"Sister Else, I do not like the monks at all. You and Eva and our mother
have no idea how wicked many of them are. Reinhardt says he has seen
them drunk often, and heard them swear, and that some of them make a
jest even of the mass, and that the priests' houses are not fit for any
honest maiden to visit, and,--
"Reinhardt is a bad boy," I said, colouring; "and I have often told you
I do not want to hear anything he says."
"But I, at all events, shall never become a monk or a priest," retorted
Christopher; "I think the merchants are better. Woman cannot understand
about these things," he added, loftily, "and it is better they should
not; but I know; and I intend to be a merchant or a soldier."
Christopher and Pollux are fifteen, and Fritz is two-and-twenty; but
_he_ never talked in that lofty way to me about women not understanding!
It did make me indignant to hear Christopher, who is always tearing his
clothes, and getting into scrapes, and perplexing us to get him out of
them, comparing himself with Fritz, and looking down on his sisters; and
I said, "It is only _boys_ who talk scornfully of women. Men, true men,
honour women."
"The monks do not!" retorted Christopher. "I have heard them say things
myself worse than I have ever said about any woman. Only last Sunday,
did not Father Boniface say half the mischief in the world had been done
by women, from Eve to Helen and Cleopatra?"
"Do not mention our mother Eve with those heathens, Christopher," said
our grandmother, coming to my rescue, from her corner by the stove. "Eve
is in the Holy Scriptures, and many of these pagans are not fit for
people to speak of. Half the saints are women, you know very well.
Peasants and traders," she added sublimely, "may talk slightingly of
women; but no man can be a true knight who does."
"The monks do!" muttered Christopher doggedly.
"I have nothing to say about the monks," rejoined our grandmother
tartly. And accepting this imprudent concession of our grandmother's
Christopher retired from the contest.
_March_ 25.
I have just been looking at two letters addressed to Father Johann
Braun, one of our Eisenach priests, by Martin Luther. They were
addressed to him as "the holy and venerable priest of Christ and of
Mary." So much I could understand, and also that he calls himself
Brother Martin Luther, not Brother Augustine, a name he assumed on first
entering the cloister. Therefore certainly, I may call our Fritz,
Brother Friedrich Cotta.
_March_ 29, 1510.
A young man was at Aunt Ursula Cotta's this evening, who told us strange
things about the doings at Annaberg.
Dr. Tetzel has been there two years, selling the papal indulgences to
the people; and lately, out of regard, he says, to the great piety of
the German people, he has reduced their price.
There was a great deal of discussion about it, which I rather regretted
the boys were present to hear. My father said indulgences did not mean
forgiveness of sins, but only remission of certain penances which the
Church had imposed. But the young man from Annaberg told us that Dr.
John Tetzel solemnly assured the people, that since it was impossible
for them, on account of their sins, to make satisfaction to God by their
works, our Holy Father the Pope, who has the control of all the treasury
of merits accumulated by the Church throughout the ages, now graciously
sells those merits to any who will buy, and thereby bestows on them
forgiveness of sins (even of sins which no other priest can absolve),
and a certain entrance into eternal life.
The young man said, also, that the great red cross has been erected in
the nave of the principal church, with the crown of thorns, the nails,
and spear suspended from it, and that at times it has been granted to
the people even to see the blood of the Crucified flow from the cross.
Beneath this cross are the banners of the Church, and the papal
standard, with the triple crown. Before it is the large, strong iron
money chest. On one side stands the pulpit, where Dr. Tetzel preaches
daily, and exhorts the people to purchase this inestimable favour while
yet there is time, for themselves and their relations in purgatory,--and
translates the long parchment mandate of the Lord Pope, with the papal
seals hanging from it. On the other side is a table, where sit several
priests, with pen, ink, and writing desk, selling the indulgence
tickets, and counting the money into boxes. Lately he told us, not only
have the prices been reduced, but at the end of the letter affixed to
the churches, it is added, "_Pauperibus dentur gratis_."
"Freely to the poor!" That certainly would suit us! And if I had only
time to make a pilgrimage to Annaberg, if this is the kind of religion
that pleases God, it certainly might be attainable even for me.
If Fritz had only known it before, he need not have made that miserable
vow. A journey to Annaberg would have more than answered the purpose.
