Just then our Heinz came in.
"Your father is trying to prove I am not growing old," she said.
"Who said such a thing of our mother?" asked Heinz, turning fiercely to Agnes.
"No one," I said; "but it startled me to see the change in Dr. Luther, and I began to fear what changes might have been going on unobserved in our own home."
"Is Dr. Luther much changed?" said Heinz. "I think I never saw a nobler face, so resolute and true, and with such a keen glance in his dark eyes. He might have been one of the emperor's greatest generals—he looks so like a veteran."
"Is he not a veteran, Heinz?" said Eva. "Has he not fought all our battles for us for years? What did you think of him, Agnes?"
"I remember best the look he gave my father and you," she said. "His face looked so full of kindness; I thought how happy he must make his home."
That evening was naturally a time, with Eva and me, for going over the past. And how much of it is linked with Dr. Luther! That our dear home exists at all is, through God, his work. And more even than that: the freedom and peace of our hearts came to us chiefly at first through him. All the past came back to me when I saw his face again; as if suddenly flashed on me from a mirror. The days when he sang before Aunt Ursula Cotta's door at Eisenach—when the voice which has since stirred all Christendom to its depths sang carols for a piece of bread. Then the gradual passing away of the outward trials of poverty, through his father's prosperity and liberality—the brilliant prospects opening before him at the university—his sudden, yet deliberate closing of all those earthly schemes—the descent into the dark and bitter waters, where he fought the fight for his age, and, all but sinking, found the Hand that saved him, and came to the shore again on the right side; and not alone, but upheld evermore by the hand that rescued him, and which he has made known to the hearts of thousands.
Then I seemed to see him stand before the emperor at Worms, in that day when men did not know whether to wonder most at his gentleness or his daring—in that hour which men thought was his hour of conflict, but which was in truth his hour of triumph, after the real battle had been fought and the real victory won.
And now twenty years more had passed away; the Bible has been translated by him into German, and is speaking in countless homes; homes hallowed (and, in many instances, created) by his teaching.