XX.

Plandite cœli,Rideat ætherSummus et imusGaudeat orbis!Transivit atræTurba procellæ!Subuit almæGloria palmæ!Surgite verni,Surgite flores,Germina pictisSurgite campis!Teneris mistæViolis rosæ;Candida sparsisLilla calthis!Currite plenisCarmina venis,Fundite lætumBarbita metrum;Namque revixitSicuti dixitPius illæsusFunere Jesus.Plaudite montes,Ludite fontes,Resonent valles,Repetant colles!Io revixit.Sicuti dixitPius illæsusFunere Jesus[9]

Plandite cœli,Rideat ætherSummus et imusGaudeat orbis!Transivit atræTurba procellæ!Subuit almæGloria palmæ!

Surgite verni,Surgite flores,Germina pictisSurgite campis!Teneris mistæViolis rosæ;Candida sparsisLilla calthis!

Currite plenisCarmina venis,Fundite lætumBarbita metrum;Namque revixitSicuti dixitPius illæsusFunere Jesus.

Plaudite montes,Ludite fontes,Resonent valles,Repetant colles!Io revixit.Sicuti dixitPius illæsusFunere Jesus[9]

And when I ceased, the mountain stream which dashed over the rocks beside me, the whispering grasses, the trembling wild-flowers, the rustling forests, the lake with its ripples, the green hills and solemn snow-mountains beyond—all seemed to take up the chorus.

There is a wonderful, invigorating influence about Ulrich Zwingle, with whom I have spent many days lately. It seems as if the fresh air of the mountains among which he passed his youth were always around him. In his presence it is impossible to despond. While Luther remains immovably holding every step of ground he has taken, Zwingle presses on, and surprises the enemy asleep in his strongholds. Luther carries on the war like the Landsknechts, our own firm and impenetrable infantry; Zwingle, like his own impetuous mountaineers, sweeps down from the heights upon the foe.

In Switzerland I and my books have met with more sudden and violent varieties of reception than anywhere else; the people are so free and unrestrained. In some villages, the chief men, or the priest himself, summoned all the inhabitants by the church bell, to hear all I had to tell about Dr. Luther and his work, and to buy his books; my stay was one constantfête, and the warm-hearted peasants accompanied me miles on my way, discoursing of Zwingle and Luther, the broken yoke of Rome, and the glorious days of freedom that were coming. The names of Luther and Zwingle were on every lip, like those of Tell and Winkelried and the heroes of the old struggle of Swiss liberation.

In other villages, on the contrary, the peasants gathered angrily around me, reviled me as a spy and an intruding foreigner, and drove me with stones and rough jests from among them, threatening that I should not escape so easily another time.

In some places they have advanced much further than among us in Germany. The images have been removed from the churches, and the service is read in the language of the people.

But the great joy is to see that the light has not been spread only from torch to torch, as human illumination spread, but has burst at once on Germany, France, and Switzerland, as heavenly light dawns from above. It is this which makes it not an illumination merely, but morning and spring! Lefevre in France and Zwingle in Switzerland both passed through their period of storms and darkness, and both, awakened by the heavenly light to the new world, found that it was no solitude—that others also were awake, and that the day's work had begun, as it should, with matin songs.

Now I am tending northwards once more. I intend to renew my stores at my father's press at Wittemberg. My heart yearns also for news of all dear to me there. Perhaps, too, I may yet see Dr. Luther, and find scope for preaching the evangelical doctrine among my own people.

For better reports have come to us from Germany and we believe Dr. Luther is in friendly keeping, though where, is still a mystery.

The Prison of a Dominican Convent,Franconia,August.

All is changed for me. Once more prison walls are around me, and through prison bars I look out on the world I may not re-enter. I counted this among the costs when I resolved to give myself up to spreading far and wide the glad tidings of redemption. It was worth the cost; it is worth whatever man can inflict—for I trust that those days have not been spent in vain.

Yesterday evening, as the day was sinking, I found my way once more to the parsonage of Priest Ruprecht in the Franconian village. The door was open, but I heard no voices. There was a neglected look about the little garden. The vine was hanging untwined around the porch. The little dwelling, which had been so neat, had a dreary, neglected air. Dust lay thick on the chairs, and the remains of the last meal were left on the table. And yet it was evidently not unoccupied. A book lay upon the window-sill, evidently lately read. It was the copy of Luther's German Commentary on the Lord's Prayer which I had left that evening many months ago in the porch.

