14 - Conclusion of the whole

Summary

The addresses which I hereby conclude have directed their loud voice primarily at you, but they had in view the entire German nation; and in aim they have assembled about them, in the room in which you visibly breathe, all who might be capable of understanding the same as far as the German tongue extends. If I have succeeded in lighting a spark in any breast beating here before me now, a spark that will glimmer on and take life, then it is not my intention that they remain solitary and alone. Rather, I should like to gather to them, from across the whole of our common soil, men of similar sentiments and resolutions, and unite them, so that throughout the length and breadth of the fatherland, as far as its most distant frontiers, a single flowing and continuous flame of patriotic thought spreads out from this centre and ignites. Not for the amusement of idle eyes and ears have these addresses appealed to this age: I wish at last to know, and everyone of like mind shall know it with me, whether there are others besides us who share our way of thinking. Every German who still believes he is part of a nation, who thinks highly and nobly of it, who hopes in it, who dares, endures and suffers for it, shall at last be released from the uncertainty of his belief; he shall see clearly whether he is right or only a fool and fanatic; henceforth he should either continue his path with sure and joyful consciousness or else with a hearty determination renounce a fatherland here below and in the heavenly one find his only consolation.