But the best of all is, I am not afraid to accept this blessing. I believe it is God, out of his inexpressible love, as Dr. Luther says, who has given it me, and I am not afraid He will think me too happy.
Before I had Dr. Luther for my confessor, I should never have known if it was to be a blessing or a curse; but now I am not afraid. A chain seems to have dropped from my heart, and a veil from my eyes, and I can call God Father, and take everything fearlessly from him.
And I know Gottfried feels the same. Since I never had a vocation for the higher religious life, it is an especial mercy for me to have found a religion which enables a very poor every-day maiden in the world to love God and to seek his blessing.
June.
Our mother has been full of little tender apologies to me this week, for having called Gottfried (Herr Reichenbach says I am to call him so) old, and bald, and little, and grave.
"You know, darling, I only meant I did not want you to accept him for our sakes. And after all, as you say, he is scarcely bald; and they say all men who think much lose their hair early; and I am sure it is no advantage to be always talking; and every one cannot be as tall as our Fritz and Christopher."
"And after all, dear mother," said the grandmother, "Elsè did not choose Herr Reichenbach for your sakes; but are you quite sure he did not choose Elsè for her father's sake? He was always so interested in the steam-pump!"
My mother and I are much cheered by seeing the quiet influence Herr Reichenbach seems to have over Christopher, whose companions and late hours have often caused us anxiety lately. Christopher is not distrustful of him, because he is no priest, and no great favourer of monks and convents; and he is not so much afraid about Christopher as we timid, anxious women were beginning to be. He thinks there is good metal in him; and he says the best ore cannot look like gold until it is fused. It is so difficult for us women, who have to watch from our quiet homes afar, to distinguish the glow of the smelting furnace from the glare of a conflagration.
Wittemberg, September, 1513.
This morning, Herr Reichenbach, Christopher, and Ulrich von Gersdorf (who is studying here for a time) came in full of excitement, from a discussion they had been hearing between Dr. Luther and some of the doctors and professors of Erfurt.