THE MEN OF SPENERSBERG.
This Spenersberg, about which Leonhard was not a little eager to know
more when he shut the door of the apartment into which his host had
ushered him--for he must remain all night--what was it?
A colony, or a brotherhood, or a community, six years old. Such a fact
does not lie ready for observation every day--such a place does not
lie in the hand of a man at his bidding. What, then, was its history?
We need not wait to find out until morning, when Leonhard will proceed
to discover. He is satisfied when he lies down upon the bed, which
awaited him, it seems, as he came hither on the way-train--quite
satisfied that Spener of Spenersberg must be a man worth seeing.
Breathing beings possessed of ideas and homes here must have been
handled with power by a master mind to have brought about this
community, if so it is to be called, in six short years, thinks
Leonhard. He recalls his own past six years, and turns uneasily on his
bed, and finds no rest until he reminds himself of the criticism
he has been enabled to pass on Miss Elise's rendering of "He is a
righteous Saviour," and the suggestion he made concerning the pitch
of "Ye shall find rest for your souls." The recollection acts upon him
somewhat as the advancing wave acts on the sand-line made by the wave
preceding. When he made the first suggestion, Sister Benigna stood
for a moment looking at him, surprised by his remark; but, less than a
second taken up with a thought of him, she had passed instantly on to
say, "Try it so, Elise: 'He is a righteous Saviour.' We will make it
a slower movement. Ah! how impressive! how beautiful! It is the
composer's very thought! Again--slow: it is perfect!"
Was this kind of praise worth the taking? a source of praise worth
the seeking? Leonhard had said ungrateful things about his
prize-credentials to Miss Marion Ayres, and I do believe that these
very prizes, awarded for his various drawings, were never so valued
by him as the look with which priestly Benigna seemed to admit him at
least so far as into the fellowship of the Gentiles' Court.
He would have fallen asleep just here with a pleasant thought but for
the recollection of Wilberforce's letter, which startled him hardly
less than the apparition of his friend in the moonlight streaming
through his half-curtained window would have done. Is it always so
pleasant a thought that for ever and ever a man shall bear his own
company?
But this Spenersberg? Seven years ago, on the day when he came of age,
Albert Spener, then a young clerk in a fancy-goods store, went to look
at the estate which his grandfather had bequeathed to him the year
preceding. Not ten years ago the old man made his will and gave the
property, on which he had not quite starved, to his only grandson, and
here was this worthless gorge which stretched between the fields more
productive than many a famous gold-mine.
The youth had seen at once that if he should deal with the land as
his predecessors had done, he would be able to draw no more from the
stingy acres than they. He had shown the bent of his mind and the
nature of his talent by the promptness with which he put things remote
together, and by the directness with which he reached his conclusions.
He had left his town-lodgings, having obtained of his employer leave
of absence for one week, and within twenty-four hours had come to
his conclusion and returned to his post. Of that estate which he had
inherited but a portion, and a very small portion, offered to the
cultivator the least encouragement. The land had long ago been
stripped of its forest trees, and, thus defrauded of its natural
fertilizers, lay now, after successive seasons of drain and waste, as
barren as a desert, with the exception of that narrow strip between
the hills which apparently bent low that inland might look upon river.
Along the banks of the stream, which flowed, a current of considerable
depth and swiftness, toward its outlet, the river, willows were
growing. Albert's employer was an importer to a small extent,
and fancy willow-ware formed a very considerable share of his
importations. The conclusion he had reached while surveying his land
was an answer to the question he had asked himself: Why should
not this land be made to bring forth the kind of willow used by
basket-weavers, and why should not basket-weavers be induced to gather
into a community of some sort, and so importers be beaten in the
market by domestic productions? The aim thus clearly defined Spener
had accomplished. His Moravians furnished him with a willow-ware
which was always quoted at a high figure, and the patriotic pride
the manufacturer felt in the enterprise was abundantly rewarded: no
foreign mark was ever found on his home-made goods.
But _his_ Moravians: where did these people come from, and how came
they to be known as his?
The question brings us to Frederick Loretz. In those days he was a
porter in the establishment where Spener was a clerk. He had filled
this situation only one month, however, when he was attacked with a
fever which was scourging the neighborhood, and taken to the hospital.
Albert followed him thither with kindly words and care, for the poor
fellow was a stranger in the town, and he had already told Spener his
dismal story. Afar from wife and child, among strangers and a pauper,
his doom, he believed, was to die. How he bemoaned his wasted life
then, and the husks which he had eaten!
In his delirium Loretz would have put an end to his life. Spener
talked him out of this horror of himself, and showed him that there
was always opportunity, while life lasted, for wanderers to seek again
the fold they had strayed from; for when the delirium passed the man's
conscience remained, and he confessed that he had lived away from
the brethren of his faith, and was an outcast. Oh, if he could but
be transported to Herrnhut and set down there a well man in that
sanctuary of Moravianism, how devoutly would he return to the faith
and practice of his fathers!
