IN MEMORIAM 
 BERNARD MOSES 
 
 UBRARV 
 SGMOOL 
 
/■ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 
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CHRIST 
 
 IN 
 
 A GERMAN HOME, 
 
 AS 
 
 SEEN IN THE MARRIED LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 FREDERICK AND CAROLINE PERTHES, 
 
 1/ 
 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
Z 3/5- 
 
 SCHOOlij 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by the Amertcai* 
 Tbact Society, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 «€RNABD MOSES 
 
 
 %.'* 
 
 
A> 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 There is a circle of our most intelligent readers fa- 
 miliar with the two octavo volumes published in Eng- 
 land, containing an admirable translation of Professor 
 Perthes' biography of his father and mother. Many of 
 our leading presidents and professors of colleges and 
 theological seminaries, our most learned divines and 
 authors, have confessed that that work is one of the 
 most interesting which our age has produced. Its size 
 alone has precluded its pubhcation in this country ; for 
 the work is of so high a character as to appeal to a 
 very intellectual but rather limited class of readers. 
 The rare value of the book has long prompted me to 
 desire to see the best things in it made the common 
 property of a large public ; and at my request a genial 
 and gifted friend has gone over the whole work, and 
 culled out those portions which especially illustrate the 
 family life of Frederick and Caroline Perthes, and which 
 dehneate that rarest and most beautiful spectacle in 
 the world, a truly Christian, highly refined, and most 
 amiable and gentle home. 
 
 885968 
 
4 INTJadr^jaQTOEY NOTE. 
 
 "Et vill fes renit35p:ibeve^ by some and ouglit to be 
 known by all that the names' of both Frederick and 
 Caroline Perthes, were perfectly familiar in Germany. 
 He was not only the greatest publisher of his time and 
 nation, but a leader in great political, theological, 
 and educational enterprises, and an intimate friend 
 of almost every other great man of his day. She was 
 a daughter of the distinguished poet and essayist 
 Claudius, and a woman of rare loveliness and con- 
 spicuous accomplishments. Their home was the famil- 
 iar assembling place of all that was good and great in 
 Germany, during the earher years of the present cen- 
 tury. The portrayal of their life must therefore be a 
 kind of panorama of all that the student of German 
 life and character desires to see in the Augustan age 
 of German literature. And busied as Perthes was with 
 all the great problems of his time, and wielding a lead- 
 ing hand in all the religious, literary, patriotic, and 
 commercial movements of Germany, even a brief sketch 
 like the present must necessarily open up a field of 
 great interest. 
 
 The central figure of the book after all is Caroline, 
 the gentle wife, not the resolute, stirring and wonder- 
 fully able husband. And it was not at all a surprise 
 to me when the author of the biography. Professor 
 Perthes of Bonn, told me that by far the larger number 
 of letters which came to him after the publication of 
 
INTKODUCTOEY NOTE. 5 
 
 the work in Germany, spoke of the deep interest which 
 had been awakened in the lovely character of his moth- 
 er. For among all the women whose lives have be- 
 come famihar to English and American readers, there 
 is none who can be compared with her in the combina- 
 tion of qualities which make up the true Christian 
 woman. 
 
 W. L. GAGE. 
 Haetfoed, Or. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Caroline Claudius page 9 
 
 n. Frederick Christopher Perthes ~ 13 
 
 UL Betrothal and Marriage 23 
 
 IV. The Business and the Family 35 
 
 V. Christian Experience -- — 41 
 
 VI. Napoleon 46 
 
 VII. Patriotism 52 
 
 YLU. The French in Hamburg 62 
 
 IX. Exile '. 73 
 
 X. Vicissitudes of "War 85 
 
 XI. TheRetumHome 93 
 
 Xn. Death of Claudius ^ 100 
 
 XIII. Correspondence 119 
 
 XTV. Eeligion and Rationalism 132 
 
 XV. Marriage of the Eldest Daughter 137 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 XVI. Marriage of the Second Daughter «- - 157 
 
 XVII. Matthias at the University - 169 
 
 XVni. The Last Days of Caroline Perthes 184 
 
 XIX. Gotha - 205 
 
 XX. Perthes' Views of Life - 216 
 
 XXI. Last Days of Perthes 221 
 
CHRIST 
 
 IN 
 
 A GERMAN HOME 
 
 CAROLINE CLAUDIUS. 
 
 jN the year 1796 there lived in Wands- 
 beck, a pleasant little town in North- 
 ern Germany, Matthias Claudius, a 
 truly good man, and an excellent pop- 
 ^ -^J ular author. His writings were earnest, at 
 the same time humorous, noble, and patriotic. His 
 nature was impulsive but kindly. A strong faith in 
 the truths of the Bible, and a childlike trust in a 
 heavenly Father's love, banished all gloomy and 
 
 disturbing thoughts from his heart and household. 
 
 2 
 
10 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 Few would liave recognized the man of genius in 
 the ungainly figure, arrayed in a homely dressing- 
 gown, or in the pale face from which the hair was 
 tightly drawn back and fastened with a comb, but 
 for the heavenly fire which flashed from his fine 
 blue eyes. 
 
 His daughter reflected the genial nature of her 
 father, and the noble and womanly simplicity of her 
 mother. The great works of Palestrina, Leonardo 
 Leo, Bach, Handel, and Mozart, the language and 
 literature of England, and intellectual pursuits of 
 all kinds, found a place amid their daily domestic 
 duties. 
 
 Caroline Claudius, the eldest daughter, was born 
 in 1774. Her biographer describes her thus : " Al- 
 though there was nothing remarkable or dazzling 
 in her general appearance, notwithstanding her 
 fine, regular features, her slender figure, and her 
 delicate complexion, yet the treasures of fancy and 
 feeling, the strength and repose of character, and 
 the clearness of intellect which shone in her deep 
 hazel eyes, gave her a quiet but irresistible cLarm. 
 Throughout her whole Hfe she inspired unbounded 
 confidence in all who approached her. To her the 
 glad brought their joys, secure of finding joyous 
 sympathy, and to many of the afflicted, both in 
 
CAKOLINE CLAUDIUS. 11 
 
 body and in mind, she ministered consolation, taught 
 resignation, and inspired them with fresh courage. 
 Accustomed to the simple life of her parental home, 
 contact with the bustle of the outward world ap- 
 peared fraught with dangers to her childlike, simple 
 walk with God. Household duties, study and mu- 
 sic, occupied her time. When more advanced in 
 life, she retained a rich, clear voice, and a fine mu- 
 sical taste. She was acquainted with the modern 
 languages, and had gone far enough in Latin to en- 
 able her subsequently to assist her sons. 
 
 " While Caroline remained at home, she received 
 but few impressions from without. She clung with 
 reverential afi'ectlon to the Princess Galhtzin, who 
 was a frequent visitor at her father's house, and 
 who reciprocated the attachment with so much 
 warmth that to the end of her life she preserved a 
 motherly friendship for her. By the Countess Julia 
 Eeventlow, Caroline was equally beloved. She had 
 been at Emkendorf on a visit of some months, and 
 became so great a favorite with the family, that 
 they would have taken her with them to Italy, had 
 they been able to obtain her father's consent. The 
 first great event in her life was the death of her sis- 
 ter Christine, who was only a year or two younger 
 than herself. A letter that she wrote at that time 
 
12 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 to the Countess Eeventlow at Eoine, lias been pre- 
 served. 
 
 "'I am like a little child, who, when it is in 
 tronble, stretches out its arms to those it loves, and 
 finds pleasure in weeping on their bosom. How 
 often have I thus wished to be with you, dear 
 countess ! But though my arms cannot reach you, 
 my letter may. We have had a sad time ! Our 
 dear Christine was attacked with nervous fever, 
 and died on the second of July. Gently she fell 
 asleep, after having suffered much; and now that 
 the pains of death are over, I would not wish her 
 back. How dear has the death-bed become to me ! 
 It is at such times that we feel deeply — and in a 
 manner that we can never forget — how necessary it 
 is to seek for something that may support us in 
 death, and accompany us beyond.' 
 
 "It was on the 27th of November, 1796, that 
 Perthes first saw Caroline in her father's house. 
 ' Her bright eyes, and her open, clear look pleased 
 me, and I loved her,' said Perthes. And who was 
 Perthes ?" 
 
11. 
 
 FREDERICK CHRISTOPHER PERTHES. 
 
 Cp^^^p/EEDEEICK CHEISTOPHER PER- 
 
 ~ *"" '^ thes was born at Eudolfsbadt, in 1772, 
 a year of famine known in Germany as 
 the ^reat hunger-year." His father, 
 a lawyer of considerable distinction, died at 
 the age of thirty-seven, leaving his wife and chil- 
 dren almost destitute. Frederick was adopted by 
 his grandmother. But she died when he was only 
 seven years old, leaving him to the care of his 
 uncle, Frederick Heubel, who kept house with an 
 unmarried sister, Caroline Heubel, a woman of great 
 strength of character. 
 
 Notwithstanding their slender means, Frederick 
 was affectionately received into their home, faith- 
 fully trained and carefully instructed. 
 
 Possessing a very excitable temperament, he 
 always ascribed to the influence of his aunt and 
 
14: CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 uncle the horror with which he regarded every 
 kind of immorahty, and the respect he felt for the 
 rights of others. 
 
 At the age of fourteen it was thought best to ap- 
 prentice him to a bookseller; so he was sent to 
 Leipzig, with a friend, to seek a master. One de- 
 cHned taking him because he could not conjugate 
 the verb amo. A tall, gaunt man, in a flame-color- 
 ed overcoat reaching to his heels, first frightened 
 the poor boy into silence, then condemned him as 
 " too shy for the book-trade." 
 
 At last he was kindly received by Adam Bohme, 
 but pronounced too delicate and small for work at 
 that time, and was sent home for a year to grow. 
 
 At the end of the year, indentures were signed 
 by the uncle and master, and the boy again set out 
 for Leipzig. Upon arriving there he was greeted 
 with, " Why, boy, you are no bigger than you were 
 a year ago; but we will make trial of it, and see 
 how we get on together." The next morning he 
 received the following instructions : " Frederick, 
 you must let your hair grow in front to a brush, 
 and behind to a cue, and get a pair of wooden 
 buckles ; lay aside your sailor's round hat — a cocked 
 one is ordered." This once-universal custom had 
 latterly disappeared, but Bohme tolerated no new 
 
FREDERICK C. PERTHES. 15 
 
 fashion among his apprentices. "You are not to 
 leave the house either morning or evening, without 
 my permission. On Sundays you must accompany 
 me to church." 
 
 His fare was by no means luxurious. Every 
 morning at six he received a cup of tea, and every 
 Sunday, as a provision for the coming week, seven 
 lumps of sugar, and seven halfpence to purchase 
 bread. 
 
 " Wliat I find hardest," wrote Frederick to his 
 uncle, " is, that I have only a halfpenny roll in the 
 morning. I find this to be scanty allowance. In 
 the afternoon, from one till eight, we have not a 
 morsel; that is what I call hunger. I think we 
 ought to have something." Dinner and supper he 
 took with the family, in abundance ; but, alas for 
 him when fat roast-meat with gourd-sauce was set 
 upon the table ! for it was a law that whatever was 
 put upon the plate must be eaten. 
 
 " That which troubles me most," writes the boy, 
 "is my master's passionate temper. If we have 
 made the shghtest blunder, he breaks out upon us ; 
 this is very different from what I have been accus- 
 tomed to, and I feel it very hard to bear; but I 
 shall get used to it in time." 
 
 When the fit of passion was over, Bohme would 
 
16 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 good-naturedly endeavor to make peace with the 
 boy by bringing him fruit, or sharing with him his 
 afternoon coffee and the accompanying lumps of 
 sugar. 
 
 Frederick was kept busily at work running upon 
 errands, or collating for hours upon the stone flags 
 of the little shop which Bohme never thought of 
 warming. At last the boy's feet became so badly 
 frost-bitten that he was unable to walk, when a 
 surgeon was sent for. He came, and declared that 
 another day's neglect would have made amputa- 
 tion necessary. 
 
 For nine long weeks the boy was a prisoner in his 
 little garret-room; but not neglected, for his mas- 
 ter's second daughter, Fredericka, a lovely child of 
 twelve years, took him under her charge, and tend- 
 ed him with care and affection. All day long she 
 sat, knitting-needles in hand, by the bedside of the 
 invalid, talking with him, consohng, and minis- 
 tering. 
 
 Upon the floor, among the old books, lay a 
 translation of Muratori's History of Italy ; and the 
 poor girl, with never-failing kindness, read through 
 several of the ponderous quartos in the dusky little 
 garret. A strong friendship thus sprang up be- 
 tween the children, which lasted for years. 
 
FREDERICK C. PERTHES. 17 
 
 Added to other trials, were tlie deep longings 
 for home, for the wild, free rambles through wood 
 and mountain, and more than all, for the affection 
 he had always there received. "Dearest uncle," 
 he writes, "all is well with me, but for a sort of 
 melancholy of quite a special kind ; for when I am 
 alone I fall to thinking of my former happy life, 
 now for ever passed, away. If I am good now 
 and continue so, I have to thank you and my aunt 
 for it." 
 
 In three years Frederick succeeded so well in 
 gaining the confidence of his master, that he was 
 left in charge of the business during an absence of 
 some weeks. And his biogi-apher records that his 
 master was so much pleased upon his return, that 
 in acknowledgment of his services he presented him 
 with a pair of silken garters. 
 
 Gradually his work became easier, but his heart 
 was filled with intense longings to pursue studies 
 which neither his time nor his means would permit 
 him to undertake. " Dearest, best uncle," he wrote, 
 at the age of nineteen, "it is certainly true that he 
 who strives after improvement is thereby capable 
 of exalted enjoyment ; and I have myself often had 
 such bright hours when, by meditation on tJie per- 
 fection of God and his works, and by consciousness 
 
18 CHKTST IN A GEKMAN HOME. 
 
 of my own dignity as a human being, I enjoyed a 
 foretaste of the destiny ultimately in store for me. 
 At such seasons all, all was joy ; and I saw every- 
 thing around me laboring onward to perfection. 
 Then all men were my brothers, advancing with me 
 to the same goal." 
 
 " The most earnest wish of my heart," he writes, 
 on another occasion, "is, for a friend to whom I 
 might freely unbosom myself, who would strengthen 
 me when I am weak, and encourage me when I be- 
 gin to despair; but, alas! I find no such friend, 
 and yet I feel an irresistible necessity to unburden 
 my heart, and so overpowering is this longing, that 
 1 could press every man to my breast and say. 
 Thou, too, art God's image." 
 
 Despite all hinderances, he was gaining in cul- 
 ture and knowledge of life, in its varied relations, 
 and, at the same time, attracting friends, w] o not 
 only made him acquainted with many of the first 
 wiiters of the age, but were also a source of much 
 happiness. 
 
 " Never, since I came here," he writes, " have I 
 enjoyed such pleasant, heart-quickening hours as 
 now, in the society of my beloved new friends ; the 
 moment I enter I read welcome in their eyes. I 
 am one of the happiest of men ; the friendship, and 
 
FBEDEBICK C. PERTHES. 19 
 
 regard, and affection of good men accompany me 
 at every step." 
 
 Before his term of service came to an end, Hoff- 
 man, the Hamburgh bookseller, anxious to engage 
 Perthes as an assistant, requested his master to set 
 him free. Bohme consented; a grand entertain- 
 ment was given, in the course of which he told 
 Perthes to rise, gave him a gentle slap on the face, 
 presented him with a sword, and addressed him as 
 Sie^ (you.) Thus his apprenticeship to the book- 
 trade was at an end. 
 
 On the 13th of May, 1793, Perthes took leave 
 of Leipzig, where he had spent six years — " happy 
 years of earnest striving," as he himself called 
 them. 
 
 His first impressions of Hamburg were most 
 agreeable ; the scenery charmed him, and the frank 
 hospitality of his master's family delighted him. 
 Business called out all his activities, but he had 
 frequent opportunities of leisure which afforded 
 much enjoyment. " He must be dead to the beau- 
 ties of nature," he writes, " who could be unhappy 
 here. You can imagine nothing finer or grander 
 than the neighboring country." 
 
 * A mark of respect in Germauy, Cliildreu aud servants are 
 addressed as du (thou.) 
 
20 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 But as time passed on lie became coDScions of 
 a deeper want. "My heart," lie tells his uncle, 
 " yearns for the society of many, and of cultivated 
 men. Such society is a necessity for me, and I 
 must compass it, unless I am to sink entirely. .... 
 How my heart beats, when I think of such eminent 
 families as those of Blisch, Eeimarus and Sieveking, 
 and when I meet with young men who are privi- 
 leged to enjoy in their society the genuine pleasures 
 of life, I must and will find an entree speedily." 
 
 This w^as, however, no easy attainment, as the 
 social distinctions in Hamburg between a retail and 
 wholesale dealer, were very great. Hopeless as the 
 wish seemed, it was at last realized : and at twenty- 
 two we find him associated v/ith the most distin- 
 guished families of Hamburg, some of whom were 
 destined to exert a powerful influence upon his 
 character. 
 
 *' Perthes is a man to whom I feel marvellously 
 attracted by his tender susceptibility, and his earn- 
 est striving after all that is noble," writes one of 
 his new friends. "I thank you for having made 
 me acquainted with such a man." Another says, 
 " I could not withdraw my eyes from him ; the 
 charm of his external a^Dpearance I could not but 
 regard as the true expression of his inner nature." 
 
FREDERICK C. PERTHES. 21 
 
 He is described as small and slender, though 
 firm and well formed. His curling hair and fine 
 complexion, and a peculiarly delicate curve in the 
 formation of the eye, gave to his appearance an 
 almost girhsh charm. When he had determined 
 on carrying out some settled purpose, the decision 
 and resoluteness of his mind were manifest in the 
 very aspect of his slender form; his strong, sono- 
 rous voice, his bearing, and every gesture, indicated 
 that he both could and would carry out his resolu- 
 tion. " Little Perthes has the most manly spirit of 
 us all," said his friends; and they had many stories 
 to tell of the surprising power which his invincible 
 will had exercised over the stubbornness and physi- 
 cal superiority of strong, rough men. Perthes w^as 
 conscious of this power, and it gave him courage to 
 encounter difficulties from which many, possessed 
 of more physical strength, w^ould have shrunk. 
 
 For a long time he had regarded his beloved 
 book-trade as one of the greatest importance, not 
 as a means of gain, but of influence upon the intel- 
 lectual life and growth of the people. Determined 
 to meet the literary wants of the age, in 1796 he 
 established himself in Hamburg as a bookseller. 
 This was a bold undertaking for a young man of 
 twenty-four years, and one requiring a greater cap- 
 
22 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 ital than he had at first anticipated ; but the kind- 
 ness of his friends reheved him from all perplexities. 
 
 He was the first bookseller who had a complete 
 assortment of the best works, old and new, in all 
 the various branches of literature, classified and 
 arranged. Added to these, were all the important 
 periodicals of the day. 
 
 Perthes' mother had been left almost portionless 
 at the death of his father. To his great joy he was 
 now enabled to give a home to her and to his sister. 
 "My own domestic arrangements," he tells his 
 aunt, " are on a small scale, but tolerably neat. I 
 think you would approve of them ; at least my love 
 of order is becoming a terror to all the household." 
 
BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 ^MONG the frequenters of the httle shop 
 was Frederick Jacobi, a man of about 
 L^ fifty years of age. Perthes was attract- 
 ed by his noble bearing and intellectual 
 superiority, while he was in turn won by 
 the young man's candor and animation. A strong 
 friendship sprang up between them, and Perthes 
 became a familiar guest in Jacobi's house at Wald- 
 beck. "I love and honor the glorious man as I 
 love and honor none besides," he writes to his 
 uncle, " I met him with a full heart ; he recognized 
 it, and thought it worth his while to occupy himself 
 with my inner being." 
 
 The families of Jacobi and Claudius were inti- 
 mately acquainted, and it was thus that Per- 
 thes first met Caroline, then in her twenty-third 
 year. 
 
24 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 Soon after lie was invited, with Jacobi, to spend 
 Christmas eve at the hoiise of a friend. Among 
 the guests Perthes found Claudius and his whole 
 family. Before the entertainment commenced acci- 
 dent threw him alone with Caroline, in a side-room. 
 He had not a word to say, but experienced a calm 
 and a happiness vv^hich he had never felt before. 
 The Christmas games began, but he had eyes for 
 nothing but the expression of quiet pleasure which 
 beamed in Caroline's face. In his opinion the best 
 that the evening offered was hers by right, and 
 yet her younger sister's gift seemed better than 
 hers. On the topmc^t branch of the Christmas- 
 tree hung an apple, finer and more richly gilt than 
 any; he dexterously reached it, and, blushing deep- 
 ly, presented it, to the no small surprise of the 
 company, to the conscious Carohne. From that 
 evening things went on between them as they go 
 on between those who are destined to share the 
 joys and sorrows of life together as husband and 
 wife. "Indeed," said Klopstock, the poet, as he 
 was returning with Perthes from the silver-wedding 
 of Claudius in March, " you young people are quite 
 unconscious of the love that we have long seen in 
 you both!" Perthes was, however, well aware of 
 the affection which was daily gTov»dng stronger, but 
 
BETROTHAL AND MAREIAGE. 25 
 
 felt the distance between Claudius and himself 
 too great to venture an approach, save through the 
 mediation of Jacobi and his sisters. 
 
 " Thank God, my dear Perthes !" wrote Helena 
 Jacobi, " you are tridy loved, and inasmuch as my 
 courage is as great as yours is small, I see a pros- 
 pect of great happiness for you. I could not hear 
 anything yesterday from Caroline herself, for I did 
 not find her one minute alone; but I ascertained 
 from her mother enough to inspire me with great 
 confidence, and Carohne looked so friendly that 
 it was clear she had something pleasant in her 
 thoughts." . <K 
 
 A few days later, Perthes applied to Caroline in 
 person. "How can I ever forget," he afterwards 
 wrote, " that day of deep emotion in which I reveal- 
 ed my love to you! Silent and motionless you 
 stood before me; not a word had you to say to 
 me, but as I was sorrowfully turning to leave you, 
 you affectionately put your hand in mine." 
 
 Caroline's love was frankly confessed and pledg- 
 ed in the course of the evening, but to her father 
 the decision seemed a hasty one. Perthes had but 
 just entered his twenty-fifth year ; his business pros- 
 pects were still uncertain. More than all, Claudius 
 felt a father's unwillingness to part from a beloved 
 
26 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 daughter. Wliile he did not oppose the union, he 
 dechned giving his formal consent. 
 
 But it was with httle uneasiness, on that ac- 
 count, that Perthes set out for Leipzig a few days 
 later. In vain he looked for letters from Caroline, 
 but at the end of a fortnight one came from her 
 father, which ran thus : 
 
 "Dear Mr. Perthes: We are glad to hear that 
 you arrived happily and safe, and that you are well 
 and mindful of us. Caroline has received and read 
 your letters from Brunswick and Leipzig, and 
 thanks you kindly for them. She would answer 
 them herself; but while the consent of her parents 
 is not formally given, she is not at liberty to open 
 her heart fully. It is better, therefore, that she 
 should postpone her answer till your return." 
 
 A letter from Helena Jacobi explained matters. 
 " Your Caroline said to her father, when he told her 
 not to reply as if his consent were already given : 
 * If I may not write all that is in my heart, I can- 
 not write at all; you must write and say why I 
 remain silent.' I pressed your dear Caroline more 
 closely to my heart than ever," adds Helena, " on 
 hearing this." 
 
 In a letter written by Perthes to friends in Ham- 
 burg, to inform them of his hopes, he says: ''My 
 
BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 27 
 
 soul craves somethmg that shall not pass away ; my 
 heart craves one who shall be all to me ; my spirit 
 desires some abiding good, and longs for union with 
 some other being — a union which shall endure even 
 when the world is shivered to atoms. Nothing but 
 love is greater and more enduring than the world. 
 If I can in any way be preserved, it is only through 
 Caroline ; in her I find peace and stability, devo- 
 tion and truth." 
 
 On the return of Perthes, at the end of May, 
 Claudius' formal consent was given. It was to the 
 Princess Gallitzin that Caroline first communicated 
 her happiness. " To you, my dear mother Amelie, 
 I must myself tell the news of my being a bride,^ 
 and a happy bride. This would at one time have 
 seemed to me impossible, even if you had assured 
 me of it; but my beloved Perthes has reconciled 
 me to the step. I know and feel its importance^ 
 for time and for eternity; but I believe that I 
 have taken it in accordance with the will of God, 
 and now can only close my eyes and entreat God's 
 blessing; and you, too, must pray for me, d«ar 
 princess. I can say, in all truth, that my Perthes 
 is a good man, who does not regard himself as com- 
 plete, but who knows and feels that he is not per- 
 
 * The title of bride is given in Germany at betrothal. 
 
28 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 feet; and I think, tlierefore, that he and I may 
 make common cause, and, by God's help, make 
 progress." 
 
 On the 15th of July, the betrothal, which in 
 Holstein is a church ceremony, was celebrated. 
 Shortly before the commencement of tbe service 
 the bride was reminded by the pastor, that after it 
 had taken place she was no longer free, and could 
 be released from her vows only by the Consistory. 
 "It is long since I took the step," she replied, 
 " from which I could be released neither by you 
 nor by the Consistory." 
 
 In the quiet of Caroline's maiden life, the bride- 
 like love grew stronger and deeper, and put even 
 bar tranquil nature in commotion. " Caroline would 
 fain act the philosophic bride," writes the daughter 
 of the Princess Gallitzin, "but in vain; her love 
 perpetually betrays itself, and I believe she dreams 
 of nothing but the letter P ; and if for a moment 
 she devotes herself to me, you well know who it is 
 that quickly comes and displaces me." 
 
 " Your brother Hans slanders you," wrote Per- 
 thes to Caroline. "He says that you can never 
 find anything you are looking for. Even if you 
 have this failing, it matters not, since once, although 
 not seeking, you yet found him who was seeking 
 
BETEOTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 29 
 
 the good angel of his hfe, and suffered yourself to 
 be found by him." 
 
 The second of August was the day fixed for the 
 wedding. On the previous day Perthes received 
 the last letter from Caroline as his betrothed 
 bride. "I have a great desire for a little black 
 cross," she writes, " and do n't know how better to 
 get it than through you, dear Perthes. And why 
 not? I have been to the pastor this morning. 
 The formula by which we are to be united, is 
 neither cold nor warm, neither old nor new — a 
 wretched neither one thing nor another. But it 
 will do us no harm, dear Perthes ; we will ask God 
 to bless us after the old fashion, and he will bless 
 us after the old fashion. I am thine, and trust in 
 God that I shall find it to be for my happiness." 
 
 In the first years of their married life, the diver- 
 sity of their minds and habits was to be brought 
 into strong relief. 
 
 "While Perthes was eminently fitted for an active 
 sphere, by his natural temperament and the strug- 
 gles through which he had passed, Caroline, who 
 had lived a life wholly from within, shrank from all 
 contact with the outer world, and believed the great 
 duty of man to consist in withdrawing as much as 
 possible from everything worldly. She could not, 
 
30 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 therefore, fail to be disturbed wlien she left her 
 quiet home, and experienced on all sides an infi- 
 nite number of new impressions. ^'A thousand 
 times," she writes to her husband, " has my soul 
 spoken out and told me that I am no longer what 
 I was. Formerly God always held me by the hand 
 and led me in all my ways, and I never forgot him ; 
 now I see him afar off with an outstretched arm, 
 that I am unable to grasp. This must not be always 
 so, for the heart could not endure such a prospect. 
 But I have made up my mind that it will be so 
 upon earth; and may God grant me the continu- 
 ance of this inward longing, and suffer me rather 
 to die of it, than to be content without it. There 
 are moments when I take courage again, but they 
 do not last, and it is no longer with me as it was 
 once." In another letter she says: "When you 
 are away, my beloved Perthes, I feel quite lonely 
 and forsaken. When you are not at my side to 
 support me, I am a picture of grief. Is it to con- 
 tinue? Ought it to be so? It was otherwise 
 once." 
 
 Her affection for her husband, however, was 
 strong, and in the depths of her soul she felt her 
 new position to be one of happiness and blessing. 
 On one occasion, a few weeks after her marriage, 
 
BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 31 
 
 when her father surprised her weeping in her room, 
 he exclaimed, "Did I not tell you that the first flush 
 of happiness would not last if you left your father 
 and mother?" 
 
 " And if I am to pass the rest of my life in weep- 
 ing," she instantly replied, " I should rejoice that I 
 am to spend it with my Perthes." 
 
 But while Perthes did not attempt to force his 
 own mode of life upon Caroline, he steadily pursued 
 the path that seemed marked out as his. "I am 
 more than ever persuaded," he says, " that my des- 
 tiny is an active, masculine career — that I am a 
 man born to turn my own wheel with energy." 
 
 "Can you then indeed beheve," he wrote in 
 1799, " that my restless labors, my activity and en- 
 ergy, can be detrimental to you — to you, Caroline ? 
 You should rather thank God that he has enabled 
 me to take pleasure in things that might have been 
 a weariness and a burden to me. How could I 
 otherwise exist? Dear Caroline, I am not always 
 so good as you think me ; but in this respect I am 
 better. I have asked myself what I would do, if it 
 depended on me to remove you to a situation in 
 every respect congenial to your tastes ; whether to 
 a convent, or into the hands of a man who not only 
 loved you as I love you, but whose disposition and 
 
32 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 habits entirely coincided with your own. No, dear- 
 est Caroline, I could not do it. You must live with 
 me, or not live at all ; and, dearest wife, I know you 
 feel as I do." 
 
 ' But Perthes did not for a moment believe that 
 her nature demanded a withdrawal from the world. 
 On the contrary, he thought that a character like 
 hers should show itself as an example. " BeHeve 
 me," he wrote, "I understand you and your present 
 feelings thoroughl5^ While you lived in your father's 
 house you maintained, it is true, a constant walk 
 with God. You had but one thought and but one 
 path. But then your walk with God was the walk 
 of a child, who knew sin and the world and life not 
 at all, or only by name ; still there was a unity in 
 your existence. Now, simply because you are in 
 the world, this condition must be disturbed. I have 
 torn you from that childlike life, and brought you 
 into the bustle of the world ; you recognized in me 
 an honest heart, full of love for you ; but you have 
 also seen in me and in yourself the sin of mankind. 
 For a while, but it was not long, your love for me 
 concealed all this. Now you can no longer walk so 
 confiding as formerly with the Unseen, and He no 
 longer speaks to you as before. You are perplexed, 
 and would gladly regain the purity and simplicity of 
 
BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 33 
 
 the child, and are unable to bring order and unity 
 into your thoughts. My dear Caroline, the want 
 which you feel is entirely the offspring of your own 
 imagination. You have, pious child, ardent faith 
 in your heart, and in your mind entire subjection to 
 the higher decrees of conscience ; but where others 
 would be contented and at peace, you are full of care 
 and anxiety, because you would fain lead again the 
 undisturbed and simple life of childhood, and can- 
 not. Here on earth man has but a changing and 
 unsettled existence ; he does not all live in any sin- 
 gle minute, but only a part of himseK. The only 
 things of value are love and truth ; but would you, 
 therefore, disregard all besides ? Would you live 
 apart from everything? But even if you were to 
 withdrav/ to some retirement, where no sorrow, no 
 disquiet could reach you, you would become cold if 
 you loved only the Highest and no other object; 
 and coldness is always a horrible thing. Now we 
 are not to drift away from the world. God demands 
 not sacrifice of the natural ties, but the submission 
 of our will to his. The sorrow and annoyances 
 which may be our lot in the world where he has 
 placed us, we should bear with inward tranquillity, 
 rather than seek to escape from them." 
 
