"Your freedom of affection also has been destroyed; your heart is stifled and perverted. And how! Shall I hesitate freely to speak out, because I may subject myself to suspicion—because I expose myself to the attacks of vulgar-minded men? Ah, no! the principle at stake is too important, too elevated, and too holy,—it involves nature's highest ordinance, the holiest concerns of man; from it depends the happiness, the welfare of many millions—the virtue, honour, and freedom of the nations; so that I would gladly expose myself on its account to suspicion and attack! It is love, marriage, and the family-tie; you have been robbed of these—robbed of them by the Rule of Celibacy! It is by this Rule that your affections are stifled and perverted. Yes, your hearts are corrupted by the ordinance of celibacy, which has no warrant in the Gospel, but has been introduced with blood and murder by an imperious Pope. This ordinance deprives you of your claim to the possession of a virtuous wife, whose love would render you far happier and more honourable; it robs you of the joys, the hopes, the love, which bless the family-tie; it impoverishes and desolates your breast. This ordinance demoralizes your natural instinct, hands you over to those outcasts of womankind, through whom so many fall into the deepest mire of immorality, and become an offence and mockery to their congregations. This ordinance deprives you of the stamp of open manliness, and makes you hypocrites!
"If the free exercise of reason, will, and affection, has been taken from you, what have you left worth living for? Can your luxurious tables compensate for the loss of life's best blessings? Compensate! when your feast is interrupted by the needy, wretched cries of thousands of your starving fellow-creatures! or are your revels only seasoned by the groans of your necessitous brethren? You call yourselves the fathers, the teachers of the people; arise, then! conduct yourselves as such, and help to extricate them from their depth of spiritual and physical misery! Such is your duty, before all others!—'But how can we help them,' do you ask? Not by the bit of silver, thrown to the poor man with an ostentatious air, which, in most instances, but tends to lower or extinguish self-respect; and is besides, but as a drop in the great furnace. Stand forth against the despotism of Rome! abolish superstition, that barrier to free agency, and the free practice of virtue! break down the dishonouring restrictions upon conscience and religion! contend for the spiritual and physical wellbeing of your fellow-citizens, and you will aid the people and yourselves! Yes, arise and burst the chains of cowardice and shame; tear asunder the web of dissimulation which Rome has woven round you, and become unfettered, honest priests—true teachers of the German people! You will become everything! for at present you are nothing; become men! attain at last to the conviction, that the priests exist for the people, and not the people for the priests; that Christ established his religion, and enjoined brotherly love, that mankind might be rendered holy and happy even while on earth; and that it is not his wish that they should pine in soul and body here, in order to be saved at last, as Romish despotism teaches;—dare to achieve this conviction, and act upon it, as in duty bound! Cast off the silly bigotry with which Rome knows how to inoculate you, and live and labour, not for Rome's Bishop and her ambitious prelates, but with and for your fellow-citizens!
"Seek rather to attain an honourable place among your fellow-citizens, and their respect and love—by activity, unblemished character, and a virtuous—life, than to way-lay or supplicate an indolent and hateful benefice. Scorn at length that slave-like prejudice, which would rather follow in the worshipful footprint of its right reverend master, than listen to the unbiassed judgment and opinion of a freeman! Venture to contend for your own and the peopled independence and moral freedom—you will be cordially supported by your fellow-citizens! Employ the pulpit, the confessional,* and the teacher's desk, which long have been abused for the darkening and degrading of your countrymen—for their improvement and emancipation! With and by the people you may become independent! Assist, therefore, first of all, in emancipating the national schools, and in securing for the community the free choice of pastors, and keep abreast of the spirit of the people and of the times. Yes, yes! go hand in hand with your people, and you will be invincible—you will work wonders!
* It must be borne in mind, that this letter is of prior
date to Ronge's Justification, in which he unhesitatingly
condemns the use of the Confessional.—Trans.
"Am I dreaming? Look into the world, and mark the results of temperance societies! Here, to a certain extent, you have aided in the moral improvement of the people, although many of you have employed means by which your congregations have been more injured than they could have been by the most intoxicating drink.
"Do you fear the Chapters, the Bishops, the Pope? All these are powerless without you—in you alone their strength consists; their despotism has been erected on your cowardice and ignorance. Demand general councils, and hold them, as they once were held, in union with your congregations. Demand of your spiritual superiors that they rule according to law and privilege, and not after their own caprice; be no longer their tame and passive slaves.
"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the apparent growth of the Hierarchy; it will, it must fall, for its watchwords are retrogression and degradation, while providence has ordained improvement for the world—'Be ye therefore perfect, as my father is perfect.'
