The Christian married life, as he says, "is a humble and a holy life," and well, indeed, is it for our German Reformation that its earthly centre is neither a throne, nor a hermitage, but a lowly Christian home.
Parsonage of Gersdorf, June, 1527.
I am staying with Eva while Fritz is absent making a journey of inspection of the schools throughout Saxony at Dr. Luther's desire, with Dr. Philip Melancthon, and many other learned men.
Dr. Luther has set his heart on improving the education of the children, and is anxious to have some of the revenues of the suppressed convents appropriated to this purpose before all are quietly absorbed by the nobles and princes for their own uses.
It is a renewal of youth to me, in my sober middle age, to be here along with Eva, and yet not alone. For the terror of my youth is actually under our roof with me. Aunt Agnes is an inmate of Fritz's home! During the pillaging of the convents and dispersing of the nuns, which took place in the dreadful peasants' war, she was driven from Nimptschen, and after spending a few weeks with our mother at Wittemberg, has finally taken refuge with Eva and Fritz.
But Eva's little twin children, Heinz and Agnes, will associate a very different picture with the name of Aunt Agnes from the rigid lifeless face and voice which used to haunt my dreams of a religious life, and make me dread the heaven, of whose inhabitants, I was told, Aunt Agnes was a type.
Perhaps the white hair softens the high but furrowed brow; yet surely there was not that kindly gleam in the grave eyes I remember, or that tender tone in the voice. Is it an echo of the voices of the little ones she so dearly loves, and a reflection of the sunshine in their eyes? No; better than that even, I know, because Eva told me. It is the smile and the music of a heart made as that of a little child through believing in the Saviour. It is the peace of the Pharisee, who has won the publican's blessing by meekly taking the publican's place.
I confess, however, I do not think Aunt Agnes's presence improves the discipline of Eva's household. She is exceedingly slow to detect any traces of original sin in Eva's children, while to me, on the contrary, the wonder is that any creature so good and exemplary as Eva should have children so much like other people's—even mine. One would have thought that her infants would have been a kind of half angels, taking naturally to all good things, and never doing wrong except by mistake in a gentle and moderate way. Whereas, I must say, I hear frequent little wails of rebellion from Eva's nursery, especially at seasons of ablution, much as from mine; and I do not think even our Fritz ever showed more decided pleasure in mischief, or more determined self-will, than Eva's little rosy Heinz.
One morning after a rather prolonged little battle between Heinz and his mother about some case of oppression of little Agnes, I suggested to Aunt Agnes—
"Only to think that Eva, if she had kept to her vocation, might have attained to the full ideal of the Theologia Teutsch, have become a St. Elizabeth, or indeed far better?"