My preceptor is very strict in enforcing the rules order. Trespasses against the rules are divided into four classes,—small, great, greater, and greatest, to each of which is assigned a different degree of penance. Among the smaller are, failing to go to church as soon as the sign is given, forgetting to touch the ground instantly with the hand and to smite the breast if in reading in the choir or in singing the least error is committed; looking about during the service; omitting prostration at the Annunciation or at Christmas; neglecting the benediction in coming in or going out; failing to return books or garments to their proper places; dropping food; spilling drink; forgetting to say grace before eating. Among the great trespasses are: contending, breaking the prescribed silence at fasts, and looking at women, or speaking to them, except in brief replies.
The minute rules are countless. It is difficult at first to learn the various genuflexions, inclinations, and prostrations. The novices are never allowed to converse except in presence of the prior, are forbidden to take any notice of visitors, are enjoined to walk with downcast eyes, to read the Scriptures diligently, to bow low in receiving every gift, and say, "The Lord be praised in his gifts."
How Brother Martin, with his free, bold, daring nature, bore those minute restrictions, I know not. To me there is a kind of dull, deadening relief in them, they distract my thoughts, or prevent my thinking.
Yet it must be true, my obedience will aid my kindred more than all my toil could ever have done whilst disobediently remaining in the world. It is not a selfish seeking of my own salvation and ease which has brought me here, whatever some may think and say, as they did of Martin Luther. I think of that ship in the picture at Magdeburg he so often told me of. Am I not in it,—actually in it now? and shall I not hereafter, when my strength is recovered from the fatigue of reaching it, hope to lean over and stretch out my arms to them, still struggling in the waves of this bitter world? and save them!
Save them; yes, save their souls! Did not my vow save precious lives? And shall not my fastings, vigils, disciplines, prayers be as effectual for their souls? And, then, hereafter, in heaven, where those dwell who, in virgin purity, have followed the Lamb, shall I not lean over the jasper-battlements and help them from Purgatory up the steep sides of Paradise, and be first at the gate to welcome them in! And then, in Paradise, where love will no longer be in danger of becoming sin, may we not be together for ever and for ever? And then, shall I regret that I abandoned the brief polluted joys of earth for the pure joys of eternity? Shall I lament then that I chose, according to my vocation, to suffer apart from them that their souls might be saved, rather than to toil with them for the perishing body?
Then! then! I, a saint in the City of God! I, a hesitating, sinful novice in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, who, after resisting for years, have at last yielded up my body to the cloister, but have no more power than ever to yield up my heart to God!
Yet I am in the sacred vessel; the rest will surely follow. Do all monks have such a conflict? No doubt the Devil fights hard for every fresh victim he loses. It is, it must be, the Devil who beckons me through those dear faces, who calls me through those familiar voices; for they would never call me back. They would hide their pain, and say, "Go to God, if he calls thee; leave us and go to God." Elsè, my mother, all would say that; if their hearts broke in trying to say it!
Had Martin Luther such thoughts in this very cell? If they are from the Evil One, I think he had, for his assaults are strongest against the noblest; and yet I scarcely think he can have had such weak doubts as these which haunt me. He was not one of those who draw back to perdition; nor even of those who, having put their hand to the plough, look back, as I, alas! am so continually doing. And what does the Scripture say of such?—"They are not fit for the kingdom of God." No exception, no reserve—monk, priest, saint; if a man look back, he is not fit for the kingdom of God. Then what becomes of my hopes of Paradise, or of acquiring merits which may aid others? Turn back, draw back, I will never, although all the devils were to drive me, or all the world entice me, but look back, who can help that? If a look can kill, what can save? Mortification, crucifixion, not for a day, but daily;—I must die daily; I must be dead—dead to the world. This cell must to me be as a tomb, where all that was most living in my heart must die and be buried. Was it so to Martin Luther? Is the cloister that to those bands of rosy, comfortable monks, who drink beer from great cans, and feast on the best of the land, and fast on the choicest fish? The Tempter! the Tempter again! Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.
St. Eulalia, Erfurt, February 12, 1510.
To-day one of the older monks came to me, seeing me, I suppose, look downcast and sad, and said, "Fear not, Brother Sebastian, the strife is often hard at first; but remember the words of St. Jerome: 'Though thy father should lie before thy door weeping and lamenting, though thy mother should show thee the body that bore thee, and the breasts that nursed thee, see that thou trample them under foot, and go on straightway to Christ.'"