VIII.
Fritz's Story.
ERFURT, AUGUSTINIAN CONVENT, _April_ 1.
I suppose conflict of mind working on a constitution weakened by theplague, brought on the illness from which I am just recovering. It isgood to feel strength returning as I do. There is a kind of naturalirresistible delight in life, however little we have to live for,especially to one so little prepared to die as I am. As I write, therooks are cawing in the church-yard elms, disputing and chattering likea set of busy prosaic burghers. But retired from all this noisy publiclife, two thrushes have built their nest in a thorn just under thewindow of my cell. And early in the morning they wake me with song. Heflies hither and thither as busy as a bee, with food for his mate, asshe broods secure among the thick leaves, and then he perches on a twig,and sings as if he had nothing to do but to be happy. All is pleasure tohim, no doubt--the work as well as the singing. Happy the creatures forwhom it is God's will that they should live according to their nature,and not contrary to it.
Probably in the recovering from illness, when the body is still weak,yet thrilling with reviving strength, the heart is especially tender,and yearns more towards home and former life than it will when strengthreturns and brings duties. Or, perhaps, this illness recalls thelast,--and the loving faces and soft hushed voices that were around methen.
Yet I have nothing to complain of. My aged confessor has scarcely leftmy bed-side. From the first he brought his bed into my cell, and watchedover me like a father.
And his words minister to my heart as much as his hands to my bodilywants.
If my spirit would only take the comfort he offers, as easily as Ireceive food and medicine from his hands!
He does not attempt to combat my difficulties one by one. He says--
"I am little of a physician. I cannot lay my hand on the seat ofdisease. But there is One who can." And to Him I know the simple-heartedold man prays for me.
Often he recurs to the declaration in the creed, "I believe in theforgiveness of sins." "It is the command of God," he said to me one day,"that we should believe in the forgiveness of sins; not of David's orPeter's sins, but of _ours_, our own, the very sins that distress ourconsciences." He also quoted a sermon of St. Bernard's on theannunciation.
"The testimony of the Holy Ghost given in thy heart is this, 'Thy sinsare forgiven thee.'"
Yes, forgiven to all _penitents_! But who can assure me I am a truepenitent?
These words, he told me, comforted Brother Martin, and he wonders theydo not comfort me. I suppose Brother Martin had "the testimony of theHoly Ghost in his heart;" but who shall give that to me? to me whoresisted the vocation of the Holy Ghost so long; who in my deepest heartobey it so imperfectly still!
Brother Martin was faithful, honest, thorough, single-hearted,--all thatGod accepts; all that I am not!
The affection and compassion of my aged confessor often, however,comfort me, even when his words have little power. They make me feel adim hope now and then that the Lord he serves may have something of thesame pity in his heart.
ERFURT, _April_ 15.
The Vicar-General, Staupitz, has visited our convent. I have confessedto him. He was very gentle with me, and to my surprise proscribed mescarcely any penance, although I endeavored to unveil all to him.
Once he murmured, as if to himself, looking at me with a penetratingcompassion, "Yes, there is no drawing back. But I wish I had known thisbefore." And then he added to me, "Brother, we must not confusesuffering with sin. It is sin to _turn_ back. It may be anguish to_look_ back and see what we have renounced, but it is not necessarilysin, if we resolutely press forward still. And if sin mingles with theregret, remember we have to do not with a painted, but a real Saviour;and he died not for painted, but for real sins. Sin is never overcome bylooking at it, but by looking away from it to Him who bore our sins,yours and mine, on the cross. The heart is never won back to God bythinking we ought to love him, but by learning what he is, all worthy ofour love. True repentance begins with the love of God. The Holy Spiritteaches us to know, and, therefore, to love God. Fear not, but read theScriptures, and pray. He will employ thee in his service yet, and in hisfavour is life, and in his service is freedom."
This confession gave me great comfort for the time. I felt myselfunderstood, and yet not despaired of. And that evening, after repeatingthe Hours, I ventured in my own words to pray to God, and found itsolemn and sweet.
But since then my old fear has recurred. Did I indeed confess completelyeven to the Vicar-General? If I had, would not his verdict have beendifferent? Does not the very mildness of his judgment prove that I haveonce more deceived myself--made a false confession, and, therefore,failed of the absolution! But it is a relief to have his positivecommand as my superior to study the Holy Scriptures, instead of thescholastic theologians, to whose writings my preceptor had lately beenexclusively directing my studies.
_April_ 25.
I have this day, to my surprise, received a command, issuing from theVicar-General, to prepare to set off on a mission to Rome.
The monk under whose direction I am to journey I do not yet know.
