XXVIII.

Wittemberg,January, 1525.

How little idea I had how the thought of Fritz was interwoven with all my life! He says he knew only too well how the thoughts of me was bound up with every hope and affection of his!

But he contended against it long. He said that conflict was far more agonizing than all he suffered in the prison since. For many years he thought it sin to think of me. I never thought it sin to think of him. I was sure it was not, whatever my confessor might say. Because I had always thanked God more than for anything else in the world, for all he had been to me, and had taught me, and I felt so sure what I could thank God for could not be wrong.

But now it isdutyto love him best. Of that I am quite sure. And certainly it is not difficult. My only fear is that he will be disappointed in me when he learns just what I am, day by day, with all the halo of distance gone. And yet I am not really afraid. Love weaves better glories than the mists of distance. And we do not expect miracles from each other, or that life is to be a Paradise. Only the unutterable comfort of being side by side in every conflict, trial, joy, and supporting each other! If I can say "only" of that! For I do believe our help will be mutual. Far weaker and less wise as I am than he is, with a range of thought and experience so much narrower, and a force of purpose so much feebler, I feel I have a kind of strength which may in some way, at some times even help Fritz. And it is this which makes me see the good of these separated years, in which otherwise I might have lost so much. With him the whole world seems so much larger and higher to me, and yet during these years, I do feel God has taught me something, and it is a happiness to have a little more to bring him than I could have had in my early girlhood.

It was for my sake, then, he made that vow of leaving us for ever!

And Aunt Cotta is so happy. On that evening when he returned, and we three were left alone, she said, after a few minutes' silence—

"Children, let us all kneel down, and thank God that he has given me the desire of my heart."

And afterwards she told us what she had always wished and planned for Fritz and me, and how she had thought his abandoning of the world a judgment for her sins; but how she was persuaded now that the curse borne for us was something infinitely more than anything she could have endured, and that it had been all borne, and nailed to the bitter cross, and rent and blotted out for ever. And now, she said, she felt as if the last shred of evil were gone, and her life were beginning again in us—to be blessed and a blessing beyond her utmost dreams.

Fritz does not like to speak much of what he suffered in the prison of that Dominican convent, and least of all to me; because, although I repeat to myself, "It is over—over for ever!"—whenever I think of his having been on the dreadful rack, it all seems present again.

He was on the point of escaping the very night they came and led him in for examination in the torture-chamber. And after that, they carried him back to prison, and seemed to have left him to die there. For two days they sent him no food; but then the young monk who had first spoken to him, and induced him to come to the convent, managed to steal to him almost every day with food and water, and loving words of sympathy, until his strength revived a little, and they escaped together through the opening he had dug in the wall before the examination. But their escape was soon discovered, and they had to hide in the caves and recesses of the forest for many weeks before they could strike across the country and find their way to Wittemberg at last.

But it is over now. And yet not over. He who suffered will never forget the suffering faithfully borne for him. And the prison at the Dominican convent will be a fountain of strength for his preaching among the peasants in the Thuringian Forest. He will be able to say, "God can sustain in all trials. He will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able to bear.I know it, for I have proved it." And I think that will help him better to translate the Bible to the hearts of the poor, than even the Greek and Hebrew he learned at Rome and Tübingen.

All our little world is in such a tumult of thankfulness and joy at present, that I think I am the only sober person left in it.

The dear mother hovers around her two lost ones with quiet murmurs of content, like a dove around her nest, and is as absorbed as if she were marrying her first daughter, or were a bride herself, instead of being the established and honoured grandmother that she is. Chriemhild and I might find it difficult not to be envious, if we had not our own private consolations at home.

Eva and Fritz are certainly far more reasonable, and instead of regarding the whole world as centering in them, like our dear mother, appear to consider themselves made to serve the whole world, which is more Christian-like, but must also have its limits. I cannot but feel it a great blessing for them that they have Chriemhild and Ulrich, and more especially Gottfried and me, to look after their temporal affairs.

For instance, house linen. Eva, of course, has not a piece; and as to her bridal attire, I believe she would be content to be married in a nun's robe, or in the peasant's dress she escaped from Nimptschen in. However, I have stores which, as Gretchen is not likely to require them just yet, will, no doubt, answer the purpose. Gretchen is not more than eight, but I always think it well to be beforehand; and my maidens had already a stock of linen enough to stock several chests for her, which, under the circumstances, seems quite a special providence.

Gottfried insists upon choosing her wedding dress. And my mother believes her own ancestral jewelled head-dress with the pearls (which once in our poverty we nearly sold to a merchant at Eisenach) has been especially preserved for Eva.

It is well that Atlantis, who is to be married on the same day, is the meekest and most unselfish of brides, and that her marriage outfit is already all but arranged.

Chriemhild and Ulrich have persuaded the old knight to rebuild the parsonage; and she writes what a delight it is to watch it rising among the cottages in the village, and think of the fountain of blessing that house will be to all.

Our grandmother insists on working with her dear, feeble hands, on Eva's wedding stores, and has ransacked her scanty remnants of former splendour, and brought out many a quaint old jewel from the ancient Schönberg treasures.

Christopher is secretly preparing them a library of all Dr. Luther's and Dr. Melancthon's books, beautifully bound, and I do not know how many learned works besides.

And the melancholy has all passed from Fritz's face, or only remains as the depth of a river to bring out the sparkle of its ripples.

The strain seems gone from Eva's heart and his. They both seem for the first time all they were meant to be.

Just now, however, another event is almost equally filling our grandmother's heart.

A few days since, Christopher brought in two foreigners to introduce to us. When she saw them, her work dropped from her hands, and half rising to meet them, she said some words in a language strange to all of us.

The countenances of the strangers brightened as she spoke, and they replied in the same language.

After a few minutes' conversation, our grandmother turned to us, and said,—

"They are Bohemians,—they are Hussites. They know my husband's name. The truth he died for is still living in my country."

The rush of old associations was too much for her. Her lips quivered, the tears fell slowly over her cheeks, and she could not say another word.

The strangers consented to remain under my father's roof for the night, and told us the errand which brought them to Wittemberg.

From generation to generation, since John Huss was martyred, they said, the truth he taught had been preserved in Bohemia, always at the risk, and often at the cost of life. Sometimes it had perplexed them much that nowhere in the world beside could they hear of those who believed the same truth. Could it be possible that the truth of God was banished to the mountain fastnesses? Like Elijah of old, they felt disposed to cry in their wilderness, "I, only I, am left."

"But they could not have been right to think thus," said my mother, who never liked the old religion to be too much reproached. "God has always had his own who have loved him, in the darkest days. From how many convent cells have pious hearts looked up to him. It requires great teaching of the Holy Spirit and many battles to make a Luther; but, I think, it requires only to touch the hem of Christ's garment to make a Christian.

"Yes," said Gottfried, opening our beloved commentary on the Galatians, "what Dr. Luther said is true indeed, 'Some there were in the olden time whom God called by the text of the gospel and by baptism. These walked in simplicity and humbleness of heart, thinking the monks and friars, and such only as were annointed by the bishops, to be religious and holy, and themselves to be profane and secular, and not worthy to be compared to them. Wherefore, they, feeling in themselves no good works to set against the wrath and judgment of God, did fly to the death and passion of Christ, and were saved in this simplicity.'"

"No doubt it was so," said the Bohemian deputies. "But all this was hidden from the eye of man. Twice our fathers sent secret messengers through the length and breadth of Christendom to see if they could find any that did understand, that did seek after God, and everywhere they found carelessness, superstition, darkness, but no response."

"Ah," said my mother, "that is a search only the eye of God can make. Yet, doubtless, the days were dark."

"They came back without having met with any response," continued the strangers, "and again our fathers had to toil and suffer on alone. And now the sounds of life have reached us in our mountain solitudes from all parts of the world; and we have come to Wittemberg to hear the voice which awoke them first, and to claim brotherhood with the evangelical Christians here. Dr. Luther has welcomed us, and we return to our mountains to tell our people that the morning has dawned on the world at last."

The evening passed in happy intercourse, and before we separated, Christopher brought his lute, and we all sang together the hymn of John Huss, which Dr. Luther has published among his own:—

"Jesus Christus nostra salus,"

and afterwards Luther's own glorious hymn in German, "Nun freut euch lieben Christen gemein:"

Dear Christian people, all rejoice;Each soul with joy upspringing:Pour forth one song with heart and voice,With love and gladness singing.Give thanks to God, our Lord above—Thanks for his miracles of love:Dearly he hath redeemed us!The devil's captive bound I lay,Lay in death's chains forlorn;My sins distressed me night and day—The sin within me born;I could not do the thing I would,In all my life was nothing good,Sin had possessed me wholly.My good works could no comfort shed,Worthless must they be rated;My free will to all good was dead,And God's just judgments hated.Me of all hope my sins bereft:Nothing but death to me was left,And death was hell's dark portal.Then God saw with deep pity movedMy grief that knew no measure;Pitying he saw, and freely loved,—To save me was his pleasure.The Father's heart to me was stirred,He saved me with no sovereign word,His very best it cost him.He spoke to his beloved SonWith infinite compassion,"Go hence, my heart's most precious crown.Be to the lost salvation;Death, his relentless tyrant slay,And bear him from his sins away,With thee to live forever."Willing the Son took that behest,Born of a maiden mother,To his own earth he came a guest,And made himself my brother.All secretly he went his way,Veiled in my mortal flesh he lay,And thus the foe he vanquished.He said to me, "Cling close to me,Thy sorrows now are ending!Freely I gave myself for thee,Thy life with mine defending;For I am thine, and thou art mine,And where I am there thou shalt shine,The foe shall never reach us.True, he will shed my heart's life blood,And torture me to death:All this I suffer for thy good,This hold with earnest faith.Death dieth through my life divine;I sinless bear those sins of thine,And so shalt thou be rescued.I rise again to heaven from hence,High to my Father soaring,Thy Master there to be, and thence,My spirit on thee pouring;In every grief to comfort thee,And teach thee more and more of me,Into all truth still guiding.What I have done and taught on earth,Do thou, and teach, none dreading;That so God's kingdom may go forth,And His high praise be spreading;And guard thee from the words of men,Lest the great joy be lost again;Thus my last charge I leave thee."

The devil's captive bound I lay,Lay in death's chains forlorn;My sins distressed me night and day—The sin within me born;I could not do the thing I would,In all my life was nothing good,Sin had possessed me wholly.

My good works could no comfort shed,Worthless must they be rated;My free will to all good was dead,And God's just judgments hated.Me of all hope my sins bereft:Nothing but death to me was left,And death was hell's dark portal.

Then God saw with deep pity movedMy grief that knew no measure;Pitying he saw, and freely loved,—To save me was his pleasure.The Father's heart to me was stirred,He saved me with no sovereign word,His very best it cost him.

He spoke to his beloved SonWith infinite compassion,"Go hence, my heart's most precious crown.Be to the lost salvation;Death, his relentless tyrant slay,And bear him from his sins away,With thee to live forever."

Willing the Son took that behest,Born of a maiden mother,To his own earth he came a guest,And made himself my brother.All secretly he went his way,Veiled in my mortal flesh he lay,And thus the foe he vanquished.

He said to me, "Cling close to me,Thy sorrows now are ending!Freely I gave myself for thee,Thy life with mine defending;For I am thine, and thou art mine,And where I am there thou shalt shine,The foe shall never reach us.

True, he will shed my heart's life blood,And torture me to death:All this I suffer for thy good,This hold with earnest faith.Death dieth through my life divine;I sinless bear those sins of thine,And so shalt thou be rescued.

I rise again to heaven from hence,High to my Father soaring,Thy Master there to be, and thence,My spirit on thee pouring;In every grief to comfort thee,And teach thee more and more of me,Into all truth still guiding.

What I have done and taught on earth,Do thou, and teach, none dreading;That so God's kingdom may go forth,And His high praise be spreading;And guard thee from the words of men,Lest the great joy be lost again;Thus my last charge I leave thee."

Afterwards, at our mother's especial desire, Eva and Fritz sang a Latin resurrection hymn from the olden time.[11]

The renewal of the worldCountless new joys bringeth forth:Christ arising, all things rise—Rise with him from earth.All the creatures feel their Lord—Feel his festal light outpoured.Fire springs up with motion free,Breezes wake up soft and warm;Water flows abundantly,Earth remaineth firm.All things light now skyward soar,Solid things are rooted more;All things are made new.Ocean waves, grown tranquil, lieSmiling 'neath the heavens serene;All the air breathes light and fresh;Our valley groweth green.Verdure clothes the arid plain,Frozen waters gush againAt the touch of spring.For the frost of death is meltedThe prince of this world lieth low;And his empire strong among us,All is broken now.Grasping Him in whom aloneHe could nothing claim or own,His domain he lost.Paradise is now regained,Life has vanquished death;And the joys he long had lost,Man recovereth.The cherubim at God's own wordTurn aside the flaming sword;The long-lost blessing is restored.The closed way opened free.[12]

The renewal of the worldCountless new joys bringeth forth:Christ arising, all things rise—Rise with him from earth.All the creatures feel their Lord—Feel his festal light outpoured.

Fire springs up with motion free,Breezes wake up soft and warm;Water flows abundantly,Earth remaineth firm.All things light now skyward soar,Solid things are rooted more;All things are made new.

Ocean waves, grown tranquil, lieSmiling 'neath the heavens serene;All the air breathes light and fresh;Our valley groweth green.Verdure clothes the arid plain,Frozen waters gush againAt the touch of spring.

For the frost of death is meltedThe prince of this world lieth low;And his empire strong among us,All is broken now.Grasping Him in whom aloneHe could nothing claim or own,His domain he lost.

Paradise is now regained,Life has vanquished death;And the joys he long had lost,Man recovereth.The cherubim at God's own wordTurn aside the flaming sword;The long-lost blessing is restored.The closed way opened free.[12]

The next morning the strangers left us; but all the day our grandmother sat silent and tranquil, with her hands clasped, in an inactivity very unusual with her. In the evening, when we had assembled again—as we all do now every day in the old house—she said quietly, "Children, sing to me the 'Nunc Dimittis.' God has fulfilled every desire of my heart; and, if he willed it, I should like now to depart in peace to my dead. For I know they live unto him."

Afterwards, we fell into conversation about the past. It was the eve of the wedding-day of Eva and Fritz, and Atlantis and Conrad. And we, a family united in one faith, naturally spoke together of the various ways in which God had led us to the one end.

The old days rose up before me, when the ideal of holiness had towered above my life, grim and stony, like the fortress of the Wartburg (in which my patroness had lived), above the streets of Eisenach, and when even Christ the Lord seemed to me, as Dr. Luther says, "a law-maker giving more strait and heavy commands than Moses himself"—an irrevocable, unapproachable Judge, enthroned far up in the cold spaces of the sky; and heaven, like a convent, with very high walls, peopled by nuns rigid as Aunt Agnes. And then the change which came over all my heart when I learned, through Dr. Luther's teaching, that God is love—is our Father; that Christ is the Saviour, who gave himself for our sins, and loved us better than life; that heaven is our Father's house; that holiness is simply loving God—who is so good, and who has so loved us, and, loving one another, that the service we have to render is simply to give thanks and to do good;—when, as Dr. Luther said, that word "our" was written deeply in my heart—that foroursins He died—for mine,—that for all, for us, forme, He gave himself.

And then Fritz told us how he had toiled and tormented himself to reconcile God to him, until he found, through Dr. Luther's teaching, that our sins have been borne away by the Lamb of God—the sacrifice not of man's gift, but of God's; "that in that one person, Jesus Christ, we had forgiveness of sins and eternal life;" that God is to us as the father to the prodigal son—entreatingusto be reconciled to Him. And he told us also, how he had longed for a priest, who could know infallibly all his heart, and secure him from the deceitfulness and imperfectness of his own confessions, and assure him that, knowing all his sin to its depths, with all its aggravations, he yet pronounced him absolved. And at last he had found that Priest, penetrating to the depths of his heart, tracing every act to its motive, every motive to its source, and yet pronouncing him absolved, freely, fully, at once—imposing no penance, but simply desiring a life of thanksgiving in return. "And this Priest," he added, "is with me always; I make my confession to him every evening, or oftener, if I need it; and as often as I confess, He absolves, and bids me be of good courage—go in peace, and sin no more. But He is not on earth. He dwells in the holy of holies, which never more is empty, like the solitary sanctuary of the old temple on all days in the year but one. He ever liveth to make intercession for us!"

Then we spoke together of the two great facts Dr. Luther had unveiled to us from the Holy Scriptures, that there is one sacrifice of atonement, the spotless Lamb of God, who gave himself once for our sins; and that there is but one priestly Mediator, the Son of Man and Son of God; that, in consequence of this, all Christians are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices; and the feeblest has his offering, which, through Jesus Christ, God delights to accept, having first accepted the sinner himself in the Beloved.

Our mother spoke to us, in a few words, of the dreadful thoughts she had of God—picturing him rather as the lightning than the light; of the curse which she feared was lowering like a thunder-cloud over her life, until Dr. Luther began to show her that the curse has been borne for us by Him who was made a curse for us, and removed for ever from all who trust in him. "And then," she said, "the Holy Supper taught me the rest. He bore for us the cross; he spreads for us the feast. We have, indeed, the cross to bear, but never more the curse; the cross from man, temptation from the devil, but from God nothing but blessing."

But Eva said she could not remember the time when she did not think God good and kind beyond all. There were many other things in religion which perplexed her; but this had always seemed clear, that God so loved the world, he gave his Son. And she had always hoped that all the rest would be clear one day in the light of that love. The joy which Dr. Luther's writings had brought her was, she thought, like seeing the stains cleared away from some beautiful painting, whose beauty she had known but not fully seen—or like having a misunderstanding explained about a dear friend. She had always wondered about the hard penances to appease One who loved so much, and the many mediators to approach Him; and it had been an inexpressible delight to find that these were all a mistake, and that access to God was indeed open—that the love and the sin,—life and death,—had met on the cross, and the sin had been blotted out, and death swallowed up of life.

In such discourse we passed the eve of the wedding day.

And now the day has vanished like a bright vision; our little gentle loving Atlantis has gone with her husband to their distant home, the bridal crowns are laid aside, and Eva and Fritz in their sober every-day dress, but with the crown of unfading joy in their hearts, have gone together to their lowly work in the forest, to make one more of those hallowed pastor's homes which are springing up now in the villages of our land.

But Gretchen's linen-chest is likely to be long before it can be stored again. We have just received tidings of the escape of Eva's friends, the nine nuns of Nimptschen, from the convent, at last! They wrote to Dr. Luther, who interested himself much in seeking asylums for them. And now Master Leonard Koppe of Torgan has brought them safely to Wittemberg concealed in his beer waggon. They say one of the nuns in their haste left her slipper behind. They are all to be received into various homes, and Gottfried and I are to have the care of Catherine von Bora, the most determined and courageous, it is said, of all, from whose cell they effected their escape.

I have been busy preparing the guest-chamber for her, strewing lavender on the linen, and trying to make it home-like for the young maiden who is banished for Christ's sake from her old home.

I think it must bring blessings to any home to have such guests.

June, 1523.

Our guest, the noble maiden Catherine von Bora, has arrived. Grave and reserved she seems to be, although Eva spoke of her as very cheerful, and light as well as firm of heart. I feel a little afraid of her. Her carriage has a kind of majesty about it which makes me offer her more deference than sympathy. Her eyes are dark and flashing, and her forehead is high and calm.

This is not so remarkable in me, I having been always easily appalled by dignified persons; but even Dr. Luther, it seems to me, is somewhat awed by this young maiden. He thinks her rather haughty and reserved. I am not sure whether it is pride or a certain maidenly dignity.

I am afraid I have too much of the homely burgher Cotta nature to be quite at ease with her.

Our grandmother would doubtless have understood her better than either our gentle mother or I, but the dear feeble form seems to have been gradually failing since that meeting with the emissaries of the Bohemian Church. Since the wedding she has not once left her bed. She seems to live more than ever in the past, and calls people by the names she knew them in her early days, speaking of our grandfather as "Franz," and calling our mother "Greta" instead of "the mother." In the past she seems to live, and in that glorious present, veiled from her view by so thin a veil. Towards heaven the heart, whose earthly vision is closing, is as open as ever. I sit beside her and read the Bible and Dr. Luther's books, and Gretchen says to her some of the new German hymns, Dr. Luther's, and his translation of John Huss's hymns. To-day she made me read again and again this passage,—"Christian faith is not, as some say, an empty husk in the heart until love shall quicken it; but if it be true faith, it is a sure trust and confidence in the heart whereby Christ is apprehended, so that Christ is the object of faith;yea, rather even, in faith Christ himself is present. Faith therefore justifieth because it apprehendeth and possesseth this treasure, Christ present. Wherefore Christ apprehended by faith, and dwelling in the heart, is the true Christian righteousness."

It is strange to sit in the old house, now so quiet, with our dear blind father downstairs, and only Thekla at home of all the sisters, and the light in that brave, strong heart of our grandmother growing slowly dim; or to hear the ringing sweet childish voice of Gretchen repeating the hymns of this glorious new time to the failing heart of the olden time.

Last night, while I watched beside that sick bed, I thought much of Dr. Luther alone in the Augustinian monastery, patiently abiding in the dwelling his teaching has emptied, sending forth thence workers and teachers throughout the world; and as I pondered what he has been to us, to Fritz and Eva in their lowly hallowed home, to our mother, to our grandmother, to the Bohemian people, to little Gretchen singing her hymns to me, to the nine rescued nuns, to Aunt Agnes in the convent, and Christopher at his busy printing-press, to young and old, religious and secular; I wonder what the new time will bring to that brave, tender, warm heart which has set so many hearts which were in bondage free, and made life rich to so many who were poor, yet has left his own life so solitary still.

Thuringian Forest,July, 1523.

It is certainly very much happier for Fritz and me to live in the pastor's house than in the castle; down among the homes of men, and the beautiful mysteries of this wonderful forest land, instead of towering high above all on a fortified height. Not of course that I mean the heart may not be as lowly in the castle as in the cottage; but it seems to me a richer and more fruitful life to dwell among the people than to be raised above them. The character of the dwelling seems to symbolize the nature of the life. And what lot can be so blessed as ours?

Linked to all classes that we may serve our Master who came to minister among all. In education equal to the nobles, or rather to the patrician families of the great cities, who so far surpass the country proprietors in culture,—in circumstances the pastor is nearer the peasant, knowing by experience what are the homely trials of straitened means. Little offices of kindness can be interchanged between us. Muhme Trüdchen finds a pure pleasure in bringing me a basket of her new-laid eggs as an acknowledgment of Fritz's visits to her sick boy; and it makes it all the sweeter to carry food to the family of the old charcoal-burner in the forest-clearing that our meals for a day or two have to be a little plainer in consequence. I think gifts which come from loving contrivance and a little self-denial, must be more wholesome to receive than the mere overflowings of a full store. And I am sure they are far sweeter to give. Our lowly home seems in some sense the father's house of the village; and it is such homes, such hallowed centres of love and ministry, which God through our Luther is giving back to village after village in our land.

But, as Fritz says, I must be careful not to build our parsonage into a pinnacle higher than any castle, just to make a pedestal for him, which I certainly sometimes detect myself doing. His gifts seem to me so rich, and his character is, I am sure, so noble, that it is natural I should picture to myself his vocation as the highest in the world. That it is the highest, however, I am secretly convinced; the highest as long as it is the lowliest.

The people begin to be quite at home with us now. There are no great gates, no moat, no heavy draw-bridge between us and the peasants. Our doors stand open; and timid hands which could never knock to demand admittance at castle or convent gate can venture gently to lift our latch. Mothers creep to the kitchen with their sick children to ask for herbs, lotions, or drinks, which I learned to distil in the convent. And then I can ask them to sit down, and we often naturally begin to speak of Him who healed the sick people with a word, and took the little children from the mothers' arms to His to bless them. Sometimes, too, stories of wrong and sorrow come out to me which no earthly balm can cure, and I can point to Him who only can heal because He only can forgive.

Then Fritz says he can preach so differently from knowing the heart-cares and burdens of his flock; and the people seem to so feel differently when they meet again from the pulpit with sacred words and histories which they have grown familiar with in the home.

A few of the girls come to me also to learn sewing or knitting, and to listen or learn to read Bible stories. Fritz meanwhile instructs the boys in the Scriptures and in sacred music, because the schoolmaster is growing old and can teach the children little but a few Latin prayers by rote, and to spell out the German alphabet.

I could not have imagined such ignorance as we have found here. It seems, Fritz says, as if the first preachers of Christianity to the Germans had done very much for the heart of the nation what the first settlers did for its forests, made a clearing here and there, built a church, and left the rest to its original state.

The bears and wolves which prowl about the forest, and sometimes in winter venture close to the thresholds of our houses, are no wilder than the wild legends which haunt the hearts of the peasants. On Sundays they attire themselves in their holiday clothes, come to hear mass, bow before the sacred host, and the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, and return to continue during the week their every-day terror-worship of the spirits of the forest. They seem practically to think our Lord is the God of the church and the village, while the old pagan sprites retain possession of the forest. They appear scarcely even quite to have decided St. Christopher's question, "Which is thestrongest, that I may worship him?"

But, alas, whether at church or in the forest, the worship they have been taught seems to have been chiefly one of fear. The Cobolds and various sprites they believe will bewitch their cows, set fire to their hay-stacks, lead them astray through the forest, steal their infants from the cradle to replace them by fairy changelings. Their malignity and wrath they deprecate, therefore, by leaving them gleanings of corn or nuts, by speaking of them with feigned respect, or by Christian words and prayer, which they use as spells.

From the Almighty God they fear severer evil. He, they think, is to sit on the dreadful day of wrath on the judgment throne to demand strict account of all their misdeeds. Against His wrath also they have been taught to use various remedies which seem to us little better than a kind of spiritual spells; paters, aves, penances, confessions, indulgences.

To protect them against the forest sprites they have secret recourse to certain gifted persons, mostly shrivelled, solitary, weird old women (successors, Fritz says, of the old pagan prophetesses), who for money perform certain rites of white magic for them; or give them written charms to wear, or teach them magic rhymes to say.

To protect them against God, they used to have recourse to the priest, who performed masses for them, laid ghosts, absolved sins, promised to turn aside the vengeance of offended heaven.

But in both cases they seem to have the melancholy persuasion that the ruling power is hostile to them. In both cases, religion is not so much aworshipas aspell; not an approach to God, but an interposing of something to keep off the weight of his dreaded presence.

When first we began to understand this, it used to cost me many tears.

"How can it be," I said one day to Fritz, "that all the world seems so utterly to misunderstand God?"

"There is an enemy in the world," he said, solemnly, "sowing lies about God in every heart."

"Yet God is mightier than Satan," I said; "how is it then that no ray penetrates through the darkness from fruitful seasons, from the beauty of the spring-time, from the abundance of the harvest, from the joys of home, to show the people that God is love?"

"Ah, Eva," he said sadly, "have you forgotten that not only is the devil in the world, but sin in the heart? He lies, indeed, about God, when he persuades us that God grudges us blessings; but he tells the truth about ourselves when he reminds us that we are sinners, under the curse of the good and loving law. The lie would not stand for an instant if it were not founded on the truth. It is only by confessing the truth, on which his falsehood is based, that we can destroy it. We must say to the peasants, 'Your fear is well founded. Seeon that crosswhat your sin cost!'"

"But the old religion displayed the crucifix," I said.

"Thank God, it did—it does!" he said. "But instead of the crucifix, we have to tell of a cross from which the Crucified is gone; of an empty tomb and a risen Saviour; of the curse removed; of God, who gave the Sacrifice, welcoming back the Sufferer to the throne."

We have not made much change in the outward ceremonies. Only, instead of the sacrifice of the mass, we have the Feast of the Holy Supper; no elevation of the host, no saying of private masses for the dead; and all the prayers, thanksgivings, and hymns, in German.

Dr. Luther still retains the Latin in some of the services of Wittemberg, on account of its being an university town, that the youth may be trained in the ancient languages. He said he would gladly have some of the services in Greek and Hebrew, in order thereby to make the study of those languages as common as that of Latin. But here in the forest, among the ignorant peasants, and the knights, who, for the most part, forget before old age what little learning they acquired in boyhood, Fritz sees no reason whatever for retaining the ancient language; and delightful it is to watch the faces of the people when he reads the Bible or Luther's hymns, now that some of them begin to understand that the divine service is something in which their hearts and minds are to join, instead of a kind of magic external rite to be performed for them.

It is a great delight also to us to visit Chriemhild and Ulrich von Gersdorf at the castle. The old knight and Dame Hermentrud were very reserved with us at first; but the knight has always been most courteous to me, and Dame Hermentrud, now that she is convinced that we have no intention of trenching on her state, receives us very kindly.

Between us, moreover, there is another tender bond since she has allowed herself to speak of her sister Beatrice, to me known only as the subdued and faded aged nun; to Dame Hermentrud, and the aged retainers and villagers, remembered in her bright, but early blighted, girlhood.

Again and again I have to tell her sister the story of her gradual awakening from uncomplaining hopelessness to a lowly and heavenly rest in Christ; and of her meek and peaceful death.

"Great sacrifices," she said once, "have to be made to the honour of a noble lineage, Frau Pastorin. I also have had my sorrows;" and she opened a drawer of a cabinet, and showed me the miniature portraits of a nobleman and his young boy, her husband and son, both in armour. "These both were slain in a feud with the family to which Beatrice's betrothed belonged," she said bitterly. "And should our lines ever be mingled in one?"

"But are these feuds never to die out?" I said.

"Yes," she replied sternly, leading me to a window, from which we looked on a ruined castle in the distance. "Thatfeud has died out. The family is extinct!"

"The Lord Christ tells us to forgive our enemies," I said quietly.

"Undoubtedly," she replied; "but the von Bernsteins were usurpers of our rights, robbers and murderers. Such wrongs must be avenged, or society would fall to pieces."

Towards the peasants Dame Hermentrud has very condescending and kindly feelings, and frequently gives us food and clothing for them, although she still doubts the wisdom of teaching them to read.

"Every one should be kept in his place," she says.

And as yet I do not think she can form any idea of heaven, except as of a well organized community, in which the spirits of the nobles preside loftily on the heights, while the spirits of the peasants keep meekly to the valleys; the primary distinction between earth and heaven being, that in heaven all will know how to keep in their places.

And no doubt in one sense she is right. But how would she like the order in which places in heaven are assigned?

"The first shall be last, and the last first."

"He that is chief among you, let him be as he that doth serve."

Among the peasants sometimes, on the other hand, Fritz is startled by the bitterness of feeling which betrays itself against the lords; how the wrongs of generations are treasured up, and the name of Luther is chiefly revered from a vague idea that he, the peasant's son, will set the peasants free.

Ah, when will God's order be established in the world, when each, instead of struggling upwards in selfish ambition, and pressing others down in mean pride—looking up to envy, and looking down to scorn—shall look up to honour and look down to help! when all shall "by love serve one another?"

September, 1523.

We have now a guest of whom I do not dare to speak to Dame Hermentrud. Indeed, the whole history Fritz and I will never tell to any here.

A few days since a worn, grey-haired old man came to our house, whom Fritz welcomed as an old friend. It was Priest Ruprecht Haller, from Franconia. Fritz had told me something of his history, so that I knew what he meant, when in a quivering voice he said, abruptly, taking Fritz aside,—

"Bertha is very ill—perhaps dying. I must never see her any more. She will not suffer it, I know. Can you go and speak a few words of comfort to her?"

Fritz expressed his readiness to do anything in his power, and it was agreed that Priest Ruprecht was to stay with us that night, and that they were to start together on the morrow for the farm where Bertha was at service, which lay not many miles off through the forest.

But in the night I had a plan, which I determined to set going before I mentioned it to Fritz, because he will often consent to a thing which is oncebegun, which he would think quite impracticable if it is onlyproposed; that is, especially as regards anything in which I am involved. Accordingly, the next morning I rose very early and went to our neighbour, Farmer Herder, to ask him to lend us his old grey pony for the day, to bring home an invalid. He consented, and before we had finished breakfast the pony was at the door.

"What is this?" said Fritz.

"It is Farmer Herder's pony to take me to the farm where Bertha lives, and to bring her back," I said.

"Impossible, my love!" said Fritz.

"But you see it is already all arranged, and begun to be done," I said; "I am dressed, and the room is all ready to receive her."

Priest Ruprecht rose from the table, and moved towards me, exclaiming fervently,—

"God bless you!" Then seeming to fear that he had said what he had no right to say, he added, "God bless you for the thought. But it is too much!" and he left the room.

"What would you do, Eva?" Fritz said, looking in much perplexity at me.

"Welcome Bertha as a sister," I said, "and nurse her until she is well."

"But how can I suffer you to be under one roof?" he said.

I could not help my eyes filling with tears.

"The Lord Jesus suffered such to anoint his feet," I said, "and she, you told me, loves Him, has given up all dearest to her to keep his words. Let us blot out the past as he does, and let her begin life again from our home, if God wills it so."

Fritz made no further objection. And through the dewy forest paths we went, we three; and with us, I think we all felt, went Another, invisible, the Good Shepherd of the wandering sheep.

Never did the green glades and forest flowers and solemn pines seem to me more fresh and beautiful, and more like a holy cathedral than that morning.

After a little meek resistance Bertha came back with Fritz and me. Her sickness seemed to me to be more the decline of one for whom life's hopes and work are over, than any positive disease. And with care, the grey pony brought her safely home.

Never did our dear home seem to welcome us so brightly as when we led her back to it, for whom it was to be a sanctuary of rest, and refuge from bitter tongues.

There was a little room over the porch which we had set apart as the guest-chamber; and very sweet it was to me that Bertha should be its first inmate; very sweet to Fritz and me that our home should be what our Lord's heart is, a refuge for the outcast, the penitent, the solitary, and the sorrowful.

Such a look of rest came over her poor, worn face, when at last she was laid on her little bed!

"I think I shall get well soon," she said the next morning, "and then you will let me stay and be your servant; when I am strong I can work really hard and there is something in you both which makes me feel this like home."

"We will try," I said, "to find out what God would have us do."

She does improve daily. Yesterday she asked for some spinning, or other work to do, and it seems to cheer her wonderfully. To-day she has been sitting in our dwelling-room with her spinning-wheel. I introduced her to the villagers who come in as a friend who has been ill. They do not know her history.

January, 1524.

It is all accomplished now. The little guest-chamber over the porch is empty again, and Bertha is gone.

As she was recovering Fritz received a letter from Priest Ruprecht, which he read in silence, and then laid aside until we were alone on one of our expeditions to the old charcoal-burner's in the forest.

"Haller wants to see Bertha once more," he said, dubiously.

"And why not Fritz?" I said; "why should not the old wrong as far as possible be repaired, and those who have given each other up at God's commandment, be given back to each other by his commandment?"

"I have thought so often, my love," he said, "but I did not know what you would think."

So after some little difficulty and delay, Bertha and

Priest Ruprecht Haller were married very quietly in our village church, and went forth to a distant village in Pomerania, by the Baltic Sea, from which Dr. Luther had received a request to send them a minister of the gospel.

It went to my heart to see the two go forth together down the village street, those two whose youth inhuman laws and human weakness had so blighted. There was a reverence about his tenderness to her, and a wistful lowliness in hers for him, which said, "All that thou hast lost for me, as far as may be I will make up to thee in the years that remain!"

But as we watched her pale face and feeble steps, and his bent, though still vigorous form, Fritz took my hands as we turned back into the house, and said,—

"It is well. But it can hardly be for long!"

And I could not answer him for tears.

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