Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 39

In prison and in peril of life! Death itself cannot, I know, more completely separate Fritz and me than we are separated already. Indeed, of the death even of one of us, I have often thought as bringing us a step nearer, rending one veil between us. Yet, now that it seems so possible,--that perhaps it has already come,--I feel there was a kind of indefinable sweetness in being only on the same earth together, in treading the same pilgrim way. At least we could help each other by prayer; and now, if he is indeed treading the streets of the heavenly city, so high above, the world does seem darker.

But, alas! he may _not_ be in the heavenly city, but in some cold earthly dungeon, suffering I know not what!

I have read the words over and over, until I have almost lost their meaning. He has no morbid desire to die. He will escape if he can, and he is daring enough to accomplish much. And yet, if the danger were not great, he would not alarm Aunt Cotta with even the possibility of death.

He always considered others so tenderly.

He says I have helped him, _him_ who taught and helped me, a poor ignorant child, so much! Yet I suppose it may be so. It teaches us so much to teach others. And we always understood each other so perfectly with so few words. I feel as if blindness had fallen on me, when I think of him now. My heart gropes about in the dark and cannot find him.

But then I look up, my Saviour, to thee. "To thee the night and the day are both alike." I dare not think he is suffering; it breaks my heart. I cannot rejoice as I would in thinking he may be in heaven. I know not what to ask, but thou art with him as with me. _Keep him close under the shadow of thy wing._ There we are _safe_, and there we are _together_.

And oh, comfort Aunt Cotta! She must need it sorely.

Fritz, then, like our little company at Nimptschen, loves the words of Dr. Luther. When I think of this I rejoice almost more than I weep for him. These truths believed in our hearts seem to unite us more than prison or death can divide. When I think of this I can sing once more St. Bernard's hymn:--

SALVE CAPUT CRUENTATUM.

Hail! thou Head, so bruised and wounded, With the crown of thorns surrounded, Smitten with the mocking reed, Wounds which may not cease to bleed Trickling faint and slow.

Hail! from whose most blessed brow None can wipe the blood-drops now; All the bloom of life has fled, Mortal paleness there instead Thou before whose presence dread Angels trembling bow.

All thy vigor and thy life Fading in this bitter strife; Death his stamp on thee has set, Hollow and emaciate, Faint and drooping there.

Thou this agony and scorn Hast for me a sinner borne!

Me, unworthy, all for me!

With those wounds of love on thee, Glorious Face, appear!

Yet in this thine agony, Faithful Shepherd, think of me From whose lips of love divine Sweetest draughts of life are mine; Purest honey flows; All unworthy of thy thought, Guilty, yet reject me not; Unto me thy head incline,-- Let that dying head of thine In mine arms repose.

Let me true communion know With thee in thy sacred woe, Counting all beside but dross, Dying with thee on thy cross;-- 'Neath it will I die!

Thanks to thee with every breath Jesus, for thy bitter death; Grant thy guilty one this prayer: When my dying hour is near, Gracious G.o.d, be nigh!

When my dying hour must be, Be not absent then from me; In that dreadful hour, I pray, Jesus come without delay; See, and set me free.

When thou biddest me depart, Whom I cleave to with my heart.

Lover of my soul, be near, With thy saving cross appear,-- Show thyself to me!

XVIII.

Thekla's Story.

WITTEMBERG, _April_ 2, 1521.

Dr. Luther is gone. We all feel like a family bereaved of our father.

The professors and chief burghers, with numbers of the students, gathered around the door of the Augustinian Convent this morning to bid him farewell. Gottfried Reichenbach was near as he entered the carriage, and heard him say, as he turned to Melacthon, in a faltering voice, "Should I not return, and should my enemies put me to death, O my brother, cease not to teach and to abide steadfastly in the truth.

Labour in my place, for I shall not be able to labour myself. If you be spared it matters little that I perish."

And so he drove off. And a few minutes after, we, who were waiting at the door, saw him pa.s.s. He did not forget to smile at Else and her little ones, or to give a word of farewell to our dear blind father as he pa.s.sed us. But there was a grave steadfastness in his countenance that made our hearts full of anxiety. As the usher with the imperial standard who preceded him, and then Dr. Luther's carriage, disappeared round a corner of the street, our grandmother, whose chair had been placed at the door that she might see him pa.s.s, murmured, as if to herself,--

"Yes, it was with just such a look they went to the scaffold and the stake when I was young."

