In the cruel days of old, when Diocletian was the Master of the World,
and the believers in the Cross were maimed, and tortured with fire, and
torn with iron hooks, and cast to the lions, and beheaded with the
sword, Dorothea, a beautiful maiden of Caesarea, was brought before
Sapricius, the Governor of Cappadocia, and commanded to forsake the
Lord Christ and offer incense to the images of the false gods.
Though she was so young and so fair and tender, she stood unmoved by
threats and entreaties, and when, with little pity on her youth and
loveliness, Sapricius menaced her with the torment of the iron bed over
a slow fire, she replied: "Do with me as you will. No pain shall I
fear, so firm is my trust in Him for whom I am ready to die."
"Who, then, is this that has won thy love?" asked the Governor.
"It is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. Slay me, and I shall but the
sooner be with Him in His Paradise, where there is no more pain,
neither sorrow, but the tears are wiped from all eyes, and the roses
are in bloom alway, and for ever the fruit of joy is on the trees."
"Thy words are but the babbling of madness," said the Governor angrily.
"I am not mad, most noble Sapricius."
[Illustration: "_I am not mad, most noble Sapricius_"]
"Here, then, is the incense, sacrifice, and save thy life."
"I will not sacrifice," replied Dorothea.
"Then shalt thou die," said Sapricius; and he bade the doomsman take
her to the place of execution and strike off her head.
Now as she was being led away from the judgment-seat, a gay young
advocate named Theophilus said to her jestingly: "Farewell, sweet
Dorothea: when thou hast joined thy lover, wilt thou not send me some
of the fruit and roses of his Paradise?"
Looking gravely and gently at him, Dorothea answered: "I will send
some."
Whereupon Theophilus laughed merrily, and went his way homeward.
At the place of execution, Dorothea begged the doomsman to tarry a
little, and kneeling by the block, she raised her hands to heaven and
prayed earnestly. At that moment a fair child stood beside her,
holding in his hand a basket containing three golden apples and three
red roses.
"Take these to Theophilus, I pray thee," she said to the child, "and
tell him Dorothea awaits him in the Paradise whence they came."
Then she bowed her head, and the sword of the doomsman fell.
Mark now what follows.
Theophilus, who had reached home, was still telling of what had
happened and merrily repeating his jest about the fruit and flowers of
Paradise, when suddenly, while he was speaking, the child appeared
before him with the apples and the roses. "Dorothea," he said, "has
sent me to thee with these, and she awaits thee in the garden." And
straightway the child vanished.
The fragrance of those heavenly roses filled Theophilus with a strange
pity and gladness; and, eating of the fruit of the Angels, he felt his
heart made new within him, so that he, also, became a servant of the
Lord Jesus, and suffered death for His name, and thus attained to the
celestial garden.
Centuries after her martyrdom, the body of Dorothea was laid in a
bronze shrine richly inlaid with gold and jewels in the church built in
her honour beyond Tiber, in the seven-hilled city of Rome.
There it lay in the days when Waldo was a brother at the Priory of
Three Fountains, among the wooded folds of the Taunus Hills; and every
seven years the shrine was opened that the faithful might gaze on the
maiden martyr of Caesarea.
An exceeding great love and devotion did Waldo bear this holy virgin,
whom he had chosen for his patroness, and one of his most ardent wishes
was that he might some day visit the church beyond Tiber, and kneel by
the shrine which contained her precious relics. In summer the red
roses, in autumn the bright apples on the tree, reminded him of her; in
the spring he thought of her youth and beauty joyously surrendered to
Christ, and the snow in winter spoke to him of her spotless innocence.
Thus through the round of the year the remembrance of her was present
about him in fair suggestions; and indeed had there been any lack of
these every gift of God would have recalled her to his mind, for was
not that--"the gift of God"--her name?
