III.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ruskin, John
936-1000.—State of the Outer Sea.
Read now Chapter II. beginning at page 76 (54), wherein you will get account of the beginning of vigorous missionary work on the outer sea, in Prussia proper; of the death of St. Adalbert, and of the purchase of his dead body by the Duke of Poland.
You will not easily understand Carlyle's laugh in this chapter, unless you have learned yourself to laugh in sadness, and to laugh in love.
"No Czech blows his pipe in the woodlands without certain precautions and preliminary fuglings of a devotional nature." (Imagine St. Adalbert, in spirit, at the railway station in Birmingham!)
My own main point for notice in the chapter is the purchase of his body for its "weight in gold." Swindling angels held it up in the scales; it did not weigh so much as a web of gossamer. "Had such excellent odor, too, and came for a mere nothing of gold," says Carlyle. It is one of the first commercial transactions of Germany, but I regret the conduct of the angels on the occasion. Evangelicalism has been proud of ceasing to invest in relics, its swindling angels helping it to better things, as it supposes. For my own part, I believe Christian Germany could not have bought at this time any treasure more precious; nevertheless, the missionary work itself you find is wholly vain. The difference of opinion between St. Adalbert and the Wends, on Divine matters, does not signify to the Fates. They will not have it disputed about; and end the dispute adversely, to St. Adalbert—adversely, even, to Brandenburg and its civilizing power, as you will immediately see.