 " Caroline does not find life easy," said Perthes 
 
 Obiist In Ger, ilome. 5 
 
84 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 to a friend. " In spite of her calm temper, and her 
 rich and lively fancy, she finds it hard to have to do 
 with the ever-changing and finite things of the world 
 and time. And yet, when I see her holding fast by 
 her inward life, in spite of the annoyances which the 
 tumult and distractions of her daily existence too 
 often cause her, and also fulfilling the outward 
 duties of her position in a manner so self-denying, 
 kind, and noble, she imparts strength to me, and 
 becomes truly my guiding angeh" 
 
 " Tavo creatures more different than Caroline and 
 myself in culture and tendency, it would have been 
 hard to find," said Perthes, later ; " and yet, in the 
 first hour of our acquaintance, CaroHne recognized 
 what there was of worth in me, and loved me ; and 
 in spite of all that she subsequently discovered in 
 my character that was opposed to her own modes 
 of thought and life, her confidence has remained 
 unshaken and unalterable. I, on my part, soon 
 perceived her love, and at once apprehended the 
 true and noble nature, the lofty spirit, the life-hero- 
 ism, the humility of heart, and the pure piety which 
 now constitute the happiness and blessing of my 
 life." 
 
THE BUSINESS AND THE FAMILY. 
 
 I^^HE commercial crisis whicli occurred in 
 ^ the year 1799, brought with it anxiety 
 and perplexity to Perthes ; but again his 
 friends stood ready to advance what- 
 ever capital might be needed. 
 With the hope of extending his business and 
 establishing in Hamburg and elsewhere a medium 
 of literary intercourse for all European nations, he 
 associated with him John Henry Besser, who from 
 this period may be regarded as his truest and most 
 confidential friend. Shortly after, by marriage with 
 Perthes' sister, he became a much-loved brother. 
 
 Besser was one of those charming persons in 
 whose society every one is happy. Prepossessing 
 in appearance, quick in his sympathies, and ever 
 ready to meet the want of oihers, he was the recip- 
 
36 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 ient of mucli affection. Children lie attracted as 
 tlie magnet attracts iron, and could scarcely defend 
 himself from their demonstrations. In all circum- 
 stances he acted with the purest integrity, and it 
 seemed to him impossible that a man should speak 
 contrary to his convictions. During the occupation 
 of Hamburg by the French, he would wdth alarming 
 naivet6 tell the plainest truths to the officers and 
 functionaries; and yet, strange to say, he enjoyed 
 their confidence. 
 
 "It would be hard to find in any individual 
 bookseller," said Perthes, at a later period, " so 
 extensive a knowledge as Besser possesses of the 
 most celebrated books in all languages ; and there 
 is no one who knows so well as he does where to 
 find them." 
 
 So great was the confidence inspired by Perthes, 
 that numerous families in the northwest of Germa- 
 ny periodically employed him to select the works 
 he thought best suited to their characters and 
 tastes. It w^as impossible for him in his relations 
 with men to be actuated by any mercenary consid- 
 erations. " I can forgive anything but selfishness," 
 he once wTote ; " even the narrowest circumstances 
 admit of greatness with reference to mine and 
 thine." 
 
THE BUSINESS AND THE FAMILY. 37 
 
 His family circle afforded a resting-place from 
 the anxious cares of business, and stimulated him 
 to greater energy. " You have penetrated into the ' 
 profoundest recesses of my being," he writes to his 
 wife. "There is no moment of my existence in 
 which you are not with me, in me, and before me ; 
 and all I see, feel, and observe, I seem to see, feel, 
 and observe only for your sake. 
 
 "During my bachelor Hfe, when one affection 
 used to give place to another, when I first knew 
 you, my only aim was to conquer, to please. I 
 sought only myself — was always /. But now in you 
 I have lost myself; without you I am nothing, I 
 have nothing — am to myself nothing." 
 
 " Dear child, dear CaroHne," he says in another 
 letter, "I am exactly like our Bishop Kasper; I 
 would without interruption cry, 'Love, love ! nothing 
 but love !' When I rise in the morning I ask, ' Why 
 should I? My Caroline is not here.' When I am 
 at work I am thinking only of my return to you ; 
 and, alas! you are not here, and I have no home, no 
 place of rest. If at evening I have done the day's 
 work, and would assume a happy face — ah! for 
 whom? — my heart is not here." 
 
 On the 28th of May, 1798, his daughter Agnes 
 was bom ; on the 16th of January, 1800, a son, Mat- 
 
38 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 tliias; on the lOtli of January, 1802, a daughter, 
 Louisa ; and on the 25th of February, 1804, another 
 daughter, Matilda. 
 
 Joys and troubles, which are found in every fam- 
 ily, become, wherever there are children, a means of 
 education to the parents. Caroline's maternal love 
 caused morbid self-examinations to give place to 
 healthy action. Increasing household cares, the 
 influe^nce of her husband, and varied intercourse 
 with men of the most opposite character, further 
 tended to bring out her capabilities, and to make 
 her move freely in the world, so that, amid a variety 
 of external circumstances, she was enabled to pre- 
 serve an inward calm and self-control. She retain- 
 ed, indeed, to the end of her days, a desire after a 
 life of unruffled tranquillity — a longing which would 
 occasionally dispose her to melancholy. 
 
 "It is still the old story," she writes to the 
 countess Sophie Stolberg : " I desire much, and can 
 do but very little;" and again to her husband, on 
 the day after his departure on a journey: "Agnes 
 sends you word, she hopes you will cross the water 
 safely, and is anxious — my daughter ; Matthias only 
 desires to know how his rocking-horse is, and is 
 happy — thy son." Notwithstanding the continued 
 longing for a life of outward repose, she had in the 
 
THE BUSINESS AND THE FAMILY. 39 
 
 first ten years of marriage attained to a measure of 
 fi-eedom, self-command, and tranquillity, which, 
 when subsequently threatened with the loss of prop- 
 erty, family, and all external happiness, she main- 
 tained with true womanly heroism. 
 
 She was now no longer disquieted, as she had 
 been at first, by the influence of her husband's po- 
 sition and mode of life. " I have just looked out 
 into the night and thought of thee," she once wrote 
 to the absent Perthes. " It is a glorious night, and 
 the stars are glittering above me, and if in thy car- 
 riage one appears brighter than the rest, think that 
 it showers down upon thee love and kindness from 
 me, and no sadness ; for I am not unhappy when 
 you are absent. Yet I am certain this does not 
 proceed from any diminution of affection. If I 
 could only show how I feel towards you, it would 
 give you joy ; after all I may say or write, it is still 
 unexpressed, and far short of the living love which 
 I carry in my heart. If you could but apprehend 
 me without words, you would understand me better." 
 
 "What you have now," wrote Caroline to a 
 newly-married friend, " is only a foretaste, and it 
 will every day increase. At least, the merciful God 
 has so ordered it for me these six years, and my 
 eyes overflow as I think of it." 
 
40 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 " My beloved Perthes," she writes a year later, 
 on the anniversary of the day on which he had de- 
 clared his attachment ; " this is the thirtieth of 
 April, and it is just nine o'clock. Do you remem- 
 ber this very moment, seven years ago to-day ? I 
 thank God, from the bottom of my heart, for having 
 made you think of me. I have just come from 
 looking at the children, who are already in bed, and 
 while I gazed on them I had you in my heart ; thus 
 although you are so far away we are still united. I 
 bless the happy moment, in which seven years ago 
 you looked on me, and said ' I love you.' Yes, my 
 ever-beloved Perthes, I thank God and I thank 
 you, for our happiness. May God continue to be 
 with us and with our children, and preserve us to a 
 peaceful and blessed end." 
 
 In a letter to Caroline, written after a night of 
 travel, Perthes says, " To-night as the stars spark- 
 led, and life with its joys and sorrows lay reposing 
 in slumber below, while I alone watched and was 
 conscious that the good God was also watching 
 over all his children in the scattered cottages 
 around, I was so overcome by my happiness, that 
 I burst into tears ; and it was remarkable that just 
 at this moment the starlight fell upon a crucifix 
 placed on an eminence among some poplars." 
 
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 'OR a long time Perthes had enjoyed 
 the friendship of Klopstock, the cele- 
 brated poet. In 1803, he died, deeply 
 lamented by the German people. As 
 his body was borne from the church to the 
 grave, a chorus of young girls sang, " To rise again, 
 yes, to rise again !" 
 
 The Princess Gallitzin, till her death, kept up 
 her correspondence with Caroline; and notwith- 
 standing her difference of creed — for she was a 
 Catholic — stood godmother to Perthes' eldest son, 
 Klopstock and Claudius being godfathers. Caro- 
 line, on her part, preserved her affection and rever- 
 ence for the princess. In 1806, on hearing of her 
 fatal illness, she wrote, " No one ever made so deep 
 
 and lasting an impression on me as she ; and from 
 
 6 
 
42 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 the first moment of our meeting, she has been, I 
 may say, my guide to God." 
 
 She was indeed an extraordinary womau. At 
 the age of twenty-four she withdrew from a con- 
 stant round of gayeties, to give up her time to the 
 study of languages, mathematics, Greek Hterature 
 and Platonic philosophy. During a severe illness, 
 she was alarmed by the discovery that she was a 
 slave to literary ambition. Upon her recovery she 
 earnestly devoted herself to the study of the Scrip- 
 tures in the Latin version, and to the religious in- 
 struction of her children. The truths of Christian- 
 ity penetrated her heart, and with her dazzling 
 talents was linked the faith of a httle child. A small 
 but highly gifted circle gathered around this re- 
 markable woman, among whom were Goethe, Her- 
 der, and Lavater. 
 
 In 1806 she died. " The last few hours," writes 
 Bishop Karper to Perthes, "were hours of severe 
 suffering, yet rich in mercy. She met her end with 
 perfect consciousness, committing herself entirely 
 to God, and thus her beautiful, purified, sanctified 
 soul departed in the most blessed and intimate 
 union with Christ. A beautiful death, dear Perthes ; 
 pray especially for her beloved daughter that God 
 may give her grace." 
 
CHEISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 43 
 
 "You believe as I do," lie says in another letter, 
 "in the necessity of illumination and grace from 
 above, and that is everything. I am sure you can- 
 not rest on your present stand-point. The striving 
 and hastening after truth, which characterizes you, 
 and the need you must feel of some firm footing, 
 cannot continue; for, dear Perthes, we are not 
 searching for the truth; we have it. This only is 
 our task and our duty, to show our faith by a real 
 Christian walk, in all we do or leave undone." 
 
 Bat it was only after long and deep struggles, 
 that Perthes received the truth, in its simplicity, 
 into his heart. For a long time he had tried to 
 make philosophy take the place of religion ; to bring 
 his will into subjection to laws fixed by the under- 
 standing. Then he had hoped for guidance in the 
 feelings of his own heart, purified and perfected by 
 Art. He had striven to elevate the physical into 
 harmony with the spiritual, but all in vain. He at 
 last perceived that the love of God was not a spon- 
 taneous growth of intellectual culture ; he was con- 
 scious of a strong alienation from God, which it 
 seemed impossible to overcome by any human 
 means. 
 
 "My internal anxiety," he writes to Caroline, 
 " calls for some one who in my stead gives satisfac- 
 
44: CHEIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 tion ; and undefined feelings come across me, wliicli 
 seek after a God, lolio, as man, has felt the agony of 
 man. I have leaned upon many a staff that has 
 given way, and have seen many a star fall from 
 heaven. What is true, is given to us in science, but 
 not The Truth." 
 
 A long struggle followed. Holy Scripture now 
 appeared to his soul in all its majesty, and Claudi- 
 us was by his side to aid and encourage. Their 
 personal intercourse had been continually growing 
 more intimate and confidential, and Claudius' tract, 
 "A Father's Simple Instructions about the Chris- 
 tian Eehgion," which appeared in 1803, made a 
 deep impression upon his son-in-law; and he 
 reached a certainty of conviction and a repose of 
 mind which he had never before known. " You ask 
 how it fares with me," he says. "I hnoio what 
 truth is, I Imow what man is, and what he shall be ; 
 I know how to estimate the world ; I hiow that the 
 richer a man becomes, the poorer he is in the world. 
 I thank God for this knowledge, and especially for 
 the consciousness that I am a poor sinner, and in 
 myself helpless and comfortless. Those men are a 
 problem to me who seek satisfaction in themselves, 
 and, if unsuccessful, try to find it in one fruit after 
 another, in the hope of being satisfied at last, and 
 
CHRISTIAN EXPEEIENCE. 45 
 
 are never awakened to the alarming consciousness 
 that the sap is not there. So long as a man does 
 not feel that he is a poor sinner, and deficient in all 
 that God requires of him, he will never be recon- 
 ciled to Him Christianity is a free-gift investi- 
 ture, and in Christianity all is given by the grace 
 of God and received by love." 
 
 It was through anxiety and labor and after 
 many wanderings, that Perthes had won his way 
 to the saving truths of Christianity; but he had 
 won them as part and parcel of his life. And when, 
 after many years, he lay upon his death-bed, they 
 filled his whole soul, and had power to take its 
 sting from death. 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 HE enthiisiasm with which Perthes, as 
 a very young man, had regarded the 
 progress of Napoleon, was changed 
 into the bitterest hostihty when war 
 was declared against the German Empire. 
 On the 20th of October, 1805, the Austrian army 
 was surrendered to the French. The battle of Aus- 
 terlitz was fought on the 2d of December, and on 
 the 2Gth of the same month the luckless peace of 
 Presburg was concluded. 
 
 In July, 1806, was formed the Confederation of 
 the Ehine, which destroyed the very form of the 
 German Empire. The disastrous battle of Jena 
 followed, and on the 19th of November the French 
 .took possession of Hamburg. 
 
 Immediately after, all intercourse with England 
 
NAPOLEON. 47 
 
 was forbidden on pain of death ; all English prop- 
 erty declared forfeited; and all goods purchased 
 from English dealers, although paid for, were de- 
 manded from the owners, and trade was allowed to 
 be carried on only under the restraint of a system 
 of certificates. Owing to the general insolvency 
 which followed the issue of the French regulations, 
 Perthes' personal losses involved all that ten years 
 of toil and anxiety had realized. In Mecklenburg 
 alone, he reckoned his losses at twenty thousand 
 marks; but his courage and hopefulness did not 
 desert him. 
 
 Many received these changes with apathy ; oth- 
 ers gave up all as lost. But not so Perthes, who 
 beheved that much might be done to preserve the 
 German nationality, and was unceasing in his efforts 
 to arouse a spirit of patriotism. " What are we yet 
 to pass through ?" he writes. " What sufferings, 
 what indignities, what degradation are still in store 
 for Germany, and for the world? And yet what 
 opportunities Providence offers to men who have 
 energy ! . . . . I am not dispirited, and will not be ; 
 free German hearts will not be wanting, and God 
 will take care of the rest." 
 
 "Events have outgrown all political calculation,'* 
 says Muller in reply. " All customary expedients 
 
48 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 fail, and there is no appearance of help from any 
 quarter. God must remove one man or raise up a 
 greater, or bring about something yet quite unfore- 
 seen. I no longer feel either indignation or fear; 
 the scene has become too solemn. The Ancient of 
 Days is sitting in judgment ; the books are opened, 
 and the nations and their rulers are weighed in the 
 balance. "What v>^ill be the end ? A new order of 
 things is in preparation, very different from what is 
 imagined by those who are the blind instruments of 
 its establishment. That which now is, is not abi- 
 ding ; that which was, will hardly be restored ; and 
 the difference will not consist in the mere substitu- 
 tion of Corsican rule for that of some weakling of 
 Italy, Germany, or Sclavonia." 
 
 But as the political horizon darkened the dearer 
 became Perthes' home. Plis four children were 
 strong and healthy, and on the 23d of January, 
 1806, another son, John, was added to the number, 
 and on the 15th of September, 1807, a daughter, 
 Dorothea. Sorrow for the first time found its way 
 into the family circle in the death of this infant, 
 three months later. " Dear mother," wrote Caroline 
 immediately after, " God has taken my angel gently 
 and calmly to himself. I thank our Heavenly 
 Father that he has heard my prayer, and taken my 
 
NAPOLEON. 49 
 
 darling child without pain. She looks so peaceful 
 that we must be so too." 
 
 Perthes had, as we have seen, sustained heavy 
 losses in 1806; but the excitement of the times, 
 which left so many houses in anxious suspense, 
 afforded to his bold and active spirit opportunities 
 of extending his business. He could say with truth, 
 " No one in Hamburg has anything to do, but my 
 business is more active than ever." His library was 
 now regarded as the finest in North Germany ; and 
 Niebuhr had sportively called him " the king of the 
 booksellers from the Ems to the Baltic." 
 
 *' I am, indeed, singularly happy," he writes in 
 1807, " for one who has so restless a career allotted 
 him. Much love, many friends, many children, 
 much labor, much business, much to please, much 
 to displease me, much anxiety, and little gold; 
 moreover, a dozen Spaniards in the house, and for 
 the last nine days three gens d'armes to boot, who 
 drive me almost to distraction." 
 
 To shut himself up within the happy and attrac- 
 tive circle of his family and his business, was not, 
 however, in Perthes' nature, which led him to take 
 a lively interest in those events commanding the 
 attention of the civilized world. Of Napoleon he 
 writes: "Napoleon, the ruler of the world, is a 
 
 Chi iBt in Oer, Bomr. 1 
 
50 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 unity, and is secure and firm in liimseif, as no other 
 is, because, . more than any other, he seeks only 
 himself; and, like no other, he is a devil incarnate, 
 because, like no other, he has made himself his 
 god." 
 
 To this demonlike man he believed the world 
 given over by God — not so to continue, but that, 
 through suffering, even of the most dreadful kind, 
 the paralyzed energy of goodness might be resus- 
 citated. " All that was," he says, "is ruined. What 
 new edifice will rise on the ruins I know- not ; but 
 the most fearful result of all would be the restoration 
 of the old enfeebled times. By a practical path of 
 suffering God is leading us to a new order of things ; 
 the game cannot be played backward, therefore on- 
 ward must be the word. Let that which cannot 
 stand, fall. Nothing can escape the crisis, and it is 
 some consolation to see that events are greater than 
 the circumstances that called them forth. He who 
 would now turn the wheel backward cares only for 
 repose, comfort, and private happiness. We should 
 rather consider ourselves to be the growth of the 
 epoch; and who could expect to compress the be- 
 ginning and end of such a revolution into one life- 
 time?" 
 
 Despairing of external help, Perthes centred 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 51 
 
 all his hopes for the German people m their unity. 
 "Our first object must be," he writes, "to arouse 
 the national German feeling, and to keep it alive." 
 Once aroused to action he knew no retreat. "And 
 I thank God," he says, " that I have a wife who 
 shares my feelings, and who, if it come to the worst, 
 will not shake my courage. He who has in him 
 any element of intellect or power, of greatness or 
 passion, cannot but turn his attention to what is 
 now passing around him, in order, so far as he can, 
 to influence the direction of events. He who has 
 only an inward life in these times has no life at 
 aU." 
 
 ^m^ 
 
QA 
 
 VII. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 |AMBUKG had been successively occu- 
 pied by French, Italian, Dutch, Span- 
 '^ Ip ish, or German legions under Napole- 
 on's generals. Externally every form 
 of independence was gone. More than three 
 hundred vessels were lying unrigged in the harbor, 
 and trade was incalculably diminished. The peo- 
 ple were given up to the unprecedented extortions 
 and shameless exactions of the French. 
 
 In 1809 Austria was again defeated by Napo- 
 leon, and the peace of Vienna signed. 
 
 Perthes regarded it as the right and duty of 
 every German to arouse and strengthen, by every 
 possible means, the hatred and exasperation of the 
 Germans against the oppressor. With this aim in 
 view, he established, in 1810, a new scientific and 
 
PATRIOTISM. 53 
 
 literary journal, called the "National Museum." 
 He hoped that through this medium an unsuspect- 
 ed alliance might be formed of the intellectual lead- 
 ers of Germany. When the right time came, the 
 scientific alliance was to be transformed into a 
 political one. Jean Paul, Fouqu^,"^ Claudius, and 
 other eminent men, cooperated with him and con- 
 tributed to its pages. The labor involved in editing 
 this paper, added to other cares and duties, almost 
 exceeded the limits of human strength. 
 
 Joys and sorrows in the family, too, added to his 
 anxieties. On the 2d of March, 1809, his son Clem- 
 ent was born, and on the 4th of April, 1810, his 
 daughter Eleonora ; while his second son, Johannes, 
 a lively and promising boy, had been removed by 
 death on the 18th of December, 1809. " His heart 
 was overflowing with love and merriment," wrote 
 Caroline, " so that he was our joy and delight. We 
 yearn after him, and cannot yet beHeve that we 
 must continue our pilgrimage without him ; we have 
 but a melancholy pleasure in the blessings that God 
 has left us." 
 
 In July, 1810, Perthes and Caroline, with their 
 four elder children, visited the loved Schwartzburg 
 home. "Would that I could describe to you the 
 
 * Author of Undine. 
 
64 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 grandeur, tlie beauty, the loveliness of this count r}-," 
 wrote Caroline to her mother; "but words can con- 
 vey no idea of it. I thank God that we are capa- 
 ble of feeling more than we can express; speech is 
 but a poor thing when we are in earnest. The hills 
 and valleys of Thuringia impress one just in the 
 right way. I love them, and shall remember them 
 with affection while I live. It is too much, I some- 
 times think, and one has no power to repress the 
 excitement which this scenery stirs in the heart. In 
 our flat coimtry we cannot attain to such a height 
 of joy in the Lord of this glorious nature, or to such 
 intense gratitude towards him, as is possible in the 
 midst of scenes like these ; and I consider it as a 
 gift that the good God has permitted me to see all 
 this while yet on earth. The valley of Schwartz- 
 burg surpasses all the rest. There is an inconceiv- 
 able wealth of mingled grandeur and beauty about 
 it, which rivets the spectator to the spot, and com- 
 pels him to stretch out his arms in adoration of the 
 Creator and Sustainer of all this wondrous work. 
 On the one side are vast masses of rock, piled one 
 upon another ; on the other, hills of surpassing love- 
 liness, adorned with meadows, houses, men and cat- 
 tle ; in the midst of all the Schwarza rims clear and 
 sparkling, rushing and roaring bravely, far below in 
 
PATRIOTISM. 55 
 
 the hollow. Our reception was very agreeable. We 
 had left the carriage, and were walking towards 
 Schwartzburg ; suddenly, from behind the rock, the 
 lieutenant-colonel made his appearance and caught 
 Perthes in his arms. My beloved Perthes, thus dis- 
 turbed in the tranquil current of his thoughts, forgot 
 nature, like the rest of us, in the pleasure of the reun- 
 ion. This lieutenant-colonel is a fine, vigorous, frank, 
 and very dear old man, and I like him very much 
 alread}'. When we had walked a few paces farther 
 wo came to a broad, flat rock, on which a breakfast, 
 brought in his own game-bag, was spread. He was 
 quite overjoyed, and never weary of recounting the 
 pleasure ho had experienced long ago in walking 
 tours and fowling expeditions with Perthes. A lit- 
 tle farther on we met the other uncle witli his troop 
 of children. We packed the little folks into the 
 carriage, and walked slowly after it. The very 
 depths of my soul are stirred when I perceive the 
 gi'eat and general happiness which the return of my 
 Perthes has diffused. He is like a child with do- 
 light, and I thank God he has let me live to see this 
 time. They live tlie past over, and are all twenty 
 years younger." 
 
 After a stay of a few weeks, Perthes proceeded 
 with his wife and children to Gotlia, the home of 
 
56 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 Justus Perthes, his uncle. " Here, too," wrote 
 Carohne, "we were received with inexpressible 
 kindness, but our dear Thuringian hills are now 
 -only seen in the distance. The children long for 
 the freedom of the woods, and to speak the truth, 
 so do I ; and it is with difficulty that I can conceal 
 my feelings. We had quite forgotten the French in 
 our beloved woods ; but here we are daily reminded 
 of them. For months, cannon of enormous calibre 
 have been passing through the town from Dantzig 
 and Magdeburg, on their way to Paris. Ah ! here 
 we have the world and artificial Hfe, with all their 
 annoyances, continually suggested to us; there is 
 no place like hills and woods for forgetting our- 
 selves, and all our wants and infirmities." 
 
 Soon after their return to Hamburg the decision 
 of the French Senate was announced. The Hanse- 
 towns, with the whole northwest of Germany, were 
 henceforward to be considered as forming a part of 
 the French empire. Perthes, finding the impossi- 
 bility of carrying out his original object, in the form 
 which it had up to this time assumed, gave up the 
 National Museum. 
 
 The French yoke pressed heavily upon Prussia. 
 In Hamburg it was no less galHng. Trade and 
 shipping were annihilated. The once proud and 
 
PATEIOTISM. 57 
 
 happy city now presented the appearance of com- 
 plete decay. Harsh regulations were enforced with 
 heartless brutality, and the inhabitants of Hamburg 
 had not even the consolation of feehng themselves 
 free from annoyance in their own houses ; and when 
 towards the end of the summer of 1812, the Gazette 
 announced victory after victory of the Grand Ar- 
 mee in Russia, all hope of deliverance, or even of 
 alleviation, seemed to be at an end, and no man 
 dared to attach any credit to the faint rumors of 
 misfortune and defeat which were subsequently 
 whispered. 
 
 In gloomy and desperate dejection the citizens 
 were preparing to celebrate the Christmas festival, 
 when, on the 24:th of December, to the surprise of 
 all, the publication of the twenty-ninth bulletin con- 
 firmed, beyond any possibility of doubt, the tidings 
 of the total annihilation of the French host. A 
 wonder had been wrought, and a star of hope had 
 appeared, which rekindled life and spirit in every 
 oppressed heart. Such a Christmas-eve was kept 
 in Hamburg as had not been known for many a 
 long year. 
 
 The burning of Moscow awakened new hopes of 
 
 freedom. On the 2 2d of February, 1813, Hamburg 
 
 was thrown into great excitement on account of a 
 
 8 
 
58 CHKIST IN A GEPwMAN HOME. 
 
 false rumor of the approach of the Kussians. " Yes- 
 terday morning," wrote Caroline to her father, 
 "there were Cossacks at Perleberg, seventy-six 
 miles from this. Ah ! that I had a thousand voices 
 to sing Benedidus qui venit ! The city is all ahve, 
 and assuredly some great step is about to be 
 taken." 
 
 Two days later the citizens rose simultaneously, 
 in different parts of the city, attacked and demol- 
 ished the guard-house, and proceeding tumultu- 
 ously, tore down the French eagles wherever they 
 found them, with shouts of triumph. The Mayor 
 appeared, but was pelted back with stones, and the 
 house of a particularly obnoxious French police- 
 officer was torn down by the mob. No theft was 
 committed ; the French only w^ere sought for. 
 
 " There is no longer an eagle to be seen in the 
 city," wTote Caroline to her father; "the tumult in 
 the streets grows louder, God be praised." 
 
 At nightfall the mob dispersed, leaving the 
 French, though dispirited and full of apprehension, 
 still in possession of the city. 
 
 Soon after a large number of the citizens enrolled 
 themselves into companies, to be ready for action 
 when the right time should come. The five cap- 
 tains asseml:)led at the house of Perthes, to master 
 
PATRIOTISM. 59 
 
 tlie manual exercise which they were afterwards to 
 teach the men. Some days of restless excitement 
 followed. 
 
 The French, however, aware of the growing 
 spirit of discontent, and the approach of the Rus- 
 sians, considered their position untenable, and much 
 to the delight of the citizens, evacuated Hamburg 
 on the 12th of March. 
 
 A siege was soon after threatened, but was 
 averted by the arrival of Danish and Russian 
 troops at Bergedorf, a village within a few hours' 
 march of Hamburg. On the evening of the 16th, 
 a flying party of thirteen Cossacks rode for an 
 hour through the streets of Hamburg. "As the 
 detachment approached the cit}^" wrote Benecke 
 to Perthes, "the guard turned out, and our cap- 
 tain, with eight men, myself being one of them, 
 advanced towards the Russians. At a signal from 
 him, the Russian officer commanded a halt, and our 
 captain delivered the keys of the city to him, with 
 these words : ' Here are the keys of the free Hanse- 
 town of Hamburg — long live Russia and Germany ; 
 hurrah !' The shouts taken up by thousands after 
 thousands, rendered the German reply of the Rus- 
 sian officer, who received the keys with dignified 
 bearing and cordial friendliness, inaudible. The 
 
60 ■ CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 rejoicing passed description. German ! Eussian I 
 Cossack ! Alexander ! were the only intelligible 
 cries, and tears stood in many eyes. Dear Perthes, 
 it was a moment to be held in everlasting remem- 
 brance." 
 
 On the morning of the 19th the Eussians enter- 
 ed the city. The streets were filled with crowds of 
 happy citizens, anxious to behold with their own 
 eyes those wild horsemen of another world, who 
 had hitherto been known to them only in nursery- 
 tales. "My dear papa," wrote Caroline, a few 
 hours before their arrival, "how can I give you 
 any idea of the universal joy of old and young,, 
 rich and poor, bad and good ? To have seen, and 
 heard, and felt it, is, indeed, a thing to be thankful 
 for. I will not inquire into the causes of the joy, 
 but its expression was unspeakably grand, and it 
 appears to spring from a good and pure source. 
 An advanced guard of thirteen Cossacks entered 
 the city yesterday evening, with long flowing man- 
 tles, and adorned with the spoils of the French — at 
 any rate, adorned with parts of the French military 
 dress. Every throat was strained to welcome them, 
 and every heart thanked God in heaven, and the 
 Eussians on earth. Never, dear papa, have I seen 
 such a union of hearts; the feelings of thousanJij 
 
PATRIOTISM. 61 
 
 all centred in one point. Aii! could we but so 
 centre ourselves in the best point of all, what a glo- 
 rious church we should form ! The Cossacks ad- 
 vanced at a gallop, their lances lowered, and waving 
 tlieir caps, and looking wonderfully honest and 
 friendly. People who were yesterday quite de- 
 sponding, are to-day full of hope and courage. If 
 the depths of the soul were more frequently stirred, 
 it could not but be attended with good results." 
 
 About noon the Cossacks entered the city amid 
 wildest shouts of welcome, and all the sorrows of 
 the past and the dangers of the future seemed 
 merged in the happiness of the present. And yet, 
 scarcely a German mile off, lay the enemy, who 
 might, in the course of a few hours, fill the city 
 with blood and desolation. To him who wander- 
 ed through the streets in the summer warmth of 
 that spring evening, the city presented a strange 
 spectacle. Everywhere profound stillness and the 
 calm of security reigned; there was neither watch 
 nor guard, not even a policeman to be seen. The 
 moon shone brightly on the houses with theii* sleep- 
 ing inhabitants, and completed the picture of peace 
 and tranquillity. The joy-wearied city had com- 
 mitted itself to the sole keeping of the Almighty. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE FRENCH IN HAMBURG. 
 
 yHE Kussian force which had entered 
 Hamburg was too small to enable the 
 citizens to feel secure from further at- 
 tacks of the French. Great prepara- 
 tions were therefore made to strengthen 
 the city, amid which Perthes appeared as 
 the leading spirit. 
 