I could see little, my eyes were so blinded with tears; and when our grandmother said this, I could bear it no longer, but ran up to my room, and here I have been ever since. My mother and Else and all of them say I have no control over my feelings; and I am afraid I have not. But it seems to me as if every one I lean my heart on were always taken away.

First, there was Eva. She always understood me, helped me to understand myself; did not laugh at my perplexities as childish, did not think my over-eagerness was always heat of temper, but met my blundering efforts to do right. Different as she was from me (different as an angel from poor bewildered blundering Giant Christopher in Else's old legend), she always seemed come down to my level and see my difficulties from where I stood, and so helped me over them; whilst every one else sees them from above, and wonders any one can think such trifles troubles at all. Not, indeed, that my dear mother and Else are proud, or mean to look down on any one; but Else is so unselfish, her whole life is so bound up in others, that she does not know what more wilful natures have to contend with. Besides, she is now out of the immediate circle of our every-day life at home. Then our mother is so gentle; she is frightened to think what sorrows life may bring me with the changes that must come, if little things give me such joy or grief now. I know she feels for me often more than she dares let me see; but she is always thinking of arming me for the trials she believes must come, by teaching me to be less vehement and pa.s.sionate about trifles now. But I am afraid it is useless. I think every creature must suffer according to its nature; and if G.o.d has made our capacity for joy or sorrow deep, we cannot fill up the channel and say, "Hitherto I will feel; so far, and no further." The _waters are there_,--soon they will recover for themselves the old choked-up courses; and meantime they will overflow. Eva also used to say, "that our armour must grow with our growth, and our strength with the strength of our conflicts; and that there is only one shield which does this, the shield of faith,--a living, daily trust in a living, ever-present G.o.d."

But Eva went away. And then Nix died. I suppose if I saw any child now mourning over a dog as I did over Nix, I should wonder much as they all did at me then. But Nix was not only a dog to me. He was Eisenach and my childhood; and a whole world of love and dreams seemed to die for me with Nix.

To all the rest of the world I was a little vehement girl of fourteen; to Nix I was mistress, protector, everything. It was weeks before I could bear to come in at the front door, where he used to watch for me with his wistful eyes, and bound with cries of joy to meet me. I used to creep in at the garden gate.

And then Nix's death was the first approach of Death to me, and the dreadful power was no less a power because its shadow fell first for me on a faithful dog. I began dimly to feel that life, which before that seemed to be a mountain-path always mounting and mounting through golden mists to I know not what heights of beauty and joy, did not end on the heights, but in a dark unfathomed abyss, and that however dim its course might be, it has, alas, no mists, or uncertainty around the nature of its close, but ends certainly, obviously, and universally in death.

I could not tell any one what I felt. I did not know myself. How can we understand a labyrinth until we are through it? I did not even know it was a labyrinth. I only knew that a light had pa.s.sed away from everything, and a shadow had fallen in its place.

Then it was that Dr. Luther spoke to me of the other world, beyond death, which G.o.d would certainly make more full and beautiful than this;--the world on which the shadow of death can never come, because it lies in the eternal sunshine, on the other side of death, and all the shadows fall on this side. That was about the time of my first communion, and I saw much of Dr. Luther, and heard him preach. I did not say much to him, but he let down a light into my heart which, amidst all its wanderings and mistakes, will, I believe, never go out.

He made me understand something of what our dear heavenly Father is, and that willing but unequalled Sufferer--that gracious Saviour who gave himself for our sins, even for mine. And he made me feel that G.o.d would understand me better than any one, because love always understands, and the greatest love understands best, and G.o.d is love.

