Pine Needles Part 39

"Something which they know who know, Miss Flora, and other people would try in vain to comprehend."

"Well, the other word, 'I shall not want;'--they were in want already."

"No," said Meredith, "excuse me. I have read what comes after."

"They were in want, Ditto, certainly."

"Only such want--never mind, I will not forestall my story."

"What is the other psalm?" Flora asked.

"Very beautiful in this connection," said Mr. Murray, who had got out his Bible. "It begins,--'Truly G.o.d is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.'"

"There again!" said Flora, "what reason had they just then to think that He was good?"

"That is faith, Miss Flora."

"Faith?" the young lady repeated.

"Yes. Faith takes on trust, when it cannot see."

Flora looked at the speaker.

"The psalm goes on to describe the temptations to doubt which had beset the psalmist on observing the prosperity of wicked people and the hard times the Lord's people often had; and then how he saw his mistake; and then he breaks out, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but G.o.d is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.'"

"That is beautiful, and appropriate," said Flora.

"As soon as a man gets where he can say--'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory,'--he can stand a few ups and downs in this life. The choice of pa.s.sages made by that old man was beautiful in the extreme; and proved not only that he knew the Bible, but that it was part of his life."

"And the chapter of Romans?"

"A worthy third in the trio. That is a chapter of triumph in the Christian's privilege and hopes, ending--'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of G.o.d, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'"

Flora's eyes filled, and she said nothing; and Meredith took up his book again.

"There is another word in that chapter that fits, sir--'All things shall work together for good to them that love G.o.d.'"

"It would certainly take faith to believe _that_," said Flora. "I can imagine a little that other things and hopes might console people suffering trouble in their persons and goods; but now, for instance, what possible benefit could it be to those people to have their houses burned, and to be driven into the wild wood with no shelter and nothing or very little to eat, and likewise very little to put on?"

"Well, I had better read," said Meredith. "Pastor Harms stops there, after telling how old Drewes recited Scripture, and asks, 'Could my dear readers all of them have done as much? just ask yourselves once quietly; and whoever is forced to say, "I could not do it," let him be ashamed from the bottom of his heart!

"'A special impression was made by the words, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," &c., and those others, "My heart and my flesh faileth," &c., and again, "I am persuaded, that neither death nor life," &c., and after they had all sat still a while, they raised their heads up cheerfully, took each other's hands, and broke out with one voice in the words--

"'"Dennoch bleibe ich stets an Dir," &c.'"

"What does that mean, Ditto?"

"'Nevertheless, I am continually with thee.' 'Then they went quietly to sleep in the wood, and lodged there beautifully, warm and safe under the wings of their G.o.d, and beneath the sheltering arms of the fir-trees; so that the sun was already s.h.i.+ning through the branches when they waked up. Then they milked the cows, to get some breakfast for the children, and after that they all gathered round the old father to remind him of his promise. And the old man did not delay, but prayed first the twenty-seventh, and then the forty-second and forty-third psalms, and for the last, the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; so devoutly and so confidingly and so unhesitatingly, that they all could not have supposed but that he was reading to them out of the big Bible that had been under the arm-chair; and in most of the parts they prayed with him word for word. Then they looked gratefully to the old man, and after they had first asked the blessing, then drunk the milk, and at last said grace, the others remained in the wood; but the two peasants, Drewes and Hinz, with their two servants, set out to go back to the place where their houses had stood. As they went off, the old Father Hinz called after them, as if he were in a dream,--"Children, see about the books too!" Slowly they drew near the place of the conflagration; carefully listening and looking around them; but nothing was to be seen or heard, all was as still as death, only the birds were hopping and singing in the branches. At last they came within view of the place where the fire had been; but just as they were about to run thither, a low moaning came to their ears from the corner of the wood, near the place of the fire. They were Christians, therefore they did not do like the priest and the Levite, but like the kind-hearted Samaritan; they went off towards the quarter from which the moans came; and what did they see? Two badly-wounded soldiers, sitting in the two grandfather's chairs at the corner of the wood. How came they there? The troops on their march through had had these wounded fellows with them; who for their weakness proved unable to go any further; so their comrades determined to leave them behind. But to let the houses stand for the sake of affording them shelter, was more than the inflamed rage of the soldiers, disappointed at finding everything empty, could see their way to. However to show some sort of humanity to their comrades, they had dragged the two old chairs out of the houses to the corner of the wood, placed the wounded men in them, and then completed their work of destruction; following which they had all marched off. And now, when the wounded soldiers saw standing before them the four men whose houses their comrades had laid in ashes, they looked for nothing else but death. But not anger nor revenge, but peace, yes, blessed joy, beamed from the faces of those four men; G.o.d had certainly saved their beloved books for them. Now they did not care that their houses were gone. The soldiers were treated, not as foes, but as benefactors. They carried them away into the wood where the rest of the people were; and when the chairs were seen, and the seats were lifted up, and the books found uninjured, then there was a thanksgiving and praising and glorifying so loud and so glad, that the angels in heaven must have joined in; the very little children ran to the books and kissed them devoutly and gleefully. The two soldiers were tended as if they had been blood kindred; milk was given them to drink; and now, also, since the host of incendiaries had marched away, the way was open to fetch food again out of the villages. It was proposed to bring the wounded men to the nearest hamlet; but they were too weak for it; and they begged that they might be kept in the huts in the wood. And now it came to pa.s.s that nothing refreshed those two soldiers more than old Father Hinz's talk from the Word of G.o.d, and his prayers. Even at the eleventh hour, they turned to the Lord Jesus; and the pastor in Hermannsburg gave them the Holy Communion after they had confessed their sins, had received the a.s.surance of forgiveness, and had declared that they believed in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of G.o.d, and were persuaded that His body and blood were truly represented to them in the bread and the wine. This communion was a right blessed day of joy for the inhabitants of the wood. But G.o.d was preparing for them yet another special rejoicing. For when the last hour of the two soldiers was drawing near, they summoned the old father and the two peasants to their dying bed, thanked them anew with tears in their eyes for the salvation which they had found for their souls, and made over to them the legacy of their military doublets; with the intimation, that after they were dead, they should rip out the seams of them. This was done, when the men had first been honourably buried; and now were discovered, sewed into the doublets, such a stock of gold pieces, that not only the burned-down houses and stables could be built again, but also the men and maids might receive a handsome reward, and a new altar cloth could be given to the church at Hermannsburg.

