Dr. Wichern thought not; the neglect of the earthly home of the dead resulted from the prevalence of indifference to the glorious doctrine of the Resurrection; and whatever a people might profess, he could not but believe them infidel at heart, if they were entirely neglectful of the resting-place of their dead.

The close of our repast precluded further discussion, and at our host’s invitation we accompanied him to the rural cemetery, where such of the pupils and Brothers as died during their connection with the school were buried.  An English writer has very appropriately called the Rauhe Haus a “Home among the Flowers”; but the title is far more appropriate to this beautiful spot.  Whatever a pure and exquisite taste could conceive as becoming in a place consecrated to such a purpose, willing hands have executed; and early every Sabbath morning, Dr. Wichern says, the pupils resort hither to see that everything necessary is done to keep it in perfect order.  The air seemed almost heavy with the perfume of flowers; and though the home of the living pupils of the Rauhe Haus is plain in the extreme, the palace of their dead surpasses in splendor that of the proudest of earthly monarchs.  One could hardly help coveting such a resting-place.

It was with reluctance that we at last turned our faces homeward, and bade the excellent director farewell.  The world has seen, in this nineteenth century, few nobler spirits than his.  Possessed of uncommon intellect, he combines with it executive talent of no ordinary character, and a capacity for labor which seems almost fabulous.  His duties as the head of the Inner Mission, whose scope comprises the organization and management of reformatory institutions of all kinds, throughout Germany, as well as efforts analogous to those of our city missions, temperance societies, etc., might well be supposed to be sufficient for one man; but these are supplementary to his labors as director of the Rauhe Haus, and editor of the Fliegende Blaetter, and the other literature, by no means inconsiderable, of the Inner Mission.  Dr. Wichern is highly esteemed and possesses almost unbounded influence throughout Germany; and that influence, potent as it is, even with the princes and crowned heads of the German States, is uniformly exerted in behalf of the poor, the unfortunate, the ignorant, and the degraded.  When the history of philanthropy shall be written, and the just meed of commendation bestowed on the benefactors of humanity, how much more exalted a place will he receive, in the memory and gratitude of the world, than the perjured and audacious despot who, born the same year, in the neighboring city of the Hague, has won his way to the throne of France by deeds of selfishness and cruelty!  Even to-day, who would not rather be John Henry Wichern, the director of the Rauhe Haus at Horn, than Louis Napoleon, emperor of France?