Only, if the Pope has such inestimable treasures at his disposal, why
could he not always give them "freely to the poor," always and
everywhere?
But I know it is a sin to question what the Lord Pope does. I might
almost as well question what the Lord God Almighty does. For He also,
who gave those treasures to the Pope, is He not everywhere, and could He
not give them freely to us direct? It is plain these are questions too
high for me.
I am not the only one perplexed by those indulgences, however. My mother
says it is not the way she was taught, and she had rather keep to the
old paths. Eva said, "If I were the Lord Pope, and had such a treasure,
I think I could not help instantly leaving my palace and my beautiful
Rome, and going over the mountains and over the seas, into every city
and every village; every hut in the forests, and every room in the
lowest streets, that none might miss the blessing, although I had to
walk barefoot, and never saw holy Rome again."
"But then," said our father, "the great church at St. Peter's would
never be built. It is on that, you know, the indulgence money is to be
spent."
"But Jerusalem the Golden would be built, Uncle Cotta!" said Eva; "and
would not that be better?"
"We had better not talk about it, Eva," said the mother. "The holy
Jerusalem _is_ being built; and I suppose there are many different ways
to the same end. Only I like the way I know best."
The boys, I regret to say, had made many irreverent gestures during this
conversation about the indulgences, and afterwards I had to speak to
them.
"Sister Else," said Christopher, "it is quite useless talking to me. I
hate the monks, and all belonging to them. And I do not believe a word
they say--at least, not because they say it. The boys at school say this
Dr. Tetzel is a very bad man and a great liar. Last week Reinhardt told
us something he did, which will show you what he is. One day he promised
to show the people a feather which the devil plucked out the wing of the
archangel Michael. Reinhardt says he supposes the devil gave it to Dr.
Tetzel. However that may be, during the night some students in jest
found their way to his relic-box, stole the feather, and replaced it by
some coals. The next day, when Dr. Tetzel had been preaching fervently
for a long time on the wonders of this feather, when he opened the box
there was nothing in it but charcoal. But he was not to be disconcerted.
He merely said, 'I have taken the wrong box of relics, I perceive; these
are some most sacred cinders--the relics of the holy body of St.
Laurence, who was roasted on a gridiron.'"
"Schoolboys' stories," said I.
"They are as good as monks' stories, at all events," rejoined
Christopher.
I resolved to see if Pollux was as deeply possessed with this irreverent
spirit as Christopher, and therefore this morning, when I found him
alone, I said, "Pollux, you used to love Fritz so dearly, you would not
surely take up thoughts which would pain him so deeply if he knew of
it."
"I do love Fritz," Pollux replied, "but I can never think he was right
in leaving us all; and I like the religion of the Creeds and the Ten
Commandments better than that of the monks."
Daily, hourly I feel the loss of Fritz. It is not half as much the money
he earned; although, of course, that helped us; we can do and struggle
on without that. It is the influence he had over the boys. They felt he
was before them in the same race and when he remonstrated with them
about anything, they listened. But if I blame them, they think it is
only a woman's ignorance, or a woman's superstition.--and boys, they
say, cannot be like women. And now it is the same with Fritz. He is
removed into another sphere, which is not theirs; and if I remind them
of what he did or said, they say, "Yes, Fritz thought so; but you know
he has become a monk; but we do not intend ever to be monks, and the
religion of monks and laymen are different things."
_April_ 2.
The spring is come again. I wonder if it sends the thrill of joy into
Fritz's cell at Erfurt that it does into all the forests around us here,
and into my heart!
I suppose there are trees near him, and birds--little happy
birds--making their nests among them, as they do in our yard, and
singing as they work.
But the birds are not monks. Their nests are little homes, and they
wander freely whither they will, only brought back by love. Perhaps
Fritz does not like to listen to the birds now, because they remind him
of home, and of our long spring days in the forest. Perhaps, too, they
are part of the world he has renounced; and he must be dead to the
world!
_April_ 3.
We have had a long day in the forest, gathering sticks and dry twigs.
Every creature seemed so happy there! It was such a holiday to watch the
ants roofing their nests with fir twigs, and the birds flying hither and
thither with food for their nestlings; and to hear the wood-pigeons,
which Fritz always said were like Eva, cooing softly in the depths of
the forest.
