The beautiful figures of the gods in the magnificent temples were false images that had no life. The priests who served them laughed at them and at the people who knelt before them, but the sages and the wise were ashamed of both gods and priests. The world had become a chaos without strength and stay. Man could not find peace either in his heart or in his house or out in the market-place. In the Roman Empire humanity had become lost in itself, it lay in chains beneath the purple mantle that covered its bruised and bleeding limbs; the sky was dark above it and the radiance of its golden diadem was but the livid light of the night of death. In spite of life's magnificence and commotion, the earth had come to be without form and void as before the creation. Pastor Josias Tillenius said this in words which his people understood. No one dared stir; only the quicker breathing of the listeners was heard and when Margarethe Jörenson, a great-grandmother of nearly a hundred years, the only person who slept in that assembly and who, according to a former order of the pastor's must not be awakened under any circumstances, let her big hymn-book slip from her lap and fall to the floor, a sudden shock passed through every heart and the hardened men of the sea started.
"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men!" It was as if these words broke the spell that lay upon the people of Grunzenow as they had once broken the fetters of all mankind.
The star of redemption stood above the stable in Bethlehem; the Saviour had been born into the world of hunger; the man of sorrows, the son of man, the son of God who was to take the sin of man upon him, had appeared, and the poor shepherds came running from the field, not to be followed till later by the kings and the wise men, to greet the child in the manger, this child which came just in time to be included in the census of the population of the Roman Empire which the Emperor Augustus had ordered. Now the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God had come. Hungry mankind stretched out its hands for the "bread that comes from heaven and gives life to the world." The heaven above which had been so dark and drear opened above the children of the earth: all the nations saw the great light,—humanity tore the crown from its humiliated head and threw the purple mantle from its shoulders. It was no longer ashamed of its bleeding wounds, its bruised and fettered limbs,—it knelt and listened. "Truth!" was the jubilant cry from the rising of the sun, and from the going down thereof the joyful answer was "Freedom!" "Love!" sang the angels about the hut in which Mary, she of the house of David, and Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, showed the shepherds the child that had been born in the night. And now Pastor Josias Tillenius showed it to the children of the village; for the festival of Christmas is the true festival for the young to whom the sublime Easter Day can bear no message until the first great grief has touched their souls. And as the old preacher was thus speaking of Christmas to the children the new day dawned. Its first pale light was seen through the windows of the little church and the lanterns and wax candles grew dim before the rosy glow that suffused the winter sky. Again the organ pealed, the congregation of Grunzenow sang the final verse of the Christmas hymn, the service was over.
Hans and Fränzchen stood in the churchyard beside the preacher and the old Colonel and all the people of Grunzenow who passed them on the way down again into the village nodded to them or came up to shake hands and welcome them to their midst. The sky grew redder and redder, the lights of the village disappeared in the dawn as had the lights in the church. The organ ceased, the sexton too came, smiling shyly, to congratulate Candidate Unwirrsch. The day came but the voice of the sea did not die away.
The last inhabitants of the village had gone; Pastor Josias Tillenius looked at the betrothed couple and then said:
"Come, Colonel, you will have to lend me your arm as usual. The young people will be able to find their way alone, I am sure."
Colonel von Bullau looked at Hans and Fränzchen and drew his old friend's hand through his arm.
And now the pastor and Colonel von Bullau had left the churchyard like the rest of the people. Hans and his betrothed stood alone among the snow-covered graves. They stood and held each other in a close embrace. The same thought occurred to them both at the same moment, that the time would come when they, too, should lie there in the little churchyard and sleep; but they smiled and did not wish themselves away.
Labor and love! this was the thought that thrilled their hearts and they knew that they had been given both. The day came up clear from the east; the fog parted above the sea,—the sea sang of freedom, the sun sang of truth; and the world did not belong to Dr. Théophile Stein, who had once been Moses Freudenstein: Johannes and Franziska stood over the graves of the poor little village of Grunzenow and in their love they feared neither life nor death.