Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 3

For if these apprehensions had any ground, not only the sins I had failed to confess were unpardoned, but the sins I had confessed and obtained absolution for on false grounds. Thus it might be that at that moment my soul stood utterly unsheltered, as my body from the snows, exposed to the wrath of G.o.d, the judgment of Christ, and the exulting cruelty of devils.

It seemed as if only one thing could save me, and that could never be had. If I could find an infallible confessor, who could see down into the depth of my heart, and back into every recess of my life, who could unveil me to myself, penetrate all my motives, and a.s.sign me the penances I really deserved, I would travel to the end of the world to find him. The severest penances he could a.s.sign, after searching the lives of all the holy Eremites and Martyrs, for examples of mortification, it seemed to me would be light indeed, if I could only be sure they were the right penances and would be followed by a true absolution.

But this it was, indeed, impossible I could ever find.

What sure hope then could I ever have of pardon or remission of sins?

What voice of priest or monk, the holiest on earth, could ever a.s.sure me I had been honest with myself? What absolution could ever give me a right to believe that the baptismal robes, soiled as they told me "before I had left off my infant socks," could once more be made white and clean?

Then, for the first time in my life the thought flashed on me, of the monastic vows, the cloister and the cowl. I knew there was a virtue in the monastic profession which many said was equal to a second baptism.

Could it be possible that the end of all my aspirations might after all be the monk's frock? What then would become of father and mother, dear Else, and the little ones? The thought of their dear faces seemed for an instant to drive away these gloomy fears, as they say a hearth-fire keeps off the wolves. But then a hollow voice seemed to whisper, "If G.o.d is against you, and the saints, and your conscience, what help can you render your family or any one else?" The conflict seemed more than I could bear. It was so impossible to me to make out which suggestions were from the devil and which from G.o.d, and which from my own sinful heart; and yet it might be the unpardonable sin to confound them.

Wherefore for the rest of the night I tried not to think at all, but paced up and down reciting the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, the Litanies of the Saints, and all the collects and holy e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns I could think of. By degrees this seemed to calm me, especially the Creeds and the Paternoster, whether because these are spells the fiends especially dread, or because there is something so comforting in the mere words, "Our Father," and "the remission of sins," I do not know. Probably for both reasons.

And so the morning dawned, and the low sunbeams slanted up through the red stems of the pines; and I said the Ave Maria, and thought of the sweet mother of G.o.d, and was a little cheered.

But all the next day I could not recover from the terrors of that solitary night. A shadow seemed to have fallen on my hopes and projects.

How could I tell that all which had seemed most holy to me as an object in life might not be temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil; and that with all my labouring for my dear ones at home, my sins might not bring on them more troubles than all my successes could avert?

As I left the shadow of the forest, however, my heart seemed to grow lighter. I shall always henceforth feel sure that the wildest legends of the forests may be true, and that the fiends have especial haunts among the solitary woods at night.

It was pleasant to see the towers of Erfurt rising before me on the plain.

I had only one friend at the University; but that is Martin Luther, and he is a host in himself to me. He is already distinguished among the students here; and the professors expect great things of him.

He is especially studying jurisprudence, because his father wishes him to be a great lawyer. This also is to be my profession, and his counsel, always so heartily given, is of the greatest use to me.

His life is, indeed, changed since we first knew him at Eisenach, when Aunt Ursula took compa.s.sion on him, a dest.i.tute scholar, singing at the doors of the houses in St. George Street for a piece of bread. His father's hard struggles to maintain and raise his family have succeeded at last; he is now the owner of a foundry and some smelting-furnaces, and supports Martin liberally at the university. The icy morning of Martin's struggles seems over, and all is bright before him.

Erfurt is the first University in Germany. Compared with it, as Martin Luther says, the other universities are mere private academies. At present we have from a thousand to thirteen hundred students. Some of our professors have studied the cla.s.sics in Italy, under the descendents of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Elector Frederic has, indeed, lately founded a new University at Wittemberg, but we at Erfurt have little fear of Wittemberg outstripping our ancient inst.i.tution.

