XXIX.

Eva's Story.

THURINGIAN FOREST, _July_, 1523.

It is certainly very much happier for Fritz and me to live in the

pastor's house than in the castle; down among the homes of men, and the

beautiful mysteries of this wonderful forest land, instead of towering

high above all on a fortified height. Not of course that I mean the

heart may not be as lowly in the castle as in the cottage; but it seems

to me a richer and more fruitful life to dwell among the people than to

be raised above them. The character of the dwelling seems to symbolize

the nature of the life. And what lot can be so blessed as ours?

Linked to all classes that we may serve our Master who came to minister

among all. In education equal to the nobles, or rather to the patrician

families of the great cities, who so far surpass the country proprietors

in culture,--in circumstances the pastor is nearer the peasant, knowing

by experience what are the homely trials of straitened means. Little

offices of kindness can be interchanged between us. Muhme Truedchen finds

a pure pleasure in bringing me a basket of her new-laid eggs as an

acknowledgment of Fritz's visits to her sick boy; and it makes it all

the sweeter to carry food to the family of the old charcoal-burner in

the forest-clearing that our meals for a day or two have to be a little

plainer in consequence. I think gifts which come from loving contrivance

and a little self-denial, must be more wholesome to receive than the

mere overflowings of a full store. And I am sure they are far sweeter to

give. Our lowly home seems in some sense the father's house of the

village; and it is such homes, such hallowed centres of love and

ministry, which God through our Luther is giving back to village after

village in our land.

But, as Fritz says, I must be careful not to build our parsonage into a

pinnacle higher than any castle, just to make a pedestal for him, which

I certainly sometimes detect myself doing. His gifts seem to me so rich,

and his character is, I am sure, so noble, that it is natural I should

picture to myself his vocation as the highest in the world. That it is

the highest, however, I am secretly convinced; the highest as long as it

is the lowliest.

The people begin to be quite at home with us now. There are no great

gates, no moat, no heavy draw-bridge between us and the peasants. Our

doors stand open; and timid hands which could never knock to demand

admittance at castle or convent gate can venture gently to lift our

latch. Mothers creep to the kitchen with their sick children to ask for

herbs, lotions, or drinks, which I learned to distil in the convent. And

then I can ask them to sit down, and we often naturally begin to speak

of Him who healed the sick people with a word, and took the little

children from the mothers' arms to His to bless them. Sometimes, too,

stories of wrong and sorrow come out to me which no earthly balm can

cure, and I can point to Him who only can heal because He only can

forgive.

Then Fritz says he can preach so differently from knowing the

heart-cares and burdens of his flock; and the people seem to so feel

differently when they meet again from the pulpit with sacred words and

histories which they have grown familiar with in the home.

A few of the girls come to me also to learn sewing or knitting, and to

listen or learn to read Bible stories. Fritz meanwhile instructs the

boys in the Scriptures and in sacred music, because the schoolmaster is

growing old and can teach the children little but a few Latin prayers by

rote, and to spell out the German alphabet.

I could not have imagined such ignorance as we have found here. It

seems, Fritz says, as if the first preachers of Christianity to the

Germans had done very much for the heart of the nation what the first

settlers did for its forests, made a clearing here and there, built a

church, and left the rest to its original state.

The bears and wolves which prowl about the forest, and sometimes in

winter venture close to the thresholds of our houses, are no wilder than

the wild legends which haunt the hearts of the peasants. On Sundays they

attire themselves in their holiday clothes, come to hear mass, bow

before the sacred host, and the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, and

return to continue during the week their every-day terror-worship of the

spirits of the forest. They seem practically to think our Lord is the

God of the church and the village, while the old pagan sprites retain

possession of the forest. They appear scarcely even quite to have

decided St. Christopher's question, "Which is the _strongest_, that I

may worship him?"

