me peculiar pnases 01 tjermaa public lile during" 

 the last fifteen or twenty years. 



The reign of the late King was a glorious intel- 

 lectual era for Prussia, but it was also a time of 

 disgraceful hypocrisy in religion ; of contempt for 

 popular rights avowed in the name of a pivine 

 prerogative ; of bitter oppression and persecution 

 in behalf of which the sacred name of Religion 

 was invoked ; and of outrageous violations of pub- 

 lic promises and legal privileges, under the sayie 

 plea. At the head of these oppressive and unjust 

 measures, soiling their reputations with every 

 species of meanness and compliance, were the so- 

 called " religious party " of the upper classes in 

 Prussia. Piety at the court of Frederick William y , 

 was the best possible investment and its mimic, 

 Hypocrisy, held in her hands all places and power. 

 81 We do not wonder that when that dishonorable ^ ' 

 V1 period is remembered by noble : minded Germans 

 BO now in exile here for conscience sake, or when its ISQ 

 shams and masks were exposed to a true mind like 

 Humboldt's, for the moment the very name of 

 . Religion should become odious, and that sometimes 

 words should be spoken for which the speaker ro 

 would not be responsible in his cooler moments. ms 

 French Romanism produced French infidelity, and ts. 

 Prussian atate-eccleaiastiasm produced the infidelity 

 of Prussian scholarship. These facts will explain to 

 imany readers the peculiar bitterness tfith which 



Humboldt speaks of certain religious characters 

 and beliefs. Such expressions were not aimed 



primarily against Christianity according to our 

 conception of it, but against the shams and pre- 

 c teDses, the injustice and oppression, the titled or 

 {crowned stupidity and conceit, wkich exalted them- 

 j selves in the name of religion. Many things were, 

 said in the openness of his intercourse with Varn- 

 hagen, which he would hardly hare wished re- 



fh 



peated so soon after his death. Some of his judg- 

 ments of men and systems were evidently 4rarped ; 

 and it is probable that many of his 4 more tender 

 religious sentiments he woulc 



such a correspondence. 



The absence of the religious element even when 

 the death of friends is the subject of correspond- 

 ence, is a melancholy feature of these letters. Yet 

 Humboldt denies the imputation of atheism to his 

 Kosmos by a writer in The Westminster Review. 

 He writes to Varnhagen : 



"Then follows the denunciation of atheism, i 



