Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1884 — A Real Pathway of Roses. [ARTICLE]

A Real Pathway of Roses.

One day the little town of Schwalbach suddenly became all astir, and from our windows we saw the flags of state and duchy and town and church flying—a remarkable variety of banners. It wes a great fete day in Schwalbach; the bishop was coming to town for the first time in ten years. We, too, improvised the colors of our land and flung them boldly from our windows, though we were not Romanists, and it was noticeable that the Protestant windows were dead set against all this festivity. But we belonged to the Holy Catholic Church Universal, and when the people came out in procession to meet and bring in the good bishop from the edge of the town, where he alighted from his carriage, we joined the procession and lifted up our voices with the faithful, who chanted and sung without instrumental accompaniment, as they walked through the quaint old streets. It was a pretty and an impressive sight, and nothing more unAmerican is to be imagined. All the young girls ready for confirmation were in white muslin, with wreaths of flowers upon their heads, and formed a circle held together by a rope of flowers, in the center of which the bishop, in purple and scarlet—a benevolent good old gentleman—walked with much dignity.* Rose leaves were scattered in his path. I saw one hausfrau, with the aid of her servants, scatter over two bushels of fresh red rose leaves before her house.— Margery Deane, in Boston Transcript.