attired in citizen's dress, and carried a brown "Ziegenhainer"
walking-stick, with numerous names engraved upon it, in his hand. On
coming in sight of the village, he stood still, listened to the song of
the bell, and surveyed the forest of white-blossomed orchards in which
the hamlet was imbedded. He saluted the people who came from the fields
with a peculiar earnestness, as if they were his friends. They returned
the greeting with almost equal cordiality, and often turned round to
look at him again. It seemed to them as if he must be some native of
the village returning home after long journeys; and yet they could not
recall his features.

When the last sound of the bell had died away, when all the fields were
hushed and not a human being remained in sight, while the larks alone
continued to revel in the skies, the stranger sat down upon a bank,
and, after another long look at the village, he drew out his note-book.
Having assured himself that he was unobserved, he wrote into it as
follows:--

"Greeks and Romans, how your triumphs rent the air and your trumpets
brayed! But it was left for Christianity to steal the ore from the dark
bowels of the earth, to hang it aloft in mid-air, and pour its tones
over the land, summoning mankind to devotion, to joy, to mourning. How
glorious must have been the sound of harp and drum at Jerusalem! But
now there is no longer but one temple upon earth: Christianity has
raised them by thousands, far and near. When I heard the sound just
now, it was like a heavenly welcome to my entrance into this place. You
looked at me in astonishment, good people. Ye know not what we are to
be to each other. Oh for a magic charm to obtain, the entire control
over the minds of these beings, so that I might free them from
ignorance and superstition and give them a taste of the true pleasures
of the mind! They walk the earth even as the cattle which they follow,
seeking nothing but food for their mouths.

"This, then, is the spot where my new life is to begin,--there the
dingles and the downs on which my eye shall rest when my mind is full
of the experiences of labor and exertion! Wherever flowers are seen,
the earth is beautiful and gladdening. And, though men do not
understand me, thou dost understand me, O deathless Nature, and dost
reward my attention to thy revelations with a kindly smile. Here the
trees send forth their blossoms, and in the village I hear the merry
shouts of the children into w