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The stars were glittering in the sky when they arrived at the villa.

CHAPTER IV.
THE GOSPEL OF THE RICH YOUNG MAN

The architect came in the morning for Roland, who was to make, under his direction, some drawings of the castle-ruins.

Herr Sonnenkamp reminded Eric that he was to visit the priest, and he set out soon after he had seen Fräulein Perini return from mass. The priest's house had a garden in front, and was in silent seclusion in the village itself silent. If the bell had not rung so loudly, and if the two white Pomeranian dogs had not barked so loudly, one would have believed that there could be no loud noise in such a well-arranged establishment as this appeared to be at the very entrance-hall. The dogs were silenced, and the housekeeper told Eric, who seemed to be expected, to go up stairs.

Eric found the ecclesiastic in his sunny, unadorned room, sitting at the table, and holding in his left hand a book, while his right lay upon a terrestrial globe supported upon a low pedestal.

"You catch me in the wide world," said the ecclesiastic, giving Eric a cordial welcome, and biding him take a seat upon the sofa, over which hung a colored print, of St. Borromeo, which was well-meaning enough, but not very beautiful.

A home-like peacefulness was in this room; everything seemed to express an absence of all pretension and all assumption, and a simple desire to pass the hours and the days in quiet meditation. Two canary birds, here, however, in two cages, appeared to entertain a lively desire, as did the dogs below, to give vent to their feelings. The ecclesiastic called to them to be quiet, and they became dumb, as if by magic, and only looked inquisitively at Eric.

The priest informed him that he was just following out on the globe the journey of a missionary; and he caused the globe to revolve, while saying this, with his delicate right hand.

"Perhaps you are not friendly to the missionary spirit?" he asked immediately.

"I consider it," Eric replied, "to be the first step in the world's civilization, and it is a grand thing that the missionaries have everywhere spread a knowledge of written language, through translations of a book revered as holy, and in that way have reduced to an organic form, as it were, the inorganic languages of all peoples."

The priest closed the book that lay open before him, folded his hands in a kind of patronising way, that seemed natural to him as the official form of consecration, and then placing the tips of the fingers of one hand upon those of the other, he said that he had heard of Eric many favourable things, and that, from his own experience, he was prepossessed in favor of those who changed their calling out of some internal ground of conviction. To be sure, fickleness and restlessness, never at ease in any regular employment, often led to this, but where this was not the case, one could predicate a deep fundamental trait of sincerity.

Eric thanked him, and added that the dignity of any vocation lay not in the external consideration awarded to it, but in the preservation of the purely human inherent in every calling.

"Very just," replied the ecclesiastic, extending one hand, as if with a benignant blessing. "The ecclesiastical vocation is therefore the highest, because it does not strive after gain, nor enjoyment, nor fame, but after that which you – I know not for what reason – call the universally human, when it ought simply to be called the divine."

A certain degree of humility, and a reluctance to make any opposition, came over Eric, as he listened to the ecclesiastic setting forth in such mildly discordant tones the precise point of difference. It seemed, after every word, as if the sacred peacefulness of the place gained fresh potency; nothing of the world's noise intruded there, and all its busting activity was far away.

The park, and the country-house in the distance over the river, could be seen from the window; the ecclesiastic took special notice of Eric's lively interest in the beautiful, quiet view, and remarked, —

"Yes, Herr Sonnenkamp has arranged all that for himself, but the beauty is also our gain. I really never go out of my house, except for some parochial work."

"And do you never feel yourself solitary here in the country?"

"Oh no! I have myself, and my Lord, and God has me. And the world? I had in the great city, even, nothing different – my parish, my church, my house – what, besides these, is there, is not there for me."

A reminiscence of his early youthful years was awakened in Eric's soul, and he told the priest that the thought had often presented itself to him, in the midst of his jolly garrison life, that he had a fitness for the ecclesiastical vocation, but that he could not devote himself to it without a belief in revelation.

"Yes, indeed, one cannot make himself believe, but one can make himself humble, and every one can and ought to do that, and then the grace of believing is vouchsafed."

The ecclesiastic announced this as if it were a mathematical axiom, and Eric replied in a modest tone, —

"Every man acquires a ground-work of thought and feeling, just as he does his mother tongue, by hearing it spoken; and might it not be said also, that his soul acquires a language which has no outward sound, but which becomes embodied as a religious disposition and habitual tendency, and which, if it is genuine, cannot be interfered with, for, in this primitive stratum, root and soil are one and the same."

