Fortunately, though the stones were large and exceedingly heavy, yet by our combined strength and the using of pieces of wood as levers we worked the rocks far enough apart to make a resting-place for her alongside Brother Alburtus, whose mortal frame, by reason of the purity of the air and the cold in this mountain height had suffered no great change since the day of his burial.
And then having placed her whose life had been so troubled and tempestuous by the side of him whose days had been so gentle and peaceful, Sonnlein and Genoveva sang over them softly a few of our noble, heaven-inspired hymns, I following with a short prayer that this poor woman might see Him face to face, after which we closed up the top and ends of the little vault with heavy stones, knowing that at the last great day some bright-winged angel would find even this lonely sepulchre and roll away the stones.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE TWAIN ARE MADE ONE
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.
—The Bible.
What a bundle of contradictions is poor human flesh! Here have I been all my life preaching the beauty and sanctity of single life, and am I not the same man who once at the command of Brother Beissel printed an argument against the Moravians for that they practised not celibacy and being called to task by our leader for the moderation of my views, I added so much salt to my polemics that Brother Beissel was greatly pleased and I doubt not our spiritual enemies completely overwhelmed?
But here am I now in my old age delighting in telling of the day when my boy and our beloved Genoveva were made one, our dear sister having finally consented to give up her celestial Bridegroom for an earthly one.
Over a year had slipped by since the death of that poor woman, and how often I tried to solve the mystery of her life by the light of her last words, her strange devotion to Sonnlein in his illness, her clinging so to him in her last moments; and then the death of Brother Alburtus would come to me, and how he thought himself another person, calling himself David Seymour; but though my mind would continually hang over these two so that at times I thought I had caught the answer, yet I was often on further reflection compelled to confess I had not the solution of all this mystery, which I often feared would never be made clear.
And now sweet May had come again, to me ever one of the most pleasing months of the year, when the dandelions and the buttercups gleam in our meadows like stars, and the meek little violets nestle lovingly in the deep grass, while from the fields and the woods come the clear notes of the birds, mate calling unto mate with such delicious tenderness that I often wonder whether there be not a heaven for flowers and birds, and for everything He created. And yet I mean not the same heaven for all, for I like not snakes and bugs.