was true to her word, and there at Engern good old King Wedeking was buried, and there he lies now."

"And where is Queen Gewa buried, and where did she die?"

"Wo sei bleven is, un wo sei licht, dot weik eck nich,"* concludes Norna of the Porta. But the antiquarians of Osnabrück know all about it; they show a spot near the city where Queen Gewa is said to have been laid to rest.

Wittekind's great antagonist, Emperor Charlemagne, passed through the Porta at various times. In A. D 783, on the Süntel, a short way to the west of it, one of his powerful armies was utterly destroyed. It was followed by his dire revenge in the plains of Verden, where he literally butchered the flower of Saxon nobility; yet in 785 the heathen Saxons were once more ready to meet him near Rehme, to the south of the Porta. About this time Charlemagne founded at Minden the celebrated bishopric. He is said to have resided there, and a house is still shown in which he held his court. Tradition among the lower Saxons makes him a great stone-breaker, as in the Pyrenees it attributes herculear demolishing powers to his nephew, the hero Roland. Charlemagne is reputed to have broken with his sword the large heathen stone near Osnabrück, which still bears the name Karlstein; and there are throughout the Saxon land such monuments. It is quite probable that the obstinate Saxon race compared themselves with the granite blocks strewn about, and the great Emperor who caused them to bend their knees before him with a breaker of stones. The imagination of the Saxons, however, did not go so far as that of the more poetical inhabitants of the Pyrenees, who say that one of their most remarkable mountain-gorges, the picturesque Roland-Porta near Barèges, was hewn by the hero of Roncevalles with his indestructible sword Durandarte, else they would have attributed the same feat to Charlemagne in reference to the Porta Westphalica.

Minden henceforth prospered on account of its position on the threshold of the Porta, and became the centre of the episcopal principality; the bishopric of Minden receiving, for several centuries, its heads from the Lords vom Berge, who were styled Edle Voigte des Stiftes Minden. As the Weser river after emerging from the Porta obtains greater depth, width and even flow, Minden soon attracted a lively commerce; the northern roads having to pass through this only passage in the mountains. In the thirteenth century Minden entered the Hansa-union, and was, next to Bremen, the chief commercial town on the lower Weser. The guild of Minden merchants held sway over the entire northern part of the river, levying tolls, which even the Bremen crafts when they came up had to pay; yet claiming for themselves the privilege to pass without toll down the Weser to the sea, past the Hansa town itself. In modern times the Mindeners sometimes launch vessels fit for sea voyages. These conditions and privileges were the consequence of the geographical position of the town in sight of the Porta, as are most of the events connected with it, such as the open courts, imperial diets and councils under Conrad II, Henry IV, and Charles IV.

"Where she has died, and where she lies, that I wot not."

There are few wars and storms in the history of Northern Germany which did not break through the Porta. In the times of the Welfs and Hohenstaufens, the great Saxon duke Henry the Lion, and then Wittekind, fought against Barbarossa in sight of the Porta; later in the Thirty Years' War the army of the Catholic League was posted in force for a long time at and near it; Tilly, the Swedes and Brunswickers, had there many a skirmish; until the Swedes, for ten long years, were enabled to make this strong position their base of operations; when they relinquished it in consequence of the peace of Westphalia, the great Elector of Brandenburg obtained and held it, and so the Prussians hold it now. In the Seven Years' War, 1759, the Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, a second Arminius, and a descendant of Henry the Lion, fought upon the old battlefield of Idistavisus the famous battle of Minden, against a second Germanicus, the Gallican Marshal de Contades, by which he liberated, as Arminius in the battle which destroyed Varus had freed all Westphalia, Angrivaria and the land of the Cherusci-the whole northwestern Germany from the Trans-Rhenians.

At the present day the military importance of the Porta Westphalica is lessened and made secondary by the powerful German fortresses which lie along its western front from the north to the south. They must first be overwhelmed ere the invader would again behold it. And in view of the past, it may not be too much to say that should such a day ever come for Germany, the daring invader would probably experience the fate of Varus and of Contades.

