A MARTYR'S CROWN 77passion for those in sorrow, and pity for criminals who had fallen
victim to passion or the maladjustments of society; and advised
his followers never to borrow money nor to expect to collect loans
made to a friend in distress. Weitling recognized that he himself
fell far short of practicing these high principles of moral conduct,
and he copied them and hung them on the wall, to serve as a
constant reminder of the frailties which he and other men had
to overcome.
The Evangelium marked the end of the period of Weitling's
major productivity, which covered the half-dozen years from
1838 to 1844, though he still had a long period of activity before
him in Europe and the United States. By modern standards, it is
difficult to find much in the Evangelium that could be considered
blasphemous. Yet even Lamennais repudiated the book when it
appeared. Its offensive passages may be overlooked when we re
call the author's high purpose to develop a gospel that would have
vitality and meaning for the common people for whom he spoke.
The book revealed an amazing familiarity with the great literature
and characters of world history. Besides a thorough knowledge of
the Bible, indicated by many specific citations to chapter and
verse, the author referred to Rousseau's Confessions, which he had
read, to Josephus and Seneca, and to Pythagoras and Socrates and
Homer's Odyssey. He recounted incidents from the lives of Zoro
aster, Castor and Pollux, Alexander the Great, Perseus and Rom
ulus; referred to Mithraism and additional material in the field of
comparative religion; and cited an array of modern writers begin
ning with Proudhon.
The little book attracted some attention outside Switzerland.
Barmby, writing in his London communist journal, likened the
"sensation" created by the Evangelium to that which marked the
appearance of Lamennais' Paroles d'un Croyant and requested a
speedy translation into English. In 1851, a correspondent from
Paris informed Weitling, then living in New York, that his old
associate, Ewerbeck, had published a work in French on religion
and the Bible and had reprinted a 43-page extract from the