The odor of Meinrad’s sanctity spread far and wide, and the Benedictine monks came and established a community, built a monastery and a church, and have flourished on this spot ever since. So long ago as 948 the Bishop of Constance came here to consecrate the newly erected church, and in the night before the ceremony was to be performed he was awakened by the music of angels filling the place, and a voice from heaven came to him, saying that he need not proceed with his holy services, for in the night the house had been sanctified by the coming of the Saviour in his own proper person. This was reported to the Pope, who pronounced it a genuine miracle; and in obedience to his decree a plenary indulgence is granted to all pilgrims who come here, and on the church is inscribed, “Here is full remission from the guilt and punishment of sins.” During all these thousand years that have since revolved, this spot has been the shrine to which not less than 200,000 human beings each year, with heads and hands and feet like other people, have journeyed, to bring their offerings, and worship a black image of the Virgin Mary holding a black baby in her arms. Why the image is painted jet black I cannot learn. So great is the concourse of pilgrims here, and so large are their offerings, that this monastery, in a bleak Alpine vale, 3000 feet above the sea, and off from all highways, has become one of the richest in the world. One in Styria, one in Spain, and a third in Italy, are, perhaps, more numerously visited. But the annual revenue of this is immense. The abbot has his banking house in Zurich, where he deposits the funds, and the investments are constantly increasing. They are buying lands largely in the United States of America, especially in Indiana, and the order of Benedictines at Vincennes is in constant correspondence with Einsiedeln.
Hither have I just made a pilgrimage, not on foot, as many do. An old woman of seventy-five, carrying her shoes in her hand and toiling up with bare, sore feet, said the priest had bade her travel so to Einsiedeln, and her sins would be pardoned. But I came by the steamboat from Zurich to Ricksterwyl, and was then brought up the hill in a nice covered carriage, a much pleasanter way of doing a pilgrimage than walking barefoot, or even with peas in your shoes. It is a two hours’ ride from the lake, the ascending road being alive with travellers going and coming, and public-houses to entertain the pilgrims invite you to rest. The village itself consists of a multitude of taverns and shops for the sale of images, crosses, medals, &c. Passing through it, we come to a large paved square. On one side of it, and at the foot of a hill which rises behind it, stand the sacred edifices: a vast temple, with the monastic buildings on each side of it, imposing in their appearance among these wilds of nature, where it seems almost a miracle that they can ever have been reared and enjoyed by man. The church itself is adorned with extravagant pictures and marble chapels and shrines, and just at the entrance stands the image of “Our Lady of the Hermits,” the only black image of the Virgin I ever saw. She and the Holy Child wear crowns of gold, and glitter with diamonds and embroidered garments, their faces of ebony shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery. Before them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their beads. At the other shrines others are bowing and murmuring their prayers. Painted skeletons of celebrated saints lie exposed in marble shrines. The offerings of those who have had their prayers answered hang around on the walls. All sorts of prayers are here made, and they who make them believe they are answered.
In the square in front of the church is a fountain with a dozen jets of water, and each pilgrim drinks from each one of them, to be certain that he drinks of the one out of which the Saviour refreshed himself nine hundred years ago!
The monastery is freely opened to strangers. Through long halls on each side of which are guest-chambers where their many visitors are lodged, we were led to a gallery, adorned with several splendid paintings, presented by Catholic monarchs: Louis Napoleon and his Empress, the Austrian Emperor, and several historical pictures. Out of this we walked into the reception-room, where the abbot himself was so condescending as to meet us. He speaks only German and Latin. A very large man, of commanding form and presence; with a face shining like the sun with good humor, good living, and content, he answered perfectly to your idea of the abbot of a Romish monastery. He gave me a cordial greeting, and understanding that I was from America asked if we enjoyed universal peace. When I assured him we did, he spoke of the late contest in Europe, which he pronounced “bellum atrocissimum,”—a most atrocious war. Then he inquired about the President, and produced from his private rooms a photograph of the late Lincoln in the arms of Washington in heaven!
After a little further general conversation he withdrew. He is by virtue of his office a prince of the Austrian empire, and is so addressed by all the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland. I was highly pleased with the interview, and not less with one of the monks to whose kind care I was now committed. He led me to the interior of the monastery, where the cells of the monks are arranged on the several stories or floors: each one is a comfortable room, with one window looking into the walled garden and the hill that rises behind. When we reached his own he unlocked it and showed me in; placing its only chair, he bade me be seated, while he went to look for the key of the library. “While I am absent,” said he, “enjoy yourself as you please, examine every thing, and be quite at home.” A few books were in a case over his writing-desk, by which he could sit or stand and the closets, shelves, every thing was bare of paint, and plain as could be. A little bed was in one corner near the door, simple enough for an anchorite. No images, pictures, or crucifixes were in sight. In a few minutes he returned, and led me through the cabinet of natural history, into the library of 30,000 volumes, neatly arranged in niches. When we came to the folios of the fathers, I pointed to the works of Irenæus, and said: I have the name of that father, my own father having given it to me because he admired the writings of the old author, the disciple of Polycarp, who sat at the feet of the apostle John; I was thus in the line of the succession. We took down the folio and looked at its imprint. Then he asked me if I would like to see the manuscripts, and upon my expressing a strong desire to do so, he raised an iron trap-door, and conducted me by a flight of stairs into a room below, where an immense number are deposited, and admirably preserved and disposed. None of them, however, are very ancient.
