Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

  XV.

  Fritz's Story.

  AUGUSTINIAN CONVENt, MAINZ, _November_, 1517.

  Seven years have passed since I have written anything in this oldchronicle of mine, and as in the quiet of this convent once more I openit, the ink on the first pages is already brown with time; yet a strangefamiliar fragrance breathes from them, as of early spring flowers. Mychildhood comes back to me, with all its devout simplicity; my youth,with all its rich prospects and its buoyant, ardent, hopes. My childhoodseems like one of those green quiet valleys in my native forests, likethe valley of my native Eisenach itself, when that one reach of theforest, and that one quiet town with its spires and church bells, andthat one lowly home with its love, its cares, and its twilight talks inthe lumber room, were all the world I could see.

  Youth rises before me like that first journey through the forest to theUniversity of Erfurt, when the world opened to me like the plains fromthe breezy heights, a battle-field for glorious achievement, anunbounded ocean for adventure and discovery, a vast field for noblework.

  Then came another brief interval, when once again the lowly home atEisenach became to me dearer and more than all the wide world beside,and all earth and all life seemed to grow sacred and to expand before mein the light of one pure, holy, loving maiden's heart. I have seennothing so heaven-like since as she was. But then came the great crashwhich wrenched my life in twain, and made home and the world alikeforbidden ground to me.

  At first, after that, for years I dared not think of Eva. But since mypilgrimage to Rome, I venture to cherish her memory again. I thank Godevery day that nothing can erase that image of purity and love from myheart. Had it not been for that, and for the recollection of Dr.Luther's manly, honest piety, there are times when the very existence oftruth and holiness on earth would have seemed inconceivable, such achaos of corruption has the world appeared to me.

  How often has the little lowly hearth-fire, glowing from the windows ofthe old home, saved me from shipwreck, when "for many days neither sunnor stars appeared, and no small tempest lay on me."

  For I have lived during these years behind the veil of outward shows, apoor insignificant monk, before whom none thought it worth while toinconvenience themselves with masks or disguises. I have spent hourafter hour, moreover, in the confessional. I have been in the sacristybefore the mass, and at the convent feast after it. And I have spentmonths once and again at the heart of Christendom, in Rome itself, wherethe indulgences which are now stirring up all Germany are manufactured,and where the money gained by the indulgences is spent; _not_ entirelyon the building of St. Peter's or in holy wars against the Turks!

  Thank God that a voice is raised at last against this crying, monstrouslie, the honest voice of Dr. Luther. It is ringing through all the land.I have just returned from a mission through Germany, and I hadopportunities of observing the effect of the theses.

  The first time I heard of them was from a sermon in a church of theDominicans in Bavaria.

  The preacher spoke of Dr. Luther by name, and reviled the theses asdirectly inspired by the devil, declaring that their wretched authorwould have a place in hell lower than all the heretics, from Simon Magusdownward.

  The congregation were roused and spoke of it as they dispersed. Somepiously wondered who this new heretic could be who was worse even thanHuss. Others speculated what this new poisonous doctrine could be; and agreat many bought a copy of the theses to see.

  In the Augustinian convent that evening they formed the subject of warmdebate. Not a few of the monks triumphed in them as an effective blowagainst Tetzel and the Dominicans. A few rejoiced and said these werethe words they had been longing to hear for years. Many expressed wonderthat people should make so much stir about them, since they said nothingmore than all honest men in the land had always thought.

  A few nights afterwards I lodged at the house of Ruprecht Haller, apriest in a Franconian village. A woman of quiet and modest appearance,young in form but worn and old in expression, with a subdued,broken-spirited bearing, was preparing our supper, and whilst she wasserving the table I began to speak to the priest about the theses of Dr.Luther.

  He motioned to me to keep silence, and hastily turned the conversation.

  When we were left alone he explained his reasons. "I gave her the moneyfor an indulgence letter last week, and she purchased one from one ofDr. Tetzel's company," he said; "and when she returned her heart seemedlighter than I have seen it for years, since God smote us for our sins,and little Dietrich died. I would not have had her robbed of that littlebit of comfort for the world, be it true or false."

  Theirs was a sad story, common enough in every town and village asregarded the sin, and only uncommon as to the longing for better thingswhich yet lingered in the hearts of the guilty.

  I suggested her returning to her kindred or entering a convent.