Where once in the time of the diluvium the waters dashed and roared against those eternal rocks — where afterwards the Roman invader sought in vain to penetrate, to reach the hand to their northern auxiliary armies; where once was nought but convulsions of nature and the war-struggles of men, there is now unfolded a picture of peace, tranquillity and prosperity. Through the proud Portal five great roads of traffic unhindered go their way, uniting three great German rivers, sending to and bringing the fruits of peaceful industry from, the sea. Go to the right and left from the Porta Westphalica but a few miles into the forests and the plains, and you shall find yourself transported amid scenes of the most sylvan quietness, among the charcoal-burners and the shepherds; and thus, in the old civilisation of that country, bustling present and hoary past are dwelling side by side. And thus we salute the Porta Westphalica and pass on.

F. SCHALLER.

A DUTY OF THE HOUR.

IN

N proposing to place on file in the pages of the SOUTHERN MAGAZINE a theory on the practical adoption of which I venture to suggest the only reasonable hope of the deliverance from imminent danger of Southern conservatism must rest, I am fully conscious that I can rely for its general acceptance neither upon its brilliancy of conception nor upon its facility of application. In this age of wild theories and cynical contempt for the wisdom of the past centuries, when truth itself unless clothed in the garb of mild suggestion is challenged sharply, it is very needful that the present attempt to cast a glimmering ray of truth on the dark waters that threaten to engulf Christian civilisation in the South should present as little of dogmatic assertion as possible. The positions assumed and the lessons indicated in the remarks to follow are simply those of individual apprehension and conviction. The writer conceives that his premises are unassailable, and his deductions from those premises logical; and he asks only for an intelligent and dispassionate consideration of the several points herein discussed. If they are found to possess any cogency of truth, they will, despite the nakedness of their presentation, enforce belief and suggest resulting action; otherwise, neither elaborate argument nor richness of illustration will make them of more value than those ephemeral quackeries which justly excite the contempt of intelligence and hoodwink only the credulous multitude.

The present exigency is one that demands a treatment which it will utterly fail to receive if utilitarianism is suffered to prescribe for Southern ailment. We frequently meet with an expression borrowed from medical phraseology: Political doctors diagnose the case of the feeble and ailing South, and prescribe accordingly. This diagnosis is thorough or partial according to the degree in which the discriminative skill of the practitioner is maintained. Prompted by, he trusts, not an unpardonable desire to diagnose a case in which as a suffering member of the body politic he is painfully interested, the present writer is induced to offer as the result of his diagnosis remedial measures. The conviction forces itself on his mind that these remedial measures would prove for the South veritable "Waters of Israel"; but not possessing the attractiveness and popularity of those more fashionable waters in which utilitarianism would have us "wash and be clean"- the Abanas and Pharpars nearer home - he may fail to impart this conviction to others. But enough of preface.

There are present evils that the South is now suffering, and there are threatened evils neither dim nor distant, which must be gathered into one focus and closely scrutinised before adequate provision can be made for the inauguration of Southern prosperity, if we mean by prosperity that ultimate and permanent prosperous condition of the

South which, together with material, shall be indicated by a high standard of moral and intellectual development. The present evils are too palpably evident and too acutely felt to call for more than a passing notice here. Material prostration, political oppression and disorganised labor are the more prominent of these evils. Threatening and impending evils are unhappily of too ghostly a character too indistinct and undefinable — to excite apprehension and arouse preventive action. We must embrace in one view both existing and prospective conditions of the South, the actual and the probable, or we shall fail utterly to lay our foundation deep enough and broad enough to sustain that edifice of solid and expanding prosperity which we desire to mark the future history of the South. A close and discriminative look on this picture and on that the Now and the May-be-will, I think, conduct to but one conclusion:- That there is an educational labor to be undertaken to elevate the masses of the people morally and intellectually to a greatly higher standard of culture than that which has hitherto prevailed, before we may hope to lay the cornerstone of this so much needed edifice. There is, or should be, an aphorism to this effect: Able commanders make efficient armies. Not less axiomatic is the proposition that able instructors make accomplished scholars. The supreme importance of this truth is generally acknowledged, but that it bears with significant emphasis upon the question of popular education in the present crisis is, I apprehend, not so clearly perceived. In the masses of the Southern people there must be found a scholarship that will supply light to detect and a vitality vigorous enough to throw off the poison of insidious radicalism. Such a scholarship it is far beyond the ability of any common school "system" to impart; no instructors "able" enough will be found if sought for only in the ranks of the technical schoolmaster. It is outside the schoolhouse that mainly the leverage must be applied which will lift up above the level of radical aggression the masses of the people.