At mid-day we sat down in a clearing of the forest, to enjoy the meal we
had brought with us. A little quiet brook prattled near us, of which we
drank, and the delicate young twigs on the topmost boughs of the dark,
majestic pines trembled softly, as if for joy, in the breeze.
As we rested, we told each other stories. Pollux began with wild tales
of demon hunts, which flew with the baying of demon dogs through these
very forests at midnight. Then, as the children began to look fearfully
around, and shiver, even at mid-day, while they listened, Christopher
delighted them with quaint stories of wolves in sheeps' clothing
politely offering themselves to the farmer as shepherds, which, I
suspect, were from some dangerous satirical book, but, without the
application, were very amusing.
Chriemhild and Atlantis had their stories of Kobolds, who played strange
tricks in the cow-stall; and of Ruebezahl and the misshapen dwarf gnomes,
who guarded the treasures of gold and silver in the glittering caves
under the mountains; and of the elves, who danced beside the brooks at
twilight.
"And I," said loving little Thekla, "always want to see poor Nix, the
water-sprite, who cries by the streams at moonlight, and lets his tears
mix with the waters, because he has no soul, and he wants to live for
ever. I should like to give him half mine."
We should all of us have been afraid to speak of these creatures, in
their own haunts among the pines, if the sun had not been high in the
heavens. Even as it was, I began to feel a little uneasy, and I wished
to turn the conversation from these elves and sprites, who, many think,
are the spirits of the old heathen gods, who linger about their haunts.
One reason why people think so is, that they dare not venture within the
sound of the church bells; which makes some, again, think they are worse
than poor, shadowy, dethroned heathen gods, and had, indeed, better be
never mentioned at all. I thought I could not do better than tell the
legend of my beloved giant Offerus, who became Christopher and a saint
by carrying the holy child across the river.
Thekla wondered if her favourite Nix could be saved in the same way. She
longed to see him and tell him about it.
But Eva had still her story to tell, and she related to us her legend of
St. Catharine.
"St. Catharine," she said, "was a lady of royal birth, the only child of
the king and queen of Egypt. Her parents were heathens, but they died
and left her an orphan when she was only fourteen. She was more
beautiful than any of the ladies of her court, and richer than any
princess in the world; but she did not care for pomp, or dress, or all
her precious things. God's golden stars seemed to her more magnificent
than all the splendour of her kingdom, and she shut herself up in her
palace, and studied philosophy and the stars until she grew wiser than
all the wise men of the East.
"But one day the Diet of Egypt met, and resolved that their young queen
must be persuaded to marry. They sent a deputation to her in her palace,
who asked her, if they could find a prince beautiful beyond any,
surpassing all philosophers in wisdom, of noblest mind and richest
inheritance, would she marry him? The queen replied, 'He must be so
noble that all men shall worship him, so great that I shall never think
I have made him king, so rich that none shall ever say I enriched him,
so beautiful that the angels of God shall desire to behold him. If ye
can find such a prince, he shall be my husband and the lord of my
heart.' Now, near the queen's palace there lived a poor old hermit in a
cave, and that very night the holy Mother of God appeared to him, and
told him the King who should be lord of the queen's heart was none other
than her Son. Then the hermit went to the palace and presented the queen
with a picture of the Virgin and Child; and when St. Catharine saw it
her heart was so filled with its holy beauty that she forgot her books,
her spheres, and the stars; Plato and Socrates became tedious to her as
a twice-told tale, and she kept the sacred picture always before her.
