Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 47

I said that I thought it was the necessity of human princes, and not their glory, to be obliged to employ deputies, and not let each one plead his own case. They look greatest afar off, surrounded by the pomp of a throne, because in themselves they are weak and sinful, like other men. But he needed no pomp, nor the dignity of distance, because he is not like other men, but sinless and divine, and the glory is in Himself, not in the things around him.

Then I had a narrative of the crucifixion to read; and many a tear have I seen stream over rough cheeks, and many a smile beam in dim aged eyes as I read this.

"We seem to understand it all at once," an old woman said; "and yet there always seems something more in it each time."

_December_.

This morning I had a letter from Bertrand,--the first for many weeks. He is full of hope; not, indeed, of recovering his inheritance, but of being at Wittemberg again in a few weeks.

I suppose my face looked very bright when I received it and ran with the precious letter to my own room; for Dame Hermentrud said much this evening about receiving everything with moderation, and about the propriety of young maidens having a very still and collected demeanour, and about the uncertainty of all things below. My heavenly Father knows I do not forget that all things are uncertain; although, often, I dare not dwell on it. But He has given me this good gift--He himself--and I will thank him with an overflowing heart for it!

I cannot understand Dame Hermentrud's religion. She seems to think it prudent, and a duty, to take everything G.o.d gives coolly, as if we did not care very much about it, lest He should think he had given us something too good for us, and grudge it to us, and take it away again.

No; if G.o.d does take away, He takes away as He gave, in infinite love; and I would not for the world add darkness to the dark days, if they must come, by the bitter regret that I did not enjoy the suns.h.i.+ne whilst He gave it. For, indeed, I cannot help fearing sometimes, when I think of the martyrs of old, and the bitterness of the enemies of the good tidings now. But then I try to look up, and try to say, "Safer, O Father, in thy hands than in mine." And all the comfort of the prayer depends on how I can comprehend and feel that name, "Father!"

XXI.

Eva's Story.

CISTERCIAN CONVENT, NIMPTSCHEN, _September_ 2, 1521.

They have sent me several sheets of Dr. Luther's translation of the New Testament, from Uncle Cotta's press at Wittemberg.

Of all the works he ever did for G.o.d, this seems to me the mightiest and the best. None has ever so deeply stirred our convent. Many of the sisters positively refuse to join in any invocation of the saints. They declare that it must be Satan himself who has kept this glorious book locked up in a dead language out of reach of women and children and the common people. And the young nuns say it is so interesting, it is not in the least like a book of sermons, or a religious treatise.

"It is like every-day life," said one of them to me, "with what every one wants brought into it; a perfect Friend, so infinitely good, so near, and so completely understanding our inmost hearts. Ah, Sister Eva," she added, "if they could only hear of this at home!"

_October_.

To-day we have received a copy of Dr. Luther's thesis against the monastic life.

"There is but one only spiritual estate," he writes, "which is holy and makes holy, and that is Christianity,--the faith which is the common right of all."

"Monastic inst.i.tutions," he continues, "to be of any use ought to be schools, in which children may be brought up until they are adults. But as it is, they are houses in which men and women become children, and ever continue childish."

Too well, alas! I know the truth of these last words; the hopeless, childish occupation with trifles, into which the majority of the nuns sink when the freshness of youth and the bitter conflict of separation from all dear to the heart has subsided, and the great incidents of life have become the decorating the church for a festival, or the pomp attending the visit of an Inspector or Bishop.

It is against this I have striven. It is this I dread for the young sisters; to see them sink into contented trifling with religious playthings. And I have been able to see no way of escape, unless, indeed, we could be transferred to some city and devote ourselves to the case of the sick and poor.

Dr. Luther, however, admits of another solution. We hear that he has counselled the Prior of the Monastery at Erfurt to suffer any monks who wish it freely to depart. And many, we have been told, in various monasteries, have already left, and returned to serve G.o.d in the world.

Monks can, indeed, do this. The world is open before them, and in some way they are sure to find occupation. But with us it is different. Torn away from our natural homes, the whole world around us is a trackless desert.

Yet how can I dare to say this? Since the whole world is the work of our heavenly father's hands, and may be the way to our Father's house, will not He surely find a place for each of us in it, and a path for us through it?

