z's

stinian Conv

te, the rooks are cawing in the church-yard elms, disputing and chattering like a set of busy prosaic burghers. But retired from all this noisy public life, two thrushes have built their nest in a thorn just under the window of my cell. And early in the morning they wake me with song. He flies hither and thither as busy as a bee, wi

is especially tender, and yearns more towards home and former life than it will when strength returns and brings dut

s scarcely left my bed-side. From the first he brought

my heart as much as his

fort he offers, as easily as I recei

combat my difficultie

the seat of disease. But there is One who can." And t

he said to me one day, "that we should believe in the forgiveness of sins; not of David's or Peter's sins, but of our

st given in thy heart is this,

tents! But who can assure

ther Martin had "the testimony of the Holy Ghost in his heart;" but who shall give that to me? to me wh

t, thorough, single-hearted,-all t

even when his words have little power. They make me feel a dim hope now and

t, Ap

ed to him. He was very gentle with me, and to my surprise proscribed

if we resolutely press forward still. And if sin mingles with the regret, remember we have to do not with a painted, but a real Saviour; and he died not for painted, but for real sins. Sin is never overcome by looking at it, but by looking away from it to Him who bore our sins, yours and mine, on the cross. The heart is never won back to G

od, and yet not despaired of. And that evening, after repeating the Hours,

ldness of his judgment prove that I have once more deceived myself-made a false confession, and, therefore, failed of the absolution! But it is a relief to have his positive

il

a command, issuing from the Vicar-General,

direction I am to jou

ew and old,-fills me with an almost childish delight. Since I heard it, my heart and conscience seem

to the Vicar-General about my family, and he has procured for my father an appointment as

lsè will be relieved. It would have been sweeter to me to have earned this relief for them by my o

ublime and enrapt devotion to God which inspires them, with the minute rules of our order, the details of scholastic casuistry, and the precise directions as to the measure of worship and honour, Dulia, Hyp

wer things, and lose ourselves in the One Ineffable Source,

n our convent library, containing the confessions of the

to me to-day. Passionate, fervent, struggling, wandering, tr

one who is now a saint on the m

keness of a beloved form I may remember, without sin, even here, even now. St. Monica speaks to me with my mother's

one house to the last. This can scarcely be given to me. "That sweet habit of living together" is broken for

fter generation of those who now lie sleeping in the field of God below our windows have turned over those pages. Heart after hear

wship around me, and I think how many, strengthened by these words, are perhaps,

cemetery are the relics of the corruptible body. Among these worn volu

rary than I could wish. The books are not so much read, certainly, in these days, as the Vicar-Gene

my search. No history seems written on them. The wrinkles seem mere ruts of the wheels of Time, not furrows so

piritual aim, because their parents planned it so. But I may wrong even the meanest in saying so. The shallowest

olives, and ancient cities-the land of Rome, imperial, saintly Rome, where countless martyrs sleep, where St. Augusti

y

g. He is much changed again since I saw him last, toiling through the streets of Erfurt with the sack on his shoulder. The hollow, worn look, has disappeared from his face, and the fire has come back to his eyes. Their expres

, a history written on it, and a

berg,

of heart with which I set ou

us hither. We travelled partly on hors

of the ancient languages for it. Brother Martin himself proposed to make use of his sojourn at Rome, to improve him

to the Holy Father, concerning a dispute between

ch time for other occupations besides those which are most on our heart

a very devout prince. Not many years since, he accomplished a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a

e site of the small chapel erected in 1353, over the Holy Thorn from th

richer in relics than any church in Europe, except that of Assisi, the birth-

two since, entitled "A Description of the Venerable Re

dred, are at times very turbulent. There is much beer-drinking among them. In 1507, three years since, the Bishop of Brandenburg laid the

em. He himself received the degree of Biblicus (Bible teacher) on the 9th o

eral to preach publicly. I heard some conversation between them in

"It is no little matter," said he to Dr. Staupitz, "to appear before the people in the place of God." "I had fifteen arguments," he continued in relating it to me, "wherewith I purposed to resist my vocation; but they availed nothing." At the last I

ore the brethren in the refectory, at last, with a trembling heart, h

fearful he is; he sees so many heads before him. When I go into the pulpit, I do not look on a

not because? He feels himself nothing; he feels his message everything; he feels

y before me. It was a great rest to live for a time on what I saw, and cease from thought, and remembrance, and inward questionings altogether. For have I not been commanded thi

