“It is as old as every European State; it is the ground in which they have taken root; no State has a secure existence unless it has a religious foundation.  For me, the words, ’by the Grace of God,’ which Christian rulers add to their name, are no empty phrase; I see in them a confession that the Princes desire to wield the sceptre which God has given them according to the will of God on earth.  As the will of God I can only recognise that which has been revealed in the Christian Gospel—­I believe that the realisation of Christian teaching is the end of the State; I do not believe that we shall more nearly approach this end by the help of the Jews....  If we withdraw this foundation, we retain in a State nothing but an accidental aggregate of rights, a kind of bulwark against the war of all against all, which ancient philosophy has assumed.  Therefore, gentlemen, do not let us spoil the people of their Christianity; do not let us take from them the belief that our legislation is drawn from the well of Christianity, and that the State aims at the realisation of Christianity even if it does not attain its end.”

We can well understand how delighted Herr von Thadden was with his pupil.  “With Bismarck I naturally will not attempt to measure myself,” he writes; “in the last debates he has again said many admirable things”; and in another letter, “I am quite enthusiastic for Otto Bismarck.”  It was more important that the King felt as if these words had been spoken out of his own heart.

Among his opponents, too, he had made his mark; they were never tired of repeating well-worn jests about the medieval opinions which he had sucked in with his mother’s milk.

At the close of the session, he returned to Pomerania with fresh laurels; he was now looked upon as the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories.  His marriage took place in August, and the young Hans Kleist, a cousin of the bride, as he proposed the bridegroom’s health, foretold that in their friend had arisen a new Otto of Saxony who would do for his country all that his namesake had done eight hundred years before.  Careless words spoken half in jest, which thirty years later Kleist, then Over-President of the province, recalled when he proposed the bridegroom’s health at the marriage of Bismarck’s eldest daughter.  The forecast had been more than fulfilled, but fulfilled at the cost of many an early friendship; and all the glory of later years could never quite repay the happy confidence and intimacy of those younger days.

Followed by the good wishes of all their friends, Bismarck and his young wife started on their wedding tour, which took them through Austria to Italy.  At Venice he came across the King of Prussia, who took the opportunity to have more than one conversation with the man who had distinguished himself in the States General.  At the beginning of the winter they returned to Schoenhausen to settle down to a quiet country life.  Fate was to will it otherwise.  The storm which had long been gathering burst over Europe.  Bismarck was carried away by it; from henceforth his life was entirely devoted to public duties, and we can count by months the time he was able to spend with his wife at the old family house; more than forty years were to pass before he was able again to enjoy the leisure of his early years.