Here in Kreusnach we meet with men and women from the most distant parts of the Continent, attracted by the fame of this salt water. A Russian gentleman and wife, with an infant child, on whose account they came, had travelled six weeks in a sledge to St. Petersburg. Their children had died of scrofula, and they brought this live one over that vast tract of country, through northern cold, that its system in infancy might be renovated by this modern Bethesda. The Princess of Mecklenberg is here now, and last Sunday she proposed to attend the English Church service. The good rector heard of her intention, and thought it his duty to call and pay his respects. Unhappily he could not speak a word of German, and when he attempted to introduce himself at the door of the Princess’ lodgings, the servant understood him to be the postman, and brought him the letters ready to go to the post-office. His call was only deference to rank, and there was no need of it, except as every sinner needs a pastor’s care, and the Princess took no notice of it.
At a cell in the hill-side near the spring, _whey_ is dispensed to those who daily drink it for the whey-cure. It has a great repute. So has the grape-cure in August and September. Either of them is just as good as the salt-water-cure, and that is good beyond a doubt. I have great faith in any kind of doctoring that includes rest from business, with moderate eating and drinking, and plenty of exercise in the open air. Give the waters the credit of it, or the whey, or the grapes, or the doctors, it makes no difference what or who has the credit, if you have the cure.
But stop this everlasting rushing after the world that is perishing, and wait a little while at Kreusnach, or Kissingen, or one of a dozen places I could name. Here take your ease. Eat, drink, and be happy. Bathe your weary limbs in these youth-renewing waters. Walk out among these surrounding forests and hills. There stands the ruined Castle of Rheingraffenstein, on a crag that overhangs the Nahe; wind your way up one side, and when you have rested on the height, pick your way down the other side to a garden on the banks of the river; there refresh again; then in one of the little boats be rowed down to Ebernburg, the site of an ancient castle, which has now been remodelled into a hotel; but the relics of Luther and other Reformers who once were sheltered here are still preserved, as well as the balls with which the French blew the old towers off the hill into the waters below. Rusty swords, spears, chains, and old keys are laid in heaps, as some slight index of the good time coming, when spears and swords shall be turned into ploughs and pruning-knives.