Albrecht Dürer's paintings, and heard Hans Sachs, the shoemaker and poet, sing his godly German hymns. And as we

ain the familiar forests and green valleys with their streams were around me. I fear Elsè and the others will miss the beauty of the forest-cov

hilosophical questions in the University of Heidelberg; but I,

Odenwald folding over each other. Far up among them I traced the narrow, quiet Neckar, issuing from the silent depths of the forest; while on the other side, below the city, it wound

many what its course shall be. For me it is otherwise. My life, as far as earth is concerned, seems closed,-ended; and it can matter little to any, henceforth, through what regions it passes, if only it reaches the ocean at last, and ends, as they say, in the bosom o

est, May

ns and our lodgings, which he sometimes repays by performing a mass in the parish church, or by a

ced and revived by the early rising, the constant movement

ems reviving. I begin to have a hope and see a l

hat great heart of his my troubles seem like a passing spring shower. Yet to me they were tempests which laid my heart waste. And God, Brother Martin be

can attain a true understanding of the Holy Scriptures. St. Paul had a devil that beat him with fists, and with temptations drove him diligently to study the

n was as near him in the cloister as outside, and he no stronger to cope with him. He told me of his endeavours to keep every minute rule of the order, and how the slightest deviation weighed on his conscience

y he would turn back and retrace his steps; sometimes spending weeks in absorbing study, and then remembering

ly kept sleep from his eyes wearied with study, and his mind worn out with conflict, until every now and then

s secret soul the bitterest questioning of God, who seemed to torment him at once by the law and the gospel. He thought of C

only for himself, but for others. At times, also, in his circuits, after his consecration, to say mass in the villages around Erfurt, he would feel his spirits lightened by the var

e holy sacrifice, at the thought that he, the sacrificing priest, yet the p

flying from the altar-so great was his awe and the sense of his

Lord Jesus, I come to thee and entreat thee to be pleased with whatsoever I do and suffer in my order; and I pray

uch as "enim" or "?ternum," or neglected some prescribed genuflexion, or even a signing of the cross; and

might appease her Son. He hoped that by invoking three saints daily, and by letting his body waste away with fastings and watchings, he should satisfy the

owly, intermittently, indeed; yet it has dawned on him. His day

e words, in reference to some neglect of the rules which troubled his conscience, "Oh, my sins, my sins!" Dr. Staupitz replied, "You would be without sin, and yet you have no proper sins. Christ forgives true sins, such as parricide, blasphemy, contempt of God, adultery, an

h him and rouse him-Dr. Staupitz, and that dear aged confessor, who ministered also so lovingly to me. Brother Martin's great terror was t

ss of God is not against the sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus C

by any work or satisfaction or merit of my own. For this cause I had in me no love of a righteous and angry God, but secretly hated him, and thought within myself, Is it not enough that God has condemned us to everlasting death by Adam's sin, and that we must suffer so much trouble and misery in this life? Over and above the terror and threatening of the law, must he needs increase by the gospel our misery and anguish, and, by the preaching of the same, thunder against us his justice and fierce wrath? My confused conscience ofttimes did cast me into fits of anger, and I sought day and night to make out the meaning of Paul; and at last I came to apprehend it thus: Through the gospel is revealed the righteousness w

ght to him, as the aged confessor had previously narrated to me; for, he said, the devil often p

had indeed drunk of the well-spring of everlasting lif

s of human rules, but mine are different." And I t

their consciences into despair. Christ deals quite in the contrary way, for

d at the calm which reigned on his rugged and massive brow, and fel

ch that tempest-tossed

nd his eyes were lifted up from time to time to

ence, he spoke

delivered from it by our own power, sent his only Son into the world, and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying, 'Be thou Peter, that denier; Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor; David, that adulterer; that sinner that did eat the apple in Paradise; that thief that hanged upon the c