The thought of the new scenes we shall pass through, and the wonderfulnew world we shall enter on,--new and old,--fills me with an almostchildish delight. Since I heard it, my heart and conscience seem to havebecome strangely lightened, which proves, I fear, how little realearnestness there is in me.
Another thing, however, has comforted me greatly. In the course of myconfession I spoke to the Vicar-General about my family, and he hasprocured for my father an appointment as superintendent of the Latinprinting press, at the Elector's new University of Wittemberg.
I trust now that the heavy pressure of pecuniary care which has weighedso long on my mother and Else will be relieved. It would have beensweeter to me to have earned this relief for them by my own exertions.But we must not choose the shape or the time in which divine messengersshall appear.
The Vicar-General has, moreover, presented me with a little volume ofsermons by a pious Dominican friar, named Tauler. These are wonderfullydeep and heart-searching. I find it difficult to reconcile the sublimeand enrapt devotion to God which inspires them, with the minute rules ofour order, the details of scholastic casuistry, and the precisedirections as to the measure of worship and honour, Dulia, Hyperdulia,and Latria to be paid to the various orders of heavenly beings, whichmake prayer often seem as perplexing to me as the ceremonial of theimperial court would to a peasant of the Thuringian forest.
This Dominican speaks as if we might soar above all these lower things,and lose ourselves in the One Ineffable Source, Ground, Beginning, andEnd of all Being; the One who is all.
Dearer to me, however, than this, is an old manuscript in our conventlibrary, containing the confessions of the patron of our order himself,the great father Augustine.
Straight from his heart it penetrates into mine, as if spoken to meto-day. Passionate, fervent, struggling, wandering, trembling, adoringheart, I feel its pulses through every line!
And was this the experience of one who is now a saint on the mostglorious heights of heaven?
Then the mother! Patient, lowly, noble, saintly Monica; mother, and morethan martyr. She rises before me in the likeness of a beloved form I mayremember, without sin, even here, even now. St. Monica speaks to me withmy mother's voice; and in the narrative of her prayers I seem to gain adeeper insight into what my mother's have been for me.
St. Augustine was happy, to breathe the last words of comfort to herselfas he did, to be with her dwelling in one house to the last. This canscarcely be given to me. "That sweet habit of living together" is brokenfor ever between us; broken by my deliberate act. "For the glory ofGod!" may God accept it; if not, may he forgive!
That old manuscript is worn with reading. It has lain in the conventlibrary for certainly more than a hundred years. Gene
ration aftergeneration of those who now lie sleeping in the field of God below ourwindows have turned over those pages. Heart after heart has doubtlesscome, as I came, to consult the oracle of that deep heart of old times,so nearly shipwrecked, so gloriously saved.
As I read the old thumbed volume, a company of spirits seems to breathein fellowship around me, and I think how many, strengthened by thesewords, are perhaps, even now, like him who penned them, amongst thespirits of the just made perfect.
In the convent library, the dead seem to live again around me. In thecemetery are the relics of the corruptible body. Among these wornvolumes I feel the breath of the living spirits of generations passedaway.
I must say, however, there is more opportunity for solitary communionwith the departed in that library than I could wish. The books are notso much read, certainly, in these days, as the Vicar-General woulddesire, although the Augustinian has the reputation of being among themore learned orders.
I often question what brought many of these easy comfortable monks here.But many of the faces give no reply to my search. No history seemswritten on them. The wrinkles seem mere ruts of the wheels of Time, notfurrows sown with the seeds of thought,--happy at least if they are notas fissures rent by the convulsions of inward fires.
I suppose many of the brethren became monks just as other men becometailors or shoemakers, and with no further spiritual aim, because theirparents planned it so. But I may wrong even the meanest in saying so.The shallowest human heart has depths somewhere, let them be crustedover by ice ever so thick, or veiled by flowers ever so fair.
And I--I and this unknown brother are actually about to journey toItaly, the glorious land of sunshine, and vines, and olives, and ancientcities--the land of Rome, imperial, saintly Rome, where countlessmartyrs sleep, where St. Augustine and Monica sojourned, where St. Pauland St. Peter preached and suffered,--where the vicar of Christ livesand reigns?
_May_ 1.
The brother with whom I am to make the pilgrimage to Rome, arrived lastnight. To my inexpressible delight it is none other than BrotherMartin--Martin Luther! Professor of Theology in the Elector's newUniversity of Wittemberg. He is much changed again since I saw him last,toiling through the streets of Erfurt with the sack on his shoulder. Thehollow, worn look, has disappeared from his face, and the fire has comeback to his eyes. Their expression varies, indeed, often from thesparkle of merriment to a grave earnestness, when all their light seemswithdrawn inward; but underneath there is that kind of repose I havenoticed in the countenance of my aged confessor.