 A week after the evacuation of the French, Da- 
 voust, at the head of six thousand men, advanced 
 to recapture the city, and without resistance made 
 himself master of Harburg on the opposite side of 
 the Elbe. Xfter desperate fighting the enemy ob- 
 tained possession of two of the islands near Ham- 
 burg, and on the 19th of May the bombardment 
 of the city began. 
 
 " Dear Caroline," wrote Perthes to his wife, who 
 had passed the night at Wandsbeck, "I implore 
 
THE FKENCH IN HAMBUEG. 63 
 
 you, from the deptlis of my soul, to be calm, and 
 place yourseK and me in the hands of God. Trust 
 me, and believe that whatever I do, I shall be able 
 to answer before Grod. The bombardment seems 
 more terrible than it is, and even if it should be 
 repeated, the damage will not be so great as one 
 would unagine : there is often more danger hidden 
 under common things." 
 
 Perthes now worked with indefatigable energy to 
 stimulate the courage and increase the steadfast- 
 ness of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 "From the 9th of May," wrote Caroline after- 
 wards, "Perthes had not undressed for one-and- 
 twenty nights, and during that period had never 
 lain down in bed. I was in daily anxiety for his 
 life. He was only occasionally, and that, half an 
 hour at a time, in the house. The three younger 
 children were at Waadsbeck, with my mother ; the 
 four elder were with me, because they could not 
 have been removed without force. I had no man on 
 the premises — all were on guard. People were con- 
 stantly coming in to eat and drink, for none of our 
 acquaintances kept house in the city. I had sacks 
 filled with straw in the large parlor; and there, night 
 and day, lay burghers, who came in by turns to snatch 
 a short repose. At the battle of Wilhelmsburg we 
 
64 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 lost our Weber and many of our friends. Day and 
 night I was on the balcony to see if Perthes oi any 
 of our relations were carried by among the wound- 
 ed. At the time when the cannonading was loud- 
 est, and the greatest terror and anxiety prevailed 
 lest the French should land, Perthes sent the re- 
 quest that I would instantly send him a certain small 
 box that lay on his writing-table. As I was running 
 down the stairs with the box in my hand, I felt sure 
 that it was filled with poison. I desired the mes- 
 senger to wait, and went to my room to decide what 
 I ought to do, for this great matter was thus com- 
 mitted to me. It was a dreadful moment. My 
 horror lest Perthes should fall alive into the hands 
 of the French overcame me, and it appeared to me 
 that God could not be angry with him for not will- 
 ing this ; and then the injustice of my deciding a 
 matter between him and his God seemed so great, 
 that with trembling hands and knees I in God's 
 name gave the box to the messenger. Many hours 
 elapsed before I heard anything farther. It ivas 
 poison, and poison prepared for the purpose I had 
 feared ; but not for Perthes, who assured me before 
 God that he should not have thought its use lawful, 
 and was displeased with me for having so misun- 
 derstood him." 
 
THE FRENCH 1^ HAMBURG. 65 
 
 Early in May, the conviction of the desperate 
 posture of affairs had forced itseK upon Perthes. 
 "How should, how can this end?" he WTote. " The 
 desire which we have to do our best is all we can 
 
 rely upon What avails courage, when there is 
 
 not one citizen among us who knows anything of 
 military movements, or even the use of arms, and 
 when no soldiers are sent to us with whom we 
 might incorporate ourselves ? If we had but three 
 battalions of burghers who could go through a mili- 
 tary drill and were good marksmen ; if we had but 
 a hundred young fellows who knew how to manage a 
 cannon, we might be saved, but now our preserva- 
 tion depends upon strangers." 
 
 All hope of foreign aid, however, was soon cut 
 off, and on the last of May it became known that 
 Tettenborn, the Russian commander, intended to 
 leave the city to its fate. 
 
 On the evening of the 28th of May, Perthes sent 
 away his wife and children to Wandsbeck. There 
 in the Danish territory they were safe from the 
 perils of war. In a letter of some weeks later date, 
 Caroline thus writes concerniug those sad days: 
 " You can form no conception of the anguish and 
 dismay, the hopes and fears of our last three weeks 
 in Hamburg. Mv heart is full, and I rejoice to be 
 
66 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 able to tell you liow much more kindness, truth and 
 fortitude we all evinced, than we supposed our- 
 selves capable of. We may speak of it now, for ii 
 has been proved by exposure to want and danger. 
 How heartily do I thank God for this experience ! 
 I never knew how strong w^e are when all concen- 
 trate their energies on one point. Dear Emily, I 
 never felt such a universal welling in one direction. 
 We were all elevated above small troubles and dif- 
 ficulties, and desired only the one thing needful, 
 and desired that wdth all our heart, each one in his 
 own way, and without any doubt of obtaining it. 
 The 28th of May, the birthday of my Agnes was 
 the last I spent in Hamburg ; then I bid farewell 
 to my dear sitting-room with a sad, and 3"et a 
 thankful heart. I had sent the beds and linen to 
 Wandsbeck some days before, and the rest of the 
 things I had either hidden or given away; the 
 larger pieces of furniture we wxre indeed obliged to 
 leave behind, because Perthes would not discour- 
 age the burghers by making them aware of our 
 preparations for escape." 
 
 Caroline had left the city but a few hours when 
 the firing recommenced. "The battle," wrote 
 Perthes, to his wife, " which began at two o'clock, 
 sfiil rages on Ochsenvrarden, and as far as w-e can 
 
THE FRENCH IN HAMBURG. 67 
 
 observe, tlie smoke becomes more and more dis<"ant. 
 "We hope the best, for it has already lasted five 
 hours." And again a little later, "We have no 
 certain tidings yet; the fight continues. Trust me 
 still, and believe that God is in my heart and be- 
 fore my eyes. How, in my circumstances, could I 
 act otherwise than I do? How could I have ap- 
 peared before you ? That I repress, as far as pos- 
 sible, the outburst of sorrow and of feeling, is for 
 your sake; for one hour of feeling does me more 
 injury than ten nights of watching, and I desire to 
 spare myself for you and the children." After an 
 arduous struggle the French remained masters of 
 Ochs(;n warden, the island immediately opposite the 
 city, and there were but few obstacles in the way of 
 their triumphant re-entrance. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of May, the Russian 
 force retreated from Hamburg. A few hours later 
 the Danes appeared, and saved the citizens from 
 the vengeance of the French, acting as a friendly 
 and mediating power, and formally putting them in 
 possession of the city. 
 
 On hearing the sad news Perthes had set out for 
 Wandsbeck. There, at two o clock in the morning, 
 he told his wife that all was lost, and appointed 
 Mtitschen, the residence of his friend Moltke, as 
 
68 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 lier next place of refuge. To escape prison and a 
 rebel's death by the hangman's hand, Perthes him- 
 self drove on through Rahlstadt under cover of the 
 night. 
 
 To his friend Benecke he wrote; •*! can only 
 place my trust in God. Farewell, beloved friend, I 
 shall hardly be able to see you again. I am going 
 into the wide world with a delicate wife and seven 
 children, without knowing where at the end of a 
 week I may find bread for them ; but God will help 
 us." 
 
 It was impossible for Caroline to remain long at 
 Wandsbeck. In a letter written somewhat later to 
 her sister Jacobi, she says: "As soon as Perthes 
 had taken leave of me in his flight, I began to pack, 
 and then exhausted as I was, set out with my chil- 
 dren and nurse, in a light open carriage. It was a 
 very affecting parting; my mother could not con- 
 trol her feehngs, and my father was deeply moved ; 
 the children wept aloud ; I myself felt as if turned 
 to stone, and could only say continually, ' Now, for 
 heaven's sake !' My sister Augusta went with me, 
 to comfort and assist me ; truly willing to share my 
 labors and anxieties. In the morning we anived at 
 Mlltschen, where, finding only two beds for ten per- 
 sons, I was obliged to divide our cloaks and bun- 
 
THE PEENCH IN HAMBURG. 69 
 
 dies of linen, so that tlie children might at least 
 have something under their heajis." 
 
 Yet on the evening of this day, Caroline con- 
 trived to \mte a few lines to her parents, " I can 
 only wish you good night," she said, " for I am so 
 weary in mind and body, that I can neither think 
 nor write. If I had but met Perthes here this 
 evening, safe and sound, as I had hoped, I believe 
 I should have forgotten all sorrow. I am still cold 
 and hard as a stone, and shrink from the thought of 
 the thawing. I felt all day as if everybody were 
 dead, and I was left alone on the earth. These 
 have been weeks of life and death struggle. God 
 help every j^oor man who is in trouble of mind or 
 body in these eventful times !" 
 
 On the first day of June Perthes arrived. "And 
 now," says Caroline, " we wished to pause and con- 
 sider where we should go, and what we should do ; 
 but my brother John came and told us that our 
 friends advised us to lose no time, but to go farther 
 away, as our house at Hamburg had been search- 
 ed, and Mutschen was too near Lubeck. Perthes set 
 out at once, and again I began to pack up and on 
 the third I left for Lutzenberg." 
 
 Perthes, accompanied by his eldest son Mat- 
 thias, had reached Alteuhof, the estate of Count 
 
70 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 Eeventlow. "I was so unaifectecUy welcomed by 
 the Count and Countess," he wrote to Caroline, 
 " that it gave me genuine pleasure. The Count will 
 give up Aschan to us. It is, I am told, a dreary 
 place ; but I think it will do very well." 
 
 A few days later, the husband and wife met 
 again at Eckernforde. "Here we wept freely to- 
 gether," wrote Caroline, "which in all our trouble 
 we had never been able to do before." Thence the 
 whole family removed to Aschan, a summer villa on 
 the Baltic, and made themselves as comfortable as 
 they could. "And there," wrote Caroline, " I for a 
 time forgot all our troubles for joy that I had got 
 my Perthes, and I can truly say we were inexpres- 
 sibly happy in each other. I thought neither of the 
 past nor future, but thanked God incessantly, and 
 rejoiced that out of all these perils he had brought 
 my husband to me safe and sound." 
 
 Perthes had lost everything. His shop in Ham- 
 burg was sealed, and his dwelling-house, after 
 being plundered of every movable, was assigned to 
 a French generaL Keady money he had none. 
 
 " Do not suppose I complain," he wrote to his 
 uncle ; " he who has nothing to repent of has noth- 
 ing to complain of. I have acted as in the presence 
 of God; I have often risked my life, and why 
 
THE FEENCH IN HAMBUEG. 71 
 
 should I be dispirited because I have lost my for- 
 tune ? God's will be done ! I do not yet see how 
 I am to provide bread for my family in a foreign 
 land." 
 
 Personal safety as well as business soon re- 
 quired Perthes to bid adieu to his family. In a 
 letter of Caroline's she says, " When we had spent 
 a few weeks together at Aschan, Perthes said to 
 me that matters were not yet settled, and that ho 
 must be off, in order to provide for sustenance. 
 Then it was the scales fell from my eyes. I knew, 
 without asking, what he intended to do — what, in- 
 deed, he was compelled to do; and once more I 
 became exposed to all my former sorrows. Per- 
 haps it would be weeks, perhaps months, perhaps 
 we should be in the world above, before I saw him 
 again. I feared for myself; for I believe that with 
 liim I can bear all things, but without him I know 
 not what will become of me. Ah ! and my soul is 
 filled with sorrow, anxiety and care on his account. 
 You know how earnestly I have desired more rest 
 and leisure for him, and now that he has lost all 
 he had earned in seventeen toilsome years, he must 
 take up the yoke again, and he will feel it to be 
 heavier than ever. Pray for me that I may not 
 grow faint-hearted." 
 
72 
 
 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME 
 
 On Thursday, the 8th of July, under the shade 
 of the gloomy pine-trees of Aschan, Perthes took 
 leave of Caroline. "It was the painful parting of 
 my life," he wrote. " I enter again into the world, 
 into a new and unknown world, full of great possi- 
 bihties, and also full of perils, but I have spirit and 
 courage to meet them cheerfulty. Kesignation to 
 the will of God, firm convictions and rich experi- 
 ence, a heart full of love and youthful feeling, 
 truth, and rectitude, such are the treasures which 
 my forty years of life have given me. Lord, my 
 God, I thank thee for them ; forgive a poor sinner, 
 and lead me not into temptation." 
 
IX, 
 
 EXILE. 
 
 OON after came tidings from Hamburg 
 that a general pardon had been pro- 
 claimed. Ten men, however, were ex- 
 cepted, among whom was Perthes. "I 
 thank you from my heart, my beloved Per- 
 thes," wrote Caroline, "that your name 
 stands among the names of the ten enemies of the 
 tyrant. This will bring us joy and honor as long as 
 we live." 
 
 The general pardon failed to protect the city 
 from the atrocities of Davoust. Bad as these ap- 
 peared in July, they had not reached their height. 
 " It will do some good," said Perthes, " for if it had 
 not been for this, the old-fashioned, spiritless peo- 
 ple would have relapsed into their indolent, let-alone 
 habits. Still it is terrible, and it cuts one to the 
 
 very heart when one hears of such horrors." 
 
 10 
 
74 CHRIST 11^ A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 The autumn months were full of important 
 events. Battles were fought remarkable in them- 
 selves and in their results. "It is a momentous 
 
 time," wrote Perthes " Through such dark 
 
 seasons a man must pass ; they are a part of hu- 
 man destiny; and even He who w^as without sin 
 was pleased to endure the like. I could not tell 
 you in a thousand pages, my Caroline, all the 
 thoughts and feelings that pass through my head 
 in the course of the day. My days are often sad 
 enough. Plow hard it is to present truth in its 
 purity ! It receives the coloring of each individual 
 mind, and of each individual's weaknesses and fol- 
 lies. How weak and corrupt are men, even the 
 good. If man were not a poor sinner, he might 
 regard himseK as a god." 
 
 And in another letter : " May God enable me to 
 do what is right, and keep me from self-exaltation. 
 I will preserve my integrity. I will look upon my 
 fatherland with a good conscience, and will return 
 to our city with an open countenance and head 
 erect." 
 
 Perthes not only possessed the personal confi- 
 dence of the most eminent generals, but the young 
 men of the Legion were devoted to him heart and 
 soul, and clung to liim with childhke affection and 
 
EXILE. 75 
 
 confidence. They delighted in the sympathy of the 
 slender, delicately-formed man, who never shrank 
 from the endurance of any hardship with them; 
 who took part in all their joys and perils, and who 
 never spared earnest and friendly remonstrances in 
 the hope of preserving them from the reckless 
 license of a wild and irregular soldier life. 
 
 But this active and stirring life was pervaded by 
 a deep and heartfelt sorrow, arising from the posi- 
 tion of his wife and children, whom he had been 
 obliged to leave at Aschan. There, near the farm- 
 house, and in the middle of the wood, close to the 
 sea, stood the summer-house, which had been the 
 refuge of Caroline and her family, consisting of a 
 sitting-room and a few small bedrooms. The farmer 
 was the only inhabitant within a circle of four miles. 
 
 In a letter written some time afterwards to her 
 sister, Caroline says : " We could get nothing from 
 the farmer, kind as he was, but milk and butter; 
 Oread, salt, soap, oil, and so forth, were not to be 
 had within four miles, and my sister Augusta, with 
 the two elder children, had to fetch them. For eigh- 
 teen months we had neither meat nor white bread. 
 What was called the kitchen was about forty paces 
 from the house. Our cooking utensils consisted of 
 four copper pots, a bowl, and a few plates. Fortu- 
 
76 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 nately I had brought our spoons with me, and I pur- 
 chased a few knives and forks ; everything else we 
 did without. And yet we are rich in comparison 
 with many others, for we have a hundred thousand 
 times more than nothing." 
 
 Carohne's delicate health greatly increased her 
 anxieties. The eldest of her children was a daugh- 
 ter of fifteen, and the youngest, a boy, did not run 
 alone. The eldest son, Matthias, walked every morn- 
 ing at seven o'clock to Altenhof, a distance of three 
 miles, to receive instruction with the sons of Count 
 Eeventlow. The education of the rest was in the 
 meantime interrupted. One old and faithful ser- 
 vant had remained with them, and their means 
 would not allow them to engage a second. The 
 damp garden-house, with its twelve windows down 
 to the ground, unprovided with shutters, brought 
 ailments of all sorts upon the children during the 
 moist, rainy season ; and Caroline herself was often 
 laid upon a sick-bed. There was a friendly old far- 
 rier at Eckernforde, but no physician nearer than 
 twelve or fifteen miles. 
 
 The deserted wife, however, met Vydth sympathy 
 and comfort. Her sister Augusta was ready for any 
 emergency by night or day; "and the families of 
 Count Eeventlow and Count Stolberg vie with each 
 
EXILE. 77 
 
 other," writes Caroline, "in their attention and the 
 readiness they manifest in lending us assistance in 
 our need. No words can describe their kindness." 
 The children, too, while adding to her cares, 
 ministered no less to her strength and happiness. 
 "They refreshed me in my distress," she writes, 
 " each in his own way and out of the simple and 
 genuine affection of their hearts, the little Bernard 
 not excepted, who is often at a loss to find expres- 
 sion for his love. I am indeed convinced from ex- 
 perience that God can give us no greater joy or 
 sorrow than through a loving and beloved child. 
 Nothing else so revives and sustains the heart and 
 shames us into energy. This I have experienced a 
 thousand times ; and I scarcely think that I could 
 have continued mistrtss of myself if God had not 
 given me my angel Bernard, and in him a living 
 image of childish love and confidence. When I 
 was in deep affliction and anxiety on account of 
 Perthes, and in sorrow for my eight children enter- 
 ing upon life deprived of a father's counsel and 
 affection, I was often on the brink of despair. And 
 when at such times I folded my dear Bernard in 
 my arms, and looked into his clear infant eyes, and 
 saw that he was neither troubled nor afraid, but 
 calm, sweet, and loving, I found faith again, and 
 
78 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 prayed to God that I might become even as mj 
 dear child." 
 
 The kindness of friends and the love of children 
 might indeed uphold her against the heavy pressure 
 of external circumstances ; but when anxiety for her 
 husband was aroused, she could not be comforted. 
 The communications with Mecklenburg being inter- 
 rupted, letters from Perthes were seldom received, 
 while contradictory and exaggerated reports were in 
 circulation as to his position and the dangers with 
 which he was encompassed. Caroline's mind mean- 
 while was full of the saddest forebodings. In a 
 future that did not seem far off, she pictured her 
 children fatherless and motherless, helpless and for- 
 saken. Her grief is revealed in letters evidently 
 written under the deepest melancholy. "I have 
 need of hope," she writes to Perthes, "for the pres- 
 ent is mournful, and my condition and circumstan- 
 ces are more serious, and my sense of desolation 
 greater than you, in the midst of so much activity 
 and hopeful labor, can realize. If I am to spend 
 my time here alone, if I am to remain here without 
 tidings of you, while I know you to be exposed to 
 constant danger, I cannot survive. I cannot suffi- 
 ciently impress on you, my Perthes, the importance 
 of making such arrangements as may prevent our 
 
EXILE. 79 
 
 being separated during the coming winter. I sol- 
 emnly assure you that it is an act of injustice to 
 leave me here without the most urgent necessity. . . . 
 I am surrounded by darkness and perplexity, and I 
 see before me a sad and painful death-bed, to which 
 I may at any moment be called; but I will not 
 despair. May God protect and preserve you to us 
 "We pray for you by night and day." 
 
 And in a letter written somewhat later, she says, 
 " If you love me, take care that in the event of my 
 death my children, especially my little children, be 
 intrusted to the care of those who will teach them 
 to love God, without knowing they are learning it. 
 This is the main point, and to little ones everything 
 else is comparatively unimportant. Their hearts, in 
 which so much lies dormant, are first to be opened. 
 Ah, my Perthes, may God help us to awaken the 
 love of himself in our children, whether we are to 
 live together or apart in this world. My hand 
 trembles, and I can write no more." 
 
 At other times her anxiety for the life of her 
 husband overcame aU other fears. "How can I 
 persuade myself that you, my dear Perthes, will be 
 preserved to me ?" she writes. " God takes away 
 thousands of husbands as much beloved by their 
 wives and children as you are by us. Perthes, my 
 
80 CHRIST IN A GEKMAN HOME. 
 
 dear Perthes, to fulfil your slightest wish would be 
 my only pleasure, were }'ou to be taken from me, 
 and I were to have the misery of being left in the 
 world without you. Tell me then more of your 
 views regarding the children, and what I can do to 
 please you." 
 
 The quiet energy and self-command with which 
 Caroline, even in her deepest affliction, presided 
 over her household, and the expressions of courage 
 and resignation which filled many of her letters 
 written to women who, like herself, were victims of 
 the times, had given her friends the conviction, that 
 even if the worst should befall her, her peace of 
 mind would remain unshaken. To her husband she 
 indeed gave vent to her oppressed heart ; but amid 
 her complaints she as often gave utterance to the 
 language of patience. Thus she writes in one of 
 her letters to him: "I have the firm conviction that 
 my trust in God v/ill never fail ; but I cannot always 
 rejoice in the will of God, and I cannot make up 
 my mind to resign you without tears, and without 
 the deepest anguish. You are too entirely my all 
 in this world ; but believe me, I do not murmur ; I 
 only weep and am yours for eternity." But it was 
 only at long intervals that these letters came into 
 the hands of Perthes, and his answers, sometimes 
 
EXILE. 81 
 
 lost, sometimes carried from place to place for 
 months together, afforded no help to Caroline in 
 forming her plans, and little support in her solitude. 
 To transport his wife and children to Mecklenburg 
 into the confusion of war, was impossible, and to 
 have visited them in Holstein would have imperilled 
 life or liberty. 
 
 He was, moreover, fully persuaded he was in 
 the path of duty. "I follow the voice of God," he 
 says in a letter, " and that voice is now clearer and 
 
 more distinct than ever Never, my Caroline, 
 
 permit yourself to think that my love for you and 
 the children is one whit less warm or deep than 
 that of those who are anxiously striving to preserve 
 their lives for the sake of their families. Your task 
 is indeed a hard one, but mine is not light. Have 
 patience, be calm and self-possessed, my beloved 
 Caroline ; trust to my sense and prudence, and 
 leave the result to God. You wished to know what 
 was to become of the children in case of my death. 
 I trust to your wisdom, your energy, and your affec- 
 tion, and I pray to God to give you what you want, 
 and that is tranquillity." 
 
 " Thank God," he says in another letter, "that 
 you, my darlings and my only earthly treasures, are 
 well. Dear Carohne, what a vast wilderness the 
 
 Christ 111 Oer. Home. H 
 
82 CHEIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 world becomes when man has no home. That which 
 I wanted as a youth I want now, but in a different 
 way. In my youth you stood before me, the object 
 of my love, hke some fairy enchantment. I behold 
 you again in my thoughts ; but it is in all the real- 
 ity of your truth and worth, and I cannot reach 
 you. These times are indeed wonderful and inter- 
 esting ; but it is hard to be without a home, and 
 the sad hours that I spend apart from you shifting 
 foi* myself are too many. . . . The sight of little 
 children always brings tears to my eyes. God will 
 help me : I dare not leave what I have undertaken." 
 Again he writes : "It seems as if God were bless- 
 ing all my undertakings. Indeed, much has been 
 achieved, and in more than one instance harmony 
 and stabihty have been secured by my efforts ; but 
 it is not only in its results, as they affect the one 
 great national object, that our separation has beeu 
 useful ; it has also enabled me to assist many indi- 
 viduals. Large sums of money are placed at my 
 disposal, and thus I am able to aid the distressed, 
 not only with sympathy and advice, but also sub- 
 stantial assistance. Yes, my dear Caroline, all the 
 inducements that can move a man to sacrifice every 
 earthly possession in order to work energetically 
 and activelv, combine to stimulate me now — honor. 
 
EXILE. 83 
 
 gratitude, affection, freedom, love of action. Com- 
 fort yourseK as I do, by thinking on what has been 
 done." 
 
 In September, Caroline and her children left 
 Aschan for Kiel, where Count Moltke had give up 
 to them the apartments which he usually occupied 
 when in the city. There CaroHne found medical 
 help, friends, and relations, but still suffered many 
 privations from the want of money. Her own ill- 
 ness and that of her children added to her sorrows. 
 Her anxieties for the fate of her children, in case 
 she did not survive, was increased by her total 
 ignorance of her husband's circumstances, and even 
 his place of residence. 
 
 From the 7th of August to the 2d of October 
 she was without tidings of him, and knew not 
 whether he was alive or dead. Towards the end of 
 October she wrote : " I struggle ever more and more 
 to keep thought and fancy, heart and yearning, 
 under control; but 6h, my beloved, I suffer inex- 
 pressibly!" and then, after details concerning the 
 children, she adds, "I tell you everything, for you 
 should know how things actually stand, that you 
 may be able to do what is right in the circumstan- 
 ces ; but I do not thus write to induce you to draw 
 back. I take God to witness, who is more to me 
 
84: CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 than even you are, that I do not wish you to do 
 anything but your duty." 
 
 These last words were conveyed to Perthes with 
 unusual rapidity, and within a few days he was ena- 
 bled to assure his wife she had nothing to fear for 
 his life, as he was employed on a peaceful mission. 
 
¥>- 
 
 X. 
 
 VICISSITUDES OF WAR. 
 
 JERTHES had been disappointed in liis 
 hope of finding letters from Carohne at 
 Bremen, and was the more anxious, be- 
 cause Holstein had become the seat of 
 war. Finding no letters there, he hastened 
 to Lubeck, carrying with him the guarantees of the 
 independence of the cities. Here he heard of the 
 birth of a son, Andreas, on the 10th of December. 
 
 On Christmas night he travelled to Kiel, now no 
 longer threatened by a hostile army, and arrived 
 there the next day at five o'clock in the afternoon. 
 " Unexpectedly and in the twilight he entered my 
 room, after a separation of nearly six months," 
 wrote Caroline. "Matthias saw him first. I had 
 the happiness of restoring all the children to him 
 safe and well, with the addition of a darling, healthy 
 
86 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 infant. What this was none can know but one who 
 has experienced it." 
 
 In January Perthes again left his family, to aid 
 in distributing money granted by the prince to the 
 exiled Hamburgers. " You will have heard of the 
 misery of this district," he writes, "but no w^ords 
 oan give any idea of it. All the trouble that I have 
 witnessed and shared for the last nine months is as 
 nothing in comparison. On the last week in De- 
 cember, Davoust, the French commander, after 
 plundering the. bank, had set on fire all the sur- 
 rounding villages, and driven twenty thousand peo- 
 ple out of the city destitute and homeless; among 
 whom were the old and weak, the children from the 
 orphan-house, and the infirm poor from the alms- 
 houses. Even the hospital, in which were eight 
 hundred sick, was set on fire. The helpless in- 
 mates were removed through the incredible exer- 
 tions of the burghers, but many afterwards died 
 from exposure. The intense excitement and cold 
 cost six hundred of the sick their lives." 
 
 For miles around the snow-covered country pre- 
 sented the appearance of a vast waste of ruins. 
 Every night the sky was illumined by the glow of 
 freshly-kindled fires. In the streets of Altona and 
 neighboring villages, haK-frozen figures wandered 
 
VICISSITUDES OF WAE. 87 
 
 about crying for food and shelter, while long lines 
 of the sick and aged, of women and children, might 
 be seen, under the escort of a troop of Cossacks, on 
 their way to seek in sister-cities the assistance they 
 so much needed. 
 
 Much was done to alleviate the suffering ; con- 
 tributions poured in from far and near, and those 
 appointed to administer relief did what they could. 
 
 The letters of this period contain numerous 
 references to Perthes, touching matters great and 
 small, far and near. Although he held no office, 
 he appears, at this time, the centre around which 
 all business, bearing on the destiny of Hamburg, 
 revolved. 
 
 Amid many sorrows and anxieties he wrote to 
 Caroline in January : " No word, no letter from you, 
 my beloved Caroline — how is this ? I am very un- 
 happy, and long to be with you and the children, 
 but dare not leave, for an important decision may 
 depend on my presence. Never since our depart- 
 ure from Hamburg have I been so unhappy as I 
 now feel, and yet I have no tidings from you. 
 Surely some great calamity has overtaken you. Is 
 my darling Bernard still ahve? He was not well 
 when I left." 
 
 This child, a boy of uncommon beauty and 
 
88 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 vivacity, was indeed still alive when his father 
 wrote these lines, but was even then struggling with 
 death, and within two days the Lord took him to 
 himself. "My dear Perthes," wrote Caroline, im- 
 mediately after the death of the child, "what I 
 feared has happened; our dear Bernard is very ill. 
 I am full of care and anxiety and fear the worst. 
 I wish above all things, both for your sake and my 
 own, that you were here. . . . May God be our 
 help ! Why should I conceal it longer from yoil ? 
 Our angel is with God. He died this morning at 
 half -past nine. He looks wonderfully beautiful, 
 and I implore you to come as soon as possible, 
 that you may see his dear remains before any 
 change takes place." 
 
 Owing to the irregularity of the posts, Perthes 
 had neither received this letter nor a former one, 
 acquainting him with the illness of the child ; and 
 on the 21st of January he stepped cheerfully into 
 Caroline's room with the question, "Are all well?" 
 " I had to lead my poor Perthes to the corpse of 
 our beloved child," wrote Caroline to her sister. 
 " His grief was excessive, and my anxiety for him 
 carried me through this painful day." 
 
 Perthes had been only a few hours in Kiel when 
 he was to repair to the Russian headquarters, to 
 
VICISSITUDES or WAR. 89 
 
 consult in the name of the crown prince as to fur- 
 ther measures for the relief of the outcast Hamburg- 
 ers, and for obtaining the Yoluntary cession of the 
 city. " Called at such a time, and under such cir- 
 cumstances, you must go," said Caroline. But Per- 
 thes was physically unable. " Caroline's heroic 
 spirit was greater than my bodily strength," he 
 wrote. He was unable to leave the house for sev- 
 eral days. " But thank God, nothing has suffered 
 by my absence," he wrote. "Be strong, my be- 
 loved ! May God spare us further trials. We are 
 quiet just now. I have no more to say to you at 
 present; but we understand each other for eternity 
 without words. May the Lord protect you and my 
 dear children, and keep for us those who are now 
 at rest," " My letter of the 7th of February, your 
 fortieth birthday, my still young and ever-youthful 
 wife, you will have received before this, and gladly 
 would I have hastened to your arms and pressed 
 you to my heart. Be comforted, my dear Caroline ! 
 True love is immortal, and by some bonds of love I 
 feel sure that our departed Httle ones are still uni- 
 ted to us." 
 
 In order to be as near as possible to the seat of 
 suffering, Perthes had fixed his quarters at a mill 
 
 which the Kussians soon after converted into a 
 
 12 
 
90 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 temporary hospital, and lie had to carry on his 
 work amid the groans of the wounded and the 
 dying. 
 
 He was compelled to be almost perpetually in 
 motion, passing over ground covered with snow, 
 while suffering severely from a contusion on his 
 foot, caused by a fall from a carriage. Upon arri- 
 ving in Kiel, some time after, it was found that a. 
 bone of his foot was broken. " I hope my future 
 biographer will record," he playfully wrote, " that 
 I have walked about for nearly a fortnight, and 
 driven twenty miles in a requisition wagon, with a 
 broken bone." 
 
