CONFERENCE MEETING.
The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory
which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to
find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious
accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the
building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory,
and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without
disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement
door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and
sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from
eight o'clock till two.
Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct
Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.
At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy
of Handel's sacred oratorio of _The Messiah_ in his hand. Evidently he
was waiting for Sister Benigna.
But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the
building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in
the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and
passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that
he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.
"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow
evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I
did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a
different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not
unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and
Elise?"
"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with
that folly, as his next words showed.
"It is, and yet I have done it--only because all this might have been
so easily avoided."
"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room
door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.
"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one
mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was
not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the
part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."
Startled by the expression the minister was giving to her secret
thoughts, Benigna exclaimed, "And yet what can be done?"
"Nothing," he answered. "If Loretz should yield to Spener, and if I
should--do you not see he has had everything his own way here?--he
would feel that nothing could stand in opposition to him. If he were a
different man! And they are both so young!"
"I know that Elise has a conscience that will hold her fast to duty,"
said Benigna, but she did not speak hopefully: she spoke deliberately,
however, thinking that these words _conscience_ and _duty_ might
arrest the minister's attention, and that he would perhaps, by some
means, throw light upon questions which were constantly becoming more
perplexing to her. Was conscience an unfailing guide? Was one person's
duty to be pronounced upon by another without scruple, and defined
with unfaltering exactness? But the words had not arrested the
minister's attention.
"If they could only see that there is nothing to be done!" said he.
"Oh, they will, Benigna! Had they only the faith, Benigna!"
"Yet how vain their sacrifice, for they have it not!" said she. And
as if she would not prolong an interview which must be full of pain,
because no light could proceed from any words that would be given them
to speak, Sister Benigna turned abruptly toward the basement door when
she had said this, and entered it without bestowing a parting glance
even on the minister.
He walked away after an instant's hesitation: indeed there was nothing
further to be said, and she did well to go.
Going homeward by a path which led along the hillside above the
village street, he must pass the small house separated from all
others--the house which was the appointed resting-place of all who
lived in Spenersberg to die there--known as the Corpse-house. To it
the bodies of deceased persons were always taken after death, and
there they remained until the hour when they were carried forth for
burial.
As Mr. Wenck approached he saw that the door stood open: a few steps
farther, and this fact was accounted for. A bent and wrinkled old
woman stood there with a broom in her hand, which she had been using
in a plain, straight-forward manner.
"Ah, Mary," he said, "what does this mean, my good woman?"
"It is the minister," she answered in a low voice, curtseying. "I was
moved to come here this morning, sir, and see to things. It was time
to be brushing up a little, I thought. It is a month now since the
last."
"I will take down the old boughs then, and garnish the walls with new
ones. And have you looked at the lamp too, Mary?"
"It is trimmed, sir," said the woman; and the minister's readiness to
assist her drew forth the confession: "I was thinking on my bed in the
night-watches that it must be done. There will one be going home soon.
And it may be myself, sir. I could not have been easy if I had not
come up to tidy the house."
Having finished her task, which was a short one and easily performed,
the woman now waited to watch the minister as he selected cedar boughs
and wove them into wreaths, and suspended them from the walls and
rafters of the little room; and it comforted the simple soul when,
standing in the doorway, the good man lifted his eyes toward heaven
and said in the words of the church litany:
From error and misunderstanding,
From the loss of our glory in Thee,
From self-complacency,
From untimely projects,
From needless perplexity,
From the murdering spirit and devices of Satan,
From the influence of the spirit of this world,
From hypocrisy and fanaticism,
From the deceitfulness of sin,
From all sin,
_Preserve us, gracious Lord and God_--
and devoutly she joined in with him in the solemn responsive cry.
It was very evident that the minister's work that day was not to be
performed in his silent home among his books.
On the brightest day let the sun become eclipsed, and how the earth
will pine! What melancholy will pervade the busy streets, the pleasant
fields and woods! How disconsolately the birds will seek their mates
and their nests!
The children came together, but many a half hour passed during
which the shadow of an Unknown seemed to come between them and their
teacher. The bright soul, was she too suffering from an eclipse? Does
it happen that all souls, even the most valiant, most loving, least
selfish, come in time to passes so difficult that, shrinking back,
they say, "Why should I struggle to gain the other side? What is
there worth seeking? Better to end all here. This life is not worth
enduring"? And yet, does it also come to pass as certainly that these
valiant, unselfish, loving ones will struggle, fight, climb, wade,
creep on, on while the breath of life remains in them, and never
surrender? It seemed as if Sister Benigna had arrived at a place where
her baffled spirit stood still and felt its helplessness. Could she
do nothing for Elise, the dear child for whose happiness she would
cheerfully give her life, and not think the price too dear?
By and by the children were aware that Sister Benigna had come again
among them: the humblest little flower lifted up its head, and the
smallest bird began to chirp and move about and smooth its wings.
Sister Benigna! what had she recollected?--that but a single day
perhaps was hers to live, and here were all these children! As she
turned with ardent zeal to her work--which indeed had not failed of
accustomed conduct so far as routine went--tell me what do you find in
those lovely eyes if not the heavenliest assurances? Let who will
call the scene of this life's operations a vale of tears, a world of
misery, a prison-house of the spirit, here is one who asks for herself
nothing of honors or riches or pleasures, and who can bless the
Lord God for the glory of the earth he has created, and for those
everlasting purposes of his which mortals can but trust in, and which
are past finding out. Children, let us do our best to-day, and wait
until to-morrow for to-morrow's gifts. This exhortation was in the
eyes, mien, conduct of the teacher, and so she led them on until, when
they came to practice their hymns for the festival, every little heart
and voice was in tune, and she praised them with voice so cheerful,
how should they guess that it had ever been choked by anguish or had
ever fainted in despair?
O young eyes saddening over what is to you a painful, insoluble
problem! yet a little while and you shall see the mists of morning
breaking everywhere, and the great conquering sun will enfold you too
in its warm embrace: the humble laurels of the mountain's side, even
as the great pines and cedars of the mountain's crest, have but to
receive and use what the sterile rock and the blinding cloud, the
wintry tempest and the rain and the summer's heat bestow, and lo! the
heights are alive with glory. But it is not in a day.