Brother Martin's face has, indeed, a history written on it, and ahistory, I deem, not yet finished.
HEIDELBERG, _May_ 25.
I wondered at the lightness of heart with which I set out on our journeyfrom Erfurt.
The Vicar-General himself accompanied us hither. We travelled partly onhorseback, and partly in wheeled carriages.
The conversation turned much on the prospects of the new university, andthe importance of finding good professors of the ancient languages forit. Brother Martin himself proposed to make use of his sojourn at Rome,to improve himself in Greek and Hebrew, by studying under the learnedGreeks and rabbis there. They counsel me also to do the same.
The business which calls us to Rome is an appeal to the Holy Father,concerning a dispute between some convents of our Order and theVicar-General.
But they say business is slowly conducted at Rome, and will leave usmuch time for other occupations besides those which are most on ourhearts, namely, paying homage at the tombs of the holy apostles andmartyrs.
They speak most respectfully and cordially of the Elector Frederick, whomust indeed be a very devout prince. Not many years since, heaccomplished a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and took with him the painterLucas Cranach, to make drawings of the various holy places.
About ten years since, he built a church dedicated to St. Ursula, on thesite of the small chapel erected in 1353, over the Holy Thorn from theCrown of Thorns, presented to a former elector by the king of France.
This church is already, they say, through the Elector Frederick'sdiligence, richer in relics than any church in Europe, except that ofAssisi, the birth-place of St. Francis. And the collection is stillcontinually being increased.
They showed me a book printed at Wittemberg a year or two since,entitled "A Description of the Venerable Relics," adorned with onehundred and nineteen woodcuts.
The town itself seems to be still poor and mean compared with Eisenachand Erfurt; and the students, of whom there are now nearly five hundred,are at times very turbulent. There is much beer-drinking among them. In1507, three years since, the Bishop of Brandenburg laid the whole cityunder interdict for some insult offered by the students to his suite,and now they are forbidden to wear guns, swords, or knives.
Brother Martin, however, is full of hope as to the good to be done amongthem. He himself received the degree of Biblicus (Bible teacher) on the9th of March last year; and every day he lectures between twelve and oneo'clock.
Last summer, for the first time, he was persuaded by the Vicar-Generalto preach publicly. I heard some conversation between them in referenceto this, which afterwards Brother Martin explained to me.
Dr. Staupitz and Brother Martin were sitting last summer in the conventgarden at Wittemberg together, under the shade of a pear tree, whilstthe Vicar-General endeavoured to prevail on him to preach. He wasexceedingly unwilling to make the attempt. "It is no little matter,"said he to Dr. Staupitz, "to appear before the people in the place ofGod." "I had fifteen arguments," he continued in relating it to me,"wherewith I purposed to resist my vocation; but they availed nothing."At the last I said, "Dr. Staupitz, you will be the death of me, for Icannot live under it three months." "Very well," replied Dr. Staupitz,"still go on. Our Lord God hath many great things to accomplish, and hehas need of wise men in heaven as well as in earth."
Brother Martin could not further resist, and after making a trial beforethe brethren in the refectory, at last, with a trembling heart, hemounted the pulpit of the little chapel of the Augustinian cloister.
"When a preacher for the first time enters the pulpit," he concluded,"no one would believe how fearful he is; he sees so many heads beforehim. When I go into the pulpit, I do not look on any one. I think themonly to be so many blocks before me, and I speak out the words of myGod."
And yet Dr. Staupitz says his words are like thunder-peals. _Yet!_ do Isay? Is it not _because_? He feels himself nothing; he feels his messageeverything; he feels God present. What more could be needed to make aman of his power a great preacher?
With such discourse the journey seemed accomplished quickly indeed. Andyet, almost the happiest hours to me were those when we were all silent,and the new scenes passed rapidly before me. It was a great rest to livefor a time on what I saw, and cease from thought, and remembrance, andinward questionings altogether. For have I not been commanded thisjourney by my superiors, so that in accordance with my vow of obedience,my one duty at present is to travel; and therefore what pleasure itchances to bring I must not refuse.
We spent some hours in Nueremberg. The quaint rich carvings of many ofthe houses were beautiful. There also we saw Albrecht Duerer's paintings,and heard Hans Sachs, the shoemaker and poet, sing his godly Germanhymns. And as we crossed the Bavarian plains, the friendliness of thesimple peasantry made up to us for the sameness of the country.