  "She has no kindred left that would receive her," he said; "and to sendher to be scorned and disciplined by a community of nuns--never!"

  "But her soul!" I said, "and yours?"

  "The blessed Lord received such," he answered almost fiercely, "beforethe Pharisees."

  "Such received Him!" I said quietly, "but receiving Him they went andsinned no more."

  "And when did God ever say it was sin for a priest to marry?" he asked;"not in the Old Testament, for the son of Elkanah the priest and Hannahministered before the Lord in the temple, as perhaps our littleDietrich," he added in a low tone, "ministers before Him in his templenow. And where in the New Testament do you find it forbidden?"

  "The Church forbids it," I said.

  "Since when?" he asked. "The subject is too near my heart for me not tohave searched to see. And five hundred years ago, I have read, beforethe days of Hildebrand the pope, many a village pastor had his lawfulwife, whom he loved as I love Bertha; for God knows neither she nor Iever loved another."

  "Does this satisfy her conscience?" I asked.

  "Sometimes," he replied bitterly, "but only sometimes. Oftener she livesas one under a curse, afraid to receive any good thing, and bowing toevery sorrow as her bitter desert, and the foretaste of the terribleretribution to come."

  "Whatever is not of faith is sin," I murmured.

  "But what will be the portion of those who call what God sanctions sin,"he said, "and bring trouble and pollution into hearts as pure as hers?"

  The woman entered the room as he was speaking, and must have caught hiswords, for a deep crimson flushed her pale face. As she turned away, herwhole frame quivered with a suppressed sob. But afterwards, when thepriest left the room, she came up to me and said, looking with her sad,dark, lustreless eyes at me, "You were saying that some doubt theefficacy of these indulgences? But do _you_? I cannot trust _him_," sheadded softly, "he would be afraid to tell me if he thought so."

  I hesitated what to say. I could not tell an untruth; and before thosesearching, earnest eyes, any attempt at evasion would have been vain.

  "You do _not_ believe this letter can do anything for me," she said;"_nor do I_." And moving quietly to the hearth, she tore the indulgenceinto shreds, and threw it on the flames.

  "Do not tell him this," she said; "he thinks it comforts me."

  I tried to say some words about repentance and forgiveness being free toall.

  "Repentance for me," she said, "would be to leave him, would it not?"

  I could not deny it.

  "I will _never_ leave him," she replied, with a calmness which was morelike principle than passion. "He has sacrificed life for me; but for mehe might have been a great and honoured man. And do you think I wouldleave him to bear his blighted life alone?"

  Ah! it was no dread of scorn or discipline which kept her from theconvent.

  For some time I was silenced. I dared neither to reproach nor tocomfort. At length I said, "Life, whether joyful or sorrowful, is veryshort. Holiness is infinitely better than happiness here, and holinessmakes happiness in the life beyond. If you felt it would
be for _his_good, you would do anything, at any cost to yourself, would you not?"

  Her eyes filled with tears. "You believe, then, that there is some goodleft, even in me!" she said. "For this may God bless you!" and silentlyshe left the room.

  Five hundred years ago these two lives might have been holy, honourable,and happy; and now!--

  I left that house with a heavy heart, and a mind more bewildered thanbefore.

  But that pale, worn face; those deep, sad, truthful eyes; and that brow,that might have been as pure as the brow of a St. Agnes, have haunted meoften since. And whenever I think of it, I say,--

  "God be merciful to them and to me, sinners!"

  For had not my own good, pure, pious mother doubts and scruples almostas bitter? Did not she also live too often as if under a curse? Who orwhat has thrown this shadow on so many homes? Who that knows theinterior of many convents dares to say they are holier than homes? Whothat has lived with, or confessed many monks or nuns, can dare to saytheir hearts are more heavenly than those of husband or wife, father ormother? Alas! the questions of that priest are nothing new to me. But Idare not entertain them. For if monastic life is a delusion, to whathave I sacrificed hopes which were so absorbing, and might have been sopure?

  Regrets are burdens a brave man must cast off. For my little life whatdoes it matter? But to see vice shamefully reigning in the most sacredplaces, and scruples, perhaps false, staining the purest hearts, who canbehold these things and not mourn? Crimes a pagan would have abhorredatoned for by a few florins; sins which the Holy Scriptures scarcelyseem to condemn, weighing on tender consciences like crimes! What willbe the end of this chaos?