I sat down on a window seat, and in a little while I saw the priest coming slowly up the garden. His form was much bent since I saw him last. He did not look up as he approached the house. It seemed as if he expected no welcome. But when I went out to meet him, he grasped my hand cordially, and his face brightened. When, however, he glanced at the book in my hand, a deeper shade passed over his brow; and, motioning me to a chair, he sat down opposite me without speaking.

After a few minutes he looked up, and said in a husky voice, "That book did what all the denunciations and terrors of the old doctrines could not do. It separated us. She has left me."

He paused for some minutes, and then continued,—"The evening that she found that book in the porch, when I returned I found her reading it. 'See!' she said, 'at last some one has written a religious book for me! It was left here open, in the porch, at these words: "If thou dost feel that in the sight of God and all creatures thou art a fool, a sinner, impure, and condemned, ... there remaineth no solace for thee, and no salvation, unless in Jesus Christ. To know him is to understand what the apostle says,—'Christ has of God been made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.' He is the bread of God—our bread, given to us as children of the heavenly Father. To believe is nothing else than to eat this bread from heaven." And look again. The book says, "It touches God's heart when we call him Father,"—and again, "Which art in heaven." "He that acknowledges he has a Father who is in heaven, owns that he is like an orphan on the earth. Hence his heart feels an ardent longing, like a child living away from its father's country, amongst strangers, wretched and forlorn. It is as if he said, "Alas! my Father, thou art in heaven, and I, thy miserable child, am on earth, far from thee amid danger, necessity, and sorrow." 'Ah, Ruprecht,' she said, her eyes streaming with tears, 'that is so like what I feel,—so lost, and orphaned, and far away from home.' And then, fearing she had grieved me, she added, 'Not that I am neglected. Thou knowest I could never feel that. But oh, can it be possible that God would take me back, not after long years of penance, butnow, andhere, to his very heart?"

"I could say little to teach her, but from that time this book was her constant companion. She begged me to find out all the passages in my Latin Gospels which speak of Jesus suffering for sinners, and of God as the Father. I was amazed to see how many there were. The book seemed full of them. And so we went on for some days, until one evening she came to me, and said, 'Ruprecht, if God is indeed so infinitely kind and good, and has so loved us, we must obey him, must we not?' I could not for the world say No, and I had not the courage to say Yes, for I knew what she meant."

Again he paused.

"I knew too well what she meant, when, on the next morning, I found the breakfast laid, and everything swept and prepared as usual, and on the table, in printed letters on a scrap of paper, which she must have copied from the book, for she could not write, 'Farewell. We shall be able to pray for each other now. And God will be with us, and will give us to meet hereafter, without fear of grieving him, in our Father's house."

"Do you know where she is?" I asked.

"She has taken service in a farm-house several miles away in the forest," he replied. "I have seen her once. She looked very thin and worn. But she did not see me."

The thought which had so often suggested itself to me before, came with irresistible force into my mind then,—"If those vows of celibacy are contrary to the will of God, can they be binding?" But I did not venture to suggest them to my host. I only said, "Let us pray that God will lead you both. The heart can bear many a heavy burden if the conscience is free!"

"True," he said. And together we knelt down, whilst I spoke to God. And the burden of our prayer was neither more nor less than this, "Our Father which art in heaven, not our will, but thine be done."

On the morrow I bade him farewell, leaving him several other works of Luther's. And I determined not to lose an hour in seeking Melancthon and the doctors of Wittemberg, and placing this case before them.

And now, perhaps, I shall never see Wittemberg again!

It is not often that I have ventured into the monasteries, but to-day a young monk, who was walking in the meadows of this abbey, seemed so interested in my books, that I followed him to the convent, where he thought I should dispose of many copies. Instead of this, however, whilst I was waiting in the porch for him to return, I heard the sound of angry voices in discussion inside, and before I could perceive what it meant, three or four monks came to me, seized my pack, bound my hands, and dragged me to the convent prison, where I now am.

"It is time that this pestilence should be checked," said one of them. "Be thankful if your fate is not the same as that of your poisonous books, which are this evening to make a bonfire in the court."

And with these words I was left alone in this low, damp, dark cell, with its one little slit high in the wall, which, until my eyes grew accustomed to it, seemed only to admit just light enough to show the iron fetters hanging from the walls. But what power can make me a captive while I can sing:—

Mortis portis practis, fortisFortior vim sustulit;Et per crucem regem trucem,Infernorum perculit.Lumen clarum tenebrarumSedibus resplenduit;Dum salvare, recreareQuod creavit, voluit.Hinc creator, ne peccator,Moreretur, moritur;Cujus morte, nova sorte,Vita nobis oritur.[10]

Mortis portis practis, fortisFortior vim sustulit;Et per crucem regem trucem,Infernorum perculit.

