ed city on Sundays. One in
search of evil, however, could doubtless find it, here as elsewhere.

Sunday afternoon is a favorite time for calls and family visits; and
in the pleasant weather the genuine love for out-door life, which
seems dormant in winter, blossoms out luxuriantly. Parents take their
whole families to the numerous gardens in the suburbs for picnics on
Sundays and the frequent holidays. Sunday hours at home are spent by
most German ladies with the inevitable crochet-work or knitting,--even
the most devout seeing no harm in this, nor in their little Sunday
evening parties, with games and music.

One day in the year--Good Friday--is observed as scrupulously as was
ever a Puritan Sunday. The organic Protestant Church of Germany--a
union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches,--has small affiliation
with the Church of Rome; but some observances which we have been
accustomed to associate with so-called Catholicism have lingered with
Protestantism in Germany. Good Friday was a solemn day in the family
where we had our home. Bach's music, brought to light after a hundred
years of deep obscurity by Felix Mendelssohn, and rendered, though at
first with much opposition from musicians of the old school, in the
Sing Akademie of Berlin, now lends every year, on the eve of Good
Friday, its incomparable _Passion-Musik_ to the devotion of the
occasion. "There are many things I must miss," said a cultivated
German to me, "but the _Passion-Musik_ on the eve of Good
Friday,--never! It makes me better. I cannot do without it." We found
this music, at the time of which we speak, an occasion to be ever
memorable for its wonderful power and pathos. The next morning we did
not attend the service in the cathedral, where we wished to go,
knowing that the crowd would be too great for comfort. On returning to
our room from another service, a beautiful arrangement of cut flowers
on the table greeted our senses as we opened the door. It was the
thoughtful, affectionate, and devout offering of our hostess in
reverent memory of the day. After dinner we entered the private parlor
of the family for a friendly call and to express our thanks. No
suggestion of knitting or fancy-work was to be seen. The hostess and
her daughters, soberly dressed, were reading devotional books. "Do you
not go out this afternoon?" I inquired. "No, one cannot go out," was
the reply, indicating probably both lack of disposition and of places
open for entertainm