of this sort, whatsoever names they may bear. The Second Religion, which founds itself on Reverence for what is Around us, we denominate the Philosophical; for the Philosopher stations himself in the middle, and must draw down to him all that is higher, and up to him all that is lower, and only in this medium condition does he merit the title of Wise. Here as he surveys with clear sight his relation to his equals, and therefore to the whole human race, his relation likewise to all other earthly circumstances and arrangements necessary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in truth. But now we have to speak of the Third Religion, grounded on Reverence for what is Under us: this we name the Christian; as in the Christian Religion such a temper is the most distinctly manifested: it is a last step to which mankind were fitted and destined to attain. But what a task was it, not only to be patient with the Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher birthplace; but also to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death, to, recognize these things as divine; nay, even on sin and crime to look not as hindrances, but to honor and love them as furtherances, of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some traces in all ages: but the trace is not the goal: and this being now attained, the human species can not retrograde; and we may say that the Christian Religion, having once appeared, can not again vanish; having once assumed its divine shape, can be subject to no dissolution."

"To which of these Religions do you specially adhere ?" inquired Wilhelm. "To all the three," replied they, "for in their union they produce what may properly be called the true Religion. Out of those three Reverences springs the highest Reverence, Reverence for One's self, and these again unfold themselves from this; so that man attains the highest elevation of which he is capable, that of being justified in reckoning himself the Best that God and Nature have produced; nay, of being able to continue on this lofty eminence, without being again by self-conceit and presumption drawn down from it into the vulgar level."

The Three undertake to admit him into the interior of their Sanctuary; whither, accordingly, he, 'at the hand of the Eldest,' proceeds on the morrow. Sorry are we that we can not follow them into the 'octagonal hall,' so full of paintings, and the 'gallery open on one side, and stretching round a spacious, gay, flowery garden.' It is a beautiful figurative representation, by pictures and symbols of Art, of the First and the Second Religions, the Ethnic and the Philosophical; for the former of which the pictures have been composed from the Old Testament; for the latter from the New. We can only make room for some small portions.

"I observe," said Wilhelm, "you have done the Israelites the honor to select their history as the groundwork of this delineation, or rather you have made it the leading object there."

"As you see," replied the Eldest; "for you will remark, that on the socles and friezes we have introduced another series of transactions and occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic as of a symphronistic kind; since, among all nations, we discover records of a similar import, and grounded on the same facts. Thus you perceive here, while, in the main field of the picture, Abraham receives a visit from his gods in the form of fair youths. Apollo among the herdsmen of Admetus is painted above on the frieze. From which we may learn, that the gods, when they appear to men, are commonly unrecognized of them."

The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the most part, met with well-known objects; but they were here exhibited in a livelier, more expressive manner, than he had been used to see them. On some few matters he requested explanation, and at last could not help returning to his former question: "Why the Israelitish history had been chosen in preference to all others?"

The Eldest answered: "Among all Heathen religions, for such also is the Israelitish, this has the most distinguished advantages; of which I shall mention only a few. At the Ethnic judgment-seat; at the judgment-seat of the

God of Nations, it is not asked whether this is the best, the most excellent nation; but whether it lasts, whether it has continued. The Israelitish people never was good for much, as its own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a thousand times reproachfully declared; it possesses few virtues, and most of the faults of other nations: but in cohesion, steadfastness, valor, and when all this would not serve, in obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the most perseverant nation in the world; it is, it was, and it will be, to glorify the name of Jehovah through all ages. We have set it up, therefore, as the pattern figure: as the main figure, to which the others only serve as a frame."

"It becomes not me to dispute with you," said Wilhelm, "since you have instruction to impart. Open to me, therefore, the other advantages of this people, or rather of its history, of its religion."

"One chief advantage," said the other, "is its excellent collection of Sacred Books. These stand so happily combined together, that even out of the most diverse elements, the feeling of a whole still rises before us. They are complete enough to satisfy; fragmentary enough to excite; barbarous enough to rouse; tender enough to appease; and for how many other contradicting merits might not these Books, might not this one Book, be praised ?" * * * Thus wandering on, they had now reached the gloomy and perplexed periods of the History, the destruction of the City and the Temple, the murder, exile, slavery of whole masses of this stiff-necked people. Its subsequent fortunes were delineated in a cunning allegorical way; a real historical delineation of them would have lain without the limits of true Art.

