Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 57

"They are Bohemians,--they are Hussites. They know my husband's name.

The truth he died for is still living in my country."

The rush of old a.s.sociations was too much for her. Her lips quivered, the tears fell slowly over her cheeks, and she could not say another word.

The strangers consented to remain under my father's roof for the night, and told us the errand which brought them to Wittemberg.

From generation to generation, since John Huss was martyred, they said, the truth he taught had been preserved in Bohemia, always at the risk, and often at the cost of life. Sometimes it had perplexed them much that nowhere in the world beside could they hear of those who believed the same truth. Could it be possible that the truth of G.o.d was banished to the mountain fastnesses? Like Elijah of old, they felt disposed to cry in their wilderness, "I, only I, am left."

"But they could not have been right to think thus," said my mother, who never liked the old religion to be too much reproached. "G.o.d has always had his own who have loved him, in the darkest days. From how many convent cells have pious hearts looked up to him. It requires great teaching of the Holy Spirit and many battles to make a Luther; but, I think, it requires only to touch the hem of Christ's garment to make a Christian.

"Yes," said Gottfried, opening our beloved commentary on the Galatians, "what Dr. Luther said is true indeed, 'Some there were in the olden time whom G.o.d called by the text of the gospel and by baptism. These walked in simplicity and humbleness of heart, thinking the monks and friars, and such only as were annointed by the bishops, to be religious and holy, and themselves to be profane and secular, and not worthy to be compared to them. Wherefore, they, feeling in themselves no good works to set against the wrath and judgment of G.o.d, did fly to the death and pa.s.sion of Christ, and were saved in this simplicity.'"

"No doubt it was so," said the Bohemian deputies. "But all this was hidden from the eye of man. Twice our fathers sent secret messengers through the length and breadth of Christendom to see if they could find any that did understand, that did seek after G.o.d, and everywhere they found carelessness, superst.i.tion, darkness, but no response."

"Ah," said my mother, "that is a search only the eye of G.o.d can make.

Yet, doubtless, the days were dark."

"They came back without having met with any response," continued the strangers, "and again our fathers had to toil and suffer on alone. And now the sounds of life have reached us in our mountain solitudes from all parts of the world; and we have come to Wittemberg to hear the voice which awoke them first, and to claim brotherhood with the evangelical Christians here. Dr. Luther has welcomed us, and we return to our mountains to tell our people that the morning has dawned on the world at last."

The evening pa.s.sed in happy intercourse, and before we separated, Christopher brought his lute, and we all sang together the hymn of John Huss, which Dr. Luther has published among his own:--

"Jesus Christus nostra salus,"

and afterwards Luther's own glorious hymn in German, "_Nun freut euch lieben Christen gemein_:"

Dear Christian people, all rejoice; Each soul with joy upspringing: Pour forth one song with heart and voice, With love and gladness singing.

Give thanks to G.o.d, our Lord above-- Thanks for his miracles of love: Dearly he hath redeemed us!

The devil's captive bound I lay, Lay in death's chains forlorn; My sins distressed me night and day-- The sin within me born; I could not do the thing I would, In all my life was nothing good, Sin had possessed me wholly.

My good works could no comfort shed, Worthless must they be rated; My free will to all good was dead, And G.o.d's just judgments hated.

Me of all hope my sins bereft: Nothing but death to me was left, And death was h.e.l.l's dark portal.

Then G.o.d saw with deep pity moved My grief that knew no measure; Pitying he saw, and freely loved,-- To save me was his pleasure.

The Father's heart to me was stirred, He saved me with no sovereign word, His very best it cost him.

He spoke to his beloved Son With infinite compa.s.sion, "Go hence, my heart's most precious crown.

Be to the lost salvation; Death, his relentless tyrant slay, And bear him from his sins away, With thee to live forever."

Willing the Son took that behest, Born of a maiden mother, To his own earth he came a guest, And made himself my brother.

All secretly he went his way, Veiled in my mortal flesh he lay, And thus the foe he vanquished.

He said to me, "Cling close to me, Thy sorrows now are ending!

Freely I gave myself for thee, Thy life with mine defending; For I am thine, and thou art mine, And where I am there thou shalt shine, The foe shall never reach us.

True, he will shed my heart's life blood, And torture me to death: All this I suffer for thy good, This hold with earnest faith.

Death dieth through my life divine; I sinless bear those sins of thine, And so shalt thou be rescued.

I rise again to heaven from hence, High to my Father soaring, Thy Master there to be, and thence, My spirit on thee pouring; In every grief to comfort thee, And teach thee more and more of me, Into all truth still guiding.

What I have done and taught on earth, Do thou, and teach, none dreading; That so G.o.d's kingdom may go forth, And His high praise be spreading; And guard thee from the words of men, Lest the great joy be lost again; Thus my last charge I leave thee."

Afterwards, at our mother's especial desire, Eva and Fritz sang a Latin resurrection hymn from the olden time.[11]

[Footnote 11:

Mundi renovatio Nova parit gaudia, Resurgente Domino Conresurgunt omnia; Elementa serviunt, Et auctoris sentiunt, Quanta sint solemnia.

&c. &c. &c.

(The translation only is given above.)]

The renewal of the world Countless new joys bringeth forth: Christ arising, all things rise-- Rise with him from earth.

All the creatures feel their Lord-- Feel his festal light outpoured.

Fire springs up with motion free, Breezes wake up soft and warm; Water flows abundantly, Earth remaineth firm.

All things light now skyward soar, Solid things are rooted more; All things are made new.