 For nine weeks he was now confined to his bed, 
 and for the first part of the time was in great dan- 
 ger from a severe attack of nervous fever; but a 
 good constitution carried him through all. " Here," 
 he wrote to Besser, " I have been obliged to cast 
 anchor at last. Such a fate is hard to bear at the 
 present moment. If a ball had done it, one might 
 have been better pleased." His spirits, however, 
 never flagged ; and liis wife could write, " Mj dear 
 Perthes is always the same; and during the whole 
 period of his confinement he has never been cross 
 or impatient. I rejoice that he was with us when 
 he fell ill, and that I had the happiness of nursing 
 
VICISSITUDES OF WAR. 91 
 
 him. The children were all well, fortunately, and 
 we made the best of it." 
 
 Hope for the future now began to dawn. " "We 
 are living in a time of miracles," wrote a friend. 
 " What we with sad hearts desired for our children, 
 but never dared to expect, we ourselves have lived 
 to see. And what a glorious day this beautiful 
 dawn promises ! A generation that has raised 
 itself so high will never sink again." 
 
 On the 19th of April Perthes left Kiel with his 
 whole family, and on the next day arrived at 
 Blankenese, a fishing village a few miles below 
 Hamburg, where he proposed remaining till the 
 French evacuated that place, an event which it was 
 evident must come in the course of a few months. 
 
 " These six weeks in Blankenese have been the 
 sweetest part of my life," wrote Caroline to her 
 sister. "Perthes with me, the children well, and 
 the hope of the deliverance of our city gaining 
 strength day by day. . Suddenly the white banners 
 waved once more at Harburg and from St. Michael's 
 tower. In all directions outcasts might be seen 
 streaming into the city. We lived near the Elbe, 
 and could see all those who were hastening l)ack 
 from Bremen and Hanover. One day a carriage 
 full of little children, whose parents had died in the 
 
92 CHEIST IN A GEBMAN HOME. 
 
 hospital at Bremen, arrived at our door. Troops of 
 starving people, with many children, and but little 
 luggage, passed under our windows, and it was 
 touching to witness the love for home and hearth 
 that was manifested, though for the most part the 
 poor creatures could look forward to nothing but 
 trouble and wretchedness. As they came through 
 the country, each silently broke a branch from the 
 trees by the w^ayside, and bore it in his hand, and 
 old and young, and even little children, amid tears 
 of grief and shouts of joy, thanked God for their 
 deliverance from the great and universal calamity, 
 little thinking all the while that each brought his 
 own burden with him, and that a heavy one. 
 
 Early in May, through the mediation of a French 
 general despatched from Paris, negotiations were 
 entered into for the surrender of Hamburg to one 
 of the Russian commanders; and on the last day 
 of the month General Benningsen made his en- 
 trance with the Russians and the Burgher Guard. 
 On the morning of the same day, Perthes and his 
 family left Blankenese, and in the midst of advan- 
 cing troops returned through Altona to the home 
 from which they had been driven a year before. 
 
XT, 
 
 THE RETURN HOME. 
 
 ^NCE more were Perthes and his family 
 in the home which at one time they 
 had hardly expected to see again. 
 Many an anxious thought was mingled 
 with their feehngs of gratitude. " God be 
 praised that he has brought us thus far, that 
 he has stood by us and helped us through this year 
 of heavy trial," wrote Caroline to her parents on 
 the day of her return. " I will be glad and forget 
 all, except my dear Bernard. "We have many trials 
 before us, even under the most favorable circum- 
 stances. God grant that my Perthes may be spared^ 
 to me with strength and spirits for the heavy toil 
 now before him." 
 
 It was indeed no light task to take up the old 
 
94 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 links after so long an interval. Even to render tlie 
 house habitable was a difficult undertaking. The 
 pleasant and beautiful apartments on the ground- 
 floor had for months been used by the French sol- 
 diers as guard-rooms. In the middle of the largest 
 room was a huge stove. Trunks of trees had been 
 dragged in through the windows to feed it. All the 
 wood-work that could be pulled down had been 
 burned, and the smoke had found an outlet through 
 the windows. The upper part of the house had 
 been occupied by General Loisen ; but even there 
 the soldiers had conducted themselves so riotously, 
 the whole house was little better than a heap of 
 filth. All the furniture had been taken away ; 
 some of it by kind friends, who had concealed it 
 where they could, and the rest by the French pre- 
 fect. There was not a single habitable room — dirt 
 and rubbish a foot high covered the floors. Chairs 
 and tables, beds and bedding, and the whole appa- 
 ratus of the kitchen had to be replaced ; while the 
 want of money and the heart-breaking spectacle of 
 numbers of hungry and sorrow-stricken exiles flock- 
 ing into the city, made the strictest economy a duty 
 no less than a necessity. 
 
 To place the business, which had been entirely 
 broken up, on its former footing, was an undertaking 
 
THE EETUPwN HOME. 95 
 
 of far greater difficulty. Davoust had sealed up 
 Perthes' warehouse, and given notice that all debts 
 due to the firm were to be paid to the French au- 
 thorities. Many valuable maps and books were 
 appropriated by the officers; the rest were to be 
 sold by auction. Besser, ever on the alert, main- 
 tained that the creditors should first be paid, and 
 succeeded in gaining his point. But before the sale 
 could take place a catalogue must first be prepared. 
 This he proceeded to do as slowly as possible. 
 More than once Davoust threatened to sell the 
 books by weight if the catalogue were not forth- 
 coming; but it did not appear, and the property 
 remained unsold. 
 
 The warehouse, however, being required by the 
 French, the thirty thousand* volumes which it con- 
 tained were removed in wagons to another place, 
 and tumbled together without any regard to order. 
 " You will believe, but you can form no idea of the 
 labor of finding one's way through all this confu- 
 sion," -svrote Perthes, soon after his return. " I was 
 invited by the prefect to enter the city, in conse- 
 quence of the marshal's resolution to release my 
 premises from the embargo he had placed upon 
 them, and infbrmed that seven hundred francs had 
 to be paid for a catalogue which they had prepared. 
 
96 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 You see that under the white flag they are still the 
 same people. Thus for having hung me on the gal- 
 lows in effigy, hunted me out of house and home, 
 destroj^ed my trade, stolen the half of my books, 
 and burned my furniture, the scoundrels ask seven 
 hundred francs !" 
 
 Perthes, however, decidedly declared that as it 
 was not at his request that the authorities had given 
 themselves the trouble of taking charge of his books 
 and preparing the inventory, he should decline pay- 
 ment. Towards the end of June he opened his 
 shop, and within a few days could write: "God's 
 blessing is upon us. All promises well." 
 
 There was still much to be done for the thou- 
 sands who had returned utterly destitute of food, 
 clothing, and shelter, and tools with which to resume 
 work. The public charities were turned to the best 
 account, and admirably worked. Contributions 
 came from London and other European cities. 
 Even distant Malta sent a large sum. 
 
 Perthes, as usual, was active in the distribution 
 of these funds, and while thus engaged found many 
 were suffering from other than mere bodily wants. 
 "I have gathered much valuable experience among 
 the lower classes," he writes. " Hundreds of fami- 
 lies would fain seek help and comfort in God, but 
 
THE KETUEN HOME. 97 
 
 know not the way that leads to him The Bible 
 
 is known only to few families ; I have found it want- 
 ing even in schools." It was at this time the Lon- 
 don Bible Society began to direct its efforts towards 
 Germany. The preliminary meetings were held in 
 Perthes' house, and his important services in the 
 cause were long gratefully remembered. A few 
 days later, in October, 1814, the Hamburg- Altona 
 Bible Society was founded. 
 
 He was also one of a committee appointed for 
 the education of the poor. "We got thirty thou- 
 sand marks jat once," he says to Fouqud, " for the 
 education of poor children, and hope to get a great 
 deal more. We twelve have gone minutely through 
 the town, and what numbers of fine children we 
 have found ! The blessing of God is indeed upon 
 our ]3eople. We have taken seven hundred of the 
 destitute children of the city." The Hamburg 
 schools for the poor, since so widely extended, owed 
 much to this collection. 
 
 Sooner than any could have ventured to expect, 
 the hopes of Germany were realized by the victory 
 of Waterloo. Caroline had been residing for a 
 few weeks at Wandsbeck, and when the first uncer- 
 tain rumors of a great and decisive battle reached 
 her there, she wrote at once in the greatest excite- 
 
 Chrlst in Ger. Home. 3.3 
 
98- CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 ment to Hamburg: "Is it true, dear Perthes? Oh, 
 why are you not here, or I with you ? Write to me 
 immediately, if it be true. I cannot beheve it, and 
 stand Kstening for voices in the air." 
 
 CaroHne had posted her children on the path 
 leading from Hamburg, in order to have the first 
 news of the approach of the expected messenger. 
 At length a horseman was seen in the distance ad- 
 vancing at full gallop, and waving a white flag. It 
 was the friend whom Perthes had despatched with 
 the Gazette of the victory, and these words : "Be- 
 hold the wonderful works of God ! give thanks and 
 praise to him." 
 
 " That is indeed a victory," replied Caroline. 
 " May God help us still further, and may it be with- 
 out fighting and conquering, if this is not asking too 
 much. You write that Hanbury is shot. Alas ! for 
 the poor mother at Flottbeck. But she must bear 
 up ; she sees what he has died for." 
 
 Events now succeeded each other with wonder- 
 ful rapidity. " The first great act of the European 
 drama is ended," wrote Perthes on the twentieth of 
 June. " Napoleon is dethroned. You will read the 
 rest in the Supplement to the Gazette. The French, 
 if they give up their idol, set the crown on their 
 own degradation. I expect it, and on this account 
 
THE BETURN HOME. 
 
 99 
 
 shall illuminate, and not because of the fall of the 
 monster, who has long ago appeared to me as fall- 
 en." And again, a few days later, " In France all 
 is confusion, and this kingdom of hell is going to 
 pieces. What a judgment from God !" 
 
 On June 26, 1815, he writes again to CaroHne : 
 " Yesterday came the report of the taking of Napo- 
 leon, but it is not yet confirmed. Believe me, the 
 person of this monster is not now of the importance 
 that you and half the world imagine. Look at the 
 fate of the French! their downfall, their terrible 
 prospects ! The dispersion of the Jews is nothing 
 in comparison." 
 
XII, 
 
 DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 
 
 I^^HE anxieties and privations of the 3-ear 
 ^^ of exile had told severely on Carohne's 
 \ir health. Her freshness and vivacity of 
 mind, however, never forsook her ; and 
 on this account she felt only the more keenly 
 the pressure of disease which had its origin in 
 great excitability of the nervous system, and an in- 
 cipient complaint of the heart. " I have not yet re- 
 covered my strength and energy," she writes, " and 
 I often find my household duties so heavy that I 
 almost despair." 
 
 But although occasionally depressed, she was 
 neither indifferent nor ungrateful for her many 
 blessings. " The old song is every morning new," she 
 once wrote, " that, if possible, I love Perthes still 
 better than the day before. How inadequate seems 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 101 
 
 all tlie gratitude I feel foj hia\i2igl}ep9 -penxdit^d to 
 retain hini." ^ / * ^ > ' 
 
 She was now called f.o a;{ieild;lie^faiifefi^^g Ue 
 approached that solemn moment when time and 
 eternity meet together. Claudius had suffered se- 
 verely from the war. A^. the age of seventy-three 
 he had been driven from house and home, and was 
 often exposed to poverty. "We are pretty well off 
 here," he wrote on one ( ccasion to Caroline; "we 
 have a little room, with a sofa and a bed, which 
 almost fill it. We cook groats and potatoes for 
 ourselves, but fuel is extravagantly dear. Fritz is 
 at Wandsbeck taking care of our house, and has 
 sold the cow. He writes me that the cellar is hke 
 the universe before creation, waste and void." 
 
 A few weeks later he wrote : " We are now hv- 
 ing in a larger, I might ^ay a large room, but it is 
 very cold, and we have u jt the means of keeping it 
 warm." 
 
 But the trials of poverty, separation from home 
 and children, were not t jose which affected Clau- 
 dius most sensibly. His sincere and patriotic heart 
 was broken by the confli^jting emotions and doubts 
 for his fatherland. The violent excitement of the 
 times was too much for the simple mind and loving 
 heart of the noble old man. 
 
102 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 Ci^u^ius had returiied to Wandsbeck in May, 
 1814,*^ but never sCgain'^o enjoy his old home. Wea- 
 ried v/Mi the -Inirdeij ;of years and infirmities, he 
 struggled through summer and autumn, and in 
 compliance with the earnest entreaties of his 
 daughter, removed to Hamburg in December, that 
 he might be within reach of medical advice. " Papa 
 is weary and languid," wrote CaroHne, "but we 
 have reason to be thankful he is free from pain. 
 He is so calm and so kindly, I might even say sat- 
 isfied and contented, that I am too happy to see 
 this, to give utterance to the grief which I already 
 feel." 
 
 It soon became evident that recovery was not 
 to be expected; but life was prolonged to seven 
 w^eeks — to Claudius a season of thankfulness and 
 of almost uninterrupted calm and love. The blue 
 sky above, the rising of the sun, the sight of his 
 Rebecca, of his children and grandchildren, were 
 all perpetual sources of enjoyment. One night he 
 called Caroline to his bedside and said, "I must 
 take something from the night, for the day is too 
 short to thank you, my dear child." 
 
 Caroline writing a few days before his death 
 says: "He is confident, peaceful, and, except at 
 very short intervals, even joyful. Yesterday, after 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 103 
 
 an hour of distress, he said, 'Well, dear Perthes;, 
 this is all just as it should be, though not pleasant.' 
 He then spoke of the approaching struggle, and of 
 Him who is mighty to save, and said he had placed 
 his whole confidence in God. He is wonderfully 
 kind towards us all, and likes our mother to sit by 
 his bed. He is also anxious that you absent ones 
 should have daily tidings of him, and never fails to 
 send you his greetings." 
 
 His mind continued active to the last, and he 
 was able to trace the progress of his own dissolu- 
 tion — of the great mystery of the separation of soul 
 and body. " I have all my life reflected by antici- 
 pation on these hours," he said to Perthes, " and 
 now they are come; but I understand as little as 
 ever about the manner of the end." 
 
 During the last few days he prayed incessantly. 
 He never relinquished the hope that God would 
 vouchsafe to him a glimpse into the realms beyond, 
 while still on this side of the grave ; but although 
 sight was not granted, his faith was never shaken. 
 
 The 21st of January was the day of his death. 
 About two o'clock he became aware that his end 
 was approaching, and prayed, "Lead me not into 
 temptation and deliver me from evil." An hour 
 later he said " Good-night !" several times, and in 
 
101 CHKIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. ' 
 
 tlie moment of departure he opened his eyes, and 
 looked lovingly upon his wife and children, as 
 though they had a right i o the last out-goings of 
 affection. 
 
 "His mind was quite animpaired, and he re- 
 tained all his originality and peculiarities to the 
 very last hour," wrote Perthes. " He died without 
 anxiety. I may say he died rich ; for even in tem- 
 poral things the fulness of hope was, as usual, at 
 his command. The end of this man was indeed 
 great and noble." 
 
 So passed away Matthi; s Claudius, the Wands- 
 becker Messenger, as he v as familiarly called by 
 the German people, a man so well-known and ten- 
 derly loved that we would linger a little over his 
 memory ere we bid him adiou. 
 
 None could, indeed, fail to love this kindly old 
 *Bian, who came in contact with his genial nature, so 
 fresh and sympathetic, so c verflowing with naivete 
 honest humor and wit which never descended to 
 coarseness. A man who vras said to open the 
 heart as with a charm by his humble cordiality 
 which almost bribed those whose opinion differed 
 from his own. 
 
 But it was only when viewed in contrast with 
 the gloom of Eationalism by which the nation was 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 105 
 
 shrouded, that his bright Christian character shone 
 forth in full relief. Men were seeking to exalt hu- 
 man understanding above divine revelation. It was 
 believed by many that human perfection might be 
 attained by seK-culture. The intellect, not the 
 heart, must be disciplined; and so the Bible was 
 ignored and cast aside as old-fashioned and out- 
 grown. Even so late as when Dr. Tholuck was ap- 
 pointed professor in the great University of Halle 
 wherein hundreds of students were preparing to 
 enter the ministry, he could find but one who ever 
 read the Bible for devotional purposes. And his 
 own house was attacked, his windows broken and 
 he himseK rudely treated in the streets because he 
 believed in the Scriptures as the word of God. 
 
 Surrounded on every hand by skepticism and 
 doubC, Claudius was ever on the side of truth as 
 revealed in the word of God, winning others to the 
 same by his simple faith and earnest manhood 
 rather than by his theology. 
 
 Dr. Hagenbach, in his work on German Eational- 
 ism, writes thus of him: "Claudius, like Luther, 
 understood the high art of treating divine things 
 with an innocent pleasantry because he might be 
 said to be on familiar terms with God. He was 
 artless in the noblest sense of the word, and in this 
 
 14: 
 
106 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 simplicity he could say much, which if said by 
 others would have given offence, and which when 
 imitated might become insipid. Thus he did not 
 oppose those scoffing at Christianity with a frown- 
 ing brow, nor the assuming ' Illuminati' with a pe- 
 dantic orthodoxy; he rather opposed the sickly 
 philosophy with his sound, solid mother-wit, the 
 stiff learning of the schools with his plain, common 
 sense, and the insolent satire of wickedness with 
 the cheerful irony of his childlike innocence." 
 
 r. H. Jacobi says: "The Wandsbecker Mes- 
 senger is a real messenger of God, his Christianity 
 is as old as the world. His faith is not merely the 
 simplest and highest philosophy to him, but some- 
 thing still higher. He appears in life just as in his 
 writings ; sublime only in secret, full of pleasantry 
 in social intercourse ; but he does not fail to let se- 
 rious words drop, striking, penetrating words, when 
 mind and heart tell him, now is the time and the 
 proper occasion." 
 
 Hamann said he considered him a fool who de- 
 nied the existence of God, but he deemed that man 
 a still greater one who wanted to prove His exist- 
 ence ; and Claudius likewise attacked this spirit for 
 argument concerning the truths of Christianity. "It 
 ir, incomprehensible," he says, " that men enter into 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 107 
 
 such extensive debates with free-thinkers and 
 skeptics, and talk so much about their free-think- 
 ing and passion for doubts. Christ says very brief- 
 ly : 'If any man will do His will, he shall know of 
 the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I 
 speak of myself.' Whosoever cannot or will not 
 make this attempt, if he is a reasonable man, or de- 
 sires to be considered such, should not say another 
 word for or against Christianity." And again, 
 " The spirit of religion does not dwell in the shell 
 of dogmatics, has not its abode in the children of 
 unbelief, and can as Httle be gained by wanton 
 bounds of reason as by stiff orthodoxy and monk- 
 hood. ... It is an honor to a people to be strict 
 and zealous in their religion ; but it is certainly not 
 more than reasonable to investigate before being 
 thus zealous." 
 
 " To improve religion by means of reason," thus 
 he lets Asmus address his cousin Andres, " appears 
 to me like attempting to set the sun by my old 
 wooden clock. Still, philosophy appears to me a 
 very good thing, and I think much that is charged 
 against the orthodox is true." He compares pliilos- 
 ophy to the broom which sweeps the dirt out of the 
 temple. To this cousin Andres replies: "Philos- 
 ophy is certainly good, and they are wrong who 
 
108 CHRIST IN A GEKMAN HOME. 
 
 scoff at it ; but revelation does not bear to philos- 
 ophy the relation of much to httle, but that of 
 heaven and earth, above and below. Philosophy 
 may, in a certain sense, be such a broom to sweep 
 the cobwebs from the temple ; we might call it a 
 brush to sweep the dust from the statues of the 
 saints; but when one attempts to carve on the 
 statues with it he requires more than he can per- 
 form, and it is highly absurd and provoking to see 
 this attempted." 
 
 Never did human reason reach higher limits 
 than in this age, in Germany. A more brilhant 
 succession of philosophers and poets the world 
 never saw. But Claudius lived long enough to 
 realize how miserably they failed to reach the hu- 
 man perfectibility after which they strove; that 
 blank uncertainty, hopelessness, and doubt were all 
 that they attained. God grant that our nation may 
 not pass through a similar experience. 
 
 At another time he says : " Who will not believe 
 in Christ must see if he can dispense with him. 
 You and I cannot. We want some one while we 
 live who will lift up and elevate us, and will lay his 
 hand under our head when we die. Christ is 
 abundantly able and williag to do all this." 
 
 " Christ is a holy, superhuman being, a star in 
 
DEATH OE CLAUDIUS. 109 
 
 the uight to tlie poor pilgrim, one that satisfies all 
 our secret wants and longings." " One might suffer 
 himself to be stigmatized and broken on the wheel 
 even for the mere idea, and whoever can langh and 
 mock must be insane. Whoever has his heart in 
 the right place lies in the dust, rejoices and wor- 
 ships." 
 
 We find in the heart of Claudius a simple out- 
 going of love and reverence toward Christ which no 
 human life had ever called out. Wliile he believes 
 all true philoso23hers and men of God to have been 
 connected with Christ since the foundation of the 
 world, it was only as the rivers to the ocean. Even 
 John, the Baptist, the m.ost nearly related to Him, 
 only prepared the way. And so he always feels 
 like kneeling when he reads of Christ in any of the 
 Gospels. " No one," he writes, " can say with a 
 shadow of truth that I am a philosopher ; but I never 
 go through a forest without wondering who makes 
 the trees grow, and then quietly from afar I have a 
 kind of consciousness of an Unknown One, and I 
 would then be willing to aiBfirm that I think of God. 
 I tremble so reverently, so joyfully at the thought." 
 " I was on a journey last night," he writes in his 
 journal on the morning of Good Friday. " The 
 moon shone somewhat coldly upon me; she was, 
 
110 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 however, bright and beautiful, so that I rejoiced 
 greatly to behold her, and could not see her 
 enough. Eighteen hundred years ago, I thought to 
 myseK, you certainly did not shine thus, for it 
 would have been impossible for men to have injured 
 a righteous, innocent man in the face of so friendl}^, 
 so mild a moon." 
 
 Claudius was one of the first of the people's 
 writers in Germany. He was well-known through 
 a paper edited by himself called the "Wands- 
 becker Bote," (Wandsbeck Messenger,) from which 
 he derived his name ; also in the Asmus or collected 
 works of the " Wandsbecker Bote." 
 
 Included in these works are many poems, which 
 acquired not a httle celebrity. We give a transla- 
 tion of one the most popular. It is entitled, 
 
 THE EVENING SONG. 
 The golden stars are shining, 
 The silver moon is climbing 
 
 The heavens bright and clear. 
 The black still woods are sleeping, 
 The pale white mists are wreathing 
 
 The meadows cold and sere. 
 
 Fast o'er the world that sleepeth, 
 The mantling twilight creepeth, 
 
 With gentle, fond caress. 
 Past is the day's dark sorrow, 
 To glad hopes of the morrow, 
 
 Of light and strength afresh. 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. Ill 
 
 The cold gray mists are thickening, 
 Onward our steps are quickening, 
 
 Through the dark night and cold. 
 No kindly voice is guiding; 
 Like sheep from shepherd hiding, 
 
 So strayed we from the fold. 
 
 A Shepherd's voice hath sought us, 
 His kindly love hath brought us 
 
 From the deep forest's shade. 
 Father, ever guide us. 
 And then whate'er betide us. 
 
 We will not be afraid. 
 
 And though the way be dreary, 
 And oft our feet are weary, 
 
 O Father, hold us fast ! 
 Through storms and darkness climbing. 
 Lead to the daylight's shining. 
 
 Oh, lead us home at last. 
 
 "May God forgive us," says one, "for feeling 
 that such a man could have been better spared in 
 heaven than upon earth." " Death is a hard step," 
 wrote Caroline, " but to take the step as he did, is 
 inconceivably great." 
 
 The solemn experiences of these weeks, during 
 the whole of which her husband had been at her 
 side, took deep hold of Caroline's mind ; and with 
 her lively fancy and a heart ever seeking sympathy, 
 she felt it to be a heav}^ trial, that Perthes, laden 
 with cares, business and interests of all kinds, 
 
112 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 could devote so little time to her and tlie cliildron. 
 " My liope becomes every day less that Perthes will 
 be able to make any such arrangement of his time, 
 as will leave a few quiet hours for me and the chil- 
 dren. There is nothing that I can do but to love 
 him, and bear him ever in my heart, till it shall 
 please God to bring us together in some region 
 where we shall no longer need house or housekeep- 
 ing, and where there are neither books, nor bills to 
 be paid. Perthes feels it a heavy trial, but he 
 keeps up his spirits, and for this I thank Ood." 
 
 After eighteen years of trial and vicissitude, her 
 affection for her husband had retained all its youth- 
 ful freshness. Life and love had not become merely 
 habitual, they remained fresh and spontaneous as 
 in the bride. She always gave vent to her feelings 
 unrestrainedly, and felt deeply when Perthes, as a 
 husband, addressed her otherwise than he had 
 done as a bridegroom. Now that he was detained 
 for some weeks in Leipzig, she writes him half in 
 jest, half in earnest : 
 
 " You have indeed renounced all sensibility for 
 this year, because of your many occupations, but, I, 
 for my part, when I write to you cannot do so with- 
 out feeling ; for the thought of you excites all the 
 emotions of which my heart is capable. Not a line 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 113 
 
 have I received. Tell me, is it not ratlier bard that 
 you never wrote from Brunswick? At least I 
 thought so, and felt very much that your compan- 
 ion, G , should have written to his newly-married 
 
 wife, and }ou not to me. It is the first time you 
 have ever gone on a journey without writing to me 
 from }Our first resting-place. I have been reading 
 over your earlier letters to find satisfaction to my- 
 self, in some measure at least, but it has been a 
 mixed pleasure. Last year, at Blankenese, you 
 promised me many hours of mutual companionship, 
 I have not yet had them ; and you owe many such 
 to me, yes, you do indeed." 
 
 Perthes answered, " You write telling me that I 
 have renounced all sensibility for this year. This is 
 not true, m.y dearest heart, it is quite otherwise. I 
 think that after so many years of mutual inter- 
 change of thought and feeling, and when people 
 understand each other thoroughly, there is an end 
 of all those little tendernesses of expression which 
 represent a relationship that is still piquant because 
 new. Be content with me, dear child, we under- 
 stand each other. I did not write from Brunswick, 
 because we passed through quickly. Moreover, it 
 is not fair to compare me with my companion, the 
 bridegroom. Youth has its features, and so has 
 
 C!)i!st in C.^r. Tli.ine. 15 
 
114 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 middle age. It would be absurd, indeed, v/ere I 
 to be looking by moonlight under the trees and 
 among the clouds for young maidens, as I did 
 twenty years ago, or were to imagine young ladies 
 to be angels. Nor would it become you any better 
 if you were dancing a gallopade, or clambering up 
 trees in fits of love enthusiasm. "We should not 
 find fault with our having grown older; only be 
 satisfied, give God the praise, and exercise patience 
 and forbearance with me." 
 
 " I wish you were here on this your birthday," 
 answered Caroline on the 21st day of April, " and 
 had half an hour to spare to celebrate it with me 
 and the children. The children do their best, but 
 you are always best, and have ever the first place 
 in my heart. Thank God, my Perthes, neither time 
 nor circumstances can ever affect my love to you. It 
 is, indeed, beyond the reach of change. May God be 
 pleased only to spare my life, and restore my health 
 and preserve you and the children, and maintain 
 your love for me unimpaired. It is aU I ask ; but 
 there is no end of wishing and praying, and happily, 
 none too, of granting — if not in our own way, at 
 least in God's. Tour last letter is, indeed, a strange 
 one. I must again say that my affection knows 
 neither youth nor age, and is etr^rnal. I can detect 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 115 
 
 no change, except that I hnoiv what formerly I only 
 hoped and believed. I never took you for an angel, 
 nor do I now take you for the reverse ; neither did 
 I ever beguile you by assuming an angel's form or 
 angelic manners. I never danced the gallopade or 
 climbed trees, and am now exactly what I was then, 
 only rather older ; and you must take me as I am, 
 my Perthes — in one word, love me, and tell me so 
 sometimes, and that is all I want." 
 
 " Your answer," says Perthes, in his next letter, 
 " was just what it should be, only do n't forget that 
 my inward love for you is as eternal as yours is for 
 me ; but I have so many things to think of. How 
 much of us belongs to earth and to man? how 
 much to heaven ? for we belong to both." 
 
 In the middle of May Perthes returned to Ham- 
 burg and soon became aware that his wife's health 
 required serious attention. The physician had told 
 Caroline that her nervous system was over-wrought, 
 and that by stimulating her bodily powers to exer- 
 tions beyond their strength, she was gradually pre- 
 paring the way for disease. A change of scene was 
 desirable, and Caroline, with her younger children, 
 went to pass the summer of 1815 at Wandsbeck 
 with her mother. 
 
 During this period, almost daily letters were 
 
116 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 exchanged between her and her husband. While 
 those of Perthes were devoted to warnings and en- 
 treaties to take care of her health, the few lines in 
 which Caroline was wont to reply, were full of ex- 
 pressions of love, and sorrow on account of their 
 necessary separation. 
 
 " I am seated in the garden," she writes, " and all 
 my merry little birds are around me. I let the sun 
 shine upon me, and make me well if he can. God 
 grant it — if it only be so far as to enable me to dis- 
 charge my duties to my family ; for I feel myself 
 too unhappy as a mere cipher." And again, "I 
 hope, my dear Perthes, that you will again have 
 pleasure in me ; the waters seem really to do me 
 good. Come to-morrow, only not too late. My 
 very soul longs for you." " You shall be thanked 
 for the delightful hours that I enjoyed with you 
 yesterday," she wrote after a short visit to Ham- 
 burg, " and for the sight of your dear, kind face, as 
 I got out of the carriage." 
 
 " I only live when you are here with me," she 
 WTites a few days later; "send Matthias to me if it 
 does not interfere with his lessons; if I cannot have 
 the father, I must put up with the son." " The 
 children enjoy their freedom, and are my joy and 
 delight; alas for those who have none!" she says 
 
DEATH OF CLAUDIUS. 117 
 
 after telling some childish adventures. " But you, 
 dear old father ! you, too, are my joy and delight. 
 Let me have a little letter; I cannot help longing 
 for one, and will read it, when I get it, ten times 
 over. Pray don't forget the poor people in the 
 mud-huts at Hamm ; the house is easily found, in 
 the lane, opposite to something particular, but I 
 cannot remember exactly what." 
 
 "With many fluctuations of health, Caroline had 
 passed the time at Wandsbeck. August had now 
 come, and brought vividly to mind the many years 
 of happiness she had spent with her husband. 
 
 "It is eighteen years to-day," she writes, "since 
 I wrote you the last letter before our marriage, and 
 sent you my first request about the little black 
 cross. I have asked for many things in the eigh- 
 teen years that have passed since then, dear Per- 
 thes, and what shall I ask to-day? You can tell, 
 for you know me well, and know that I have never 
 said an untrue word to you. Only you cannot 
 quite know my indescribable affection, for it is in- 
 finite. Perthes, my heart is full of joy and sadness; 
 would that you were here ! This day, eighteen 
 years ago, I did not long for you more fervently or 
 more ardently than now. Thank God over and 
 over for everything! I am yours in time, and 
 
118 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 thougli I know not how, in eternity too ! Be weU 
 pleased if you come to-morrow. Affection is cer- 
 tainly the greatest wonder in heaven, or on earth, 
 and the only thing I can represent to myself as un- 
 satiable throughout eternity." 
 
 In the middle of August Caroline returned home ; 
 and although not fully restored to health, she was 
 yet able to superintend her household, and to min- 
 ister comfort and joy, support and assistance to 
 many others. 
 
