THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
as he had been a master shoemaker, he generally went by the name of “Master George.” Feeble sight obliging him to renounce his trade, he made a living as an errand man, and was so frequently employed by my father in that capacity that he almost seemed to belong to our house. He was then a man in middle life, tall and thin, with a haggard and sallow but pleasant face, to which, however, a whitish spot in one of his eyes gave a peculiar expression. He was one of that class of persons who with good natural endowments have had but little education, but whom that little has served to lift out of the rut of the commonplace. He had read all the books that had come in his way, and although many of them went beyond his comprehension, they had helped shape his thoughts and notions. He had all sorts of droll conceits, which he gave forth with facility of expression and sometimes in piquant terms of speech, and as he was, withal, an amiable soul, everybody liked him.
The whole population of the village and surrounding Rhine country, my own family included, was Roman Catholic. So was Master George; but upon many points he could not agree with the church. “Why,” he argued, “if we are to believe blindly and never think for ourselves, why did the all-wise Creator give us our reason?” This view he applied with especial acuteness to the sermons of the parish priest. Also with the Apostle Paul he had various differences of opinion. I was still a mere child, but he confided his religious scruples and philosophical contemplations to me, thinking that as I was to become a learned man, the sooner I formed opinions of my own on serious subjects the better. With especial earnestness he warned me against studying theology with the intention of entering the priesthood—for “these divines are obliged to say too many things which they do not themselves believe.” And
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