Suddenly, music, wilder, sadder, than any
before heard that day, burst like a whirlwind
through the church; moaning, lamenting,
pleading: the waves, the forests, the winds,
heaven and all nature, seemed to mourn, as
in the old Scandinavian mythology, over
the slain Balder. And the voices vibrated
beneath the dim, arched roof; floated over
the human ocean, and died away in long
sighs. Again they arose, sadder and sadder;
ceased suddenly, and the multitude streamed
forth into the streets.

I felt myself most strangely afl'ected by
the whole scene; moved to the inmost soul
with a vast pity and grief by that sad lament
—and, no wonder, for was it not the Miserere?

Dear old Fraulein Sauschen! As we
walked slowly back, she opened her poor old
heart to me, and told me many of her sorrows.
I fancied long ago that I had discovered the
bitterness of her life, and now I see that I was
right. I did all I could to comfort and cheer
her, but it was only the balm of sympathy
which I could drop into her wounds, and I
fear those wounds will only smart the more
when she has no one to sympathise with her,
no one to whom she can moan a little. Ah!
it is a selfish world; and the more gentle,
and patient is the heart, the more it is
crushed! I could only comfort her with the
comfort especially belonging to Good Friday!

Crossing the Dult-Platz and various streets,
we saw all the confectioners' shops brilliant
and crowded. Children were celebrating
Good Friday by buying sugar lambs, which
held little crimson and gold banners between
their little fore-legs, as they lay innocently
reposing upon green sugar banks. Many, also,
were the sugar hares, Easter hares— those
fabulous creatures so dear to German children
—which were also bought, though, properly,
Easter had not yet arrived. But the hares
and their gay crimson eggs had arrived days
and days before. Would that our English
children could see some of these wonderful
hares; one grand one, especially, which
stands life-size, of coloured sugar, upon its
hind legs, rejoicing over a large nest of
crimson eggs, which it, of course, is supposed
to have laid. There are chocolate hares,
biscuit hares, and hares of common bread.
You hear the words " hares " and " eggs"
upon the lips of every child you meet;
"kreutzers to buy hares " seem strangely to
be conjured out of your purse; you see
everywhere crimson egg-shells, and in all the
booksellers' shops are displayed books relative to
this remarkable animal, for the edification of
the youthful naturalist.

Easter eggs are not alone eaten by the
children, but by people of maturer growth.
On Easter Sunday, Fraulein Sanschen will
take a basket of eggs to be blessed by the
priest, in one of the near churches. Whole
baskets of eggs are carried on that day to the
sacristies, to be consecrated. A consecrated
egg is promised me; I am anxious about
its flavour. On the Saturday between Good
Friday and Easter Sunday I hear that it is
the custom to carry small fagots of wood to
be blessed; and this consecrated wood is, I
am told, useful in various ways. Besides
eggs on Easter Sunday, meat, and butter, and
various kinds of food are blessed.

EASTER SUNDAY.

The Resurrection was celebrated in all the
churches. I, however, witnessed, the
ceremonial only in the Ludwigs Kirche. Towards
six o'clock the Ludwigs Strasse was black with
swarms of people hastening from the Theatine
Kirche towards the Ludwigs Kirche. The
church was already so full, when I entered it,
that it was impossible to approach the altar.
All still remained as it was on Good Friday:
the starry crowns of fire suspended over the
figure of Christ reposing amid the flowers
and tapers. Priests first knelt, praying
before the garden. As far as I could judge,
at the distance where I stood, this, for some
time, was all the ceremony. Then a canopy
was seen to approach the altar; there was
much chaunting and gesticulating. Then the
organ and the quire burst forth into a joyous
anthem. Trumpets from the near altar took
up the rejoicing with their wild harmony, and
a voice sang forth, amid a sudden hush,
"Christ is arisen." And then, above the
crowd, you saw a figure of Christ, clothed in
white and purple garments, and bearing in
his hand a small banner. Then a procession
of choristers and priests, with the Host borne
aloft beneath the canopy, with swinging
censors, and to the sound of trumpets, kettle-drums,
and little bells, which the little choristers
rung, passed down the centre of the
church, and out beneath the beautiful portico,
and through the white arches of the colonnade,
into the little garden behind the church.
In this garden there are a number of small
"stations," or small shrines, erected to
commemorate the various sufferings of Christ on
his way to the Cross. This little garden is
called the Kreuz-Gang; and during Lent
prayers are read and sung every Friday by
the priests, before these shrines, to a vast
assembly of people. Although the canopy
and the procession passed out into this little
garden, I preferred remaining in the church;
and approaching nearer the altar, saw that
the figure among the flowers was now
concealed by a cloth, and that above it rose
the other figure with its banner. A troop
of youths and young girls from the Blind
Asylum also drew near, as if to see; they
were all connected together, two and two, by
a long cord, which passed between them, so as
to form a sort of human team. You always
see them walking along in this manner. It
was strangely affecting to see their sightless
eye-balls and their white uncouth faces turn
towards the figure of the Christ, their hands
clasped, and their lips moving. Another thing
was noticeable before the procession returned