OUR SISTER LEAVES US
O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
—New Testament.
Well hath he of great afflictions said, "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." Thus I said unto myself the night following the fright of my Sister Bernice as I sought in vain for sleep, for I felt the shadow of some heavy sorrow hanging over us. Not even the prattle of Sonnlein, or my unremitting daily toil, God's antidote for corroding care, could efface from my mind the wan features of Sister Bernice, the extreme delicacy of her fragile form, and the shock she had received from the witch.
And yet, for so He hath ordained, as time dragged its slow length away, my forebodings almost vanished, and the days were beginning to pass "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," so I was not without hope that, after all, my fears had been the result of a too tender solicitude for my dear sister.
Thus almost a year passed away in which I saw her in fleeting glimpses, but not to hold sweet converse with her or once again to feel the touch of that hand I longed to harbor in mine and shelter from all the storms of life. How my poor human nature struggled with me those days, so that at times I thought I must take her in mine arms and with Sonnlein flee to some retreat where we could pass the rest of our days in perfect love and peace!
But "happy is the man whom God correcteth," for after all we are not fit for heaven until all the dross hath been tormented out of us, leaving the pure gold for his kingdom.
Whether my sister was enduring all these pangs of unspoken, forbidden love I knew not; I only knew that if by chance our eyes met, which was all too seldom, I thought I could see in their pure depths a tender, beseeching longing for me.
And now the glory of autumn had passed away. The fields about the Kloster lay cold and bare. The naked branches of the trees shivered in the chilling airs. How bleak and cheerless the world seemed in these early days of winter before the touch of ice and snow had transformed the fields and the forests into fairyland!
The last day of November was drawing to its close. The Brethren had partaken, in solemn thankfulness, of our simple evening meal and I had gone to my Kammer, first putting Sonnlein to rest, after having recounted to me all the marvelous happenings of the day, and was about myself to lie down to sleep, when hearing a step near, I looked up and saw Brother Beissel, even graver and sadder than usual. "Brother Jabez, Mother Maria hath come saying she would see thee and me." At once a great fear gripped my heart—something about Bernice.