Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 27

We have seen him once at our house. He was so respectful to our grandmother, and so patient with my father, and he spoke so kindly of Fritz.

Fritz has written to us, and has recommended us to take Dr. Martin Luther for our family confessor. He says he can never repay the good Dr.

Luther has done to him. And certainly he writes more brightly and hopefully than he ever has since he left us, although he has, alas!

finally taken those dreadful, irrevocable vows.

_March_, 1513.

Dr. Luther has consented to be our confessor; and thank G.o.d I do believe at last I have found the religion which may make me, even me, love G.o.d.

Dr. Luther says I have entirely misunderstood G.o.d and the Lord Jesus Christ. He seemed to understand all I have been longing for and perplexing myself about all my life, with a glance. When I began to falter out my confessions and difficulties to him, he seemed to see them all spread before him, and explained them all to me. He says I have been thinking of G.o.d as a severe judge, an exactor, a harsh creditor, when he is a rich Giver, a forgiving Saviour, yea, the very fountain of inexpressible love.

"G.o.d's love," he said, "gives in such a way that it flows from a Father's heart, the well-spring of all good. The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious; as among ourselves we say of even a trifling gift, 'It comes from a hand we love,' and look not so much at the gift as at the heart."

"If we will only consider him in his works, we shall learn that G.o.d is nothing else but pure, unutterable love, greater and more than any one can think. The shameful thing is, that the world does not regard this, nor thank him for it, although every day it sees before it such countless benefits from him; and it deserves for its ingrat.i.tude that the sun should not shine another moment longer, nor the gra.s.s grow; yet He ceases not, without a moment's interval, to love us, and to do us good. Language must fail me to speak of his spiritual gifts. Here he pours forth for us, not sun and moon, nor heaven and earth, but his own heart, his beloved Son, so that He suffered His blood to be shed, and the most shameful death to be inflicted on Him, for us wretched, wicked, thankless creatures. How, then, can we say anything but that G.o.d is an abyss of endless, unfathomable love?"

"The whole Bible," he says, "is full of this,--that we should not doubt, but be absolutely certain, that G.o.d is merciful, gracious, patient, faithful, and true; who not only will keep his promises, but already has kept and done abundantly beyond what he promised, since he has given his own Son for our sins on the cross, that all who believe on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

"Whoever believes and embraces this," he added, "that G.o.d has given his only Son to die for us poor sinners, to him it is no longer any doubt, but the most certain truth, that G.o.d reconciles us to himself, and is favourable and heartily gracious to us."

"Since the gospel shows us Christ the Son of G.o.d, who, according to the will of the Father, has offered himself up for us, and has satisfied for sin, the heart can no more doubt G.o.d's goodness and grace,--is no more affrighted, nor flies from G.o.d, but sets all its hope in his goodness and mercy."

"The apostles are always exhorting us," he says, "to continue in the love of G.o.d,--that is, that each one should entirely conclude in his heart that he is loved by G.o.d; and they set before our eyes a certain proof of it, in that G.o.d has not spared his Son, but given him for the world, that through His death the world might again have life.

"It is G.o.d's honour and glory to give liberally. His nature is all pure love; so that if any one would describe or picture G.o.d, he must describe One who is pure love, the divine nature being nothing else than a furnace and glow of such love that it fills heaven and earth.

"Love is an image of G.o.d, and not a dead image, nor one painted on paper, but the living essence of the divine nature, which burns full of all goodness.

"He is not harsh, as we are to those who have injured us. We withdraw our hand and close our purse, but he is kind to the unthankful and the evil.

"He sees thee in thy poverty and wretchedness, and knows thou hast nothing to pay. Therefore he freely forgives, and gives thee all."

"It is not to be borne," he said, "that Christian people should say, We cannot know whether G.o.d is favourable to us or not. On the contrary, we should learn to say, I know that I believe in Christ, and therefore that G.o.d is my gracious Father."

"What is the reason that G.o.d gives?" he said, one day. "What moves him to it? Nothing but unutterable love, because he delights to give and to bless. What does he give? Not empires merely, not a world full of silver and gold, not heaven and earth only, but his Son, who is as great as himself,--that is, eternal and incomprehensible; a gift as infinite as the Giver, the very spring and fountain of all grace; yea, the possession and property of all the riches and treasures of G.o.d."

Dr. Luther said also, that the best name by which we can think of G.o.d is Father. "It is a loving, sweet, deep, heart-touching name; for the name of father is in its nature full of inborn sweetness and comfort.

Therefore, also, we must confess ourselves children of G.o.d; for by this name we deeply touch our G.o.d, since there is not a sweeter sound to the father, than the voice of the child."

All this is wonderful to me. I scarcely dare to open my hand, and take this belief home to my heart.

Is it then, indeed, thus we must think of G.o.d? Is he, indeed, as Dr.

Luther says, ready to listen to our feeblest cry, ready to forgive us, and to help us?

And if he is indeed like this, and cares what we think of him, how I must have grieved him all these years!

Not a moment longer! I will not distrust Thee a moment longer. See, heavenly Father, I have come back!