Notwithstanding his youth, Waldo was ripe in learning, well skilled in
Latin and Greek, and so gifted beyond measure in poetry and music that
people said he had heard the singing of Angels and had brought the echo
of it to the earth. His hymns and sacred songs were known and loved
all through the German land, and far beyond. The children sang them in
the processions on the high feast days, the peasants sang them at their
work in house or field, travellers sang them as they journeyed over the
long heaths and through the mountain-forests, fishers and raftsmen sang
them on the rivers. He composed the Song of the Sickle which cuts at a
stroke the corn in its ripeness and the wild flower in its bloom, and
the Song of the Mill-wheel, with its long creak and quick clap, and the
melodious rush of water from the buckets of the wheel, and many another
which it would take long to tell of; but that which to himself was
sweetest and dearest was Golden Apples and Roses Red, the song in which
he told the legend of St. Dorothea his patroness.
Now when Waldo was in the six-and-thirtieth year of his age he was
smitten with leprosy; and when it was found that neither the relics of
the saints, nor the prayers of holy men, nor the skill of the physician
availed to cure him, but that it was God's will he should endure to the
end, the Prior entreated him to surrender himself to that blessed will,
and to go forth courageously to the new life of isolation which awaited
him. For in those days it was not lawful that a leper should abide in
the companionship of men, and he was set apart lest his malady should
bring others to a misery like his own.
Deep was the grief of the brethren of Three Fountains when they were
summoned to attend the sacred office of demission which was to shut out
Waldo for ever from intercourse with his fellows. And well might any
good heart sorrow, for this was the order of that office.
The altar was draped in black, and Mass for the Dead was sung; and all
the things that Waldo would need in the house of his exile, from the
flint and iron which gave fire to the harp which should give solace,
were solemnly blessed and delivered to him. Next he was warned not to
approach the dwellings of men, or to wash in running streams, or to
handle the ropes of draw-wells, or to drink from the cups of wayside
springs. He was forbidden the highways, and when he went abroad a
clapper must give token of his coming and going. Nothing that might be
used by others should he touch except with covered hands.
When after these warnings he had been exhorted to patience and trust in
God's mercy and love, the brethren formed a procession, with the cross
going before, and led him away to his hermitage among the wooded hills.
On a little wood-lawn, beyond a brook crossed by stepping-stones, a hut
of boughs had been prepared for him, and the Prior bade him mark the
grey boulder on the further side of the brook, for there he would find
left for him, week by week, such provisions as he needed.
Last rite of all, the Prior entering the hut strewed over his bed of
bracken a handful of mould from the churchyard saying, "Sis mortuus
mundo--Dead be thou to the world, but living anew to God," and turfs
from the churchyard were laid on the roof of the hut. Thus in his grey
gown and hood was Waldo committed alive to his grave, and the brethren,
chanting a requiem, returned to the Priory.
The tidings of Waldo's grievous lot travelled far and wide through the
German land, and thenceforth when his songs were sung many a true man's
heart was heavy and many a good woman's eyes were filled with tears as
they bethought them of the poor singer in his hut among the hills.
Kindly souls brought alms and provisions and laid them on his boulder
by the brook, and oftentimes as they came and went they sang some hymn
or song he had composed, for they said, "So best can we let him know
that we remember him and love him." Indeed, to his gentle heart the
sound of their human voices in that solitude was as the warm clasp of a
beloved hand.
When Waldo had lived there alone among the hills for the space of two
years and more, and his malady had grown exceeding hard to bear, he was
seized with a woeful longing--such a longing as comes upon a little
child for its mother when it has been left all alone in the house, and
has gone seeking her in all the chambers, and finds she is not there.
And as on a day he went slowly down to the boulder by the stream in the
failing light, thinking of her who had cherished his childhood--how he
had clung to her gown, how with his little hand in hers he had run by
her side, how she had taken him on her lap and made his hurts all well
with kisses, his heart failed him, and crying aloud "Mother, O mother!"
he knelt by the boulder, and laid his head on his arms, weeping.
Then from among the trees on the further side of the brook came a
maiden running, but she paused at the stepping-stones when she saw
Waldo, and said, "Was it thy voice I heard calling 'Mother'?"
The monk did not answer or move.
"Art thou Brother Waldo?" she asked.