the house, who had leased the shop to him, was just then hindered by palsy in his hand from signing the release himself.
"Meanwhile, on the 23rd of February, one Johel, a Jew, not evil-disposed towards the Christians, went into the Jew town through the Sommer-thor, where he met some children playing, who were relating to one another, how Simon Abeles had three days before been fresh and healthy, and had early yesterday been buried without any funeral pomp. Johel betook himself without delay to the burial-ground, and found a freshly-raised grave; reflected upon all the other circumstances and reports, and came to the sensible conclusion that Lazarus was the murderer of his son. This he confided forthwith to a writer of the royal government in great secresy. After I had received intelligence thereof, and had earnestly admonished the Jewish informer to give a faithful report; he wrote down the following day all the lamentable particulars, in order to deliver them to the most noble government. They commanded the body of Simon to be disinterred, and to be closely examined by a doctor appointed for the purpose; and finally to take into custody those who were suspected of the deed, as also their accomplices. All this was set on foot cautiously and without delay. The body was disinterred under an armed guard; the Jews who had collected, and the Jewish doctor who was called in, declared that a bad blow on the head, and lastly a fit of insanity, had killed the boy. But the medical gentlemen gave their opinion, that many indications, the broken neck and a small round wound on the temple, showed that the boy had died from a violent blow.
"Thereupon Lazarus Abeles was brought to see the body of his son. He turned pale and trembled, and was so confused that he remained silent, and for a good while could not say anything intelligible, nor answer anything distinctly. At last as the Herr Commissary continued urging him to say whether he knew the body of the boy, he answered with bent head and weak voice that it was the body of his son Simon; and when it was further put to him what was the cause of the wound on the left temple, he gave a confused and contradictory answer. He was therefore again taken to prison, but the body of the boy was put into a Christian coffin, and placed meanwhile in the cellar of the council house. TheHerrencommissaries were unwearied in cross-questioning Christians and Jews. But in spite of all indications, Lazarus, and the women who were in special custody, Lia, his wife, and Hennele, his cook, were almost unanimous in their evidence: Simon had not taken flight from his father's house to become a Christian, but for a long time had been affected with a disease of the head, and therefore kept in the house; at last he had felt an extreme repugnance for food, had become subject to violent fits of insanity, and thus had met with his death. All means of extracting the truth were unavailing; Lazarus Abeles and the two only witnesses then known of, remained obstinate.
"One afternoon, the honourable Franz Maximilian Baron von Klarstein, the official commissary, was reflecting on this matter as he went home, and ascended the steps of his house; when it suddenly seemed to him that he received a violent blow on the side, he turned round crossly, when behold there appeared to him on the landing which divided the steps from one another, a boy standing, who bowed his head, and smiled sweetly with cheerful countenance, clothed in a Jewish winding-sheet, wounded on the left temple, and in size and age like Simon, as this gentleman had seen him with his own eyes, on inspection of the body, when a lively image of him had been impressed on his memory. The gentleman was amazed, and whilst he was sitting at table with his wife and some guests, pondered in his mind what this might signify. Then he heard the tapping of a person's finger several times on the door of the dining-room. The servant was sent out, and informed him that an unknown maiden desired instantly to be admitted. Having entered, and being kindly accosted, the little maiden of fourteen answered that her name was Sarah Bresin, that she now dwelt among the Christians to be instructed in the Christian faith, and had shortly before lived as servant to the tenant in the house of Lazarus Abeles; there she had seen with her own eyes how cruelly Lazarus had attacked his son Simon, because he had fled to the Christians, in order to be baptized. Upon this and other evidence Sarah was confronted with Lazarus; before whom she declared freely, with much feeling and in forcible language, all that she knew. But Lazarus roundly denied it all; and with frantic curses called down all the devils upon her head. But when he returned to his prison, confusion and despair seized his soul; he perceived that his denials would no longer help him before the court, and determined by a last expedient to escape judicial proceedings. Although both his legs and one hand were impeded by his fetters, yet he contrived to wind the girdle, called aTephilim, wherewith the Jews bind their heads and arms during prayer, instead of a cord, round the iron window grating, and strangled himself thereby. Thus on the following morning, he was found strangled. For the Jews erroneously consider it allowable to throttle themselves, and oft-times do the like. Judgment was passed on his dead body.
