XXXV.
Eva's Agnes's Story.
EISLEBEN, 1542.
Aunt Else says no one in the world ought to present more thanksgivingsto God than Heinz and I, and I am sure she is right.
In the first place we have the best father and mother in the world, sothat whenever from our earliest years they have spoken to us about ourFather in heaven, we have had just to think of what they were on earthto us, and feel that all their love and goodness together are what Godis; only (if we can conceive such a thing) much more. We have only hadto _add_ to what they are, to learn what God is, not to take anythingaway; to say to ourselves, as we think of our parents, so kind injudging others, so loving, so true, God is like that--only the love isgreater and wiser than our father's, tenderer and more sympathizing thanour mother's (difficult as it is to imagine). And then there is just onething in which he is unlike. His power is unbounded. He can give to usevery blessing he sees it good to give.
With such a father and mother on earth, and such a Father in heaven, andwith Heinz, how can I ever thank our God enough?
And our mother is so young still! Our dear father said the other day,"her hair has not a tinge of grey in it, but is as golden as ourAgnes's." And her face is so fair and sweet, and her voice so clear andfull in her own dear hymns, or in talking! Aunt Else says, it makes onefeel at rest to look at her, and that her voice always was the sweetestin the world, something between church music and the cooing of a dove.Aunt Else says also, that even as a child she had just the same way shehas now of seeing what you are thinking about--of _coming into_ yourheart, and making everything that is good in it feel it is understood,and all that is bad in it feel detected and slink away.
Our dear father does not, indeed, look so young; but I like men to lookas if they had been in the wars--as if their hearts had been wellploughed and sown. And the grey in his hair, and the furrows on hisforehead--those two upright ones when he is thinking--and the firmcompression of his mouth, and the hollow on his cheek, seem to me quiteas beautiful in their way as our mother's placid brow, and the dear lookon her lips, like the dawn of a smile, as if the law of kindness hadmoulded every curve.
Then, in the second place (perhaps I ought to have said in the first,)we have the "Catechism." And Aunt Else says we have no idea, Heinz andI, what a blessing that is to us. We certainly did not always think it ablessing when we were learning it. But I begin to understand it now,especially since I have been staying at Wittemberg with Aunt Else, andshe has told me about the perplexities of her childhood and early youth.
Always to have learned about God as the Father who "cares for us everyday"--gives us richly all things to enjoy, and "that all out of pure,fatherly, divine love and goodness; and of the Lord Jesus Christ, thathe has redeemed me from all sin, from death, and from the power of thedevil, to be his own--redeemed me, not with gold and silver, but withhis holy, precious blood;" and of the Holy Spirit, that "he dwells withus daily, calls us by his gospel, enlightens, and richly forgives;"--allthis, she says, is the greatest blessing any one can know. To have nodark, suspicious thoughts of the good God, unconsciously drunk in frominfancy, to dash away from our hearts--Dr. Luther himself says we havelittle idea what a gift that is to us young people of this generation.
It used to be like listening to histories of dark days centuries ago, tohear Aunt Else speak of her childhood at Eisenach, when Dr. Luther alsowas a boy, and used to sing for bread at our good kinswoman UrsulaCotta's door--when the monks and nuns from the many high-walled conventsused to walk demurely in their dark robes about the streets; and AuntElse used to tremble at the thought of heaven, because it might be likea convent garden, and all the heavenly saints like Aunt Agnes.
Our dear Great-Aunt Agnes, how impossible for us to understand her beingthus dreaded!--she who was the playmate of our childhood; and used tospoil us, our mother said, by doing everything we asked, and making usthink she enjoyed being pulled about, and made a lion or a Turk of, asmuch as we enjoyed it. How well I remember now the pang that came overHeinz and me when we were told to speak and step softly, because she wasill, and then taken for a few minutes in the day to sit quite still byher bed-side with picture-books, because she loved to look at us, butcould not bear any noise. And at last the day when we were led insolemnly, and she could look at us no more, but lay quite still andwhite, while we placed our flowers on the bed, and we both felt it toosacred and too much like being at church to cry--until our eveningprayer-time came, and our mother told us that Aunt Agnes did not needour prayers any longer, because God had made her quite good and happy inheaven. And Heinz said he wished God would take us all, and make usquite good and happy with her. But I, when we were left in our cribsalone, sobbed bitterly, and could not sleep. It seemed so terrible tothink Aunt Agnes did not want us any more, and that we could do nothingmore for her--she who had been so tenderly good to us! I was so afraid,also, that we had not been kind enough to her, had teased her to playwith us, and made more noise than we ought; and that that was the reasonGod had taken her away. Heinz could not understand that at all. He wasquite sure God was too kind; and, although he also cried, he soon fellasleep. It was a great relief to me when our mother came round, as shealways did the last thing to see if we were asleep, and I could sob outmy troubles on her heart, and say--
"Will Aunt Agnes never want us any more?"
