year in the which we had at one and
the same time both the Church Counsellors of the old Count, and those
of the new, was an amusing year; then had every church its own ritual.
Hesshusen enclosed the host in the tabernacle, consecrated it, turning
his back to the congregation, ordered them to worship the wafers and
handed these to the communicants over a communion cloth, so that not a
single crumb should be lost, and what remained was buried as in the
good old time. In the Convent, mass was once more celebrated. In the
Church of St. Peter they wished to become Zwingliites as is Erastus the
Physician to the Kurfuerst. Then they kept their seats on the benches
and the bread and wine was handed round as in a tavern. In the sacristy
the Deacon reclined with twelve others to celebrate the Lords' supper,
so that everything should take place as at Jerusalem, and once the
assistant-clergyman brought a soup-tureen filled with wine and crumbled
the bread in it, and said they must dip the hand with Christ in the
dish, that alone was a veritable communion."

The Italian crossed himself.

"That must have been a beautifully peaceful church, when every Preacher
did as he chose," said he.

"Well, not exactly peaceful. Hesshusen wished once to snatch the cup
out of Klebitz's hands on the altar steps of the Holy Ghost, and these
two right reverend gentlemen blackguarded each other before the church
doors in such a manner that the market-women of Ziegelhausen and
Bergheim learnt quite a collection of expressions. The following Sunday
however the Superintendent-General got into the pulpit, excommunicated
the Deacon, and forbade the congregation to have any intercourse with
him. No one should eat or drink with the excommunicated man, and the
authorities were compelled to deprive him of his office. Then you
should have seen how the Heidelbergers went for each other."

"Now you see, man," said Felix angrily, "what comes from doing away
with customs thousands of years old, when every man insists on doing
what passes through his head."

"The Turkish religion is also a thousand years old and yet comes from
the devil."

"But what is your creed, as you are neither catholic, lutheran,
zwinglian, or calvinist?" asked Felix. The old man looked at him
cautiously and then said in a low voice: "The spirit must act, not the
sacrament. Water availeth not, neither do bread and wine. The Spirit
must come from inwardly. They have many Bibles in Heide