424

BOMESTIC MANNEIIS OF THE PKUSSIANS.

stress on what they term " the external aids to religion ;" butsurely to tliose wlio have faith in the injunction that, in ourreligious obscrvances, " we are not to be as the hypocrites are,who love to appear praying in the streets, that they may beseen of men," the long trains of priests and choristers chantingportions of the Church Service through the thoroughfares ofalmost every Catholic town in Germany cannot but appear asthe external aids to hypocrisy.

In the month of June, on St. Peter and St. Paul's day,occurs the " Trohn-leichnams-fest" (Corpus Christi feast, or, asthe French call it, La Fete Dieu), and for some time before theanniversary, in 1855, we heard on all sides that " God" was tobe carried along the streets, and the " Heaven " borne throughthe town — which blasphemy we afterwards found to signifythat the head of the Catholic Church was to carry the largesilver hand-screen called the " Monstranz," or " host," under atawdry blue silk canopy, not unlike the upper part of a smallfour-post bedstead, and which is dignified by the name ofthe " Himmel." Prior to the fete our braves Mädchen wasbusy with the white muslin dress which she had kept, shesaid, for fifteen years, and used only for such street-shows;and this was duly washed and starched, so that she mightmake her appearance in public as one of the chanters; a poundof prunes, moreover, being eaten immediately after breakfast,in order to clear her voice for the anthems. On the morningof the event all the shops were closed, the carriage-ways ofthe town strewn with flowers, and the sides of the streetsliterally walled with green boughs, whilst in every openplace there was erected a tawdry altar, with as extensive ashow of candles as a tallow-chandler's shop-window; and atthese the priests were to stop and pray, like the very hypo-crites spoken of by Christ, so that there might be no mistakeabout their being seen of men.