The Humanists, or disciples of the ancient heathen learning, are in great force here, with Mutia.n.u.s Rufus at their head. They meet often, especially at his house, and he gives them subjects for Latin versification, such as the praises of poverty. Martin Luther's friend Spalatin joined these a.s.semblies; but he himself does not, at least not as a member. Indeed, strange things are reported of their converse, which make the names of poet and philosopher in which they delight very much suspected in orthodox circles. These ideas Mutia.n.u.s and his friends are said to have imported with the cla.s.sical literature from Italy. He has even declared and written in a letter to a friend, that "there is but one G.o.d, and one G.o.ddess, although under various forms and various names, as Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, Christ; Luna, Ceres, Proserpine, Tellus, Mary." But these things he warns his disciples not to speak of in public. "They must be veiled in silence," he says, "like the Eleusinian mysteries. In the affairs of religion we must make use of the mask of fables and enigmas. Let us by the grace of Jupiter, that is of the best and highest G.o.d, despise the lesser G.o.ds. When I say Jupiter, I mean Christ and the true G.o.d."

Mutia.n.u.s and his friends also in their intimate circles speak most slightingly of the Church ceremonies, calling the Ma.s.s a comedy, and the holy relics ravens' bones;[2] speaking of the service of the altar as so much lost time: and stigmatizing the prayers at the canonical hours as a mere baying of hounds, or the humming, not of busy bees, but of lazy drones.

If you reproached them with such irreverent sayings, they would probably reply that they had only uttered them in an esoteric sense, and meant nothing by them. But when people deem it right thus to mask their truths, and explain away their errors, it is difficult to distinguish which is the mask and which the reality in their estimation. It seems to me also that they make mere intellectual games or exercises out of the most profound and awful questions.

[Footnote 2: That is, skeletons left on the gallows for the ravens to peck at.]

This probably, more than the daring character of their speculations, deters Martin Luther from numbering himself among them. His nature is so reverent in spite of all the courage of his character. I think he would dare or suffer anything for what he believed true; but he cannot bear to have the poorest fragment of what he holds sacred trifled with or played with as a mere feat of intellectual gymnastics.

His chief attention is at present directed, by his father's especial desire, to Roman literature and law, and to the study of the allegories and philosophy of Aristotle. He likes to have to do with what is true and solid; poetry and music are his delight and recreation. But it is in debate he most excels. A few evenings since, he introduced me to a society of students, where questions new and old are debated and it was glorious to see how our Martin carried off the palm; sometimes swooping down on his opponents like an eagle among a flock of small birds, or setting down his great lion's paw and quietly crushing a host of objections, apparently unaware of the mischief he had done, until some feeble wail of the prostrate foe made him sensible of it, and he withdrew with a good-humored apology for having hurt any one's feelings.

At other times he withers an unfair argument or a confused statement to a cinder by some lightning-flash of humor or satire. I do not think he is often perplexed by seeing too much of the other side of a disputed question. He holds the one truth he is contending for, and he sees the one point he is aiming at, and at that he charges with a force compounded of the ponderous weight of his will, and the electric velocity of his thoughts, crushing whatever comes in his way, scattering whatever escapes right and left, and never heeding how the scattered forces may reunite and form in his rear. He knows that if he only turns on them, in a moment they will disperse again.

I cannot quite tell how this style of warfare would answer for an advocate, who had to make the best of any cause he is engaged to plead.

I cannot fancy Martin Luther quietly collecting the arguments from the worst side, to the end that even the worst side may have fair play; which is, I suppose, often the office of an advocate.

No doubt, however, he will find or make his calling in the world. The professors and learned men have the most brilliant expectations as to his career. And what is rare (they say), he seems as much the favorite of the students as of the professors. His nature is so social; his musical abilities and his wonderful powers of conversation make him popular with all.

