nt crossed himself, and went on his journey towards the
Rhine.

"_They_ have one day in a hundred years," he said. "How precious
must that one day be to them! If I enter the ways of evil, and my
heart becomes untrue, shall _I_ have _one_ day in one hundred years
when life is ended and my account to Heaven is rendered?"

He thought. He read the holy books. He tried to find a single hope
for an untrue soul; but he could discover none.

Then he said,--

"The days of evil have no to-morrows,--no, not once in a hundred
years. Only good deeds have to-morrows. I will be true: so shall
to-morrows open and close like golden doors until time is lost in
the eternal." And his heart remained true.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SONGS OF THE RHINE.

THE WATCHMAN'S SONG.--THE WILD HUNT OF LUeTZOW.--THE AUTHOR OF THE
ERL KING.--BEETHOVEN'S BOYHOOD.--THE ORGAN-TEMPEST OF LUCERNE.

Rhineland is the land of song. It is the wings of song that have given
it its fame. Every town on the Rhine has its own songs; every
mountain, hill, and river.

America has few local songs,--few songs of the people. The singers who
give voices to rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys have not yet
appeared. The local poets and singers of America are yet to come.

In England, Germany, and some of the provinces of France, every
temple, stream, and grove has had its sweet singer.

Go to Basle, and you may hear the clubs singing the heroic songs of
Alsace and Lorraine.

Go to Heidelberg, and you may listen to student-songs through which
breathe the national spirit of hundreds of years.

The bands tell the story, legend, or romance of such towns at night,
wherever they may play.

In one of the public grounds to which the Class went for an evening
rest, one of the bands was playing the _Fremersberg_.

It related an old romance of the region of Baden-Baden: how that a
nobleman was once wandering with his dogs in the mountains, and was
overtaken by a storm; how he was about to perish when he heard the
distant sounds of a monastery bell; how, following the direction of
the sound, he heard a chant of priests; and how, at last, he was
saved.

The piece was full of melody. The wind, the rain, the horns, the
bells, the chant, while they told a story, were all delightfully
melodious.

The ballad is almost banished from the intellectual American
concert-rooms. In Germany a ballad is a gem, and is so valued. It is
the best expres