Two Orations on the Political Question: Whether the Children of Lutherans Can Be Sent to Jesuit Schools with a Clear Conscience

true, and that they can and must be called by the best right, you will recognize.

For in every learner, in whatever study he may be engaged, just as in the racecourse of the Muses, two ends are always set before him like the stars of Helen a classical reference to the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), the stars that guide sailors to safety. All who do not wish to run ἐκτὸς τῆς ὁδõ outside the path or to wander from what they call the middle gate must align their course to these. But on this road to that true life under Christ, our only Commander, to fight the good fight, to preserve a good conscience and faith, and to merit and maintain the name of a good and learned man, two things are necessary: TRUE AND SINCERE RELIGION, and SOLID and sounder ERUDITION.

RELIGION is not the vain ringing of a bronze gong from Dodona, or a clamor, the blowing of a horn of Cybele, the Berecynthian horn, associated with the wild rites of the goddess Cybele the beating of drums, applause, or the howling of Bacchic revelers. It is not the silent murmuring of letters that are more than hieroglyphic; it is not the theatrical gesticulation of hands and head; it is not the stentorian recitation of words not understood; it is not the admiration of the relics of Longinus or Pilate, or the prostrate adoration of Francis and Dominic. But it is the assent of the heart and mind, resting in simple faith upon the Word of God; it is the invocation of the one true God, who is in essence one and in persons three; it is the administration of the Sacraments as they were instituted by Christ himself shortly before his agony; and it is the observance of rites introduced so that all things in the Church may be done κατὰ τάξιν καὶ εὐσχημόνως decently and in order. Religion is what releases our minds from these worldly things, like Prometheus from the Caucasus, just as it releases them from the chain of despair and distrust to the level of JOVE here used metaphorically as a reference to the divine power of God, and leads them to that upper arena of contemplation, or rather to the wrestling ground of Faith. Thus, man, having been snatched by a most happy νεκρώσει death (to the world) outside the prison of the body, may behold these μεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ great things of God as if present, and may truly conceive in his mind that ζωψάλμιον a foretaste or song of life of the future life, may be inflamed by the Spirit, and may desire to gaze upon his Redeemer face to face. Religion is the basis and foundation of all concord, which so unites and fortifies the minds of citizens that