Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

"Yet God is mightier than Satan," I said; "how is it then that no ray penetrates through the darkness from fruitful seasons, from the beauty of the spring-time, from the abundance of the harvest, from the joys of home, to show the people that God is love?"

"Ah, Eva," he said sadly, "have you forgotten that not only is the devil in the world, but sin in the heart? He lies, indeed, about God, when he persuades us that God grudges us blessings; but he tells the truth about ourselves when he reminds us that we are sinners, under the curse of the good and loving law. The lie would not stand for an instant if it were not founded on the truth. It is only by confessing the truth, on which his falsehood is based, that we can destroy it. We must say to the peasants, 'Your fear is well founded. See on that cross what your sin cost!'"

"But the old religion displayed the crucifix," I said.

"Thank God, it did—it does!" he said. "But instead of the crucifix, we have to tell of a cross from which the Crucified is gone; of an empty tomb and a risen Saviour; of the curse removed; of God, who gave the Sacrifice, welcoming back the Sufferer to the throne."

We have not made much change in the outward ceremonies. Only, instead of the sacrifice of the mass, we have the Feast of the Holy Supper; no elevation of the host, no saying of private masses for the dead; and all the prayers, thanksgivings, and hymns, in German.

Dr. Luther still retains the Latin in some of the services of Wittemberg, on account of its being an university town, that the youth may be trained in the ancient languages. He said he would gladly have some of the services in Greek and Hebrew, in order thereby to make the study of those languages as common as that of Latin. But here in the forest, among the ignorant peasants, and the knights, who, for the most part, forget before old age what little learning they acquired in boyhood, Fritz sees no reason whatever for retaining the ancient language; and delightful it is to watch the faces of the people when he reads the Bible or Luther's hymns, now that some of them begin to understand that the divine service is something in which their hearts and minds are to join, instead of a kind of magic external rite to be performed for them.

It is a great delight also to us to visit Chriemhild and Ulrich von Gersdorf at the castle. The old knight and Dame Hermentrud were very reserved with us at first; but the knight has always been most courteous to me, and Dame Hermentrud, now that she is convinced that we have no intention of trenching on her state, receives us very kindly.

Between us, moreover, there is another tender bond since she has allowed herself to speak of her sister Beatrice, to me known only as the subdued and faded aged nun; to Dame Hermentrud, and the aged retainers and villagers, remembered in her bright, but early blighted, girlhood.

Again and again I have to tell her sister the story of her gradual awakening from uncomplaining hopelessness to a lowly and heavenly rest in Christ; and of her meek and peaceful death.

"Great sacrifices," she said once, "have to be made to the honour of a noble lineage, Frau Pastorin. I also have had my sorrows;" and she opened a drawer of a cabinet, and showed me the miniature portraits of a nobleman and his young boy, her husband and son, both in armour. "These both were slain in a feud with the family to which Beatrice's betrothed belonged," she said bitterly. "And should our lines ever be mingled in one?"