Near Heidelberg again I fancied myself once more in the Thuringianforest, especially as we rested in the convent of Erbach in theOdenwald. Again the familiar forests and green valleys with theirstreams were around me. I fear Else and the others will miss the beautyof the forest-covered hills around Eisenach, when they remove toWittemberg, which is situated on a barren, monotonous flat. About thistime they will be moving!
Brother Martin has held many disputations on theological andphilosophical questions in the University of Heidelberg; but I
, beingonly a novice, have been free to wander whither I would.
This evening it was delightful to stand in the woods of the ElectorPalatine's castle, and from among the oaks and delicate birches rustlingabout me, to look down on the hills of the Odenwald folding over eachother. Far up among them I traced the narrow, quiet Neckar, issuing fromthe silent depths of the forest; while on the other side, below thecity, it wound on through the plain to the Rhine, gleaming here andthere with the gold of sunset or the cold grey light of the evening.Beyond, far off, I could see the masts of ships on the Rhine.
I scarcely know why, the river made me think of life, of mine andBrother Martin's. Already he has left the shadow of the forests. Who cansay what people his life will bless, what sea it will reach, and throughwhat perils? Of this I feel sure, it will matter much to many what itscourse shall be. For me it is otherwise. My life, as far as earth isconcerned, seems closed,--ended; and it can matter little to any,henceforth, through what regions it passes, if only it reaches the oceanat last, and ends, as they say, in the bosom of God. If only we could besure that God guides the course of our lives as he does that of rivers!And yet, do they not say that some rivers lose themselves in sandwastes,and others trickle meanly to the sea through lands they have desolatedinto untenantable marshes?
BLACK FOREST, _May_ 14, 1510.
Brother Martin and I are now fairly on our pilgrimage alone, walking allday, begging our provisions and our lodgings, which he sometimes repaysby performing a mass in the parish church, or by a promise of recitingcertain prayers or celebrating masses on the behalf of our benefactors,at Rome.
These are, indeed, precious days. My whole frame seems braced andrevived by the early rising, the constant movement in the pure air, thepressing forward to a definite point.
But more, infinitely more than this, my heart seems reviving. I begin tohave a hope and see a light which, until now, I scarcely deemedpossible.
To encourage me in my perplexities and conflicts, Brother Martinunfolded to me what his own had been. To the storm of doubt, and fear,and anguish in that great heart of his my troubles seem like a passingspring shower. Yet to me they were tempests which laid my heart waste.And God, Brother Martin believes, does not measure his pity by what oursorrows are in themselves, but what they are to us. Are we not allchildren, little children, in his sight?
"I did not learn my divinity at once," he said, "but was constrained bymy temptations to search deeper and deeper; for no man without trialsand temptations can attain a true understanding of the Holy Scriptures.St. Paul had a devil that beat him with fists, and with temptationsdrove him diligently to study the Holy Scriptures. Temptations hunted meinto the Bible, wherein I sedulously read; and thereby, God be praised,at length attained a true understanding of it."
He then related to me what some of these temptations were;--the bitterdisappointment it was to him to find that the cowl, and even the vowsand the priestly consecration, made no change in his heart; that Satanwas as near him in the cloister as outside, and he no stronger to copewith him. He told me of his endeavours to keep every minute rule of theorder, and how the slightest deviation weighed on his conscience. Itseems to have been like trying to restrain a fire by a fence of willows,or to guide a mountain torrent in artificial windings through aflower-garden, to bind his fervent nature by these vexatious rules.
He was continually becoming absorbed in some thought or study, andforgetting all the rules, and then painfully he would turn back andretrace his steps; sometimes spending weeks in absorbing study, and thenremembering he had neglected his canonical hours, and depriving himselfof sleep for nights to make up the missing prayers.
He fasted, disciplined himself, humbled himself to perform the meanestoffices for the meanest brother; forcibly kept sleep from his eyeswearied with study, and his mind worn out with conflict, until every nowand then Nature avenged herself by laying him unconscious on the floorof his cell, or disabling him by a fit of illness.
But all in vain; his temptations seemed to grow stronger, his strengthless. Love to God he could not feel at all; but in his secret soul thebitterest questioning of God, who seemed to torment him at once by thelaw and the gospel. He thought of Christ as the severest judge, becausethe most righteous; and the very phrase, "the righteousness of God," wastorture to him.
Not that this state of distress was continual with him. At times hegloried in his obedience, and felt that he earned rewards from God byperforming the sacrifice of the mass, not only for himself, but forothers. At times, also, in his circuits, after his consecration, to saymass in the villages around Erfurt, he would feel his spirits lightenedby the variety of the scenes he witnessed, and would be greatly amusedat the ridiculous mistakes of the village choirs; for instance, theirchanting the "Kyrie" to the music of the "Gloria."