Lumen clarum tenebrarumSedibus resplenduit;Dum salvare, recreareQuod creavit, voluit.

Hinc creator, ne peccator,Moreretur, moritur;Cujus morte, nova sorte,Vita nobis oritur.[10]

Are not countless hearts now singing this resurrection hymn, to some of whom my hands brought the joyful tidings? In the lonely parsonage, in the forest and farm, hearts set free by love from the fetters of sin—in village and city, in mountain and plain!

And at Wittemberg, in happy homes, and in the convent, are not my beloved singing it too?

September.

Yet the time seems long to lie in inaction here. With these tidings, "The Lord is risen," echoing through her heart, would it not have been hard for the Magdalene to be arrested on her way to the bereaved disciples before she could tell it?

October.

I have a hope of escape. In a corner of my prison I discovered, some days since, the top of an arch, which I believe must belong to a blocked-up door. By slow degrees—working by night, and covering over my work by day—I have dug out a flight of steps which led to it. This morning I succeeded in dislodging one of the stones with which the door-way had been roughly filled up, and through the space surveyed the ground outside. It was a portion of a meadow, sloping to the stream which turned the abbey mills. This morning two of the monks came to summon me to an examination before the Prior, as to my heresies; but to-night I hope to dislodge the few more stones, and this very night, before morning dawn, to be treading with free step the forest covered hills beyond the valley.

My limbs feel feeble with insufficient food, and the damp, close air of the cell; and the blood flows with feverish, uncertain rapidity through my veins; but, doubtless, a few hours on the fresh, breezy hills will set all this right.

And yet once more I shall see my mother, and Elsè, and Thekla, and little Gretchen, and all—all but one, who, I fear, is still imprisoned in convent walls. Yet once more I trust to go throughout the land spreading the joyful tidings.—"The Lord is risen indeed;" the work of redemption is accomplished, and He who once lived and suffered on earth, compassionate to heal, now lives and reigns in heaven, mighty to save.

Tunnenberg,May, 1521

Is the world really the same? Was there really ever a spring like this, when the tide of life seems overflowing and bubbling up in leaf-buds, flowers, and song, and streams?

It cannot beonlythat God has given me the great blessing of Bertrand de Crèqui's love, and that life opens in such bright fields of hope and work before us two; or that this is the first spring I ever spent in the country. It seems to me that God is really pouring a tide of fresh life throughout the world.

Fritz has escaped from the prison at Maintz, and he writes as if he felt this an Easter-tide for all men. In all places, he says, the hearts of men are opening to the glad tidings of the redeeming love of God.

Can it be, however, that every May is such a festival among the woods, and that this solemn old forest holds such fairy holiday every year, garlanding its bare branches and strewing every brown nook which a sunbeam can reach, with showers of flowers, such as we strew on a bride's path? And then, who could have imagined that those grave old firs and stately birches could become the cradles of all these delicate-tufted blossoms and tenderly-folded leaflets, bursting on all sides from their gummy casings? And—joy of all joys!—it is not unconscious vegetable life only which thus expands around us. It is God touching every branch and hidden root, and waking them to beauty! It is not sunshine merely, and soft breezes; it is our Father smiling on his works, and making the world fresh and fair for his children,—it is the healing touch and the gracious Voice we have learned to know. "We are in the world, and the world was made by Thee;" "Te Deum laudamus: we acknowledge thee, O Saviour, to be the Lord."

Our Chriemhild certainly has a beautiful home. Bertrand's home, also, is a castle in the country, in Flanders. But he says their country is not like this forest-land. It has long been cleared by industrious hands. There are long stately avenues leading to his father's chateau; but all around, the land is level, and waving with grass and green or golden corn-fields. That, also, must be beautiful. But probably the home he has gone to prepare for me may not be there. Some of his family are very bitter against what they call his Lutheran heresy, and although he is the heir, it is very possible that the branch of the family which adheres to the old religion may wrest the inheritance from him. That, we think, matters little. God will find the right place for us, and lead us to it, if we ask him. And if it be in the town, after all, the tide of life in human hearts is nobler than that in trees and flowers. In a few months we shall know. Perhaps he may return here, and become a professor at Wittemberg, whither Dr. Luther's name brought him a year since to study.

June, 1521.

A rumour has reached us, that Dr. Luther has disappeared on his way back from Worms.

