Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/224

21O of our liberty. "But," he continued, "as regards confession: how stands it with you? We are told that all men, even if they are not Christians, must confess, but that inasmuch as many, from their obduracy, are debarred from the right way, they nevertheless make confession to an old tree; which, indeed, is impious and ridiculous enough, but yet serves to show, that at least they recognise the necessity of confession." Upon this I explained to him our Lutheran notions of confession, and our practice concerning it. All this appeared to him very easy, for he expressed an opinion that it was almost the same as confessing to a tree. After a brief hesitation, he begged of me very gravely to inform him correctly on another point. He had, forsooth, heard from the mouth of his own confessor (who, he said, was a truthful man), that we Protestants are at liberty to marry our own sisters; which assuredly is a chose un peu forte. As I denied this to be the case, and attempted to give him a more favourable opinion of our doctrine, he made no special remark on the latter, which evidently appeared to him a very ordinary and every-day sort of a thing, but turned aside my remarks by a new question." We have been assured," he observed, "that Frederick the Great, who has won so many victories, even over the faithful, and filled the world with his glory,—that he whom every one takes to be a heretic is really a Catholic, and has received a dispensation from the Pope to keep the fact secret. For while, as is well known, he never enters any of your churches, he diligently attends the true worship in a subterranean chapel, though with a broken heart, because he dare not openly avow the holy religion, since, were he to do so, his Prussians, who are a brutish people and furious heretics, would no doubt murder him on the instant; and to risk that would do no good to the cause. On these grounds the Holy Father has given him permission to worship in secret,