THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
“If,” he would say with emphasis, “you are ever overtaken by misfortune, or oppressed by poverty, you must think of your friend Master George.”
And so I have very often done. The counsel that he gave me upon every occasion was always mixed with jests and droll descriptions of men and things which never permitted the admonitions to become dull sermons. He also endeavored to stimulate my ambition by painting to me in glowing colors the good fortune of the liberal education which was in store for me; and when he spoke of my future career he gave full rein to his ardent imagination.
His presentiment of an early death proved true. My good friend did not long survive those days. While I was at the gymnasium he died of consumption. I have always kept him in warm remembrance.
The impression of what Master George had said to me about religious things was deepened by an occurrence of a different nature.
I fully resolved, so far as a child could make such a resolution, that when I studied it would not be for the ministry. True, among the Roman Catholic population of the lower Rhine country, a family that counted a priest among its members was proud of the distinction. But this was mainly the case with the women of our home circle; the men were more or less affected by the free-thinking spirit of the age, and my uncle Ferdinand, the Voltairian, even went so far as to indulge in bold jests and scoffings upon religious subjects. This jarred upon me painfully. It seemed to me audaciously wicked to speak in flippant words about things which I had been taught in church, and at my mother's knee, were high and holy. My father, who, as already mentioned, had read his Voltaire and Rousseau and been influenced by them, never fell in with that
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