"Yes, darling," said our mother; "she wants us now. She is waiting forus all to come to her."
"Then it was not because we teased her, and were noisy, she was takenaway? We did love her so very dearly! And can we do nothing for hernow?"
Then she told me how Aunt Agnes had suffered much here, and that ourheavenly Father had taken her _home_, and that, although we could not doanything for her now, we need not leave her name out of our nightlyprayers, because we could always say, "Thank God for taking dear AuntAgnes home!"
And so two things were written on my heart that night, that there was aplace like home beyond the sky, where Aunt Agnes was waiting for us,loving us quite as much as ever, with God who loved us more than anyone; and that we must be as kind as possible to people, and not give anyone a moment's pain, because a time may come when they will not need ourkindness any more.
It is very difficult for me who always think of Aunt Agnes waiting forus in heaven, with the wistful loving look she used to have when she laywatching for Heinz and me to come and sit by her bed-side, to imaginewhat different thoughts Aunt Else had about her when she was a nun.
But Aunt Else says that she has no doubt that Heinz and I, with ourteasing, and our noise, and our love, were among the chief instrumentsof her sanctification. Yes, those days of Aunt Else's childhood appearalmost as far away from us as the days of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, wholived at the Wartburg, used to seem from Aunt Else. It is wonderful tothink what that miner's son, whom old John Reineck remembers carrying onhis shoulders to the school-house up the hill, here at Eisleben, hasdone for us all. So completely that grim old time seems to have passedaway. There is not a monastery left in all Saxony, and the pastors areall married, and schools are established in every town, where Dr. Luthersays the young lads and maidens hear more about God and Christianitythan the nuns and monks in all the convents had learned thirty yearsago.
Not that all the boys and maidens are good as they ought to be. No; thatis too plain from what Heinz and I feel and know, and also from what ourdear father preaches in the pulpit on Sundays. Our mother says sometimesshe is afraid we of this generation shall grow up weak, andself-indulgent, and ease-loving, unlike our fathers who had to fight forevery inch of truth they hold, with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
But our dear father smiles gravely, and says, she need not fear. Thesethree enemies are not slain yet and will give the young generationenough to do. Besides, the Pope is still reigning at Rome, and theEmperor is even now threatening us with an army, to say nothing of theTurks, and the Anabaptists, of whom Dr. Luther says so much.
I knew very little of the world until two years ago, and not much, I amafraid, of myself. But when I was about fifteen I went alone to staywith Aunt Chriemnild and Aunt Else, and then I learned many things whichin learning troubled me not a little, but now that they are learned makeme happier than before, which our mother says is the way with most ofGod's lessons. Before these visits I had never left home; and althoughHeinz, who had been away, and was also naturally more thrown with otherpeople as a boy than I was, often told me I knew no more of actual lifethan a baby, I never understood what he meant.
I suppose I had always unconsciously thought our father and mother werethe centre of the world to every one as well as to us; and had just beenthankful for my lot in life, because I believed in all respects no oneelse had anything so good; and entertained a quiet conviction that intheir hearts every one thought the same. And to find that to otherpeople our lot in life seemed pitiable and poor, was an immense surpriseto me, and no little grief!
When we left our old home in the forest many years since, when Heinz andI were quite children; and it only lingered in our memories as a kind ofEden or fairy-land, where, amongst wild flowers, and green glades, andsinging birds, and streams, we made a home for all our dreams, notquestioning, however, in our hearts that our new home at Eisleben wasquite as excellent in its way. Have we not a garden behind the housewith several apple-trees, and a pond as large as any of our neighbours,and an empty loft for wet days--the perfection of a loft--for tellingfairy tales in, or making experiments, or preparing surprises ofwonderful cabinet work with Heinz's tools? And has not our Eislebenvalley also its green and wooded hills, and in the forests around arethere not strange glows all night from the great miners' furnaces towhich those of the charcoal-burners in the Thuringian forest are meretoys? And are there not, moreover, all kinds of wild caverns and pitsfrom which, at intervals, the miners come forth, grimy and independent,and sing their wild songs in chorus as they come home from work? And isnot Eisleben Dr. Luther's birth-place? And have we not a highgrammar-school which Dr. Luther founded, and in which our dear fatherteaches Latin? And do we not hear him preach once every Sunday?
