"The procession was so dark and sad," she said, "the words did not seem
to suit."
"That procession was going to the grave," said Thekla, who was with us.
"There was another procession, which we could not see, going to heaven.
The holy angels, clothed in radiant white, were carrying the happy
spirit to heaven, and singing, as they went, anthems such as that, while
we were weeping here."
"I should like to see that procession of the dear angels, Aunt Thekla,"
said Gretchen. "Mother says the good Elector had no little children to
love him, and no one to call him any tenderer name than 'Your electoral
highness' when he died. But on the other side of the grave he will not
be lonely, will he? The holy angels will have tender names for him
there, will they not?"
"The Lord Jesus will, at all events," I said. "He calleth his own sheep
by name."
And Gretchen was comforted for the Elector.
* * * * *
Not long after that day of mourning came a day of rejoicing to our
household, and to all the friendly circle at Wittemberg.
Quietly, in our house, on June the 23d, Dr. Luther and Catherine von
Bora were married.
A few days afterwards the wedding feast was held on the home-bringing of
the bride to the Augustinian cloister, which, together with "twelve
brewings of beer yearly," the good Elector John Frederic has given
Luther as a wedding present. Brave old John Luther and his wife, and
Luther's pious mother came to the feast from Mansfeld, and a day of much
festivity it was to all.
And now for six months, what Luther calls "that great thing, the union
and communion between husband and wife," hath hallowed the old convent
into a home, whilst the prayer of faith and the presence of Him whom
faith sees, have consecrated the home into a sanctuary of love and
peace.
Many precious things hath Dr. Luther said of marriage. God, he says, has
set the type of marriage before us throughout all creation. Each
creature seeks its perfection through being blent with another. The very
heaven and earth picture it to us, for does not the sky embrace the
green earth as its bride? "Precious, excellent, glorious," he says, "is
that word of the Holy Ghost, 'the heart of the husband doth safely trust
in her.'"
He says also, that so does he honour the married state, that before he
thought of marrying his Catherine, he had resolved, if he should be laid
suddenly on his dying bed, to be espoused before he died, and to give
two silver goblets to the maiden as his wedding and dying gift. And
lately he counselled one who was to be married, "Dear friend, do thou as
I did, when I would take my Kaethe. I prayed to our Lord God with all my
heart. A good wife is a companion of life, and her husband's solace and
joy, and when a pious man and wife love each other truly, the devil has
little power to hurt them.
"All men," he said, "believe and understand that marriage is marriage, a
hand a hand, riches are riches; but to believe that marriage is of God,
and ordered and appointed by God; that the hand is made by God, that
wealth and all we have and are is given by God, and is to be used as his
work to his praise, that is not so commonly believed. And a good wife,"
he said, "should be loved and honoured, firstly, because she is God's
gift and present: secondly, because God has endowed women with noble and
great virtues, which, when they are modest, faithful, and believing, far
overbalance their little failings and infirmities."
WITTEMBERG, _December_, 1525.
Another year all but closed--a year of mingled storm and sunshine? The
sorrow we dreaded for our poor Thekla is come at last too surely.
Bertrand de Crequy is dead! He died in a prison alone, for conscience'
sake, but at peace in God. A stranger from Flanders brought her a few
words of farewell in his handwriting, and afterwards saw him dead, so
that she cannot doubt. She seems to move about like one walking in a
dream, performing every common act of life as before, but with the soul
asleep. We are afraid what will be the end of it. Gold help her! She is
now gone for the Christmas to Eva and Fritz.
Sad divisions have sprung up among the evangelical Christians. Dr.
Luther is very angry at some doctrines of Karlstadt and the Swiss
brethren concerning the holy sacraments, and says they will be wise
above what is written. We grieve at these things, especially as our
Atlantis has married a Swiss, and Dr. Luther will not acknowledge them
as brethren. Our poor Atlantis is much perplexed, and writes that she is
sure her husband meaneth not to undervalue the Holy Supper, and that in
very truth they find their Saviour present there as we do. But Dr.
Luther is very stern about it. He fears disorders and wild opinions will
be brought in again, such as led to the slaughter of the peasants' war.
Yet he himself is sorely distressed about it, and saith often that the
times are so evil the end of the world is surely drawing nigh.
In the midst of all this perplexity, we who love him rejoice that he has
that quiet home in the Augustei, where "Lord Kaethe," as he calls her,
and her little son Haenschen reign, and where the dear, holy angels, as
Luther says, watch over the cradle of the child.
It was a festival to all Wittemberg when little Hans Luther was born.
