Shortly afterwards Busch took the three nuns with him and they set off to drive back to Bronopia, staying at various monastic houses on the way; and the nuns of Helmstedt all the time sent messengers after them, with letters assuring the three sisters of their love and sorrow. The journey was at length completed without any accident, except that fat sister Ida tumbled into a cellar at Wittenberg and hurt her leg, so that Busch had to carry her into the carriage.
To his account of this episode Busch subjoins four letters, one from himself, one from the prioress and stewardess of Helmstedt to the three sisters, one from the young scholars of the house to their mistress Tecla, and the reply of the three sisters to the convent and of Tecla to her scholars[2153]. In the Prioress’ letter there is a vivid description of the sorrow of the nuns at the departure of their three visitors:
Our sister Geseke Zeelde wept most tearfully and could not go into the workroom, so grieved she after sister Aleydis. Sister Mettike Guestyn was so miserable that she could not eat or drink. When I went into the kitchen sister Tryneke wept so much that all who were with her in the kitchen wept too and said: “O wi, now has our leader gone away!” When sister Elyzabeth Cyriaci began the office of the mass, she sang it so dolefully through her tears, that she could hardly sing. When she had to begin the ‘Benedictus’ after the ‘Sanctus’ she burst out crying, so that she could not sing at all, but sister Elyzabeth Broysen had to go on with it and she could hardly finish it. Geseke Obrecht and Heylewich the chantress are very sorrowful, because they did not say goodbye to you, for they did not know you were going so early. They now send you as many good wishes as there are sands in the sea. When the scholars come to school on Sunday, we cannot describe to you how many tears are shed there. The stewardess and I have to console the other sisters, but we are the rather in need of someone to console us. When we look on your places in choir and frater and dorter, then we grow sad and weep, saying, “O God, if only Bronopia were where Heiningen is, five miles away from us, then we might often visit each other, which now we cannot do, for we are forty miles away. We are as it were dead to each other at the two ends of the earth.” We have many other things to write to you, but because it is the middle of the night, we must separate and go to matins. Dearest sisters, we give you deepest thanks for all the good you have done for us, in spiritual and in temporal matters. God speed you a thousand times, in Jesus’ name.... As many as there are pearls, as many as there are planets in the heaven, as many as there are ends to the earth, so many godspeeds send we to you[2154].
The letter of the little novices to sister Tecla deserves quotation, to show their progress under her tuition:
Ihesum pium consolatorem merentium pro salute! Notum facimus charitati vestre, charissima soror Tecla magistra nostra, quod nos omnes scholares vestre in magna sumus tristitia et dolore de vestro a nobis recessu. Non enim possumus oblivisci presentiam vestram, sed cotidie querimus vos, et dum non invenimus, tunc contristamur et dolemus. Vix potestis credere, quanta tristitia et quantus dolor est in claustro nostro de vestra absentia tam de senioribus quam de iunioribus. Quapropter petimus cordintime, sicut amplius non sumus nos invicem visure in hac mortali vita, ut oretis pro nobis deum, ut taliter vivamus in hoc seculo, ut nos invicem videre valeamus in conspectu sancte Trinitatis. Valete, soror dilectissima, cum charissimis sororibus vestris Ida et Aleide in domino semper! Et deus omnipotens omnem tribulationem et angustiam a vobis removeat et vestram sanctitatem conservet tempora per eterna, Amen[2155].
It is a pretty picture of affection and concord, which is given by these letters, and may well be set against the pictures of conventual bickering, which are too often to be found in visitation reports.
Busch’s reforms seem to have been very successful. He often mentions that such and such a house remained in a good state of reform for such and such a number of years, or up to the day on which he wrote. Sometimes he describes reforming prioresses or other nuns, who did good work in their houses[2156]; sometimes also he mentions the assistance given by a wise confessor or custos. His only real failure seems to have been Derneburg; this house withstood both his efforts (for three years he had acted as confessor, walking two miles before breakfast to confess the nuns before communion) and those of the Cistercian abbot of Marienrode, who had been their benefactor for over 300 florins; and Busch quotes rather bitterly the proverb current in Germany:
Gratia nulla perit, nisi gratia sola sororum.
Sic fuit, est et erit: ‘ondanc’ in fine laborum[2157].
But he seldom got ondanc at the end of his work; and when his life drew to a close he could look back on hundreds of monks and nuns not only reformed by him, but also cherishing for him the greatest gratitude and affection. His was a large and humane spirit, and for all his zeal for reform and his reputation for sternness, it is plain that he had that greatest of gifts, the capacity to win the hearts of men.