Else and I spoke a little about it sometimes, but not much. I am still a child to Else and to all of them, being the youngest, and so much less self-controlled than I ought to be. Fritz understood it best; at least, I could speak to him more freely,--I do not know why. Perhaps some hearts are made to answer naturally to each other, just as some of the furniture always vibrates when I touch a particular string of the lute, while nothing else in the room seems to feel it. Perhaps, too, sorrow deepens the heart wonderfully, and opens a channel into the depths of all other hearts. And I am sure Fritz has known very deep sorrow. What, I do not exactly know; and I would not for the world try to find out. If there is a secret chamber in his heart, which he cannot bear to open to any one, when I think his thoughts are there, would I not turn aside my eyes and creep softly away, that he might never know I had found it out?

The innermost sanctuary of his heart is, however, I know, not a chamber of darkness and death, but a holy place of daylight, for G.o.d is there.

Hours and hours Fritz and I spoke of Dr. Luther, and what he had done for us both; more, perhaps, for Fritz than even for me, because he had suffered more. It seems to me as if we and thousands besides in the world had been worshipping before an altar-picture of our Saviour, which we had been told was painted by a great master after a heavenly pattern.

But all we could see was a grim, hard, stern countenance of one sitting on a judgment throne; in his hands lightnings, and worse lightnings buried in the cloud of his severe and threatening brow. And then, suddenly we heard Dr. Luther's voice behind us saying, in his ringing, inspiring tones, "Friends, what are you doing? That is not the right painting. These are only the boards which hide the master's picture."

And so saying, he drew aside the terrible image on which we had been hopelessly gazing, vainly trying to read some traces of tenderness and beauty there. And all at once the real picture was revealed to us, the picture of the real Christ, with the look on his glorious face which he had on the cross, when he said of his murderers, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do;" and to his mother, "Woman, behold thy son?"

or to the sinful woman who washed his feet, "Go in peace."

Fritz and I also spoke very often of Eva. At least, he liked me to speak of her while he listened. And I never weary of speaking of our Eva.

But then Fritz went away. And now it is many weeks since we have heard from him; and the last tidings we had were that little note from the convent-prison of Mainz!

And now Dr. Luther is gone--gone to the stronghold of his enemies--gone, perhaps, as our grandmother says, to martyrdom!

And who will keep that glorious revelation of the true, loving, pardoning G.o.d open for us,--with a steady hand keep open those false shutters, now that he is withdrawn? Dr. Melancthon may do as well for the learned, for the theologians; but who will replace Dr. Luther to _us_, to the people, to working men and eager youths, and to women and to children? Who will make us feel as he does that religion is not a study, or a profession, or a system of doctrines, but life in G.o.d; that prayer is not, as he said, an ascension of the heart as a spiritual exercise into some vague airy heights, but the lifting of the heart _to G.o.d_, to a heart which meets us, cares for us, loves us inexpressibly?

Who will ever keep before us as he does the "Our Father," which makes all the rest of the Lord's Prayer and all prayer possible and helpful?

No wonder that mothers held out their children to receive his blessing as he left us, and then went home weeping, whilst even strong men brushed away tears from their eyes.

It is true, Dr. Bugenhagen, who has escaped from persecution in Pomerania, preaches fervently in his pulpit; and Archdeacon Carlstadt is full of fire, and Dr. Melancthon full of light; and many good, wise men are left. But Dr. Luther seemed the heart and soul of all. Others might say wiser things, and he might say many things others would be too wise to say, but it is through Dr. Luther's heart that G.o.d has revealed His heart and His word to thousands in our country, and no one can ever be to us what he is.

Day and night we pray for his safety.

_April_ 15.

Christopher has returned from Erfurt, where he heard Dr. Luther preach.

He told us that in many places his progress was like that of a beloved prince through his dominions, of a prince who was going out to some great battle for his land.

Peasants blessed him; poor men and women thronged around him and entreated him not to trust his precious life among his enemies. One aged priest at Nuremberg brought out to him a portrait of Savonarola, the good priest whom the Pope burned at Florence not forty years ago. One aged widow came to him and said her parents had told her G.o.d would send a deliverer to break the yoke of Rome, and she thanked G.o.d she saw him before she died. At Erfurt sixty burghers and professors rode out some miles to escort him into the city. There, where he had relinquished all earthly prospects to beg bread as a monk through the streets, the streets were thronged with grateful men and women, who welcomed him as their liberator from falsehood and spiritual tyranny.