This spring, in the world as well as in the forest, will doubtless have its storms. Last night, the thunder echoed from hill to hill, and the wind wailed wildly among the pines. Looking out of my narrow window in the tower on the edge of the rock, where I sleep, it was awful to see the foaming torrent below gleaming in the lightning-flashes, which opened out sudden glimpses into the depths of the forest, leaving it doubly mysterious.

I thought of Fritz's lonely night, when he lost himself in the forest; and thanked God that I had learned to know the thunder as His voice, and His voice as speaking peace and pardon. Only, at such times I should like to gather all dear to me around me; and those dearest to me are scattered far and wide.

The old knight Ulrich is rather impetuous and hot-tempered; and his sister, Ulrich's aunt, Dame Hermentrud, is grave and stately. Fortunately, they both look on Chriemhild as a wonder of beauty and goodness; but I have to be rather careful. Dame Hermentrud is apt to attribute any over-vehemence of mine in debate to the burgher Cotta-blood; and although they both listen with interest to Ulrich or Chriemhild's version of Dr. Luther's doctrines, Dame Hermentrud frequently warns me against unfeminine exaggeration or eagerness in these matters, and reminds me that the ancestors of the Gersdorf family were devout and excellent people long before a son was born to Hans Luther the miner.

The state of the peasants distresses Chriemhild and me extremely. She and Ulrich were full of plans for their good when they came here to live; but she is at present almost exclusively occupied with the education of a little knightly creature, who came into the world two months since, and is believed to concentrate in his single little person all the ancestral virtues of all the Gersdorfs, to say nothing of the Schönbergs. He has not, Dame Hermantrud asserts, the slightest feature of resemblance to the Cottas. I cannot, certainly, deny that he bears unmistakable traces of that aristocratic temper and that lofty taste for ruling which at times distinguished my grandmother, and, doubtless, all the Gersdorfs from the days of Adam downward, or at least from the time of Babel. Beyond that, I believe, few pedigrees are traced, except in a general way to the sons of Noah. But it is a great honour for me to be connected, even in the humblest manner, with such a distinguished little being. In time, I am not without hopes that it will introduce a little reflex nobility even into my burgher nature: and meantime Chriemhild and I secretly trace remarkable resemblances in the dear baby features to our grandmother, and even to our beloved, sanguine, blind father. It is certainly a great consolation that our father chose our names from the poems and the stars and the calendar of aristocratic saints, instead of from the lowly Cotta pedigree.

Ulrich has not indeed by any means abandoned his scheme of usefulness among the peasantry who live on his uncle's estates. But he finds more opposition than he expected. The old knight, although ready enough to listen to any denunciations of the self-indulgent priests and lazy monks (especially those of the abbey whose hunting-grounds adjoin his own), is very averse to making the smallest change in anything. He says the boors are difficult enough to keep in order as it is; that if they are taught to think for themselves, there will be no safety for the game, or for anything else. They will be quoting the Bible in all kinds of wrong senses against their rightful lords, and will perhaps even take to debating the justice of the hereditary feuds, and refuse to follow their knight's banner to the field.

As to religion, he is quite sure that the Ave and the Pater are as much as will be expected of them; whilst Dame Hermentrud has most serious doubts of this new plan of writing books and reading prayers in the language of the common people. They will be thinking themselves as wise as the priests, and perhaps wiser than their masters.

But Ulrich's chief disappointment is with the peasants themselves. They seem as little anxious for improvement as the lords are for them, and are certainly suspicious to a most irritating degree of any schemes for their welfare issuing from the castle. As to their children being taught to read, they consider it an invasion of their rights, and murmur that if they follow the nobles in hunt and foray, and till their fields, and go to mass on Sunday, the rest of their time is their own, and it is an usurpation in priest or knight to demand more.

It will, I fear, be long before the dry, barren crust of their dull hard life is broken; and yet the words of life are for them as much as for us! And one great difficulty seems to me, that if they were taught to read, there are so few German religious books. Except a few tracts of Dr. Luther's, what is there that they could understand? If some one would only translate the record of the words and acts of our Lord and his apostles, it would be worth while then teaching every one to read.

And if we could only get them to confide in us! There must be thought, and we know there is affection underneath all this reserve. It is a heavy heritage for the long ancestry of the Gersdorfs to have bequeathed to this generation, these recollections of tyranny and this mutual distrust. Yet Ulrich says it is too common throughout the land. Many of the old privileges of the nobles were so terribly oppressive in hard or careless hands.

The most promising field at present seems to be among the household retainers. Among these there is strong personal attachment; and the memory of Ulrich's pious mother seems to have left behind it that faith in goodness which is one of the most precious legacies of holy lives.

