The Mosaic law, through the institution of the jubilee year, protests still more decidedly. Moses did not seek to abolish the right of property; on the contrary, it was his wish that everyone should possess property, so that no one might be tempted by poverty to become a bondsman and thus acquire slavish propensities. Liberty was always the great emancipator's leading thought, and it breathes and glows in all his statutes concerning pauperism. Slavery itself he bitterly, almost fiercely, hated; but even this barbarous institution he could not entirely destroy. It was rooted so deeply in the customs of that ancient time that he was compelled to confine his efforts to ameliorating by law the condition of the slaves, rendering self-purchase by the bondsman less difficult, and shortening the period of bondage.
But if a slave thus eventually freed by process of law declined to depart from the house of bondage, then, according to the command of Moses, the incorrigibly servile, worthless scamp was to be nailed by the ear to the gate of his master's house, and after being thus publicly exposed in this disgraceful manner, he was condemned to life-long slavery. Oh, Moses! our teacher, Rabbi Moses! exalted foe of all slavishness! give me hammer and nails that I may nail to the gate of Brandenburg our complacent, long-eared slaves in liveries of black-red-and-gold.
I leave the ocean of universal religious, moral, and historical reflections, and modestly guide my bark of thought back again into the quiet inland waters of autobiography, in which the author's features are so faithfully reflected.
In the preceding pages I have mentioned how Protestant voices from home, in very indiscreet questions, have taken for granted that with the reawakening in me of the religious feeling my sympathy for the Church had also grown stronger. I know not how clearly I have shown that I am not particularly enthusiastic for any dogma or for any creed; and in this respect I have remained the same that I always was. I repeat this statement in order to remove an error in regard to my present views, into which several of my friends who are zealous Catholics have fallen. How strange! at the same time that in Germany Protestantism bestowed on me the undeserved honour of crediting me with a conversion to the evangelic faith, another report was circulating that I had gone over to Catholicism. Some good souls went so far as to assert that this latter conversion had occurred many years ago, and they supported this statement by definitely naming time and place. They even mentioned the exact date; they designated by name the church in which I had abjured the heresy of Protestantism, and adopted the only true and saving faith, that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. The only detail that was lacking was how many peals of the bell had been sounded at this ceremony.
From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarrassment when I think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am regarded as a shining light—that is to be—of the Church. This pious folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men—alas! often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is quite correct. I was really in the designated church on the designated day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have considered herself properly married in the eyes of God without such a ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's belief in the religion which she has inherited.
It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion. Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the fatal confession.
Scepticism is certainly dangerous in the married state, and, although I myself was a free-thinker, I permitted no word derogatory to religion to be spoken in my house. In the midst of Paris I lived like a steady, commonplace townsman; and therefore when I married I desired to be wedded under the sanction of the Church, although in this country the civil marriage is fully recognised by society. My free-thinking friends were vexed at me for this, and overwhelmed me with reproaches, claiming that I had made too great concessions to the clergy. Their chagrin at my weakness would have been still greater had they known the other concessions that I had made to the hated priesthood. As I was a Protestant wedding a Catholic, in order to have the ceremony performed by a Catholic priest it was necessary to obtain a special dispensation from the archbishop, who in these cases exacts from the husband a written pledge that the offspring of the marriage shall be educated in the religion of the mother. But, between ourselves, I could sign this pledge with the lighter conscience since I knew the rearing of children is not my specialty, and as I laid down my pen the words of the beautiful Ninon de L'Enclos came into my mind—"O, le beau billet qu' a Lechastre!"
...I will crown my confessions by admitting that, if at that time it had been necessary in order to obtain the dispensation of the archbishop, I would have bound over not only the children but myself. But the ogre of Rome, who, like the monster in the fairy tales, stipulates that he shall have for his services the future births, was content with the poor children who were never born. And so I remained a Protestant, as before—a protesting Protestant; and I protest against reports which, without being intended to be defamatory, may yet be magnified so as to injure my good name.
...There is not a particle of unkindly feeling in my breast against the poor ogre of Rome. I have long since abandoned all feuds with Catholicism, and the sword which I once drew in the service of an idea, and not from private grudge, has long rested in its scabbard. In that contest I resembled a soldier of fortune, who fights bravely, but after the battle bears no malice either against the defeated cause or against its champions.
Fanatical enmity towards the Catholic Church cannot be charged against me, for there was always lacking in me the self-conceit which is necessary to sustain such an animosity. I know too well my own intellectual calibre not to be aware that with my most furious onslaughts I could inflict but little injury on a colossus such as the Church of St. Peter. I could only be a humble worker at the slow removal of its foundation stones, a task which may yet require centuries. I was too familiar with history not to recognise the gigantic nature of that granite structure. Call it, if you will, the bastile of intellect; assert, if you choose, that it is now defended only by invalids; but it is therefore not the less true that the bastile is not to be easily captured, and many a young recruit will break his head against its walls.