"Who knows but that there may be some lowly work left for me to do here
yet! In the world I should be as helpless as a child, and why should I
return to be a burden on my kindred."
They both urged me to write to Else or Aunt Cotta to receive me. But I
can scarcely think it my duty. Aunt Cotta has her children around her.
Else's home is strange to me. Besides, kind as every one has been to me,
I am as a stray waif on the current of this world, and have no home in
it. I think God has enabled me to cheer and help some few here, and
while Aunt Agnes and Sister Beatrice remain, I cannot bear the thought
of leaving. At all events I will wait.
_November_ 22.
Fritz is in prison again. For many weeks they had heard nothing from
him, and were wondering where he was, when a letter came from a priest
called Ruprect Haller, in Franconia. He says Fritz came to his house one
evening in July, remained the night, left next morning with his pack of
Lutheran books, intending to proceed direct to Wittemberg, and gave him
the address of Aunt Cotta there. But a few weeks afterwards a young monk
met him near the Dominican Convent, and asked if he were the priest at
whose house a pedlar had spent a night a few weeks before. The priest
admitted it; whereon the young monk said to him, in a low, hurried
accent,--
"Write to his friends, if you know them, and say he is in the prison of
the convent, under strong suspicion of heresy. I am the young monk to
whom he gave a book on the evening he came. Tell them I did not intend
to betray him, although I led him into the net; and if ever they should
procure his escape, and you see him again, tell him I have kept his
book." The good priest says something also about Fritz having been his
salvation. And he urges that the most strenuous exertions should be made
to liberate him, and any powerful friends we have should be entreated to
intercede, because the Prior of the Dominican Convent where he is
imprisoned is a man of the severest temper, and a mighty hater of
heretics.
Powerful friends! I know none whom we can entreat but God.
It was in July, then, that he was captured, two months since. I wonder
if it is only my impatient spirit! but I feel as if I _must_ go to Aunt
Cotta. I have a feeling she will want me now. I think I might comfort
her; for who can tell what two months in a Dominican prison may have
done for him?
In our convent have we not a prison, low, dark, and damp enough to weigh
the life out of any one in six weeks! From one of the massive low
pillars hang heavy iron fetters, happily rusted now from disuse; and in
a corner are a rack and other terrible instruments, now thrown aside
there, on which some of the older nuns say they have seen stains of
blood.
When he was in prison before at Mainz, I did not seem so desponding
about his deliverance as I feel now.
Are these fears God's merciful preparations for some dreadful tidings
about to reach us? or are they the mere natural enfeebling of the power
to hope as one grows older?
_December_, 1521.
Many disappointments have fallen on us during the last fortnight. Answer
after answer has come to those touching entreaties of the nine sisters
to their kindred, in various tones of feeling, but all positively
refusing to receive them back to their homes.
Some of the relatives use the bitterest reproaches and the severest
menaces. Others write tenderly and compassionately, but all agree that
no noble family can possibly bring on itself the disgrace of aiding a
professed nun to break her vows. Poor children! my heart aches for them,
some of them are so young, and were so confident of being welcomed back
with open arms, remembering the tears with which they were given up.
Now indeed they are thrown on God. He will not fail them; but who can
say what thorny paths their feet may have to tread?
It has also been discovered here that some of them have written thus to
their relations, which renders their position far more difficult and
painful.
Many of the older nuns are most indignant at what they consider an act
of the basest treachery and sacrilege. I also am forbidden to have any
more intercourse with the suspected sisters. Search has been made in
every cell, and all the Lutheran books have been seized, whilst the
strictest attendance is required at all the services.
_February_ 10, 1522.
Sister Beatrice is dead, after a brief illness. The gentle, patient
spirit is at rest.
It seems difficult to think of joy associated with that subdued and
timid heart, even in heaven. I can only think of her as _at rest_.
One night after she died I had a dream, in which I seemed to see her
entering into heaven. Robed and veiled in white, I saw her slowly
ascending the way to the gates of the City. Her head and her eyes were
cast on the ground, and she did not seem to dare to look up at the
pearly gates, even to see if they were open or closed. But two angels,
the gentlest spirits in heaven, came out and met her, and each taking
one of her hands, led her silently inside, like a penitent child. And as
she entered, the harps and songs within seemed to be hushed to music
soft as the dreamy murmur of a summer noon. Still she did not look up,
but passed through the golden streets with her hands trustingly folded
in the hands of the angels, until she stood before the throne. Then from
the throne came a Voice, which said, "Beatrice, it is I; be not afraid."