Then, at other times, his limbs would totter with terror when he offeredthe holy sacrifice, at the thought that he, the sacrificing priest, yetthe poor, sinful Brother Martin, actually stood before God "without aMediator."
At his first mass he had difficulty in restraining himself from flyingfrom the altar--so great was his awe and the sense of his unworthiness.Had he done so, he would have been excommunicated.
Again, there were days when he performed the services with somesatisfaction, and would conclude with saying, "O Lord Jesus, I come tothee and entreat thee to be pleased with whatsoever I do and suffer inmy order; and I pray thee that these burdens and this straitness of myrule and religion may be a full satisfaction for all my sins."
Yet then again, the dread would come that perhaps he had inadvertentlyomitted some word in the service, such as "enim" or "aeternum," orneglected some prescribed genuflexion, or even a signing of the cross;and that thus, instead of offering to God an acceptable sacrifice in themass, he had committed a grievous sin.
From such terrors of conscience he fled for refuge to some of histwenty-one patron saints, or oftener to Mary, seeking to touch herwomanly heart, that she might appease her Son. He hoped that by invokingthree saints daily, and by letting his body waste away with fastings andwatchings, he should satisfy the law, and shield his conscience againstthe goad of the driver. But it all availed him nothing. The further hewent on in this way, the more he was terrified.
And then he related to me how the light broke upon his heart; slowly,intermittently, indeed; yet it has dawned on him. His day may often bedark and tempestuous; but it is day, and not night.
Dr. Staupitz was the first who brought him any comfort. TheVicar-General received his confession not long after he entered thecloister, and from that time won his confidence, and took the warmestinterest in him. Brother Martin frequently wrote to him; and once heused the words, in reference to some neglect of the rules which troubledhis conscience, "Oh, my sins, my sins!" Dr. Staupitz replied, "You wouldbe without sin, and yet you have no proper sins. Christ forgives truesins, such as parricide, blasphemy, contempt of God, adultery, and sinslike these. These are sins indeed. You must have a register in whichstand veritable sins, if Christ is to help you. You would be a paintedsinner, and have a painted Christ as a Saviour. You must make up yourmind that Christ is a real Saviour, and you a real sinner."
These words brought some light to Brother Martin, but the darkness cameback again and again; and tenderly did Dr. Staupitz sympathize with himand rouse him--Dr. Staupitz, and that dear aged confessor, whoministered also so lovingly to me. Brother Martin's great terror was thethought of the righteousness of God, by which he had been taught tounderstand his inflexible severity in executing judgment on sinners.
Dr. Staupitz and the confessor explained to him that the righteousnessof God is not _against_ the sinner who believes in the Lord JesusChrist, but _for_ him--not against us to condemn, but for us to justify.
He began to study the Bible with a new zest. He had had the greatestlonging to understand rightly the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, butwas always stopped by the word "righteousness" in the first chapter andsev
enteenth verse, where Paul says the righteousness of God is revealedby the gospel. "I felt very angry," he said, "at the term,'righteousness of God;' for, after the manner of all the teachers, I wastaught to understand it in a philosophic sense, of that righteousness bywhich God is just and punisheth the guilty. Though I had lived withoutreproach, I felt myself to be a great sinner before God, and was of avery quick conscience, and had not confidence in a reconciliation withGod to be produced by any work or satisfaction or merit of my own. Forthis cause I had in me no love of a righteous and angry God, butsecretly hated him, and thought within myself, Is it not enough that Godhas condemned us to everlasting death by Adam's sin, and that we mustsuffer so much trouble and misery in this life? Over and above theterror and threatening of the law, must he needs increase by the gospelour misery and anguish, and, by the preaching of the same, thunderagainst us his justice and fierce wrath? My confused conscience ofttimesdid cast me into fits of anger, and I sought day and night to make outthe meaning of Paul; and at last I came to apprehend it thus: Throughthe gospel is revealed the righteousness which availeth with God--arighteousness by which God, in his mercy and compassion, justifieth us;as is it written, '_The just shall live by faith._' Straightway I feltas if I were born anew; it was as if I had found the door of Paradisethrown wide open. Now I saw the Scriptures altogether in a newlight--ran through their whole contents as far as my memory would serve,and compared them--and found that this righteousness was the more surelythat by which he makes us righteous, because everything agreed thereuntoso well. The expression, 'the righteousness of God,' which I so muchhated before, became now dear and precious--my darling and mostcomforting word. That passage of Paul was to me the true door ofParadise."