Then one night she had a dream:--She met on the top of a high mountain a
glorious company of angels, clothed in white, with chaplets of white
lilies. She fell on her face before them, but they said, 'Stand up, dear
sister Catharine, and be right welcome.' Then they led her by the hand
to another company of angels more glorious still, clothed in purple with
chaplets of red roses. Before these, again, she fell on her face,
dazzled with their glory; but they said, 'Stand up, dear sister
Catharine; thee hath the King delighted to honour.' Then they led her by
the hand to an inner chamber of the palace of heaven, where sat a queen
in state; and the angels said to her, 'Our most gracious sovereign Lady,
Empress of heaven, and Mother of the King of Blessedness, be pleased
that we present unto you this our sister, whose name is in the Book of
Life, beseeching you to accept her as your daughter and handmaid.' Then
our blessed Lady rose and smiled graciously, and led St. Catharine to
her blessed Son; but he turned from her, and said sadly, 'She is not
fair enough for Me.' Then St. Catharine awoke, and in her heart all day
echoed the words, '_She is not fair enough for Me_;' and she rested not
until she became a Christian and was baptized. And then, after some
years, the tyrant Maximin put her to cruel tortures, and beheaded her
because she was a Christian. But the angels took her body, and laid it
in a white marble tomb on the top of Mount Sinai, and the Lord Jesus
Christ received her soul, and welcomed her to heaven as his pure and
spotless bride; for at last he had made her '_fair enough for him_.' And
so she has lived ever since in heaven, and is the sister of the angels."
After Eva's legend we began our work again; and in the evening, as we
returned with our faggots, it was pleasant to see the goats creeping on
before the long shadows which evening began to throw from the forests
across the green valleys.
The hymns which Eva sang as we went, seemed quite in tune with
everything else. I did not want to understand the words; everything
seemed singing in words I could not help feeling,--
"God is good to us all. He gives twigs to the ants, and grain to the
birds, and makes the trees their palaces, and teaches them to sing; and
will He not care for you?"
Then the boys were so good! They never gave me a moment's anxiety, not
even Christopher, but collected faggots twice as large as ours in half
the time, and then finished ours, and then performed all kinds of feats
in climbing trees and leaping brooks, and brought home countless
treasures for Thekla.
These are the days that always make me feel so much better; even a
little religious, and as if I could almost love God! It is only when I
come back again into the streets, under the shadow of the nine
monasteries, and see the monks and priests in dark robes flitting
silently about with downcast eyes, that I remember we are not like the
birds or even the ants, for they have never sinned, and that, therefore,
God cannot care for us and love us as he seems to do the least of his
other creatures, until we have become holy, and worked our way through
that great wall of sin which keeps us from him and shadows all our life.
Eva does not feel thus. As we returned she laid her basket down on the
threshold of St. George's Church, and crossing herself with holy water,
went softly up to the high altar, and there she knelt while the lamp
burned before the Holy Sacrament. And when I looked at her face as she
rose, it was beaming with joy.
"You are happy, Eva, in the church and in the forest," I said to her as
we went home; "you seem at home everywhere."
"Is not God everywhere?" she said; "and has He not loved the world?"
"But our _sins_!" I said.
"Have we not the Saviour?" she said, bowing her head.
"But think how hard people find it to please him," I said. "Think of the
pilgrimages, the penances, the indulgences!"
"I do not quite understand all that," she said; "I only quite understand
my sentence and the crucifix which tells us the Son of God died for man.
That _must_ have been for love, and I love him; and all the rest I am
content to leave."
"But to-night as I look at her dear child-like face asleep on the
pillow, and see how thin the cheek is which those long lashes shade, and
how transparent the little hand on which she rests, a cold fear comes
over me lest God should even now be making her spirit "fair enough for
him," and so too fair for earth and for us."
_April_ 4.
This afternoon I was quite cheered by seeing Christopher and Pollux
bending together eagerly over a book, which they had placed before them
on the window sill. It reminded me of Fritz, and I went to see what they
were reading.
I found, however, to my dismay, it was no church-book or learned Latin
school-book; but, on the contrary, a German book full of woodcuts, which
shocked me very much. It was called Reinecke Fuchs, and as far as I
could understand made a jest of everything. There were foxes with monk's
frocks, and even in cardinal's hats, and wolves in cassocks with shaven
crowns. Altogether it seemed to me a very profane and perilous book; but
when I took it to our father, to my amazement he seemed as much amused
with it as the boys, and said there were evils in the world which were
better attacked by jests than by sermons.
_April, St Mark's Day._
I have just heard a sermon about despising the world, from a great
preacher, one of the Dominican friars, who is going through the land to
awaken people to religion.
He spoke especially against money, which he called "delusion, and dross,
and worthless dust, and a soul-destroying canker." To monks no doubt it
may be so; for what could they do with it? But it is not so to me.
