Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 34

XV.

Fritz's Story.

AUGUSTINIAN CONVENt, MAINZ, _November_, 1517.

Seven years have pa.s.sed since I have written anything in this old chronicle of mine, and as in the quiet of this convent once more I open it, the ink on the first pages is already brown with time; yet a strange familiar fragrance breathes from them, as of early spring flowers. My childhood comes back to me, with all its devout simplicity; my youth, with all its rich prospects and its buoyant, ardent, hopes. My childhood seems like one of those green quiet valleys in my native forests, like the valley of my native Eisenach itself, when that one reach of the forest, and that one quiet town with its spires and church bells, and that one lowly home with its love, its cares, and its twilight talks in the lumber room, were all the world I could see.

Youth rises before me like that first journey through the forest to the University of Erfurt, when the world opened to me like the plains from the breezy heights, a battle-field for glorious achievement, an unbounded ocean for adventure and discovery, a vast field for n.o.ble work.

Then came another brief interval, when once again the lowly home at Eisenach became to me dearer and more than all the wide world beside, and all earth and all life seemed to grow sacred and to expand before me in the light of one pure, holy, loving maiden's heart. I have seen nothing so heaven-like since as she was. But then came the great crash which wrenched my life in twain, and made home and the world alike forbidden ground to me.

At first, after that, for years I dared not think of Eva. But since my pilgrimage to Rome, I venture to cherish her memory again. I thank G.o.d every day that nothing can erase that image of purity and love from my heart. Had it not been for that, and for the recollection of Dr.

Luther's manly, honest piety, there are times when the very existence of truth and holiness on earth would have seemed inconceivable, such a chaos of corruption has the world appeared to me.

How often has the little lowly hearth-fire, glowing from the windows of the old home, saved me from shipwreck, when "for many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and no small tempest lay on me."

For I have lived during these years behind the veil of outward shows, a poor insignificant monk, before whom none thought it worth while to inconvenience themselves with masks or disguises. I have spent hour after hour, moreover, in the confessional. I have been in the sacristy before the ma.s.s, and at the convent feast after it. And I have spent months once and again at the heart of Christendom, in Rome itself, where the indulgences which are now stirring up all Germany are manufactured, and where the money gained by the indulgences is spent; _not_ entirely on the building of St. Peter's or in holy wars against the Turks!

Thank G.o.d that a voice is raised at last against this crying, monstrous lie, the honest voice of Dr. Luther. It is ringing through all the land.

I have just returned from a mission through Germany, and I had opportunities of observing the effect of the theses.

The first time I heard of them was from a sermon in a church of the Dominicans in Bavaria.

The preacher spoke of Dr. Luther by name, and reviled the theses as directly inspired by the devil, declaring that their wretched author would have a place in h.e.l.l lower than all the heretics, from Simon Magus downward.

The congregation were roused and spoke of it as they dispersed. Some piously wondered who this new heretic could be who was worse even than Huss. Others speculated what this new poisonous doctrine could be; and a great many bought a copy of the theses to see.

In the Augustinian convent that evening they formed the subject of warm debate. Not a few of the monks triumphed in them as an effective blow against Tetzel and the Dominicans. A few rejoiced and said these were the words they had been longing to hear for years. Many expressed wonder that people should make so much stir about them, since they said nothing more than all honest men in the land had always thought.

A few nights afterwards I lodged at the house of Ruprecht Haller, a priest in a Franconian village. A woman of quiet and modest appearance, young in form but worn and old in expression, with a subdued, broken-spirited bearing, was preparing our supper, and whilst she was serving the table I began to speak to the priest about the theses of Dr.

Luther.

He motioned to me to keep silence, and hastily turned the conversation.

When we were left alone he explained his reasons. "I gave her the money for an indulgence letter last week, and she purchased one from one of Dr. Tetzel's company," he said; "and when she returned her heart seemed lighter than I have seen it for years, since G.o.d smote us for our sins, and little Dietrich died. I would not have had her robbed of that little bit of comfort for the world, be it true or false."

Theirs was a sad story, common enough in every town and village as regarded the sin, and only uncommon as to the longing for better things which yet lingered in the hearts of the guilty.

I suggested her returning to her kindred or entering a convent.

