“I mean thee, and none other.”
“Mother always says I’m so stupid, nobody will ever care for me. I thought—I never heard any body talk like that. I thought it was only the very greatest saints that could get near Him, and then only through the Church.”
“Thou and I are the Church, if Christ saves us.”
“Oh, what do you mean? The priests and bishops are the Church. At least they say so.”
“Ay, they do say so, the hirelings that foul with their feet the water whence the flock should drink: ‘we are the people, and wisdom shall die with us!’ ‘The Temple of the Lord are we!’ But the Temple of the Lord is larger, and wider, and higher, than their poor narrow souls. Maiden, listen to me, for I speak to thee words from God. The Church of God consists of the elect of God from the beginning to the end of the world, by the grace of God, through the merits of Christ, gathered together by the Holy Ghost, and fore-ordained to eternal life. They that hear and understand the Word of God, receiving it to their souls’ health, and being justified by Christ—these are the Church; these go into life eternal. Hast thou understood me, Maiden?”
“I don’t—exactly—know,” she said slowly. “I should like to understand. But how can I know whether I am one of them or not?”
“Of the elect of God? If thou hast chosen God rather than the world, that is the strongest evidence thou canst have that He has chosen thee out of the world.”
“But I sha’n’t be in the world—just exactly. You see I’m going to live in the anchorhold. That isn’t the world.”
It was not easy to teach one who spoke a different dialect from the teacher. To Gerhardt, the world was the opposite of God; to Leuesa, it was merely the opposite of the cloister.
“Put ‘sin’ for ‘the world,’ Maiden,” said Gerhardt, “and thou wilt understand me better.”