Tales from the German Volume II Part 5

'A gallant officer well knows how to convert trifles into matters of importance,' said the maiden, repelling the persevering youth. 'I wrote the three names for you, merely in jest, Faith, Hope, and Charity, because they follow each other in the calendar.'

'Only for that reason?' asked Dorn in a tender tone, throwing his arms around her slender waist. Endeavoring to push him gently back with her right hand, she dropped a note which Dorn caught up and read before she could hinder him.

'Victoria!' shouted he. 'You have drawn my name, as I have drawn yours.

Who can doubt now that we are destined for each other? Obey the friendly oracle, dear maiden, and become mine, as I am yours, in life and death.'

He embraced the lovely creature more ardently, while she, no longer able to withstand the solicitations of the youth and the pleadings of her own heart, sank on his bosom, and exclaimed in low accents: 'Thine, forever.'

CHAPTER V.

'Well, really, master Dorn, you begin the portentous new year upon which we are entering in a very worldly manner,' cried a reproving voice behind them. Faith shrieked with terror that those blessed moments should have had a witness, and fled from the room. At the same time Dorn, displeased at the awkward interruption, turned suddenly round and stood facing the parson, who viewed him with severe and reproachful looks. 'Is it well,' at length said the angry preacher, 'to seduce the inconsiderate sister-in-law of your brother and benefactor into an amorous intrigue?'

'You are right, reverend sir,' answered Dorn; 'that would be to do him foul wrong; but to seek the honorable love of a maiden whom I hope one day to lead to the altar as my beloved wife, appears to me to be well, and is not forbidden in the holy scriptures.'

'You wish to espouse the maiden, then?' said the parson; 'that is quite a different thing, and I take back my censure. In that case my office imposes upon me another sacred duty. The maiden is how under my spiritual care, and I must be answerable to heaven for her religious principles, which might be perverted by an unbelieving husband. I have become doubtful of you, from your own conversations, and therefore, as a called and ordained servant of the word, I ask you, are you an orthodox Lutheran christian?'

'You would find it very difficult to justify that question before the great author of your reformation,' answered Dorn, moodily. 'Know you not how peremptorily he forbade the professors of his doctrines to designate themselves by his name?'

'You wish to evade my question!' cried the parson, feeling the sting, but endeavoring to conceal the smart.

'That is not my custom,' said Dorn. 'I will never deny that I adhere to the doctrines which were first promulgated in Switzerland, and have thence spread throughout the German empire.'

'As I feared!' cried the parson. 'A Calvinist, or perhaps even a Zuinglian! and you wish to take a wife of the Augsburg faith?'

'Why not?' asked Dorn. 'That G.o.d who has disposed my heart toward the maiden, will not be angry that I choose her as my companion for life.'

'I much doubt whether you can have and keep a true heart for one who is of a different faith,' said the parson, shaking his head.

'G.o.d, who is eternal love, pardon you for the doubt, reverend sir,'

said Dorn with emotion. 'It is a sad consideration, that contentions about unimportant dogmas and forms so frequently divide christians who should stand united against the common enemy. It would be dreadful if the feeble chains by which you are yet fettered, after throwing off those of popery, should bar the way between two innocent individuals, whose souls have become united by the bonds of holy love.'

'Unimportant dogmas and forms?' repeated the parson.

'I consider them so,' answered Dorn. 'Adhering to the words of Christ, we celebrate, in the Lord's supper, only a holy remembrance of the Savior; while you, by virtue of the same words, find therein a mysterious presence of his body and his blood. You ornament your churches with pictures, of which practice we disapprove. Are such differences really sufficient grounds for the quarrels and contentions which the followers of both confessions continue to wage against each other with such reprehensible bitterness?'

'You wilfully overlook a princ.i.p.al point,' said the parson; 'the almost insurmountable part.i.tion wall which your Calvin has raised between you and us. I mean your monstrous doctrine of election. _Aliis vita aeterna, aliis d.a.m.natio aeterna praeordinatur!_ How can you reconcile this declaration with infinite love and eternal justice?'

'I willingly give up these doctrines to your disposal,' answered Dorn; 'for they have never formed a part of my creed. Even Calvin himself stated, that he had some scruples whether predestination could be reconciled with G.o.d's wisdom, the rock upon which this doctrine has always foundered.'

'I take this concession for all it is worth,' said the parson; 'but I cannot pa.s.s over your a.s.sertion, that our difference upon the subject of the Lord's supper is a contest _de lana caprina_. Because your presumptuous reason cannot comprehend the declaration of our Savior, 'this is my body,' you wish to strike it out of the bible; but this we cannot permit; because we cannot give up one t.i.ttle of G.o.d's word, and because the communion solemnity falls to the ground when the mystery becomes robbed of the wings which bear it up to heaven. If, however, you take away from the holy scriptures all that is not clear to you, nothing will remain but a good sensible book, but with no high revelation which can only be received by pious faith. If you can see nothing in the sacrament of the Lord's supper but a remembrance of its founder, you need not partake of the bread and wine. Without this _medium_ it would be impossible for us to forget our Lord and Master.'

'Sensual man,' answered Dorn, 'needs sensible signs as symbols of spiritual things. To be reminded of the author of our religion is to be reminded of his doctrines; and as he established this solemnity and consecrated it to the remembrance of himself on the evening before the death with which he sealed his doctrines, so must it, according to _our_ creed, be deemed sacred--must soften and purify our hearts, and inspire us with devout and holy resolutions, which is the important point in question for you as well as us. We consider the _mystery_ unnecessary, and we have the voices of the earliest churches with us, as the transubstantiation doctrine of Paschasius Radbertus, from which yours but very little differs, was first heard of in the ninth century.'

