hey
have secured to their children a Christian education in schools
which Christian parents are compelled to maintain and to use;
the right of being married in the Christian fashion which his
faith requires from everyone, without being dependent on
constitutional ceremonies. If we go on in this way I hope still
to see the day when the fool's ship of the time will be wrecked
on the rock of the Christian Church; for the belief in the
revealed Word of God still stands firmer among the people than
the belief in the saving power of any article of the
Constitution."

In the same way he was able from his place in Parliament to criticise
the proposals of the Government for freeing the peasants from those
payments in kind, and personal service which in some of the provinces
still adhered to their property; he attacked their financial proposals;
he exposed the injustice of the land tax; he defended the manorial
jurisdiction of the country gentlemen. Especially he defended the nobles
of Prussia themselves, a class against whom so many attacks had been
made. He pointed out that by them and by their blood the Prussian State
had been built up; the Prussian nobles were, he maintained, not, as so
often was said, unpopular; a third of the House belonged to them; they
were not necessarily opposed to freedom; they were, at least, the truest
defenders of the State. Let people not confuse patriotism and
Liberalism. Who had done more for the true political independence of the
State, that independence without which all freedom was impossible, than
the Prussian nobles? At the end of the Seven Years' War boys had stood
at the head of the army, the only survivors of their families. The
privileges of the nobles had been taken from them, but they had not
behaved like the democrats; their loyalty to the State had never
wavered; they had not even formed a Fronde. He was not ashamed of the
name of Junker: "We will bring the name to glory and honour," were
almost the last words he spoke in Parliament.

Bismarck soon became completely at home in the House. Notwithstanding
the strength of his opinions and the vigour with which he gave
expression to them, he was not unpopular, even among his opponents. He
was always a gentleman and a man of the world; he did not dislike mixing
with men of all classes and all parties; he had none of that stiffness
and hauteur which many of his friends had acquired from their military
pursuits. His r