Brother Martin also told me of the peace the words, "I believe in theforgiveness of sins," brought to him, as the aged confessor hadpreviously narrated to me; for, he said, the devil often plucked himback, and, taking the very form of Christ, sought to terrify him againwith his sins.
As I listened to him, the conviction came on me that he had indeed drunkof the well-spring of everlasting life, and it seemed almost within myown reach; but I said--
"Brother Martin, your sins were mere transgressions of human rules, butmine are different." And I told him how I had resisted my vocation. Hereplied--
"The devil gives heaven to people before they sin; but after they sin,brings their consciences into despair. Christ deals quite in thecontrary way, for he gives heaven after sins committed, and makestroubled consciences joyful."
Then we fell into a long silence, and from time to time, as I looked atthe calm which reigned on his rugged and massive brow, and felt the deeplight in his dark eyes, the conviction gathered strength--
"This solid rock on which that tempest-tossed spirit rests is Truth!"
His lips moved now and then, as if in prayer, and his eyes were liftedup from time to time to heaven, as if his thoughts found a home there.
After this silence, he spoke again and said--
"The gospel speaks nothing of our works or of the works of the law, butof the inestimable mercy and love of God towards most wretched andmiserable sinners. Our most merciful Father, seeing us overwhelmed andoppressed with the curse of the law, and so to be holden under the same,that we could never be delivered from it by our own power, sent his onlySon into the world, and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying, 'Bethou Peter, that denier; Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and crueloppressor; David, that adulterer; that sinner that did eat the apple inParadise; that thief that hanged upon the cross; and briefly, be thouthe person that hath committed the sins of all men, and pay and satisfyfor them.' For God trifleth not with us, but speaketh earnestly and ofgreat love, that Christ is the Lamb of God who beareth the sins of usall. He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus."
I could answer nothing to this, but walked along pondering these words.Neither did he say any more at that time.
The sun was sinking low, and the long shadows of the pine trunks werethrown athwart our green forest-path, so that we were glad to find acharcoal-burner's hut, and to take shelter for the night beside hisfires.
But that night I could not sleep; and when all were sleeping around me,I rose and went out into the forest.
Brother Martin is not a man to parade his inmost conflicts before theeyes of others, to call forth their sympathy or their idle wonder. Hehas suffered too deeply and too recently for that. It is not lightlythat he has unlocked the dungeons and torture-chambers of his past lifefor me. It is as a fellow-sufferer and a fellow-soldier, to show me howI also may escape and overcome.
It is surely because he is to be a hero and a leader of men that God hascaused him to tread these bitter ways alone.
A new meaning dawns on old words for me. There is nothing new in what hesays, but it seems new to me, as if God had spoken it first to-day; andall things seem made new in its light.
God, then, is more earnest for me to be saved than I am to be saved!
"He so loved the world, that he gave his Son."
He loved not saints, not penitents, not the religious, not those wholove him; but "the _world_," secular men, profane men, hardened rebels,hopeless wanderers and sinners!
He gave not a mere promise, not an angel to teach us, not a world toransom us, but his Son--his Only-begotten!
So much did God love the world, sinners, me! I believe this; I mustbelieve it; I believe in him who says it. How can I then do otherwisethan rejoice?
Two glorious visions rise before me and begin to fill the world and allmy heart with joy.
I see the Holiest, the Perfect, the Son made the victim, the lamb, thecurse, willingly yielding himself up to death on the cross for me.
I see the Father--inflexible in justice yet delighting inmercy--accepting him, the spotless Lamb whom he had given; raising himfrom the dead; setting him on his right hand. Just, beyond all myterrified conscience could picture him, he justifies me the sinner.
Hating sin as love must abhor selfishness, and life death, and puritycorruption, he loves me--the selfish, the corrupt, the dead in sins. Hegives his Son, the Only-begotten, for me; he accepts his Son, thespotless Lamb, for me; he forgives me; he acquits me; he will make mepure.
The thought overpowered me. I knelt among the pines and spoke to Him whohears when we have no words, for words failed me altogether then.
MUNICH, _May_ 18.
All the next day and the next that joy lasted. Every twig, and bird, anddew-drop spoke in parables to me; sang to me the parable of the son whohad returned from the far country, and as he went towards his father'shouse prepared his confession; but never finished the journey, for thefather met him when he was yet a great way off; and never finished theconfession, for the father stopped his self-reproaches with embraces.
And on the father's heart what child could say, "Make me as one of thyhired servants?"