 ^[H^^--l^ 
 
XIII. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 l^HE book trade which Perthes had re- 
 sumed at the close of the war contin- 
 \]^ ued to prosper. Hoping to add to its 
 importance, he left home in the sum- 
 mer of 1816, with his son Matthias, then 
 sixteen years of age, for a journey to Vienna, 
 by way of Cologne, Frankfort, and Munich. 
 
 Perthes' biography contains many interesting 
 letters written at this time, a few of which we quote. 
 At Diisseldorf, by the light of a fine sunset ho 
 first saw the E-hine. " The glorious river made a 
 grand impression," he says. "It is true, like the 
 Elbe at Hamburg, it flows through a level country. 
 I should not say flows, but streams impetuously, 
 for there is a vast difference; yet the Ehine can 
 never form so b^aiilifiil a mirror as the Elbe occa- 
 
120 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 sionally does. We have now, my beloved Caroline, 
 the Elbe, the Wesser, the Ems, and soon we shall 
 have the Ehine, too, between us; but love and 
 devotion recognize no boundaries. Be confident. 
 Your glances into the past, and fearful and hopeful 
 longings, are indeed guarantees for the great future 
 beyond the grave ; yet do not forget that a vigor- 
 ous grasp of the present is our duty so long as Ave 
 are upon earth. It is the present moment that 
 supplies the energy and decision which fit us for 
 life. Retrospect brings sadness, and the dark future 
 excites fears ; so that we should be crippled in our 
 exertions were vre not to lay a vigorous grasp upon 
 the present." 
 
 In another letter he says : " It is difficult to give 
 you any idea of Cologne, for all is so new to us. 
 We have already seen much that is grand and beau- 
 tiful, and also much that is comic. Do n't be alarm- 
 ed at our having become somewhat Catholic. In 
 the Cathedral there was a service against the rain, 
 and at night there were torchlight processions, the 
 priests praying aloud; and were we travellers to 
 keep aloof? The streets, lanes, and alleys, very 
 appropriately called Spargassen, are strangely intri- 
 cate and perplexing. Houses of all periods, antiqui- 
 ties of all ages, are here seen side by side; in a few 
 
COKRESPONDENCE. 121 
 
 paces you walk through the history of the old Eo- 
 man times. The Colognese dwell among the stones 
 and ruins of fifteen hundred years. On the street- 
 floor most of the houses have only a counting-room 
 or shop, with a dark room at the back ; above are 
 warehouses and large rooms without windows, the 
 frequent dwelling-place of the bat and owl. But on 
 passing through the ground-floor to the back of the 
 house, you find well-built, spacious rooms, in which 
 the family live as quietly as if it were in the coun- 
 try', and which frequently open into large gardens, 
 surrounded by venerable walls festooned with ivy 
 and other climbing vines. We saw a number of 
 small houses built against the old Roman city wall, 
 and clustered together in mid-air like swallows' 
 nests. How many generations with their joys and 
 sorrows have passed away within them ! 
 
 " But amid the ruins of the past we were pleas- 
 antly reminded of the present by a glass case, pro- 
 tected by wirework like a parrot's cage, and con- 
 taining three merry and fine-looking children, which 
 was let down upon us as we passed under a win- 
 dow. These floating children's rooms are hung out 
 of the window in the sunshine, or when there is 
 anything to be seen. We went to the cathedral on 
 the day of our arrival, though it was already half 
 
 16 
 
122 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 dark. Our cicerone unceremoniously tapped on 
 the shoulder a very old priest who was kneeling 
 and praying diligently ; and the old man rose at 
 once to do the honors of the cathedral, while the 
 cicerone knelt in his place and carried on the pray- 
 ers. To-day vre went again for the third time to 
 the cathedral. What honor has been conferred 
 upon man in making him the instrument by which 
 the Spirit of God produces such wonderful works! 
 It is impossible to write, about it. St. Peter's has 
 now recovered the picture of the Crucifixion of 
 Peter, painted by Bubens, and presented by him to 
 this church in which he was baptized. It was 
 taken to Paris by the French ; but I am afraid that 
 the barbarity which did not scruple to tear even 
 this precious legacy from the very altar will soon 
 be forgotten by the inhabitants. This morning, 
 after visiting the "Wallraff collection of Colognese 
 antiquities, icliere I might have learned much, if I had 
 known more, we went to the house of Schauberg, 
 the bookseller. Several hours passed rapidly away 
 in animated conversation ; Catholicism and Protes- 
 tantism being among the subjects discussed. On 
 mentioning the incident of the cicerone and the 
 priest, I was told it was the office of this priest to 
 show the rehcs, and that, whether praying or not, 
 
COKRESPONDENCE. 123 
 
 he must needs be always ready to discharge the 
 functions of his office ; that among CathoHcs it was 
 the custom to treat God with famiharity as a father, 
 and thus they could occasionally put him on one 
 side with childlike confidence, while Protestants, 
 who, on the contrary, always make an effort when 
 they pray, must be on ceremony with him as they 
 would with some stranger of rank ! This reminded 
 me of the drunken Cathohc peasants who, before 
 they begin to fight, with a similar confiding spirit, 
 put the crucifix imder the table, that the Lord may 
 not be a witness to the scandal !" 
 
 In another letter he says: "I do not willingly 
 speak of Catholics or of the Catholic church, except 
 with those who have themselves received the faith 
 of Christ in all humility. With such persons we 
 can contemplate, from a firm and intelligible stand- 
 point, the various forms in which the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity has expressed itself." 
 
 Perthes reached Coblentz on the 1st of August, 
 and early on the following morning, the anniversary 
 of his wedding, wrote to Caroline : " You are awake, 
 I am sure, and looking towards me as I to you. We 
 have known fulness of joy in our nineteen years of 
 wedded life, and have also experienced much trou- 
 ble and sorrovv\ God be praised for both. I again 
 
124 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 hold out my hand to you, beloved one, for the years 
 that are yet appointed to us; let us meet them 
 bravely. Matthias is just awake, and he, too, greets 
 his mother." 
 
 At Frankfort, Perthes found letters informing 
 him of the sudden and serious illness of Caroline. 
 He had resolved on a hasty return, when in a letter 
 from Caroline herself he was assured that all dan- 
 ger was over. " How can I thank you for your let- 
 ters," she wrote, " and for the lively enjoyment that 
 they afford me ? If I were not altogether yours, I 
 would now give myself to you anew. You cannot 
 conceive how thankful I am. To-day I have an- 
 other letter, while I am still enjoying those from 
 Cologne and Coblentz. They are living pictures of 
 your inner hfe, and of all that you are seeing and 
 doing, and are inexpressibly dear to me. Often I 
 can scarcely persuade myself it is only a narrative, 
 it is so exactly as if I were present at all you de- 
 scribe. Rubens' picture of Peter hangs before me 
 day and night, and yet it is too terribly beautiful to 
 have always before my eyes. I am also thankful to 
 God for keeping you so well, after so many years of 
 v>^earing labor." 
 
 At Frankfort, Humboldt, who was an old per- 
 sonal acquaintance, received Perthes with great 
 
COKRESPONDENCE. 1^ 
 
 cordiality, and took up the book-trade question 
 with zeal. After an afternoon passed in his family- 
 circle, Perthes wrote : " There is a wonderful atmo- 
 sphere about a really great man ; nowhere do we 
 feel so much at home or so free and happy. 
 Through all the light play of conversation, in which 
 he takes an equal share with his wife, the real, 
 actual greatness of Humboldt comes out, and I am 
 confirmed in my old opinion, so often laughed at, 
 that under an ice-cold exterior and a keen-edged 
 sarcasm, this man conceals deep and warm feelings, 
 and a lively interest in Germany." 
 
 After passing through many places of interest, 
 Perthes reached Munich on the 25th of August, and 
 went straight to his old friend Jacobi. " He received 
 us as if we had been his children," he says, "and 
 with the feelings of a child I embraced the dear 
 old man. In appearance he is httle altered, and 
 his health is quite as good as can be expected at 
 his age, especially for one so delicately organized 
 and of so susceptible a temperament. If possible, 
 he is even more affectionate and cordial than ever. 
 
 " I have seen few things in Munich, because I 
 felt that my time belonged to Jacobi; but the Pic- 
 ture Gallery has great attractions. For some time 
 I was perplexed, till from the mass of the great and 
 
126 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 the beautiful I was able to fix on something defi- 
 nite : the contrasts are too strong. With wonder- 
 ful power has Rubens penetrated into the dark side 
 of human nature, and with equal power has he ex- 
 hibited it. His drunken Silenus is a horrible com- 
 pound of devil and sow; the woman just falling into 
 hell, still reeking with passion — the torments of the 
 damned portrayed in her countenance — is not less 
 horrible than the principal figure in the same pic- 
 ture, a bloated glutton. . . . The evil that is in man 
 is as truly represented by Rubens as man's heaven- 
 ward aspirations and pure affections are by Guido, 
 Reni, and Raphael. Man is in both; we feel and 
 are conscious of the contradiction that we carry 
 within us, but here we see it in pictures. It was 
 strange to see again the pictures that were in the 
 former DUsseldorf Gallery, and which I helped 
 Tischbein to take, one by one, out of a chest in a 
 barn at Glukstatt." 
 
 " Matthias shall have my special thanks to-day," 
 replies Caroline, "for his descriptions of nature, 
 which really did me good, after you had frightened 
 me with Rubens' dreadful picture. I hold it to be 
 sinful and wrong to pervert such a divine gift as 
 Rubens has received to such corrupt and monstrous 
 uses. I rejoice over one who has passed through 
 
COEBESPONDENCE. 127 
 
 life without having known, seen, imagined, or been 
 susceptible of such abominations. How dare a 
 man, by the medium of pictures, realize to better 
 and purer souls, who dream not of them, things 
 which are the disgrace and brand of humanity ? In 
 a word, I hate such pictures, in spite of all the art 
 with which they may be painted. It is a black art. 
 Matthias should not paint such pictures if he could. 
 I glory in God's work — Nature. She comes from 
 him and leads to him, and happy is he who has it 
 in his power to look upon these works as you have 
 done. Dear Matthias, fill your soul with such pic- 
 tures, and let them live there till you have learned 
 to draw nigh to your Creator in another and higher 
 way. Bring back to me all that you can apprehend 
 and communicate ; I long for it." 
 
 " I have again spent some hours with Jacobi," 
 wrote Perthes immediately before his departure 
 from Munich. "He took me into his room alone, 
 and spoke of many things, and his voice was often 
 tremulous. He was always beginning the conver- 
 sation afresh, and I could see plainly that he dread- 
 ed the parting moment. He felt as I did, that in 
 this life we shall never meet again." 
 
 And now that Perthes was entering the hitherto 
 unknown world of the Alps, he forgot kingdoms. 
 
128 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 literature, and tlie book trade, and surrendered him- 
 self with joy to the overpowering impressions of 
 that glorious region. 
 
 But the human element in man never amid such 
 scenery lost its attractive and abiding interest for 
 him. "I have," he says, "seen many men, and 
 men of all kinds, in my long journey, and my love 
 for man is in nowise diminished. I have found far 
 more intelligence, ability, and uprightness, and far 
 less outward immorality, than I expected. If we 
 only meet men with confidence, and are not repelled 
 by differences of manner and peculiar modes of view- 
 ing things, we everywhere feel how nearly related 
 the individuals of our race are to one another. I 
 have felt in some degree at home even in the rigidly 
 Cathohc countries, and have seen much that is 
 attractive there. How touching, for instance, was 
 it to see in one of the churehes at Augsburg, the 
 childlike thought of a whole row of little chapels, 
 each devoted to special prayers, suited to different 
 circumstances. . . . Aftn all the people of Cologne 
 were not far wrong when they talked about the 
 Sunday God cf the Protestants and the family 
 God of the CathoHcs, to whom they can resort in 
 work days and in all the petty circumstances of 
 life." 
 
COREESPONDENCE. 129 
 
 To this Caroline replied : " The little chapels for 
 prayer interested me; but, nevertheless, you are 
 very unjust to Protestantism, dear Perthes. I can 
 tell you, as before God, that / have many little chap- 
 els in my heart, to ivhich I resort in time of need, al- 
 though not so fervently or so purely as I ought and 
 as I could wish. At present the chapel of thank- 
 offeiing takes up most of my time, and you must 
 retract what you said of the Catholics being more 
 familiar with God than we, and of our making a 
 rush to him only on Sundays." 
 
 At Vienna, Perthes was called upon by a young 
 Cathohc priest, who on the death of Claudius, Car- 
 oline's father, had written a letter full of respect 
 and sympathy. "I, too, Hke most of my associ- 
 ates/' he said, " was a victim to the religious free- 
 thinking that prevailed in Austria imder Joseph the 
 Second ; but my truant soul was led back to the 
 way of truth and grace by the writings of Claudius. 
 How wonderfully great he was !" On taking leave 
 he asked for a picture. " It does a wrestling man 
 good," he said, " to be surrounded continually by 
 tried wrestlers ; e\il thoughts are put to flight when 
 the eye falls on the portrait of one in whose Hving 
 presence one would have blushed to own them." 
 
 Toward the end of September Perthes bade 
 
 ChrUt in Ger. K me. 17 
 
130 CHEIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 adieu to Vienna, cleliglited with the fruitful weeks, 
 and the conj&dence he had enjoyed in that city. 
 
 A few days later he found himself near Schwarz- 
 burg, the home of his childhood. In attempting to 
 cross a swollen stream, across which the trunks of 
 two trees were thrown in place of the bridge that 
 had been washed away, Matthias, who was fore- 
 most, called out, "Hold me, I am falling!" Per- 
 thes seized the falling boy, and was instantly pre- 
 cipitated with him into the torrent. Once Perthes 
 rose to the surface, and cried, "Don't lose your 
 presence of mind," then immediately sank. Wife 
 and children flashed across his mind, and then he 
 lost all consciousness. Both were being swept along 
 towards the wheels of a saw-mill, when within a few 
 yards of this Perthes was vigorously grasped by the 
 arm, and dragged to the shore. In the struggle for 
 life he had kept con\Tilsive hold of his son, and 
 now all unconsciously drew him to the bank. The 
 stranger, who had expected to rescue one only 
 from certain death, found he had saved two. 
 
 In the warm drying-room of a paper-mill the 
 father and son speedily recovered under the treat- 
 ment of a surgeon, who happened fortunately to be 
 on the spot. They then hastened to Schwarz- 
 bui'g, where, well heated by a rapid walk, they 
 
CORKESPONDENCE. 131 
 
 arrived towards evening. The hand of death had 
 been upon them, but had left no tokens of having 
 been so near. 
 
 Amid the scenes of childhood — cherished and 
 affectionately ministered to as if he had been a 
 child, by the old colonel, the old master of the 
 horse, and the old Aunt Caroline — Perthes rested 
 for a day or two after the excitement of the two 
 preceding months, then hastened back to Hamburg, 
 which he reached early in October, and found Car- 
 oline, whose health had often been a source of anx- 
 iety to him during his absence, stronger than he 
 had left her. 
 
XIV. 
 
 RELIGION AND RATIONALISIVI, 
 
 y^.J^^HE Rationalism which for a time had 
 "^-^ exercised almost absolute dominion 
 over Protestant Germany, now seemed 
 f^\} to be giving way to other influences. 
 
 7 ^ { A deeper spiritual life was awakened by the 
 trials through which the nation had passed. Not 
 finding in Rationalism the peace and satisfaction so 
 eagerly craved in all parts of Germany, associations 
 were formed of men seeking spiritual help, and find- 
 ing it in the old faith of the church. 
 
 Perthes had attentively observed the new move- 
 ment, and though sensible of its perils, aberrations 
 and caprices, yet heartily rejoiced in it so far as it 
 was earnest and healthy. 
 
 A friend in Berlin wrote him that certain young 
 men in that city were attracting attention by their 
 earnestness in the matter of salvation; but that 
 
KELIGION AND RATIONALISM. 133 
 
 they were of a sombre mood, regarding eyerj^tliing 
 secular, and even art itseK, as sinful. He replied : 
 " If the zeal of the young men be sincere, you need 
 not alarm yourself about their gloom. Sadness 
 and cheerfulness are things of the temperament, 
 and the same earnestness and faith are variously 
 manifested, by some in seriousness, by others in 
 cheerfulness, according to the bodily constitution ; 
 and we may not, on account of the earth] 3^ husk, 
 quarrel with the heavenly substance." 
 
 Another theological friend writes: "A very pe- 
 culiar view of Christianity is just now manifesting 
 itself here and there among the Moravians. They 
 spHt men into two parts — the natural, which, as 
 such, according to Kant, has no knowledge of the 
 infinite and divine, and the intuitive, which sees 
 God and eternity everywhere." 
 
 Perthes answered: "It is not the business of 
 Christianity, by fine-spun theories to immortalize 
 the contest which goes on within us all ; rather it 
 is by means of saving faith^ to make of tivain one neiv 
 man. He who has not felt the internal working of 
 a great mystery, which is ever alienating us from 
 God, will never attain to that humility without 
 which the saving virtue of the atonement is inac- 
 cessible. The flesh is not the root of evil; pride, 
 
134 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 pride is the real devil. The flesh is but the means 
 of punishment and cure, ever reminding the proud- 
 est of his misery and helplessness. Little that is 
 positive is revealed to us, but that little is all. 
 What form shall be given to revealed truth is an 
 open question, for it breaks into rays of the most 
 various colors, according to the fancy and modes 
 of thought peculiar to individuals and epochs. 
 But when you say that the Christian revelation, if 
 received as truth, at once shrouds history and phi- 
 losophy in a haze, in which man is confounded, and 
 dreams rather than thinks, I reply, that to every 
 one who ignores the redemption through Christ, 
 history becomes one tangled skein, and every philo- 
 sophical system a sum in arithmetic, the correct- 
 ness of which, for want of proof, can never be 
 ascertained." 
 
 To another he writes : " You say that with the 
 mysteries of Christianity your religion ceases. To 
 this I reply, that the God of Eationalism baffles 
 conception far more than does the mj^stery of 
 Christianity. By the idea of an eternal Being, ex- 
 alted above time and space, the Bationahst seeks 
 to satisfy himself and others — but what he means 
 by these words, he neither says nor knows. Man 
 cannot conceive of a personal God without invest- 
 
RELIGION AND RATIONALISM. 135 
 
 ing him with a human form; every rehgion is an 
 incarnation of Deity, and so far an obscure antici- 
 pation of God's manifestation in the flesh." 
 
 "You say that Christianity is forced upon man," 
 wrote Perthes, to another friend, " and are dis- 
 pleased that it should be so. . . . Christianity was 
 not forced upon me, but I upon Christianity ; I was 
 thrown by an inward necessity into the arms of the 
 Saviour, and so, I believe, are many others. 
 
 " Our existence is that of fallen spirits ; but we 
 have retained a yearning after the purity of our 
 divine origm, and this elevates everything. "We 
 are all conscious of an effort to soar, to climb, or to 
 creep upward; many get the length of struggling 
 with evil, but none gain a victory; the most eleva- 
 ted, as well as the most grovelling natures, need a 
 Helper and a Mediator, in order to rise; and ho 
 who is unconscious of this necessity, wearies him- 
 self out in ineffectual endeavors. For him who, in 
 the anguish of his heart, cries out, ' I am a miser- 
 able sinner,' and stretches forth his arms to the 
 Saviour — for him, I say, Christ died. How closely, 
 then, is faith in the Eedeemer allied with the reali- 
 zation of one's own sinfulness ! Many, who no more 
 recognized Christ than did the disciples at Em- 
 maus, may yet have prayed to him, and in their 
 
136 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 perplexity made an idol tlieir mediator. Sucli men 
 Christ will, in his own time, bring to that truth 
 which is rest and light; and many will sit down 
 on the right hand of God, who in this life never 
 uttered the name of Christ." 
 
 " The Divine light," says Count Stolberg in one 
 of his letters, "has so thoroughly penetrated the 
 modern mind, that our civilization could not be 
 preserved if that light were extinguished. The 
 heathen philosophy found an element of preserva- 
 tion in that yearning after light in which it origina- 
 ted ; but the false philosophy of our times originates 
 in insensibility, audacity, and vanity, without any 
 yearning after light or truth." 
 
XV 
 
 MARRIAGE OF THE ELDEST DAUGHTER. 
 
 XTHOUGH neither the political com- 
 motions, nor the manifold religious and 
 ecclesiastical controversies of the time 
 ever became uninteresting to Caroline, 
 or failed to draw forth her sympathies, they 
 never again engrossed her soul as in 1813. 
 Her heart was in her home, and there she ever 
 found fresh cause of joy and gratitude. 
 
 Her eldest daughter, Agnes, had been betrothed 
 smce the summer of 1813, to William Perthes, who 
 had formerly been associated with Perthes at Ham- 
 burg, afterwards campaigned as a volunteer, and 
 now managed the business which he had inherited 
 from his father in Gotha, and which, under his aus- 
 pices, had become very flourishing. 
 
 "God has again showered down joy and glad- 
 ness upon us," wrote Caroline about this time; 
 " how can I thank him enough for manifestly pro- 
 18 
 
138 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 tectiiig us and our children ! It is certainly a great 
 happiness to be able to commit so pure and inno- 
 cent a child to the man whom we have so long 
 esteemed, knowing that he will cleave to her with 
 his whole heart, loving and cherishing her as long 
 as he lives." 
 
 On the 12th of May, 1818, the marriage took 
 place, and on the 16th the young, couple departed 
 for their new home. " My beloved Agnes, you have 
 hardly been gone from me three hours," says her 
 mother, " and I am already writing to you, because 
 I cannot help it. When you left, I watched you 
 till you had passed the bridge, and then gave you 
 up in sure confidence that you are, and ever will 
 remain, in God's hands. You, dear Agnes, know 
 that I love you, and can imagine the rest. How 
 well I remember the moment when you were first 
 laid beside me, when I looked at yon for the first 
 time, and gave you the first kiss. Since then I 
 have rejoiced in you every day; I might say every 
 hour, through twenty years. Should I not thank 
 God, and if he has willed it, consent to part with 
 you ? He will forgive me if I cannot do it without 
 tears. And you, too, my dear Agnes, must and 
 ought to weep; and your beloved William will un- 
 derstand you, and forgive you if you weep too long. 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MAnRIAGE. 139 
 
 Never conceal from him anything that relates to 
 yourself, even if you think that it may displease 
 him : you will soon find that even with the fondest 
 love, there is room for mutual forbearance. I re- 
 joice beforehand in your future, for we, too, shall be 
 sharers in it. Reniemler that you are never to be 
 weary of communicating your joys and sorrows, 
 that so we may still live a common life." 
 
 " Your father has just brought me your letter," 
 she writes in answer to the first news from Gotha. 
 " I have read it again and again, and rejoice and 
 thank God, and also your dear William, for making 
 you so happy. You know how confident I was of 
 this beforehand, and it will be permanent where 
 God has given his blessing. Conjugal happiness 
 lives in the depths of the heart even amid the sor- 
 rows and trials of life; indeed, it is by these only 
 the more deeply rooted, as I know from my own 
 experience, thank God. I rejoice with you, and on 
 your own account, dear children, and school myself 
 to bear your absence cheerfully. So does your 
 father; it is a real pleasure to look at his face when 
 he comes to the door with one of your letters." 
 
 " We cannot think of anything but AYilliam's birth- 
 day," she writes somewhat later. " We would have 
 gladly lived in the same place with you, if God had 
 
UO CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 so ordered it. Ah ! wliat a pity that the world is 
 so wide ! How delightful it would be if we, and 
 all whom we love, could live together, and we could 
 have kept this birthday with you. But I will not 
 complain. I will rather rejoice and be glad even 
 in your removal. May God preserve your happi- 
 ness to you and us, and with it a watcliful and 
 thankful heart. I cannot tell you often enough 
 that you are always with me and at my side ; and 
 none knows so well as myself how gladly I would 
 hear you answer when in thought I speak with you. 
 At the same time I do not grudge you to your dear 
 William, and it is my constant desire that you may 
 become dearer and dearer to each other. That 
 you are in the right path I am fully persuaded. 
 Yours is indeed a happy lot, my beloved Agnes, 
 and if every day finds you walking more humbly 
 before God, and more lovingly, you will have a 
 heaven within you. Your dear father is well and 
 cheerful. "Would that he could only secure a quiet 
 hour for me occasionally ! This is my only want, 
 and it troubles me more and oftener than it ought.'* 
 In July, 1818, Caroline went with Perthes for a 
 few days to Ltibeck, to visit her family, returning 
 by Kheinfeld, the birthplace of her father. "We 
 have actually been to Liibeck, and enjoyed it very 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MAERIAGE. 141 
 
 much," she wrote to Agnes. "Your father was 
 youug again, and very merry, and so was I. 
 We stayed two days with my brother, and were 
 truly happy. I am really well, and hardly know 
 which is best, to awake or to go to sleep in health; 
 but I think the latter. O Agnes, pray that I may 
 remain so ! St. Mary's Church is large, and I be- 
 lieve that many earnest prayers and cries ascend 
 to heaven from it. The long row of tombs, with 
 their great stone cofiSns, and the obscurity of the 
 place, impressed me deeply. . . . On Tuesday we 
 left for Kheinfeld, the quietness of which passes all 
 description. It is situated on the shore of a large 
 lake, richly wooded on one side. It was a still, 
 peaceful evening ; we had escaped from the .world, 
 were alone, and inconceivably happy. Would to 
 God we had more such hours! When our busy 
 life in Hamburg occurred to me, I felt rather dis- 
 couraged, and yet I am convinced that my work 
 there is, on the whole, better for me than this calm 
 blessedness. God has led me by a very different 
 way from that which I had laid out for myself, but 
 it has been the right way — this I not only believe, 
 but know. He has given me in labor and tumult 
 what I would gladly have sought and found in quiet 
 and solitude. We also went to the church of your 
 
U-2 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 dear grandfather, and to his grave, and into the 
 confessional, where there was an old arm-chair in 
 which he had often sat, and a few books he had 
 often read. The next morning we again went out 
 for a walk, and rested ourselves in a beautiful spot. 
 How I did rejoice in the happiness of your father ; 
 he was so delighted with me and everything ! But 
 to return to you and your letter : what you write of 
 
 N 's children is true, and distresses me greatly, 
 
 for I am convinced that heartfelt love, which lets 
 itself be seen, and in a manner felt in everything, is 
 the dew and the rain indispensable to the growth 
 and bloom of children. I believe that the luore 
 children are loved, and the more conscious they are 
 of being loved, the better ; of course there is also a 
 time for seriousness and discipline. But I know 
 many people who think it right carefully to conceal 
 their affection from their children. They should 
 study 1 Cor., chap. 13, and they would see that there 
 is nothing to fear in that direction. You know that 
 with reference neither to children, nor to anything 
 else, am I fond of words; but to give occasional 
 expression to the feelings of the heart, I consider 
 right; the mouth naturally overflows with what- 
 ever fills the heart, and how can it overflow but in 
 words T 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 143 
 
 In another letter she says: "You ask after 
 
 F ; she was here lately, and was so ingenuous 
 
 and confiding, that, to my horror, she did not shrink 
 from saying that she believed all unmarried women 
 had missed their vocation, and had but a melan- 
 choly prospect. I pray God to defend every girl 
 from so miserable a notion. No; God has provi- 
 ded love and happiness for all who will accept 
 them, whatever their rank or sex. No one need 
 want objects of affection, dear Agnes. You cannot 
 for a moment doubt that I, like you, regard a good 
 husband as a great and precious gift from God; 
 but God can send his blessing directly into the 
 heart, without attaching it to any intermediate ob- 
 ject, and make us happy without husbands. For, 
 dear Agnes, your mutual love can be a means of 
 happiness and blessing only as it increases yoar 
 love to God ; and can you not imagine, that to turn 
 directly to God, and love him without the interven- 
 tion of any human medium, must be far, far better? 
 And even with a human medium I can imagine un- 
 married to be quite as happy as married life, else 
 poor maidens might despair, and we with them and 
 for them. If we but propose to ourselves some 
 serious object, pm^suing it with our whole heai:t, 
 and laboring for it in dependence on God, his bless- 
 
144 CHEIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 ing and happiness can never fail ns. This is my 
 honest opinion, and I beheve that every young 
 woman acts wisely Avhen she turns her affections 
 to God, instead of looking about her with yearning 
 and anxiety for an earthly object. This is a mel- 
 ancholy condition which withers and dries up the 
 heart, and annihilates all happiness. I know noth- 
 ing so sad as a poor girl in this condition, especially 
 if she be pure and good. If, however, a woman 
 finds such a dear Perthes as you and I have found, 
 or rather as God has given us, let her close with 
 him at once and be thankful." 
 
 In regard to new friends Caroline wrote: "I 
 thank you for your letter, but not at all that you 
 have not yet looked out for a real friend of your 
 own sex. I earnestly wish one for you, so that you 
 may have something to fall back upon, when Will- 
 iam cannot be with you. If you are sketching a 
 model of perfection in your friend, I can quite un- 
 derstand how it is that you have not found one ; 
 but you must make allowances, and go forth with a 
 generous confidence, not suffering yourself to be 
 ruffled, as you too often do. It is often easier to 
 tolerate weaknesses and failings, than manners and 
 modes of speech to which we are unaccustomed. 
 Only bear perpetually in mind that there is no dif- 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTEB'S MABRIAGE. M5 
 
 ference at heart between the people of Gofcha and 
 Hamburg. There, as here, there is much short- 
 coming and much good, and many httle tilings you 
 would rather do without, yet which you must take 
 along with every acquisition. It is very natiu'al 
 that the good quahties of your friends here should 
 appear to you in the Hvehest colors; their weak- 
 nesses and failings, on the other hand, in the faint- 
 est; and yet, there were not many of them, with 
 whom you could speak of the deepest and holiest 
 things, and to whom you' could pour out your 
 whole heart. Nevertheless you loved them, and 
 took pleasure in their society. Only make the 
 attempt in Gotha; let your heart speak in truth 
 and confidence, and you will find that what comes 
 from the heart, goes to the heart ; you will be met 
 more than half-way, for the necessity and the 
 pleasure of loving and being loved is common to 
 us all, and the young ladies there have no William 
 as you have." 
 
 Perthes also wrote to warn his daughter against 
 seclusion fi-om others: "Make the most of your 
 own happiness, but remember that you are not 
 alone in the world ; and do not shut up your house 
 from your friends! It is perilous, and leads to 
 family egotism, and brings its own punishment. I 
 
 Christ ill Get-. ITom*. X9 
 
146 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 am glad that you have young men living with you, 
 dear William. Continue this custom even to old 
 age ; it will preserve you alike from the gossip and 
 tedium of company. Communicate freely with 
 others, and show that domestic happiness does not 
 estrange you from them. The earth is God's house, 
 and we may not live only to ourselves. I know, 
 dear Agnes, that you will not let any needy person 
 whom you can help go empty away ; but neighbors 
 and acquaintances wish to talk of their affairs, their 
 joys and sorrows, and' those of their friends, and 
 nothing is so offensive as cold reserve, as though 
 we were beings of a superior nature, able to live, 
 suffer, and rejoice alone." 
 