"You have studied the Mystics?" asked the ecclesiastic.

"Only partially. I should like to say further, that all fair controversialists are obliged to agree upon something as unassailable, or undemonstrable."

That holy stillness again possessed the place, where two human beings were breathing, who desired each in his own way to serve the highest.

"You are at the age," the priest resumed, "when young gentlemen think of marriage, and as is the prevailing fashion, marriage with a maiden who has money, – a great deal of money. You appear so true-hearted, that I must ask you directly, although I would much rather not, if it is true that you are a suitor of Fräulein Sonnenkamp?"

"I?" Eric asked with vehement astonishment. "I?"

"Yes, you."

"I thank you," Eric said in a clear voice, recovering from his amazement, "I thank you, that you question me so directly. You know I am not of your church."

"And Fräulein Sonnenkamp is of our church, and it would be hard – "

"I was not thinking of that," Eric said, interrupting him. "Wonderful, through what tests I must pass! First a supercilious cavalier, then a nobleman, then a military officer, then a doctor, and now in the priestly sieve."

"I do not understand you."

"Ah, truly," began Eric, "and I tell you, I confess to your noble, mild countenance, and so I acknowledge to you, seeing you before me, that I admire the undisturbed unity of your being from which comes the Catholic law of celibacy as a dogma, and I allow myself to claim that we have reached the same ideal stand-point. Yes, honored sir, I say to myself, he who wishes to live for a great idea, whether he is artist, scholar, priest, he can need no family, he must renounce its joys, apart by himself without any hinderance, that he may fulfil his mission in the perpetual service of thought."

"Divisus est! divisus est!" repeated the ecclesiastic. "The holy apostle says that he who has a wife is divided, and he will be yet more divided, whilst the lot of his children becomes his own. The ecclesiastic has no changes of lot."

A smile passed over the countenance of the priest, as he continued: —

"Only imagine a priest married to a quarrelsome wife – there are also peaceable women, gentle and self-sacrificing, and it is certain that there are quarrelsome ones too – and now the priest is to mount the pulpit in order to proclaim the word of peace and love, when an hour before in dispute and scolding – "

The ecclesiastic suddenly ceased, placed the forefinger of his left hand on his lips, and bethought himself, that he was wandering from the real point. Did not Fräulein Perini inform him that Eric had visited the convent before he came to this place? He looked at Eric, who had led him from the direct inquiry, wondering whether he had done it from prudence, or whether it was really from excitement. He hoped, indeed, to attain his end in some different way; and, apparently in a very natural manner, but yet with a lurking circumspection, he now asked whether Eric really felt confident, from his position, of being able to train a boy like Roland.

When Eric answered in the affirmative, the ecclesiastic further asked: —

"And what do you mean to give him first, and in preference to everything else?"

"To sum it up in few words," replied Eric, "I wish to give Roland joy in the world. If he has this, he will furnish joy to the world; that is to say, he will desire to benefit it; if I teach him to despise the world, to undervalue life, he will come to misuse the world and the powers entrusted to him in it."

"I regret," said the priest in a gentle tone, "that you are not a believer; you are on the way to salvation, but you turn aside into a by-path. Do you know what riches are? I will tell you. Riches are a great temptation, yes, perhaps the greatest of our time; riches are a force in nature, perhaps the most lawless, most untamable, and the hardest to be governed. Riches are a brutal power, for which there is no ruler, except the Almighty Lord; riches are below the brute, for no brute has any more force than it embodies in itself. Man alone can be rich, can have what he is not himself, and what his children cannot consume. Here is the misery of it! Whoever gains so much of the world hurts his own soul. I have tried to bring this family and this boy to this, that they should at least make the acknowledgment, before every meal, that what they enjoy in such luxurious abundance is only a gift. Do you believe that this boy, conscious of his riches, and this whole family, can receive a moral culture except through religion? A prayer before one sits down to eat is a meditation, a recollection of the fact that thou hast some one to thank for what thou dost enjoy. This takes out the vainglorious pride, and gives humility instead, and makes one give, even as he himself has been given to. Only where the fear of God is, yes, fear, is there also the blissful feeling of His Almighty protection. On the table of this rich man there is placed, every day, a display of sweet-smelling, bright-colored flowers, – what does that matter? On the poorest table of the neediest cottager is placed a bouquet more beautiful and more fragrant, from the higher realm, through the utterances of prayer; and the soul is filled, and this first makes the filling of the body conduce to its health. But this is only one thing. Above there, on the Upper Rhine, they call personal property movables, and so it is! The riches of the present world are nothing but movables, moving possessions, and they will move away. Believe me," cried the ecclesiastic, laying his hand upon Eric's, "believe me, the public funds are the misfortune of the present age."