  * * * * *

  The next night I spent in the castle of an old knight in the ThuringianForest, Otto von Gersdorf. He welcomed me very hospitably to his table,at which a stately old lady presided, his widowed sister.

  "What is all this talk about Dr. Luther and his theses?" he asked;"only, I suppose, some petty quarrel between the monks! And yet mynephew Ulrich thinks there is no one on earth like this little BrotherMartin. You good Augustinians do not like the Black Friars to have allthe profit; is that it?" he asked laughing.

  "That is not Dr. Luther's motive, at all events," I said; "I do notbelieve money is more to him than it is to the birds of the air."

  "No, brother," said the lady; "think of the beautiful words ourChriemhild read us from his book on the Lord's Prayer."

  "Yes; you, and Ulrich, and Chriemhild, and Atlantis," rejoined the oldknight, "you are all alike; the little friar has bewitched you all."

  The names of my sisters made my heart beat.

  "Does the lady know Chriemhild and Atlantis Cotta?" I asked.

  "Come, nephew Ulrich," said the knight to a young man who just thenentered the hall from the chase; "tell this good brother all you know ofFrauelein Chriemhild Cotta."

  We were soon the best friends and long after the old knight and hissister had retired, Ulrich von Gersdorf and I sat up discoursing aboutDr. Luther and his noble words and deeds, and of names dearer to us botheven than his.

  "Then you are Fritz!" he said musingly after a a pause; "the Fritz theyall delight to talk of, and think no one can ever be equal to. You arethe Fritz that Chriemhild says her mother always hoped would have weddedthat angel maiden Eva von Schoenberg, who is now a nun at Nimptschen;whose hymn-book "Theologia Teutsch" she carried with her to the convent.I wonder you could have left her to become a monk," he continued; "yourvocation must have been very strong."

  At that moment it certainly felt very weak. But I would not for theworld have let him see this, and I said, with as steady a voice as Icould command, "I believe it was God's will."

  "Well," he continued, "it is good for any one to have seen her, and tocarry that image of purity and piety with him into cloister or home. Itis better than any painting of the saints, to have that angelic,child-like countenance, and that voice sweet as church music, in one'sheart."

  "It is," I said, and I could not have said a word more. Happily for me,he turned to another subject and expatiated for a long time on thebeauty and goodness of his little Chriemhild, who was to be his wife, hesaid, next year; whilst through my heart only two thoughts remaineddistinct, namely, what my mother had wished about Eva and me, and thatEva had taken my "Theologia Teutsch" into the convent with her.

  It took some days before I could remove that sweet, guileless, familiarface, to the saintly, unearthly height in my heart, where only it issafe for me to gaze on it.

  But I believe Ulrich thought me a very sympathizing listener, for inabout an hour he said,--

  "You are a patient and good-natured monk, to listen thus to my romances.However, she is your sister, and I wish you would be at our wedding.But, at all events, it will be delightful to have news for Chriemhildand all of them about Fritz."

  I had intended to go on to Wittemberg for a few days, but after thatconversation I did not dare to do so at once. I returned to theuniversity of Tuebingen, to quiet my mind a little with Greek and Hebrew,under the direction of the excellent Reuchlin, it being the will of ourVicar-General that I should study the languages.

  At Tuebingen I found Dr. Luther's theses the great topic of debate. Menof learning rejoiced in the theses as an assault on barbarism andignorance; men of straightforward integrity hailed them as a protestagainst a system of lies and imposture; men of piety gave thanks forthem as a defence of holiness and truth. The students enthusiasticallygreeted Dr. Luther as the prince of the new age; the aged Reuchlin andmany of the professors recognized him as an assailant of old foes from anew point of attack.

  Here I attended for some weeks the lectures of the young doctor, PhilipMelancthon (then only twenty one, yet already a doctor for four years),until he was summoned to Wittemberg, which he reached on the 25th ofAugust, 1518.

  On business of the order, I was deputed about the same time on a missionto the Augustinian convent at Wittemberg, so that I saw him arrive. Thedisappointment at his first appearance was great. Could this littleunpretending-looking youth be the great scholar Reuchlin had recommendedso warmly, and from whose abilities the Elector Frederick expected suchgreat results for his new university?