At this point, the gallery abruptly terminated in a closed door, and Wilhelm was surprised to see himself already at the end. "In your historical series," said he, "I find a chasm. You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and dispersed the people; yet you have not introduced the divine man who taught there shortly before; to whom, shortly before, they would give no ear."

"To have done this, as you require it, would have been an error. The life of that divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no connection with the general history of the world in his time. It was a private life; his teaching was a teaching for individuals. What has publicly befallen vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the general History of the World, to the general Religion of the World; the Religion we have named the First. What inwardly befalls individuals belongs to the Second Religion, the Philosophical: such a Religion was it that Christ taught and practiced, so long as he went about on Earth. For this reason, the external here closes, and I now open to you the internal."

A door went back, and they entered a similar gallery; where Wilhelm soon recognized a corresponding series of Pictures from the New Testament. They seemed as if by another hand than the first: all was softer; forms, movements, accompaniments, light and coloring.

Into this second gallery, with its strange doctrine about 'Miracles and Parables,' the characteristic of the Philosophical Religion, we can not enter for the present, yet must give one hurried glance. Wilhelm expresses some surprise. that these delineations terminate "with the Supper, with the scene where the Master and his Disciples part." He inquires for the remaining portion of the history.

"In all sorts of instruction," said the Eldest, "in all sorts of communication, we are fond of separating whatever it is possible to separate; for by this means alone can the notion of importance and peculiar significance arise in the young mind. Actual experience of itself mingles and mixes all things together; here, accordingly, we have entirely disjoined that sublime Man's life from its termination. In life, he appears as a true Philosopher,-let not the expression stagger you,-as a Wise Man in the highest sense. He stands firm to his point; he goes on his way inflexibly, and while he exalts the lower to himself, while he makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, partakers of his wisdom, of his riches, of his strength, he, on the other hand, in nowise conceals his divine origin; he dares to equal himself with God, nay, to declare that he himself is God. In this manner he is wont, from youth upwards, to astound his

familiar friends: of these he gains a part to his own cause; irritates the rest against him; and shows to all men, who are aiming at a certain elevation in doctrine and life, what they have to look for from the world. And thus, for the noble portion of mankind, his walk and conversation are even more instructive and profitable than his death: for to those trials every one is called, to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that results from this consideration, do but look at the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those that are his own, utterly orphaned behind him; aud while he is careful for the Good, he feeds along with them a traitor, by whom he and the Better are to be destroyed."

This seems to us to have a deep, still meaning;' and the longer and closer we examine it, the more it pleases us. Wilhelm is not admitted into the shrine of the Third Religion, the Christian, or that of which Christ's sufferings and death were the symbol, as his walk and conversation had been the symbol of the Second, or Philosophical Religion. "That last Religion," it is said,

"That last Religion, which arises from the Reverence of what is Beneath us; that veneration of the contradictory, the hated, the avoided, we give to each of our pupils, in small portions, by way of outfit, along with him, into the world, merely that he may know where more is to be had, should such a want spring up within him. I invite yon to return hither at the end of a year, to attend our general Festival, and see how far your son is advanced: then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary of Sorrow." "Permit me one question," said Wilhelm: " as you have set up the life of this divine Man for a pattern and example, have you likewise selected his sufferings, his death, as a model of exalted patience?"

"Undoubtedly we have," replied the Eldest, "Of this we make no secret ; but we draw a veil over those sufferings, even because we reverence them so highly. We hold it a damnable audacity to bring forth that torturing Cross, and the Holy One who suffers on it, or to expose them to the light of the Sun, which hid its face when a reckless world forced such a sight on it; to take these mysterious secrets, in which the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, and play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and rest not till the most reverend of all solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let so much for the present suffice- *** The rest we must still owe you for a twelvemonth. The instruction, which in the interim we give the children, no stranger is allowed to witness: then, however, come to us, and you will hear what our best Speakers think it serviceable to make public on those matters."

