nanced. The public places of amusement are few, and no suspicious females permitted to frequent them. What a contrast does this last point form with the disgusting indecency of our London theatres! There is here a Bible Society, and a Jews' Conversion Society.

In the public library is a copy of the edition of the Latin Vulgate Bible, printed upon vellum in 1462, by Fust and Schoiff her at Mentz. It is the first edition of the Bible with a printed date, and is an extraordinary effort of the art in its earliest day. The first Bible indeed ever printed, was begun at Mentz in 1450, and published in 1455 or 1456. It is called the Mazarine Bible, from having been in the library of the celebrated cardinal of that name; and is not only the first edition of the sacred text in any language, but the very first book printed with metal types. The beauty and regularity of the press-work are highly extolled by Mr. Dibdin, who speaks of it as a master-piece of skill. I cannot but dwell with delight on the first successes of the noble invention of printing, in circulating the Bible, and thus paving the way for the Reformation in the following century.

long war have been the means of checking this incursion of infidel principles, and of bringing men back to that pure doctrine of the Gospel which only can give peace and consolation. It is a remarkable fact, that such has been the decay of all Scriptural truth amongst the Protestants, that many of the Roman Catholics have surpassed them in real piety. The light has shone brightest in the Catholic parishes. Those who were concerned for their souls, and panted for the doctrine of pardon, found some relief at least, in the discourses of the priests. So true is it that superstition, bad as it is, may consist with the life of God in the heart, but that a proud infidel philosophy cannot. The one overloads and encumbers

the foundation; the other digs it up, and destroys it altogether.

But to return to my narrative. We arrived safely at Darmstadt, the capital of the grand duchy of that name, at twelve to-day. I hastened to the house of Leander Van Ess, with whom I had been sometime in correspondence in England; he had left the town in the morning early to go to Cologne, and would not return for a week! A greater disappointment I scarcely ever felt. I saw, however, the study of this excellent man; I sat in his chair; I visited his collection of Bibles; I conversed with his secretary. Leander Van Ess was fifty-one the eighteenth of last month. He has left the University of Marburg, where he was professor, and lives now under the Protestant grand duke of Hesse Darmstadt. He has had a spitting of blood for four years, which prevents his preaching; but he gives himself up to the propagation of the Gospel, though he remains a Catholic priest. He has printed fourteen editions of his New Testament; each of an immense number of copies. He has circulated altogether four hundred and ninety-four thousand eight hundred and sixty. No funds but those of an institution like the noble British and Foreign Bible Society, could have supported the expense of printing such an incredible number: and the liberality and wisdom with which that society assists in publishing Catholic translations of the Scriptures, cannot be too highly praised. Versions by far inferior were the chief means of effecting the glorious Refor

There are no foreign troops at Franckfort. I should tell you, that at Mentz there are seven thousand troops, half Prussian and half Austrian; whilst the duke of Hesse Darmstadt, to whom the town belongs, has only one hundred men to keep the police. I learnt here some particulars of the conversion of the Catholic priest whom I mentioned in my last letter.* He lived near Pforzheim, and became impressed with the truths of real Christianity by reading the Scriptures. He then began to "preach Christ crucified." The lord of the village and forty-four families, containing between two hundred and three hundred souls, were gradually awakened by God's mercy. The priest was summoned before his superiors for preaching against the Popish ceremonies. At length he and all his flock publicly renounced the church of Rome. The duke of Baden heard of him, and went to one of his sermons. He was so much affected, that he declared he had seldom heard so edifying a discourse. He invited the priest to Carlsruh. There is another priest, I am told, near Valenciennes, who has followed the same course. May God multiply the number, and a second re-mation. I do not speak of the Apocryphal books, formation will soon begin.

Oppenheim, between Darmstadt and Heidelberg, Wednesday evening, July 16.—I had much conversation with my friend the French minister, before we left Franckfort this morning. I was also introduced to one of the senators, an excellent man, president of the Bible Society. A human philosophy applied rashly and presumptuously to religion, is the poison of German divinity among the Protestants:-endless refinements, imaginations, corruptions of faith, tending to skepticism or atheism. Things are mending, but it is incredible what daring impieties are currently received. The first genius of their country, Göthe, a native of Franckfort, is an absolute idolater of what he calls le beau, in Christianity, in Mahomedanism, in infidelity, in every thing. Thus unbelief stands more fatally opposed to the faith of Christ than even superstition. The calamities, however, of the late

* Page 48, supra.

because the reading of them is admitted to be useful by Protestants. The desire for the Scriptures among the Catholics at the present time, priests as well as laity, is greater and greater. Sometimes Van Ess circulates seven thousand in a single month. Lately, a priest in one parish sent for two thousand New Testaments-the parish is in the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest.