 " That you do not find in the pulpit what you 
 seek," wrote Caroline, "distresses me greatly, but 
 does not surprise me, since the clergy for the niost 
 part preach only morality, which is but meagre 
 fare. But do not be cast down on this account, 
 my dear x4gnes; take refuge in your inner church. 
 God can serve up a better table than any preacher, 
 and will assuredly feed you, if only you are hungry. 
 The old hymns and chorals have ever been my best 
 stimulants, and are so still, whenever the inner life 
 grows languid ; in particular, those beautiful hymns 
 of longing after God, in Freylinghausen's book, 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 147 
 
 have often revived me, and will, I trust, support me 
 even in death. But if the preaching be not satis- 
 factory, do not on this account absenc yourself 
 from church. There are seasons in which you are 
 more likely to be aroused and quickened in the 
 church than in the house, where I at least seldom 
 have a quiet hour." 
 
 "I am indeed sorry," she says, in a letter of 
 later date, "that you are obliged to live without 
 music : still, my advice is, not to form any intima- 
 cies only for the sake of music. You might pay too 
 dearly for it, and not perhaps find it easy to draw 
 back. My piano is also dumb ; I cannot sing one 
 of our songs to it. When I sound the first note, I 
 feel that you are no longer by my side ; tears then 
 come and choke the rest. Yes, dear Agnes, I feel 
 that it is a hard duty to part with a gift in which 
 God has so long allowed us to rejoice." 
 
 In this, and in many other letters, we see the 
 struggle in Caroline's heart between her joy at the 
 happiness of her child, and the sorroAV of separa- 
 tion. " I know that you are happy, and that is the 
 chief thing; but, my dear Agnes, a mother's heart 
 is not at all times to be quieted by reason, and has 
 its own rights too. Only it must not be intractable. 
 That it should not be so, is in quiet hours my daily 
 
148 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 study. As long as you were with me, I was wholly 
 yours — heart and soul, mind and body, hands and 
 feet ; if you have no longer need of my hands and 
 feet, you may yet find my affection useful, for in 
 this consists the glory and excellency of love, that 
 if we are only pure, it can never hurt us ; of its giv- 
 ing and receiving there is no end here, and it 
 endures throughout eternity." 
 
 " That you still think of us with warm affection 
 and attachment, and would gladly be with us, I 
 find quite natural," she writes in another letter. 
 " You could not love your "William so well if you 
 could forget us. I am fully persuaded that I love 
 you as truly and fondly as William does, and have 
 done so for twenty years, and what will be better 
 yet, my dear, long-loved Agnes — for ever. Preserve 
 then your affection for us in all its fervor; it is 
 quite consistent with that to your dear William. 
 The soul is so constituted, that while we are here 
 below, wishing and yearning are not only com23ati- 
 ble with our happiness, but our best and proper 
 happiness is only realized when this wishing and 
 yearning are directed toward the best things." 
 
 " To-morrow is our wedding-day," writes Caro- 
 line, in a letter on the 1st of August. " It is the 
 first one on which I have to look back on p;ifts 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 149 
 
 resigned. Do you enjoy the onward road? It 
 also has its cares and troubles ; but, as I find by 
 experience, the retrospect is harder and more pain- 
 ful. Youth has its dangers; but those of age are, 
 I fear, greater and more trying, though, thank 
 Heaven, I observe this rather in others than in 
 myself, and in God's name I also am going forward. 
 Dear Agnes, love me still, and keep as close to me 
 as you can. My dear husband is quite well and 
 cheerful, and as dear to me now as he was twenty 
 years ago. I never believed it possible that affec- 
 tion could continue so uninterruptedly for twenty- 
 one years ; and how much longer it will continue is 
 not for me to say." 
 
 Again, on the following day : " The children had 
 adorned our breakfast-table with flowers and wed- 
 ding garlands. We sat in a bower of leafy green, 
 and examined the little presents that your sisters 
 had prepared for us. It appears very strange to 
 ^ me that you should be wandering about the world 
 without me on this day, and that I should not know 
 where you are." 
 
 But it was not only the joyful anniversaries that 
 were remembered by CaroHne. *' It is six years 
 to-day since my angel Bernard was born," she 
 writes in September, "and his earthly body is 
 
150 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 already so dissolved tliat I can now only see Lis 
 dear bright eyes, which, when I was in trouble, used 
 to revive and strengthen me, and renew my confi- 
 dence and joy in the Lord. You also recollect how 
 lie rejoiced and comforted us all at Aschan, and 
 how kindly and pleasantly and lovingly he looked 
 on us all. Would that, though unseen by me, he still 
 looked upon me, and raised my soul to God ! The 
 angel-child must be able, and he is certainly will- 
 ing, to do even more for us now. How gladly I 
 would know more about the nature of the happi- 
 ness of my beloved, departed children. God does 
 indeed allow us to apprehend it in the depths of 
 onr hearts, as something transcending thought; but 
 whenever I would realize this presentment of the 
 heart in my understanding, it dissolves and van- 
 ishes altogether; and yet I cannot help thinking, 
 though I know that it is in vain, and that on this, 
 as on all other great questions, we can do nothing 
 more in this world than keep alive in ourselves the 
 yearning and longing after truth, not allowing it to 
 be disturbed and destroyed by external influences 
 of any kind." ' 
 
 A new source of happiness was opened to Caro- 
 line in the prospect of becoming a grandmother. 
 " I have just received your letter, dear children, and 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MAERIAGE. 151 
 
 am beyond measure delighted, affected, and thank- 
 ful. You can have no idea of the happiness that, 
 if it please God, is awaiting you. Neither can I 
 explain it to you, although for twenty years my 
 heart has been filled with it. Eejoice, and again I 
 say rejoice, and pray to God for his blessing. If I 
 could but tell you something of your coming joys ; 
 but they are inconceivable and unspeakable, and 
 come directly from God himself. May he impart 
 them in richest measure." 
 
 The succeeding letters express the tenderest 
 maternal, sympathy with the hopes and fears of her 
 daughter. Near the end of 1818 she wrote : " Ev- 
 ery one has, doubtless, reason both for hope and 
 fear in regard to the new year, but God helps us all 
 through. Farewell, dear Agnes, and don't forget 
 your grandfather's prescription for the eve of New- 
 Year's day ; namely, to sit down on a stone and 
 pray. You have much to remember and to hope 
 for ; but you must spare us, too, a thought from the 
 depths of your heart." 
 
 " A happy, happy Christmas may God give you, 
 dear children," wrote Caroline on despatching a 
 small Christmas box. "If you have but a tenth 
 part of the delight in unpacking which the children 
 had in packing it, you will be content. The three 
 
152 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 little ones have been especially busy, and tlie pleas- 
 ure of giving and sending has often ended in tears 
 because there was nothing more to give. Remem- 
 ber that your gratihcation is to equal theirs, or we 
 shall not be satisfied. The box will reach you at 
 six o'clock, and then, assuredly, you will think of 
 us, and I too shall think of you, dear Agnes. You 
 seem still a part of myself; and though I weep, I 
 cannot tell whether they are tears of joy or sorrow. 
 The Christmas prayer which I put up for you last 
 year is more than fulfilled. Let us then now again 
 thank God, and place ourselves and those who are 
 near and dear to us with confidence and faith in 
 His arms, and rejoice. You must also help us to 
 thank Him. Let us with united voices sing, ' Oh, 
 for a thousand tongues,' etc. That sweet hymn 
 always recurs to me when I know not what to say 
 in reviewing the past one-and-twenty years." 
 
 "Perthes is a true child at Christmas time," 
 says Caroline, a few days later, in her account of 
 Christmas eve. "My heart is stirred afresh by him 
 every year at that season. It is three-and-twenty 
 years since I first felt this, and my conviction, that 
 one who could take such childlike dehght in the 
 Christmas-tree must have a pure and simple heart, 
 has not been falsified. This was the impression that 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 153 
 
 mj heart received on that evening when I, properly 
 speaking, first saw him ; that indeed was the day of 
 my real betrothal. I can never thank God enough 
 for his affection. "When yesterday evening at six 
 o'clock we sat down to table, he was so wearied and 
 depressed that it made us sad to see him; but 
 when the tree was hghted he became as lively and 
 frolicsome as the youngest child." 
 
 At Easter, Caroline writes: "God give you a 
 joyous festival; and why should he not, since he 
 has made every day a festival by the deep and abi- 
 ding love that he has put into your heart ? That 
 he can give us nothing better, even in eternity, is 
 certain ; only we cannot yet understand the great- 
 ness of our blessedness, because we know so little 
 at present of pure love to God, although we have 
 some foretaste of it in the delight we feel in the 
 outgoings of our feeble love to our fellow-creatures. 
 The children are all gone out, and I meant to read 
 a sermon of Taulerus ; but you and William, your 
 happiness and your hopes have stirred my heart so 
 deeply that I have been unable. Dear WUliam, I 
 feel real joy and happiness in having so nursed, 
 cherished, and brought up Agnes for you. May 
 God grant you the same pleasure in your children 
 
 that he has hitherto given us in ours. More I can- 
 20 
 
154 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 not wish you, for I know no more. I have, to my 
 great delight, just opened the balcony door for the 
 first time this year, and am quite transported with 
 all that the sweet spring breathes, and with all that 
 it reveals to eye and ear. The little birds know not 
 how to leave off singing and rejoicing, and I would 
 sing and rejoice with them." 
 
 In April, Perthes and Caroline, with four chil- 
 dren, visited Agnes in Gotha. " We arrived safe, 
 and well and happy," wrote Caroline. " The jour- 
 ney was bitterly cold ; but our inward joy kept us 
 so warm that the external cold could not touch us. 
 The postilions were all good and steady except one, 
 who had a drop in his head ; but just as we were 
 beginning to be uneasy we met another posting car- 
 riage, and by changing horses got quit of him. 
 Both the little ones behaved very well, and by their 
 merriment and lively observation of all that they 
 saw and heard, and their surprise at the sight of 
 mountains, trees, and rocks, greatly increased our 
 pleasure, although the charge of such young trav- 
 ellers was not without inconvenience. I was obhged 
 to hold one in each arm during the whole night, to 
 keep them from cold, and soften the jolting of the 
 carriage. "When we came near Gotha I could 
 scarcel}^ restrain my feelings." 
 
ELDEST DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 155 
 
 After Caroline's return to Hamburg with lier 
 Imsband and children, the weeks she had spent with 
 her daughter were a source of grateful remem- 
 brance. " Since I have seen 3^ou in your own 
 house," she writes, "I have lost the feeling of en- 
 tu'e separation, and really live with, you again ; and 
 if your heart yearns after me you will often find me. 
 The happy remembrance of the days I have spent 
 with you so lately prevail even over the pain of sep- 
 aration." 
 
 A year of trouble and disquiet awaited Caroline 
 on her return from Gotha. She had found her sec- 
 ond son, Clement, seriously ill, and it was many 
 months before her anxiety on his account was in 
 any degree abated. To her eldest son, Matthias, 
 who was passing the hoHdays at Gotha, she wrote 
 at this time : " Gaze, not to satiety, but till you are 
 hungry, on the beauties of nature ; salute the rocks 
 at Schwarzburg, and go before soon to the Tripp- 
 stein, when the sun shines aslant through the firs, 
 and reflect that your father and I have also been 
 there, have thanked God, and rejoiced. In all my 
 present sorrow, the remembrance of that sweet spot 
 can cheer and solace me. In such a place one can 
 rise higher, at least more easily, than in one's own 
 room. As for the hours of sore and burning trial, 
 
156 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 wlio knows and who can reckon the benefit we de- 
 rive from them? They are not appointed in vain." 
 On the 14th of August, in the midst of her anx- 
 iety for her sick son, the news of the birth of her 
 first grandchild reached her, and Caroline wrote : 
 " Oh that I had a thousand tongues and a thousand 
 voices that might strive together in praising God 
 for what he has done for you ! May God himself 
 help you to thank him that he has heard my prayer. 
 I have always the feeling that we can pray fervently 
 much longer than we can praise; so that our thanks- 
 givings are all too short compared with our suppli- 
 cations. If I could escape from the anxiety and 
 sorrow which surround me, I should be still nearer 
 to you ; but my heart is divided between joy and 
 sadness, and a divided heart brings labor and un- 
 rest. You will be astonished to find in how many 
 new and pleasurable aspects the child will appear 
 to you, if God grant his blessing; and this he cer- 
 tainly never denies to those who honestly seek it. 
 Pray then that God may send his angel to guide 
 your little one through the joys and sorrows of life, 
 and to be very near him in time of trial and the 
 hour of death." 
 
XVI. 
 
 MARRIAGE OF THE SECOND DAUGHTER. 
 
 /CAKCELY was Caroline's anxiety for 
 ^^'^ her invalid son removed, when she was 
 again agitated by a proposal for the 
 hand of her second daughter Louisa, 
 who had remained in Gotha with her sister. 
 The young suitor Agiicola, was scarcely 
 known to her, and the decision was difficult. 
 
 "How could we commit so great a charge," 
 wrote Caroline, " to one whom we know not ? It is 
 always a trial to give up a beloved child to any one, 
 and we are now called to do it to a stranger, I know 
 not where to find counsel or help; it seems to me 
 the greatest trial of my life." 
 
 The confidence manifested by the daughter in- 
 duced the parents to leave the decision to her 
 alone; and when Agricola became known to them 
 through his letters, all anxiety vanished. 
 
158 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 In the middle of November, 1819, Louisa re- 
 turned home for the winter. "We are anticipating," 
 wrote Carohne, " a right pleasant winter with our 
 dear happy bride." 
 
 The anticipation was realized. The invalid son 
 meanwhile had made such progress, he was able 
 to be removed to Wandsbeck for some months for 
 change of air. Caroline's letters are filled with joy 
 and thankfulness, though the present was some- 
 times overcast by the prospect of parting, not only 
 with her daughter, but also with her eldest son who 
 was to enter the University at Easter. 
 
 "It often distresses me greatly," she wrote, 
 " that my young Louise is so early called upon to 
 play an independent part, and to do without me; 
 still I have firm confidence in her happiness. 
 Young people who are so sincerely attached, and 
 who express their affection so simply and naturally 
 as these two, are doubtless sound at heart." 
 
 " The welcome New Year," she wrote in the end 
 of December, 1819, "lies heavily on my heart, 
 since it is to separate me from two of my beloved 
 children. I know that I ought not to be so, yet I 
 am quite troubled and oppressed. Eejoice in your 
 sweet infant; the joy will indeed be of a nobler 
 kind when the fondling is over, but never vvish a 
 
SECOND DAUGHTEK'S MAEEIAGE. 159 
 
 Jay away. Enjoy that blessed season of matern'ty 
 during which you have your child in your arms, 
 and it cannot do without you, but stretches out its 
 little arms and lovingly embraces you." 
 
 "To-day," she writes again soon afterwards, 
 " Louisa's trousseau is packed up. God loveth a 
 cheerful giver. He certainly loves Perthes, then ; 
 for he gives almost too freely, and too cheerfully, 
 what it has cost him so much to gather. Life is 
 very serious to me now; the past and the future 
 stir my soul, but my constant comfort is the lively 
 and steadfast feeling that God guides and leads us 
 only for our good ; only we should not invade his 
 office and cater for ourselves ; but this I have never 
 consciously done, at least never desired to do." 
 
 At the beginning of April, 1820, both children 
 left the parental roof, the son for the university, 
 and a week later the young couple, who had been 
 married on the 12th of April, for Gotha, accompa- 
 nied by Perthes and his son Clement. 
 
 "I could not write yesterdaj^,'^ says Caroline; 
 " the tumult in my soul was so great that I could 
 not command my feelings sufficient] j^ Dear Agnes, 
 what a powerful thing is a mother's heart. Yes, I 
 believe that the love of parents is stronger than the 
 love of children; what wishes, hopes, fears and 
 
160 CHEIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 anxieties stir within me ! A steadfast feeling of the 
 presence of God supported me at the parting, and 
 lightened that sad hour; and while my heart is sor- 
 sowful, I know and feel that all is right, and that 
 we have much cause for thankfulness. "What good 
 would the outward presence of my children do me 
 if their hearts were not with me ? If here below we 
 must part and give up, it is only that we may learn 
 to submit our wills, and set forward on the road to 
 our proper home." 
 
 Perthes had passed some weeks in Leipzic, and 
 on his return had quite unexpectedly brought his 
 eldest daughter and little grandchild from Gotha, 
 with him. "As soon as I heard the post-horn," 
 wrote Caroline, "I flew to the door, and when it 
 was opened Perthes put the Utile prattling, healthy 
 child into my arms ; my Agnes was also there, and 
 it was a joyful hour indeed. For a long time I could 
 not compose myseK, and forgot that Perthes was 
 there too, which afterwards vexed me very much." 
 
 " You may imagine," she writes a few days later, 
 " how happy I am with my child and grandchild. 
 I have not yet settled down into quiet enjoyment, 
 my delight is so tumultuous. God be praised for 
 awarding me so much." After a stay of five weeks 
 Agnes returned home with her husband. 
 
SECOND DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 161 
 
 Caroline had now three absent children, each of 
 whom expected letters from her regularly, and they 
 were seldom disappointed. " That you are so hap- 
 py and contented with your Agricola," she writes 
 to Louisa, " is only what I expected, and I hope 
 better and greater things still for you, for these are 
 only gilded weeks which, however, I do not grudge 
 you. But it requires many a serious hour, and 
 many an earnest wish with and for each other, before 
 real happiness and confidence are established. 
 Genuine affection is the way to this end; perfect 
 openness towards each other at all times, and in all 
 things, is also a great help. Strive to have com- 
 mon objects of pursuit, and to support each other 
 when either seems ready to faint, and let your first 
 aim be to draw nearer to God, and to assist each 
 other in becoming more like him. Do not be dis- 
 turbed by occasional difference of opinion with re- 
 gard to the highest things; only be true to each 
 other and seek only the truth; you will thus, 
 though by devious paths, be sure to meet again. I 
 Imow that I have always been in earnest, and that I 
 have often been in difficulties, but I also know that 
 I have, at last, always reached the same goal with 
 my beloved husband, the how and when do not con- 
 cern others, and no one has any right to inquire." 
 
 Chiiat iu Ger. Home.' 21l 
 
162 CHRIST IN A GEBMAN HOME. 
 
 " You can well believe," wrote Caroline soon af- 
 terwards, " that I enjoy nothing more truly than 
 what you tell me of your happy affection. But the 
 human heart is a strange thing. When you wrote 
 lately that you could not understand how you 
 could have hitherto been happy without your Agri- 
 cola, I feel as if you had done me an injury. I am 
 at every moment conscious of loving you with my 
 whole soul, of hoping and wishing for you, and of 
 doing you aU the good I can ; more than this I can- 
 not do, neither can your beloved husband; why, 
 then, should you not have been happy with me ? 
 Can you tell me ? Agricola has loved you for one 
 year, while I have loved you for eighteen, and with 
 all my heart. Is not this, then, very wrong of you, 
 and can you say that it is not wrong ? I know not 
 what to reply except that it was just so with me 
 when I was married, and that I thank God that you 
 now cause me the same grief which I then caused 
 my parents." 
 
 Hours of homesickness were not wanting to the 
 absent daughter. "You cannot wish yourself by 
 my side," wrote her mother, " so much as I wish 
 myself by yours. But remember one thing, would 
 T not often be in the way when Agricola comes 
 home? Can you deny this? I see you blushing; 
 
SECOND DAUGHTEK'S MAREIAGE. 163 
 
 but do not blush, and do not vex yourself about it, 
 my dear Louisa. I am contented, and can thank 
 God that I am now only secondary with you, while 
 I love you as well as if I had the first place in your 
 heart. That you find it hard to bear the loneliness, 
 and the distance from us, especially when Agricola 
 is not with you, I can very well understand. I, my- 
 self, when the children are gone out for half a holi- 
 day, am as dull and stupid as an owl by daylight, 
 but one must not yield to this, which happens more 
 or less to all young wives. The best relief is work, 
 engaged in with interest and diligence. Work, 
 then, constantly and diligently, at something or 
 other, for idleness is the devil's snare for small and 
 great, says your grandfather, and he says true. I 
 do not mean that there is anything wrong in your 
 longing after us when Agricola is absent, my own 
 dear child, only you must strive to retain your 
 composure ; and yet, if you should be overcome by 
 filial yearning, Agricola will not be angry with you. 
 You are quite right to tell him everything that you 
 think and feel at all times. Where truth and affec- 
 tion abide, joy and happiness are not long absent." 
 And again: "Is it not true that the life of a 
 housekeeper is more stirring than that of a young 
 girl at home ? It is' quite right you should take 
 
164 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 pleasure in your little household affairs, and enjoy 
 your clean, pretty house ; and I can see you after- 
 noons, looking and listening for your husband when 
 you expect him from the courts. How gladly would 
 I sometimes be behind the door when he comes in ! 
 Fancy me on Saturdays looking through your 
 rooms, your presses and your shelves, and praising 
 you when all is neat and in order." 
 
 And in another letter : " I delight to find that 
 you take pleasure in all the little matters of your 
 housekeeping; great events do not come under our 
 management, but if we are observant and watchful, 
 we find our appointed work, and we have more 
 need to pray for a heart to enjoy our blessings, 
 than for a larger share of them." 
 
 " Tou are quite right to visit your neighbors oc- 
 casionally, my dear Louisa, but it is still better that 
 you prefer staying at home. God grant jon may 
 ever find the same pleasure in your pretty room ! 
 You have not yet got into the proper way of wri- 
 ting; you tell me only of things in general, and 
 great events, but, my dear child, I want to know 
 the most minute particulars. You always tell me 
 how dearly you love Agricola, but I should hke to 
 know why you love him. We understand a man's 
 character best from his conduct in little circum- 
 
SECOND DAUGHTEK'S MAERIAGE. 165 
 
 stances and daily life. Don't always seek for 
 something of importance to write ; you are writing 
 for my motherly heart, to which everything is im- 
 portant that brings you more vividly before me. 
 Write, then, without too much consideration about 
 trifles and anything whatever ; great events consti- 
 tute the life, but trifles the interest of a correspond- 
 ence. You know Agnes fills her letters with cab- 
 bages and turnips, and so gives unspeakable pleas- 
 ure. Man, here below, consists of two parts, and 
 thus petty things, not paltry, recollect, are part of 
 our existence." 
 
 Again : " I am sorry that you tore up your letter 
 because it was not written in a happy mood ; next 
 time send it me just as it is. I know as well as 
 you do, that the heart is not always in the same 
 frame; we should, indeed, endeavor to be at all 
 times master of ourselves, but it takes a good many 
 trials before we attain to this; and I remember 
 how many uneasy moods and moments I myself 
 had to pass through." 
 
 When, in the coui'se of time, the daughter made 
 that discovery which every young wife has to make 
 for herself, that even in her new position the ear- 
 nestness of life is not wanting, Caroline wrote, 
 " Yes, dear child, God's gift of true love grows and 
 
166 CHRIST IN A GEBMAN HOME. 
 
 improves under all circumstances, and althougli we 
 would gladly escape the sweat of tlie brow, we 
 soon see that it is necessary and a part of our 
 earthly discipline. All men have felt that as life 
 brings us greater happiness, it also becomes more 
 earnest. Thank your Agricola with all your heart 
 for sharing his cares with you, rather than conceal- 
 ing them in order to spare you. If a wife cannot 
 actually remove, she can often lighten care, and 
 sweet and bitter should be shared by man and wife. 
 I might indeed desire nothing but joy and happi- 
 ness for you, but I do not at all despair about you. 
 Men's characters differ gi'eatly, and with them 
 God's means of promoting their welfare. Your 
 father and I had many struggles, which were often 
 very painful ; but when I look back, I see clearly 
 that all served to unite us, and make us better ac- 
 quainted with each other, and that is a result which 
 can never be bought too dear. 
 
 "You are quite right, dear Louisa, to be on 
 your guard against all sources of irritation. It is 
 great and noble to attain to a state of mind which 
 does not allow affection to be saddened or inter- 
 rupted by the trifles of daily life. A strong deter- 
 mination against this must be rooted in the heart ; 
 but I have learnt from good old Francis de Sales, 
 
SECOND DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE. 167 
 
 and from experience, that there are many things 
 which, though they are not to be lightly regarded, 
 must be lightly handled. "We must not oppose an 
 irritable tendency by force, otherwise the ii-ritation 
 may only change its form. To oppose one's own 
 irritability with greater irritability is disturbing to 
 others, and may embitter our own hearts, but I am 
 not at all anxious about you ; you never had a fret- 
 ful disposition, and a loving heart is proof against 
 it ; but you cannot have recourse to any one who 
 will understand you so well as I do, for I have felt 
 it all myself." 
 
 In November, 1820, her daughter was severely 
 tried by the illness of her husband, who was in 
 great danger for many weeks from nervous fever, 
 and had a very slow recovery. " Your father and 
 I think of you day and night," wrote Caroline when 
 the crisis was over; "we feel but too deeply how 
 painful it is to have a child whom we cannot soothe 
 and make happy. These have been very sad days 
 for us ; it was quite a new thought to me that I 
 might have my own dear child in my house and in 
 my arms, and yet all my affection could neither 
 satisfy nor comfort her." 
 
 Soon afterwards she wrote : " Let us first thank 
 God for having preserved your Agricola, and given 
 
168 CHKIST IN A GEEJMAN HOME. 
 
 you trust and confidence in time of need, and then 
 pray for his future recovery. "We need neither be 
 ashamed nor vexed that we are always ready to 
 ask; God knows better than we do that we can do 
 nothing without him." 
 
 When the invahd was beginning to recover his 
 strength, she wrote, " We no longer feel the burden, 
 we only remember it, and now rejoice with you in 
 the coming spring and the warm sunbeams. Al- 
 though the springtime of youth is past for us, not 
 so, thank God, the eternal spring which still grows 
 fresher as we grow older. Let your heart beat in 
 sympathy with the renewed springtime of nature, 
 which makes us young, and fresh, and gladsome, 
 like the little variegated tom-tits in the oak-tree 
 beneath my window. Ever rejoice in the spring 
 and in life, dear Agricola, and be thankful that you 
 are preserved to my Louisa and tq us all." 
 
XVII. 
 
 MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 HILE tlie correspondence with the mar- 
 ^^ ried daughters devolved mainly on the 
 
 mother, that with the eldest son, Mat- 
 thias, who was studying theology at 
 the University of Tubingen, was kept up 
 alike by both parents. The doubts and dif- 
 ficulties suggested to the son by his studies, were 
 submitted to the father, who always sympathized 
 with his misgivings and inexperience. " I have 
 been reading over many of your letters a second 
 time," he once wrote, "and am more and more 
 convinced that it would not be well to answer your 
 earnest communications in detail by a discussion of 
 
 your views. In the case of a stirring, energetic 
 
 22 
 
170 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 youtli like yourself, montlis are more fruitful tlian 
 years to an older man; the scales are moving up 
 and down, and so it should be. One thing rectifies 
 another in the course of the student's own hearty 
 efforts, which God always blesses. This is better 
 for you than listening to an old man's experience, 
 which must always be somewhat strange, even 
 though it be your own father's. I cannot and dare 
 not enter into the subjects which you mention. It 
 would ill become the man whose mind is matured 
 by age, and whose intellectual training has been so 
 different, to set bounds w^hicli might impede the 
 young theologian in his career ; when your advan- 
 cing age brings you nearer to my own, we shall 
 readily understand one another. You say, 'The 
 God of the many does not satisfy my yearnings. 
 I want one to whom I can put up my petitions in 
 the hope that he will be moved by my humble faith 
 to grant me health and strength.' These are your 
 own words ; keep to them, my dear son." 
 
 Other letters from the father follow, filled with 
 excellent counsel, in one of which he says: "My 
 dear son, read frequently your mother's letters — be 
 attracted within the atmosphere of her piety, keep 
 your heart pure, that it may never be a stranger to 
 prayer; then may you investigate freely, for prayer 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 171 
 
 and earnest study will help you to overcome in the 
 conflict with doubt." 
 
 Caroline considered her son's determination to 
 pursue the study of theology as a matter of primary 
 importance. " Matthias," she wrote, " has handled 
 a hot iron; but, if he grasp it rightly, he has 
 achieved a great matter and God is with him." 
 But when he left for the university, her sense of the 
 earnestness of his vocation was for a time supplant- 
 ed by her regret at separation from him. "How 
 painful it was to me," she wrote immediately after- 
 wards, " to part with Matthias, and send him into 
 the world, without being able to commit him to the 
 guidance of any human heart or eye. I had hard 
 work with myself, but now I have laid down my 
 arms and am at peace." 
 
 At the same time she wrote to her son. " My 
 thoughts of you are disturbed by a painful feeling 
 of your solitude and distance. I know and am 
 persuaded that in great and important matters you 
 cleave to God, and can do without us. Still there 
 are many seasons in which parental love and sym- 
 pathy are a source of great happiness and comfort. 
 This I myself feel." 
 
 " Your letter has just come," she writes a few 
 days later; "I am filled with joy and thankfulness 
 
172 CHRIST IN xi GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 to God, who lias so wondrously heard and blessed 
 our wishes and desires in placing you among the 
 truly good. But you know not, dear Matthias, how 
 wholly I have committed you to God, praying that 
 he may guide, teach, and care for you in great and 
 little things. I am persuaded that you are in his 
 hands, and am happier and more reconciled than I 
 could have thought possible, although there are 
 moments when the yearning of the mother's heart 
 prevails over these better feelings. We have also 
 letters from Gotha with the best tidings. I do not 
 know how to make enough of the happiness which 
 God has given us on all sides, and must take refuge 
 in the hymn-book." 
 
 Again she wrote : " When I am sitting alone on 
 the sofa in the parlor, before the children come 
 down in the morning, and your father has just gone 
 to business, I thank God and pray for you with all 
 my heart, and look at your portrait which you gave 
 me last Christmas. It brings you vividly before 
 me, and often it seems as if you saw my thoughts 
 and responded to them." 
 
 " Your grandmother at Wandsbeck, ^ill rejoice 
 to see that people love your grandfather, and you 
 for his sake," wrote Caroline shortly afterwards. 
 "Indeed, dear Matthias, how many advantages 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 173 
 
 you enjoy that others have not ! God will expect 
 more from you, and you must expect more from 
 your own self, on this very account." 
 
 In several other letters Caroline urges her son 
 to realize the responsibilities involved in his choice 
 of a calling. "It is quite clear to my own mind," 
 she writes, " that there are many more inquirers for 
 counsel and encouragement, than there were ten or 
 fifteen years ago, and it is a great privilege to guide 
 such ; but it is no easy task. We get over many 
 difficulties in our own minds, because the solution 
 does not require to be put into words, which must, 
 however, be used when we help another." 
 
 In another letter she writes : " I was well aware, 
 while you were still with us, that the time would 
 come when you would see many things, both within 
 and without, in a different Hght from us ; but I did 
 not say this, because I hoped and beheved that you 
 were earnest and truth-loving, and because I trust- 
 ed that God would give you right views and opin- 
 ions at the right time. Moreover, I know that man 
 can impart but little to his fellow-man ; each must 
 seek and find for himself. I can say with truth, 
 that I have been for many years in trouble and per- 
 plexity, from which I am not even now free. I have 
 found that it is better not to think of one's self so 
 
174 CHEIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 much, but rather to think more of God, and to long 
 earnestly after him ; and if we have fallen to rise 
 at once and go on, trusting in God; thus we are 
 continually advancing by God's grace, towards a 
 peaceful and blessed end. The Princess Gallitziu 
 once said to me fi'om her inmost soul, and with a 
 deep sense of her insufficiency, ' But I will still wilU 
 This word often recurs to me, and cheers me when 
 I am cast down. "We often become more free and 
 happy when we look at ourselves as a whole, rather 
 than in detail. If we keep all the good thoughts 
 that have occurred to our minds continually pres- 
 ent, we shall easily be led to think more highly of 
 ourselves than we ought, and so shall in reality 
 retrograde." 
 
