us, as over a piece of a field, but that in every condition of life we may determine for ourselves; and therein all virtue demonstrates itself--that we, in every thing which concerns the people, shall take a lively interest, and so act upon our own resolves, each as we will, and not as another compels.
"Finally, make free your wills!
"This is the sole, purely human, this the necessary foundation for every human society: this must be won for the German Empire! Only when this sole and righteous condition is achieved, then only can be the discussion on further undertakings.
"My German people! win self-dependence, and that lofty mind, which already some of thy heroes have borne in them. This is the right, hallowed spirit of life, that thou dost that which the sacred Scriptures of Christendom and of antiquity teach--that which thy poets sing; and admirest or regardest them not merely as empty fables. Brother! proudly and courageously shalt thou win by high endeavour, that highest and holiest object which thy soul can conceive--the condition of a purified, and beatified manhood--
A Christ canst thou become.
"So learn, my People, the time in which, after long wandering, joy and unity shall come back into this life. The Reformation, begun three hundred years ago, sought to restore the life of our people after the image of God. It is not yet completed! for yet continue compulsion of conscience, servitude, tearing asunder of brothers in our country, and no one can rejoice himself after a Christian and purely human form. Brothers, break the ancient chains of the Popedom, the chains of arbitrary rule! We Germans,--one empire and one church! Let the schism betwixt spiritual and secular be annihilated! Faith, learning, and action, shall unite themselves into one, and bloom anew in the Christian enthusiasm of free German citizens.
"The Reformation must be completed! Brothers, abandon not one another in the oppressions of the times. Sluggishness and treason blacken history with the hand of slavery! You have it before you!
"Up! I show you the great day of freedom! Up, my people, bethink thee; make thyself free!"
The writing of Sand "To the Burschenschaft in Jena," and the other "To my Friends of the true German mind," were completed only a few days before his setting out; and finally he composed also a so-called "Sentence of Death against Kotzebue." He left behind, in his desk, a statement of the debts which his parents should pay; and an order that his books and other things should be sent home. He empowered a student, to receive all current letters and money for him. He contracted for his lodgings with his landlord for the ensuing half-year. To those who asked whither he was going, he gave the double-meaning answer--"Home." A letter was also found addressed to his parents, as follows:
"To Father, Mother, Brothers, Sisters, Brother-in-law, Teachers, and all Friends! True, eternally true souls!
"Why still more aggravate your pain? I thought, and hesitated to write to you on this business. Truly, if you received the intelligence of what has occurred at once, might the bitter sorrow the easier and quicker pass over; but the truth of affection would in that case be wounded, and this great affliction can only be wholly conquered by our emptying the whole cup of wo at once, and thus keeping faithful to our friend the true, the eternal Father in heaven. So from the shut-up bosom, forth thou long, great pang of the last speech; plain dealing can alone soften the agony of parting. This sheet brings to you the last greeting of the son and the brother! Much and continually have I talked and wished, it is now time that I left dreaming, and the trouble of my Fatherland impels me to action. This is unquestionably the highest misery in this earth-life, if the affairs of God, through guilt, come to a dead pause in their lively developement; this is for us the most overwhelming disgrace, if all that beauty and good which would have been boldly pursued by thousands and on whose account thousands have joyfully offered themselves up, as dream-shapes, without abiding consequence, now sinks away into dark discontent; if the reformation of the old life, now in its half-way advance, stand petrified. Our grandchildren would have to bewail this neglect. The commencement of the restoration of German life was made with spirits animated by God, within the last twenty years, and especially in that hallowed season 1813. The paternal house is shaken to the foundations--forwards! let us raise it again, fresh and beautiful, a true temple of God, as our hearts long after it. They are but a few who oppose themselves as a dam against the stream of the evolutions of the higher humanity in the German people; why then do whole hosts bow themselves again under the yoke of these knaves? shall our once awaked salvation perish again? Many of the most abandoned traitors play their game without obstruction, with us, to the complete corruption of our people. Among these, Kotzebue is the subtlest and most malicious; the actual tool and mouthpiece of every thing base in our time, and his voice is exactly fitted to beguile us Germans of all bitterness and opposition to the most unrighteous usurpations, and to lull us into the old indolent slumber. He practises daily arch-treason against the Fatherland, and then stands there, protected by his hypocritical speeches, and artful flatteries, and wrapped in the mantle of a great political reputation, spite of his wickedness, as an idol for the half of Germany, which blinded by him, willingly imbibes the poison which, for Russian pay, he prepares for them in his daily publications. Will not the greatest disaster befall us? Will not the history of our day be blackened with everlasting shame? He must perish! I say continually if any saving influence is to arise, we must not shrink from strife and toil; the true freedom of the German people then only awakes in us, when challenged and dared by the brave,--when the son of the Fatherland in the contest for the right and for the highest good, casts all other love? behind him, and loves death alone.
"That this may be, who shall rush upon this pitiful fellow, upon this hireling traitor, Kotzebue? In anguish and bitter tears turned to the Almighty, have I waited a long time for the appearance of one who would step before me, and release me, not fitted for murder, would release me from my pain, and leave me to proceed on the pleasant path that I have chosen. Spite of all my prayers, no one has appeared, and each has as good a right as myself to wait for another. Delay makes our condition continually worse and more pitiable; and who shall absolve us from the shame, if Kotzebue leave German ground unpunished, and shall enjoy in Russia a fortune acquired by his treason? Who shall help and save us out of this unhappy condition, if every one, and I in my province first of all, feels not the call to maintain justice, and to do what ought to be done for German Fatherland? So then boldly forward! I will assault him with a heart confident in God to strike down the calumniator and betrayer of our brethren--the horrible traitor! that he may cease from turning us from God and history, and plotting to deliver us into the hands of the cunningest enemy. Solemn duty compels me to it. Since I have discovered what a lofty prize our people have in the present time to wrestle for--and that he is the cowardly false villain that would prevent their destiny--it is become for me, as for every German who regards the well-being of the whole, a rigorous Must! May I direct the eyes of all active and public-spirited men, to where danger and falsehood threaten, and turn, in time, the fear of all, and the vigorous youth to the right point, that they may save the common Fatherland, Germany, the perpetually rent, the unworthy states-union, from an imminent danger. May I scatter terror over the base and the cowardly, and courage over the good! Writing and speaking effect nothing--it is action alone that now creates union. May I, at least, cast a brand into the present indifference, and rouse and augment the flame of popular feeling, that glorious struggle for the affairs of God amongst mankind, which burned in us in 1813--then were all my highest and holiest wishes fulfilled! On this account, though startled out of all lovely dreams of coming life, still am I calm, full of trust in God; yea, happy, since I see the path sketched out for me through Night and Death, by which I may pay back to my Fatherland all that I owe it.
"So farewell, you dear souls! This sudden parting falls heavily, and your expectations and my wishes are probably disappointed; yet may this have prepared us, and therefore now be our comfort--that what the necessity of the Fatherland demands, is the first of all things to be desired by us, and has always lived in me as the most inviolable principle. You may hereafter say and think among yourselves--'Yet had he through our sacrifices learnt to know the whole of life on this earth, the joy there is in this human society; and he appeared to love this land, and his chosen profession heartily.' Yes, so was it; so did I under your affectionate guardianship. Through your countless sacrifices and cares for me, are my land and life become so thoroughly dear to me; you caused me to be introduced into the world