The secretary presented me with his picture, and a copy of his New Testament. What a blessing is such a person! what cannot the grace of God do in the most corrupt church! how charitable should we be in our judgment of individuals! This admirable man, though he calls himself a Catholic, has almost the spirit of a Reformer. He dwells on nothing but the great and necessary doctrines of Christianity. It is impossible to read his correspondence without perceiving a strength and clearness of judgment, an independence of principle, a love of truth, a superiority to the prejudices of education, a zeal in the diffusion of the

Gospel, a disregard of personal sufferings, a hardy appeal to the first fathers of the church, and a readiness to act with Protestant societies, which are quite surprising. Above all, there is a firmness and undauntedness in all he does, which reminds us at times of Martin Luther. Let us pray that many, many such Catholic professors may be raised up in every part of the continent, and "the traditions of men" will fall of themselves.

most charitable. It was delightful to converse with a man so well instructed in the great truths of salvation. I called on him at his own house in the evening. He was very diligent in inquiring after the real state of spiritual religion in England. I see plainly that my beloved country is looked up to as the glory of the Reformation, and the hope of the nations of the continent. The university is open to Catholics and ProtestantsI can hardly persuade myself to turn from this six hundred and fifty members. It is the oldest subject to say, that Darmstadt is a flourishing university in Germany, having been founded in town; with all the marks of that activity and 1382. The valuable library which had been preprosperity which, as at Franckfort, distinguishes sented to the Pope, when the town was taken by a free from an oppressed population. We came the Bavarians in 1622, and deposited in the Vaon to Oppenheim, twenty miles, (five hundred and tican, was restored in 1815. The grand duke is sixty from Calais,) this afternoon. The village is a Protestant; and full liberty of worship is enobscure, though populous. The country is pleas-joyed. There is here a Bible Society; and reliing. The peasants are without shoes and stock- gion seems, on the whole, flourishing. ings. The men wear large hats like our English dignitaries-what we call shovel-hats; the association in our mind is very humorous. But the storks'-nests are most curious; these enormous birds are in almost every village; they build on the steeples of churches, or the top of a chimney, with a large nest like a basket, stretching over on all sides. They are never disturbed, much less killed. They are superstitiously reverenced. The people think the house will never be burnt where a stork builds. The stork feeds on insects, frogs, mice, &c., and never injures the corn. To see these enormous birds, half as tall as a man, strutting about on the top of a house, as if on stilts, is very strange to us.

Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Friday morning, July 18.-We arrived here yesterday, at eleven o'clock. The town is beautifully situated on the Neckar, fifteen miles from Oppenheim. The chief attraction is the ancient electoral castle, which Louis XIV. laid in ruins at the close of the seventeenth century, in his ambitious war against the Palatinate. The remaining walls were much injured by lightning sixty years back. It is still perhaps the most magnificent ruin in Germany. The keep and outward wall of the platform are entire; and a beautiful semicircular walk runs through a plantation adjoining. It is situated on the side of a fine mountain, the base and summit of which are ornamented with hanging woods. Before it, the Neckar, the bridge, the town, the adjoining hill covered with vines, the distant Rhine, and the Vosges mountains, are stretched as in perspective. The extreme steepness of the mountain on which it stands, allows of those sudden turns of scenery in the gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding the castle, of which nothing else can admit. In short, the whole thing is the noblest of the kind we ever saw; we spent five hours in admiring it.

It was in this place that Melancthon began his studies; that Luther came on foot from Worms, and disputed with the Augustins, in 1518; and that the famous Heidelberg catechism was afterwards published. I speak of this catechism with a peculiar pleasure, because it has been familiar to me from early youth. It was reprinted about twenty years back by the university of Oxford in the Sylloge Confessionum. I confess my mind lingers on these continental towns, where the noble army of reformers laid the foundation of all the religious blessings which we now enjoy.