 *' I am not distressed," she wrote at another time, 
 " that you find yourself unable to pray with as much 
 faith and confidence as you desire, for we are at 
 best but as reeds moved to and fro by the wind. If 
 we only yearn for living faith, God will not fail to 
 help us on, and all doubts and discouragements will 
 eventually cease ; but it is almost too much to ex- 
 pect that you should be as yet near to this happy 
 consummation. Socrates thought that inward peace 
 was not to be attained until a man had reached his 
 fortieth year, and Confucius has placed the goal 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 175 
 
 still farther forward ; but I do wrong in referring to 
 Socrates and Confucius when we have Christ; con- 
 sider it then as unsaid. I always take comfort 
 from that man in the gospel to whom our Lord 
 Christ said that he must believe before he could 
 be helped ; and who replied, * Lord, I belieye, help 
 thou mine unbelief.' This is all we can do, and 
 when we can do nothing, God is ever ready to aid ; 
 besides, there may be much unrest and unbelief in 
 the head while the heart holds firmly by its an- 
 chor — ' God is love, and he that dwelleth in love 
 dwelleth in God.' I know of nothing more certain, 
 imperfect as our love must needs be here below." 
 
 Great as was the importance of this anchor of 
 the heart to Caroline, she was far from wishing to 
 make it an excuse for indolent security. "Dear 
 Matthias," she once wrote, "accustom yourself to 
 laborious study. It is not mere ignorance, but the 
 want of power of application, which is found to 
 have such evil and bitter consequences. Tell me, 
 then, whether you are bravely diligent. I wish and 
 hope it may be so ; and I should like to know how 
 you arrange your studies. I do not believe it is 
 possible for a young man, however earnest and well 
 intentioned, always to see the why and wherefore of 
 his studies. You would relieve me from a great 
 
176 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 anxiety if you would commit yours to the direction 
 of some sensible, learned and older man, who might 
 take your father's place, and direct your scientific 
 career. Without pretending to understantl more, I 
 know that experience is the best guide. Perhaps, 
 dear Matthias, you will laugh at this counsel ; you 
 are quite w^elcome; only consider it, and tell me 
 what you think of it. I would so gladly know you 
 are on the straightest road even to human learn- 
 ing." 
 
 "You may imagine," wrote Caroline, in trans- 
 mitting some controversial pamphlets, " the ^^ros and 
 contras that these have occasioned. It is very sad 
 and grievous that the holiest and brightest truths of 
 religion should be treated as mere topics of con- 
 versation and amusement — and yet it has this good, 
 that it leads men to ask themselves on which side 
 they are. I believe with you that, in order to deal 
 honestly with your future congregation and your 
 own understanding, you must diligently investigate, 
 that you may come to the steadfast knowledge and 
 the clear consciousness, that in Christ Jesus are 
 hidden all the treasures of wisdom ; but I also trust 
 in God that if you wrestle and strive earnestly, he 
 will give you a yearning and a steadfast faith, by 
 which he will carry on (he work of grace in your 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIYEESITY. 177 
 
 heart, even when your understanding labors under 
 perplexity." 
 
 In answer to a letter in which her son told her 
 of the many valuable friends whom he had found 
 at the university, Caroline replied : " I was rejoiced 
 to receive your last letter, and although I make al- 
 lowance for youthful enthusiasm, and am well aware 
 that your best moments are not lasting, yet I see 
 that all your hopes and efforts are in the right di- 
 rection, and we are thankful that you have joined 
 such a circle. Tell me how you generally spend 
 the Sabbath, and whether you have found a preach- 
 er who proclaims the truth without many human 
 additions, and with the inward confidence that he 
 has the same interest as his hearers in what he 
 says. I hope you are pursuing the study of logic 
 right earnestly; many feel the want of it. Last 
 Sunday I heard a sermon of much abihty, and con- 
 taining much that was good in detail, but the whole 
 was so confused that it was almost impossible to 
 f oUow it ; thought and learning are, in general, ne- 
 cessary before we can teach others. I thank God 
 that you are committed to teachers who unite in 
 themselves learning and respect for the faith." 
 
 But it was not only in the studies and perplexi- 
 ties of her son that Caroline was interested. " Your 
 
 Oliiist In Oer. Home. ^O 
 
178 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 external life is somewhat monotonous, but you must 
 vary it a little, and I think you should do so as far 
 as is consistent with order and regularity." "You 
 have given us great pleasure by the narrative of 
 your journey," she wrote, when Matthias had 
 sought recreation for a time in SwitzerLand ; " open 
 your eyes wide, look at everything, so that the im- 
 pressions whic]:i are to be the materials of thought 
 when you are set fast in the yoke, may be perma- 
 nent. If you keep your eyes and your heart stead- 
 fastly fixed on the goal, the yoke will be softer and 
 lighter; this your father finds, for God does not 
 send him empty away. He also has his circle of 
 influence where God blesses his efforts; of this I 
 am certain." 
 
 "Your letter from Zurich has just come, and 
 tells us that you are v»'ell, and in dear Switzerland, 
 where my heart has so long yearned to be. I have 
 got the map out, and followed you from place to 
 place, have calculated distances, and seen every- 
 thing with you as far as possible. No one can 
 sympathize with you more than I do, in the enjoy- 
 ments of the works of God; only, they must lead 
 you into the depth of your own heart and to 
 prayer." 
 
 " It is long since you have written about your- 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 179 
 
 self," sajs the mother in one of her letters, " and 
 of your daily life at home and abroad, so that I can 
 see exactly what you are about. If such a letter is 
 not already on the way, sit down at once and tell 
 me, circumstantially, whether you are in good spir- 
 its, what you are at work upon, and whether you 
 are making progress ; also about your friends, your 
 amusements, your chairs and tables, coats and 
 shoes, in short, about all that appertains to the 
 nourishment and necessities of this mortal life; I 
 am longing for such tidings." 
 
 Shortly after this she writes : " Make a point of 
 keeping your room clean and ne?ct, and of opening 
 the windows every day ; and then, dear Matthias, I 
 entreat you, out of love to me, dress yourself on 
 first rising, and do n't sit for hours half-dressed, and 
 with shoes down at the heels. I dislike it very 
 much ; dress yourself for the day, and you will feel 
 fresh and cheerful, and ready for anything that may 
 come." 
 
 Bur while Caroline fully entered into the life of 
 her son, she kept up his interest in home by com- 
 municating all those trifling events which make up 
 domestic life. Anniversaries were especially no- 
 ticed. Thus on the 2d of August, 1820, the anni- 
 versary of her wedding-day, Caroline wrote : " We 
 
180 CHEIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 were sitting at the breakfast-table, almost buried in 
 garlands, as you have seen us — ^joy and pleasure in 
 all hearts and eyes— when your letter and congrat- 
 ulatory verses were brought us. "We read, rejoiced, 
 and thanked God. I was especially affected by 
 your wedding-garland, for if you had not been my 
 own very child, you would not have sent it. I have 
 wept my fill, but rather from joy than sorrow. My 
 whole heart thanks you for your affection, and I 
 pray to God that he may strengthen and uphold 
 your purpose, and enable you to act upon it. We 
 have need to will, and will afresh every minute, for 
 thus we generally bring something to good effect, 
 often unconsciously indeed; but what is uncon- 
 scious is often best. At least there is nothing that 
 I fear so much as self-satisfaction ; for the feeling 
 of need, and of insufficiency, and tlie reaching after 
 God's mercy, are our best safeguards here below, 
 because this is our real and natural condition. 
 That God may help you, and all of us, my dear 
 Matthias, is my constant prayer." 
 
 " The 18th of October," she writes on another 
 occasion, " the anniversary of the battle of Leipzic 
 was right joyfully commemorated. Early in the 
 morning all the bells were ringing, all the churches 
 were full, and crowds waited without; at noon 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UIsIVEKSITY. 181 
 
 the whole town-guard turned out. The streets 
 were so full of holiday-folks, walking, driving and 
 riding, that I could not hear myself speak; in the 
 evening there were fireworks in every direction. I 
 sat at home and thought; the recollection of that 
 great epoch is engraven in my heart ; I have lived 
 those iron months again with all their joys and sor- 
 rows and anxieties; you will believe that my eyes 
 overflowed, and I thanked God as well as I could, 
 though not so fervently as I wished, for all his 
 goodness. If I could but once keep this day in the 
 Aschan cellar, gratitude would rise spontaneously 
 and overpower all other thoughts. That cellar I 
 shall remember as long as I Hve ; how perplexed I 
 often v/as when I left you all for a quarter of an 
 hour, to be alone, and to give free course to my 
 tears. I am really angry with all who on such a 
 day can allow themselves to be dissatisfied with 
 things as they are. On other days people may be 
 angry and demand reforms, but on the 18th of Oc- 
 tober we ought to rejoice and be glad in the deliv- 
 erance which God wrought for us. And when I 
 ihink of ourselves in particular, what overflowing 
 pleasures do I see ; only my darling, blessed Ber- 
 nard's place is empty. AYe miss him, and shall 
 miss him till we go to him." 
 
182 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 In another letter she says : " All my anniversa- 
 ries, now that we are so dispersed, are spoilt, and 
 no longer yield the same enjoyment, for it takes 
 much thought to bring you all before me now. 
 Still, so long as nothing comes between you and my 
 longing after you, I shall rejoice." 
 
 " The empty places at the Christmas-table," she 
 writes, " did indeed mar my joy, but not my grati- 
 tude to God for you, my dear absent children, and 
 for the persuasion that you have set out on the 
 good and right way. Though I cannot see you, my 
 heart is glad in its affection, and especially on dear 
 Christmas-eve. Still it was a quiet festival, and 
 less happy than usual, on account of our anxiety 
 for Agricola." 
 
 The 16th of January was Matthias' birthday, 
 and his mother wrote: "How I long to see you 
 face to face, and to hold you in my arms, tall as 
 you may be, for maternal love is not appalled by 
 height, and the child is a child still though he may 
 be a man. You, my dear old Matthias, I would so 
 gladly have with us ; keep well, and enter on your 
 one-and-twentieth year with joy and energy. May 
 God be with you and preserve you, and grant all 
 my wishes for you, and bless you for evermore, as 
 I believe he will. I send you the birthday wish 
 
MATTHIAS AT THE UNIVERSITY. 183 
 
 and prayer, with wliicli I this morning awoke, that 
 you may make it your own. * O thou Eternal Light 
 and Strong Eock, let the light of thy life-giving 
 word shine upon him, and teach him to know thee 
 aright, and to call thee Father with his whole heart. 
 Teach him that Christ is our Lord and Master, and 
 that there is none other besides, that he may seek 
 thee only, and trust in thee with all his strength,* 
 My beloved child, may God grant it." 
 
-ot 
 
 
 .|^ 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 
 
 r^HE physical sufferings to wliich Caroline 
 ^ had been subject ever since the trying 
 
 scenes of 1813, had been greatly ag- 
 gravated by the cares and anxieties of 
 the last summer. The irritability of the 
 nervous system, and the heart disease, had now 
 reached an alarming height, but her serenity of 
 mind was undisturbed; her Christian faith and 
 hope waxed even brighter and stronger as the body 
 approached its last resting-place. "I have lately 
 had feelings, thoughts, and views, formerly quite un- 
 known to me, with reference to our earthly Hfe and 
 our appointed work therein, and in connection with 
 these a greater serenity." This she wrote in the 
 spring of 1820. 
 
 And again, about the same time, " How differ- 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAKOLINE PERTHES. 185 
 
 ently I regard my position, now that I am con- 
 sciously going down hill, and find myseK so much 
 nearer the end than the beginning of Hfe. If I am 
 not self-deceived when I examine myseK as in the 
 sight of God, I find an increase of peace and assu- 
 }'ance, and there are seasons when I am even confi- 
 dent. God grant that the peace and confidence 
 may be abiding, and not a mere play of fancy! 
 God will surely help me. The desire of my heart 
 is for peace and submission to his will, but I cannot 
 always master the desire to live here on earth. I 
 have still much enjoyment and happiness in life, 
 and I have my dear Perthes. It refreshes my spirit, 
 dear Agnes, to hear, that like me, you ai'e seeking 
 and finding God in many things that appear insig- 
 nificant, but that do really gently stir and rejoice 
 our hearts all the day long. I cannot say much 
 about them, but I can thank God and long for 
 more. Let us only be faithful and earnest in little 
 things, and perhaps in heaven great things may be 
 committed to us." 
 
 An anxious, doubting state of mind, unknown to 
 herself, she was not inclined to regard favorably in 
 
 others. " N ," she writes, " has left us ; he has 
 
 failed to discern much that is good here, and also 
 much that is good in the circle of his own friends, 
 
 24 
 
186 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 I fancy, because, here as elsewhere, externals throw 
 a veil over the inner man. He is certainly a pious 
 man, but his misfortune is, that, for the most part, 
 he has an eye only for what he dislikes in the hves 
 of Christians." 
 
 In another letter she says : " "We are anxiously 
 looking for a man of truth and earnestness to pre- 
 pare Matilda for confirmation, and, as yet, without 
 
 success. PI 's sister has gone to Kiel for a year 
 
 and a half that her daughter may enjoy the benefit 
 of Harm's instructions. Gladly as I would avail 
 myself of his teaching for Matilda, I could never 
 have taken such a step, because it seems to me to 
 involve a distrust of the Divine power and influ- 
 ence ; and besides how could one look other chil- 
 dren in the face, whose parents were unable to do 
 so much for them ?" 
 
 " Come to my arms," she wrote to a deeply de- 
 jected friend, " and pour out your heart with all its 
 hopes and fears, its anxieties and sadness. I un- 
 derstand you, and have not forgotten my own 
 griefs, but I beUeve that God will look upon us for 
 good, if even one groan escapes from our breasts. 
 Only we must be willing at every moment to take 
 up our burden and to bear what God sends ; and 
 that he often sends heaviness no one will deny. I 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAEOLINE PERTHES. 187 
 
 cannot say that I have never murmured, but I have 
 often asked God with tears why he has weighed 
 me down ; and then I have been strengthened by 
 the thought that it is all his doing, and cannot be 
 without reason ; that he knows our anxiety and can- 
 not be offended by it." 
 
 To her eldest daughter she says: "That you 
 are a happy woman I know, and I desire with all 
 my heart that you may continue so; nor do I doubt 
 it. Perplexed you may be, but not unhappy ; for 
 one who strives from the heart to be resigned to 
 the will of God, under all circumstances, can never 
 be unhappy." 
 
 On the day preceding the last anniversary of 
 her betrothal, which she survived, she wrote, " Tc^- 
 morrow will be my day of days, the first of Maj^ 
 and gladly would I wander with my beloved hus- 
 band amid the hills and woods, where I might see 
 and hear none but himself, and might thank God 
 that, after four-and-twenty years, I can keep the 
 day with feeling of the most thorough joy and sat- 
 isfaction. A few sighs may escape, for my breath 
 is short; but joy shall be continually renewed. 
 Yes, certainly, tlie woods, the green woods, would 
 be my chosen home ; though, when I look through 
 the fresh green leaves at the blue waters and the un- 
 
188 CHEIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 clouded sky, all is so beautiful, that it is only with 
 shame and self-reproach that I can really wish for 
 more. Such a fulness of spring splendor and 
 beauty, I think I have never before seen ; the love- 
 liness of the trees and foliage, grass and flowers, is 
 inexpressible. And this great change from death 
 to life has come to pass in a few days, I might say 
 in a few hours. When we stand in the sweet spring- 
 tide, looking through the tall, bright green trees to 
 the pure, blue sky, one can scarcely realize all the 
 trouble and sorrow that may be within and around 
 us. Yes, spring is the time of joy, and that joy car- 
 ries my heart upward to that bright and happy land, 
 where there shall be no more pain or sorrow." 
 
 " I must tell you, my dear Matthias," she wrote, 
 " that, notwithstanding my difficulty of breathing, I 
 am not cast down; and, indeed, I have no reason 
 for being so, for God overpowers us with blessings 
 and joys, by making our children happy and pros- 
 perous. We hear nothing but good from Gotha, 
 and we hope that you also are in the good way, 
 and that God is with you. Matilda is a sensible 
 though merry child, and has made herself useful, 
 beyond what one could expect from her age, in this 
 season of severe sickness. She delights to go about 
 with me and to take care of me as far as she is 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 189 
 
 able. Perthes is specially fond of liis little daugh- 
 ter. Eleanora is a nice girl, and her heart grows full 
 of kindliness and love ; and my Andrew is my de- 
 light from morning till evening, when he does not 
 happen to be passionate and naughty. My dearest 
 Perthes grows daily in earnestness and grace, as 
 regards his own soul ; towards myself he could not 
 be better. Can I then do otherwise than thank 
 God and rejoice ?" 
 
 Li a letter to her eldest daughter she says again, 
 " I must tell you more about your father — ^how he 
 continues to gain peace, quietness and stabihty iu 
 spite of the disturbance and confusion by which he 
 is surrounded. I would that you knew this as sure- 
 ly as I do — it is so comforting and encouraging to 
 see God's blessing so manifestly resting upon him. 
 It may be difficult for those who look only at sepa- 
 rate features of his character to realize this ; but I, 
 who am so thoroughly acquainted with him, know 
 that year by year he draws nearer to God, and is 
 working out his own salvation with earnestness. I 
 call upon you to thank God with me for having given 
 you such a father ; he is almost too dear and good. 
 If I could only have him a little more, or rather talk 
 with him a little more; for I certainly have him 
 wholly — of that I am persuaded. Nothing in heav- 
 
190 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 en or earth can surpass genuine affection. It will 
 certainly make the happiness of heaven, only there 
 it will be greater, and purer, and uninterrupted ; and, 
 according to my present feehngs, I should desire 
 even there to keep my Perthes and to love him." 
 
 In the autumn she wTote, "What a constant and 
 profound sense have I of God's mercy, in the bright 
 hopes he has given me, and to so great an extent 
 already realized, in and through you all ! You can- 
 not imagine what bright and blessed hours your 
 father and I enjoy when we sit down together, to 
 think this over. It is a gift of God's grace, un- 
 speakably precious, to see our children walking in 
 the way to heaven, however great may be our fears 
 and anxieties respecting them; for God, who has 
 begun the good work, will perform it in us all, and 
 wiU perfect that which concerneth us." 
 
 In a letter written on the last day of December, 
 Caroline says, "One could not have believed it pos- 
 sible to have sailed along the world's sea of sorrov/ 
 and suffering, throughout three hundred and sixty- 
 five days, and to find our fragile bark so little in- 
 jured. Again, I feel that I cannot be thankful 
 enough; and yet how many wishes and petitions 
 are ready for the opening year." 
 
 "I rejoice with you," she once wTote to her 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 191 
 
 daughter, " that you have returned to your wonted 
 quiet and peaceful hfe, and that I still long with all 
 my heart for quietness and peace ; for this longing 
 proves to me that my unrest has not injured me. 
 Who can say that it has not done me good? I 
 should certainly never choose to live in a whirl, but 
 God makes all things work together for good." 
 
 "Perthes," she once wrote, "works more than is 
 good for him. Ah ! if I could but get him safe out 
 of this tumult ! I can only live with him in thought, 
 for the worry of incessant toil does not leave me a 
 single quiet moment with him. But I must and will 
 not complain, for he is in good spirits, and would 
 rejoice if we could be more together." 
 
 Ever since Agnes had been settled in Gotha, 
 Caroline had cherished the hope that at no distant 
 period, her husband would commit his large busi- 
 ness to others and retire to Gotha, where he might 
 live more to himself and his family. In many let- 
 ters she joyfull}^ alludes to this cheering prospect. 
 " If God will, we shall come nearer to you and en- 
 joy a common happiness. Yes, in the depths of my 
 heart I anticipate that you, dear children, will be 
 the joy of my old age, as you were of my youth." 
 
 Somewhat later she wrote, " I notice that Per- 
 thes is constantly endeavoring to bring matters to a 
 
192 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 point, in order tliat we may join you ; but when I 
 would express the delight that this gives me, he 
 grows restive, and says that I ought not to rejoice 
 even in my heart, while all is still so uncertain." 
 
 Perthes, in the meantime, was no less earnestly 
 occupied with the hope of deliverance. Thus, in the 
 spring of 1821, he writes to Agnes and her husband : 
 "You are indeed privileged in being able to enjoy 
 your youthful years so free from care. Mine has 
 been a tumultuous life, and it is seldom that a quiet 
 hour, unburdened with anxiety has fallen to my lot. 
 I would thank God, with all humility, for his guid- 
 ance hitherto, and commit my way to him for the 
 future. My desire is for quiet and repose. I would 
 not be unemployed ; but I long to be at liberty to 
 follow my own inclination, and gradually to obliter- 
 ate from my heart and mind the world's unrest, 
 that I may be ready for that time when all reckon- 
 ings here below must be for ever cancelled." 
 
 But Caroline's hope to spend the latter years of 
 her life in quiet union with her husband and her 
 married daughters, was not to be fulfilled. The dis- 
 ease that had attacked her heart and nerves, in- 
 creased in a painful degree in the spring of 1821. 
 
 "I am restless, and my nerves are weak and 
 weary," she wrote in April, " and my breathing is 
 
LAST DAYS OF CABOLINE PERTHES. 193 
 
 become very difficult. This is not a healthy condi- 
 tion, and Dr. Schroeder does his best, but he has 
 not yet found the right medicine." Some weeks 
 later she writes, ** I am now drinking the Geihiauer 
 waters, and am in the garden from six to eight 
 o'clock ; and happy to receive any visitors there. I 
 take all sorts of journeys in imagination and hold 
 long conversations with you, my beloved children, 
 when I am wandering about alone." 
 
 Early in June she was brought to the gates of 
 death by nervous fever, consequent on a severe at- 
 tack of internal cramp, and she now became fully 
 aware of her danger. " I am weary and done," she 
 wrote, " and if you should see me, you would feel 
 that my days are numbered. I give myself up to be 
 nursed and cared for by Matilda as the representa- 
 tive of you all. She ministers to me with childlike 
 love, and great judgment and caution. I have often 
 had you by me, dear Matthias, and have wished 
 you good morning and good night. I thank God 
 that I can think of you with joy. Once in my de- 
 lirium, I thought you were become a Catholic; 
 I took it sadly to heart, and now I rejoice the more 
 that it is not so." 
 
 Serious thoughts of death had been famihar to 
 Carohne throughout her whole life. She had ever 
 
 Christ in G,'!-. Komfl. 25 
 
194 CHRIST IN A GEEMAN HOME. 
 
 regarded it with solemn awe, but not with terrc^r. 
 
 In one of her letters she writes: "Old Mrs. N 
 
 gently fell asleep yesterday. I rejoice to think that 
 she was ready. She could no longer enjoy any- 
 thing here below ; and her weakness and confusion 
 of mind were, as far as we could judge, a hinderance 
 to the enjoyment of the presence and consolations of 
 God himself. Now her dormant love is rekindled 
 never to be dimmed by the thousand trifles that 
 clouded and clogged it here." 
 
 Again : " I have passed some serious hours at 
 
 S 's death-bed. He died with wonderful peace 
 
 and resignation, retaining his consciousness to the 
 last. I rejoiced to look upon the corpse as it lay in 
 the still repose of death, no longer constrained to 
 cough and tortured for want of air. It is remark- 
 able, and I have often observed how high and clear 
 
 death makes the forehead; even S 's was fine 
 
 after death, though certainly it was not so in life." 
 
 On receiving the news of the decease of Count 
 E. Stolberg, in December, 1819, Caroline had writ- 
 ten to her eldest daughter, " The dear, pure spirit 
 will now see God face to face, of that I am persuad- 
 ed ; but we have one dear friend less on earth. The 
 last month of his life was spent in writing a little 
 book on love ; this was a good preparation for the 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 195 
 
 enjoyment of the Eternal Love. May God enable 
 us all to grow and stand fast in his love ; then we 
 shall be prepared for all that may happen. I w^ould 
 so ghidly have ministered to Stolberg in his illness 
 and at his death; there is no greater comfort on 
 earth than to see a man die in full consciousness, 
 committing himself peacefully and joyfully to the 
 mercy of God in faith. Dear Agnes, we have once 
 seen this together in my dear father. Do you still 
 remember the wonderful beauty of his eyes in those 
 last hours, even to the last minute ?" 
 
 But while Carohne did not shrink from the 
 thought of death, she thoroughly enjoyed life. 
 " When at our outset in life we have surmounted 
 one hill, we are apt to think we have left all hills 
 behind, and have nothing but smooth walking to 
 the end of our days," she says to her daughter 
 Louisa ; " at least I have often felt this ; and then I 
 came to little hills and great mountains which I 
 must needs cross : and so it will be till we have 
 climbed the last, and laid down our burden. 
 Still, notwithstanding the hills, life is pleasant and 
 valuable to m.e, and were it God's will, I could 
 gladly live among you yet awhile with my beloved 
 Perthes, especially if he could find a place of rest 
 where I might be more with him. In that case, I 
 
196 CIIKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 should indeed wisli tliat my breatliing were some- 
 wliat more free, so that I might go about and en- 
 joy Hfe with you.'* And soon after, " It ought to be 
 so, but the thought of keeping time in our grasp 
 often occurs. Assuredly God cannot have less good 
 in store for us in heaven, but that which we have 
 here we see with our eyes, and thus it has a strong- 
 er hold on our hearts than the anticipation of even 
 the better things awaiting us above. But even 
 here below there, are moments of great and incon- 
 ceivable assurance and blessedness, if we could only 
 keep them. But my special sorrow is, that I am 
 not at all times master of my own heart, and my 
 greatest comfort is, that God knows me perfectly; 
 and certainly, I desire far more than I can accom- 
 phsh." 
 
 In the middle of July, Caroline was taken to 
 Wandsbeck, in order to be away from the bustle of 
 home, and that she might take the air without go- 
 ing up and down stairs. She now suffered much 
 from difficulty of breathing and cramp in the chest. 
 *' When I sit still," she says, " I am pretty well, and 
 enjoy the beautiful weather, quite forgetting my 
 pain, but the slightest movement reminds me of it 
 at once." 
 
 " It is now three months," she writes at another 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 197 
 
 time, " since I have been able to do anything in the 
 house, kitchen, or cellar, and this distresses me 
 greatly. I long indescribably to return to my du- 
 ties, and to spare my dear Perthes any further anx- 
 iety about my health. I cannot do any kind of 
 work, not even knit, neither can I read ; but I feel 
 no tediousness and am in very good spirits. I must 
 not write any more, my dear child. It is not my 
 heart, but my head that is weary." 
 
 These were almost the last words that she was 
 able to write to her distant children, but her affec- 
 tion continued undiminished, and she rejoiced with 
 them, as warmly as ever, on the occasion of the 
 birth of her second grandson in July. " God help 
 those poor creatures," she wrote, "who have no 
 love in their hearts; how glad I am to be your 
 mother, and how I rejoice in all your happiness !" 
 
 In her last letter to her sou in Tubingen, on the 
 2d of August, she says : " We passed our wedding- 
 day very happily at Wandsbeck ; I went round the 
 beautiful large meadow many times with my dear 
 husband, sitting down occasionally, and cannot be 
 thankful enough for this delightful walk. We were 
 alone, and it was many years since I had such a 
 walk with my dear Perthes. Our conversation was 
 very comprehensive and hopeful; since it is not 
 
198 CHRIST IN \ GERMAN HOME. 
 
 only the past but the present which is ours. We 
 thought of you all." 
 
 But Caroline's health was not improved by her 
 stay at Wandsbeck. " How gladly would I tell you 
 that I am strong and hearty," she wrote to Perthes 
 on the 8th of August, " but I cannot ; I do not feel 
 strong. Pleased I am, but not cheerful, though I 
 might be so could I sit on my bench in the .open 
 air. The pleasure of being out carries me beyond 
 myself, but within doors I do not easily forget my- 
 self, and my short breath ; perhaps to-morrow God 
 will send the right thought. My general health is 
 still good, and the one weakness may yet be found 
 out. My feelings tell me that I may be perfectly 
 restored, though my understanding speaks rather 
 differently." 
 
 A few dsLjs after this Caroline returned to Ham- 
 burg, in order to be near her physician, but the 
 hope of recovery diminished day by day. Although 
 she was not at this time living in the immediate ex- 
 pectation of death, she enjoyed a closer commun- 
 ion with God. The old hymn, "Lord, I would 
 venture on thy word,"* was her delight. When, 
 through the severity of her sufferings, and the rest- 
 lessness of fever, she could with difficulty keep be- 
 *„^m, aitf bfiit 3Bort foU'g feiii geHjaQt." 
 
LAST DAYS OF CABOLINE PERTHES. 199 
 
 fore her the contents of the hymn, she would take 
 up her pen, and write a few verses in order to im- 
 press these breathings of prayer on her mind. 
 
 Perthes had long been aware of her danger. 
 Thus in a letter written somewhat later, he says : 
 " I have long suffered on her account, and for many 
 months have been weighed down with grief. My 
 lonely walks have been spent in endeavoring to 
 realize the heavy trial that is upon me, and with 
 God's help to prepare for it. Ever and anon hope 
 revived, but only to be dashed again. No one, who 
 knew as I did the weight of the fetters that 
 a weary body imposed upon so active and intense 
 a spirit as hers, could believe that she could long 
 endure it. She has suffered much for a long time, 
 and it is a, hard struggle for one so excitable and 
 energetic, to feel herself constantly bound. It was 
 only her genuine Christianity and the consideration 
 of the sufferings of our Lord, that supported her 
 and kept her patient, yea, cheerful, and preserved 
 ]ier sympathies to the last. I alone knew how weak 
 she was, and how much she suffered; her friends 
 and acquaintances saw only her kindness and men-, 
 tal energy." 
 
 On Friday, the 24tli of August, fi^equent and 
 violent attacks of internal cramp placed her life in 
 
200 CHEIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 immediate danger, and from this time she alter- 
 nated between wild delirium and exhanstion, strug- 
 gles for breath and profound sleep; but there were 
 occasional hours of freedom from pain, and of per- 
 fect consciousness, and then the peace of faith, the 
 assurance of hope, and the joy of love, were victori- 
 ous over suffering and death. 
 
 " Your mother is very ill," writes Perthes, Au- 
 gust 28th, to his sons-in-law. "We are in God's 
 hand, and may hope, although we have more cause 
 for fear. I find my comfort and support in submis- 
 sion : ' Thy will be done, O Lord.* If God has or- 
 dained the death of your pious mother, his will bo 
 done. I could not count much on my own strength, 
 the rending of such ties is terrible. It is terrible to 
 be left without the only creature who entirely knows 
 me — sad, desolate loneliness, long or short, is all that 
 remains ; no more comfort of mutual cooperation ; no 
 helper in all my joys and sorrows. I cannot and 
 dare not hope ; it is only when I realize the worst 
 that I find comfort and support." 
 