'For a book-keeper and ci-devant military officer you are deeply learned,' remarked the somewhat excited preacher.

'My early religious education,' answered Dorn, 'was superintended by a well informed, clear headed Bernardine monk, who afterwards, like myself, went over to Zuinglius's belief. I may thank him that I at least know what the point in dispute is,--a knowledge which, alas, is needed by many thousands of our brethren in the faith.'

'I supposed something like that,' said the parson. 'But I interrupted you. Proceed with your pretended refutation of my arguments.'

'Excuse me from answering further,' modestly replied Dorn.

'Because you cannot answer them!' exclaimed the parson in imaginary triumph.

'These controversial battles,' calmly continued Dorn, 'have been too often fought in vain for me to hope that we can be brought to agree. I have not endeavored to defend my doctrines; but only to show that a difference in creeds need not divide hearts. I abide by my tenets; but I believe that you also may attain salvation with yours. Believe you the same of mine, as I doubt not you do, and we can readily co-operate for the advancement of the good cause. The remaining topics of difference are not essential. Here it only concerns us, setting aside the creeds of men, to hold the doctrines of Christ as the true teachings of G.o.d's holy word, and by them so to govern our minds and actions that we may win the approbation of a good conscience, a serene dying hour, and a merciful judgment. That, in my opinion, is the true, living, christian faith; and whoever has it is our brother in Christ, whether he calls himself Lutheran, Calvinist, Zuinglian, or even catholic.'

'My G.o.d! you are then not even a Zuinglian!' angrily exclaimed the parson. 'This despicable toleration of all opinions is G.o.dless indifference, behind which naturalism and deism conceal themselves.

Were you an intelligent and confirmed heretic, the argument might be continued; but you are nothing but an _eclecticus_, who seeks in christianity just so much as suits his purpose, and throws the rest aside!'

'Paul said, 'prove all things and hold fast that which is good,''

interposed Dorn.

'I am well satisfied that you do not desire to know any thing of the true faith,' continued the parson; 'and yet it is the only foundation of our religion. Know you not that Christ himself has said, 'he that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned?''

'If you could convince me,' angrily remarked Dorn, 'that Christ intended those words to mean what intolerance would construe them, I would become a heathen from this moment, and joyfully take my portion in that h.e.l.l in which the n.o.ble Socrates and just Aristides are burning.'

The parson started back with a shudder. Dorn checked himself and continued in a subdued tone; 'Be not alarmed, reverend sir, at my audacious words. My belief is not so bad as you fear. Would to G.o.d all christians had it, and then much less of tears and blood would be made to flow. Now repeat to me, quickly and peacefully to end our strife, that which Christ p.r.o.nounced to be the chief commandment of G.o.d.'

'Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself,' said the parson.

'Even thine enemy!' added Dorn. 'How much more then those who only differ from us in opinion! Here you have my profession of faith, and I trust in G.o.d that I shall be able to stand before him at the last day with it.'

'You confound ideas,' cried the vexed parson. 'You speak of christian ethics, and I am reasoning only of the articles of faith.'

'Devised by men!' said Dorn. 'I hold the chief point to be the observance of the system of morals taught by Christ. Do not you also?'

'No!' emphatically exclaimed the parson after a short pause.

'No?' asked Dorn with some surprise. 'The divine doctrine that we must live devoutly to die happily, not the substance of our religion! Ah, my dear sir, it was your cloth, and not your head or heart, which dictated that negative. You are too good and too intelligent not to be of my opinion.'

'Ah, do not press me with such _argumenta ad hominem_,' said the parson with excited but not unfriendly feelings. 'In point of fact there can be no disputing about matters of faith. It must come from within, and cannot be derived from without. Nevertheless I do not for that reason give you up. A time will come when you will be no longer satisfied with cold syllogisms, and you will then seek a refuge in the open maternal arms of the true faith, in which only you can find peace. Until when, only let your conduct be as fair as your speech, and I shall at all events hope that the maiden will not have made a bad choice. One thing, however, you must promise me with hand and word. Urge not upon your future wife your unbelief, or half belief, or whatever else you may choose to call it. Cause her not to waver in her own, which she has imbibed with her mother's milk. Yet more than the strong and self-relying man does weak, delicate and suffering woman need a steadfast faith. You would rob her of a belief, which is capable of sustaining her in the hour of sorrow and trial, and give her nothing in return but cheerless and disconsolate doubt; which would be an exchange unworthy of the magnanimity of a man.'

'In this case you are for once wholly right, my worthy friend,' said Dorn: 'and I promise you _with this handgrip_, by G.o.d and my honor, to do as you require. Now let a lasting peace be concluded between us.

When we hereafter meet above, as I firmly believe we shall, when the scales shall fall from our eyes, when we shall clearly see what we perceive but dimly here below, then shall we as surely be one in knowledge as we now are in feeling, and side by side before the throne of the father of all men shall we unite with full hearts in the song of praise to the one true G.o.d.'

'So may it be!' cried the parson, pressing the youth's hand and leaving the room with visible emotion.

CHAPTER VI.

In the forenoon of the 20th January, 1629, a joyful bustle prevailed in Fessel's house. The floors and steps were carefully swept, strewed with a beautiful yellow sand, and adorned with evergreens. A large fire was crackling in the kitchen, before which the spit was turning, and pots and stew-pans were steaming. The diligent housewife, notwithstanding the ready a.s.sistance of her mother, had her hands full of business; her two daughters, who insisted on being employed, hindered more than they aided her; and the sons who, with their cousin Engelmann, had just returned from school, raced about the house like wild animals, practically ill.u.s.trating the '_Dulce est desipere in loco_,' which they had that day construed in their cla.s.s. In short, it was the betrothing day of the beauteous Faith and Fessel's new partner in business, master Dorn.