During the first few days after entering the seminary, I saw depicted in the countenances of my companions in misfortune, consternation, or timidity, the deepest grief, or a sort of desperate resignation, according to their several dispositions; the first evening, for example, of six acquaintances and friends, who were consigned to the same cell, none uttered a single word—all the six were so amazed, that they strove to forget their speechless misery in sleep. Forty young men, in the bloom and strength of manhood, glided silently about like mummies. We looked on one another in gloomy, speechless sorrow, and each one sought in the countenance of his friend, to ascertain the state of feeling in his heart. We all endeavoured to attain that heroism, which can resolve at once to sacrifice the heavenly dreams of youth, its hopes, its wishes, and its freedom,—in order, as they told us, that we might the more successfully promote the temporal and eternal well-being of our fellow-men;—as if it were possible for him to raise men to independence and to self-respect, who cannot boast of their existence in his own bosom. That, however, which most excited my indignation and horror, was the ghastly stagnation, which seen from one side exhibited depression,—from the other, levity, discontent, or cowardice. The young man of four and twenty had closed accounts with himself and all mankind, the dearest ties were broken which bound him to his fellow-men. The glowing and joyful fire of youth, which seeks to achieve for itself a bright futurity, was extinguished; and egotism poured the freezing poison of suspicion, envy, and self-interest, into the warm and youthful veins. We felt as if we were all enveloped for eternity in one impenetrable shroud, and as if doleful spirits were singing to us burial songs throughout the gloomy night. The despotism of the Roman hierarchy glared at me like an awful monster—a monster which digs graves for the burial of living youth—graves which engulf the freedom and the happiness of nations. The young man who wishes to become a teacher of the people, must witness his open and upright manliness ruined; he must blindly obey, and submit himself to the most degrading oppression, for the first injunction laid on him is unconditional obedience. He sees that the arrangements and decrees of the hierarchy are contrived for the degradation, not the improvement of his country, and that he himself, as the servant of a foreign power, is expected to assist in the oppression of the land which gave him birth. He is also doomed to bear the weight of infamy which accompanies every state of slavery, and the disgrace which now attaches to the entire priesthood, from the immorality of many among them, whose celibacy is a false profession.
Can glittering coin, wrung from starving poverty and pious fanaticism, or wines and dainty viands, make amends? Yes, if he prefer the life of a gluttonous animal to that of a man. What can sustain him? The hope alone that he may one day aid in breaking the chains which, bind his native country! That thought it was which animated me, and kept me upright under the pressure of my fearful servitude. But must not the nature and the disposition suffer from the depression, and will the moral vigour take no scathe? Ah! What if one were to give way to the pressure—to settle down into a hypocrite—to become an object of contempt to one's self and the rest of mankind. All these doubts and apprehensions forced themselves even at the first before my mind, and filled my spirit with ineffable sadness,—and they were and are justified—but too well justified.
Then the time was skilfully divided between attendance at ceremonies, and the repetition of lip-prayers, for from five to six hours daily (including the breviary prayers.*) Five hours of prayer daily, and such prayer! for young men of twenty-four years, designed to be the salt of the earth! Rome uses devotion as a means of enslaving men. I tried by every means to escape from the debasing feeling, from the reproach of conscience that I had done nothing.** After the breviary prayers were concluded, there were only about three hours left daily for private study; and the spiritual work was to be performed in the midst of twenty youths who had no farther examination for office to undergo, and who besides were otherwise finished! It was with horror that I contemplated the possibility that my moral strength might be weakened by the influence of idleness and dissimulation. My case was therefore often desperate, and many a time in fever heat have I outwatched the night, and prayed in spirit "If it be possible, let the bitter cup pass from me." I was forced to drink it; but a gleam of prophetic brightness lighted me through the night, and showed me in my dreams the day of my emancipation. Miserably diseased in mind and disposition, I left the seminary in 1840.
* The time was divided in the following manner:—Morning,—
From 5 1/2 to 6, matins; from 6 to 7, breviary; 7 to 7 1/2,
mass; from 7 1/2 to 8, breakfast; from 8 to 10, lectures;
from 10 to 10 3/4, free; from 10 3/4 to 11 1/2, study;
from 11 1/2 to 12, breviary. Afternoon,—Before and after
dinner, prayers in the chapel—altogether about 3/4 of an
hour; then 1/4 or 1/2 an hour breviary; from 2 to 4,
lectures; from 4 to 4 3/4, free; from 4 3/4 to 7, study.
After supper, about 1/2 an hour of prayer in the chapel and
an hour breviary. The prayers are Latin, and always the same;
a larger number on Sundays and feast days. It is the duty
of every ecclesiastic to pray through the breviary once each
day; the vicars go through these prayers for the canons as
a sort of feudal service. The pupils are allowed, twice a
week, to cross the threshold of the institution for a few
hours only. No speaking is allowed during meals. The
treatment is degrading. Two rooms for study are allotted to
each twenty individuals. The sleeping places, without
stoves, are arranged for three, six, eight, and fifteen.
The largest was called The Menagerie.
** One of the Prebendaries themselves, at the time of our
departure, called the Seminary "a little hell."
THE WARNING.
I entreat you, German parents, permit not one of your sons to enter this grave of moral freedom and independence; you draw upon yourselves a heavier weight of blame than if you took their lives—for the moral death is worse and more painful than that of the body! German mothers preferred in former times to put their children to death, rather than that they should be Roman slaves; while now-a-days it is esteemed the highest honour which can be conferred upon a German youth, that he should become the slave—the consecrated slave, forsooth—of the Roman bishop! But the yoke is not acknowledged, for it is imposed under the holy name of religion.
And you, my youthful friends, who choose for yourselves the profession of teachers, let me conjure you to retire from this grave of moral strength, and independence—from the seminary! You will be losers there in mind and body, were you even giants in both! You will become slaves! You will become hypocrites! Attractive though the office of a teacher be, and enlarged his sphere of working, it is rendered a dangerous one for manly dignity—for truth and freedom, by the disgraceful ignominious fetters imposed on it by Rome. Choose, therefore, rather a hard couch and a laborious life than the degrading indolence of a polluted existence.