  Dr. Luther was among the first to discover the treasure hidden in thisinsignificant frame. But his first Latin harangue, four days after hisarrival, won the admiration of all; and very soon his lecture-room wascrowded.

  This was the event which absorbed Wittemberg when first I saw it.

  The return to my old home was very strange to me. Such a broad barrierof time and circumstance had grown up between me and those most familiarto me!

  Else, matronly as she was, with her keys, her stores, her largehousehold, and her two children, the baby Fritz and Gretchen, was inheart the very same to me as when we parted for my first term at Erfurt,her honest, kind blue eyes, had the very same look. But around her was awhole new world of strangers, strange to me as her own new life, withwhom I had no links whatever.

  With Chriemhild and the younger children, the recollection of me as theelder brother seemed struggling with their reverence for the priest.Christopher appeared to look on me with a mixture of pity, and respect,and perplexity, which prevented my having any intimate intercourse withhim at all.

  Only my mother seemed unchanged with regard to me, although much moreaged and feeble. But in her affection there was a clinging tendernesswhich pierced my heart more than the bitterest reproaches. I felt by thesilent watching of her eyes how she had missed me.

  My father was little altered, except that his schemes appeared to givehim a new and placid satisfaction, in the very impossibility of theirfulfilment, and that the relations between him and my grandmother weremuch more friendly.

  There was at first a little severity in our grandmother's manner to me,which wore off when we understood how much Dr. Luther's teaching haddone for us both; and she never wearied of hearing what he had said anddone at Rome.

  The one who, I felt, would ha
ve been entirely the same, was gone forever; and I could scarcely regret the absence which left that one imageundimmed by the touch of time, and surrounded by no barriers of change.

  But of Eva no one spoke to me, except little Thekla, who sang to me overand over the Latin hymns Eva had taught her, and asked if she sang themat all in the same way.

  I told her yes. They were the same words, the same melodies, much of thesame soft, reverent, innocent manner. But little Thekla's voice was deepand powerful, and clear like a thrush's; and Eva's used to be like thesoft murmuring of a dove in the depth of some quiet wood--hardly a voiceat all--an embodied prayer, as if you stood at the threshold of herheart, and heard the music of her happy, holy, child-like thoughtswithin.

  No, nothing could ever break the echo of that voice to me.

  But Thekla and I became great friends. She had scarcely known me of old.We became friends as we were. There was nothing to recall, nothing toefface. And Cousin Eva had been to her as a star or angel in heaven, oras if she had been another child sent by God out of some beautiful oldlegend to be her friend.

  Altogether, there was some pain in this visit to my old home. I hadprayed so earnestly that the blank my departure had made might be filledup; yet now that I saw it filled, and the life of my beloved running itsbusy course, with no place in it for me, it left a dreary feeling ofexile on my heart. If the dead could thus return, would they feelanything of this? Not the holy dead, surely. They would rejoice that thesorrow, having wrought its work, should cease to be so bitter--that theblank should, not, indeed, be filled (no true love can replace another),but veiled and made fruitful, as time and nature veil all ruins.

  But the holy dead would revisit earth from a home, a father's house; andthat the cloister is not, nor can ever be.

  Yet I would gladly have remained at Wittemberg. Compared withWittemberg, all the world seemed asleep. There it was morning, and anatmosphere of hope and activity was around my heart. Dr. Luther wasthere; and, whether consciously or not, all who look for better daysseem to fix their eyes on him.

  But I was sent to Mainz. On my journey thither I went out of my way totake a new book of Dr. Luther's to my poor priest Ruprecht in Franconia.His village lay in the depths of a pine forest. The book was theExposition of the Lord's Prayer in German, for lay and unlearned people.The priest's house was empty; but I laid the book on a wooden seat inthe porch, with my name written in it, and a few words of gratitude forhis hospitality. And as I wound my way through the forest, I saw from aheight on the opposite side of the valley a woman enter the porch, andstoop to pick up the book, and then stand reading it in the door-way. AsI turned away, her figure still stood motionless in the arch of theporch, with the white leaves of the open book relieved against theshadow of the interior.

  I prayed that the words might be written on her heart. Wonderful wordsof holy love and grace I knew were there, which would restore hope andpurity to any heart on which they were written.

  And now I am placed in this Augustinian monastery at Mainz in theRhineland.

  This convent has its own peculiar traditions. Here is a dungeon inwhich, not forty years ago (in 1481), died John of Wesel--the old manwho had dared to protest against indulgences, and to utter such truthsas Dr. Luther is upholding now.

