The gates of the Institution, which we were only permitted twice in the week to pass, to visit our fellow-men, at length were opened—the gates of that martyr-seminary for soul and body, that grave of independence—the proscribed threshold was crossed, and I beheld once more before me the free and lovely world; I inhaled long draughts of the fresh air, as I gazed on the free blue sky in all the brightness of the glorious sun. But the sun and the heavens were changed to me—the world itself seemed narrow and contracted, for my soul and spirit were in bonds, disgraceful bonds! I hastened to my native place—there, I fondly hoped, to lose my burden—there, where I dreamed the dreams of youth—there, in my mountain home! The kindly eyes of my brethren, said I to myself, will revive and warm this heart, which has been frozen by the hypocritical and piety-feigning glances of the domineering creatures of Rome.
And the kindly eyes of my brethren did revive me, and the joy of meeting again did scare away the inworn pain of servitude; but before long the feeling returned with redoubled force. Dishonouring marks of reverence awoke me from my short-lived dream. An aged man approached, well-known to me, and dear from boyish years. I extended my hand to him—he fain would kiss it, the aged man! Is it not sufficient, I exclaimed within myself, that I should be a slave? Must I also be a tool to work the degradation of my fellow-men! O Rome, thou hast mixed poison in thy consecrated oil, to kill the dignity of man. I was regarded by all with timidity and reserve, as if I had all at once become a higher, a superhuman being! And how? By the fiat of the Pope? Oh, not a more exalted being; but a slave, who, by the practice of holy hypocritical pretence, was intended to deceive his fellow-citizens! So passed the first period, in dead stupefaction of soul, while I, adorned like a victim, was installed in the ceremonial service of the Romish Church. The thought of my father and my family, the prejudices of the Catholic world, which must believe, and for the most part does believe, in the eternal duration of the Roman bondage (called a Church,) paralzyed my spirit and my character. And yet, amid my fetters, there survived still somewhat to uphold me; a presentiment that my chains would break; a feeble ray of light illumining the dreary, and seemingly eternal darkness of my prison. But when and how should they be broken? I was now to be occupied in the cure of souls, the pulpit and the school attracted me—through them will I labour, thought I, my position may perhaps improve. So I went to Grottkau, whither I was called in March 1841.
MY OFFICE.
Firmly resolved to be a teacher of the people, in the true sense of the expression, not in that assigned to it by the Church—resolved to speak the truth, without respect of persons, and to become no hypocrite, I entered on my office at Grottkau. Being unacquainted in my sphere of labour, some time elapsed before I came to know my field of action, or was enabled efficiently to discharge the practical duties of my station. I found my school to be the field best adapted to the measure of my capacity. Independently of the natural love I have for children. I was always happiest in this holy garden of the Lord, where youthful minds expand, which is brightened by thoughts as swift and radiant as the lightning, and where the lovely innocence of childhood exhales its sweetest fragrance. In school I was free from the espionage by which I knew my pulpit to be surrounded—which oppressed my heart, and nearly stopped my utterance; free from the humiliating feeling which the Confessional aroused within me, where I seemed to be an idol, or a judge set over the thoughts and consciences of my fellow-men. When the pressure of the priestly yoke at times became too much for me, I have fled for refuge to the youth and innocence of the school, and have never failed to leave it with my strength renewed. These children little knew the infinite service which they rendered me! Notwithstanding that I laboured with all my might, as well in the school and the confessional, as in the pulpit, most resolutely to oppose and counteract the superstition, the hypocrisy, and all the consequences of priestly oppression and dissembling, the result could be but small, on account of the mighty barriers interposed by the hierarchy to every step in the direction of spirituality.
Within these fearful barriers, and under such restraint, and fettered thus in mind and body, with watchful care to sow and plant, what, after all, might be doomed to suffocation in the choke-damp of superstition, became from week to week less bearable; and all the less so, the more clearly I perceived the terrible effects of Popish despotism on the people, and the depth of moral degradation to which many of my brethren had sunk, bringing the danger all the nearer to myself. I saw it now to be my duty, openly to declare against the abuses and the soul-killing tenets of the Church of Rome,—rather to die a bodily than a spiritual death.
MOTIVES FOR STANDING FORTH
AGAINST THE CONSTRAINT EXERCISED BY THE POPE IN MATTERS OF RELIGION.
The inducements which gradually brought my determination to maturity, and imposed the carrying out of it upon me as a duty, I here submit to the consideration of all men: