Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 10

"Cousin Fritz," she said at intervals, as she had strength, "you have taught me so many things; you have done so much for me! Now I wish you to learn my sentence, that if I go, it may make you happy, as it does me." Then very slowly and distinctly she repeated the words--"'_G.o.d so loved the world, that he gave his only Son._' Cousin Fritz," she added, "I do not know the end of the sentence. I have not been able to find it; but you must find it. I am sure it comes from a good book, it makes me love G.o.d so much to think of it. Promise me you will find it, if I should die."

He promised, and she was quite satisfied. Her strength seemed exhausted, and in a few moments, with my arms round her as I sat beside her, and with her hand in Fritz's, she fell into a deep, quiet sleep.

I felt from that time she would not die, and I whispered very softly to Fritz--

"She will not die; she will recover, and you will not have killed her; you will have saved her!"

But when I looked into his face, expecting to meet a thankful, happy response, I was appalled by the expression there.

He stood immovable, not venturing to withdraw his hand, but with a rigid, hopeless look in his worn, pale face, which contrasted terribly with the smile of deep repose on the sleeping face on which his eyes were fixed.

And so he remained until she awoke, when his whole countenance changed for an instant to return her smile.

Then he said softly, "G.o.d bless you, Eva!" and pressing her hand to his lips, he left the room.

When I saw him again that day, I said--

"Fritz, you have saved Eva's life! She rallied from the time she saw you."

"Yes," he replied, very gently, but with a strange impa.s.siveness in his face; "I think that may be true. I have saved her."

But he did not go in her room again; and the next day, to our surprise and disappointment, he said suddenly that he must leave us.

He said few words of farewell to any of us, and would not see Eva to take leave of her. He said it might disturb her.

But when he kissed me before he went, his hands and his lips were as cold as death. Yet as I watched him go down the street, he did not once turn to wave a last good-bye, as he always used to do; but slowly and steadily he went on till he was out of sight.

I turned back into the house with a very heavy heart; but when I went to tell Eva Fritz was gone, and tried to account for his not coming to take leave of her, because I thought it would give her pain (and it does seem to me rather strange of Fritz), she looked up with her quiet, trustful, contented smile, and said,--

"I am not at all pained, Cousin Else. I know Fritz had good reasons for it--some good, kind reasons--because he always has; and we shall see him again as soon as he feels it right to come."

VI.

Friedrich's Story.

ST. SEBASTIAN, ERFURT, _January_ 20, 1510.

The irrevocable step is taken. I have entered the Augustinian cloister.

I write in Martin Luther's cell. Truly I have forsaken father and mother, and all that was dearest to me, to take refuge at the foot of the cross. I have sacrificed everything on earth to my vocation, and yet the conflict is not over. I seem scarcely more certain of my vocation now than while I remained in the world. Doubts buzz around me like wasps, and sting me on every side. The devil, transforming himself into an angel of light, perplexes me with the very words of Scripture. The words of Martin Luther's father recur to me, as if spoken by a divine voice, "Honour thy father and thy mother!" echoes back to me from the chants of the choir, and seems written everywhere on the white walls of my cell.

And, besides the thunder of these words of G.o.d, tender voices seem to call me back by every plea of duty, not to abandon them to fight the battle of life alone. Else calls me from the old lumber-room, "Fritz'

brother! who is to tell me now what to do?" My mother does not call me back; but I seem ever to see her tearful eyes, full of reproach and wonder which she tries to repress, lifted up to heaven for strength; and her worn, pale face, growing more wan every day. In one voice and one face only I seem never to hear or see reproach or recall; and yet, Heaven forgive me, those pure and saintly eyes which seem only to say, "Go on, Cousin Fritz, G.o.d will help thee, and I will pray!"--those sweet, trustful, heavenly eyes, draw me back to the world with more power than anything else.

Is it, then, too late? Have I lingered in the world so long that my heart can never more be torn from it? Is this the punishment of my guilty hesitation, that, though I have given my body to the cloister, G.o.d will not have my soul, which evermore must hover like a lost spirit about the scenes it was too reluctant to leave? Shall I evermore, when I lift my eyes to heaven, see all that is pure and saintly there embodied for me in a face which it is deadly sin for me to remember?

