The Saviour of the Earth.

In flowing, snow-white garments

He wandered giant-high

Over land and sea;

And as a heart in his breast

He bore the sun-orb,

The ruddy, radiant sun-orb,

And the ruddy, radiant, burning heart
Poured forth its beams of mercy

And its gracious and love-blessed light,
Enlightening and warming,

Over land and sea.

Sweetest bell-tones drew us gaily

Here and there, like swans soft-leading

By bands of roses the smooth-gliding ship,

And swam with it sporting to a verdant sea-shore, Where men were living in a high-towering

And stately town.

Oh, peaceful wonder ! How still the town!
Where the sounds of this world were silent,
Of prattling and sultry employment,

And o'er the clean and echoing highways
Mortals were walking, in pure white garments,

Bearing palm branches,

And whenever two met together,

They saw each other with ready feeling,

And, thrilling with true love and sweet self-denial,

Each pressed a kiss on the forehead,

And looked upon high

To the sun-heart of the Saviour,

Which, gladly atoning his crimson blood,
Flashed down upon them,

And, trebly blessed, thus they spoke :
Blessed be Jesus Christ!

A man who was as thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Christianity as Heine, certainly had a right to judge somewhat harshly of its sects, many of which are nothing more than a wretched parody of the first Christian Church. The world ought to pardon the poet if his satirical thrusts. are sometimes too severe, and those who accuse him of unjustly attacking any creed in particular, should not forget how fairly he, on the other side, spoke about all of them.

Thus, for instance, although he always ridiculed the abuses of the Catholic Church, he never failed to appreciate what is good in it.

In his "Confessions," he says: "No one ought to accuse me of a fanatical enmity towards the Romish Church, for I have always been lacking that narrow-mindedness necessary for such an animosity. I am too well aware of my

intellectual stature not to know that even my

fiercest assaults can do no harm to so colossal a structure as the Church of St. Peter. I could be but a humble laborer at the slow work of pulling down the large blocks of stone, a work which may yet last for many centuries. I am too well versed in history not to recognize the gigantic proportions of that edifice of granite; let people call it the Bastille of the Spirit, let them say that at present it is only defended by invalids, —it remains true, nevertheless, that this Bastille is not so easily taken, and many a young assailant will break his head against its walls. As a thinker, as a metaphysician, I could never help admiring the consistency of the Roman Catholic dogma, and I may also boast of never having attacked, with my wit and satire, either the Catholic dogma or the creed. Men have done me both too much honor and too much dishonor by calling me an intellectual relative of Voltaire. I was always a poet, and therefore the poetic spirit which pervades the symbolism of the Catholic dogma and creed, and which in it blossoms and grows, naturally revealed itself more profoundly to me than to most other mortals. I need

not mention that just as there exists in me

E

no blind hatred of the Roman Church, so there has never been in my mind a petty animosity against its priests. He who knows my gift of satire, and is acquainted with the desire for burlesque, which in the superabundance of my spirit I possess, will bear me witness that I have always been indulgent towards the human weaknesses of the clergy, although in later times the hypocritical, yet venemous rats, who infest the monasteries of Bavaria and Austria-that rotten rabble-have often enough tempted me to attack them. But in the midst of my anger and disgust I have always preserved a certain veneration for the real priesthood, remembering what services they had rendered me in the past; for Catholic priests gave me my first instruction when a child, and they were the first to guide my mental development." And somewhat later, he says: "Whatever opinion we may hold about the Jesuits, we must admit that in all that relates to the art of instruction, they gave abundant proof of sound practical sense, and though, by their method of teaching, the knowledge of antiquity was only presented in a sadly mutilated form, they at least succeeded in popularizing

ancient culture, that is to say, in making it democratic, and they caused it to spread amongst the masses. Under our present system, it is true, some learned individuals, some aristocrats of intellect, undoubtedly attain to a more intimate acquaintance with antiquity and with the ancients; but the great mass of the people seldom retain any scrap of classical lore, any fragment of Herodotus, any fable of Æsop, any verse of Horace, in a nook of their brains, whereas, formerly, the poor fellows always preserved some old crust of early school-learning, which they kept chewing all the rest of their days. 'A little bit of Latin ornaments a fellow,' an old cobbler once said to me, who still preserved among his recollections some fine passages of Cicero's speeches against Catilina, which he had learned in his youth when he wore the little black gown of a pupil of the Jesuit College, which passages he often, curiously enough, used to quote very à propos when attacking our modern demagogues. Teaching was the specialty of the Jesuits, and although they wished to direct it in the interest of their order, the passion for teaching, the only human passion which remained