And when she heard that voice, a quiet smile beamed over her face like a
glory, and for the first time she raised her eyes; and sinking at His
feet, murmured, "Home!" And it seemed to me as if that one word from the
low, trembling voice vibrated through every harp in heaven; and from
countless voices, ringing as happy children's, and tender as a mother's,
came back, in a tide of love and music, the word, "Welcome home."
This was only a dream; but it is no dream that she is there!
She said little in her illness. She did not suffer much. The feeble
frame made little resistance to the low fever which attacked her. The
words she spoke were mostly expressions of thankfulness for little
services, or entreaties for forgiveness for any little pain she fancied
she might have given.
Aunt Agnes and I chiefly waited on her. She was uneasy if we were long
away from her. Her thoughts often recurred to her girlhood in the old
castle in the Thuringian Forest; and she liked to hear me speak of
Chriemhild and Ulrich, and their infant boy. One evening she called me
to her, and said, "Tell my sister Hermentrud, and my brother, I am sure
they all meant kindly in sending me here; and it has been a good place
for me, especially since you came. But tell Chriemhild and Ulrich," she
added, "if they have daughters, to remember plighted troth is a sacred
thing, and let it not be lightly severed. Not that the sorrow has been
evil for me; only I would not have another suffer. All, all has been
good for me, and I so unworthy of all!"
Then passing her thin hands over my head as I knelt beside her, she
said, "Eva, you have been like a mother, a sister, a child,--everything
to me. Go back to your old home when I am gone. I like to think you will
be there."
Then, as if fearing she might have been ungrateful to Aunt Agnes, she
asked for her, and said, "I can never thank you enough for all you have
done for me. The blessed Lord will remember it; for did he not say, 'In
that ye have done it unto the _least_.'"
And in the night, as I sat by her alone, she said, "Eva, I have dreaded
very much to die. I am so very weak in spirit, and dread everything. But
I think God must make it easier for the feeble such as me. For although
I do not feel any stronger I am not afraid now. It must be because He is
holding me up."
She then asked me to sing; and with a faltering voice I sung, as well as
I could, the hymn, _Astant angelorum chori:_--
High the angel-choirs are raising
Heart and voice in harmony:
The Creator King still praising,
Whom in beauty there they see!
Sweetest strains from soft harps stealing,
Trumpet notes of triumph pealing;
Radiant wings and white robes gleaming,
Up the steps of glory streaming,
Where the heavenly bells are ringing,
Holy, holy, holy, singing
To the mighty Trinity!
For all earthly care and sighing
In that city cease to be!
And two days after, in the grey of the autumn morning, she died. She
fell asleep with the name of Jesus on her lips.
It is strange how silent and empty the convent seems, only because that
feeble voice is hushed and that poor shadowy form has passed away!
_February_, 1522.
Sister Beatrice has been laid in the convent church-yard with solemn
mournful dirges and masses, and stately ceremonies, which seemed to me
little in harmony with her timid, shrinking nature, or with the peace
her spirit rests in now.
The lowly mound in the church-yard, marked by no memorial but a wooden
cross, accords better with her memory. The wind will rustle gently there
next summer, through the grass; and this winter the robin will warble
quietly in the old elm above.
But I shall never see the grass clothe that earthly mound. It is decided
that I am to leave the convent this week. Aunt Agnes and two of the
young sisters have just left my cell, and all is planned.
The persecutions against those they call the Lutheran Sisters increase
continually, whilst severer and more open proceedings are threatened. It
is therefore decided that I am to make my escape at the first favourable
opportunity, find my way to Wittemberg, and then lay the case of the
nine nuns before the Lutheran doctors, and endeavour to provide for
their rescue.
_February_ 20, 1522.
At last the peasant's dress in which I am to escape is in my cell, and
this very night, when all is quiet, I am to creep out of the window of
Katherine von Bora's cell, into the convent garden. Aunt Agnes has been
nervously eager about my going, and has been busy secretly storing a
little basket with provisions. But to-night, when I went into her cell
to wish her good-bye, she quite broke down, and held me tight in her
arms, as if she could never let me go, while her lips quivered, and
tears rolled slowly over her thin furrowed cheeks. "Eva, child," she
said, "who first taught me to love in spite of myself, and then taught
me that God is love, and that he could make me, believing in Jesus, a
happy, loving child again! how can I part with thee?"
"Thou wilt join me again," I said, "and your sister who loves thee so
dearly!"