  An aged monk of this monastery, who was young when John of Wesel died,remembers him, and has often spoken to me about him. The inquisitorsinstituted a process against him, which was earned on, like so manyothers, in the secret of the cloister.

  It was said that he made a general recantation, but that two accusationswhich were brought against him he did not attempt in his defence todeny. They were these: "That it is not his monastic life which saves anymonk, but the grace of God;" and "That the same Holy Spirit who inspiredthe Holy Scriptures alone can interpret them with power to the heart."

  The inquisitors burned his books; at which, my informant said, the oldman wept.

  "Why," he said, "should men be so inflamed against him? There was somuch in his books that was good, and must they be all burned for thelittle evil that was mixed with the good? Surely this was man'sjudgment, not God's--not His who would have spared Sodom at Abraham'sprayer, for but ten righteous, had they been found there. O God," hesighed, "must the good perish with the evil?"

  But the inquisitors were not to be moved. The books were condemned andignominiously burned in public; the old man's name was branded withheresy; and he himself was silenced, and left in the convent prison todie.

  I asked the monk who told me of this, what were the especial heresiesfor which John of Wesel was condemned.

  "Heresies against the Church, I believe," he replied. "I have heard himin his sermons declare that the Church was becoming like what the Jewishnation was in the days of our Lord. He protested against the secularsplendours of the priests and prelates--against the cold ceremonial intowhich he said the services had sunk, and the empty superstitions whichwere substituted for true piety of heart and life. He said that the salthad lost its savour; that many of the priests were thieves and robbers,and not shepherds; that the religion in fashion was little better thanthat of the Pharisees who put our Lord to death--a cloak for spiritualpride, and narrow, selfish bitterness. He declared that divine andecclesiastical authority were of very different weight; that the outwardprofessing Church was to be distinguished from the true living Church ofChrist; that the power of absolution given to the priest wassacramental, and not judicial. In a sermon at Worms, I once heard himsay he thought little of the Pope, the Church, or the Councils, as afoundation to build our faith upon. 'Christ alone,' he declared, 'Ipraise. May the word of Christ dwell in us richly!'"

  "They were bold words," I remarked.

  "More than that," replied the aged monk; "John of Wesel protested thatwhat the Bible did not hold as sin, neither could he; and he is evenreported to have said, 'Eat on fast days, if thou art hungry.'"

  "That is a concession many of the monks scarcely need," I observed. "Hislife, then, was not condemned, but only his doctrine."

  "I was sorry," the old monk resumed, "that it was necessary to condemnhim; for from that time to this, I never have heard preaching thatstirred the heart like his. When he ascended the pulpit, the church wasthronged. The laity understood and listened to him as eagerly as thereligious. It was a pity he was a heretic, for I do not ever expect tohear his like again."

  "You have never heard Dr. Luther preach?" I said.

  "Doctor Luther who wrote those theses they are talking so much of?" heasked. "Do the people throng to hear his sermons, and hang on his wordsas if they were words of life?"

  "They do," I replied.

  "Then," rejoined the old monk softly, "let Dr. Luther take care. Thatwas the way with so many of the heretical preachers. With John of Gochat Mechlin, and John Wesel whom they expelled from Paris, I have heardit was just the same. But," he continued, "if Dr. Luther comes to Mainz,I will certainly try to hear him. I should like to have my cold, dry,old heart moved like that again. Often when I read the holy Gospels Johnof Wesel's words come back. Brother, it was like the breath of life."

  The last man that ventured to say in the face of Germany that man's wordis not to be placed on an equality with God's, and that the Bible is theonly standard of truth, and the one rule of right and wrong--this is howhe died!

  How will it be with the next--with the man that is proclaiming this inthe face of the world now?

  The old monk turned back to me, after we had separated, and said, in alow voice--

  "Tell Dr. Luther to take warning by John of Wesel. Holy men and greatpreachers may so easily become heretics without knowing it. And yet," headded, "to preach such sermons as John of Wesel, I am not sure it is notworth while to die in prison. I think I could be content to die, if Icould _hear_ one such again! Tell Dr. Luther to take care; butnevertheless, if he comes to Mainz I will hear him."

  The good, then, in John of Wesel's words, has not perished, in spite ofthe flames.