To me it always seemed, and seems still, that nothing can be nobler thanour dear father's office of telling the people the way to heaven onSundays, and teaching their children the way to be wise and good onearth in the week. It was a great shock to me when I found every one didnot think the same.
Not that every one was not always most kind to me; but it happened inthis way.
One day some visitors had been at Uncle Ulrich's castle. They hadcomplimented me on my golden hair, which Heinz always says is the colourof the princess' in the fairy tale. I went out at Aunt Chriemhild'sdesire, feeling half shy and half flattered, to play with my cousins inthe forest. As I was sitting hidden among the trees, twining wreathsfrom the forget-me-nots my cousins were gathering by the stream below,these ladies passed again. I heard one of them say,--
"Yes, she is a well-mannered little thing for a schoolmaster'sdaughter."
"I cannot think whence a burgher maiden--the Cottas are all burghers,are they not--should inherit those little white hands and those delicatefeatures," said the other.
"Poor, too, doubtless, as they must be!" was the reply, "one would thinkshe had never had to work about the house, as no doubt she must."
"Who was her grandfather?"
"Only a printer at Wittemberg!"
"Only a schoolmaster!" and "only a printer!"
My whole heart rose against the scornful words. Was this what peoplemeant by paying compliments? Was this the estimate my father was held inin the world--he, the noblest man in it, who was fit to be the Electoror the Emperor? A bitter feeling came over me, which I thought wasaffection and an aggrieved sense of justice. But love is scarcely sobitter, or justice so fiery.
I did not tell any one, nor did I shed a tear, but went on weaving myforget-me-not wreaths, and forswore the wicked and hollow world. Had Inot promised to do so long since, through my godsponsers, at my baptism?Now, I thought, I was learning what all that meant.
At Aunt Else's, however, another experience awaited me. There was to bea fair, and we were all to go in our best holiday dresses. My cousinshad rich Oriental jewels on their bodices; and although, as burghermaidens, they might not, like my cousins at the castle, wear velvets,they had jackets and dresses of the stiffest, richest silks, which UncleReichenbach had sent for from Italy and the East.
My stuff dress certainly looked plain beside them, but I did not care inthe least for that; my own dear mother and I had made it together; andshe had hunted up some old precious stores to make me a taffetas jacket,which, as it was the most magnificent apparel I had ever possessed, wehad both looked at with much complacency. Nor did it seem to me in theleast less beautiful now. The touch of my mother's fingers had been onit, as she smoothed it round me the evening before I came away. And AuntElse had said it was exactly like my mother. But my cousins were notquite pleased, it was evident; especially Fritz and the elder boys. Theysaid nothing; but on the morning of the fete, a beautiful new dress, thecounterpart of my cousins', was laid at my bed-side before I awoke.
I put it on with some pleasure, but, when I looked at myself in theglass--it was very unreasonable--I could not bear it. It seemed areproach on my mother, and on my humble life and my dear, poor home atEisleben, and I sat down and cried bitterly, until a gentle knock at thedoor aroused me; and Aunt Else came in, and found me sitting with tearson my face and on the beautiful new dress, exceedingly ashamed ofmyself.
"Don't you like it, my child? It was our Fritz's thought. I was afraidyou might not be pleased."
"My mother thought the old one good enough," I said in a very falteringtone. "It was good enough for my home. I had better go home again."
Aunt Else was carefully wiping away the tears from my dress, but atthese words she began to cry herself, and drew me to her heart, and saidit was exactly what she should have felt in her young days at Eisenach,but that I must just wear the new dress to the fete, and then I neednever wear it again unless I liked; and that I was right in thinkingnothing half so good as my mother, and all she did, because nothing everwas, or would be, she was sure.
So we cried together, and were comforted; and I wore the green taffetasto the fair.
