My mother’s permission that Knecht Ruprecht should visit us was contrary to her principle never to allow us to be frightened by images of horror.  Nay, if she heard that the servants threatened us with the Black Man and other hobgoblins of Berlin nursery tales, she was always very angry.  The arguments by which my wife induced me to banish the Christmas Man and Knecht Ruprecht seem still more cogent, now that I think I understand the hearts of children.  It is certainly far more beautiful and just as easy-if we desire to utilize Christmas gifts for educational purposes—­to stimulate children to goodness by telling them of the pleasure it will give the little Christ Child, rather than by filling them with dread of Knecht Ruprecht.

True, my mother did not fail to endeavor to inspire us with love for the Christ Child and the Saviour, and to draw us near to him.  She saw in him, above all else, the embodiment of love, and loved him because her loving heart understood his.  In after years my own investigation and thought brought me to the same conviction which she had reached through the relation of her feminine nature to the person and teachings of her Saviour.  I perceived that the world as Jesus Christ found it owes him nothing grander, more beautiful, loftier, or more pregnant with importance than that he widened the circle of love which embraced only the individual, the family, the city, or, at the utmost, the country of which a person was a citizen, till it included all mankind, and this human love, of which my mother’s life gave us practical proof, is the banner under which all the genuine progress of mankind in later years has been made.

Nineteen centuries have passed since the one that gave us Him who died on the cross, and how far we are still from a perfect realization of this noblest of all the emotions of the heart and spirit!  And yet, on the day when this human love has full sway, the social problems which now disturb so many minds and will permit the brains of our best citizens to take no rest, will be solved.

     Other obligations to my mother, and A summary of the new
     and great events which befell the Germans during my life.

I omit saying more of my mother’s religious feelings and relations to God, because I know that it would be contrary to her wishes to inform strangers of the glimpse she afterward afforded me of the inmost depths of her soul.

That, like every other mother, she clasped our little hands in prayer is a matter of course.  I could not fall asleep until she had done this and given me my good-night kiss.  How often I have dreamed of her when, before going to some entertainment, she came in full evening dress to hear me repeat my little prayer and bid us good-bye!

But she also provided most carefully for the outward life; nay, perhaps she laid a little too much stress upon our manners in greeting strangers, at table, and elsewhere.