But, alas, whether at church or in the forest, the worship they have

been taught seems to have been chiefly one of fear. The Cobolds and

various sprites they believe will bewitch their cows, set fire to their

hay-stacks, lead them astray through the forest, steal their infants

from the cradle to replace them by fairy changelings. Their malignity

and wrath they deprecate, therefore, by leaving them gleanings of corn

or nuts, by speaking of them with feigned respect, or by Christian words

and prayer, which they use as spells.

From the Almighty God they fear severer evil. He, they think, is to sit

on the dreadful day of wrath on the judgment throne to demand strict

account of all their misdeeds. Against His wrath also they have been

taught to use various remedies which seem to us little better than a

kind of spiritual spells; paters, aves, penances, confessions,

indulgences.

To protect them against the forest sprites they have secret recourse to

certain gifted persons, mostly shrivelled, solitary, weird old women

(successors, Fritz says, of the old pagan prophetesses), who for money

perform certain rites of white magic for them; or give them written

charms to wear, or teach them magic rhymes to say.

To protect them against God, they used to have recourse to the priest,

who performed masses for them, laid ghosts, absolved sins, promised to

turn aside the vengeance of offended heaven.

But in both cases they seem to have the melancholy persuasion that the

ruling power is hostile to them. In both cases, religion is not so much

a _worship_ as a _spell_; not an approach to God, but an interposing of

something to keep off the weight of his dreaded presence.

When first we began to understand this, it used to cost me many tears.

"How can it be," I said one day to Fritz, "that all the world seems so

utterly to misunderstand God?"

"There is an enemy in the world," he said, solemnly, "sowing lies about

God in every heart."

"Yet God is mightier than Satan," I said; "how is it then that no ray

penetrates through the darkness from fruitful seasons, from the beauty

of the spring-time, from the abundance of the harvest, from the joys of

home, to show the people that God is love?"

"Ah, Eva," he said sadly, "have you forgotten that not only is the devil

in the world, but sin in the heart? He lies, indeed, about God, when he

persuades us that God grudges us blessings; but he tells the truth about

ourselves when he reminds us that we are sinners, under the curse of the

good and loving law. The lie would not stand for an instant if it were

not founded on the truth. It is only by confessing the truth, on which

his falsehood is based, that we can destroy it. We must say to the

peasants, 'Your fear is well founded. See _on that cross_ what your sin

cost!'"

"But the old religion displayed the crucifix," I said.

"Thank God, it did--it does!" he said. "But instead of the crucifix, we

have to tell of a cross from which the Crucified is gone; of an empty

tomb and a risen Saviour; of the curse removed; of God, who gave the

Sacrifice, welcoming back the Sufferer to the throne."

We have not made much change in the outward ceremonies. Only, instead of

the sacrifice of the mass, we have the Feast of the Holy Supper; no

elevation of the host, no saying of private masses for the dead; and all

the prayers, thanksgivings, and hymns, in German.

Dr. Luther still retains the Latin in some of the services of

Wittemberg, on account of its being an university town, that the youth

may be trained in the ancient languages. He said he would gladly have

some of the services in Greek and Hebrew, in order thereby to make the

study of those languages as common as that of Latin. But here in the

forest, among the ignorant peasants, and the knights, who, for the most

part, forget before old age what little learning they acquired in

boyhood, Fritz sees no reason whatever for retaining the ancient

language; and delightful it is to watch the faces of the people when he

reads the Bible or Luther's hymns, now that some of them begin to

understand that the divine service is something in which their hearts

and minds are to join, instead of a kind of magic external rite to be

performed for them.

It is a great delight also to us to visit Chriemhild and Ulrich von

Gersdorf at the castle. The old knight and Dame Hermentrud were very

reserved with us at first; but the knight has always been most courteous

to me, and Dame Hermentrud, now that she is convinced that we have no

intention of trenching on her state, receives us very kindly.

Between us, moreover, there is another tender bond since she has allowed

herself to speak of her sister Beatrice, to me known only as the subdued

and faded aged nun; to Dame Hermentrud, and the aged retainers and

villagers, remembered in her bright, but early blighted, girlhood.