"She has no kindred left that would receive her," he said; "and to send her to be scorned and disciplined by a community of nuns--never!"

"But her soul!" I said, "and yours?"

"The blessed Lord received such," he answered almost fiercely, "before the Pharisees."

"Such received Him!" I said quietly, "but receiving Him they went and sinned no more."

"And when did G.o.d ever say it was sin for a priest to marry?" he asked; "not in the Old Testament, for the son of Elkanah the priest and Hannah ministered before the Lord in the temple, as perhaps our little Dietrich," he added in a low tone, "ministers before Him in his temple now. And where in the New Testament do you find it forbidden?"

"The Church forbids it," I said.

"Since when?" he asked. "The subject is too near my heart for me not to have searched to see. And five hundred years ago, I have read, before the days of Hildebrand the pope, many a village pastor had his lawful wife, whom he loved as I love Bertha; for G.o.d knows neither she nor I ever loved another."

"Does this satisfy her conscience?" I asked.

"Sometimes," he replied bitterly, "but only sometimes. Oftener she lives as one under a curse, afraid to receive any good thing, and bowing to every sorrow as her bitter desert, and the foretaste of the terrible retribution to come."

"Whatever is not of faith is sin," I murmured.

"But what will be the portion of those who call what G.o.d sanctions sin,"

he said, "and bring trouble and pollution into hearts as pure as hers?"

The woman entered the room as he was speaking, and must have caught his words, for a deep crimson flushed her pale face. As she turned away, her whole frame quivered with a suppressed sob. But afterwards, when the priest left the room, she came up to me and said, looking with her sad, dark, l.u.s.treless eyes at me, "You were saying that some doubt the efficacy of these indulgences? But do _you_? I cannot trust _him_," she added softly, "he would be afraid to tell me if he thought so."

I hesitated what to say. I could not tell an untruth; and before those searching, earnest eyes, any attempt at evasion would have been vain.

"You do _not_ believe this letter can do anything for me," she said; "_nor do I_." And moving quietly to the hearth, she tore the indulgence into shreds, and threw it on the flames.

"Do not tell him this," she said; "he thinks it comforts me."

I tried to say some words about repentance and forgiveness being free to all.

"Repentance for me," she said, "would be to leave him, would it not?"

I could not deny it.

"I will _never_ leave him," she replied, with a calmness which was more like principle than pa.s.sion. "He has sacrificed life for me; but for me he might have been a great and honoured man. And do you think I would leave him to bear his blighted life alone?"

Ah! it was no dread of scorn or discipline which kept her from the convent.

For some time I was silenced. I dared neither to reproach nor to comfort. At length I said, "Life, whether joyful or sorrowful, is very short. Holiness is infinitely better than happiness here, and holiness makes happiness in the life beyond. If you felt it would be for _his_ good, you would do anything, at any cost to yourself, would you not?"

Her eyes filled with tears. "You believe, then, that there is some good left, even in me!" she said. "For this may G.o.d bless you!" and silently she left the room.

Five hundred years ago these two lives might have been holy, honourable, and happy; and now!--

I left that house with a heavy heart, and a mind more bewildered than before.

But that pale, worn face; those deep, sad, truthful eyes; and that brow, that might have been as pure as the brow of a St. Agnes, have haunted me often since. And whenever I think of it, I say,--

"G.o.d be merciful to them and to me, sinners!"

For had not my own good, pure, pious mother doubts and scruples almost as bitter? Did not she also live too often as if under a curse? Who or what has thrown this shadow on so many homes? Who that knows the interior of many convents dares to say they are holier than homes? Who that has lived with, or confessed many monks or nuns, can dare to say their hearts are more heavenly than those of husband or wife, father or mother? Alas! the questions of that priest are nothing new to me. But I dare not entertain them. For if monastic life is a delusion, to what have I sacrificed hopes which were so absorbing, and might have been so pure?

Regrets are burdens a brave man must cast off. For my little life what does it matter? But to see vice shamefully reigning in the most sacred places, and scruples, perhaps false, staining the purest hearts, who can behold these things and not mourn? Crimes a pagan would have abhorred atoned for by a few florins; sins which the Holy Scriptures scarcely seem to condemn, weighing on tender consciences like crimes! What will be the end of this chaos?