_November_ 10.

Nine of the younger nuns have come to the determination, if possible, to give up the conventual life, with its round of superst.i.tious observances. This evening we held a consultation in Sister Beatrice's cell. Aunt Agnes joined us.

It was decided that each should write to her relatives, simply confessing that she believed the monastic vows and life to be contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and praying to be received back into her family.

Sister Beatrice and Aunt Agnes decided to remain patiently where they were.

"My old home would be no more a home to me now than the convent," Sister Beatrice said. "There is liberty for me to die here, and an open way for my spirit to return to G.o.d."

And Aunt Agnes said,--

"Who knows but that there may be some lowly work left for me to do here yet! In the world I should be as helpless as a child, and why should I return to be a burden on my kindred."

They both urged me to write to Else or Aunt Cotta to receive me. But I can scarcely think it my duty. Aunt Cotta has her children around her.

Else's home is strange to me. Besides, kind as every one has been to me, I am as a stray waif on the current of this world, and have no home in it. I think G.o.d has enabled me to cheer and help some few here, and while Aunt Agnes and Sister Beatrice remain, I cannot bear the thought of leaving. At all events I will wait.

_November_ 22.

Fritz is in prison again. For many weeks they had heard nothing from him, and were wondering where he was, when a letter came from a priest called Ruprect Haller, in Franconia. He says Fritz came to his house one evening in July, remained the night, left next morning with his pack of Lutheran books, intending to proceed direct to Wittemberg, and gave him the address of Aunt Cotta there. But a few weeks afterwards a young monk met him near the Dominican Convent, and asked if he were the priest at whose house a pedlar had spent a night a few weeks before. The priest admitted it; whereon the young monk said to him, in a low, hurried accent,--

"Write to his friends, if you know them, and say he is in the prison of the convent, under strong suspicion of heresy. I am the young monk to whom he gave a book on the evening he came. Tell them I did not intend to betray him, although I led him into the net; and if ever they should procure his escape, and you see him again, tell him I have kept his book." The good priest says something also about Fritz having been his salvation. And he urges that the most strenuous exertions should be made to liberate him, and any powerful friends we have should be entreated to intercede, because the Prior of the Dominican Convent where he is imprisoned is a man of the severest temper, and a mighty hater of heretics.

Powerful friends! I know none whom we can entreat but G.o.d.

It was in July, then, that he was captured, two months since. I wonder if it is only my impatient spirit! but I feel as if I _must_ go to Aunt Cotta. I have a feeling she will want me now. I think I might comfort her; for who can tell what two months in a Dominican prison may have done for him?

In our convent have we not a prison, low, dark, and damp enough to weigh the life out of any one in six weeks! From one of the ma.s.sive low pillars hang heavy iron fetters, happily rusted now from disuse; and in a corner are a rack and other terrible instruments, now thrown aside there, on which some of the older nuns say they have seen stains of blood.

When he was in prison before at Mainz, I did not seem so desponding about his deliverance as I feel now.

Are these fears G.o.d's merciful preparations for some dreadful tidings about to reach us? or are they the mere natural enfeebling of the power to hope as one grows older?

_December_, 1521.

Many disappointments have fallen on us during the last fortnight. Answer after answer has come to those touching entreaties of the nine sisters to their kindred, in various tones of feeling, but all positively refusing to receive them back to their homes.

Some of the relatives use the bitterest reproaches and the severest menaces. Others write tenderly and compa.s.sionately, but all agree that no n.o.ble family can possibly bring on itself the disgrace of aiding a professed nun to break her vows. Poor children! my heart aches for them, some of them are so young, and were so confident of being welcomed back with open arms, remembering the tears with which they were given up.

Now indeed they are thrown on G.o.d. He will not fail them; but who can say what th.o.r.n.y paths their feet may have to tread?

It has also been discovered here that some of them have written thus to their relations, which renders their position far more difficult and painful.

Many of the older nuns are most indignant at what they consider an act of the basest treachery and sacrilege. I also am forbidden to have any more intercourse with the suspected sisters. Search has been made in every cell, and all the Lutheran books have been seized, whilst the strictest attendance is required at all the services.