Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 30

They seem to think of me as a kind of angel sister, who was early taken to G.o.d, and will never grow old. It is very sweet to be remembered thus; but sometimes it seems as if it were hardly me they were remembering or loving, but what I was or might have been.

Would they recognize Cousin Eva in the grave, quiet woman of twenty-two I have become? For whilst in the old home Time seems to mark his course like a stream by growth and life, here in the convent he seems to mark it only by the slow falling of the shadow on the silent dial--the shadow of death. In the convent there is no growth but growing old.

In Aunt Cotta's home the year expanded from winter into spring, and summer, and autumn--seed-time and harvest--the season of flowers and the season of fruits. The seasons grew into each other, we knew not how or when. In the convent the year is sharply divided into December, January, February, March, and April, with nothing to distinguish one month from another but their names and dates.

In our old home the day brightened from dawn to noon, and then mellowed into sunset, and softly faded into night. Here in the convent the day is separated into hours by the clock.

Sister Beatrice's poor faded face is slowly becoming a little more faded; Aunt Agnes's a little more worn and sharp; and I, like the rest, am six years older than I was six years ago, when I came here; and that is all.

It is true, fresh novices have arrived, and have taken the irrevocable vows, and fair young faces are around me; but my heart aches sometimes when I look at them, and think that they, like the rest of us, have closed the door on life, with all its changes, and have entered on that monotonous pathway to the grave whose stages are simply growing old.

Some of these novices come full of high aspirations for a religious life. They have been told about the heavenly Spouse, who will fill their consecrated hearts with pure, unutterable joys, the world can never know.

Many come as sacrifices to family poverty or family pride, because their n.o.ble parents are too poor to maintain them suitably, or in order that their fortunes may swell the dower of some married sister.

I know what disappointment is before them when they learn that the convent is but a poor, childish mimicry of the world, with its petty ambitions and rivalries, but without the life and the love. I know the n.o.blest will suffer most, and may, perhaps, fall the lowest.

To narrow, apathetic natures, the icy routine of habit will more easily replace the varied flow of life. They will fit into their harness sooner, and become as much interested in the gossip of the house or the order, the election of superiors, or the scandal of some neighbouring nunnery, as they would have become in the gossip of the town or village they would have lived in, in the world.

But warm hearts and high spirits--these will chafe and struggle, and dream they have reached depths of self-abas.e.m.e.nt, or soared to heights of mystical devotion, and then awake, with bitter self-reproaches, to find themselves too weak to cope with some small temptation, like Aunt Agnes.

These I will help all I can. But I have learned, since I came to Nimptschen, that it is a terrible and perilous thing to take the work of the training of our souls out of G.o.d's hands into our own. The pruning-knife in his hands must sometimes wound and seem to impoverish; but in ours it cuts, and wounds, and impoverishes, and does _not_ prune.

We can, indeed, inflict pain on ourselves; but G.o.d alone can make pain healing, or suffering discipline.

I can only pray that, however mistaken many may be in immuring themselves here, Thou who art the Good Physician wilt take us, with all our useless self-inflicted wounds, and all our wasted, self-stunted faculties, and as we are and as thou art, still train us for thyself.

The infirmary is what interests me most. Having secluded ourselves from all the joys and sorrows and vicissitudes of common life, we seem scarcely to have left anything in G.o.d's hands, wherewith to try our faith and subdue our wills to his, except sickness. Bereavements we cannot know who have bereaved ourselves of all companionship with our beloved for evermore on earth. Nor can we know the trials either of poverty or of prosperity, since we can never experience either; but, having taken the vow of voluntary poverty on ourselves, whilst we can never call anything individually our own, we are freed from all anxieties by becoming members of a richly-endowed order.

Sickness only remains beyond our control; and, therefore, when I see any of the sisterhood laid on the bed of suffering, I think--

"_G.o.d has laid thee there!_" and I feel more sure that it is the right thing.

I still instruct the novices; but sometimes the dreary question comes to me--

"For _what_ am I instructing them?"

Life has no future for them--only a monotonous prolonging of the monotonous present.

I try to feel, "I am training them for eternity." But who can do that but G.o.d, who inhabiteth eternity, and sees the links which connect every moment of the little circles of time with the vast circ.u.mference of the everlasting future?

But I do my best. Catharine von Bora, a young girl of sixteen, who has lately entered the convent, interests me deeply. There is such strength in her character and such warmth in her heart. But alas! what scope is there for these here?

Aunt Agnes has not opened her heart in any way to me. True, when I was ill, she watched over me as tenderly as Aunt Cotta could; but when I recovered, she seemed to repel all demonstrations of grat.i.tude and affection, and went on with that round of penances and disciplines, which make the nuns reverence her as so especially saintly.

Sometimes I look with longing to the smoke and lights in the village we can see among the trees from the upper windows of the convent. I know that each little wreath of smoke comes from the hearth of a home where there are father and mother and little children; and the smoke wreaths seem to me to rise like holy clouds of incense to G.o.d our Father in heaven.

