On the grandmother's heart the light is more like dawn than sunset—so fresh, and soft, and full of hope her old age seems. The marks of fretting, daily anxiety, and care have been smoothed from dear Aunt Cotta's face; and although a deep shadow rests there often when she thinks of Fritz, I feel sure sorrow is not now to her the shadow of a mountain of divine wrath, but the shadow of a cloud which brings blessing and hides light, which the Sun of love drew forth, and the Rainbow of promise consecrates.
Yet he has the place of the first-born in her heart. With the others, though not forgotten, I think his place is partly filled—but never with her. Elsè's life is very full. Atlantis never knew him as the elder ones did; and Thekla, dearly as she learned to love him during his little sojourn at Wittemberg, has her heart filled with the hopes of her future, or at times overwhelmed with its fears. With all it almost seems he would have in some measure to make a place again, if he were to return. But with Aunt Cotta the blank is as utterly a blank, and a sacred place kept free from all intrusion, as if it were a chamber of her dead, kept jealously locked and untouched since the last day he stood living there. Yet surely he is not dead; I say so to myself and to her when she speaks of it, a thousand times. Why, then, does this hopeless feeling creep over me when I think of him? It seems so impossible to believe he ever can be amongst us any more. If it would please God only to send us some little word! But since that letter from Priest Ruprecht Haller, not a syllable has reached us. Two months since, Christopher went to this priest's village in Franconia, and lingered some days in the neighbourhood, making inquiries in every direction around the monastery where he is. But he could hear nothing, save that in the autumn of last year, the little son of a neighbouring knight, who was watching his mother's geese on the outskirts of the forest near the convent, used to hear the sounds of a man's voice singing from the window of her tower where the convent prison is. The child used to linger near the spot to listen to the songs, which, he said, were so rich and deep—sacred, like church hymns, but more joyful than anything he ever heard at church. He thought they were Easter hymns; but since one evening in last October he has never heard them, although he has often listened. Nearly a year since now!
Yet nothing can silence those resurrection hymns in his heart!
Aunt Cotta's great comfort is the holy sacrament. Nothing, she says, lifts up her heart like that. Other symbols, or writings, or sermons bring before her, she says, some part of truth; but the Holy Supper brings the Lord Himself before her. Not one truth about him, or another, but himself; not one act of his holy life alone, nor even his atoning death, but his very person, human and divine,—himself living, dying, conquering death, freely bestowing life. She has learned that to attend that holy sacrament is not, as she once thought, to perform a good work, which always left her more depressed than before with the feeling how unworthy and coldly she had done it; but to look off from self to Him who finished the good work of redemption for us. As Dr. Melancthon says,—
"Just as looking at the cross is not the doing of a good work, but simply contemplating a sign which recalls to us the death of Christ;
"Just as looking at the sun is not the doing of a good work, but simply contemplating a sign which recalls to us Christ and his gospel;
"So participating at the Lord's table is not the doing of a good work, but simply the making use of a sign which brings to mind the grace that has been bestowed on us by Christ."
"But here lies the difference; symbols discovered by man simply recall what they signify, whereas the signs given by God not only recall the things, but further assure the heart with respect to the will of God."
"As the sight of a cross does not justify, so the mass does not justify. As the sight of a cross is not a sacrifice, either for our sins or for the sins of others, so the mass is not a sacrifice."
"There is but one sacrifice, there is but one satisfaction—Jesus Christ. Beyond him there is nothing of the kind."