 On the evening of the day on which this letter 
 was written, on the 28th of August, 1821, a stroke 
 of paralysis put an end to Caroline's life so sud- 
 denly, that no pressure of the hand, no word or look 
 of love, gave token of farewell to those around her. 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 201 
 
 "Here I am with my poor cliildren," wrote Per- 
 thes on the following morning to his son-in-law, 
 " and life looks empty and desolate. We seek for 
 the overflowing affection that has been so richly 
 granted to us ; and yet, since we could have it only 
 by bringing back my Caroline and your mother, 
 could we wish that her free and pious spirit should 
 be again imprisoned in the body? My poor chil- 
 dren ! You older ones have had the benefit of your 
 mother's mind, but the younger ones must for ever 
 miss her love and watchful spirit. God help them 
 and me. It breaks my heart to see the little ones 
 seeking up and down for then- mother everywhere, 
 and to hear their sobs when they do not find her. 
 Her face in its last sleep is inexpressibly beautiful, 
 from the height of the forehead and the sweet lov- 
 ing smile that plays about the mouth." 
 
 In a letter written the same day to his son Mat- 
 thias, Perthes says : " Her love can no longer bless us 
 here below ; she is at rest with God, while we mourn 
 her loss. Weep as much as you can, then compose 
 and command yourself, and come to us." 
 
 "My sorrow does not make me idle," he wrote 
 
 a few days after to his daughter ; " it rather rouses 
 
 my affections, and excites me to be helpful to all 
 
 around me, as far as I can. I have abundant cause 
 
 26 
 
202 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 for thankfulness, that for four-and-twenty years God 
 has permitted me to enjoy this treasure of affection, 
 energy and intelligence, and I would render thanks 
 to him for this. Now she knows how and wherein 
 I have sinned, as she could not know here below, 
 but now she also realizes the full measure of my 
 affection. How^ many are the hinderances, limita- 
 tions and circumstances, great and small, that op- 
 pose our recognition of the love that is in other 
 men's hearts ! That she now knows me thoroughly 
 and helps me to cleave to God and to walk before 
 him, I am fully persuaded, though I am aware K^ev- 
 elation gives no express countenance to this be- 
 hef." 
 
 In a subsequent letter Perthes says : " All that I 
 have done and" planned, that was not immediately 
 connected with business, for four-and-twenty years, 
 has been solely in reference to your mother. She 
 never knew, at least in full, how dependent I was 
 on her ; she only thought, through the depth of her 
 love for me, what sacrifices I had made. But now 
 all this is over. I am no longer bound; I can do 
 what I will, and next to the yearning after her, I 
 am most oppressed in my solitude by the conscious- 
 ness of freedom. In my heart all is dark and deso- 
 late; I long for communication with some loving 
 
LAST DAYS OF CAROLINE PERTHES. 203 
 
 soul, as if communion with the Invisible were not 
 enough, and to this disquiet is added the anxious 
 fear, lest when time shall have cooled down my 
 burning sorrow, my affection for your mother should 
 also suffer some diminution." 
 
 In a letter to Helena Jacobi, who had been a 
 friend to Caroline from her girlhood, Perthes said : 
 "You, indeed, early appreciated the worth of my 
 Caroline; but, removed from her as you were in 
 these last years, you could not see the development 
 of her mind. Her piety and loveliness, and the 
 simplicity of her character, were untouched by 
 years, and her affection, while it retained all its 
 strength and depth, expanded in every direction, 
 and showered blessings and benefits on all within 
 her reach. She had counsel, comfort and help for 
 all who approached her, and won love and an es- 
 teem bordering on reverence, from persons of the 
 most opposite character and circumstances. Caro- 
 line's imagination was of unparalleled vivacity, and 
 originated the deepest sympathy with all that was 
 passing in the world. She had much experience of 
 human nature, but her judgment was always loving 
 and compassionate, her faith free from the nari'ow- 
 ness of the letter, and great as was her affection for 
 me, she was perfectly independent in mind. For 
 
204 CHKIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 f our-and-twenty years we liad lived together through 
 cares and anxieties, sometimes through sorrow and 
 trouble, but in all she was happy, for every moment 
 was filled with love and lively sympathy; always 
 resigned to the inevitable, she preserved her heroic 
 spirit in great events. That poverty of spirit so ex- 
 tolled by Tauler and Thomas a Kempis, was hers ; 
 she had acquired it in struggling with a vigorous 
 nature, to which passion, impetuosity, and ambition 
 were not unknown. From her earliest youth she 
 had Hved in continual intercourse with God, and 
 she was sincere as I have known few besides. And 
 now this great and rare blessing is lost to me in the 
 grave. In vain I stretch out my arms; humanly 
 speaking, I am alone, and yet I have a foretaste of 
 a previously unknown blessedness, since our souls 
 may now meet unfettered ; but this may not be put 
 into words, since once uttered it becomes untrue." 
 
^v::^ 
 
 XIX. 
 
 COTHA. 
 
 f.FTEB Caroline's death Perthes longed 
 more ardently than ever for a quieter 
 f2i^ life for himself and children. For a 
 long time he had planned to transfer 
 P 1 his Hamburg business to his friend Besser, 
 and to establish a publishing house in Goiha, 
 the home of his married daughters. 
 
 To them he writes : " Next Easter we shall come 
 to you, and if it please God, stay with you. The 
 housekeeping can be carried on as usual ; Matilda 
 is active and sensible, and has conducted it with 
 discretion and judgment beyond her years, during 
 her mother's illness. She still continues the care 
 of the younger children, but apart from all other 
 considerations, I should be doing injustice to Ma- 
 tilda, if by remaining here I were to oppress her 
 
206 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 youthful spirit of seventeen by leaving so much un- 
 der her charge." 
 
 Final arrangements were at last completed, and 
 in March, 1822, Perthes and his four children left 
 Hamburg for their new home. 
 
 Gotha cannot fail to impress favorably all who 
 visit it. It forms a crescent at the foot of the 
 Schlossberg, and is surrounded by a rich country. 
 The ducal palace, with its remarkably fine orange- 
 ry, adds to its other attractions. 
 
 Despite the ravages of war, Gotha retained 
 many primitive German customs when Perthes first 
 settled there. Every evening the streets of one- 
 storied houses were filled with cattle returning from 
 pasture, and by night the only sound heard was the 
 loud horn of the watchman and his pious caution, 
 "Put out the fire, and put out the light, tliat no 
 evil chance to-night, and praise we God the Lord." 
 The streets were lively only on market-days, when 
 the robust forms of the Thuringian peasants 
 with their gayly-dressed, healthy-looking wives and 
 daughters, selling country and forest produce, filled 
 the square in front of the old town-hall, on whose 
 roof a greedy-looking wooden head opened its 
 mouth wide, at the striking of the hour, as if un- 
 certain whether to speak or bite. 
 
GOTHA. 207 
 
 Needy schoolboys and students might often be 
 heard singing before the houses of the rich, in hopes 
 of adding to their scanty means, as Martin Luther 
 had done in his school- days at Eisenach. 
 
 Not less notable were the giant forms of the 
 guard, with their wide, white cloaks down to their 
 heels, their great swords at their side, their heavy 
 boots and clattering spurs, though horses they had 
 none. Peaceable, friendly tradesmen they were, 
 who were accustomed for a moderate consideration 
 to figure, a few days at a time, as warriors, in the 
 six or eight uniforms which were passed from one 
 to another. 
 
 All intercourse with the neighboring villages 
 was carried on by a walking-post, and when, in 
 September, 1825, the first diligence entered Gotha, 
 the whole town assembled to witness the phenome- 
 non, and for months nothing was spoken of but the 
 energy of the postmaster-general, who had actually 
 brought seeming impossibilities to pass. 
 
 But notwithstanding its quaintness, Gotha had 
 long been a centre for much mental and intellectual 
 activity. 
 
 During the first few weeks after his arrival Per- 
 thes was occupied in arranging his new mode of 
 life. In April he wrote : " I have not yet begun 
 
208 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 my regular habits; the many things to be done 
 first, and the presence of my son Matthias, have 
 filled my time. Our dwelling stands in a very sea 
 of flowers, and commands an extensive view. We 
 can see the Brocken in clear weather. My daugh- 
 ter Matilda governs the new household judiciously 
 and firmly. Clement I have sent to the gymna- 
 sium ; the education of the two youngest is provi- 
 ded for, and the most necessary visits made. We 
 are a good deal with my married daughters and 
 their husbands, and I already foresee that my new 
 mode of Hfe will suit me." 
 
 In May he writes : " My spirit is deeply troubled. 
 This returning home without my Caroline, without 
 finding the love, the fulness of soul from which I 
 drew my life, is horrible. I can impart nothing, 
 receive nothing; all is barren and dead. My arri- 
 val yesterday was most painful — no welcome, no 
 life in our communications ; the poor children can- 
 not supply that want." 
 
 In speaking of his removal to Gotha he says : 
 " If one ever wishes to make a decided change in 
 Hfe, it must be while he has strength not only to 
 break off from the old, but to found the new ; other- 
 wise there results a wretched half-and-half exist- 
 ence, full of divided regrets and weak yearnings after 
 
GOTHA. 209 
 
 the past, and a depressed disposition, which unfits 
 for business and never can prosper. Ten years 
 later I should not have been able to carry out my 
 resolve ; now Grod help me onward." 
 
 To his old partner, Besser, he wrote : " We must 
 settle our affairs as soon as possible, for if one of 
 us were to die before this were done, inevitable con- 
 fusion and mischief would ensue, for then the law 
 would settle what we arrange as brothers : therefore 
 I urge you to make all possible speed. After all, 
 when this is over, I shall not be estranged even 
 from your affairs — from yourself I never could be — 
 but I shall watch them with delight and sympathy, 
 and in many things we shall be able to help each other 
 as long as we hve." The only difficulty attending this 
 dissolution of partnership arose from each think- 
 ing himself too much benefited by the propositions 
 of the other. However, matters were soon adjust- 
 ed, and Perthes again wrote : " We have now, dear 
 brother, worked together for a quarter of a century, 
 in troublous times. Not once have we taken differ- 
 ent views as to * meum and tuum ;' not for one mo- 
 ment during all those years have we ever felt it 
 possible to waver in our mutual confidence. Let 
 us thank God that at the hour of parting that con- 
 fidence is as firm and pure as it has been during 
 
 ObrlRt in Gcr. Horaa. 27 
 
210 CHPvIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 our long associated life. Sucli happiness in such 
 degree is Touchsafed to few." 
 
 Besser remained through life Perthes' most inti- 
 mate friend. After Caroline's death Perthes had 
 written to him thus : " You are now the only man 
 who knows all about me that one mortal can know 
 about another, and, besides, you are the bridge 
 connecting me with my earlier days, which else 
 were entirely buried." 
 
 He had always been a remarkable character, 
 and so continued to the end. One describes him 
 as the most benevolent and lovable of men ; full of 
 energy, enthusiasm, and feeling. The beauty of a 
 landscape would move him to tears. Extravagantly 
 fond of music, a tune would haunt him for weeks. 
 At such times he would try to be alone to sing it, 
 and his voice would be heard proceeding from all 
 sorts of hiding-places. In enjoyment he would go 
 to the verge of exhaustion, and good company made 
 him only too happy. In great things he was sim- 
 ple and unrequiring ; but he had a thousand small 
 peculiarities ; for instance, when travelling he always 
 wore a quantity of coats for the sake of the pockets. 
 Caroline, laughingly, once counted twenty-one, all 
 filled with scissors, penknives, pocketbooks, etc. 
 Yet his cheerfulness, courage, and decision, unfail- 
 
GOTHA. . 211 
 
 ing in any emergency, ever made Lim a most de- 
 lightful companion. A thorough humorist, he was 
 also a dear child of God, and a singularly pure, 
 strong-minded man. 
 
 But life in the new home was by no means an 
 inactive one ; the publishing business, journeys, so- 
 cial intercourse, and long rambles in the Thuringian 
 forest, filled the days which were only too short. 
 " My home-circle and those of my sons-in-law," 
 writes Perthes, " fill up my idle hours. William 
 Perthes is the same stable, firm, determined char- 
 acter he ever was; combining a healthy intellect 
 and a warm heart as few others do." 
 
 Then occurred the betrothal of Matilda to Fred- 
 derick Becker, of Gotha. Perthes had written a 
 year before to Besser: "Of all the friends of my 
 sons-in-law, Becker suits me best; he is a noble 
 hearted, good man, thoroughly intelligent and well- 
 informed; indulgent to others, and, perhaps, only 
 too severe towards himself. One may learn from 
 him the nature and influence of truly conscientious 
 order." To another friend he says: "You have 
 heard from me of my warm attachment to Becker, 
 and will, therefore, readily believe that I am re- 
 joiced to give my child to him." 
 
 Although Perthes had heartily approved his 
 
212 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME-. 
 
 daugliter's liappy betrothal, her departure from 
 home cost him a severe struggle. On the day after 
 the wedding, which took place on the 1st of June, 
 1824, he had all his children assembled around 
 him, but as one by one departed leaving him alone 
 with the three youngest only, he was overwhelmed 
 with sadness. "We find him writing: "They were 
 indeed heavy hours when all forsook me. First 
 Matthias left to begin a new and independent life ; 
 then both my married daughters returned to their 
 long-established homes; at last Matilda with her 
 husband. The farewell of this dear daughter, who 
 clung to me with boundless tenderness, pierced my 
 heart, and I found myself alone — alone as for thirty 
 years I had never been. Henceforth I have no 
 family circle; the house that Caroline and I had 
 founded is fast going to pieces, and the picture of 
 myself as the last remaining one haunts me hke a 
 spectre." 
 
 "I am alone," he says in another letter; "no 
 one understands me now as I was once understood. 
 If I speak out of my heart, the answer I receive 
 teaches me that my meaning is not apprehended." 
 Again, he says, " It is wretched enough to lead an 
 unmarried life, but still worse to have known per- 
 fect sympathy of soul, and then to lose it. I pos- 
 
GOTHA. 213 
 
 sess, in no common degree, my children's love, but 
 this cannot replace the love of which I have been 
 bereft." 
 
 Previous to this he had collected together all 
 the letters his wife had written to friends and fam- 
 ily, as well as to himself, that he might revive in his 
 heart the history of the years spent with Caroline. 
 "A past life of five-and-twenty years lies before 
 me," he wrote, " this little bundle contains an in- 
 finitude of love and thought, truth and conflict, and 
 evokes from their graves many a forgotten fact and 
 feeUng. Yes, hfe is a dream, but a very serious 
 one, and our dreams are solemn truths veiled in 
 airy fictions." 
 
 Not long after Matilda's marriage Perthes was 
 persuaded to remove with his three children to the 
 house of his son-in-law, Becker. He was heartily 
 welcomed by his children to their home, and every- 
 thing was done for his happiness and comfort. 
 Still he could not overcome the fear of becoming a 
 burden, as age came upon him. 
 
 In July Caroline's mother came to Gotha, for a 
 visit, and while walking with Perthes plainly told 
 him that solitude was not good, he could not bear 
 it, and that it was his duty to seek a companion 
 for the remainder of his life. He made no reply, 
 
214 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 but in an instant his heart turned to Charlotte 
 Hornbostel, the sister of Becker, his son-in-law. 
 Charlotte had returned to her home, a widow with 
 four children, two of whom were hopeless invalids. 
 She was now living in the next house to her broth- 
 er, and was well known and loved by the daughter 
 of Perthes. He himself had been strongly attract- 
 ed by her clear intellect, quick wit, and good sense, 
 as well as by her cheerful, untiring devotion to her 
 sick children. But the possibility of a nearer rela- 
 tion had never occurred to him, until it was sug- 
 gested by his mother-in-law. 
 
 A fierce conflict now arose in his heart which 
 yearned for companionship, while it shrank from 
 anything like infidelity to Carohne. In September 
 he wrote to his mother-in-law telling her of the 
 struggle through which he was passing. He says : 
 " I am quite certain that Caroline foresaw, from her 
 knowledge of my character and temperament, a 
 second marriage for me, and I am equally certain 
 that no new union could ever disturb my spirit's 
 abiding union with her." After speaking of second 
 marriages, he says : " To us, in our life here below, 
 the love of the creature is given to educate us for 
 the love of God. Can I dispense with this earthly 
 help, and yet maintain love alive in my heart ? Can 
 
GOTHA. 215 
 
 I, without family ties to constrain me, go on caring 
 for others ? Can I escape the danger of isolating 
 myself, and living in selfishness, gross or refined '? 
 I recall many a fearful instance of this in others ! 
 Is it, in short, weakness to say to myself, 'Thou 
 canst not dispense wdth the earthly helps to a lov- 
 ing spirit,' or is it arrogance to believe that I no 
 longer need such? I do not know how to answer 
 this question." 
 
 But Perthes' gi'owing attachment for Charlotte, 
 at last prompted him to make known to her his 
 feelings, and to seek her love in return. After some 
 days of suspense a favorable answer was received. 
 The '25th of October was the day of betrothal, and 
 on the following May they were married. 
 
 This second marriage was one of great happi- 
 ness, notwithstanding its many cares and anxieties. 
 Perthes had not only his three children to educate, 
 but was also responsible for four step-children. In 
 addition four others were born, Eudolph, Caroline, 
 Augustus, and Eliza ; but not for a single moment 
 did he consider his large household a burden. On 
 the contrary, the feeling of gratitude for the happi- 
 ness conferred upon him remained with him till his 
 death. 
 
/S^^^r-VDfeX^tS^'C>oe/E>^ 
 
 XX. 
 
 PERTHES^ VIEWS OF LIFE. 
 
 I^^HE publishing business which Perthes 
 ■^^ estabUshed in Gotha in 1822, rapidly 
 <^ increased in magnitude and importance. 
 He seemed instinctively to know what 
 the spirit of the age demanded. But for 
 him many a valuable work would have never 
 seen the light, while others of injurious character 
 would have appeared in their places. He not only 
 refused to issue any immoral book, but influenced 
 not a few German publishers to take the same stand. 
 He gave to the world numerous theological 
 works and Scripture commentaries, whose good 
 influence can only be estimated when we realize 
 how strong a hold Rationalism had taken upon the 
 German mind. Men of culture knew the Bible only 
 by hearsay, and looked upon the peasant and 
 
PERTHES' VIEWS OF LIFE 217 
 
 meclianic who read it with pity. Perthes says, 
 " During the first ten years of my establishment in 
 Hamburg I sold not a single Bible, except to a few 
 bookbinders in neighboring country towns; and I 
 remember very well a good sort of man who came 
 into my shop for a Bible, and took great pains to 
 inform me it was for a person about to be confirmed, 
 fearing I should suppose it was for himself." 
 
 One of Perthes' first acts as a publisher was to 
 seek out the leading scholars of Germany, many of 
 whom he incited to prepare histories of the differ- 
 ent European states. 
 
 His life was full of activity. Authors old and 
 young sought his acquaintance. The most distin- 
 guished men of Germany visited him ; and num- 
 berless letters poured in from historians, theologi- 
 ans, and friends, asking for advice, aid, and sympa- 
 thy, which were freely given. " It was so comfort- 
 ing," wrote a friend, " to know of one in the world 
 from whom, in every case of need, one was sure of 
 sincere sympathy, loving good-will, and judicious 
 counsel." 
 
 A large collection of his own letters are found in 
 
 his biography, which are full of interest; but the 
 
 limits of the present volume forbid other than a 
 
 few detached extracts : 
 
 28 
 
218 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 " He who should attempt nothuig on earth but 
 to meditate on God, and feel His presence, would 
 soon cease to do either. The Christian is set in 
 the midst of the world, and let him stand where he 
 may, will always be called on to fulfil various exter- 
 nal duties; in these he is to act as skilfully, expe- 
 ditiously, and energetically as his faculties will 
 allow, and he may not extinguish his earthly nature 
 or his senses, for he needs them all in order to be 
 God's faithful servant and steward." 
 
 "I would have nothing to do with the man who 
 cannot be moved with indignation. There are more 
 good people than bad in the world, and the bad get 
 the upper hand merely because they are bolder.'* 
 
 "To love mankind in old age, and to remain 
 steadfast in love even to death, is exceedingly diffi- 
 cult. A youthful warmth of feeling can be pre- 
 served in old age only by faith and humility." 
 
 "Whoever is convinced of sin, and believes in 
 redemption through Christ, is a Christian, no mat- 
 ter what the color of his party." 
 
 " It is a proof of the divinity of the Bible, that 
 different books affect different Christians most, 
 according to their difference of temperament and 
 education, while yet all books lead to the same 
 end." 
 
PERTHES' VIEWS OF LIFE. 219 
 
 "One thing I am more and more sure of: men 
 of giant intellect and high imagination are little 
 fitted to govern ; the practical man, if he will avail 
 himself of the intellect of others, makes the best 
 administrator." 
 
 " Napoleon will yet become the idol of the age ; 
 many are longing for another such despot to appear ; 
 and it is quite possible that their desire may be 
 gratified, for, out of fermentations like the present, 
 dragons may well arise." 
 
 " I consider Napoleon to be one of the greatest 
 and most remarkable phenomena in the history of 
 mankind. He was a mighty instrument in the hands 
 of Providence, and when he had done his work, and 
 was no longer needed, he was thrown, like other 
 wornout tools, into a comer ; for not in himself, but 
 only as an instrument, had he any importance." 
 
 " Go forward with hope and confidence. This 
 is the advice given thee by an old man who has had 
 a full share of the burden and heat of life's day. 
 We must ever stand upright, happen what may, 
 and for this end we must cheerfully resign ourselves 
 to the varied influences of this many-colored life. 
 You may call this levity, and you are partly right, 
 for flowers and colors are but trifles light as air ; 
 but such levity is a constituent portion of our human 
 
220 CHPwIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 nature, without wliicli it would sink under tlie weight 
 of time. While on earth we must still play with 
 earth, and with that which blooms and fades upon 
 its breast. The consciousness of this mortal hfe 
 being but the way to a higher goal, by no means 
 precludes our playing with it cheerfully ; and indeed 
 we must do so, otherwise our energy in action will 
 entirely fail." 
 
 " I learn more and more to discern the Divine 
 wisdom, which has set limits to revelation ; all that 
 we need for our happiness is given us, and were the 
 curtain lifted farther from holy mysteries, man's 
 utter bewilderment would be hopeless." 
 
 " He only can be unjust to Schiller who knows 
 not the wrathful melancholy of the breast which 
 heaves with longings for help, yet contains no nur- 
 sery memories of the Christian faith. He only can 
 condemn him who is unable to realize the feelings 
 of a man who would fain hold intercourse with the 
 living God, yet finds nothing in his age but the god 
 of intellect, enthroned indeed in astronomical maj- 
 esty, but insipid and impassable withal." 
 
T 
 
 c.^^- 
 
 ^ ^^r r ^ 
 
 XXT, 
 
 LAST DAYS OF PERTHES. 
 
 (HILE Perthes was called to respond to 
 so many claims upon Ins time and 
 p.^^^ sympathies, his life was firmly rooted 
 in his home and family circle. It is 
 true his family spread out yearly more and 
 more. His eldest son Matthias had been a 
 pastor in Moorburg since 1830; his second son, 
 Clement, became in 1834 a public tutor in Bonn ; 
 Andrew, after a preparatory residence in Hamburg, 
 Prague, Switzerland, and France, became a partner 
 in his father's business. All these sons were mar- 
 ried. His eldest step-son died in 1827 ; the second 
 one, Henry, for whom he had a true father's affec- 
 tion, had gone to Berlin to study. In 1831 his 
 fourth daughter married Moritz Madelung, and his 
 step-daughter Bertha, Carl von Zeche. 
 
 None of the daughters would allow many days to 
 
222 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 pass without seeing tlijeir father in their own houses, 
 were it but for a quarter of an hour ; and few weeks 
 went by in which the whole family, daughters and 
 sons-in-law alike, did not spend one evening at least 
 with their parents. Despite all obstacles, they con- 
 trived to keep up the animation of these meetings. 
 Even after a hard day's work, Perthes would enter 
 into a spirited conversation with youthful ardor, 
 unconsciously exciting each to exert to the utmost 
 all the faculties he possessed ; indeed it was almost 
 impossible for any one to feel weary in his presence. 
 With his absent sons he kept up a free and unbro- 
 ken correspondence. With all his children he had 
 ever aimed to preserve their individuality and inde- 
 pendence, and now their intercourse was the most 
 delightful. 
 
 In 1833 occurred the death of Kudolph, the pet 
 and darling of his father. It was a deep sorrow — 
 one with which he struggled long and bitterly. 
 
 In 1837 Perthes took a small house in Fried- 
 richroda, about nine miles from Gotha, in order, 
 with his wife and children, to spend the summer in 
 the woods. It was a lovely spot among the hills 
 and valleys of the Thuringian forest. From this 
 time it became his custom to spend every summer 
 here, and each year he loved it better. It was his 
 
LAST DAYS OF PERTHES. 223 
 
 daily delight to take long rambles with his wife and 
 children. On Saturdays and Sundays the house 
 was all alive, grandchildren, daughters, sons-in-law 
 came, till the rooms were too small to contain them, 
 and kitchen and cellars were put to strange shifts ; 
 and often Perthes was the youngest of the party in 
 spirits and enjoyment. His sons, too, generally 
 came from a distance to spend some weeks vvith 
 him ; and even of historians and theologians there 
 was no lack. 
 
 With great pleasure Perthes led his guests here 
 and there to show them the beauty of the hills and 
 woods, while the country people marvelled why an 
 old gentleman who had neither to burn charcoal 
 nor to prepare tar, should persist in threading the 
 long toilsome paths their day's work led them to 
 traverse. But they all knew he had a heart for 
 their joys and sorrows, and loved him for it. To 
 prove their fondness, they gave him the freedom of 
 their little town, with which he reported himself 
 more pleased than with any other honor conferred 
 upon him. 
 
 Another honor enjoyed by Perthes during his 
 latter years was the kindness shown him by the 
 ducal house of Coburg. He was frequently a guest 
 and a sharer of the society of royal dignitaries, 
 
224: CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 among whom were the King of Saxony, Prince Fer- 
 dinand of Portugal, Prince Albert of England, and 
 others. Of Prince Albert he writes: "Queen Vic- 
 toria will find him the right sort of man ; and un- 
 less some unlucky fatality interpose, he is sure to 
 be the idol of the EngUsh people." 
 
 Active and cheerful as he still was, Perthes now 
 began to feel in different ways the approach of 
 old age. Many dear friends and relatives were 
 called away, among whom was his beloved Besser. 
 In 1835 the old uncle died at the age of eighty- 
 three, and in 1838 the old aunt followed, aged 
 eighty-seven. 
 
 In 1813, Perthes' children and grandchildren all 
 came, according to custom, to gather round him on 
 Christmas day. None were kept away by sickness, 
 and he enjoyed himself with youthful glee, in the 
 midst of his forty-nine descendants. 
 
 From that time, however, he began to realize 
 that his life was drawing to a close. His strength 
 gradually failed, but in the intervals of weakness 
 and disease his old activities revived. So long as 
 he was able he had his letters, books and papers 
 spread around him, and continued his correspond- 
 ence with his absent sons. He once remarked that 
 his wife was the very perfection of a nurse, be- 
 
LAST DAYS OF PERTHES. 225 
 
 cause she never proffered lielp when lie did not 
 need it. 
 
 He punctually discharged every obligation, gave 
 directions to his son Andrew who was to carry on 
 his business, made his will and was then able calm- 
 ly to await his departure. 
 
 When he needed strength and comfort, he 
 sought them exclusively in the Scriptures. Not one 
 of his rehgious works satisfied his present needs. 
 Formerly he had preferred the Epistles of St. Paul 
 to all other portions of the Bible ; nor did he lose 
 his love for them, but his love for St. John's wri- 
 tings increased. As of old he had always turned to 
 the Romans, so now the Gospel of St. John was al- 
 ways open before him. " Hold simply and firmly 
 to what our Lord has told us," he says, " and do 
 not wish to know more. Eead again and again the 
 fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 
 chapters of St. John's Gospel. He who has all 
 these has all he needs alike for life and death." 
 
 During the last two months of his life, he lived 
 on these four chapters, and the nearer he ap- 
 proached to death, the oftener did he read the sev- 
 enteenth. 
 
 On one occasion he said : " The season of faith 
 will soon be over for me, that of sight is near, and 
 
 Christ In Ger. Uomo. 29 
 
226 CHRIST IN A GERMAN HOME. 
 
 yet liow mysterious the word, and how veiled its 
 meanings. Sight ! I shall see with faculties I have 
 never possessed here! As I have only with my 
 bodily eyes beheld the visible, with my ears heard 
 the audible, so understanding, feeling, reasoning 
 have only afforded me the perception of this or that 
 aspect of truth, not the truth itself. Knowing, in 
 fact, is not seeing. If I am to see, I must have a 
 new spiritual faculty conferred by perfect love, in 
 order to make the reception of truth possible. Fain 
 w^ould we question how this will be brought about, 
 but be it unto thy servant according to thy word." 
 
 On the morning of the 21st of April, his birth- 
 day, he had his children and grandchildren assem- 
 bled around him. All were sad and sorrowful, but 
 he lay in his room, which had been dressed with 
 spring flowers, in such perfect peace and joy, that 
 it was impossible for them to give utterance to their 
 grief. "Should it be possible," said he, "that I 
 should still spend a little more time with you, I 
 shall do so gladly, and I should return with pleas- 
 ure to my dear Friedrichroda ; but this may not be. 
 A rich life lies behind me. I have indeed had my 
 trying days and hours, but God has been ever gra- 
 cious to me. Do not mourn for me when I am 
 dead. I know that you will often long for me, and 
 
LAST DAYS OF PEKTHES. 227 
 
 I am glad of it. I need not say to you, * Love one 
 another,' but, so bring up your children that they 
 also may do so. I die willingly and calmly, and I 
 am prepared to die, having committed myself to 
 my God and Father. Here there is no abiding 
 city, we needs must part; death cannot harm me, it 
 must be gain." 
 
 In May, to his great joy, Charlotte Besser, his 
 sister, visited him. Perthes made her tell him much 
 about earlier as well as present times, and with her 
 he reviewed once more his whole past life. 
 
 Matthias also returned home, giving his father 
 a pleasant surprise. In parting from him some 
 days later, Perthes said, " We shall meet again. I 
 used to think, that in the certainty of an existence 
 in God above, all desire of seeing and possessing 
 again those we have loved would disappear, and I 
 never attached much importance to the personal 
 relations between man and man in heaven : but I 
 have changed my views; I now hope to meet and 
 enjoy again all I have loved on earth, and I beheve, 
 too, that I shall do so." 
 
 DurLQg his last days of pain and weakness, he 
 was ever mindful of the comfort and happiness of 
 others. On one occasion he selected a ring for his 
 granddaughter, Fanny Becker, at the time of her 
 
228 CHEIST IN A GEKMAN HOME. 
 
 confirmation, and another for his daughter Agnes, 
 which he gave her in a basketful of flowers on her 
 silver wedding-day. 
 
 The 10th of May was the eighteenth anniver- 
 sary of his second marriage. Much and long did 
 he and his wife speak together of their mutual life, 
 and then he added, " Death is here, and I am con- 
 scious of a most strange feeling, as though all 
 earthly ties were dissolving ; but there is no expres- 
 sing this in words." 
 
 Days of severe suffering followed, but his faith 
 remained bright and unshaken, and death came 
 peacefully at last. The words that reached his 
 ear as his spirit was passing from earth were, " Yea, 
 the Lord hath prepared blessedness and joy for 
 thee, where Christ is the Sun, the Life, and the All 
 in All." 
 
 He died surrounded by his family, on the 18th of 
 May, 1843, aged seventy-one years. Early on the 
 morning of the 22d of May, he was buried in the 
 churchyard of Gotha, and his favorite hymn was 
 sung around his grave. 
 
 '* What can molest or injure me, who have in Christ a part? 
 Filled with the peace and grace of God, most gladly I depart." 
 
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