Even the peasants in the village speak lovingly of her; of the medicine she used to distil from the forest-herbs, and distribute with her own hands to the sick. There is a tradition also in the castle of a bright maiden called Beatrice who used to visit the cottage homes, and bring sunshine whenever she came. But she disappeared years ago, they say; and the old family nurse shakes her head as she tells me how the Lady Beatrice's heart was broken, when she was separated by family feuds from her betrothed, and after that she went to the convent at Nimptschen, and has been dead to the world ever since.

Nimptschen! that is the living grave where our precious Eva is buried. And yet where she is I am sure it can be no grave of death. She will bring life and blessings with her. I will write to her, especially about this poor blighted Beatrice.

Altogether the peasants seem much less suspicious of the women of the Gersdorf family than of the men. They will often listen attentively even to me. And when Chriemhild can go among them a little more, I hope better days will dawn.

August, 1521.

This morning we had a strange encounter. Some days since we received a mysterious intimation from Wittemberg, that Dr. Luther is alive and in friendly keeping, not far from us. To-day Ulrich and I were riding through the forest to visit an outlying farm of the Gersdorfs in the direction of Eisenach, when we heard across a valley the huntsman's horn, with the cry of the dogs in full chase. In a few moments an opening among the trees brought us in sight of the hunt sweeping towards us up the opposite slopes of the valley. Apart from the hunt, and nearer us, at a narrow part of the valley, we observed a figure in the cap and plumes of a knight, apparently watching the chase as we were. As we were looking at him, a poor bewildered leveret flew towards him, and cowered close to his feet. He stooped, and gently taking it up, folded it in the long sleeve of his tunic, and stepped quickly aside. In another minute, however, the hunt swept up towards him, and the dogs scenting the leveret, seized on it in its refuge, dragged it down, and killed it.

This unusual little incident, this human being putting himself on the side of the pursued, instead of among the pursuers, excited our attention. There was also something is the firm figure and sturdy gait that perplexingly reminded us of some one we knew. Our road lay across the valley, and Ulrich rode aside to greet the strange knight. In a moment he returned to me, and whispered,—

"It is Martin Luther!"

We could not resist the impulse to look once more on the kind honest face, and riding close to him we bowed to him.

He gave us a smile of recognition, and laying his hand on Ulrich's saddle said, softly, "The chase is a mystery of higher things. See how, as these ferocious dogs seized my poor leveret from its refuge, Satan rages against souls, and seeks to tear from their hiding-place even those already saved. But the Arm which holds them is stronger than mine. I have had enough of this kind of chase," he added; "sweeter to me the chase of the bears, wolves, boars, and foxes which lay waste the Church, than that of these harmless creatures. And of such rapacious beasts there are enough in the world."

My heart was full of the poor peasants I had been seeing lately. I never could feel afraid of Dr. Luther, and this opportunity was too precious to be thrown away. It always seemed the most natural thing in the world to open one's heart to him. He understood so quickly and so fully. As he was wishing us good-bye, therefore, I said (I am afraid, in that abrupt blundering way of mine),—

"Dear Dr. Luther, the poor peasants here are so ignorant! and I have scarcely anything to read to them which they can understand. Tell some one, I entreat you, to translate the Gospels into German for them; such German as your 'Discourse on the Magnificat,' or 'The Lord's Prayer,' for they all understand that."

He smiled, and said, kindly,—

"It is being done, my child. I am trying in my Patmos tower once more to unveil the Revelation to the common people; and, doubtless, they will hear it gladly. That book alone is the sun from which all true teachers draw their light. Would that it were in the language of every man, held in every hand, read by every eye, listened to by every ear, treasured up in every heart. And it will be yet, I trust."

He began to move away, but as we looked reverently after him he turned to us again, and said, "Remember the wilderness was the scene of the temptation. Pray for me, that in the solitude of my wilderness I may be delivered from the tempter." And waving his hand, in a few minutes he was out of sight.

We thought it would be an intrusion to follow him, or to inquire where he was concealed. But as the hunt passed away, Ulrich recognized one of the huntsmen as a retainer of the Elector Frederick at his castle of the Wartburg.

And now when every night and morning in my prayers I add, as usual, the name of Dr. Luther to those of my mother and father and all dear to me, I think of him passing long days and nights alone in that grim castle, looking down on the dear old Eisenach valley, and I say, "Lord, make the wilderness to him the school for his ministry to all our land."

For was not our Saviour himself led first into the wilderness, to overcome the tempter in solitude, before he came forth to teach, and heal, and cast out devils?

October.