Luther's house is like the sacred hearth of Wittemberg and of all the
land. There in the winter evenings he welcomes his friends to the
cheerful room with the large window, and sometimes they sing good songs
or holy hymns in parts, accompanied by the lute and harp, music at which
Dr. Luther is sure King David would be amazed and delighted, could he
rise from his grave, "since there can have been none so fine in his
days." "The devil," he says, "always flies from music, especially from
sacred music, because he is a despairing spirit, and cannot bear joy and
gladness."
And in the summer days he sits under the pear tree in his garden, while
Kaethe works beside him; or he plants seeds and makes a fountain; or he
talks to her and his friends about the wonders of beauty God has set in
the humblest flowers, and the picture of the resurrection he gives us in
every delicate twig that in spring bursts from the dry brown stems of
winter.
More and more we see what a good wife God has given him in Catherine von
Bora, with her cheerful, firm, and active spirit, and her devoted
affection for him. Already she has the management of all the finance of
the household, a very necessary arrangement, if the house of Luther is
not to go to ruin, for Dr. Luther would give everything, even to his
clothes and furniture, to any one in distress, and he will not receive
any payment either for his books or for teaching the students.
She is a companion for him, moreover, and not a mere listener, which he
likes, however much he may laugh at her eloquence, "in her own
department surpassing Cicero's," and sarcastically relate how when first
they were married, not knowing what to say, but wishing to "make
conversation," she used to say, as she sat at her work beside him, "Herr
Doctor, is not the lord high chamberlain in Prussia the brother of the
margrave?" hoping that such high discourse would not be too trifling for
him! He says, indeed, that if he were to seek an obedient wife, he would
carve one for himself out of stone. But the belief among us is, that
there are few happier homes than Dr. Luther's; and if at any time
Catherine finds him oppressed with a sadness too deep for her ministry
to reach, she quietly creeps out and calls Justus Jones, or some other
friend, to come and cheer the doctor. Often, also, she reminds him of
the letters he has to write; and he likes to have her sitting by him
while he writes, which is a proof sufficient that she can be silent when
necessary, whatever jests the Doctor may make about her "long sermons,
which she certainly never would have made, if, like other preachers, she
had taken the precaution of beginning with the Lord's Prayer!"
The Christian married life, as he says, "is a humble and a holy life,"
and well, indeed, is it for our German Reformation that its earthly
centre is neither a throne, nor a hermitage, but a lowly Christian home.
PARSONAGE OF GERSDORF, _June_, 1527.
I am staying with Eva while Fritz is absent making a journey of
inspection of the schools throughout Saxony at Dr. Luther's desire, with
Dr. Philip Melancthon, and many other learned men.
Dr. Luther has set his heart on improving the education of the children,
and is anxious to have some of the revenues of the suppressed convents
appropriated to this purpose before all are quietly absorbed by the
nobles and princes for their own uses.
It is a renewal of youth to me, in my sober middle age, to be here along
with Eva, and yet not alone. For the terror of my youth is actually
under our roof with me. _Aunt Agnes_ is an inmate of Fritz's home!
During the pillaging of the convents and dispersing of the nuns, which
took place in the dreadful peasants' war, she was driven from
Nimptschen, and after spending a few weeks with our mother at
Wittemberg, has finally taken refuge with Eva and Fritz.
But Eva's little twin children, Heinz and Agnes, will associate a very
different picture with the name of Aunt Agnes from the rigid lifeless
face and voice which used to haunt my dreams of a religious life, and
make me dread the heaven, of whose inhabitants, I was told, Aunt Agnes
was a type.
Perhaps the white hair softens the high but furrowed brow; yet surely
there was not that kindly gleam in the grave eyes I remember, or that
tender tone in the voice. Is it an echo of the voices of the little ones
she so dearly loves, and a reflection of the sunshine in their eyes? No;
better than that even, I know, because Eva told me. It is the smile and
the music of a heart made as that of a little child through believing in
the Saviour. It is the peace of the Pharisee, who has won the publican's
blessing by meekly taking the publican's place.
I confess, however, I do not think Aunt Agnes's presence improves the
discipline of Eva's household. She is exceedingly slow to detect any
traces of original sin in Eva's children, while to me, on the contrary,
the wonder is that any creature so good and exemplary as Eva should have
children so much like other people's--even mine. One would have thought
that her infants would have been a kind of half angels, taking naturally
to all good things, and never doing wrong except by mistake in a gentle
and moderate way. Whereas, I must say, I hear frequent little wails of
rebellion from Eva's nursery, especially at seasons of ablution, much as
from mine; and I do not think even our Fritz ever showed more decided
pleasure in mischief, or more determined self-will, than Eva's little
rosy Heinz.
One morning after a rather prolonged little battle between Heinz and his
mother about some case of oppression of little Agnes, I suggested to
Aunt Agnes--
"Only to think that Eva, if she had kept to her vocation, might have
attained to the full ideal of the Theologia Teutsch, have become a St.
Elizabeth, or indeed far better?"