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?"