I saw His love shining in every dew-drop on the grassy forest glades; Iheard it in the song of every bird; I felt it in every pulse.
I do not know that we spoke much during those days, Brother Martin andI.
I have known something of love; but I have never felt a love that sofills, overwhelms, satisfies, as this love of God. And when first it is"thou and I" between God and the soul, for a time, at least, the hearthas little room for other fellowship.
But then came doubts and questionings. Whence came they! Brother Martinsaid from Satan.
"The devil is a wretched, unhappy spirit," said he, "and he loves tomake us wretched."
One thing that began to trouble me was, whether I had the right kind offaith. Old definitions of faith recurred to me, by which faith is saidto be nothing unless it is informed with charity and developed into goodworks, so that when it saith we are justified by faith, the part istaken for the whole--and it means by faith, also hope, charity, all thegraces, and all good works.
But Brother Martin declared it meaneth simply believing. He
said,--
"Faith is an almighty thing, for it giveth glory to God, which is thehighest service that can be given to him. Now, to give glory to God, isto believe in him; to count him true, wise, righteous, merciful,almighty. The chiefest thing God requireth of man is, that he givethunto him his glory and divinity; that is to say, that he taketh him notfor an idol, but for God; who regardeth him, heareth him, showeth mercyunto him, and helpeth him. For faith saith thus, 'I believe thee, O God,when thou speakest.'"
But our great wisdom, he says, is to look away from all thesequestionings,--from our sins, our works, ourselves, to Christ, who isour righteousness, our Saviour, our all.
Then at times other things perplex me. If faith is so simple, andsalvation so free, why all those orders, rules, pilgrimages, penances?
And to these perplexities we can neither of us find any answer. But wemust be obedient to the Church. What we cannot understand we mustreceive and obey. This is a monk's duty, at least.
Then at times another temptation comes on me. "If thou hadst known ofthis before," a voice says deep in my heart, "thou couldst have servedGod joyfully in thy home, instead of painfully in the cloister; couldsthave helped thy parents and Else, and spoken with Eva on these things,which her devout and simple heart has doubtless received already." But,alas! I know too well what tempter ventures to suggest that name to me,and I say, "Whatever might have been, malicious spirit, _now_ I am areligious, a devoted man, to whom it is perdition to draw back!"
Yet, in a sense, I seem less separated from my beloved ones during thesepast days.
There is a brotherhood, there is a family, more permanent than the homeat Eisenach, or even the Order of St. Augustine, in which we may beunited still. There is a home in which, perhaps, we may yet be onehousehold again.
And meantime, God may have some little useful work for me to do here,which in his presence may make life pass as quickly as this mypilgrimage to Rome in Brother Martin's company.
BENEDICTINE MONASTERY IN LOMBARDY.
God has given us during these last days to see, as I verily believe,some glimpses into Eden. The mountains with snowy summits, like thewhite steps of His throne; the rivers which flow from them and enrichthe land; the crystal seas, like glass mingled with fire, when thereflected snow-peaks burn in the lakes at dawn or sunset; and then thisLombard plain, watered with rivers which make its harvests gleam likegold; this garner of God, where the elms or chestnuts grow among thegolden maize, and the vines festoon the trees, so that all the landseems garlanded for a perpetual holy day. We came through the Tyrol byFuessen, and then struck across by the mountains and the lakes to Milan.
Now we are entertained like princes in this rich Benedictine abbey. Itsannual income is 36,000 florins. "Of eating and feasting," as brotherMartin says, "there is no lack;" for 12,000 florins are consumed onguests, and as large a sum on building. The residue goeth to the conventand the brethren.
They have received us poor German monks with much honour, as adeputation from the great Augustinian Order to the Pope.
The manners of these southern people are very gentle and courteous; butthey are lighter in their treatment of sacred things than we could wish.
The splendour of the furniture and dress amazes us; it is difficult toreconcile it with the vows of poverty and renunciation of the world. ButI suppose they regard the vow of poverty as binding not on thecommunity, but only on the individual monk. It must, however, at thebest, be hard to live a severe and ascetic life amidst such luxuries.Many, no doubt, do not try.
The tables are supplied with the most costly and delicate viands; thewalls are tapestried; the dresses are of fine silk; the floors areinlaid with rich marbles.
Poor, poor splendours, as substitutes for the humblest _home_!
BOLOGNA, _June_.
We did not remain long in the Benedictine monastery, for this reason:Brother Martin, I could see, had been much perplexed by their luxuriousliving; but as a guest, had, I suppose, scarcely felt at liberty toremonstrate, until Friday came, when, to our amazement, the table wascovered with meats and fruits, and all kinds of viands, as on any otherday, regardless not only of the rules of the Order, but of the commonlaws of the whole Church.
