Again, the writer here quoted tells us of the penalties attached to drunkenness amongst priests:—“1. If a bishop or any one ordained has a habit of drunkenness, he must either resign or be deposed. 2. If a monk drinks till he vomits, he must do thirty days’ penance; if a priest or deacon, forty days. But if this happens from weakness of stomach or from long abstinence, and he was not in the habit of excessive drinking or eating, or if he did it in excess of joy on Christmas or Easter days, or the commemoration of some saint, and if then he did not take more than has been regulated by our predecessors, it is not to be punished. If the bishop urged him, the fault is not to be imputed to the monk, unless he gladly consented. 4. If a priest gets drunk through inadvertence, he must do penance seven days; if through carelessness, fifteen days; if through contempt, forty days; a deacon or monk, four weeks; a sub-deacon, three; a layman, one week.”[204] These quotations need no comment; the inferences to be drawn from them may safely be left to the reader’s own judgment.[205] But what neither legislative enactments, nor orders of temperance, nor priestly admonitions, nor the pen of the satirist could accomplish, was brought about insensibly and without an effort during the eighteenth century, when various circumstances conduced to transform the Germans from one of the most drunken to one of the soberest nations in Europe. The introduction of Italian and French fashions into the rude courts of Germany had something to do with the change; but this chiefly affected the uppermost ranks of society. The importation of innocuous beverages from the East—tea, coffee, and chocolate—and their extended use by all classes, as well as the substitution of a milder but more palatable kind of beer for the strong drink of the preceding centuries, were the principal agents in the reform.[206] Moreover, the consumption of brandy, which was very great before the Thirty Years’ War, had considerably diminished, and by slow degrees the love of strong drink ceased to characterise the various sections of society, from the denizens of the court to those of the workshop. The last to relinquish their old depraved habits were the students of the universities. It was not until after the revolution of 1848, which reconstituted European society, that the German “Bursche” forsook his evil ways; and although there is still great room for improvement, he now compares favourably in his habits with the students of other countries. But there is still another factor in the modern civilisation of Germany which has been too little considered by moralists, namely, the influence of compulsory education upon the masses. This is the true corrective of the evil results which must always be feared from the increasing affluence of the working classes, and it is to be hoped it may operate favourably in Germany as well as in our own industrial community.