474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of six years, who receives about thirty dollars per annum for his ser- 

 vices. 



E has two foresters appointed by an imperial forester, under 



whose control they are. These officers receive about forty-five dollars 

 a year, and for this sum must decide all matters in regard to the cut- 

 ting or planting of trees ; must see that no wood is stolen, and during 

 the wood-cutting season must prevent any one cutting more than his 

 share, and see that only marked trees are cut. They must, moreover, 

 preserve all the game in the forest for the use of that person to whom 

 the right to kill game has been let. 



The pastor of E is supported by the rental of two hundred and 



eighty acres of land, belonging to the church, and his income is also 

 slightly increased by marriage, burial, and other fees. Since the min- 

 ister is the only cultivated man in the village, he has of course great 

 influence over all village affairs, and acts as peacemaker in all disputes 

 or quarrels. To him each farmer comes as occasion demands for ad- 

 vice or instruction, but he never visits his people, except when severe 

 illness or death calls for his good offices, nor have I ever seen a peas- 

 ant enter the parsonage, except when called there by business. This 

 total sei^aration of the pastor from his flock seemed to me to make the 

 church a mere formal affair incapable of doing much good, yet I could 

 not wonder at the refusal of an educated man to associate with the 

 peasants. Village ministers are appointed by the church consistory, 

 and hold their places for life, unless they break some church rule or 

 preach false doctrine. They are always university men, and are gen- 

 erally well-read, but their views are apt to be narrow — Darwin being 

 looked upon as an arch-fiend, and science, in so far as it does not agree 

 with literal translations of the Bible, as " science falsely so called." 

 They revolve in a little circle, independently of all the secular world, 

 around some bishop or church dignitary. Their social life consists of 

 an interchange of afternoon and evening calls, at which coffee is drunk, 

 and the world, the flesh, and the devil, discussed in a very innocent 

 way ; occasionally this monotony is interrupted by a birthday party or 

 a church celebration. The latter are, however, a delusion and a snare 

 to outsiders, as each preacher goes with a sermon or two in his pocket 

 and with his mind made up to read them. As a consequence of this, 

 and of the German peasant's love for sermons, I once stood up in a 

 crowded church from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m., with only an hour's intermis- 

 sion for dinner, listening to an endless series of sermons, varied only 

 by a change of speakers ! I left the church at five, but was afterward 

 told that there was an evening session and that the preaching w^ent on 

 for three days. 



The pastor is president of a board of trustees, consisting of four 

 church-members, by whom all church expenses are audited, and also of 

 a school board, of four electors and the teacher, which controls school 

 matters. The members of these boards, with the exception of the 