When Spener returned from his trip of investigation he hastened
immediately to the hospital, sought out poor half-dead Loretz, laid
his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come, get up: I want you." And
he explained his project: "I will build a house for you, send for
your wife and child, put you all together, and start you in life. I
am going into the basket business, and I want you to look after
my willows. After they are pretty well grown you shall get in some
families--Simon-Pure Moravians, you know--and we will have a village
of our own. D'ye hear me?"
The poor fellow did hear: he struggled up in his bed, threw his arms
around Spener's neck, tried to kiss him, and fainted.
"This is a good beginning," said Spener to himself as he laid the
senseless head upon the pillow and felt for the beating heart. The
beating heart was there. In a few moments Loretz was looking, with
eyes that shone with loving gratitude and wondering admiration, on the
young man who had saved his life.
"I have no money," said this youth in further explanation of his
project--for he wanted his companion to understand his circumstances
from the outset--"but I shall borrow five thousand dollars. I can pay
the interest on that sum out of my salary. Perhaps I shall sell a few
lots on the river, if I can turn attention to the region. It will all
come out right, anyhow. Now, how soon can you be ready? I will write
to your wife to-day if you say so, and tell her to come on with the
little girl."
"Wait a week," said Loretz in a whisper; and all that night and the
following day his chances for this world and the next seemed about
equal.
But after that he rallied, and his recovery was certain. It was slow,
however, hastened though it was by the hope and expectation which
had opened to him when he had reached the lowest depth of despair and
covered himself with the ashes of repentance.
The letter for the wife and little girl was written, and money sent to
bring them from the place where Loretz had left them when he set
out in search of occupation, to find employment as a porter, and the
fever, and Albert Spener.
During the first year of co-working Loretz devoted himself to the
culture of the willow, and then, as time passed on and hands were
needed, he brought one family after another to the place--Moravians
all--until now there were at least five hundred inhabitants in
Spenersberg, a large factory and a church, whereof Spener himself was
a member "in good and regular standing."
Seven years of incessant labor, directed by a wise foresight, which
looked almost like inspiration and miracle, had resulted in all this
real prosperity. Loretz never stopped wondering at it, and yet he
could have told you every step of the process. All that had been
_done_ he had had a hand in, but the devising brain was Spener's;
and no wonder that, in spite of his familiarity with the details,
the sum-total of the activities put forth in that valley should have
seemed to Loretz marvelous, magical.
He had many things to rejoice over besides his own prosperity. His
daughter was in all respects a perfect being, to his thinking. For six
years now she had been under the instruction of Sister Benigna,
not only in music, but in all things that Sister Benigna, a
well-instructed woman, could teach. She sang, as Leonhard Marten would
have told you, "divinely," she was beautiful to look upon, and Albert
Spener desired to marry her.
Surely the Lord had blessed him, and remembered no more those years
of wanderings when, alienated from the brethren, he sought out his
own ways and came close upon destruction. What should he return to the
beneficent Giver for all these benefits?
Poor Loretz! In his prosperity he thought that he should never be
moved, but he would not basely use that conviction and forget the
source of all his satisfaction. He remembered that it was when he
repented of his misdeeds that Spener came to him and drew him from the
pit. He could never look upon Albert as other than a divine agent;
and when Spener joined himself to the Moravians, led partly by his
admiration of them, partly by religious impulse, and partly because
of his conviction that to be wholly successful he and his people must
form a unit, his joy was complete.
The proposal for Elise's hand had an effect upon her father which any
one who knew him well might have looked for and directed. The pride of
his life was satisfied. He remembered that he and his Anna, in seeking
to know the will of the Lord in respect to their marriage, had been
answered favorably by the lot. He desired the signal demonstration of
heavenly will in regard to the nuptials proposed. Not a shadow of
a doubt visited his mind as to the result, and the influence of his
faith upon Spener was such that he acquiesced in the measure, though
not without remonstrance and misgiving and mental reservation.
To find his way up into the region of faith, and quiet himself there
when the result of the seeking was known, was almost impossible for
Loretz. He could fear the Judge who had decreed, but could he trust in
Him? He began to grope back among his follies of the past, seeking a
crime he had not repented, as the cause of this domestic calamity. But
ah! to reap such a harvest as this for any youthful folly! Poor soul!
little he knew of vengeance and retribution. He was at his wit's end,
incapable alike of advancing, retreating or of peaceful surrender.
It was pleasant to him to think, in the night-watches, of the young
man who occupied the room next to his. He did not see--at least had
not yet seen--in Leonhard a messenger sent to the house, as did his
wife; but the presence of the young stranger spoke favorable things in
his behalf; and then, as there was really nothing to be _done_ about
this decision, anything that gave a diversion to sombre thoughts was
welcome. Sister Benigna had spoken very kindly to Leonhard in the
evening, and he had pointed out a place in one of Elise's solos where
by taking a higher key in a single passage a marvelous effect could be
produced. That showed knowledge; and he said that he had taught music.
Perhaps he would like to remain until after the congregation festival
had taken place.