But when I came home again to Eisleben, I felt more ashamed of myselfthan of the taffetas dress or of the flattering ladies at the Castle.The dear, precious old home, in spite of all I could persuade myself tothe contrary, did look small and poor, and the furniture worn and old.And yet I could see there new traces of care and welcomeeverywhere--fresh rushes on the floors; a new white quilt on my littlebed, made, I knew, by my mother's hands.
She knew very soon that I was feeling troubled about something, and soonshe knew it all, as I told her my bitter experiences of life.
"Your father, 'only a schoolmaster!'" she said, "and you yourselfpresented with a new taffetas dress! Are these all your grievances,little Agnes?"
"_All_, mother!" I exclaimed; "and _only_!"
"Is your father anything else than a schoolmaster, Agnes?" she said.
"I am not ashamed of that for an instant, mother," I said; "you couldnot think it. I think it is much nobler to teach children than to huntfoxes, and buy and sell bales of silk and wool. But the world seems tome exceedingly hollow and crooked; and I never wish to see any more ofit. Oh, mother, do you think it was all nonsense in me?"
"I think, my child, you have had an encounter with the world, the flesh,and the devil; and I think they are no contemptible enemies. And I thinkyou have not left them behind."
"But is not our father's calling nobler than any one's, and our home thenicest in the world?" I said; "and Eisleben really as beautiful in itsway as the Thuringian forest, and as wise as Wittemberg?"
"All callings may be noble," she said; "and the one God calls us to isthe noblest for us. Eisleben is not, I think, as beautiful as the oldforest-covered hills at Gersdorf; nor Luther's birth-place as great
ashis dwelling-place, where he preaches and teaches, and sheds around himthe influence of his holy daily life. Other homes may be as good asyours, dear child, though none can be so to you."
And so I learned that what makes any calling noble is its beingcommanded by God, and what makes anything good is its being given byGod; and that contentment consists not in persuading ourselves that ourthings are the very best in the world, but in believing they are thebest for us, and giving God thanks for them.
That was the way I began to learn to know the world. And also in thatway I began better to understand the Catechism, especially the partabout the Lord's Prayer, and that on the second article of the Creed,where we learn of Him who suffered for our sins and redeemed us with hisholy precious blood.
I have just returned from my second visit to Wittemberg, which was muchhappier than my first--indeed, exceedingly happy.
The great delight of my visit, however, has been seeing and hearing Dr.Luther. His little daughter, Magdalen, three years younger than I am,had died not long before, but that seemed only to make Dr. Luther kinderthan ever to all young maidens--"the poor maiden-kind," as he callsthem.
His sermons seemed to me like a father talking to his children; and AuntElse says he repeats the Catechism often himself "to God" to cheer hisheart and strengthen himself--the great Dr. Martin Luther!
I had heard so much of him, and always thought of him as the man nearestGod on earth, great with a majesty surpassing infinitely that of theElector or the Emperor. And now it was a great delight to see him in hishome, in the dark wainscoted room looking on his garden, and to see himraise his head from his writing and smile kindly at us as he sat at thegreat table in the broad window, with Mistress Luther sewing on a lowerseat beside him, and little Margaretha Luther, the youngest child,quietly playing beside them, contented with a look now and than from herfather.
I should like to have seen Magdalen Luther. She must have been such agood and loving child. But that will be hereafter in heaven!
I suppose my feeling for Dr. Luther is different from that of my motherand father. They knew him during the conflict. We only know him as theconqueror, with the palm, as it were, already in his hand.
But my great friend at Wittemberg is Aunt Thekla. I think, on the whole,there is no one I should more wish to be like. She understands one inthat strange way, without telling, like my mother. I think it is becauseshe has felt so much. Aunt Else told me of the terrible sorrow she hadwhen she was young.
Our dear mother and father also had their great sorrows, although theycame to the end of their sorrow in this life, and Aunt Thekla will onlycome to the end of hers in the other world. But it seems to haveconsecrated them all, I think, in some peculiar way. They all, and Dr.Luther also, make me think of the people who, they say, have the gift,by striking on the ground, of discovering where the hidden springs liethat others may know where to dig for the wells. Can sorrow only conferthis gift of knowing where to find the hidden springs in the heart? Ifso, it must be worth while to suffer. Only there are just one or twosorrows which it seems almost impossible to bear!
But, as our mother says, our Saviour has all the gifts in His hands; and"the greatest gift" of all (in whose hands the roughest tools can do thefinest work) "is _love_!" And that is just the gift every one of us mayhave without limit.
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