Overcome by her feelings, Magdalene fell upon her knees, and from the depths of her heart came her thanksgiving: "Thou Lord of my life, Thou God of my salvation, I thank Thee, that Thou hast guided a heart to accomplish our deliverance. I put my trust in Thee, Who wilt surely finish the work Thou hast begun, for Thy Name's sake. Amen."
CHAPTER IV.
FREEDOM.
It was Easter Eve in the year 1523. After the solemn hush of Good Friday, a bustling activity stirred the little community. The work was done in silence, it is true, for the day on which the body of our Lord lay in the sepulchre, demanded quiet and reverence; but all hands were busy with preparations worthy of the highest festival of the Christian Church. Groups of nuns were binding wreaths of moss and cedar-branches, with which to deck the images of the Saints and the life-size statue of the blessed Virgin, which occupied the most prominent place in the chapel. Others were engaged about the altar, which on Good Friday had been stripped of all ornament. They covered it with a cloth of white silk embroidered in gold, and supplied the candlesticks with fresh tapers, which Leonhard Koppe had lately provided. Others were building up in the altar recess a representation of the Resurrection,—the grave, surrounded by the prostrate watchers, and the Saviour issuing from its portal, bearing aloft the banner of victory.
The forenoon passed amid these preparations.
The mid-day meal was eaten in silence, for the strict fast permitted but scanty refreshment. During the afternoon the convent was silent as the grave. The nuns, weary in body and mind from the exertions of Holy Week, rested in their cells. Since Palm Sunday, they had spent but few hours in their beds, having been engaged day and night in praying, fasting, singing, confessing and hearing mass. Many may therefore have rejoiced in the blessed Easter day,—not only because our Lord was risen from the dead for the saving of the world, but also because the tired and enfeebled body might once more assert its rights, and the soul awaken from its spiritual weariness to a new life.
Slowly the twilight fell upon the earth. Once more the bell called to prayers, and the stewardess summoned the nuns to the thin, gray, Lenten soup. Then the last sound died away in the convent. The tired devotees stretched their aching limbs upon their beds, to find in slumber a little strength for the last effort,—the Easter vigil,—that night service, which with mysterious premonition leads the soul upward, step by step, to the supreme moment, when the first ray of the rising sun startles the soft murmurs into jubilant praise, and frow the full choir, accompanied by trumpets and cymbals, the Easter hymn bursts forth:
"Christ the Lord is risen
From His martyr prison,
Let us all rejoice in this,
Christ our joy and solace is.
Kyrie eleison."
* * * * * * * * * *
The night was damp and cold. A bitter wind drove the ragged clouds across the face of the moon, whose pale beams threw ghostly shadows upon the earth. In the forest the trees groaned and creaked, their branches tossed by the gale.