"The public funds? I do not understand."

"Yes, it is indeed not so easy to understand. Of whom can one borrow millions? of no one but the State. If there were no public funds, there would be no one to lend such great sums; that's the way it is. Formerly, a man could not acquire so many millions, because he could not lay out so many millions; but now there are the public funds, and everybody lives on interest-money, and interest is very properly forbidden by the canons. See, in old times the rich man had a great deal of real estate, many fields and forests, and he was first of all dependent upon God's blessed sun, and when everything in good time had ripened, and lay there in the sight of all, then he gave a tenth part to the church. But now the riches are tucked away in fire-proof, burglar-proof safes, not dependent on sun, not on wind and weather, are not visible to the world, and have no tenth of the profit to give, – at the most a trifling discount on the coupons to the banker; the harvest of the bond-holder is the cutting off of coupons; these are the sheaves of his harvest-home. If the Lord should come to-day, he would find no temple from which to drive out the money-changers and traders, they have erected for themselves their own temples. Yes, the stronghold of Zion, to-day, to which princes, as well as rich men, make their pilgrimage and commit themselves to its protection, – it is the Bank of England! Have you ever once thought of this, what is to become of humanity; what of States, if this increase of state-debts continues to go on in this way? of course not. The whole earth will be one tremendous mortgage, and mortgaged to whom? to him who lends on long credit, but who will, some time or other, demand payment. A universal conflagration will come, against which no fireproof vaults will avail, and a deluge, which will wipe out the millions and millions upon millions of State debts. I am not a man who delights in seeing mischief done, but this I would say, – I should like to live to see the Bank of England bankrupt. Only imagine it! At night the news comes. It is all gone. Then will thousands of small men and small women see, for the first time, how small they are, when they see themselves at once stripped of all their trappings, and set down upon the bare earth."

Eric smiled. Every man placed in solitude, without an environment of equalizing conditions, entertains readily peculiar notions that dart through his mind; and he said that the earth would be burdened with greater debts than it could pay, if it could only find those who would advance the money. But the real possession of humanity was of more value than the whole earth could pay for, as its greatest possession was its ideal being, its power of working; and while, formerly, all property was in the soil, it was just the problem of the modern age to make available ideal and personal property. He wished further to add, that even among the Romans in the time of the Republic itself, the wealth of individuals was thus enormously excessive; but the ecclesiastic, in his great excitement, seemed scarcely listening to him, went to his book-case, took down a great Bible, and opening to a passage, handed the book to Eric.

"There, just read; that is the only way that Roland can be educated. Read aloud."

Eric complied, and read: —

"And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him. Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God. Thou knowest the commandments, – Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him. Master, all these things have I observed from, my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him. One thing thou lackest; go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved; for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them. Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God!"

"And now stand up and tell me," said the priest, in a trembling voice, "tell me honestly, is not that the one and only method?"

"Honestly, no: I love and revere him of whom this is told, perhaps more than many a church-believer, and it is particularly affecting to me, and at this moment wonderfully touching is that passage, where it is said here, – Then Jesus beholding him loved him. I see the handsome rich young man in the presence of the sublime Master; the young man is glowing and filled with a genuine ardor; then the Master dearly loves him as he looks into his countenance. However – "

"That is incidental, that is incidental. Speak to the main subject," the priest interrupted.

"According to my view of the subject," Eric replied, "I must own that I consider this teaching to have been given at a time when all actual might, the power of the State, riches, and all the good things of life, were contemned, and when they were obliged to reject everything which had no reference to their purely ideal view. That could alone maintain the uprightness of noble souls in a time of oppression under foreign rule; and this teaching could have been given at a time only, and by a soul, which sees all that is worth living for vanishing away, which builds up a new creation, and in which pure thought has entire sway. But if each one gives away, and gives away continually, who is there in that case to be the recipient? And why is it that this doctrine, that no one is to possess anything, has not become a command of the Church?"

