"It is an odd feeling—but it makes me very rich for the present. This is the loveliest place! And now you shall have the Hermannsburg church. So Pastor Harms writes:
"'It is a great thing indeed, and a beautiful thing, to know somewhat of the origin and of the history of the church in which one worships and serves God. When I step into our church, whether it be for holding divine service or that I may pray there alone, every time, I feel my whole inmost soul stirred. The very walk to the church through the churchyard is edifying to me. The church at the beginning was situated upon a little eminence, so that it was needful to mount several steps to get to the church doors. Now one must go down several steps from the churchyard to reach the entrance of the church. How comes that! Since the year 972 the churchyard has been the place of burial. The dust of those laid within it has raised the ground-level, till now the church lies lower than the churchyard. A hill has grown out of the dust of the dead, and over this hill I go into the church. Does not this walk of itself preach in the most impressive way: "Put thine house in order, O man, for thou must die!" Then, when I step inside the church, what a new sermon I get! Since 972 years after Christ, therefore since 880 years ago, men have worshipped there the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; have sung in his honour the church's songs of praise; have thither brought their children to be baptized; have heard the preaching of the Divine Word there, have eaten and drunk the emblems of the Body and Blood of the Lord there, have bowed their knees there, where now I bow mine! It always seems to me, then, as if the veil were parted which divides the church up yonder from the church down below. Where I am, here have those who are fallen asleep once been and worshipped; and where they are now, thither shall I go also. So in blessed faith I can cry out, "A holy Christian church!" Not a place in the world is so dear to me as the church, my beloved church. I have no paternal mansion; for I am the son of a pastor, and pastors leave no inheritance for their children; and yet I have a Father's house, the best there is in the world, my beloved church; truly that is God's house, and God is my Father, and so it is justly and truly my home.
"'And how wonderfully God has guarded this house of His. What wars have raged since this house has been standing, and it has remained uninjured. Since the Thirty Years' War, Hermannsburg has been four times burned down; this house has remained standing. Twice lightning has struck the tower, and so shattered the foundations that only a little turret stands now upon the riven walls instead of the slender one hundred and eighty feet high spire which was there before; but the church remained untouched. The interior has been altered; the many-coloured paintings on the arched vault of the ceiling are gone; the many-coloured galleries have disappeared; in the body of the church itself gallery over gallery mounts up to the vaulted ceiling, to give accommodation for the hearers, but the church itself has remained unchanged. And when I think of the blessings that have gone forth from this house, what churches, chapels, and cloisters have sprung from here, in Bergen, in Wiezendorf, in Munster, in Müden, and the chronicle mentions many more; yes, when I remember how from the castles founded by Hermann on the Oerze and Wieze, the castellans of Oerze and Wiezendorf marched out so early as with Duke Bernhard, to help bring the heathen people of Lauenburg and Mechlenburg to Christianity; must not then the zeal of my forefathers kindle my own zeal to bring the Lord's blessing, His Word and His sacraments, to the heathen, to the very ends of the earth? And now that seems no longer strange to me which seems strange to so many, that we from this place should have undertaken to send out a peasant mission. It has not been our own doing; it has come from our church and our history. Did the peasant's son Hermann become Duke of Saxony? Was the blessing of Christianity carried from here into all the region round about, even into the countries on the other side of the Elbe? Why should not Hermann's peasant church preach among the heathen the Saviour who has been their own so long? May such a primeval blessing only make us right thankful, right humble, right kind and loving, only zealous and fervent in spirit. We see well enough that the Lord can use little things; therefore let nobody despise us because we are small, and let us have the joy of serving the Lord with our insignificant gifts and strength, as well as we can. It is written in the Scriptures, "Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it!"'"
Meredith ceased reading, and there was a silent pause of a few minutes. Crochet needles worked busily, Maggie sat pondering, Meredith lay back on his elbow on the moss and looked down at the river. Here and there the soft-pointed top of a young cedar rose up between, not hindering, only as it were embellishing the view. In the silence, when the strokes of the woodcutters halted, little sweet sounds broke in, every one of them coming like a caress or a murmur of rest; two crows slowly flying over and calling to each other, some crickets chirruping nearer by, a little gentle rustle and lapping of the water, then a bugle-call from the post opposite. Clouds hardly moved, winds were asleep, the air, fragrant with the breath of the evergreens, scarcely stirred, luxuriously warm and still. The colouring, too, in which all nature had dressed herself, gave another touch of delight through every object which the eye rested on.
"What a sky!" said Meredith. "And what air! It's wonderful."
"Ditto," began Maggie, "have they a mission in Hermannsburg?"
"Yes. They have a mission in Africa."
"Why is it a 'peasant mission,' and what does that mean?"
"Why, you see, Maggie, the whole people of Hermannsburg are just a parcel of peasants, part in the village, and part, I believe, farming it here and there on the Lüneburg heath. They are poor people; small farmers, and the like. They have not much money to give; but when Pastor Harms had been with them a while and proposed to them to set about mission work, a dozen men offered themselves to go. They were already so filled with his own spirit."
"And did they go?"