In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

The Sunday services of this enterprise are now held in an edifice belonging to a German Methodist church, which can be had for one service only, at an hour which will not interfere with the uses which have a prior claim. The Sunday evenings, when a goodly congregation might be gathered if a suitable audience-room could be had, are times of loneliness and homesickness to many American youth and others far from home and friends. Dr. and Mrs. Stückenberg have generously opened their own pleasant home at 18 Bülow Strasse for Sunday-evening receptions to Americans. Their large and beautiful apartments were much too small to accommodate all who would gladly have gathered there. But in the course of the season there were few Americans attending the morning service who were not to be met, one Sunday evening or another, in the parlors of the pastor and his wife; and many others, students, were nearly always there. A half-hour was given on these occasions to social greetings; then followed familiar hymns, led by the piano and a volunteer choir of young people, after which an informal lecture was given by the pastor. Dr. Stückenberg emigrated with his parents to America in early childhood, but has studied in the Universities of Halle, Göttingen, Berlin, and Tübingen. His large acquaintance with German scholars enabled him to give most interesting reminiscences of the teaching and personality of some of these, his teachers and friends. Among the talks which we remember vividly were those on Tholuck, Dörner, and Von Ranke. At another time Dr. Stückenberg gave a series of lectures on Socialism,—a theme whose manifold aspects he has studied profoundly, and which, in Germany as elsewhere, is the question of the hour, the day, and the century, and perhaps of the next century too. After the lecture there generally followed prayer and another hymn, and always slight refreshments,—tea and sandwiches, or little cakes,—over which all chatted and were free to go when they would. Many were the occasions when, in these gatherings, every heart seemed to partake of the gladness radiated by the magnetic host and hostess; and all Europe seemed brighter because of these homelike, social, Christian Sunday evenings which lighted up the sojourn in Berlin. The effort now being made to build a permanent and commodious church edifice for Americans in Berlin is a pressing necessity.

Dr. Christlieb, the eminent Professor of Theology and University Preacher in Bonn, asserts that the number of American students in Berlin is now by far the largest congregated in any one place in Germany. The number, as stated in 1888 by Rev. Dr. Philip Schaff, was about four hundred, besides the numerous American travellers there every year for a longer or shorter time. Seventeen denominations have been represented in this church in a single year, and any evangelical minister in good standing in his own church is eligible to election as its pastor. From the beginning these union services have been entirely harmonious; and Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians have been chiefly active in promoting them.

The churches of the royal suburb of Potsdam possess an interest quite equal to that of those in Berlin. The Potsdam Garrison Church, in general interior outlines, reminds one of some quaint New England meeting-house of the early part of the eighteenth century. But here the resemblance ceases. The ancient arrangement of windows and galleries impresses one only at the moment of entering, attention being presently diverted to the flags clustered on the gallery pillars and on either side the pulpit, in two rows,—the lower captured from the French in the wars with the First Napoleon, the upper taken in the late contests with Austria and with Napoleon III. Altar-cloths and other furnishings are heavily embroidered with the handiwork of vanished queens. But the chief interest centres in the vault under the handsome marble pulpit. In this vault, on the left, are the mortal remains of the old Prussian King, Frederick William I.,—father of Frederick the Great,—a character hard to understand, and interpreted differently as one surveys him in the light of Macaulay's genius or that of Carlyle. But one cannot help hoping that the final verdict will be with the latter; and as we stand in this solemn place, memory recalls the day—the midnight, rather—when this same oak coffin, long before the death of the King made ready by his orders in the old Palace of Potsdam close at hand, at last received its burden, and was borne in Spartan simplicity to this place, the torch-lighted band playing his favorite dirge,—

"Oh, Sacred Head, now wounded!"

On the right, separated from the coffin of his father only by the short aisle, is that of Frederick the Great. Three wreaths were lying upon it,—placed there by the Emperor and by the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess on the hundredth anniversary of the death of this founder of Prussia's greatness, August 17, 1886. Fortunate is the visitor to Potsdam who does not altogether overlook this Garrison Church, misled by the brief mention usually accorded to it in the guide-books.

The Friedenskirche, near the entrance to the park of Sans Souci, has a detached high clock-tower adjoining, and cloisters beautiful, even in winter, with the myrtle and ivy and evergreens of the protected court which they surround. In the inner court is a copy of Thorwaldsen's celebrated statue of Christ (the original at Copenhagen); also, Rauch's original "Moses, supported by Aaron and Hur," and a beautiful Pieta is in the opposite colonnade. The church is in the form of the ancient basilica, which is not favorable to much adornment. A crucifix of lapis lazuli under a canopy resting on jasper columns—a present from the Czar Nicholas—stands on the marble altar. A beautiful angel in Carrara marble adorns the space before the chancel, above the burial-slabs of King Frederick William IV., founder of the church, and his queen; and the apse is lined with a rare old Venetian mosaic. But the chief interest of this "Church of Peace" will henceforth centre around it as the burial-place of the Emperor Frederick III. In an apartment not formerly shown to the public, his young son, Waldemar, was laid to rest at the age of eleven years, deeply mourned by the Crown Prince, the Crown Princess, and their family. Here in this church, beside his sons Waldemar and Sigismund, who died in infancy, it was the wish of the dying father to lie buried. Here the quiet military funeral service was held; here the last look of that noble face was taken amid the tears of those who loved him well, while the sunlight, suddenly streaming through an upper window, illuminated as with an electric light that face at rest, as the Court-preacher Koëgel uttered the words of solemn trust,—

"What God doeth is well done."

Fitting it is that in this "Church of Peace" should rest all that was mortal of the immortal Prince who could say, as he entered Paris in the flush of victory: "Gentlemen, I do not like war. If I should reign, I would never make it."