"After his death his wife Lia and the servant-maid Hennele being confronted with Sarah Bresin, made a public confession; the fugitive journeyman glover, Rebbe Liebmann, was also produced and confessed. His Princely Grace the Archbishop decided that Simon should be buried in the Teynkirche, in the chapel of St. John the Baptist, by the baptismal font, within a vault of polished marble, in a fine oak coffin covered with red velvet, and guarded by a lock and three keys. Further, that the coffin was to be borne to the burial-place by innocent and noble youths dressed in purple. The most noble Frau Silvia, born Gräfin Kinskey, wife of his Excellency the Lord Count of the Empire, Schlick, had a double costly dress prepared for this day, an under dress of white satin and an upper one of red, interwoven with gold, trimmed with gold buttons and adorned with gold lace-work; she provided also stockings of the like material to cover the feet, and an exceedingly beautiful garland of gold and silver lilies and roses to crown the head of the innocent martyr.
"Hardly had his most precious body been attired and laid in the costly coffin, when the high nobility of both sexes arrived, and pressed with godly impetuosity into the chapel, where all were amazed, and praised the God of all marvels when they saw that the holy pledge (the body of Simon) was unchanged five weeks after his death, that no exhalation of odour could be discovered or perceived, and that from his death wounds there dropped continually fresh rose-coloured blood. Wherefore persons even of the highest consideration caught up this precious liquor with their pocket-handkerchiefs. But others who were not provided with clean handkerchiefs, or who could not get near enough for the great throng, made their way to the old grave and tore away the bloody clippings which lay therein. Afterwards the revered body was exposed to view on this and the following day in the great hall of the council house. But even there it was exceeding difficult to approach it. At last on the 31st of March the funeral was performed. An armed force in three ranks surrounded the council house for two whole hours; throughout the whole city resounded the pealing bells of seventy churches. Meanwhile the synagogue and the whole body of Jews were ready to swoon away with anguish, because they feared the vengeance of the Christian populace would fell upon them. It was indeed almost a miracle that no deed of violence was committed, for in the past year, the Christians had more than once for the most trifling reasons, fallen upon and plundered the frippery market and Jew town, and had also, as is well known, attacked the Jews themselves, severely injuring and even murdering some.
"When towards ten o'clock, the painters had finished a double representation of the martyr Simon, the church ceremonies began. After the coffin had been closed, the commissaries prepared to seal up the keyhole, but as the paper which was to be sealed over the lock might be injured, they desired to have a suitable silk ribbon, and when this became known to the most noble persons present, they tore what they had of such material from their heads, stomachers and arms. His Excellency the Reichsgraf von Martinez also unbound the ribbon that was hanging from his sword-hilt. But a ribbon of red satin was chosen for this purpose, which the most noble and right honourable the Countess Kolowrat had worn; this was cut in two and placed over the lock and sealed. After this the martyr's coffin was covered with a costly red velvet pall prepared for the occasion; in the middle of the funeral bier was a fine picture of Our Lady, and on both sides angels with palm branches. Sixteen good youths of noble descent bore the funeral bier on their innocent shoulders; they wore red mantles with gold lace glittering on them, and wreaths of silvered roses wound with red silk. Then the pealing of bells sounded through all the three towns; the clouds suddenly cleared from off the heavens; the multitude covered every roof, and occupied every window; they had flocked together, not only from the three neighbouring vine-clad mountains but from distant places and cities.
"The city authorities led the host of the funeral train; after them followed the lately baptized young Jews, adorned with red badges, before whom two church banners of like material were borne. Next a countless multitude of schoolboys from all the schools of the three towns, ranged under eight purple flags; thirdly all the young students from the under Latin schools. Fourthly above four hundred heads of the Latin brotherhood from the schools, before whom was carried cross and banner under a canopy with lighted wax tapers. They were followed by a fifth of the higher student brotherhood of Our Lady; among them many doctors, and assessors, and divers nobles of the Empire; before them also were borne the cross and banner with the canopy, and in their hands they carried burning wax tapers, and flaming white torches. Sixthly came the first set of choristers, then the clergy in their vestments, then the second set of choristers; after them the deacons, parish priests, and the very reverend the prebendaries with the officiating priests, and beside them went the city soldiers in long rows. Seventhly came the sixteen finely attired youths bearing the glorious corpse of the martyr Simon. On both sides of the coffin went twelve boys with burning red torches, dressed in exquisitely beautiful purple linen. Eighthly following the coffin came the most noble the President and Governor of Königreichs, all holding red torches in their hands; they were followed by the most distinguished nobility of both sexes in great numbers, and lastly a countless multitude of God-fearing people.
"The accomplice of the murderer, Levi Hüsel Kurtzhandl, was the son of wealthy parents at Prague; he was tall, and twenty years of age, with a daring countenance, was passionate, had a bold eloquence and ready wit, and was perfectly acquainted with the Talmud, which he had studied eleven years. He had concealed himself with his Jewish bride nine miles from Prague. After diligent inquiries, armed men were despatched there who put him in irons, and brought him in a carriage to Prague on the 22nd of March. Although the commissaries, having formerly had similar cases, doubted whether the least atom of truth could be extracted from this flint, yet they confronted him with the witnesses. But notwithstanding the affidavits of three witnesses, he acknowledged nothing. He was threatened with the executioner and the rack, but that had no more effect upon him than threatening a crab with drowning. For he trusted he should be able to endure the rack, and so escape. Nay, he was hardy enough to say, that this trial was carried on contrary to all law and justice. Thus he was, according to law, condemned to the wheel on the evidence of three witnesses, though without his own confession.
"He however hindered the execution of the sentence for seven months, having by means of a Jewish relation brought the affair before his Imperial Majesty Leopold. The proceedings were now delayed by Jewish tricks, and so tardily carried on, that it might plainly be seen, that the culprit was only seeking a delay of some years in order to obtain a mitigation of punishment or to obviate it by a voluntary death. At last the tribunal obtained an order that the accused should deliver in his defence within fourteen days; his frivolous pleas were rejected, and the sentence of the tribunal confirmed by his Imperial Majesty. He however adhered to his declaration: 'I am innocent of the blood of the murdered boy.' This he oft repeated before Father Johannes Brandstedter of the Society of Jesus, an unwearied apostolical labourer, who met a blessed death four days after Kurtzhandl, from the virulent poison he had imbibed in the work of love by a sick bed. When he inquired of the condemned whether he could meet death with resignation, and exhorted him to the reception of the saving faith, Levi answered with a cheerful aspect and without embarrassment: 'I care as little for death as for this straw'--he held one in his hand, which he thereupon threw away--'but as concerns the faith, we will now argue out of the holy Scriptures which of us two holds the true faith. But the father must not think he has a common simple man before him, for I studied the Talmud for eleven years.'
"Thus began a controversy concerning the faith; the priest attacked the Talmud with powerful theological evidence, and Levi apprehended everything by the strong capacity of his understanding. At last he threw his Jewish bible away from him, impatiently saying: 'Let it be as it may, I abide by the faith in which I was born.' As on the following day the obdurate youth began to harp upon the same string, the priest set about the matter again in another way; he no longer spoke to him, but turned to his fellow-prisoners, and read to them divers evidence from the holy Scriptures, whereby he proved that the Messiah had already come.
"This, Levi listened to quietly and thoughtfully, and although he gave no indications of being inclined to the holy faith, yet it might be seen by his countenance that he was not as averse to the presence of the priest as yesterday. On the third day Levi, hardened as he might be in other respects, yet desired that the father should return in the afternoon, as his presence was a special comfort to him in his miserable position. When the priest promised him this as an encouragement, the stony heart appeared softened. In the afternoon, the father in his holy simplicity placed such reliance on the Jew, that he removed all the others, and remaining alone with him, kindly and urgently begged of him to give both himself and him consolation, by relating at his pleasure, as the greatest secret, truly and faithfully, what he knew of the death of Simon. At this unexpected address Levi was quite amazed; he continued long silent; but at last struck with the rare confidence shown by a Christian priest in a Jew, he conceived a high esteem for his uprightness, and persuaded by the father's promise of secresy, confessed before him and one of his fellow-prisoners, with great signs of sorrow, with bent shoulders and head hanging down on the left side, that he had, at the instigation of the father Lazarus Abeles, laid violent hands on Simon, and caused his death from zeal for the law of Moses.
