Respectable Herr Theodorus Spener (we hope it is SpeNer, for they print him SPEER in one of the two places, and we have to go by guess) is ready with an Installation Speech on the occasion;and his Speech was judged so excellent, that they have preserved it in print. Us it by no means strikes by its Demosthenic or other qualities: meanwhile we listen to it with the closest attention;hoping, in our great ignorance, to gather from it some glimmerings of instruction as to the affairs, humors, disposition and general outlook and condition of Landshut, and Silesia in that juncture;--and though a good deal disappointed, have made an Abstract of it in the English language, which perhaps the reader too, in his great ignorance, will accept, in defect of better. Scene is Landshut among the Giant Mountains on the Bohemian Border of Silesia: an old stone Town, where there is from of old a busy trade in thread and linen; Town consisting, as is common there, of various narrow winding streets comparable to spider-legs, and of a roomy central Market-place comparable to the body of the spider; wide irregular Market-place with the wooden spouts (dry for the moment) all projecting round it. Time, 4th December, 1741 (doubtless in the forenoon); unusual crowd of population simmering about the Market-place, and full audience of the better sort gravely attentive in the interior of the Rathhaus; Burgermeister Spener LOQUITUR[ Helden-Geschichte, ii. 416.] (liable to abridgment here and there, on warning given):--"I enter, then, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, upon an Office, to which Divine Providence has appointed, and the gracious and potent hand of a great King has raised me. Great as is the dignity [giddy height of Mayoralty in Landshut], though undeserved, which the Ever-Nerciful has thus conferred upon me, equally great and much greater is the burden connected therewith. I confess"--He confesses, in high-stalking earnest wooden language very foreign to us in every way: (1.) That his shoulders are too weak; but that he trusts in God. For (2.) it is God's doing; and He that has called Spener, will give Spener strength, the essential work being to do God's will, to promote His honor, and the common weal.
(3.) That he comes out of a smaller Office (Office not farther specified, probably exterior to the RATHS-COLLEGE, and subaltern to the late tyrannous Mayor and it), and has taken upon him the Mayoralty of this Town (an evident fact!); but that the labor and responsibility are dreadfully increased; and that the point is not increase of honor, of respectability or income, but of heavy duties. (A sonorous, pious-minded Spener; much more in earnest than readers now think!)It is easy, intimates he, to govern a Town, if, as some have perhaps done, you follow simply your own will, regardless of the sighs and complaints your subjects utter for injustice undergone,--indifferent to the thought that the caprice of one Town Sovereign is to be glorified by so many thousand tears (dim glance into the past history of Landshut!). Such Town Sovereign persecutes innocence, stops his ears to its cry; flourishes his sharp scourge;--no one shall complain: for is it not justice? thinks such a Town Sovereign. The reason is, He does not know himself, poor man;has had his eye always on the duties of his subjects towards him, and rarely or never on his towards them. A Sovereign Mayor that governs by fear,--he must live in continual fear of every one, and of himself withal. A weak basis: and capable of total overturn in one day. On the contrary, the love of your burgher subjects: that, if you can kindle it, will go on like a house on fire (AUSBRUCHEINES FEURES), and streams of water won't put it out. ... "And [let us now take Spener's very words] if a man keep the fear of God before his eyes, there will be no need for any other kind of fear.
"I will therefore, you especially High-honored Gentlemen, study to direct all my judicial endeavors to the honor of the great God, and to inviolable fidelity towards my most gracious King and Lord [Friedrich, by Decision of Providence--at Mollwitz and elsewhere].
"To the Citizens of this Town, from of old so dear to me, and now by Royal grace committed to my charge, and therefore doubly and trebly to be held dear, I mean to devote myself altogether. I will, on every occasion and occurrence, still more expressly than aforetime, stand by them; and when need is, not fail to bring their case before the just Throne of our Anointed [Friedrich, by Decision of Providence]. Justice and fairness I will endeavor, under whatever complexities, to make my loadstar. Yes, I shall and will, by means of this my Office, equip myself with weapons whereby I may be capable to damp such humors (INTELLIGENTIEN), should such still be (but I believe there are now none such), as may repugn against the Royal interest, with possibility of being dangerous; and to put a bridle on mouths that are unruly. And, to say much in litlle compass, I will be faithful to God, to my King and to this Town.
"Having now the honor and happiness to be put into Official friendship with those Gentlemen who, as Burgermeisters, and as old and as new Members of Council, have for long years made themselves renowned among us, I will entertain, in respect of the former [the old] a firm confidence That the zeal they have so strongly manifested for behoof of the most serene Archducal House of Austria will henceforth burn in them for our most Beloved Land's Prince whom God has now given us; that the fire of their lately plighted truth and devotion, towards his Royal Majesty, shall shine not in words only, but in works, and be extinguished only with their lives. [Can that be, O Spener or Speer? Are we alarm-clocks, that need only to be wound up, and told at what hour, and for whom?]