Part 37 (1/2)

”But as the villagers had promised Wollin a holy day once in a hundred years, so once in a hundred years these people are perht of the sun for a single day If on that day a stranger visits theht Such is the story You will hardly believe it true”

The student crossed himself, and went on his journey towards the Rhine

”_They_ have one day in a hundred years,” he said ”How precious must that one day be to them! If I enter the ways of evil, and my heart becomes untrue, shall _I_ have _one_ day in one hundred years when life is ended and ht He read the holy books He tried to find a single hope for an untrue soul; but he could discover none

Then he said,--

”The days of evil have no to-ood deeds have to-morrows I will be true: so shall to-olden doors until time is lost in the eternal” And his heart remained true

CHAPTER XIV

THE SONGS OF THE RHINE

THE WATCHMAN'S SONG--THE WILD HUNT OF LuTZOW--THE AUTHOR OF THE ERL KING--BEETHOVEN'S BOYHOOD--THE ORGAN-TEMPEST OF LUCERNE

Rhineland is the land of song It is the wings of song that have given it its fas; every s,--few songs of the people The singers who give voices to rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys have not yet appeared The local poets and singers of Aland, Germany, and sorove has had its sweet singer

Go to Basle, and you s of Alsace and Lorraine

Go to Heidelberg, and you h which breathe the national spirit of hundreds of years

The bands tell the story, legend, or roht, wherever they rounds to which the Class went for an evening rest, one of the bands was playing the _Freion of Baden-Baden: how that a nobles in the mountains, and was overtaken by a storm; hoas about to perish when he heard the distant sounds of athe direction of the sound, he heard a chant of priests; and how, at last, he was saved

The piece was full of melody The wind, the rain, the horns, the bells, the chant, while they told a story, were all delightfully melodious

The ballad is almost banished from the intellectual Aem, and is so valued It is the best expression of national life and feeling

The Class went to hear one of Ger an heroic selection, and was recalled Her first words on the recall hushed the audience: it was a ballad of the four stages of life It began with an incident of a child drea under a rosebush:--

”Sweetly it sleeps and on dreaels in Paradise, And the years glide by”

as an English translation gives it

In the last stanza, the child having passed through the stages of life, was represented as again sleeping under a rosebush The withered leaves fall upon his grave

”Withered and dead they fall to the ground, And silently cover a new-lide by”

These last lines were rendered so softly, yet distinctly, that they seeer's face hardly appeared to move; every listener was like a statue The silence was almost painful and impressive One could but feel this was indeed art, and not a pretentious affectation of it