"Upon receiving this confession the priest was exceeding joyful, and strove with all his powers, by arguments and urgent entreaties, to persuade him to turn himself magnanimously to God. But to this Levi would not return any satisfactory answer; and when, as evening twilight was creeping on, the priest prepared to go home, Levi raised his eyes to heaven, and said with a deep sigh: 'Father, where shall I be at this time to-morrow?' Whereto the priest replied: 'My son, in heaven, if you embrace the Christian faith; but if you die in Judaism, in hell as a hardened Jew.' Thereupon he in the most friendly way wished him a good night and a blessed end, and went away.
"On the following day the priest found the condemned man dressed in white linen for the impending tragedy, as if he had prepared himself to be baptized. After a friendly greeting the father asked him in which faith he had at last resolved to die? Hereunto Levi returned this answer: 'I will die in the same faith in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died. And as in the olden time Abraham offered up his son, so will I to-day sacrifice myself for my sins.' When the priest made a further rejoinder, he said with a pleasant countenance and in a calm manner: 'I humbly beg of you, father, not to trouble me any more about baptism, for I will now pray from the Psalms and prepare myself for a happy death.' Thereupon he began to repeat the Psalms, but without the girdle called aTephilim, although the Jews usually consider prayer without binding the forehead and hands a sin. But he prayed with such contrition of heart and such vehement beating of the breast, and penitential tears, that his fellow-prisoners and all present were greatly astonished at his remorse.
"After a prayer that had lasted more than two hours he gave himself up quickly into the hands of the executioner, and thus accosted him with a cheerful countenance: 'Do to me what God and my judges have commanded you.' He then turned to his fellow-prisoners, took a friendly leave of them, and humbly begged of them to forgive his past failings.
"After ten o'clock they took him, amidst the gaze of countless multitudes, from the prison, and bound him in a hide, whereat he showed no sign of impatience or displeasure. Only he sometimes raised his bound hands in prayer to heaven. Thus was he dragged by a horse to the field of action. When he perceived that the accompanying priest in the middle of the Platz was in danger of being severely injured by a horse, he begged with sympathizing voice that he might go in front to avoid the danger."
Thus far the Jesuit's narrative. On the scaffold Levi made a manly confession of his deed before all the people, with a request that the witnesses who had only spoken the truth should no longer be kept in prison. The details of the execution were particularly horrible; the experienced executioner could not--so the writer states--break the strong body of the criminal on the wheel. At last Levi called to the priest by his side and asked him in a clear voice what he would promise if he should consent to be baptized? When the father promised him, besides forgiveness of all his sins, also a speedy death, Levi answered: 'I will be baptized.' The Church triumphant hastened to impart private baptism, much disposed to attribute this unheard of bodily strength and calm of the malefactor to a special miracle of Divine Providence. Levi repeated the prescribed formula with a strong voice, and received calmly the now effective stroke of death.
This is the sorrowful history of Simon Abeles. Whoever judges the Jesuit narrative impartially will discover in it something which the narrator wishes to conceal; and whoever contemplates with horror the fanatical murder, will nevertheless not spend much sympathy on the fanatical priests. They tear the scarcely born child out of the arms of its mother; they consider it a pious contrivance to steal the suckling secretly from her, by means of spies and tale-bearers; by promises and threatenings, and excitement of the imagination, they win hosts of proselytes in baptism to their God, who is very unlike the God of the gospel; with the skill of experienced managers, they make use of a miserable murder, for the sake of bringing on the scene a real tragedy, and of the dead body of a Jewish boy, in order by pomp and glitter and enormous processions, and if possible by miracles, to recommend their faith to both Christians and Jews. Their fanaticism, in alliance with the burgher magistracy and the compliant law, stands in comparison with that of a despised, persecuted, and impulsive race; cunning, violence, malice and a corrupt morality, are to be discovered on both sides.