"I am glad," answered the ecclesiastic, "that you have touched the real point. Our Church has commands which are not universally binding, but are only so for him who wishes to be perfect, as, for instance, the law of chastity and of poverty. Only he who wishes to be perfect comes under it."

"I ask," interposed Eric, "is the teaching of revelation, which is amply sufficient for the purely spiritual, sufficient also for the worldly? In the course of the development of humanity do not new social conditions establish themselves in the world, as out of nature new forces, steam, electricity – "

"Man," replied the priest, "is always the same from eternity to eternity, the citizen only changes. But I see now, you are letting yourself be guided into the right path. I do not desire – the rich man himself did not desire it – that the boy shall be perfect, and therefore the command to sell his possessions is not applicable to him. I only say to you, you will not be able to educate this boy unless you give him positive religion. The brute does all he has power to do; with it there is no word 'ought;' but man does not do all that he has power to do. Simply to do that for which one has the strength, or, yet more properly, the inclination, and to do everything purely from inclination, that is not the human; the human begins there where one tramples his inclination under foot, and does what God's law commands. Were every one to act according to his inclination, then should we be sure, at no time, what would become of humanity. The law of God holds it together, and holds it erect. Here is the significance of the law of God, here begins the fall, which the gentlemen of natural science have never got over. The animal has urgent impulses; man can voluntarily awaken impulse, excite it, goad it, multiply it; where is there a limit here, except in God's law? I am not speaking of any Church. You have, so much I know, busied yourself chiefly with history?"

"Not so particularly."

"Well, you know this much: no people, no State, can be free, at least we have no historical instance to the contrary, no people, no State, can be free without a positive Church; there must be something immovably fixed, and at this very day the Americans are free, only because they subject themselves to religion."

"Or, rather, enfranchise it," Eric interposed, without being heard.

The priest continued: —

"I think that you desire to make a free man of this youth. We also love free men, we want free men, but there can be no free men without a positive religion, and, in truth, without one requiring a strict, legal obedience. The highest result of education is equanimity – note it well – equanimity. Can your world-wisdom produce a harmony of all the tendencies and dispositions of the soul, a quietude of the spirit, a state of self-renunciation, because our whole life is one continual act of self-sacrifice? If you can produce the same result as religion, then, justified by the result, you agree with us. For my own part, I doubt whether you can; and we wait for the proof, which you have yet to give, while we have furnished it now for a thousand years, and still daily furnish it."

"Religion," replied Eric, "is a concomitant of civilization; but it is not the whole of civilization, and this is the distinction between us and the ecclesiastics. But we are not to blame for the opposition between science and religion."

"Science," interposed the priest, "has nothing to do with the eternal life. Although one has electric telegraphs and sewing machines, that has no relation to the eternal life. This eternal life is given only by religion, and its essence remains the same, no matter how many thousand, and thousand upon thousand, inventions he may devise in his finite existence."

Eric inquired now in a diffident tone, —

"But how can the Church itself possess riches?"

"The Church does not possess, it only administers," the priest sharply answered.

"I think that we are getting too far away from the point," Eric said, coming back to the subject. "As we cannot expect that Herr Sonnenkamp and his son Roland will give away all their property, the question returns, how shall we get the right hold?"

"Precisely so," cried the ecclesiastic, suddenly standing up, and walking with long strides up and down the room. "Precisely so; now are we on the very point. Hear me attentively. Observe well, there is something new started in the world, a still more homeless condition yet in the higher moral order, and that is the moneyed aristocracy. You look at me in amazement."

"Not amazed, but expecting what will come next."

"Very right. This moneyed aristocracy stands between the nobility and the people, and I ask what it is to do? Must not a rich young man of the middle-class, like Roland, thrown into the whirlpool of life, be inevitably ingulfed?"

"Why he," asked Eric, "any more than the noble youth in the civil or in the military service? Do you suppose that religion saves them from destruction?"

"No, but something positive of a different kind; the historic traditions of the nobility save them. The man of the nobility has the good fortune to complete the preliminary period of youthful training, with the least amount of detriment. He afterwards retires to his estates, becomes a worthy husband, and respectably maintains his position; and, even in the city, in the midst of the mad whirl, his position in regard to the court, and to the higher class in the community, keeps him within prescribed limits. But what does the rich young man of the middle-class have? He has no honorable rank, no social obligation, at least none of any stringency."

