Alarmed at the political aspect of Germany and Europe, Schlegel deemed the moment had arrived, when every friend of religion and social order should be found at his post. The importance of the struggle--the violence of parties--the false line of policy adopted by most governments--the errors and delusions too prevalent even among many of the defenders of legitimacy, rendered the warning voice of an enlightened mediator more necessary than ever. In conjunction with his illustrious friend, Adam Müller, and some of the Redemptorists--a most able, amiable, and exemplary body of ecclesiastics at Vienna--he established in 1820, a religious and political journal, entitled "Concordia." In a series of articles, entitled "Characteristics of the age," and which contain a most masterly sketch of the political state and prospects of the principal European countries, Schlegel has given a fuller exposition of his political principles, than in any other of his writings which have come under my notice. The extreme interest and importance of the matters discussed in these articles, and still more, the light they throw on very many passages in the following translation, have induced me to lay before the reader a rapid analysis of such parts as embody the author's political system. I shall therefore now proceed to this task, premising that in this analysis I shall occasionally interweave a remark of my own, to illustrate the author's views.--
There are five essential and eternal corporations in human society--the family--the church--the state--the guild--and the school.
I. The family is the smallest and simplest corporation--the ground-work of all the others;--and on its right constitution and moral development depend, as we shall presently see, the freedom, prosperity, and enlightenment of the state, the guild, and the school.
II. With respect to the church, its constitution under the primitive revelation was purely domestic; religious instruction and the solemnization of religious offices, being intrusted to the heads of families and tribes. In the Mosaic law, the Almighty founded a _public_ ministry in the synagogue, which was an admirable type of the future constitution of the Christian church. Unlike the local and temporary synagogue, the Christian church is perpetual and universal--but like the synagogue, it hath a public ministry. "This church, to use Schlegel's own words, is that great and divine corporation which embraces all other social relations, protects them under its vault, crowns them with dignity, and lovingly imparts to them the power of a peculiar consecration. The church is not a mere substitute formed to supply or repair the deficiencies of the other social institutes and corporations; but is itself a free, peculiar, independent corporation, pervading all states, and in its object exalted far above them--an union and society with God, from whom it immediately derives its sustaining power."[12]