pany of noble-minded youths, it was our earnest endeavour to cultivate our minds,* and strengthen our bodies. I chose theology as my profession, because I felt a strong leaning towards teaching, for the gratification of which the holy calling appeared to me peculiarly suited. I somewhat feared its formalism, but was not then acquainted, as I now am, with the compulsory and hypocritical system of the Romish hierarchy. Although several of my friends endeavoured to dissuade me from the choice, I fancied myself possessed of such strength of character as would enable me not only to meet the danger, but to turn it to account. My father, who made me so ample an allowance, that beyond a small bursary, I needed no further assistance, left me free to choose. As I perceived, however, that his means of providing for my brothers and sisters were straitened by his liberality to me, and feeling desirous, also, not to diminish their fortune, I deemed it my duty to relieve my father, as soon as possible, from the sacrifice which I knew he made on my account. This was an external reason, and one, I do not blush to own, for determining to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. And how many of the clergy are there who can say, that in their choice of a profession, they have not been influenced by similar motives? While I was at the University

* After a somewhat different fashion, perchance, than that prescribed by Rome.

I also fulfilled my period of military service at Breslau, in the corps of sharp-shooters, under Major von Firk.

THE SEMINARY.

IN the month of December 1839, I was received into the Seminary, and entered on a period of mournful and painful conflict. The confidence I had hitherto reposed in our spiritual teachers was soon expelled from my breast by a nearer survey of their mode of life, and replaced by the deepest horror and loathing, which seized me when I became aware how shamefully they abused religion, for the purpose of degrading and subjecting the people to their will; when I saw by what a fearful veil of hypocrisy deceitful Rome surrounds us from our cradles to our graves; when I saw how the holiest ordinances are insultingly misused, to crush the dignity of human nature. The disgraceful fetters galled me, which, till now, I had not felt, and I perceived what many of my fellow sufferers endured, and all the more severely, the less they dared avow the causes of their suffering. For the policy of Rome knows how to entwine in bonds from which there is no escape, all Christians who profess its creed, and more skilfully than Moses, who once drew water from the barren rock, can conjure money from the impoverished people; but

their principal care and most consummate skill are constantly directed towards their servants, that is to say, to the inferior clergy and their education. The inferior clergy are so securely bound in spiritual and external fetters, that for the greater number it is almost impossible to escape. The peculiar and appropriate armoury for these degrading bonds is the College or Seminary for priests. It is there that the youth, who wishes to devote himself to the teaching of the people, has the brand of slavery stamped deep and painfully upon him; it is there that he is condemned to holy idleness; it is there that his spirit is fettered, and bowed to blind obedience by superstitious dread and sacred statutes; it is there that he is inoculated in heart and soul with hypocrisy and selfish egotism; it is there that man is degraded to the condition of a slave, and becomes a passive tool. The pain, the torment of this sacrifice is fearful, and nature instinctively revolts when she is robbed of her holiest rights, of the most valued gifts of the Creator. And yet the slave is silent, and all the more so, as the grave is deeper where his freedom and his dignity lie buried. It is but seldom that a despairing cry escapes from his inmost soul, and dies away in utterance, amid the empty sounds of simulated prayer.

I cannot think, without a trembling in my every nerve on all the ignominy which was heaped upon us, and on the disgraceful treatment which we must endure; and I could wish the pen I write with

were a blazing torch, to illuminate the deep abyss wherein hearts are stifled, and spirits overwhelmed amid hymns of praise! I need, however, only to depict in quiet, sober colours, what I have seen and felt, to rouse with certainty the wrathful horror, and the deepest sympathy of the greater part my fellow citizens, who may still be unacquainted with the fearful strategy of the Church of Rome.

of

THE EARLIER PERIOD OF MY STAY IN THE SEMI

NARY.

DURING the first few days after entering the seminary, I saw depicted in the countenances of my companions in misfortune, consternation, or timidity, the deepest grief, or a sort of desperate resignation, according to their several dispositions; the first evening, for example, of six acquaintances and friends, who were consigned to the same cell, none uttered a single word—all the six were so amazed, that they strove to forget their speechless misery in sleep. Forty young men, in the bloom and strength of manhood, glided silently about like mummies. We looked on one another in gloomy, speechless sorrow, and each on sought in the countenance of his friend, to ascer tain the state of feeling in his heart. We all en deavoured to attain that heroism, which can re

solve at once to sacrifice the heavenly dreams of youth, its hopes, its wishes, and its freedom,-in order, as they told us, that we might the more successfully promote the temporal and eternal wellbeing of our fellow-men ;—as if it were possible for him to raise men to independence and to selfrespect, who cannot boast of their existence in his own bosom. That, however, which most excited my indignation and horror, was the ghastly stagnation, which seen from one side exhibited depression,-from the other, levity, discontent, or cowardice. The young man of four and twenty had closed accounts with himself and all mankind, the dearest ties were broken which bound him to his fellow-men. The glowing and joyful fire of youth, which seeks to achieve for itself a bright futurity, was extinguished; and egotism poured the freezing poison of suspicion, envy, and selfinterest, into the warm and youthful veins. We felt as if we were all enveloped for eternity in one impenetrable shroud, and as if doleful spirits were singing to us burial songs throughout the gloomy night. The despotism of the Roman hierarchy glared at me like an awful monster-a monster which digs graves for the burial of living youth— graves which engulf the freedom and the happiness of nations. The young man who wishes to become a teacher of the people, must witness his open and upright manliness ruined; he must blindly obey, and submit himself to the most degrading oppression, for the first injunction laid on