Yesterday money filled my heart with one of the purest joys I have ever
known, and made me thank God as I hardly ever thanked him before.
The time had come round to pay for some of the printing materials, and
we did not know where to turn for the sum we needed. Lately I have been
employing my leisure hours in embroidering some fine Venetian silk Aunt
Ursula gave me; and not having any copies, I had brought in some fresh
leaves and flowers from the forest and tried to imitate them, hoping to
sell them.
When I had finished, it was thought pretty, and I carried it to the
merchant, who took the father's precious models, long ago.
He has always been kind to us since, and has procured us ink and paper
at a cheaper rate than others can buy it.
When I showed him my work he seemed surprised, and instead of showing it
to his wife, as I had expected, he said smiling,--
"These things are not for poor honest burghers like me. You know my wife
might be fined by the sumptuary laws if she aped the nobility by wearing
anything so fine as this. I am going to the Wartburg to speak about a
commission I have executed for the Elector-Frederick, and if you like I
will take you and your embroidery with me."
I felt dismayed at first at such an idea, but I had on the new dress
Fritz gave me a year ago, and I resolved to venture.
It was so many years since I had passed through that massive gateway
into the great court-yard; and I thought of St. Elizabeth distributing
loaves, perhaps, at that very gate, and inwardly entreated her to make
the elector or the ladies of his court propitious to me.
I was left standing what seemed to me a long time in an ante-room. Some
very gaily-dressed gentlemen and ladies passed me and looked at me
rather scornfully. I thought the courtiers were not much improved since
the days when they were so rude to St. Elizabeth.
But at last I was summoned into the Elector's presence. I trembled very
much, for I thought--If the servants are so haughty, what will the
master be? But he smiled on me quite kindly, and said, "My good child, I
like this work of thine; and this merchant tells me thou art a dutiful
daughter. I will purchase this at once for one of my sisters, and pay
thee at once."
I was so surprised and delighted with his kindness that I cannot
remember the exact words of what he said afterwards, but the substance
of them was that the elector is building a new church at his new
university town of Wittemberg which is to have choicer relics than any
church in Germany. And I am engaged to embroider altar-cloths and
coverings for the reliquaries. And the sum already paid me nearly covers
our present debt.
No! whatever that Dominican preacher might say nothing would ever
persuade me that these precious guldens, which I took home yesterday
evening with a heart brimming over with joy and thankfulness, which made
our father clasp his hands in thanksgiving, and our mother's eyes
overflow with happy tears, are mere delusion, or dross, or dust.
Is not money what _we_ make it? Dust in the miser's chests; canker in
the proud man's heart; but golden sunbeams, streams of blessing earned
by a child's labour and comforting a parent's heart, or lovingly poured
from rich men's hands into poor men's homes.
_April_ 20.
Better days seem dawning at last. Dr. Martin, who preaches now at the
elector's new university of Wittemberg, must, we think, have spoken to
the elector for us, and our father is appointed to superintend the
printing-press especially for Latin books, which is to be set up there.
And sweeter even than this, it must be from Fritz that this boon comes
to us. Fritz, dear, unselfish Fritz, is the benefactor of the family
after all. It must have been he who asked Dr. Martin Luther to speak for
us. There, in his lonely cell at Erfurt, he thinks then of us! And he
prays for us. He will never forget us. His new name will not alter his
heart. And, perhaps, one day, when the novitiate is over, we may see him
again. But to see him as no more our Fritz, but Brother Sebastian!--his
home, the Augustinian cloister!--his mother, the church!--his sisters,
all holy women!--would it not be almost worse than not seeing him at
all?
We are all to move to Wittemberg in a month, except Pollux, who is to
remain with Cousin Conrad Cotta, to learn to be a merchant.
Christopher begins to help about the printing.
There was another thing also in my visit to the Wartburg, which gives me
many a gleam of joy when I think of it. If the elector whose presence I
so trembled to enter, proved so much more condescending and accessible
than his courtiers,--oh, if it could only be possible that we are making
some mistake about God, and that He after all may be more gracious and
ready to listen to us than His priests, or even than the saints who wait
on Him in His palace in heaven!