Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/331

 which for the past one hundred years had lagged behind the other people of Europe in national development, has rapidly caught up with them. Forty years ago we were far behind all other nations in national feeling and love of one another. Today we are no longer behind them.

Our fellow-countrymen from the Rhine, from the Alpine lake and the Saxon Elbe are attached to one another in affectionate sympathy, not only when they meet abroad, but also at home. A united people has been created in a remarkably short time. This proves that the medical cure which we employed, although it was of blood and iron, lanced only a sore, which had come to a head long ago, and that it gave us speedy comfort and good health. God grant that the cure will be lasting and subject to no change. How far reaching it is has been proved by the testimonials which I have received since I gave up my office. They have come from all people,—from Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, Suabia, Hessen, and from all the districts of Prussia outside the provinces of Frederick the Great. These entirely voluntary manifestations, which were arranged by no one, and which not infrequently came to me at rather inconvenient and inopportune times, have impressed me with the existence of national harmony. Every one of them has given pleasure to my patriotic heart, and has borne witness to a common feeling existing in all German races—this much I wished to say concerning the stability of the political and national union of your province today.

We often sing "Firm is the stand of the faithful guards on the Rhine," but they are standing equally firm at the Warthe and the Vistula. We cannot spare an acre of land in either direction, for the sake of principle if for nothing else. The previous speaker referred to the attempts which had been made, as a result of the movement of 1848, to shake loose the union in which we were then living in Prussia and Germany, and to disregard our boundary lines. These attempts of satisfying the wishes of our Polish neighbors ended with the action of the Prussian general