Ulrich has seen Dr. Luther again. He was walking in the forest near the Wartburg, and looked very ill and sad. His heart was heavy on account of the disorders in the Church, the falsehood and bitterness of the enemies of the gospel, and the impetuosity or lukewarmness of too many of its friends. He said it would almost have been better if they had left him to die by the hands of his enemies. His blood might have cried to God for deliverance. He was ready to yield himself to them as an ox to the yoke. He would rather be burned on live coals, than sleep away the precious years thus, half alive, in sloth and ease. And yet, from what Ulrich gathered further from him of his daily life, his "sloth and ease" would seem arduous toil to most men. He saw the room where Dr. Luther lives and labours day and night, writing letters of consolation to his friends, and masterly replies, they say, to the assailants of the truth, and (better than all) translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into German.

The room has a large window commanding many reaches of the forest; and he showed Ulrich the rookery in the tops of the trees below, whence he learned lessons in politics from the grave consultations of the rooks who hold their Diet there; he also spoke to him of the various creatures in rock and forest which soothed his solitude, the birds singing among the branches, the berries, wild flowers, and the clouds and stars. But he alluded also to fearful conflicts, visible and audible appearances of the Evil One; and his health seemed much shattered.

We fear that noble loving heart is wearing itself out in the lonely fortress. He seems chafing like a war-horse at the echo of the distant battle; or a hunter at the sound of the chase; or, rather, as a captive general who sees his troops, assailed by force and stratagem, broken and scattered, and cannot break his chains to rally and to lead them on.

Yet he spoke most gratefully of his hospitable treatment in the castle; said he was living like a prince or a cardinal; and deprecated the thought that the good cause would not prosper without his presence.

"I cannot be with them in death," he said, "nor they with me! Each must fight that last fight, go through that passion alone. And only those will overcome who have learned how to win the victory before, and grounded deep in the heart that word, which is the great power against sin and the devil, that Christ has died for each one of us, and has overcome Satan for ever."

He said also that if Melancthon lived it mattered little to the Church what happened to him. The Spirit of Elijah came in double power on Elisha.

And he gave Ulrich two or three precious fragments of his translation of the Gospels, for me to read to the peasants.

November.

I have gone with my precious bits of the German Bible that is to be into many a cottage during this month,—simple narratives of poor, leprous, and palsied people, who came to the Lord, and he touched them and healed their diseases; and of sinners whom he forgave.

It is wonderful how the simple people seem to drink them in; that is, those who care at all for such things. "Is this indeed what the Lord Christ is like?" they say; "then, surely, we may speak to him in our own words, and ask just what we want, as those poor men and women did of old. Is it true, indeed, that peasants, women, and sick people could come straight to the Lord himself? Was he not always kept off from common people by a band of priests and saints? Was he indeed to be spoken to by all, and He such a great Lord?"

I said that I thought it was the necessity of human princes, and not their glory, to be obliged to employ deputies, and not let each one plead his own case. They look greatest afar off, surrounded by the pomp of a throne, because in themselves they are weak and sinful, like other men. But he needed no pomp, nor the dignity of distance, because he is not like other men, but sinless and divine, and the glory is in Himself, not in the things around him.

Then I had a narrative of the crucifixion to read; and many a tear have I seen stream over rough cheeks, and many a smile beam in dim aged eyes as I read this.

"We seem to understand it all at once," an old woman said; "and yet there always seems something more in it each time."

December.

This morning I had a letter from Bertrand,—the first for many weeks. He is full of hope; not, indeed, of recovering his inheritance, but of being at Wittemberg again in a few weeks.

I suppose my face looked very bright when I received it and ran with the precious letter to my own room; for Dame Hermentrud said much this evening about receiving everything with moderation, and about the propriety of young maidens having a very still and collected demeanour, and about the uncertainty of all things below. My heavenly Father knows I do not forget that all things are uncertain; although, often, I dare not dwell on it. But He has given me this good gift—He himself—and I will thank him with an overflowing heart for it!

I cannot understand Dame Hermentrud's religion. She seems to think it prudent, and a duty, to take everything God gives coolly, as if we did not care very much about it, lest He should think he had given us something too good for us, and grudge it to us, and take it away again.

No; if God does take away, He takes away as He gave, in infinite love; and I would not for the world add darkness to the dark days, if they must come, by the bitter regret that I did not enjoy the sunshine whilst He gave it. For, indeed, I cannot help fearing sometimes, when I think of the martyrs of old, and the bitterness of the enemies of the good tidings now. But then I try to look up, and try to say, "Safer, O Father, in thy hands than in mine." And all the comfort of the prayer depends on how I can comprehend and feel that name, "Father!"

