The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

Here there is only one church, and that German. Service is held on Sunday at nine o’clock in the morning. The church is a well-built edifice of stone, about one hundred years old, with frescoed ceilings, representing the Ascension, Christ blessing the children, and other scenes not intelligible to me. The women sat by themselves and made three-fourths of the congregation. As each one came in, he or she stood in silent prayer, reverently bending; the women then sat down, the men remained standing. They stood patiently till the minister came in and opened the services, and they did not take their seats until the sermon was begun. On this occasion there was an unusual number of children present, as in one of the large schools there had been during the week past the death of a scholar, and now all the pupils came in procession, and took their seats together. All the men, who were relatives of the deceased, wore black bombazine gowns, swinging loosely on their backs, a badge of mourning. The service opened with a voluntary hymn by the children in the gallery, well sung. Then the pastor read a psalm, which was sung by the entire congregation,—there was no organ. I should think every one in the house had a voice, and used it with the spirit and the understanding also. Prayers were then read by the pastor, all the people standing. At the close, the minister announced his subject, and then the people—the men for the first time—sat down.

He was a young man, clothed in a black gown, with a blue silk or woollen ruffle about his neck. He read his text, “On earth peace, good-will toward men,” and, shutting the book, delivered his discourse without notes, with great ease, fluency, animation, and much eloquence. His manner was good, and the attention of the congregation was kept closely fixed. His leading idea was that peace is to be found only by union with God through Jesus Christ. And he pursued this thought beyond the experience of the individual to the wants of the community and the nation, insisting with great earnestness that wars come from the want of Christian love, that good-will which Christ came to bring, and he warned his people and the people of Switzerland, that now, as in ages past, their only hope for national unity and peace was in union with God, on whom alone they could depend.

At the close of the sermon he read prayers again, the people all standing. Then he proclaimed the names of certain parties intending marriage, and also he mentioned the names of any who had died during the past week. After a hymn had been sung, he descended from the pulpit. The people, still standing, bowed their heads reverently in silent prayer for a moment, and just then a man in the body of the church cried out an advertisement of an auction sale to take place in the neighborhood. The women now left the house, not a man sitting down, or moving from his place, till all the females, old and young, had reached the door. The minister next walked out, and the men followed. The service was over in one hour and a half. An hour-glass stood on the pulpit, but was not in use, as the large clock was in full sight, and the bell clanged every quarter of an hour, as it does day and night.

It was a kind and beautiful providence that turned my weary footsteps to this remote and unfrequented canton of Switzerland. Harper’s Hand-book, an invaluable guide for American travellers in Europe, has not even the name of the place in its index. Murray’s Hand-book, which all the English go by, says “it is but little visited by English travellers.” To get into it by any other than the easy road through the north-eastern passage, you must cross the high Alps and glaciers which bound it, and add as much to its picturesque beauty as they take from the comfort of travelling. But if you visit Constance,—where John Huss was tried and condemned and burnt at the stake,—it is easy to come to Appenzell.

And speaking of Constance leads me to that memorable spot, on the border of the lake that for a week past has been always under my eye, a spot that deserves a monument, a beacon to warn the church of the guilt and shame of religious bigotry and intolerance. It is almost like a judgment that the city itself, which for four years harbored the ecclesiastical council that murdered John Huss and Jerome of Prague, has now but one-fifth of the population that once inhabited it. As I stood on the place where it is said the martyr’s stake was planted, and remembered the glorious truths which he witnessed in the flames, I thought how little is the world improved even to this day, where the civil and ecclesiastical powers are still in the same hands. For as we travel in these European countries, the line that divides the Protestant from the Roman Catholic canton, or part of a canton, is just as clear as if a wall of adamant, high as the sky, were set up between. Even Murray’s Guide-book, which does not pretend to any religious opinions, speaking of the two parts of Canton Appenzell, says:

“A remarkable change greets the traveller on entering Roman Catholic Inner Rhoden, from Protestant Outer Rhoden. He exchanges cleanliness and industry for filth and beggary. What may be the cause of this is not a subject suitable for discussion here.”

Yet the moral philosopher, the philanthropist, the patriot, above all the Christian, even a Christian traveller, wishes to consider “the cause,” whether it is proper or not for a guide-book to discuss it. As travelling tends to promote liberality of sentiment, to enlarge one’s charity, and to convince even a strict adherent to his hereditary faith, that many, far from his way of thinking, are just as sure of heaven as he is, so travelling opens one’s eyes to the effect of the different systems of religion upon the social, temporal, political, as well as moral condition of men. And I have been amazed to find how powerful is this effect upon mere men of the world, men who have never given a thought before to the influence of one religion rather than another on the face of society. Even the guide-books call attention to the shameful fact that “filth and beggary” are the distinguishing features of a part of one country that differs from the rest only in being Roman Catholic. The same laws, the same climate, the same facilities for acquiring the means of living, and just as much soap and water in one as the other, but the thrift and the neatness of one are in brilliant contrast with the poverty and nastiness of its neighbor.

Female Costumes in Appenzell.

The customs of the canton are somewhat peculiar. I was informed that they still adhere to the use of the pillory for the punishment of petty offences, and the machine stands by the wayside, with a hole for the neck, a padlock, and a chain. But I did not see any thing of the kind. Nor did I see the bone-house, in any churchyard, where it is said the bones are deposited of those who have been buried a certain number of years, and who must then give place to others. Their bones are taken up, properly labelled and laid away on shelves in the bone-house, so that their friends can get them, or any part of them, when wanted. As the graveyards are usually small, and no attention is paid to the relationship of the parties buried side by side, it is quite likely that, after the lapse of thirty or forty years, there would be no objection to this arrangement, which strikes us as exceedingly unpleasant, if not positively revolting.