"In my country," said the young man carrying on the conversation, "we say that at the present time in Germany a cock-chafer can fly over three different national churches, but it appears to me that if he only lives long enough, he need not even fly. Religions here seem to change like the weather."
"That is good as producing change and movement," said the old man laughing. "When I lived in the town, every Parson had his special idea concerning the holy sacrament, and each of my eight children had his separate Parson. Harry learnt that the Body of the Lord was in the bread; that is not enough, argued little Christina, he is with, in, and under the bread. Parson Neuser told Christopher that it was there in the Presence and that we received it through eating. Parson Greiner however taught Jack: circa circum, round and about, not in the bread but close at hand. Do you understand?"
"Were the customs then," answered Felix evasively, "as varied as the opinions."
"Oh yes," said the old man, "the year in the which we had at one and the same time both the Church Counsellors of the old Count, and those of the new, was an amusing year; then had every church its own ritual. Hesshusen enclosed the host in the tabernacle, consecrated it, turning his back to the congregation, ordered them to worship the wafers and handed these to the communicants over a communion cloth, so that not a single crumb should be lost, and what remained was buried as in the good old time. In the Convent, mass was once more celebrated. In the Church of St. Peter they wished to become Zwingliites as is Erastus the Physician to the Kurfürst. Then they kept their seats on the benches and the bread and wine was handed round as in a tavern. In the sacristy the Deacon reclined with twelve others to celebrate the Lords' supper, so that everything should take place as at Jerusalem, and once the assistant-clergyman brought a soup-tureen filled with wine and crumbled the bread in it, and said they must dip the hand with Christ in the dish, that alone was a veritable communion."
The Italian crossed himself.
"That must have been a beautifully peaceful church, when every Preacher did as he chose," said he.
"Well, not exactly peaceful. Hesshusen wished once to snatch the cup out of Klebitz's hands on the altar steps of the Holy Ghost, and these two right reverend gentlemen blackguarded each other before the church doors in such a manner that the market-women of Ziegelhausen and Bergheim learnt quite a collection of expressions. The following Sunday however the Superintendent-General got into the pulpit, excommunicated the Deacon, and forbade the congregation to have any intercourse with him. No one should eat or drink with the excommunicated man, and the authorities were compelled to deprive him of his office. Then you should have seen how the Heidelbergers went for each other."
"Now you see, man," said Felix angrily, "what comes from doing away with customs thousands of years old, when every man insists on doing what passes through his head."
"The Turkish religion is also a thousand years old and yet comes from the devil."
"But what is your creed, as you are neither catholic, lutheran, zwinglian, or calvinist?" asked Felix. The old man looked at him cautiously and then said in a low voice: "The spirit must act, not the sacrament. Water availeth not, neither do bread and wine. The Spirit must come from inwardly. They have many Bibles in Heidelberg, but they only look at things from the outside, not inwardly in the spirit. Therefore the confusion."