aide! What I am saying I don't know in my joy, for the
whole room is dancing round with me. If you will take me for your
husband, you will do me the greatest favor in the world. If you don't
want me, box my ears and send me off!

ADELAIDE (_bending down to him_).

I do want you! (_Kissing him_.) This was the cheek!

BOLZ.

And these are the lips.

[_Kisses her; they remain in an embrace; short
pause_.]

_Enter_ COLONEL, IDA, OLDENDORF.

COLONEL (_in amazement, at the door_).

What is this?

BOLZ.

Colonel, it takes place under editorial sanction.

COLONEL.

Adelaide, what do I see?

ADELAIDE (_stretching out her hand to the_ COLONEL).

Dear friend, I'm betrothed to a journalist!

[_As_ IDA _and_ OLDENDORF _from either side hasten to the pair, the
curtain falls_]

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: Permission S. Hirzel, Leipzig.]

* * * * *

DOCTOR LUTHER (1859)

By GUSTAV FREYTAG

TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B. Assistant Professor of German, Tufts
College.

Some well-meaning men still wish that the defects of their old church
had not led to so great a revolt, and even liberal Roman Catholics
still fail to see in Luther and Zwingli anything but zealous heretics
whose wrath brought about a schism. May such views vanish from
Germany! All religious denominations have reason to attribute to
Luther whatever in their present faith is genuine and sincere, and has
a wholesome and sustaining influence. The heretic of Wittenberg is
fully as much the reformer of the German Catholics as of the
Protestants. This is true not only because the teachers of the
Catholic Church in their struggle against him outgrew the old
scholasticism, and fought for their sacraments with new weapons gained
from his language, his culture, and his moral worth; nor because he,
in effect, destroyed the church of the Middle Ages and forced his
opponents at Trent to raise a firmer structure, though seemingly
within the old forms and proportions; but still more because he
expressed the common basis of all German denominations, of our
spiritual courage, piety, and honesty, with such force that a good
deal of his own nature, to the present benefit of every German, has
survived in our doctrines and language, in our civil laws and morals,
in the thoughtfulness of our people, and in our science and
literature. Some of the ideas for which Luther's stubborn and
contentiou