But the alms given so liberally by the sisterhood are given at the convent-gate, so that we never form any closer connection with the poor around us than that of beggars and almoners; and I long to be their _friend_.

Sometimes I am afraid I acted in impatient self-will in leaving Aunt Cotta's home, and that I should have served G.o.d better by remaining there, and that, after all, my departure may have left some little blank it would not have been useless to fill. As the girls marry, Aunt Cotta might have found me a comfort, and, as "Cousin Eva," I might perhaps have been more of a help to Else's children than I can be to the nuns here as Sister Ave. But whatever might have been, it is impatience and rebellion to think of that now; and nothing can separate me from G.o.d and his love.

Somehow or other, however, even the "Theologia Germanica," and the high, disinterested communion with G.o.d it teaches, seemed sweeter to me, in the intervals of an interrupted and busy life, than as the business of this uninterrupted leisure. The hours of contemplation were more blessed for the very trials and occupations which seemed to hinder them.

Sometimes I feel as if my heart also were freezing, and becoming set and hard. I am afraid, indeed, it would, were it not for poor Sister Beatrice, who has had a paralytic stroke, and is now a constant inmate of the infirmary. She speaks at times very incoherently, and cannot think at any time connectedly. But I have found a book which interests her; it is the Latin Gospel of St. Luke, which I am allowed to take from the convent library and translate to her. The narratives are so brief and simple, she can comprehend them, and she never wearies of hearing them. The very familiarity endears them, and to me they are always new.

But it is very strange that there is nothing about penance or vows in it, or the adoration of the blessed Virgin. I suppose I shall find that in the other Gospels, or in the Epistles, which were written after our Lady's a.s.sumption into heaven. Sister Beatrice likes much to hear me sing the hymn by Bernard of Clugni, on the perpetuity of joy in heaven:[8]--

Here brief is the sighing, And brief is the crying, For brief is the life!

The life there is endless, The joy there is endless, And ended the strife.

What joys are in heaven?

To whom are they given?

Ah! what? and to whom?

The stars to the earth-born, "Best robes" to the sin-worn, The crown for the doom!

O country the fairest!

Our country the dearest, We press towards thee!

O Sion the golden!

Our eyes are now holden, Thy light till we see:

Thy crystalline ocean, Unvexed by commotion, Thy fountain of life; Thy deep peace unspoken, Pure, sinless, unbroken,-- Thy peace beyond strife:

Thy meek saints all glorious, Thy martyrs victorious, Who suffer no more; Thy halls full of singing, Thy hymns ever ringing Along thy safe sh.o.r.e.

Like the lily for whiteness, Like the jewel for brightness, Thy vestments, O Bride!

The Lamb ever with thee, The Bridegroom is with thee,-- With thee to abide!

We know not, we know not, All human words show not, The joys we may reach; The mansions preparing, The joys for our sharing, The welcome for each.

O Sion the golden!

My eyes are still holden, Thy light till I see; And deep in thy glory, Unveiled then before me, My King, look on thee!

[Footnote 8:

Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur, Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur.

O retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis, O retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis, etc. etc., etc.]

_April_, 1517.

The whole of the Augustinian Order in Saxony has been greatly moved by the visitation of Dr. Martin Luther. He has been appointed Deputy Vicar-General in the place of Dr. Staupitz, who has gone on a mission to the Netherlands, to collect relics for the Elector Frederic's new church at Wittemberg.

Last April Dr. Luther visited the Monastery of Grimma, not far from us; and through our Prioress, who is connected with the Prior of Grimma, we hear much about it.

He strongly recommends the study of the Scriptures and of St. Augustine, in preference to every other book, by the brethren and sisters of his Order. We have begun to follow his advice in our convent, and a new impulse seems given to everything. I have also seen two beautiful letters of Dr. Martin Luther's, written to two brethren of the Augustinian Order. Both were written in April last, and they have been read by many amongst us. The first was to Brother George Spenlein, a monk at Memmingen. It begins, "In the name of Jesus Christ." After speaking of some private pecuniary matters, he writes:--

"As to the rest, I desire to know how it goes with thy soul; whether, weary of its own righteousness, it learns to breathe and to trust in the righteousness of Christ. For in our age the temptation to presumption burns in many, and chiefly in those who are trying with all their might to be just and good.

Ignorant of the righteousness of G.o.d, which in Christ is given to us richly and without price, they seek in themselves to do good works, so that at last they may have confidence to stand before G.o.d, adorned with merits and virtues,--which is impossible. Thou, when with us, wert of this opinion, and so was I; but now I contend against this error, although I have not yet conquered it.

"Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified; learn to sing to him, and, despairing of thyself, to say to him, 'Lord Jesus, thou art my righteousness, but I am thy sin.