I cannot better exemplify the point I seek to establish than by giving a practical illustration of what I intend to imply by the term "able instructors." General R. E. Lee, the "able" commander, must be the exemplar for those instructors of the people who can train to endurance and conduct to victory in the present crisis. What R. E. Lee endured and achieved, what his army, interpenetrated with his spirit, endured and achieved, history has recorded in characters of living fire. The South now demands at the hands of the morally and intellectually cultured such a leadership as that which raised to the pinnacle of military renown the good and the great General, Robert E. Lee. I strike my key-note here. There will be for the South possible redemption from the threatened discord of infidel ologies and radicalisms if all there is of moral and intellectual culture amongst us engages in harmonious concord, in that spirit of self-abnegating patriotism which animated the life and glorified the death of the great General. What was that distinguishing feature in the character of General Lee that made him the successful commander of men? It was this that, as a man over men, rather than as a General over subordinates, he attracted and riveted the regard and obedience of

armies. Recognising his commission as derived primarily from Heaven, he assumed and fulfilled the twofold but indivisible duty it implied. God-fearing and man-loving, he has solved for all future time. that most difficult problem: How can culture most effectively influence no culture? Such a leadership in the education of the masses of the Southern people a leadership in spirit and in letter like that I have endeavored to sketch, must be substituted for that cold and chilling abstract approbation which cultivated intelligence, as a general thing, extends to the work of popular education.

We need not search in the remote countries of the civilised world for evidences to prove the fact that the power of ignorance in the masses is expanding with steadily increasing impetus. We have Communism — or, if you prefer the term, Radicalism - sufficiently rampant at home to enforce the truth of this assertion. Its aggressiveness is its most prominent characteristic; its power to subvert and to destroy we have exhaustively tested; its ultimate domination in the South is foreshadowed by phenomena too significant of approaching evil to be disregarded. Intelligence and culture lying dormant in its path will be mercilessly trampled upon; intelligence and culture vitally active may yet hope to erect a barrier against which its restless waves will beat in vain. If we would successfully stem the flood of Northern radicalism, its insidious encroachments must be met where its advancing streams are the most swelling and rapid — on the low ground of uncultivated intelligence. The masses of the people must be lifted up above the level which invites and localises into foul stagnation its pestilent errors. No mere mechanical instrumentality can accomplish this; no common schools, with all their apparatus of school superintendents, school commissioners, and school trustees, can command leverage enough to raise the dead weight to overcome the vis inertia of the uncultivated masses.

The signs of the times distinctly portend a period not far distant when the moral, intellectual and æsthetic culture of the South will be forced to abandon its entrenchments of exclusiveness, and take the field against a civilisation progressive only in its increasing knowledge of evil - the boasted civilisation of the Northern States of this continent. I speak of the dominating majority; for it is by opinion in quantity, not in quality, that this much-vaunted Republic is now ruled. It rests not with the Southern people to select the battle-ground; it is already occupied in force by the enemy, and it includes every foot of Southern soil. Men of culture, upon you rests the responsibility of the campaign; to your efforts Southern conservatism will owe its rescue from absorption by the turbid flood of radicalism; or it will be yours to deplore the vitiation, if not the extinction, of that power of culture at the South which, until within a few years, has been her peculiar and justly cherished characteristic.

If there is anything of point and force in the suggestions here offered as to the present and probable condition of the South, the issues that have to be met require for their successful handling an intelligence and a tact that no stereotyped statesman's guide book will supply. Where in history shall we find a precedent to guide our action? What civilised nation can we summon from the dead