"My thoughts to-day are a mixture of joy and dread. My first thought on awaking was certainly one of joy, love and gratitude that God had given you to me,—that He had granted me the grace to bring a soul into the world, destined, perhaps, to eternal salvation. But, oh, this 'perhaps'! Here came another cruel thought, fraught with fear and great uneasiness. To-day I said to myself: 'He has lived fourteen years, and he is still, alas! quite will-less and colorless, creeping along life according to the lead and will-power of others.' This terrible thought suggested the doubt whether this being I had brought into the world could ever grow up into a man pleasing to God, an heir of salvation; or whether, in spite of all the excellent gifts bestowed upon him by an all-good Creator to enable him to be one of the best and happiest of men; whether in spite of my anxieties, prayers, entreaties, he would continue to hasten on toward destruction.
"For a while I had been full of better hopes, which I gladly own have not altogether left me; but they have all grown dim since I have seen the ever-recurring signs of the slavish way in which you sink back into your dreadful sloth and want of energy.... Have mercy on him, Heavenly Father,—have mercy on him and on me! Hear him, help him, and strengthen him when he prays with sincerity and a firm will. Lord, Thou who knowest all things, Thou knowest that I care nothing for the praise of men, for riches, for honors, either for him or for myself; but only for the honor of pleasing Thee and for the happiness of both together drawing nearer and nearer to Thee, till we shall be united in that love and blessedness which Thou hast promised us for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
But in quoting this remarkable letter we are anticipating. In the year 1779 the Princess began to think of a change of residence. Her little retreat did not afford the necessary means of education for children beyond a certain age. At first Geneva suggested itself as a likely place; it was in the heyday of its reputation as a city of culture and modern "enlightenment." Moreover, Prince Gallitzin owned a small property in its neighborhood, and readily gave his assent to a family migration. But it was not to be: God was about to lead the eager, earnest, groping soul surely and sweetly into His pleasant paths of peace.
Before Geneva had been finally settled upon, Amalie was told wonders of a new educational system introduced by Franz von Fürstenberg, as minister of Prince Maximilian of Cologne, into the town of Münster and other districts of Westphalia. This holy and enlightened priest was greatly in advance of his age, and had devised such an excellent scheme for public education that even infidel philosophers were forced to express wonder and admiration.
The Princess was far too eager to investigate anything likely to benefit her two children not to decide upon a visit to Münster as soon as she had read one of Fürstenberg's pamphlets. From their first acquaintance this truly great man made a profound impression upon her. In her letters to her husband she always speaks of Fürstenberg as le grand homme. This admiration soon ripened into a friendship which made her feel the priest's counsel and support necessary to her in the great task of her life—the education of her children. Moreover, Fürstenberg did not stand alone: at his side was the saintly Overberg, who devoted his time and talents to teaching the teachers of the poor. She felt, and with reason, that she now lived in an entirely new world.
Her new friends did not talk religion to her—that would at once have repelled her,—they lived religion. Their lives were obviously the fruit of an unseen deep root. Amalie asked no questions, she but basked in this sunny atmosphere of light and life, from which she felt it impossible to tear herself away. She rented a small country-place, known as Angelmodde, in the neighborhood of Münster; and now at length the days of real education had begun. To her own children, Mimi and Mitri, were added Amalie von Schmettau, who afterward became a nun in Vienna; George, a son of the celebrated Jakobi; and the Droste-Vischerings, one of whom became dean, the other bishop of Münster.
The Princess, in her anxious search after truth and goodness, had lost none of her old sprightliness and charm. Her society to the end was eagerly courted by all the best and most distinguished men of her time. But, strange to say, even yet Amalie continued to believe she was attracted to Fürstenberg and her new friends in spite of, rather than because of, their religion. "I could not," she once wrote, "blind myself to the great views and principles of Herr von Fürstenberg; but I felt I must forgive him his Christianity on the score of early education and prejudice. I had started my friendship by frankly asking him kindly not to convert me, as in all that concerned Almighty God I could stand no meddling; that I did not fail to pray to Him for light, and at the same time kept my heart open to receive it." Hence even then there could be no question of definite dogmatic Christian teaching in the education of her own and her adopted children.
Later she mourned that her want of faith had deprived the children's earlier years of the blessed knowledge of Christ. Once, when speaking of a family singularly fortunate in the way the sons had turned out, she unhesitatingly ascribed it to their early training in piety and devotion; adding that what she had obtained only through infinite pains and labor, these Christian parents had effected with comparatively little or no trouble.
But a practical difficulty now arose. What were the children, no longer little children, to be taught about religion? It was the very last subject she would entrust to the teaching of a stranger; yet what did she herself know or believe about it? But at length she solved the vexed problem by resolving to teach them "historical Christianity," as she called it, leaving them free to choose their own religion as they grew up. But even for this she had to qualify herself, and with her usual whole-heartedness she threw herself into a most careful and conscientious study of the Bible, especially of the New Testament.
And then there arose before her, dim and shadowy at first, but ever gaining in strength and light and beauty, the blessed picture of the Incarnate God,—of Him who is not only the light of the New Jerusalem, but the sunshine, the glory of every faithful soul in this vale of tears. "I resolved," she says in her memoirs, "to obey our Saviour's touching advice: 'My doctrine is not Mine but His that sent Me. If any man will do the will of Him, he shall know of the doctrine.' Consequently I began to act as if I really believed in Him. I at once compared my principles and actions with His teaching; and how much did I not find that required attention,—many things that before had hardly seemed to me to be faults! I had prayed before only rarely, now I began to pray frequently; and so often were my petitions answered that I became incapable of doubting the efficacy of prayer. Certain doubts against Christianity also were gradually cleared away."