store it to them by threatening to confiscate the property of the Catholic churches within his dominions. Thus, after the kings of Saxony, lusting after the Polish crown, relapsed into Catholicism, the monarchs of Prussia became the foremost champions of Protestantism on the continent of Europe. This is a fact of immense historical significance. The Reformation of the 16th century had a deeper meaning and a wider scope than any discussion of ecclesiastical rites or theological dogmas. It was, in fact, putting to the intellect of Europe this question: Will you stay with the Middle Age, content to lie forever in the stiffest and sorriest of spiritual grave-clothes, or have you strength and moral virtue enough left to burst these yellow cerements, stretch your limbs, and march on with modern civilization? The fate of every nation hung upon its own answer. Those which became Protestant have grown; those which remained Papal have, relatively at least, declined. Holland with scarcely a million of inhabitants and with a territory half sea-sand and half swamp, outcast of ocean and of earth, takes root like a lily in the muddy soil, blooms upward and spreads its broad leaves and opens its golden heart to the sunlight above the waves. The gigantic monarchy of Charles V. and Philip II. could not pluck it up.

But it would be superfluous to cite examples, which can be found on every page of modern history, and of which one of the most remarkable is that of Sweden, emerging from its Northern snows, overthrowing on the field of battle Austria's schemes of universal empire and conquering for the Reformation a legal existence, by the peace of Westphalia. Italy to-day is prospering as a nation only in proportion as she breaks with her ecclesiastical traditions; and the same is true of revolutionized Spain. It is not a matter of race; for it is a significant fact, frequently observable in France, that when a family divides into two branches, one of which clings to the faith of the fathers, and the other enrolls itself under the standard of the Reformation, the differ

ence in intellectual culture and material wealth makes itself manifest in a single generation. The favorable influence which a religion, appealing to the reason rather than to the imagination, exerts not only on the growth of character but also on every department of invention and creative industry, is something that merits the attention of social and political economists. Austria and Prussia are illustrations of this law. Hapsburg and Hohenzollern are of the same blood, both belonging to the Teutonic race. But in the crisis of the Reformation, whilst the former allied themselves with the Papacy as Cæsars of the Middle Ages and of the Church, the latter accepted Protestantism with all its legacies of civil, industrial, religious, intellectual and political liberty. And from that day the antagonism between those two dynasties, one representing habituality and the medieval principle of legitimacy, (so-called) the other representing progress and the modern principle of nationality, grew constantly sharper and more virulent until it was finally allayed in blood at Königgrätz and Sadowa. Frederic the Great was the first European monarch who broke away from the theocratic tradition of the divine right of kings to rule, and from the sacerdotal idea of the divine right of priests to keep other men's consciences. "The prince," he said, "is not the master of his people, but only their magistrate and servant;" and again: "All religions must be tolerated; no one encroaching on the others; for in my kingdom every man must get to heaven his own way (nach seiner Façon selig werden)." These sentiments, which were then bright with the splendor of new gold, but have now lost something of their original lustre by general circulation, were left by Frederic as an heirloom to his successors and have ever since remained in theory at least the fundamental maxims of the Prussian government. Every departure from them in practice has been due, not to any radical tendency, but solely to the caprice of individual sovereigns. Baron von Beust, the present chancellor of the Austrian empire and

the most active and formidable foe of Bismarck, said one day just before the breaking out of hostilities in 1866: "We must erase from German history the episode of Frederic the Great." This remark of the then Saxon minister, which seemed to many an expression of petulance unworthy of an enlightened statesman, showed in reality the profoundest appreciation of the whole controversy. The seven weeks' war in Bohemia ending with the peace of Prague, was but a sequel to the seven years' war which had been waged between the same powers and on the same soil, more than a century before, and which ended with the peace of Hubertsburg. Beust's great mistake was in characterizing the reign of Frederic the Great as a mere episode and in supposing that it could be blotted from the drama of history like a by-scene from a play for the convenience of histrionic representation. As well might one attempt to efface European civilization or to destroy that free spirit of the age, of which the royal philosopher of Sans-Souci was in his day the only crowned champion. It was fatal to Beust's political programme that it was an anachronism of more than a hundred years, an effort to resume in 1866 a project which Maria Theresa tried and failed to realize in 1763. Prussia, as has been already intimated, was originally a non-Germanic country, peopled by Slavonic tribes, chiefly herdsmen and amber-fishers, a savage, warlike race of men, obstinately heathen, killing all the missionaries sent to convert them. This rude country, stretching along the Baltic from the Niemen to the Warta, and bordering on Russia, (hence called Bor-Russia, Borussia, Prussia) the Bishop of Riga determined to Christianize by conquest, moral suasion having proved itself futile. In 1228 he commissioned the knights of the Teutonic order to undertake the work of subduing these ferocious pagans. This task the old Crusaders were glad enough to enter upon, and most effectually accomplished. In order that the fruits of the conquest might not be lost, colonists from all parts of Germany followed in the footsteps of

