Eva's Story.
WITTEMBERG, _October_, 1522.
How strange it seemed at first to be moving freely about in the world
once more, and to come back to the old home at Wittemberg! Very strange
to find the places so little changed, and the people so much. The little
room where Else and I used to sleep, with scarcely an article of
furniture altered, except that Thekla's books are there instead of
Else's wooden crucifix; and the same view over the little garden, with
its pear-tree full of white blossoms, to the Elbe with bordering oaks
and willows, all then in their freshest delicate early green; while the
undulations of the level land faded in soft blues to the horizon.
But, unlike the convent, all the changes in the people seemed to have
been wrought by the touch of life rather than by that of death.
In Else's own home across the street, the ringing of those sweet
childish voices, so new to me, and yet familiar with echoes of old tones
and looks of our own well-remembered early days! And on Else herself the
change seemed only such as that which develops the soft tints of spring
into the green of shadowing leaves.
Christopher has grown from the self-assertion of boyhood into the
strength and protecting kindness of manhood. Uncle Cotta's blindness
seems to dignify him and make him the central object of every one's
tender, reverent care, while his visions grow brighter in the darkness,
and more placid on account of his having no responsibility as to
fulfilling them. He seems to me a kind of hallowing presence in the
family, calling out every one's sympathy and kindness, and pathetically
reminding us by his loss of the preciousness of our common mercies.
On the grandmother's heart the light is more like dawn than sunset--so
fresh, and soft, and full of hope her old age seems. The marks of
fretting, daily anxiety, and care have been smoothed from dear Aunt
Cotta's face; and although a deep shadow rests there often when she
thinks of Fritz, I feel sure sorrow is not now to her the shadow of a
mountain of divine wrath, but the shadow of a cloud which brings
blessing and hides light, which the Sun of love drew forth, and the
Rainbow of promise consecrates.
Yet he has the place of the first-born in her heart. With the others,
though not forgotten, I think his place is partly filled--but never with
her. Else's life is very full. Atlantis never knew him as the elder ones
did; and Thekla, dearly as she learned to love him during his little
sojourn at Wittemberg, has her heart filled with the hopes of her
future, or at times overwhelmed with its fears. With all it almost seems
he would have in some measure to make a place again, if he were to
return. But with Aunt Cotta the blank is as utterly a blank, and a
sacred place kept free from all intrusion, as if it were a chamber of
her dead, kept jealously locked and untouched since the last day he
stood living there. Yet surely he is not dead; I say so to myself and to
her when she speaks of it, a thousand times. Why, then, does this
hopeless feeling creep over me when I think of him? It seems so
impossible to believe he ever can be amongst us any more. If it would
please God only to send us some little word! But since that letter from
Priest Ruprecht Haller, not a syllable has reached us. Two months since,
Christopher went to this priest's village in Franconia, and lingered
some days in the neighbourhood, making inquiries in every direction
around the monastery where he is. But he could hear nothing, save that
in the autumn of last year, the little son of a neighbouring knight, who
was watching his mother's geese on the outskirts of the forest near the
convent, used to hear the sounds of a man's voice singing from the
window of her tower where the convent prison is. The child used to
linger near the spot to listen to the songs, which, he said, were so
rich and deep--sacred, like church hymns, but more joyful than anything
he ever heard at church. He thought they were Easter hymns; but since
one evening in last October he has never heard them, although he has
often listened. Nearly a year since now!
Yet nothing can silence those resurrection hymns in his heart!
Aunt Cotta's great comfort is the holy sacrament. Nothing, she says,
lifts up her heart like that. Other symbols, or writings, or sermons
bring before her, she says, some part of truth; but the Holy Supper
brings the Lord Himself before her. Not one truth about him, or another,
but _himself_; not one act of his holy life alone, nor even his atoning
death, but his very person, human and divine,--_himself_ living, dying,
conquering death, freely bestowing life. She has learned that to attend
that holy sacrament is not, as she once thought, to perform a good work,
which always left her more depressed than before with the feeling how
unworthy and coldly she had done it; but to look off from self to Him
who finished _the good work_ of redemption for us. As Dr. Melancthon
says,--
"Just as looking at the cross is not the doing of a good work, but
simply contemplating a sign which recalls to us the death of Christ;
"Just as looking at the sun is not the doing of a good work, but simply
contemplating a sign which recalls to us Christ and his gospel;
"So participating at the Lord's table is not the doing of a good work,
but simply the making use of a sign which brings to mind the grace that
has been bestowed on us by Christ."
"But here lies the difference; symbols discovered by man simply recall
what they signify, whereas the signs given by God not only recall the
things, but further assure the heart with respect to the will of God."
"As the sight of a cross does not justify, so the mass does not justify.
As the sight of a cross is not a sacrifice, either for our sins or for
the sins of others, so the mass is not a sacrifice."
"There is but one sacrifice, there is but one satisfaction--Jesus
Christ. Beyond him there is nothing of the kind."
I have been trying constantly to find a refuge for the nine evangelical
nuns I left at Nimptschen, but hitherto in vain. I do not, however, by
any means despair. I have advised them now to write themselves to Dr.
Luther.
_October_, 1522.
The German New Testament is published at last.
On September the 21st it appeared; and that day, happening to be Aunt
Cotta's birthday, when she came down among us in the morning, Gottfried
Reichenbach met her, and presented her with two large folio volumes in
which it is printed, in the name of the whole family.
Since then one volume always lies on a table in the general
sitting-room, and one in the window of Aunt Cotta's bed-room.
Often now she comes down in the morning with a beaming face, and tells
us of some verse she has discovered. Uncle Cotta calls it her
diamond-mine, and says, "The little mother has found the El Dorado after
all!"