"Do not allow yourselves to be persuaded that the ecclesiastical power is increasing, because you hear of numerous conversions to the Romish creed in individual German States! The nation must and shall learn that these conversions are, for the most part, brought about by the intrigues and money of the Jesuits—by money which these spiritual and consecrated bands of freebooters of the Romish Hierarchy, wring from the poor by means of Rosary and Prayer-associations, and of which they rob the rich by mortmain. When our people shall have learned this—when they shall have discovered how fearfully all that they hold most sacred—their religion—is abused by the Romish Church, they will cast off Rome and her hypocrites with inexorable indignation. Still you may object,—'A great portion of our people is more attached than ever to the formal mummeries of Rome—to the doctrine of works; they hasten more than ever to places of Pilgrimage and Indulgence, and these processions are not confined to the ignorant populace, but are joined by educated wives and maidens, while the younger clergy are full of fanaticism! Does not this indicate the increase and the triumph of the Romish Creed?' Such phenomena there are indeed—phenomena belonging to the sixteenth, not the nineteenth century—but these phenomena are the curse upon your cowardice, the consequences of a want of moral courage to contend against the hirelings of the Pope. You have not dared encounter these Roman wolves in German fleeces; you have not dared to honour God and his truth; you have not dared to sacrifice your benefices to your heart's convictions, to the welfare of your congregations—of the nation! The slaves of Rome have therefore been enabled to rule at pleasure in the Catholic States of Germany, speaking big words—shamelessly insulting and intriguing—disseminating darkness and superstition. They have been free to rage in their congregations, to mislead, unpunished and unchecked, the credulous multitude, and to excite them and the younger clergy to fanaticism; they have been at liberty to proclaim the grossest abuses as the actual substance of Christianity, announcing follies and absurdities as Christian truths—for it is but seldom that any one, now and then, has ventured to raise his voice against them, or at least it has been speedily reduced to silence when once raised.
"Hence the insolence of these creatures of Rome, who dare, with unblushing front, here in the midst of Germany, to call the greater part of the nation, which refuses to do them homage—a vulgar mob! But, woe to them! the day has dawned at length,—the mask of their hypocrisy will be torn aside,—the confidence betrayed of our people and the younger clergy will burst forth in flames of merited indignation,—truth will shed a purer and a purer light, until at last the lying fabric shall fall down, and the rotten timbers of the Hierarchy shall crumble into dust! For it cannot be, that the spirit of truth, and justice, and brotherly love, is to be crushed for ever,—the spirit which Christ promised to His Church, and not to Romish ambition: 'The spirit remains with you till the end, and the spirit will make you free.' But you must seek for and follow after this spirit; then you shall have nought to fear—you shall triumph. This spirit will not greet you on your silken couches of indolence, He will not visit your licentious pillows—the Spirit discovers Himself now and ever as formerly, working in and through human agents. Strive earnestly and zealously for intellectual advancement and moral freedom, in union with your fellow-men,—lend a ready ear to the cries of the needy, enter heartily into the wishes of your fellow-citizens,—and you shall find the Holy Spirit, who shall declare Himself to you—you shall hear Him in the voice, in the call of your people, of your native country! The nation calls you now to a great and holy work. 'You must,' such is its call, 'cast off the degrading and unchristian despotism of the Roman Bishop; you must, in union with your fellow-citizens, the laity, restore, without fear of men, the Christian-Catholic religion, in all its purity and simple elevation; you must establish a German-Catholic (i. e. universal) Christian Church; you must be no longer Romish, but honest German priests and teachers. Such is the voice of your people,—the call of your country! Will you obey the call? Will you begin the work without fear of men? Oh, I entreat you, I conjure you to obey the call; go promptly to the work, now, while there yet is time! I beg of you to set to the work, and I am not ashamed to beg,—the boon is so elevated and important! I implore you in the name of our religion, for the sake of honour, independence, and the peace of Germany,—I implore you, for your own sakes, by your dignity, honour, virtue,—by your happiness as men!
"Some of you will object—'But then we must cast off the Pope, and that were contrary to the Gospel; for Christ says to Peter,—"Thou art a rock, and upon thee will I build my Church;" Peter was Bishop of Rome, and the Pope is his successor!' What, brethren? Do you interpret the saying of the elevated founder of our religion according to the deadness of the letter? Are you not aware that Christ based His Church upon the faith and love of Peter, and of his other disciples and followers, but not upon his person? Do you not know that Rome has spared, and spares, no fraud to aggrandize herself, and that as history informs us, her prelates and her slaves have availed themselves of any means, however inadmissible, for the attainment of the self-same end? Do you not know that power and riches are the chief objects of the Court of Rome! and, therefore, must no Catholic either think or speak freely on religious matters, but blindly, like an animal, embrace and act upon the opinions of his priest! Ah! you know all this and more;—you know that you even act in direct opposition to the religion of Christ in bringing mankind under the unworthy dominion of the Pope, and in the degrading of your fellow-citizens; but you want the moral courage to shake yourselves free, you fear to lose your livelihood, you shrink from want and labour! Such fear is unworthy of the disciples of Christ and of the Truth. As such, you ought to fear nothing so much as the degradation of yourselves and of your fellow-men, to which the Papal yoke constrains you; and it is, therefore, your most sacred duty to renounce the Pope, and to become the true priests of your people. Or are you, perhaps, not in a condition to promote the welfare and prosperity of your fellow-citizens? Do you require the aid of a distant Italian Bishop,—of a foreign power? You are better able to promote it than a distant Italian Bishop can be! Do you fear that the renunciation of Rome would lead to discord! Certainly not; for we are men, and we will act like men! With manly energy and discretion, in union with our fellow-citizens, will we call together the communities, freely to deliberate and determine what steps are needful for us all. In such a work there is no room for discord, for all violence is done away. Discord and violence are occasioned only by the Romish despotism, which knows no other law than its own advantage and aggrandizement. The Romish Hierarchy repels that German maiden from the altar, who gives her heart to one who owns a different creed,—profanes the virgin modesty of our sisters by wanton questions under the cloak of religion,—takes upon itself, here in the midst of Germany, to refuse the sacraments to mothers, if their children be not nurtured in the faith of Rome,—rages against all attempts at reconciliation between German Catholics and Protestants,—it is the Romish Church that will not hear of peace, however longed for by the people!