Cistercian Convent,Nimptschen,September2, 1521.

They have sent me several sheets of Dr. Luther's translation of the New Testament, from Uncle Cotta's press at Wittemberg.

Of all the works he ever did for God, this seems to me the mightiest and the best. None has ever so deeply stirred our convent. Many of the sisters positively refuse to join in any invocation of the saints. They declare that it must be Satan himself who has kept this glorious book locked up in a dead language out of reach of women and children and the common people. And the young nuns say it is so interesting, it is not in the least like a book of sermons, or a religious treatise.

"It is like every-day life," said one of them to me, "with what every one wants brought into it; a perfect Friend, so infinitely good, so near, and so completely understanding our inmost hearts. Ah, Sister Eva," she added, "if they could only hear of this at home!"

October.

To-day we have received a copy of Dr. Luther's thesis against the monastic life.

"There is but one only spiritual estate," he writes, "which is holy and makes holy, and that is Christianity,—the faith which is the common right of all."

"Monastic institutions," he continues, "to be of any use ought to be schools, in which children may be brought up until they are adults. But as it is, they are houses in which men and women become children, and ever continue childish."

Too well, alas! I know the truth of these last words; the hopeless, childish occupation with trifles, into which the majority of the nuns sink when the freshness of youth and the bitter conflict of separation from all dear to the heart has subsided, and the great incidents of life have become the decorating the church for a festival, or the pomp attending the visit of an Inspector or Bishop.

It is against this I have striven. It is this I dread for the young sisters; to see them sink into contented trifling with religious playthings. And I have been able to see no way of escape, unless, indeed, we could be transferred to some city and devote ourselves to the case of the sick and poor.

Dr. Luther, however, admits of another solution. We hear that he has counselled the Prior of the Monastery at Erfurt to suffer any monks who wish it freely to depart. And many, we have been told, in various monasteries, have already left, and returned to serve God in the world.

Monks can, indeed, do this. The world is open before them, and in some way they are sure to find occupation. But with us it is different. Torn away from our natural homes, the whole world around us is a trackless desert.

Yet how can I dare to say this? Since the whole world is the work of our heavenly father's hands, and may be the way to our Father's house, will not He surely find a place for each of us in it, and a path for us through it?

November10.

Nine of the younger nuns have come to the determination, if possible, to give up the conventual life, with its round of superstitious observances. This evening we held a consultation in Sister Beatrice's cell. Aunt Agnes joined us.

It was decided that each should write to her relatives, simply confessing that she believed the monastic vows and life to be contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and praying to be received back into her family.

Sister Beatrice and Aunt Agnes decided to remain patiently where they were.

"My old home would be no more a home to me now than the convent," Sister Beatrice said. "There is liberty for me to die here, and an open way for my spirit to return to God."

And Aunt Agnes said,—

"Who knows but that there may be some lowly work left for me to do here yet! In the world I should be as helpless as a child, and why should I return to be a burden on my kindred."

They both urged me to write to Elsè or Aunt Cotta to receive me. But I can scarcely think it my duty. Aunt Cotta has her children around her. Elsè's home is strange to me. Besides, kind as every one has been to me, I am as a stray waif on the current of this world, and have no home in it. I think God has enabled me to cheer and help some few here, and while Aunt Agnes and Sister Beatrice remain, I cannot bear the thought of leaving. At all events I will wait.

November22.

Fritz is in prison again. For many weeks they had heard nothing from him, and were wondering where he was, when a letter came from a priest called Ruprect Haller, in Franconia. He says Fritz came to his house one evening in July, remained the night, left next morning with his pack of Lutheran books, intending to proceed direct to Wittemberg, and gave him the address of Aunt Cotta there. But a few weeks afterwards a young monk met him near the Dominican Convent, and asked if he were the priest at whose house a pedlar had spent a night a few weeks before. The priest admitted it; whereon the young monk said to him, in a low, hurried accent,—

"Write to his friends, if you know them, and say he is in the prison of the convent, under strong suspicion of heresy. I am the young monk to whom he gave a book on the evening he came. Tell them I did not intend to betray him, although I led him into the net; and if ever they should procure his escape, and you see him again, tell him I have kept his book." The good priest says something also about Fritz having been his salvation. And he urges that the most strenuous exertions should be made to liberate him, and any powerful friends we have should be entreated to intercede, because the Prior of the Dominican Convent where he is imprisoned is a man of the severest temper, and a mighty hater of heretics.

Powerful friends! I know none whom we can entreat but God.

