actor, and, least of all, the denouement of the whole. All that they
feel and know is that everything which has happened since 1848 has
exasperated, not calmed, the electric tension of the European
atmosphere; that a rottenness, rapidly growing intolerable alike 'to
God and the enemies of God,' has eaten into the vitals of Continental
life; that their rulers know neither where they are nor whither they
are going, and only pray that things may last out their time: all
notes which one would interpret as proving the Continent to be
already ripe for subjection to some one devouring race of conquerors,
were there not a ray of hope in an expectation, even more painful to
our human pity, which is held by some of the wisest among the
Germans; namely, that the coming war will fast resolve into no
struggle between bankrupt monarchs and their respective armies, but a
war between nations themselves, an internecine war of opinions and of
creeds. There are wise Germans now who prophesy, with sacred tears,
a second 'Thirty Years' War,' with all its frantic horrors, for their
hapless country, which has found two centuries too short a time
wherein to recover from the exhaustion of that first fearful scourge.
Let us trust, if that war shall beget its new Tillys and
Wallensteins, it shall also beget its new Gustavus Adolphus, and many
another child of Light: but let us not hope that we can stand by in
idle comfort, and that when the overflowing scourge passes by it
shall not reach to us. Shame to us, were that our destiny! Shame to
us, were we to refuse our share in the struggles of the human race,
and to stand by in idle comfort while the Lord's battles are being
fought. Honour to us, if in that day we have chosen for our leaders,
as our forefathers of the sixteenth century did, men who see the work
which God would have them do, and have hearts and heads to do it.
Honour to us, if we spend this transient lull, as our forefathers of
the sixteenth century did, in setting our house in order, in