the conquerors and occupied the confiscated lands. The country was divided into districts, each of which was ruled as a fief by a knight of the order, vowed to celibacy and consequently incapable of transmitting his feudal rights as an heirloom. Thus the rich domains which the order had at its disposition on the decease of each chevalier attracted a constant accession of recruits from noble families, whose younger sons eagerly ranged themselves under its banner. Increasing wealth, however, produced effeminacy; habits of luxury undermined the valor of the Teutonic knights to such a degree that, in the bloody and decisive battle of Tannenberg (1410) they were utterly defeated by the Poles, whose suzerainty they were forced to recognize. This state of things continued till the election of Duke Albert as grand master of the order, who, having been Protestantized by Dr. Osiander, married and had children. Thus Prussia became a family heritage of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg, and through them got a foothold in the German Empire. Originally a Slavonic State, Prussia was Germanized (as has been already stated) by colonization. The principal stock was Saxon and Frisian, distinguished for soberness, solidity and inflexibility; prosaic and calculating, earnest, averse to romance, reserved, conscientious, tough, persistent even to obstinacy, and withal a little narrow and ungenial. Upon this fundamental stock were engrafted by immigration the vivacity and political talent of the Frank, the poetic and imaginative temperament of the Swabian, the good-humored sociableness of the Bavarian, and other peculiar qualities of the various branches of the Teutonic race, so that Prussia by the mixed character of its population became pre-eminently the representative State of Germany, with which all the other states could assimilate and unite, because each would find in it some element of its own. Austria, too, became Germanized by colonization; but the emigration in this case was almost exclusively from Bavaria, and consequently did not furnish that wide range of affinity which renders

Prussia the attractive nucleus of a great realm, into which the other German peoples will merge their political existence by a tendency as natural and inevitable as gravitation.

Another source of Prussia's superiority to Austria in the conflict of 1866 was the fact that her army in its origin, discipline and spirit is identified with the people, is indeed the nation in arms. In accordance with that principle of the ancient republics, which was embodied by Plato in his ideal State, and afterwards consecrated to liberty by the French Revolution, every Prussian subject is a soldier. Neither rank nor money can purchase exemption.* It is not necessary here to explain the historical origin of this system, the manner in which it grew up out of the disasters of Jena and Auerstaedt and the humiliating peace of Tilsit, or to enter into the details of its organization. The practical result of it is, that Prussia, at the least expense and with scarcely any perceptible drain on her industry in times of peace, maintains in proportion to her population, the largest, best disciplined, and most intelligent military force in Europe. It was once an axiom of absolutism, that a man to be a good soldier must be a machine, and that the efficiency of an army depended on its ignorance of everything but the narrowest routine of drill. The ideal of excellence in this respect was attained by the Russian army, which during a petty palace rebellion that broke out on the accession of the Czar Nicholas was induced to shout, "Long live the Constitution," under, the impression that the Constitution was the wife of the Grand Duke Constantine. The Crimean war proved conclusively that unthinking automatons are not the best soldiers, however irreproachable may be the precision of their movements on parade. There is need of a broader education than can be obtained in l'école * A very few princely families of high imperial nobility(fürstliche Familien der ehemals reichsunmittelbaren hohen Adels) are exempted from military service. This single exception, which rests upon international treaties, is rapidly disappearing.