He would touch none of these dainties; but not content with this silentprotest, he boldly said before the whole company, "The Church and thePope forbid such things!"
We had then an opportunity of seeing into what the smoothness of theseItalian manners can change when ruffled.
The whole brotherhood burst into a storm of indignation. Their dark eyesflashed, their white teeth gleamed with scornful and angry laughter, andtheir voices rose in a tempest of vehement words, many of which wereunintelligible to us.
"Intruders," "barbarians," "coarse and ignorant Germans," and otherbiting epithets, however, we could too well understand.
Brother Martin stood like a rock amidst the torrent, and threatened tomake their luxury and disorder known at Rome.
When the assembly broke up, we noticed the brethren gather apart insmall groups, and cast scowling glances at us when we chanced to passnear.
That evening the porter of the monastery came to us privately, andwarned us that this convent was no longer a safe resting-place for us.
Whether this was a friendly warning, or merely a device of the brethrento get rid of troublesome guests, I know not; but we had no wish tolinger, and before the next day dawned we crept in the darkness out of aside gate into a boat, which we found on the river which flows beneaththe walls, and escaped.
It was delightful to-day winding along the side of a hill, near Bologna,for miles, under the flickering shade of trellises covered with vines.But Brother Martin, I thought, looked ill and weary.
BOLOGNA.
Thank God, Brother Martin is reviving again. He has been on the veryborders of the grave.
Whether it was the scorching heat through which we have been travelling,or the malaria, which affected us with catarrh one night when we sleptwith our windows open, or whether the angry monks in the BenedictineAbbey mixed some poison with our food, I know not; but we had scarcelyreached this place when he became seriously ill.
As I watched beside him I learned something of the anguish he passedthrough at our convent at Erfurt. The remembrance of his sins and theterrors of God's judgment rushed on his mind, weakened by suffering. Attimes he recognized that it was the hand of the evil one which waskeeping him down. "The devil," he would say, "is the accuser of thebrethren, not Christ. Thou, Lord Jesus, art my forgiving Saviour!" Andthen he would rise above the floods. Again his mind would bewilderitself with the unfathomable--the origin of evil, the relation of ourfree will to God's almighty will.
Then I ventured to recall to him the words of Dr. Staupitz he hadrepeated to me: "Behold the wounds of Jesus Christ, and then thou shallsee the counsel of God clearly shining forth. We cannot comprehend Godout of Jesus Christ. In Christ you will find what God is, and what herequires. You will find him nowhere else, whether in heaven or onearth."
It was strange to find myself, untried recruit that I am, thusattempting to give refreshment to such a veteran and victor as BrotherMartin; but when the strongest are brought into single combats such asthese, which must be single, a feeble hand may bring a draught of coldwater to revive the hero between the pauses of the fight.
The victory, however, can only be won by the combatant himself; and atlength Brother Martin fought his way through once more, and as so oftenhappens, just when the fight seemed hottest. It was with an old weaponhe overcame--"_The just shall live by faith._"
Once more the words which have helped him so often, which so frequentlyhe has repeated on this journey, came with power to his mind. Again helooked to the crucified Saviour; again he believed in him triumphant andready to forgive on the throne of grace; and again his spirit was in thelight.
His strength also soon began to ret
urn; and in a few days we are to bein Rome.
ROME.
The pilgrimage is over. The holy city is at length reached.
Across burning plains, under trellised vine-walks on the hill-sides,over wild, craggy mountains, through valleys green with chestnuts, andolives, and thickets of myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and cistus,we walked, until at last the sacred towers and domes burst on our sight,across a reach of the Campagna--the city where St. Paul and St. Peterwere martyred--the metropolis of the kingdom of God.
The moment we came in sight of the city Brother Martin prostratedhimself on the earth, and, lifting up his hands to heaven, exclaimed--
"Hail, sacred Rome! thrice sacred for the blood of the martyrs hereshed."
And now we are within the sacred walls, lodged in the Augustinianmonastery, near to the northern gate, through which we entered, calledby the Romans the "Porta del Popolo."
Already Brother Martin has celebrated a mass in the convent church.
And to-morrow we may kneel where apostles and martyrs stood!
We may perhaps even see the holy father himself!
Are we indeed nearer heaven here?
It seems to me as I felt God nearer that night in the Black Forest.
There is so much tumult, and movement, and pomp around us in the greatcity.
When, however, I feel it more familiar and home-like, perhaps it willseem more heaven-like.
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