Manheim, Friday, July 18.-This is a beautiful city, first founded in 1606, as a refuge for the persecuted Protestants of the Netherlands. It was entirely destroyed by Louis XIV. in 1689; so that the present city is a new one, of twenty thousand souls, half Protestants and half Catholics; the streets are regularly laid out in one hundred and twelve squares. It is situated on the confluence of the Rhine and the Neckar, and is considered the finest town in Germany. The old palace of the grand duke of Baden is very spacious, but dilapidated: it is something like our palace at Hampton Court. One of the most curious things at Manheim is the flying bridge across the Rhine. It is difficult to give a clear idea of it. But it seems formed of six or seven boats fastened together at such a distance from each other, as to extend in a slanting direction over half of the river. The extreme boat at one end of this series is fixed firm in the middle of the river by an anchor: the extreme boat at the other end reaches the shore, and is fastened to it. When any one wishes to cross the river, he enters this last boat, which is then loosened and carried by the stream to the opposite shore; the fixed boat preserving it from being carried down the current. The direction which the flying bridge takes, is like that of the pendulum of a clock.

A venerable professor of the university conducted us; but the difficulty of finding a common We slept last night at Schwetzingen, celelanguage was extreme. We attempted a mixture brated for a pleasure garden of the duke of Baden, of French, English, and Latin; but at last Latin of one hundred and eighty acres, laid out in the was our only language. It would have amused French and English manner. The most sumpyou to see my college friend and myself brushing tuous building in it was a mosque, resembling that up our old Latin, and adapting our pronunciation at Mecca, the walls of which have inscriptions as well as we could to the German-and this after dinner-overcome with heat-and mounting up a tremendous hill. The sentiments of the professor were evangelical, and his temper and spirit

from the Koran, with translations in German; the whole must have cost an immense sum. Notwithstanding this magnificence, the approach from the village is shabby, from the utter neglect

of cleanliness in the court of the château itself, by which you enter; grass grows on the pavements, and the château is much dilapidated. Indeed, an unseemly union of finery and untidiness marks many of these foreign palaces. The palace at Manheim is larger than any English one, but almost in ruins from inattention: kings and dukes aim here at more than they can support. The real dignity of a prince is the prosperity of his subjects. A free state, where education and morals are duly cultivated, and the pure Gospel of Christ is preached, needs no gaudy and half-finished trappings to adorn it.

Carlsruh, Saturday, July 19.-We arrived here to-day, after a journey of thirty-one miles. We are now 624 from Calais. This is a beautiful town, which has sprung up about the ducal palace of Baden, around which all the streets unite like rays of the sun. The weather is fine, and sometimes rather cold; the roads generally excellent; the inns vary in accommodations. The diet is strange to us, and unfavorable to health; the bread often sour, and the meat indifferent. But still, we are all well; and can we be grateful enough to the divine hand which sustains us continually and scatters so many blessings upon our path! During a foreign tour, the recollections of what we owe to our heavenly Father daily, are much more lively and affecting than they are at home. We perceive more his constant care in the new and untried scenes through which we pass. The reflections also which are suggested by the comparison of our institutions and habits in England with those of other countries, would touch our hearts even more than they do, if we were more under the teaching and grace of the Holy Spirit. A Saturday evening abroad brings a crowd of thoughts into the mind-but I must conclude.*

Your affectionate

D. W.

CARLSRUH, July 20, 1823,
Sunday afternoon.

THIS is the fifth silent Sunday, my dearest sister, which we have spent since we left England. The town is chiefly Protestant, but German is the only language. I went this morning and spoke to the Lutheran minister, after church, but it was with the utmost difficulty we could understand each other, as he spoke neither French nor Latin; the church was well attended, and is a most beautiful edifice, built by the grand Duke of Baden, and is some evidence, I hope of the increased regard paid to religion here. I could neither understand the prayers nor the sermon-a good knowledge of German and Italian is almost as essential as that of French, to a tour on the continent.

The Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, after three centuries of division, have at length begun to unite. I hope this is another token for good. The dispute about consubstantiation will now no longer be the reproach of the Protestant communities. Few things did more harm to the infant cause of the Reformation than this sacramentarian controversy-there was so much of heat, asperity, violence, mingled with it-and this upon a point where most of the parties meant nearly the same; and which, after all, was not a fundamental one. On no occasion, perhaps, did the great Luther so far forget himself. The warmth of controversialists is generally in an inverse ratio to the real importance of the question in debate. Love is the key to truth as well as holiness.