Again and again I have to tell her sister the story of her gradual

awakening from uncomplaining hopelessness to a lowly and heavenly rest

in Christ; and of her meek and peaceful death.

"Great sacrifices," she said once, "have to be made to the honour of a

noble lineage, Frau Pastorin. I also have had my sorrows;" and she

opened a drawer of a cabinet, and showed me the miniature portraits of a

nobleman and his young boy, her husband and son, both in armour. "These

both were slain in a feud with the family to which Beatrice's betrothed

belonged," she said bitterly. "And should our lines ever be mingled in

one?"

"But are these feuds never to die out?" I said.

"Yes," she replied sternly, leading me to a window, from which we looked

on a ruined castle in the distance. "_That_ feud has died out. The

family is extinct!"

"The Lord Christ tells us to forgive our enemies," I said quietly.

"Undoubtedly," she replied; "but the von Bernsteins were usurpers of our

rights, robbers and murderers. Such wrongs must be avenged, or society

would fall to pieces."

Towards the peasants Dame Hermentrud has very condescending and kindly

feelings, and frequently gives us food and clothing for them, although

she still doubts the wisdom of teaching them to read.

"Every one should be kept in his place," she says.

And as yet I do not think she can form any idea of heaven, except as of

a well organized community, in which the spirits of the nobles preside

loftily on the heights, while the spirits of the peasants keep meekly to

the valleys; the primary distinction between earth and heaven being,

that in heaven all will know how to keep in their places.

And no doubt in one sense she is right. But how would she like the order

in which places in heaven are assigned?

"_The first shall be last, and the last first._"

"_He that is chief among you, let him be as he that doth serve._"

Among the peasants sometimes, on the other hand, Fritz is startled by

the bitterness of feeling which betrays itself against the lords; how

the wrongs of generations are treasured up, and the name of Luther is

chiefly revered from a vague idea that he, the peasant's son, will set

the peasants free.

Ah, when will God's order be established in the world, when each,

instead of struggling upwards in selfish ambition, and pressing others

down in mean pride--looking up to envy, and looking down to scorn--shall

look up to honour and look down to help! when all shall "by love serve

one another?"

_September_, 1523.

We have now a guest of whom I do not dare to speak to Dame Hermentrud.

Indeed, the whole history Fritz and I will never tell to any here.

A few days since a worn, grey-haired old man came to our house, whom

Fritz welcomed as an old friend. It was Priest Ruprecht Haller, from

Franconia. Fritz had told me something of his history, so that I knew

what he meant, when in a quivering voice he said, abruptly, taking Fritz

aside,--

"Bertha is very ill--perhaps dying. I must never see her any more. She

will not suffer it, I know. Can you go and speak a few words of comfort

to her?"

Fritz expressed his readiness to do anything in his power, and it was

agreed that Priest Ruprecht was to stay with us that night, and that

they were to start together on the morrow for the farm where Bertha was

at service, which lay not many miles off through the forest.

But in the night I had a plan, which I determined to set going before I

mentioned it to Fritz, because he will often consent to a thing which is

once _begun_, which he would think quite impracticable if it is only

_proposed_; that is, especially as regards anything in which I am

involved. Accordingly, the next morning I rose very early and went to

our neighbour, Farmer Herder, to ask him to lend us his old grey pony

for the day, to bring home an invalid. He consented, and before we had

finished breakfast the pony was at the door.

"What is this?" said Fritz.

"It is Farmer Herder's pony to take me to the farm where Bertha lives,

and to bring her back," I said.

"Impossible, my love!" said Fritz.

"But you see it is already all arranged, and begun to be done," I said;

"I am dressed, and the room is all ready to receive her."

Priest Ruprecht rose from the table, and moved towards me, exclaiming

fervently,--

"God bless you!" Then seeming to fear that he had said what he had no

right to say, he added, "God bless you for the thought. But it is too

much!" and he left the room.

"What would you do, Eva?" Fritz said, looking in much perplexity at me.

"Welcome Bertha as a sister," I said, "and nurse her until she is well."

"But how can I suffer you to be under one roof?" he said.