A college of two hundred students is maintained in the same range of buildings, and taught by some of the monks. Of these monks there are about forty, besides the priests who minister at the altars, and receive confessions in German, French, Italian, and Romanesch languages, according to the nationality of the pilgrims. The monks spend their time in reading, writing, and in the refectory, where they eat together, and enjoy the good things of this life as well as other people. Some of them are quite old. Death comes here as elsewhere, and closes up a life of apparent indolence, yet possessing some strange fascination that is hard to be comprehended by the outside world. It certainly is not favorable to the highest usefulness, for these men might be doing far more for God and their fellow-men in the pursuit of some honest calling, preaching the gospel, or working with their hands. They consume and do not produce. Nor is this mode of life friendly to holiness. Passions are part of man’s nature, and they are not quenched or dwarfed by seclusion from intercourse with the outer world. Human sympathies, which are cultivated and refined by the practice of social virtues, and so tend to make us better, are not apt to flourish in the cell of a monk. And although the walls of this magnificent monastery, in a sterile Alpine valley, shut out the pomps and vanities of the world, they cannot be made so high or so strong as to confine the wandering desire, which will sap the foundations of the sternest virtue, and make the bosom the seat of vice to which the soul consents, and therefore suffers. The pure in heart see God. Not in the cloister of the anchorite, the monk’s lonely cell, nor the hermit’s cave; but in the steadfast pursuit of the Good, the True, and the Great, in the daily walks of life. It is virtue to live above the world, while living in it. None but the children of the Holy One can walk through the furnace without the smell of fire on their garments.
Such were my thoughts as I left the monastery, shaking hands with Father Reifle, the Benedictine, who had so kindly waited upon me, and by his intelligent conversation and lively interest in my enjoyment had won my warm regards. He put the key into the lock of the iron gate at the head of the stone stairs, and unlocking it let me out, and we bade each other Adieu, as he stood within and I without the door.
Returning to Zurich, and going thence to St. Gall, I mounted a diligence, and rode an hour and a half into the hill country, up hill all the way, to a place unheard-of in the guide-books, and unvisited by travellers, unless business or the search for solitude should call them there. It is at least a thousand feet above the lake, of which a distant view is had, and in the midst of beautiful high valleys, green pastures, and thrifty villages, three or four of which are in sight, each with its single church spire or tower. Not a boarding-house was to be found in the place. There is a hotel, but hotels had been my dwelling-place long enough, and now I would have a home, and such a home as the people around me enjoy. In a private family, the village apothecary’s, I learned that, perhaps, a room could be had, and thither I bent my steps. Happily for me, they were willing to take me in, and in a short time the apartments were ready and I was duly installed.
My quarters are a parlor and bedroom, on the front of the house, first floor, up stairs over the shop. The floor is uncarpeted, made of various Swiss woods laid in mosaic, in diamond shapes, of three different colors. A large, earthen, polished, white, monument-like thing, gilt at the corniced summit, stands on one side, and I soon learn that it is a stove, the door of which is out in the hall, where the fire is kindled, and now in the middle of August a fire is needed all the time. On the corners of this ornamental as well as useful pile stand two Parian busts, one of Goethe and the other of Schiller. An engraving of Schiller reading one of his poems to his friends hangs on the wall, and a portrait of Columbus, and another of Luther and other celebrities are around me. The windows extend without interruption over the entire length of the room, and a row of flowers in pots are on the sill outside, and embroidered curtains within. The shutters are closed by raising them with a strap, as the windows of a rail-car. A sofa, an easy chair covered with leather, three tables, a divan, and a chair or two, with rugs lying around, and little gems of art with books scattered about, complete the furniture of this perfectly comfortable and delightful room. The walls and ceiling are all panel-work in wood, painted white, and as purely white as the Alpine snows. In the bedroom, the floor, the wall, and ceiling are as in the parlor, only the color is a light salmon, very chaste and clean. The bed has a down comforter on the top of it, and two pillows, with double cases, the inner of figured green silk, showing at the open embroidered end of the outer linen. It is almost too pretty to sleep in, in the dark. Over the head of the bed is a beautiful engraving of Uhland’s “Landlord’s Daughter.” On the stand at the bedside is a little basket of confectionery, a porcelain transparency of the Saviour standing among the clouds and pointing heavenward; a china night-lamp burning with a bowl of water over it, kept hot by the lamp; and every little nick-nack that delicate taste and an appreciating sense of what comfort is would be likely to suggest.
I am asked, before retiring, at what hour I will breakfast, and I reply, “When the family do; and let every thing be as you are in the habit of having it.”