* I cannot but add here an expression of regret upon a subject alluded to in the above letter. The I learn here, that the name of the converted Apocryphal question, by the heat and irritation at- priest whom I have mentioned to you before, is tendant upon it, has gone further to chill the spirit of Henhöfer, and the place where he now lives, unity and love at home, and the zeal and success of Graben, near this town; his former abode was such distinguished individuals as Leander Van Ess abroad, than any thing that has occurred during Muhlhausen. We observe that the Catholic churchthe last 30 years. Thank God, the public mind is es in Protestant towns, are far more simple, and returning to a sounder state on a point, which, con- less superstitious, than in other places. Here and sidering the avowed non-inspiration of the Apocry- at Franckfort, there are scarcely any altars or phal books, on the part of the Protestant bodies, and images-in fact, the Catholic church in this town the implied admission of the same fact by the Ro- is less ornamented than the Lutheran-but this is man Catholic writers of all classes, has been exag- an inferior point-I perceive more and more that gerated beyond all reasonable limits, and has in the main blessing wanted in every place is the truth created more of evil in a few months, by calling public attention to those neglected books, than the books themselves had probably occasioned in three centuries. As the Reformers directed these ancient, and in some parts instructive writings, to be publicly read in churches, there surely was no reason for the clamor raised against the Bible Society for allowing them to occupy the same position ---or, if the utter removal of these works was judged desirable, there was still less reason for accompanying the act with severity and suspicions. If the Apocrypha was injurious, the whole Protestant church, with Luther at its head, and not the British and Foreign Bible Society, were to blame.-March,

1827.

grace of the Holy Spirit of God. I am sure we have little idea in England of the state of things abroad. We amazingly overstate the comparative amount of good effected by our societies;-the world is still "dead in trespasses and sins,"-vast tracts of barren Protestantism, or untilled and fruitless Popery, stretch all around us. May that heavenly dew descend which only can soften, penetrate, and sanctify the soil! The value of our religious advantages in England is more than ever impressed on my mind. A Sunday at home, what a blessing! The importance also of the Holy Scriptures, and of dwelling on the plain, practical, necessary truths

The people in this part of the duchy are poorfew manufactures-little public spirit; in other words, little liberty. The Duke takes more care of his palace than of his people. The duchess- We visited St. Thomas's, a noble Protestant dowager is an adopted child, or a niece, of Bona-church, fine, simple, majestic. A monument. in parte. Presents from Bonaparte abound in the white marble, to the memory of Marshal Saxe, palace; especially, we noticed a tea-service of adorns one end of the nave. We saw two bodies superb china, with coffee-run, &c. of soild gold. of the families of the counts of Nassau, preserved The dress of the peasants here continues the same, many centuries, and placed in coffins with glass except that the women wear amazingly large straw at the top; one female, one man; each in full bonnets, flapping down before and behind-chil- dress, the woman most gayly attired; the rings of dren of four years old, and women reaping, have pearl too large for the withered fingers; the face these enormous umbrella bonnets. The houses all in powder, falling on the bones of the skull; here are built with two or three jutting shades or the whole an affecting lesson of mortality, and of roofs over each row of windows, formed of tiles, the inefficacy of all attempts to hide the deformity and have a very singular appearance. of death by a splendor, which only increases it by

Ulm, thirteen miles from Rastadt, Monday even-contrast. ing-This is a small village on our way to Kehl. The thermometer, at six this afternoon, was 83° in the shade; on Saturday, it was 55° or thereabouts; for we were glad to put on cloaks and great coats. We have come thirty miles to-day, and travelled seven hours. Ulm is only a mile from the Rhine. The Black Forest stretches like an amphitheatre behind us, from Heidelberg to Basle. The country is flat, and withont vines; but abounds in corn and fruits. It produces a good deal of tobacco.

Kehl, on the Rhine, Tuesday evening, July 22d. -We came here this morning, seventeen miles, in order to pass the Rhine, and visit Strasburg, We crossed by a bridge of boats of the extraordinary length of 3900 feet. The old wooden bridge is half destroyed. We did not take the carriages, because of duties, searchings, &c. on enterir.