And yet, underneath it all, we who know him well can detect at times that tide of thoughtful melancholy, which seems to lie at the bottom of all hearts which have looked deeply into themselves or into life.

He is as attentive as ever to religion, never missing the daily ma.s.s.

But in our private conversations, I see that his conscience is anything but at ease. Has he pa.s.sed through conflicts such as mine in the forest on that terrible night? Perhaps through conflicts as much fiercer and more terrible, as his character is stronger and his mind deeper than mine. But who can tell? What is the use of unfolding perplexities to each other, which it seems no intellect on earth can solve? The inmost recesses of the heart must always, I suppose, be a solitude, like that dark and awful sanctuary within the veil of the old Jewish temple, entered only once a year, and faintly illumined by the light without, through the thick folds of the sacred veil.

If only that solitude were indeed a holy of holies--or, being what it is, if we only need enter it once a year, and not carry about the consciousness of its dark secrets with us everywhere. But, alas! once entered we can never forget it. It is like the chill, dark crypts underneath our churches, where the ma.s.ses for the dead are celebrated, and where in some monastic churches the embalmed corpses lie shrivelled to mummies, and visible through gratings. Through all the joyous festivals of the holidays above, the consciousness of those dark chambers of death below seems to creep up; like the damps of the vaults through the incense, like the m.u.f.fled wail of the dirges through the songs of praise.

ERFURT, _April_, 1503.

We are just returned from an expedition which might have proved fatal to Martin Luther. Early in the morning, three days since, we started to walk to Mansfeld on a visit to his family, our hearts as full of hope as the woods were full of song. We were armed with swords; our wallets were full; and spirits light as the air. Our way was to lie through field and forest, and then along the banks of the river Holme, through the Golden Meadow where are so many n.o.ble cloisters and imperial palaces.

But we had scarcely been on our way an hour when Martin, by some accident, ran his sword into his foot. To my dismay the blood gushed out in a stream. He had cut into a main artery. I left him under the care of some peasants, and ran back to Erfurt for a physician. When he arrived, however, there was great difficulty in closing the wound with bandages.

I longed for Else or our mother's skillful fingers. We contrived to carry him back to the city. I sat up to watch with him. But in the middle of the night his wound burst out bleeding afresh. The danger was very great, and Martin himself giving up hope, and believing death was close at hand, committed his soul to the blessed Mother of G.o.d. Merciful and pitiful, knowing sorrow, yet raised glorious above all sorrow, with a mother's heart for all, and a mother's claim on Him who is the judge of all, where indeed can we so safely flee for refuge as to Mary? It was edifying to see Martin's devotion to her, and no doubt it was greatly owing to this that at length the remedies succeeded, the bandages closed the wound again, and the blood was stanched.

Many an Ave will I say for this to the sweet Mother of Mercy. Perchance she may also have pity on me. O sweetest Lady, "eternal daughter of the eternal Father, heart of the indivisible Trinity," thou seest my desire to help my own careworn mother; aid me, and have mercy on me, thy sinful child.

ERFURT, _June_, 1503.

Martin Luther has taken his first degree. He is a fervent student, earnest in this as in everything. Cicero and Virgil are his great companions among the Latins. He is now raised quite above the pressing cares of penury, and will probably never taste them more. His father is now a prosperous burgher of Mansfeld, and on the way to become burgomaster. I wish the prospects at my home were as cheering. A few years less of pinching poverty for myself seems to matter little, but the cares of our mother and Else weigh on me often heavily. It must be long yet before I can help them effectually, and meantime the bright youth of my little Else, and the very life of our toilworn patient mother, will be wearing away.

For myself I can fully enter into what Martin says, "The young should learn especially to endure suffering and want; for such suffering doth them no harm. It doth more harm for one to prosper without toil than it doth to endure suffering." He says also, "It is G.o.d's way, of beggars to make men of power, just as he made the world out of nothing. Look upon the courts of kings and princes, upon cities and parishes. You will there find jurists, doctors, councillors, secretaries, and preachers who were commonly poor, and always such as have been students, and have risen and flown so high through the quill that they are become lords."