Yet I have saved her life! If I brought the curse on my people by my sin, was not my obedience accepted? From the hour when, in my room alone, after hearing that Eva was stricken, I prostrated myself before G.o.d, and not daring to take His insulted name on my lips, approached him through His martyred saint, and said, "Holy Sebastian, by the arrows which pierced thy heart, ward off the arrows of pestilence from my home, and I will become a monk, and change my own guilty name for thine,"--from that moment did not Eva begin to recover, and from that time were not all my kindred unscathed? "Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis; ad te autem non approprinquabit." Were not the words literally fulfilled; and while many still fell around us, was one afterwards stricken in my home?

Holy Sebastian, infallible protector against pestilence, by thy firmness when accused, confirm my wavering will; by thy double death, save me from the second death; by the arrows which could not slay thee, thou hast saved us from the arrow that flieth by day; by the cruel blows which sent thy spirit from the circus to paradise, strengthen me against the blows of Satan; by thy body rescued from ignominious sepulture and laid in the catacombs among the martyrs, raise me from the filth of sin; by thy generous pleading for thy fellow sufferers amidst thine own agonies, help me to plead for those who suffer with me; and by all thy sorrows, and merits, and joys, plead--oh plead for me, who henceforth bear thy name!

ST. SCHOLASTICA, _February_ 10.

I have been a month in the monastery. Yesterday my first probation was over, and I was invested with the white garments of the novitiate.

The whole of the brotherhood were a.s.sembled in the church, when, kneeling before the prior, he asked me solemnly whether I thought my strength sufficient for the burden I purposed to take on myself.

In a low, grave voice, he reminded me what those burdens are--the rough plain clothing; the abstemious living; the broken rest and long vigils; the toils in the service of the order; the reproach and poverty; the humiliations of the mendicant; and, above all, the renunciation of self-will and individual glory, to be a member of the order, bound to do whatever the superiors command, and to go whithersoever they direct.

"With G.o.d for my help," I could venture to say, "of this will I make trial."

Then the prior replied,--

"We receive thee, therefore, on probation for one year; and may G.o.d, who has begun a good work in thee, carry it on unto perfection."

The whole brotherhood responded in a deep amen, and then all the voices joined in the hymn,--

"Magna Pater Augustine, preces nostras suscipe, Et per eas conditori nos placare satage.

Atque rege gregem tuum, summum decus praesulum.

Amatorem paupertatis, te collaudant pauperes; a.s.sertorem veritatis amant veri judices; Frangis n.o.bis favos mellis de Scripturis disserens.

Quae obscura prius erant n.o.bis plana faciens, Tu de verbis Salvatoris dulcem panem conficis, Et propinas potum vitae de psalmorum nectare.

Tu de vita clericorum sanctam scribis regulam, Quam qui amant et sequunter viam tenent regiam, Atque tuo sancto ductu redeunt ad patriam.

Regi regum salis, vita, decus et emperium; Trinitati laus et honor sit per omne saeculum, Qui concives nos ascribat supernorum civium."[5]

[Footnote 5:

"Great Father Augustine, receive our prayers, And through them effectually reconcile the Creator; And rule thy flock, the highest glory of rulers.

The poor praise thee, lover of poverty; True judges love thee, defender of truth; Breaking the honeycomb of the honey of Scripture, thou distributest it to us.

Making smooth to us what before was obscure; Thou, from the words of the Saviour, furnishest us with wholesome bread, And givest to drink draughts of life from the nectar of the psalms.

Thou writest the holy rule for the life of priests, Which, whosoever love and follow, keep the royal road, And by thy holy leading return to their fatherland.

Salvation to the King of kings, life, glory, and dominion; Honour and praise be to the Trinity throughout all ages, To Him who declareth us to be fellow-citizens with the citizens of heaven."]

As the sacred words were chanted, they mingled strangely in my mind with the ceremonies of the invest.i.ture. My hair was shorn with the clerical tonsure; my secular dress was laid aside; the garments of the novice were thrown on; and I was girded with the girdle of rope, whilst the prior murmured softly to me, that with the new robes I must put on the new man.

Then, as the last notes of the hymn died away, I knelt and bowed low to receive the prior's blessing, invoked in these words:--

"May G.o.d who hath converted this young man from the world, and given him a mansion in heaven, grant that his daily walk may be as becometh his calling; and that he may have cause to be thankful for what has this day been done."