Can it, indeed, be possible that G.o.d is pleased when we trust him,--pleased when we pray, simply because he loves us?

Can it indeed be true, as Dr. Luther says, that love is our greatest virtue; and that we please G.o.d best by being kind to each other, just because that is what is most like him?

I am sure it is true. It is so good, it must be true.

Then it is possible for me, even for me, to love G.o.d. How is it possible for me _not_ to love him? And it is possible for me, even for me, to be religious, if to be religious is to love G.o.d, and to do whatever we can to make those around us happy.

But if this is indeed religion, it is happiness, it is freedom,--it is life!

Why, then, are so many of the religious people I know of a sad countenance, as if they were bond-servants toiling for a hard master?

I must ask Dr. Luther.

_April_, 1513.

I have asked Dr. Luther, and he says it is because the devil makes a great deal of the religion we see; that he pretends to be Christ, and comes and terrifies people, and scourges them with the remembrance of their sins, and tells them they must not dare to lift up their eyes to heaven, because G.o.d is so holy, and they are so sinful. But it is all because he knows that if they _would_ lift their eyes to heaven, their terrors would vanish, and they would see Christ there, not as the Judge, and the hard, exacting Creditor, but as the pitiful, loving Saviour.

I find it a great comfort to believe in this way in the devil. Has he not been trying to teach me his religion all my life? And now I have found him out! He has been telling me lies, not about myself (Dr. Luther says he cannot paint us more sinful than we are), but lies about G.o.d. It helps me almost as much to hear Dr. Luther speak about the devil as about G.o.d--"the malignant, sad spirit," he says, "who loves to make every one sad."

With G.o.d's help, I will never believe him again. But Dr. Luther said I shall, often; that he will come again and malign G.o.d, and a.s.sail my peace in so many ways, that it will be long before I learn to know him.

I shuddered when he told me this; but then he rea.s.sured me, by telling me a beautiful story, which, he said, was from the Bible. It was about a Good Shepherd and silly, wandering sheep, and a wolf who sought to devour them. "All the care of the Shepherd," he said, "is in the tenderest way to attract the sheep to keep close to him; and when they wander, he goes and seeks them, takes them on his shoulder, and carries them safe home. All our wisdom," he says, "is to keep always near this Good Shepherd, who is Christ, and to listen to his voice."

I know the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Good Shepherd. I have seen the picture of him carrying the lamb on his shoulder. But until Dr.

Luther explained it to me, I thought it meant that he was the Lord and Owner of all the world, who are his flock. But I never thought that he cared for _me_ as his sheep, sought me, called me, watched me, even me, day by day.

Other people, no doubt, have understood all this before. And yet, if so, why do not the monks preach of it? Why should Aunt Agnes serve Him in the convent by penances and self-tormentings, instead of serving Him in the world by being kind and helping all around? Why should our dear, gentle mother, have such sad, self-reproachful thoughts, and feel as if she and our family were under a curse?

Dr. Luther said that Christ was "made a curse for us;" that he, the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of G.o.d, bore the curse for us on the cross; and that we, believing in him, are not under the curse, but under the blessing--that we are blessed.

This, then, is what the crucifix and the _Agnus Dei_ mean.

Doubtless many around me have understood all this long ago. I am sure, at least, that our Eva understood it.

But what inexpressible joy for me, as I sit at my embroidery in the garden, to look up through the apple-blossoms and the fluttering leaves, and to see G.o.d's love there;--to listen to the thrush that has built his nest among them, and feel G.o.d's love, who cares for the birds, in every note that swells his little throat;--to look beyond to the bright blue depths of the sky, and feel they are a canopy of blessing--the roof of the house of my Father; that if clouds pa.s.s over, it is the unchangeable light they veil; that, even when the day itself pa.s.ses, I shall see that the night itself only unveils new worlds of light; and to know that if I could unwrap fold after fold of G.o.d's universe, I should only unfold more and more blessing, and see deeper and deeper into the love which is at the heart of all!

And then what joy again to turn to my embroidery, and, as my fingers busily ply the needle, to think--

"This is to help my father and mother; this, even this, is a little work of love. And as I sit and st.i.tch, G.o.d is pleased with me, and with what I am doing. He gives me this to do, as much as he gives the priests to pray, and Dr. Luther to preach. I am serving Him, and he is near me in my little corner of the world, and is pleased with me--even with me!"

Oh, Fritz and Eva! if you had both known this, need you have left us to go and serve G.o.d so far away?

Have I indeed, like St. Christopher, found my bank of the river, where I can serve my Saviour by helping all the pilgrims I can?

Better, better than St. Christopher; for do I not _know the voice_ that calls to me--

"Else! Else! do this for me?"

And now I do not feel at all afraid to grow old, which is a great relief, as I am already six-and-twenty, and the children think me nearly as old as our mother. For what is growing old, if Dr. Martin Luther is indeed right (and I am sure he is), but growing daily nearer G.o.d, and His holy, happy home! Dr. Luther says our Saviour called heaven his Father's house.