It was in July, then, that he was captured, two months since. I wonder if it is only my impatient spirit! but I feel as if Imustgo to Aunt Cotta. I have a feeling she will want me now. I think I might comfort her; for who can tell what two months in a Dominican prison may have done for him?

In our convent have we not a prison, low, dark, and damp enough to weigh the life out of any one in six weeks! From one of the massive low pillars hang heavy iron fetters, happily rusted now from disuse; and in a corner are a rack and other terrible instruments, now thrown aside there, on which some of the older nuns say they have seen stains of blood.

When he was in prison before at Mainz, I did not seem so desponding about his deliverance as I feel now.

Are these fears God's merciful preparations for some dreadful tidings about to reach us? or are they the mere natural enfeebling of the power to hope as one grows older?

December, 1521.

Many disappointments have fallen on us during the last fortnight. Answer after answer has come to those touching entreaties of the nine sisters to their kindred, in various tones of feeling, but all positively refusing to receive them back to their homes.

Some of the relatives use the bitterest reproaches and the severest menaces. Others write tenderly and compassionately, but all agree that no noble family can possibly bring on itself the disgrace of aiding a professed nun to break her vows. Poor children! my heart aches for them, some of them are so young, and were so confident of being welcomed back with open arms, remembering the tears with which they were given up.

Now indeed they are thrown on God. He will not fail them; but who can say what thorny paths their feet may have to tread?

It has also been discovered here that some of them have written thus to their relations, which renders their position far more difficult and painful.

Many of the older nuns are most indignant at what they consider an act of the basest treachery and sacrilege. I also am forbidden to have any more intercourse with the suspected sisters. Search has been made in every cell, and all the Lutheran books have been seized, whilst the strictest attendance is required at all the services.

February10, 1522.

Sister Beatrice is dead, after a brief illness. The gentle, patient spirit is at rest.

It seems difficult to think of joy associated with that subdued and timid heart, even in heaven. I can only think of her asat rest.

One night after she died I had a dream, in which I seemed to see her entering into heaven. Robed and veiled in white, I saw her slowly ascending the way to the gates of the City. Her head and her eyes were cast on the ground, and she did not seem to dare to look up at the pearly gates, even to see if they were open or closed. But two angels, the gentlest spirits in heaven, came out and met her, and each taking one of her hands, led her silently inside, like a penitent child. And as she entered, the harps and songs within seemed to be hushed to music soft as the dreamy murmur of a summer noon. Still she did not look up, but passed through the golden streets with her hands trustingly folded in the hands of the angels, until she stood before the throne. Then from the throne came a Voice, which said, "Beatrice, it is I; be not afraid." And when she heard that voice, a quiet smile beamed over her face like a glory, and for the first time she raised her eyes; and sinking at His feet, murmured, "Home!" And it seemed to me as if that one word from the low, trembling voice vibrated through every harp in heaven; and from countless voices, ringing as happy children's, and tender as a mother's, came back, in a tide of love and music, the word, "Welcome home."

This was only a dream; but it is no dream that she is there!

She said little in her illness. She did not suffer much. The feeble frame made little resistance to the low fever which attacked her. The words she spoke were mostly expressions of thankfulness for little services, or entreaties for forgiveness for any little pain she fancied she might have given.

Aunt Agnes and I chiefly waited on her. She was uneasy if we were long away from her. Her thoughts often recurred to her girlhood in the old castle in the Thuringian Forest; and she liked to hear me speak of Chriemhild and Ulrich, and their infant boy. One evening she called me to her, and said, "Tell my sister Hermentrud, and my brother, I am sure they all meant kindly in sending me here; and it has been a good place for me, especially since you came. But tell Chriemhild and Ulrich," she added, "if they have daughters, to remember plighted troth is a sacred thing, and let it not be lightly severed. Not that the sorrow has been evil for me; only I would not have another suffer. All, all has been good for me, and I so unworthy of all!"

Then passing her thin hands over my head as I knelt beside her, she said, "Eva, you have been like a mother, a sister, a child,—everything to me. Go back to your old home when I am gone. I like to think you will be there."

Then, as if fearing she might have been ungrateful to Aunt Agnes, she asked for her, and said, "I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me. The blessed Lord will remember it; for did he not say, 'In that ye have done it unto theleast.'"

And in the night, as I sat by her alone, she said, "Eva, I have dreaded very much to die. I am so very weak in spirit, and dread everything. But I think God must make it easier for the feeble such as me. For although I do not feel any stronger I am not afraid now. It must be because He is holding me up."

She then asked me to sing; and with a faltering voice I sung, as well as I could, the hymn,Astant angelorum chori:—

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