Ocean waves, grown tranquil, lie Smiling 'neath the heavens serene; All the air breathes light and fresh; Our valley groweth green.

Verdure clothes the arid plain, Frozen waters gush again At the touch of spring.

For the frost of death is melted The prince of this world lieth low; And his empire strong among us, All is broken now.

Grasping Him in whom alone He could nothing claim or own, His domain he lost.

Paradise is now regained, Life has vanquished death; And the joys he long had lost, Man recovereth.

The cherubim at G.o.d's own word Turn aside the flaming sword; The long-lost blessing is restored.

The closed way opened free.[12]

[Footnote 12: Adam of St. Victor, twelfth century.]

The next morning the strangers left us; but all the day our grandmother sat silent and tranquil, with her hands clasped, in an inactivity very unusual with her. In the evening, when we had a.s.sembled again--as we all do now every day in the old house--she said quietly, "Children, sing to me the 'Nunc Dimittis.' G.o.d has fulfilled every desire of my heart; and, if he willed it, I should like now to depart in peace to my dead. For I know they live unto him."

Afterwards, we fell into conversation about the past. It was the eve of the wedding-day of Eva and Fritz, and Atlantis and Conrad. And we, a family united in one faith, naturally spoke together of the various ways in which G.o.d had led us to the one end.

The old days rose up before me, when the ideal of holiness had towered above my life, grim and stony, like the fortress of the Wartburg (in which my patroness had lived), above the streets of Eisenach, and when even Christ the Lord seemed to me, as Dr. Luther says, "a law-maker giving more strait and heavy commands than Moses himself"--an irrevocable, unapproachable Judge, enthroned far up in the cold s.p.a.ces of the sky; and heaven, like a convent, with very high walls, peopled by nuns rigid as Aunt Agnes. And then the change which came over all my heart when I learned, through Dr. Luther's teaching, that G.o.d is love--is our Father; that Christ is the Saviour, who gave himself for our sins, and loved us better than life; that heaven is our Father's house; that holiness is simply loving G.o.d--who is so good, and who has so loved us, and, loving one another, that the service we have to render is simply to give thanks and to do good;--when, as Dr. Luther said, that word "our" was written deeply in my heart--that for _our_ sins He died--for mine,--that for all, for us, for _me_, He gave himself.

And then Fritz told us how he had toiled and tormented himself to reconcile G.o.d to him, until he found, through Dr. Luther's teaching, that our sins have been borne away by the Lamb of G.o.d--the sacrifice not of man's gift, but of G.o.d's; "that in that one person, Jesus Christ, we had forgiveness of sins and eternal life;" that G.o.d is to us as the father to the prodigal son--entreating _us_ to be reconciled to Him. And he told us also, how he had longed for a priest, who could know infallibly all his heart, and secure him from the deceitfulness and imperfectness of his own confessions, and a.s.sure him that, knowing all his sin to its depths, with all its aggravations, he yet p.r.o.nounced him absolved. And at last he had found that Priest, penetrating to the depths of his heart, tracing every act to its motive, every motive to its source, and yet p.r.o.nouncing him absolved, freely, fully, at once--imposing no penance, but simply desiring a life of thanksgiving in return. "And this Priest," he added, "is with me always; I make my confession to him every evening, or oftener, if I need it; and as often as I confess, He absolves, and bids me be of good courage--go in peace, and sin no more. But He is not on earth. He dwells in the holy of holies, which never more is empty, like the solitary sanctuary of the old temple on all days in the year but one. He ever liveth to make intercession for us!"

Then we spoke together of the two great facts Dr. Luther had unveiled to us from the Holy Scriptures, that there is one sacrifice of atonement, the spotless Lamb of G.o.d, who gave himself once for our sins; and that there is but one priestly Mediator, the Son of Man and Son of G.o.d; that, in consequence of this, all Christians are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices; and the feeblest has his offering, which, through Jesus Christ, G.o.d delights to accept, having first accepted the sinner himself in the Beloved.

Our mother spoke to us, in a few words, of the dreadful thoughts she had of G.o.d--picturing him rather as the lightning than the light; of the curse which she feared was lowering like a thunder-cloud over her life, until Dr. Luther began to show her that the curse has been borne for us by Him who was made a curse for us, and removed for ever from all who trust in him. "And then," she said, "the Holy Supper taught me the rest.

He bore for us the cross; he spreads for us the feast. We have, indeed, the cross to bear, but never more the curse; the cross from man, temptation from the devil, but from G.o.d nothing but blessing."

But Eva said she could not remember the time when she did not think G.o.d good and kind beyond all. There were many other things in religion which perplexed her; but this had always seemed clear, that G.o.d so loved the world, he gave his Son. And she had always hoped that all the rest would be clear one day in the light of that love. The joy which Dr. Luther's writings had brought her was, she thought, like seeing the stains cleared away from some beautiful painting, whose beauty she had known but not fully seen--or like having a misunderstanding explained about a dear friend. She had always wondered about the hard penances to appease One who loved so much, and the many mediators to approach Him; and it had been an inexpressible delight to find that these were all a mistake, and that access to G.o.d was indeed open--that the love and the sin,--life and death,--had met on the cross, and the sin had been blotted out, and death swallowed up of life.

In such discourse we pa.s.sed the eve of the wedding day.

And now the day has vanished like a bright vision; our little gentle loving Atlantis has gone with her husband to their distant home, the bridal crowns are laid aside, and Eva and Fritz in their sober every-day dress, but with the crown of unfading joy in their hearts, have gone together to their lowly work in the forest, to make one more of those hallowed pastor's homes which are springing up now in the villages of our land.