n! nein!" he says,
"Junker Strasse." "No! no!" we reply. He holds a conference with two
brother drosky-men. Three Germans "of the male persuasion" outside
insist on "Junker Strasse." Three Americans "of the female persuasion"
inside insist on "Heulmann Strasse." "Nein!" says the man, with a
determined air, and takes the reins now as though he means business.
We lean back in our seats, resigned to going wrong because we cannot
help ourselves, when lo! we draw up at the door of the building used
by the American church in Junker Strasse. Those barbarous men were
right, after all! Late; but how our hearts were warmed and cheered by
the sight of a plain audience-room, holding about two hundred
English-speaking people; the pulpit draped in our dear old American
flag, and another on the choir-gallery! How precious were the simple
devout hymns and prayers in our own tongue wherein we were born! There
was an American Thanksgiving sermon,--eloquent, earnest, magnetic.
Strangers in a strange land, we felt that we could never be homesick
in a city where was such a service. This Union Church service was
established some twenty-five or thirty years ago, Governor Wright,
then United States Minister to Germany, being prominently connected
with its beginnings. There is now a regular church organization, with
the Bible and the Apostles' Creed as its doctrinal basis. For eight or
nine years past, the present pastor, the Rev. J.H.W. Stueckenberg,
D.D., born in Germany, but a loyal and devoted soldier and citizen of
the American Republic, has, with his accomplished wife, been
indefatigable in caring for the services, and administering to the
needs--physical, social, and religious--of Americans in Berlin. The
first gathering which we attended in the city was an American
Thanksgiving Banquet, under the auspices of the "Ladies' Social Union"
connected with this "American Chapel." Invitations were issued to an
"American Home Gathering," for Thanksgiving evening, to be held in the
Architectenhaus at six o'clock. Greetings, witty and wise, were
extended to the assembled company of some two hundred, by a lady from
Boston; grace was said by Professor Mead, formerly of Andover, and the
American Thanksgiving dinner was duly appreciated, though some of us
had in part forestalled its appetizing pleasures by attendance at a
delightful private afternoon dinner-party, where the true home flavors
had been heightened by the shadow of the American flag which