Could we hope that, in its present disjointed state, this emblematic sketch would rise before the minds of our readers, in any measure as it stood before the mind of the writer; that, in considering it, they might seize only an outline of those many meanings which, at less or greater depth, lie hidden under it, we should anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a second time, brought it before them. As it is, believing that, to open-minded truth-seeking men, the deliberate words of an open-minded truth-seeking man can in no case be wholly unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as Göethe indifferent, we have transcribed it for their perusal. If we induce them to turn to the original, and study this in its completeness, with so much else that environs it, and bears on it, they will thank us still more, To our own judgment at least, there is a fine and pure significance in this whole delineation: such phrases even as 'the Sanctuary of Sorrow,' 'the divine depth of Sorrow,' have of themselves a pathetic wisdom for us; as indeed a tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priestlike dignity pervades the whole. In a time like ours, it is rare to see, in the writings of cultivated men, any opinion whatever bearing any mark of sincerity on such a subject as this: yet it is and continues the highest subject, and they that are highest are most fit for studying it, and helping others to study it.

The following passages, of a pedagogical character, are taken from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister in Carlyle's version:

In order to accomplish any thing by education, we must first become acquainted with the pupil's tendencies and wishes: that when these are ascertained, he ought to be transported to a situation where he may, as speedily as possible, content the former and attain the latter; and so if we have been mistaken, may still in time perceive his error; and at last having found what suits him, may hold the faster, and the more diligently fashion himself by it

The child's desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing: supposing that there could be nothing, which his father did not know, he often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects, which but for this he would have passed unheeded. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others.

You admit that poets must be born such; you admit this with regard to all professors of the fine arts; because you must admit it, because those workings of human nature can scarce be aped with any plausibility. But if we consider strictly, we shall find that every capability, however slight, is born with us; that there is no vague general capability in men. It is our ambiguous dissipating education that makes men uncertain; it awakens wishes when it should be animating tendencies; instead of forwarding our real capacities, it turns our efforts towards objects which are frequently discordant with the mind that aims at them. I augur better of young persons who are wandering astray along a path of their own, than of many who are walking rightly upon paths, which are not theirs. If the former, either by themselves, or by the guidance of others, ever find the right path, that is to say, the path which suits their nature, they will never leave it; while the latter are in danger every moment of shaking off a foreign yoke, and abandoning themselves to unrestricted license.

Without earnestness there is nothing to be done in life: yet among the people whom we name cultivated men, but little earnestness is to be found in labors and employments, in arts, nay even in recreations, they proceed, if I may say so, with a sort of self-defense; they live, as they read a heap of newspapers, only to be done with it; they remind one of that young Englishman at Rome, who told, with a contented air, one evening in some company, that 'today he had dispatched six churches and two galleries.' They wish to know and learn a multitude of things, and exactly those with which they have the least concern; and they never see that hunger is not stilled by snapping at the air. When I become acquainted with a man, my first inquiry is: With what does be employ himself, and how, and with what degree of perseverance? The answer regulates the interest, which I shall take in him for life.

The invaluable happiness of liberty consisted, not in doing what one pleases, and what circumstances may invite to, but in being able, without hindrance or restraint, to do in the direct way what one regards as right and proper.

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, occasion transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful; the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him; he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us; what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not; with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly, inclines to act and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force; the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour can not be sown, and seed corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing, while he acts rightly; but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar; their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction, which the true artist gives us, opens up the mind; for where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.

True art is like good company: it constrains us in the most delightful way to recognize the measure, by which and up to which our inward nature has been shaped by culture.

It was the history of art alone, which could give us an idea of the worth and dignity of any work of art; that we should know the weary steps of mere handicraft and mechanism, over which the man of talents has arisen in the course of centuries, before we can conceive how it is possible for the man of genius to move with airy freedom, on the pinnacle whose very aspect makes us giddy.

Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect; that every one should study to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things by every method in his power. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments: it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent, that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new. For this reason, one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

If we can conceive it possible that the Creator of the world himself assumed the form of his creation, and lived in that manner for a time upon earth, this creature must appear to us of infinite perfection, because susceptible of such a combination with its maker. Hence, when we feel a certain disagreement with Him, and remoteness from Him, it is on that account the more our duty to seek out every property and beauty of our nature, by which our pretension to a similarity with the Divinity may be made good.