l passed over the whole earth and
heaven on account of the blasphemy and evil of the world, and we wept
likewise. And the lights which had been lit had no charm for us. One
after another were they extinguished by an invisible hand. The last was
borne away behind the altar. The Church was dark and only Michel
Angelo's colossal figures of the last judgement loomed forth in the
background. But this gradual extinction of the lights affected us more
deeply than the best sermon could have done. I trembled, in my
excitement I raised my hand to save the last flickering life-flame of
the Saviour, and as the last light disappeared, then did we understand
what the Scripture saith: 'The light shone in the darkness, but the
darkness apprehended it not.' The pure and beautiful life of the
Saviour was extinguished before our eyes. Believe me, I felt at that
time the sufferings of the Lord more deeply, than if I had been in your
Reformed church, and a red-faced man had stood up in the pulpit and had
spoken in the coarse voice of a drunkard of a suffering which he
comprehended not."

"If the preacher does not believe, the case is bad everywhere."

"If, if," cried Felix passionately, "real belief has ever been rare on
earth. And does not even your Church Counsellor Ursinus himself state,
that he scarcely knows six Christian clergymen in the Palatinate?"

"What does Ursinus know, who seated behind his study table continually
finds objections, and who for years has seen nothing of the world but
the road from the Sapientia college to the clerical Library in the
tower?"

"Well, what I have seen myself does not convince me that these
gentlemen can ever replace Michel Angelo, Raphael and Palestrina."

"In spite of these Masters we are far ahead of you in true culture,"
said Erast calmly.

"In true culture!" cried Felix angrily. "Look on this building. The
culture of your people in these matters was incited by our Masters,
then came the great heretic of Wittenberg, the horrible demon sent by
the Wicked one to destroy you, and since then what have you done?
Catechisms, confessions, pamphlets, books on subjects which none can
know, and all your lives passed in wrangling, strife, and discussing
unprofitable subjects. Only keep on in this way, and you will never
again behold such edifices as that of the departed Otto Heinrich, but
only continual bloodshed, hate and never-ending strife."

"Young man," replied Erast, "you have been only a few