Whether it was the scorching heat through which we have been travelling, or the malaria, which affected us with catarrh one night when we slept with our windows open, or whether the angry monks in the Benedictine Abbey mixed some poison with our food, I know not; but we had scarcely reached this place when he became seriously ill.
As I watched beside him I learned something of the anguish he passed through at our convent at Erfurt. The remembrance of his sins and the terrors of God's judgment rushed on his mind, weakened by suffering. At times he recognized that it was the hand of the evil one which was keeping him down. "The devil," he would say, "is the accuser of the brethren, not Christ. Thou, Lord Jesus, art my forgiving Saviour!" And then he would rise above the floods. Again his mind would bewilder itself with the unfathomable—the origin of evil, the relation of our free will to God's almighty will.
Then I ventured to recall to him the words of Dr. Staupitz he had repeated to me: "Behold the wounds of Jesus Christ, and then thou shall see the counsel of God clearly shining forth. We cannot comprehend God out of Jesus Christ. In Christ you will find what God is, and what he requires. You will find him nowhere else, whether in heaven or on earth."
It was strange to find myself, untried recruit that I am, thus attempting to give refreshment to such a veteran and victor as Brother Martin; but when the strongest are brought into single combats such as these, which must be single, a feeble hand may bring a draught of cold water to revive the hero between the pauses of the fight.
The victory, however, can only be won by the combatant himself; and at length Brother Martin fought his way through once more, and as so often happens, just when the fight seemed hottest. It was with an old weapon he overcame—"The just shall live by faith."
Once more the words which have helped him so often, which so frequently he has repeated on this journey, came with power to his mind. Again he looked to the crucified Saviour; again he believed in him triumphant and ready to forgive on the throne of grace; and again his spirit was in the light.
His strength also soon began to return; and in a few days we are to be in Rome.
Rome.
The pilgrimage is over. The holy city is at length reached.
Across burning plains, under trellised vine-walks on the hill-sides, over wild, craggy mountains, through valleys green with chestnuts, and olives, and thickets of myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and cistus, we walked, until at last the sacred towers and domes burst on our sight, across a reach of the Campagna—the city where St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred—the metropolis of the kingdom of God.