And I can only say, "Dear sisters, you are here now; therefore surely God will find some way for you to serve him here."
But my heart aches for them, and I doubt no longer, I feel sure God can never have meant these young, joyous hearts to be cramped and imprisoned thus.
Sometimes I talk about it with Aunt Agnes; and we consider whether, if these vows are indeed irrevocable, and these children must never see their homes again, the convent could not one day be removed to some city where sick and suffering men and women toil and die; so that we might, at least, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit and minister to the sick and sorrowful. That would be life once more, instead of this monotonous routine, which is not so much death as mechanism—an inanimate existence which has never been life.
October, 1520.
Sister Beatrice is very ill. Aunt Agnes has requested as an especial favour to be allowed to share the attending on her with me. Never was gentler nurse or more grateful patient.
It goes to my heart to see Aunt Agnes meekly learning from me how to render the little services required at the sick-bed. She smiles, and says her feeble blundering fingers had grown into mere machines for turning over the leaves of prayer-books, just as her heart was hardening into a machine for repeating prayers. Nine of the young nuns, Aunt Agnes, Sister Beatrice, and I, have been drawn very closely together of late. Among the noblest of these is Catherine von Bora, a young nun, about twenty years of age. There is such truth in her full dark eyes, which look so kindly and frankly into mine, and such character in the firmly-closed mouth. She declines learning Latin, and has not much taste for learned books; but she has much clear practical good sense, and she, with many others, delights greatly in Dr. Luther's writings. They say they are not books; they are a living voice. Every fragment of information I can give them about the doctor is eagerly received, and many rumours reach us of his influence in the world. When he was near Nimptschen, two years ago, at the great Leipsic disputation, we heard that the students were enthusiastic about him, and that the common people seemed to drink in his words almost as they did our Lord's when he spoke upon earth; and what is more, that the lives of some men and women at the court have been entirely changed since they heard him. We were told he had been the means of wonderful conversions; but what was strange in these conversions was, that those so changed did not abandon their position in life, but only their sins, remaining where they were when God called them, and distinguished from others, not by veil or cowl, but by the light of holy works.
On the other hand, many, especially among the older nuns, have received quite contrary impressions, and regard Dr. Luther as a heretic, worse than any who ever rent the Church. These look very suspiciously on us, and subject us to many annoyances, hindering our conversing and reading together as much as possible.
We do, indeed, many of us wonder that Dr. Luther should use such fierce and harsh words against the Pope's servants. Yet St. Paul even "could have wished that those were cut off" that troubled his flock; and the very lips of divine love launched woes against hypocrites and false shepherds severer than any that the Baptist or Elijah ever uttered in their denunciations from the wilderness. It seems to me that the hearts which are tenderest towards the wandering sheep will ever be severest against the seducing shepherds who lead them astray. Only we need always to remember that these very false shepherds themselves are, after all, but wretched lost sheep, driven hither and thither by the great robber of the fold!
1521.
Just now the hearts of the little band among us who owe so much to Dr. Luther are lifted up night and day in prayer to God for him. He is soon to be on his way to the Imperial Diet at Worms. He has the Emperor's safe-conduct, but it is said this did not save John Huss from the flames. In our prayers we are much aided by his own Commentary on the Book of Psalms, which I have just received from Uncle Cotta'a printing-press.