alked along pondering these words. Ne

hrown athwart our green forest-path, so that we were glad to find a cha

d when all were sleeping around me,

wonder. He has suffered too deeply and too recently for that. It is not lightly that he has unlocked the dungeons and torture-c

and a leader of men that God has cause

in what he says, but it seems new to me, as if God had spoke

nest for me to be save

e world, that h

ot those who love him; but "the world," secular men, pro

ngel to teach us, not a world to ran

ieve this; I must believe it; I believe in him who

re me and begin to fill the wo

the victim, the lamb, the curse, willingly yi

less Lamb whom he had given; raising him from the dead; setting him on his right hand.

the selfish, the corrupt, the dead in sins. He gives his Son, the Only-begotten, for me; he ac

pines and spoke to Him who hears when we have

h, Ma

ho had returned from the far country, and as he went towards his father's house prepared his confession; but never finished the journey, for t

t child could say, "Make me a

the grassy forest glades; I heard it in the

oke much during those da

lms, satisfies, as this love of God. And when first it is "thou and I" between God

tionings. Whence came they! B

appy spirit," said he, "and h

h faith is said to be nothing unless it is informed with charity and developed into good works, so that when it saith we are ju

lared it meaneth simpl

im true, wise, righteous, merciful, almighty. The chiefest thing God requireth of man is, that he giveth unto him his glory and divinity; that is to say, that he taketh hi

hese questionings,-from our sins, our works, ourselves, t

th is so simple, and salvation so free, why a

. But we must be obedient to the Church. What we cannot unders

y in the cloister; couldst have helped thy parents and Elsè, and spoken with Eva on these things, which her devout and simple heart has doubtless received already." But, alas! I know too

s separated from my beloved

Eisenach, or even the Order of St. Augustine, in which we may be united s

do here, which in his presence may make life pass as quickl

Monastery

as, like glass mingled with fire, when the reflected snow-peaks burn in the lakes at dawn or sunset; and then this Lombard plain, watered with rivers which make its harvests gleam like gold; this garner of God, where the elms or ch

ins. "Of eating and feasting," as brother Martin says, "there is no lack;" for 12,000 florins are co

with much honour, as a deputation from

ntle and courteous; but they are lighter in thei

n of the world. But I suppose they regard the vow of poverty as binding not on the community, but only on the individual mon

ate viands; the walls are tapestried; the dresses are

s, as substitutes fo

gna,

but as a guest, had, I suppose, scarcely felt at liberty to remonstrate, until Friday came, when, to our amazement, the table was covered with meats

with this silent protest, he boldly said before the who

into what the smoothness of these Ita

ed, their white teeth gleamed with scornful and angry laughter, and their voic

norant Germans," and other biting epithet

t the torrent, and threatened to make

hren gather apart in small groups, and cast sco

to us privately, and warned us that this con

ts, I know not; but we had no wish to linger, and before the next day dawned we crept in the darkness

ologna, for miles, under the flickering shade of trellises covere

lo

eviving again. He has been on

h catarrh one night when we slept with our windows open, or whether the angry monks in the Benedictine Abbey m

y 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

and then thou shall see the counsel of God clearly shining forth. We cannot comprehend God out of Jesus Christ. In C

and victor as Brother Martin; but when the strongest are brought into single combats such as these, which must

Martin fought his way through once more, and as so often happens, just when the figh

urney, came with power to his mind. Again he looked to the crucified Saviour; again he believed in

an to return; and in a few

o

ver. The holy city

, and olives, and thickets of myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and cistus, we walked, until at last the sacred towers and domes burs

er Martin prostrated himself on the earth, an

ce sacred for the blood

stinian monastery, near to the northern gate, through whic

has celebrated a mass

kneel where apostle

ven see the holy

ed nearer h

lt God nearer that nig

and movement, and pomp ar

familiar and home-like, perhap