CHAPTER II. CHURCH-CLOTHES. Nor less questionable is his Chapter on Church-Clothes, which has the farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We here translate it entire : By Church-Clothes, it need not be, premised, that I 5 mean infinitely more than Cassocks and Surplices; and 'do not at all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday Clothes 'that men go to Church in. Far from it! Church'Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the Vestures, ' under which men have at various periods embodied and Io represented for themselves the Religious Principle; that 'is to say, invested the Divine Idea of the World with a 'sensible and practically active Body, so that it might 'dwell among them as a living and life-giving Word. ९ These are unspeakably the most important of all the 15 vestures and garnitures of Human Existence. They are 'first spun and woven, I may say, by that wonder of 'wonders, SOCIETY; for it is still only when "two or 'three are gathered together," that Religion, spiritually 'existent, and indeed indestructible, however latent, in 20 each, first outwardly manifests itself (as with "cloven 'tongues of fire"), and seeks to be embodied in a visible * Communion, and Church Militant. Mystical, more than 'magical, is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both 'looking heavenward: here properly Soul first speaks 25 with Soul; for only in looking heavenward, take it in 'what sense you may, not in looking earthward, does 'what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to 'be possible. How true is that of Novalis : It is cer'tain, my Belief gains quite infinitely the moment I can 30 convince another mind thereof "! Gaze thou in the ee 5 'face of thy Brother, in those eyes where plays the lam'bent fire of Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid 'conflagration of Anger; feel how thy own so quiet Soul 'is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, and ye 'blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one 'limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of 'deadly-grappling Hate); and then say what miraculous 'virtue goes out of man into man. But if so, through all 'the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life; how much more when it is of the Divine Life we speak, and 10 inmost ME is, as it were, brought into contact with in'most ME! 'Thus was it that I said, the Church-Clothes are first 'spun and woven by Society; outward Religion origi'nates by Society, Society becomes possible by Religion. 15 'Nay, perhaps, every conceivable Society, past and pres'ent, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or other of these three predicaments : 'an audibly preaching and prophesying Church, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles to preach 20 and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come; and third and worst, a Church gone dumb with 'old age, or which only mumbles delirium prior to disso*lution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here meant 'Chapterhouses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and 25 'prophesying, mere speech and chanting, let him,' says the oracular Professor, read on, light of heart (getrosten Muthes). ९ ९ ୧ 'But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church-Clothes specially recognised as Church-Clothes, 30 'I remark, fearlessly enough, that without such Vestures ' and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and will not 'exist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body Politic, holding the whole together ९ 'and protecting it; and all your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are the 'Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues, (lying under such SKIN), whereby Society stands and 5 ' works; then is Religion the inmost Pericardial and 'Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm Circula'tion to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue 'the Bones and Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or ani'mated only by a Galvanic vitality: the SKIN would 10 become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting raw-hide; and *Society itself a dead carcass, deserving to be buried. Men were no longer Social, but Gregarious; which latter state also could not continue, but must gradually 'issue in universal selfish discord, hatred, savage isola15 'tion, and dispersion; whereby, as we might continue 'to say, the very dust and dead body of Society would 'have evaporated and become abolished. Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are the Church-Clothes, to 'civilised or even to rational man. 20 30 'Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same 'Church-Clothes have gone sorrowfully out-at-elbows : 'nay, far worse, many of them have become mere hol'low Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or 'Spirit any longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean 'beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive their trade; and 'the mask still glares on you with its glass-eyes, in 'ghastly affectation of Life, some generation-and-half 'after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in un'noticed nooks in weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and bless us, or our sons or 'grandsons. As a Priest, or Interpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so is a Sham-priest (Schein-priester) the falsest and basest; neither is it 'doubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, 'will one day be torn from him, to make bandages for the 'wounds of mankind; or even to burn into tinder, for general scientific or culinary purposes. All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in 'my Second Volume, On the Palingenesia, or Newbirth of 5 Society; which volume, as treating practically of the 'Wear, Destruction, and Retexture of Spiritual Tissues, 'or Garments, forms, properly speaking, the Transcen'dental or ultimate Portion of this my Work on Clothes, and is already in a state of forwardness.' And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added, does Teufelsdröckh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singular chapter on ChurchClothes! IO CHAPTER III. SYMBOLS. PROBABLY it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing 15 obscure utterances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's speculations on Symbols. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, were beyond our compass: nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, than in this of Fantasy being the organ of the Godlike;' and how Man thereby, 20 though based, to all seeming, on the small Visible, does. 'nevertheless extend down into the infinite deeps of the 'Invisible, of which Invisible, indeed, his Life is properly 'the bodying forth.' Let us, omitting these high transcendental aspects of the matter, study to glean (whether 25 from the Paper-bags or the Printed Volume) what little seems logical and practical, and cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence as it will assume. By way of proem, take the following not injudicious remarks: 'The benignant efficacies of Concealment,' cries our Professor, who shall speak or sing? SILENCE and 5 SECRECY! Altars might still be raised to them (were 'this an altar-building time) for universal worship. Si'lence is the element in which great things fashion them'selves together; that at length they may emerge, fullformed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which 10 'they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the Silent 'only, but all the considerable men I have known, and 'the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore 'to babble of what they were creating and projecting. 'Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day: on the morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and 'rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept 'away, when intrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of 20 'concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspend'ing Thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss In'scription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden); or as I might 25 rather express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of 'Eternity. 15 ୧ e ९ ९ 'Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will 'not work except in Silence: neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left hand know what 30 'thy right hand doeth ! Neither shalt thou prate even to 'thy own heart of "those secrets known to all." Is not Shame (Schaam) the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other plants, Virtue will not 'grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye of the |