During yet two generations, the zeal of the Jesuits against the Jews continued to work, the struggle of two foreign communities on German ground. The one consisted of the sons of the old dwellers in the wilderness, whose leader, the Lord Jehovah, brought them forth with their flocks and herds, going before them in the fiery pillar, and pouring his wrath on all who fell away from him. And opposed to these were the followers of a Spanish nobleman, who had undertaken the monstrous task of forming the souls of men like the wheels of a machine, making all the highest intellectual powers serve the one single object, of a priesthood to the one appointed officer of the great head of the church militant, Jesus.
What were Loyola and his school to the ancient Abeles and to Levi Kurtzhandl? How ancient was Loyola? Their fathers had slaughtered the sacrificial victim three thousand years before the first Jesuit had tortured a Jewish heart; their descendants, they were sure, would offer sacrifice three thousand years later in the kingdom of Messiah, after the last Jesuit had been collected to his mother Lilith. The fearful S. J. which shone in gold on the stones of the college, how long would it last? In the time of their grandfathers it had its origin, in the time of their grandchildren it would be erased. What was this new device to the seed of Abraham? An extravagance, a short plague of Egypt. Proudly did the Roman Catholic church look back on seventeen hundred years of victory and conquest, but more proudly did the despised Jew look upon his past, which stretches back to the dawn of the world, for his faith was seventeen hundred years old when Christ was baptized. Both the judgment of the pious fathers of the Church and the pious Jews was narrowed, and their comprehension of the Highest disturbed by old traditions.
When Jehovah spoke to Moses on the mountain, his law became the groundwork of a higher moral law, to the hordes in the desert; when Jesus proclaimed to the apostles the gracious message of love, his teaching was a holy treasure for the human race. Since then, the Jews have continued unweariedly to solemnize their Passover; still do they shun the meat of the swine, and swing the young cocks on atonement day; but the foundation of their faith has long vanished, also their pastoral state on the borders of the Syrian wilderness. For many centuries also, the pious fathers of the Roman Catholic church have offered their holy sacrifice daily; but they also, have already ceased to be the most pre-eminent of those who live under the law of the new covenant. The Bohemian peasant, who benevolently raised up the sick Jew on the high road, without tormenting the soul of the stranger with efforts to convert him, was more Christian than they; that man of science, who risked his life under the anger of the Church, that he might understand how the lightning was made by God, and the earth caused to revolve, was more a proclaimer of the Eternal, than they; and that citizen who died for his duty, in order to teach that the general weal is of more value than that of individuals, was nearer the most perfect pattern, than they. Among them also, undoubtedly, were many good high-minded men; the Jesuit, Friedrich Spee, met his death in a pesthouse, like that sailor in the flames. But those who thus lived, are precious to us because they showed themselves to be good men; whether they were considered good priests we know not. When this same Spee protested so vehemently against the burning of witches, which his Church so zealously carried on, he published his writings, without his name, in a Protestant place.
Since Moses, and since the first feast of Pentecost, the Lord had never left himself without witnesses; he had given the nations of the earth a new culture, had led them to a higher civilisation. He had given them a new code of morals, he had unlocked the other half of the earth, he had willed that the new spirit in men should be contained in the narrow space of one book, which might pass from hand to hand, from one soul to another, from one century to every succeeding one. Restlessly and unceasingly did the Divine Spirit agitate and stir the hearts of men; ever more mighty and more holy did these manifestations of the Eternal, appear to men of powerful intellect; it was a different manifestation to that of the old writings, it was also another word of God, another aspect of the Eternal, which was discovered. Thus men now sought the God of the human race, of the earth, of the universe, not only in the old faith but also in science. Together with the Jesuits and Jews there was Leibnitz.
This new culture has elevated the Jews; their fanaticism has vanished since the Christian zeal which persecuted them has ceased, and the descendants of that wandering Asiatic race have become our countrymen and fellow combatants. But the ecclesiastical community of the Society of Jesus, already once expelled, then revived again, remains to this day what it was at the beginning of its emigration into Germany--alien to the German life.