"'The lord of the manor of Hermannsburg had a.s.signed to the two soldiers a place in his portion of the churchyard, where, at the north-east corner of the churchyard wall, their graves were covered with a stone.

This stone lay there until, after the male line of the lord of the manor had died out, the so-called Allodium was sold, and along with it this stone. It bore the following inscription:--

"'"ANNO 1642 DOMINI NOSTRI JESU CHRISTI MORTEM OBIERUNT ET HOC LOCO SEPULTI SUNT FRIEDERICUS WENCESLAUS BOHEMUS ET MARTINUS JURISCHITZ LUSACIUS, QUI BIBLIA INSCII SERVAVERANT ET PER BIBLIA IN aeTERNUM SERVATI SUNT:" that is,

"'"In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1642 died and are here buried Friedrich Wenzel of Bohemia, and Martin Jurischitz of Lusatia; who without knowing it had saved the Bible, and through the Bible have been themselves saved unto everlasting life."

"'On the other side of the stone stood the words--"Hinnerk Hinz and Peter his son and Drewes Johan have had this stone erected for two gold gulden out of the Landsknecht's doublet."

"'Two years after the end of the Thirty Years' War, those two peasants, of their own free will, pulled down their houses in the Buchhorst and built them up again in the village of Wesen; for the reason, that after the devastations of those years the wolves had so got the upper hand that it was no longer possible to be secure from them. Twice, with great difficulty, they had recovered their children from the wolves, which already had them in their grip and were dragging them off; and then they thought, to stay there longer would be to tempt G.o.d. Those two farms are still in Wesen and are yet called Drewes' farm and Hinz's farm, although the possessors in these latter days have long borne other names. May G.o.d give us from this old story the blessing, that we may be ever more as strong in the Bible and as firm in faith as the men of old were.'"

CHAPTER XXI.

"That is one of your very prettiest stories, Ditto," cried Maggie when he stopped.

"Yes," said Flora, "I think so."

"It must be a good story that can be listened to here," said Mr.

Murray,--"and I have been listening with great attention. I have been thinking, while I was looking out over all this beauty and receiving so much by my ears of another kind of beauty,--I have been thinking and rejoicing to myself over the fact, how good our G.o.d is. 'Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; young men and maidens; old men and children: let them praise the name of the Lord.'"

"Uncle Eden," said Maggie meditatively, "how _can_ hills praise the Lord?--or trees?"

"Don't they?"

"How, Uncle Eden?"

"_Don't_ they, I ask?"

"But they could not hear anybody tell them to praise."

"You are a literalist. How can 'the trees of the field clap their hands'?"

"Does the Bible say they do?"

"It says they will. And it says 'Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh!'--"

"But that is very strange too," said Flora. "'He cometh to judge the earth;' I know the chant; but it seems solemn and dreadful, and it is sung in the minor key."

"I know," said Mr. Murray. "The composer did not understand the rejoicing either."

"But how can any one, Mr. Murray?"

"Those 'that love His appearing,' Miss Flora?"

"I suppose I am very bad, Mr. Murray; but I tell you just how I feel.