"Then it would be, perhaps, the greatest piece of good fortune to Roland, if his father could be ennobled?"

"I cannot say," replied the priest. He was vexed that he had allowed himself to be drawn so near to the subject of a very confidential conversation with Sonnenkamp a short time previous to this. "I cannot say," he repeated, adding besides, "If one could be ennobled with seventeen descents, it might be well; but a new noble – let us say no more of this. I desired to say, that the nobleman has honor, traditionary, inherited obligation; the nobleman has established and has to maintain the maxim, 'noblesse oblige,' 'nobility requires.' What great maxim have riches established? The most brutal of all maxims, one utterly bestial. And do you know what it is?"

"I don't know what you refer to."

"The maxim which this pursuit of gain sets up as its highest is, 'Help thyself.' The beast does that, every one helps himself. Riches thus stand between nobility and people; they occupy that morally homeless position, without a recognized obligation, between nobility and people. I understand by people, not only those who labor with the hands, but also the men of science, of art, and even of the church. The people have work; this moneyed class does not wish for honor, and only wants labor so far as it can have others labor for it, and appropriate to itself the product of their labor. What does it want? gold. What does it want to do with the gold? procure enjoyment. Who guarantees this? the State. What does it do for the State? There's the whole question! Have you any answer?"

Eric's lips trembled, and he replied: —

"If the nobility feels itself obliged and entitled to assume the leadership in the army for war, then are the young men of wealth to feel themselves called to become leaders in the army of peace; and they are to make good their position to the community, to their own circle, and to their fellows, serving without compensation, and actively engaged in entire subjection to authority, as a protection of the whole State, and a sacrifice in all works of beneficence."

"Stop!" cried the priest; "the last is our work. You will never be able to organize that without religion; you will never be able to effect, that people, out of their opulence, out of their luxury, or, as you would denominate it, out of purely humane emotions, shall visit the dying in the huts of the poor, the helpless, the sick, and the abandoned."

As if the ecclesiastic had invoked this high duty of his office, the sacristan now came, and said that an old vine-dresser desired extreme unction. The priest was speedily ready, and Eric departed.

When he came out into the road, and breathed the fresh air, he felt its influence anew. Did he not come out of the atmosphere of incense? No, here was more; here was a mighty power, which placed itself face to face with the great riddle of existence.

Eric sauntered away, lost in thought, and it occurred to him again how much more easy was the task of those who can impart some fixed dogmatic principles which they do not originate, but receive; he, however, must create all out of himself, out of his own cognition.

And can what comes out of your own cognition become a part of the cognition of another?

Eric stood still, and the thought that he would educate himself while educating another made his cheeks glow; the youth should acquire knowledge from himself; for what is all culture which must be imparted from one to another? nothing but help and guidance to him who has a self-moving power.

Half way up the mountain, Eric stopped at the road which led to the Major's. He looked down at the villa which bore the proud name of Eden, and the Bible story came to his memory. In the garden are two trees, the tree of life in the midst, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil; Eden is lost for him who eats of the tree of knowledge. Is it not always so?

Like a revelation the thought came to him, There are three things given to man upon earth, – enjoyment, renunciation, and knowledge.

Sonnenkamp yonder – what does he wish for himself and his son? enjoyment. The world is a spread table, and man has only to learn to find the right means and the right measure of enjoyment. The earth is a place of pleasure, and brings forth its fruits that we may delight ourselves therewith. Have we no other calling than to drive, to eat, to drink, and to sleep, and then to eat, drink, sleep, and drive again; and is the sun to shine just for this?

What does the priest want? renunciation. This world has nothing to offer, its enjoyments are only an illusive show, which tempt you hither and thither, therefore turn away from them.

And what do you desire? And what ought those to desire whom you wish to make like yourself? knowledge. For life is not divided into enjoyment and renunciation, and knowledge rather includes both in itself, – is the synthesis of both. It is the mother of duty and of all beautiful deeds.

In the old times, the combatants received out of an immeasurable height a protecting shield from the hands of the gods; Eric received no shield, and yet he felt that he was concealed from and protected against all foes, and he was so happy in himself that he felt no desire for any human being, no desire for anything beside; he was upborne by the wings of knowledge.

He went yet farther on in the way. Peaceful, and enjoying an internal satisfaction, he came to the Major's in the next village. He knew that here he should have to stand no examination.