Contrary to what is generally believed, especially if the religious problem has not been studied, neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism is a religion. The beautiful souls one meets who have held, and who hold these religious beliefs would be beautiful no matter what belief they held, or even in the absence of any belief. They possess an innate beauty which touches the Divine. But a phase of religious belief cannot be a religion. Schisms are the accidents of the life of the Church. A tear in a costume is not a costume--on the contrary! Lutheranism was not originally a form of worship; it was a revolt, and this species of revolt will always make more rebels than believers. A revolt against Rome--_Los von Rome!_ Impious cry! This is not only a case of "Deliver us from Rome," it is also a case of "Deliver us from the Christian religion, from the unity of the Catholic Church, otherwise called the Universal Church, which is our only chance of peace on earth." It is a denial of Latinity and of Hellenism; it is the retrogression of Central Europe to the Scandinavian Valhalla; it is not a world which expands, it is a world which confines. It does not represent the free harmony of the actions and the thoughts of men; it is the enforced uniformity of the parade step, and the silence on parade, in the ranks of the Prussian Guard. If William II, who is responsible for the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, the burning of Louvain, the massacres of Dinant and so many other atrocities, were not, so far as I am concerned, dead, and if I were to see him again, I would say to him: "You miserable man! Have you read Goethe? Can you imagine what he who wrote 'Man is only great according to the Heaven which is within himself' would think of you? You do not possess Heaven. You have driven away God with the Luther of hate and negation which was your God; you are a mere nullity." CHAPTER XII The Holsteins I first knew Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein shortly after her marriage with Prince William of Prussia. I saw her later as German Empress at the Court of Berlin. It was not easy to find favour in her sight; not that she was a malicious woman, but her narrowness of mind and her pretensions to the perfections of German virtues made her no friendly judge of women. A pessimist and a martinet, she was wholly given up to her domestic duties and her worship of the God of Luther, whom she served with a zeal inimical to other gods, and with such piety that she edified Germany. But she had no conception of the immense pity and the infinite splendour of the true God. Always a sentimental country, Germany thoroughly admired this wife and mother, her husband and their children, who, when seen at a distance, really constituted a magnificent family.