But the way to wealth through the quill seems long; and lives so precious to me are being worn out meantime, while I climb to the point where I could help them! Sometimes I wish I had chosen the calling of a merchant, men seem to prosper so much more rapidly through trade than through study; and nothing on earth seems to me so well worth working for as to lift the load from their hearts at home. But it is too late.

Rolling stones gather no moss. I must go on now in the track I have chosen. Only sometimes again the fear which came over me on that night in the forest. It seems as if heaven were against me, and that it is vain presumption for such as I even to hope to benefit any one.

Partly, no doubt, it is the depression, caused by poor living, which brings these thoughts. Martin Luther said so to me one day when he found me desponding. He said he knew so well what it was. He had suffered so much from penury at Magdeburg, and at Eisenach had even seriously thought of giving up study altogether and returning to his father's calling. He is kind to me and to all who need, but his means do not yet allow him to do more than maintain himself. Or rather, they are not his but his father's, and he feels he has no right to be generous at the expense of his father's self-denial and toil.

I find life looks different, I must say, after a good meal. But then I cannot get rid of the thought of the few such meals they have at home.

Not that Else writes gloomily. She never mentions a thing to sadden me.

And this week she sent me a gulden, which she said belonged to her alone, and she had vowed never to use unless I would take it. But a student who saw them lately said our mother looked wan and ill. And to increase their difficulties, a month since the father received into the house a little orphan girl, a cousin of our mother's, called Eva von Schonberg. Heaven forbid that I should grudge the orphan her crust, but when it makes a crust less for the mother and the little ones, it is difficult to rejoice in such an act of charity.

ERFURT, _July_, 1503.

I have just obtained a nomination on a foundation, which will, I hope, for the present at least, prevent my being any burden on my family for my own maintenance. The rules are very strict, and they are enforced with many awful vows and oaths which trouble my conscience not a little, because, if the least detail of these rules to which I have sworn is even inadvertently omitted, I involve myself in the guilt of perjury.

However, it is a step onward in the way to independence; and a far heavier yoke might well be borne with such an object.

We (the beneficiaries on this foundation) have solemnly vowed to observe the seven canonical hours, never omitting the prayers belonging to each.

This insures early rising, which is a good thing for a student. The most difficult to keep is the midnight hour, after a day of hard study; but it is no more than soldiers on duty have continually to go through. We have also to chant the _Miserere_ at funerals, and frequently to hear the eulogy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This last can certainly not be called a hardship, least of all to me who desire ever henceforth to have an especial devotion to Our Lady, to recite daily the Rosary, commemorating the joys of Mary, the Salutation, the journey across the mountains, the birth without pain, the finding of Jesus in the Temple, and the Ascension. It is only the vows which make it rather a bondage.

But, indeed, in spite of all, it is a great boon. I can conscientiously write to Else now, that I shall not need another penny of their scanty store, and can even, by the next opportunity, return what she sent, which, happily, I have not yet touched.

_August_, 1503.

Martin Luther is very dangerously ill; many of the professors and students are in great anxiety about him. He has so many friends; and no wonder! He is no cold friend himself, and all expect great honour to the University from his abilities. I scarcely dare to think what his loss would be to me. But this morning an aged priest who visited him inspired us with some hope. As Martin lay, apparently in the last extremity, and himself expecting death, this old priest came to his bed-side, and said gently, but in a firm tone of conviction,--

"Be of good comfort, my brother, you will not die at this time; G.o.d will yet make a great man of you, who shall comfort many others. Whom G.o.d loveth and proposeth to make a blessing, upon him he early layeth the cross, and in that school, who patiently endure learn much."

The words came with a strange kind of power, and I cannot help thinking that there is a little improvement in the patient since they were uttered. Truly, good words are like food and medicine to body and soul.