de peleton. It was not so much the needle-gun as it was individual intelligence, that insured to Prussia the victory. Another incalculable advantage of Prussia over Austria, was her strict honesty and financial soundness, which always kept her national credit strong and her treasury full. Frederic the Great, walking one day in a garden with his nephew, pointed to an obelisk and said: "Look at that high thing there, which no storm can shake; its uprightness is its strength." Then in a serious mood he exhorted the young prince, who was to be his successor, on the value of rectitude and the supreme law of truth and probity, binding alike upon individual men and upon governments, upon subjects and upon kings. The war of 1866 illustrated this principle. Austria entered the field without money or credit, and with every branch of her public service invaded and corroded by official corruption, whilst in the Prussian government fraud and peculation were absolutely unknown.

Such, briefly indicated, are the chief elements which, embodied in the constitution of Prussia, gave her energy and success: free, reformed, industrial, educated, democratic in her military organization, economical and honest in the administration of her finances. Austria was just the reverse of all this; and when the two antagonists met, it was simply a conflict between a great modern fact and a big medieval phantom; between the genius of the nineteenth century and the goblin of feudalism, the result of which could not be for a moment doubtful. It was a struggle for existence between two opposing principles-a deadly strife that could end only with the utter defeat of the one and the complete supremacy of the other. That it was something more than a dynastic contest for leadership in Germany, is evident from the fact that the rout of the imperial armies in Bohemia was followed as a logical consequence by the subversion of ultramontanism in Austria, the abrogation of the concordat with Rome, the promulgation of civil and religious liberty, the establishment of public schools free from

priestly control, and the complete reconstruction of the empire on the basis of constitutionalism.

Prussia has grown into New Germany, not solely as the accident of war, or as the work of an ambitious monarch, but as the product of the popular will, the ripe fruit of a normal development of the Teutonic race. It is merely the political unification of a people already one in language, literature, manners, art, science and industry. It has come into being, too, not only in answer to the legitimate aspirations of the German nation, but also in response to the political necessities of Europe, as a beneficent counterpoise to French supremacy on the continent. The existence of a great pacific power, occupying a central position between the Slavonic races on the East and the Latin races on the West, is the surest pledge of peace. If war comes, as it threatens to come, it will be because the germ of war lies hidden in Napoleon's system of government. Everybody knows that since the utterance of the words, "The Empire is peace," there has been no permanent peace in Europe.* Prussia will never pursue an aggressive foreign policy. She has no ambition to enlarge her boundaries at the expense of other nations. In 1866, when the die of battle had placed Austria at her absolute mercy, she did not annex a single foot of Austrian territory. Notwithstanding her immense military strength, she is not like France, a military state. Her army is not a camp of mercenaries, distinct from the

body of the nation in their origin and interests, and always eager for war, as the only path to promotion, but her soldiers are her people; living not in barracks, but at their firesides, disciplined to the use of arms, but at the same time devoted to the arts of peace, building cities, extending railroads, reaping harvests, toiling at forges, loving the roar of looms better than the din of battle. Such a nation is invincible in self-defence, but can have no temptation to pursue schemes of conquest, which would exhaust its vitality and paralyze all its industrial energies. As Americans and friends of human progress, we should rejoice in the growth of Prussia, because it is identical with the growth of free institutions. It is remarkable in her history, how every expansion of her material domain has been attended with a corresponding expansion of ideas; how with every successful struggle upwards she has cast aside some medieval slough, growing liberal as she has grown strong. when, three years ago, the foresight and audacity which marked the policy of her statesmen and the strategy of her generals made her the foremost nation of Europe, she showed the same political tendency, the same continuity of historical development, by severing herself from the last of her bureaucratic traditions and establishing a structure of constitutional government, which rests upon the democratic principle of universal suf-frage as its chief corner-stone.

* L'Empire, c'est la paix. The events of the last fifteen years suggest a new reading of this famous apothegm of the imperial punster: L'Empire c'est l'épie. Si vis pacem, para bellum, says the old proverb, which a VOL. IX.-8

And

French journal quoted in explanation of the Emperor's warlike preparations. But Napoleon declares that he is not preparing for war, replied the logical German, therefore he does not wish for peace.