"Friends and former Colleagues.--Before writing these words to you, I asked myself--shall I be listened to by those to whom I am about to speak? or will my invitations strike in vain upon their ears? No, they will not strike in vain upon your ears--I feel it and I know it, friends and former colleagues! You, the so-called inferior clergy, have been hitherto but little, if at all addressed, because, although you constitute the real ground-work and the strength of the ecclesiastical body, you have been, and you still are held, to be a mass inaccessible to moral freedom--in fact, morally dead. But I have been compelled, by sense of duty and by love of my country, to address you; and besides, I speak to you at a time when the laity themselves--the congregations--think and act, not according to the dead letter, but in agreement with the spirit of religion. Can it then be, that you, the priests--the teachers of the people, unlike them, can choose supinely to remain in circumstances of blind surrender of your judgment? Can you alone, and without exception, be so deeply sunk in slavery to Rome and the deadness of the letter, that it is no longer possible for you to arise and shake your spirits free! This I neither can nor will believe, for this were to believe you had forgotten to be men--it were to doubt the triumph of the kingdom of Christ--the triumph of righteousness,--it were to doubt the improvement and the advancement of society, which you are imperatively called on to promote. Oh, I have better thoughts of you, for I have suffered, and still suffer with you; I know the giant-yoke you wear, and to wear which is accounted (to you?) as the fulfilment of a most sacred duty--as a merit--as _religion_. Many a one of you has lamented to me, that the pain of blinded, passive slavery to Rome burned incurably in his bosom, and I know how many among you writhe in desperation, and await with longing the hour that is to set you free. It is, therefore, upon you, and the triumphant strength of a righteous cause, that I ground my confidence of an assured result. I know full well that you will not all, of one accord, and at my earliest word, strike off the shameful fetters of the Roman despotism, and stand forth as independent German priests--although each one must feel that there is inspiration in the very thought--but I entertain the hope that many a one may be aroused from stupefaction at my call--that many a timid one may be encouraged, and many a dazzled eye restored to clearer vision--that many among you, moved by my example, will dare to cast a bold and fearless glance within, and having done so, with a cry of grief--a cry of horror, at your condition, to stride forward to the contest, which is to make you once more men! It is to that that I invite you; you must become men--independent men, for the sake of our holy religion, for your own sakes, and for the happiness of our common Fatherland,--I invoke your manhood! You must become men, filled with a