Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

dering slowly around the room, and at last their steady gaze fixed on the fire; and out of her confused thinking of the boys, and the letters she had written and they never had received, and matters of profit and loss, which would have had strange expression had she opened her lips, one conviction rose clear and full, she could never marry this successful man. Jared might stand for the statue of honesty, but the soul of him was untrue. The curse of mammon was not on her soul. And so she said at last, when he had asked more than once for her answer:

"Very well, Jared. I understand how you feel about it. You are right, I think. I ought not to trouble you about these matters, which only concern Thorpe and me. I hadn't thought of it that it was necessary for us to talk of this, but now I see that it was. I thank you, Jared, for having served my mother so well and so kindly."

And thus it was that Christy stepped from one sphere of life into anothershowed herself daring in action, as she had been in hoping.

Some sordid blood there had been in the generations represented by her, but never had it made itself felt in Christy. In controlling the Ferry business she might gain nothing, might lose all; but it was her power and privilege to keep her eyes steadily fixed on the bright side of life, and all was with her according to her faith.

She found friends to sustain her-men to serve her the bugbear Business took off its mask and showed a genial aspect. She had lost nothing at the end of the year, but on the contrary had gained much-a varied interest in life, occupation, mighty word, almighty fact! and had lost nothing-no! neither in purse, in spiritual stamina, nor in that which made her dear, beautiful, and precious to rude boys and rough men.

And in such an hour as she thought not, they for whom she was always hoping, came!

living as the Christian must, in the spirit of the song, "the Lord's appointment is the servant's hour."

When, the ice-bolts of the north being withdrawn, Thorpe and Abram, who had been fast bound, made their way back to Kite's Point, and found who had been there, and Christy's note still waiting for them, they said, "We will go home," and they went home, no longer boys, but men.

Thorpe then must take his father's place. Thorpe said "with Abram;" Christy said "with Abram," and as she looked at her brother she blessed the friendly Providence that had carried him away into the frozen north, where the moral life in him was stiffened by the remembrances of home.

"It was always Christy who expected something of him," Abram said to her, "it was never me."

But you took him-you saved him. You went off and left all the good chances of comfort and fortune behind you—” here Christy seemed to have nothing more to say, for nothing more she said. Abram said the rest.

"Christy, I used to think it would take more than icebergs and scurvy to do me, for I could not help believing that you were here waiting to know what had become of us."

The spring which followed the return of Thorpe and Abram saw the Ferry deprived of its one great man. The spirit of enterprise, or some other spirit, drew Jared away from his native place, and I do not think that he ever returned to it.

How the indissoluble firm of Bloss and Stark went on prospering and to prosper everybody knows. That threefold cord proved stronger than could be burned or broken.

Oh! patient souls, to whom shall never come the joy that came to Christy, watching and waiting for the return of your wanderers, for the ransom of your captives, watering your hopes with the dew of youth and the tears of age, can you

She was prepared for them; she was rejoice for her sake?

A CHRISTIAN WOMAN TO MARY.

I.

O, MARY, Mother! not to thee

My invocations will I raise,

Or ask thy help in doubtful ways— Thou would'st not have it thus of me.

If sorrow could in heaven creep;

If thou from thy high place could see The prayers men steal from God for thee, I think thou could'st not help but weep

Such tears as grief could never force
On earth, more bitter than those shed
Upon the mangled, bleeding head
Of Jesus dying on the cross.

We, who in purer light now live,

Fearing lest we should some way turn
Our love to worship, often spurn
The joys and lessons thou canst give.

Rather, in thy deep mystery,

With loving, Christ-illumined eyes, Glean we from memories that rise The sweets of thy sad history.

II.

We love to let our fancy roam

In blest Judea's fertile glade,
And see thee playing in the shade,
And strive to paint thy childhood's home.

Gabriel appears-then comes a thrill
Of wonder, joy, and ecstasy,
At thy love, faith, humility,

And meek submission to God's will.

That angel's "Hail "— an honor good-
Like beaming circlets painters trace,
Lights up the beauty of thy face
And hallows all thy womanhood.

And from the breast where Christ reclined
Cometh a blessing, passing down
From age to age, to bless and crown
All good and true of womankind.

Nor let us treat the gift with scorn

It is an honor, passing rare,

Which each of us can claim and shareThat Jesus Christ was woman-born.

III.

Beside the manger-bed we stand,

And see the babe, whose sovereign will

Controls the universe, lie still

And take caresses from thy hand.

And yet more wonderful, we see
The Father's Son and glorious Heir,
Go down to Nazareth, and there
Be daily subject unto thee.

What passing joy shall soon be ours
When we have passed yon Jordan's tide,
To sit us down by Mary's side,
And talk of Jesus' childhood hours!

When she those sayings will impart
Which scripture telleth not, and so
We cannot guess, but only know
That Mary kept them in her heart.

IV.

And after all those weary years
We stand beside thee at the cross,
And feel the bitter, bitter loss,
And hear the dropping of thy tears,

When from the dying lips there broke
Those words to the beloved John:
"Behold thy mother;-this thy son,
O Mother!"-Love incarnate spoke!

When from thy sleepless pillow gone

Thou hastenest through the twilight gloom, We seek with thee the rocky tomb, And meet the resurrection morn.

V.

The holy writer's lips are sealed
Concerning all thy after life,

Whether it passed in care and strife,

Or hopeful peace, is not revealed.

But dearly fancy loves to roam

Back to thy deathbed, painting how

Death gently smoothed the careworn brow When Jesus took his Mother home!

And if according to the grace
Bestowed on us a rank is given
Amid the glorious saints of heaven,
Thou, Mary, hast the highest place.

For so it seemeth unto me

Thy crown a purer light doth shed Than that on any blessed head, Thy harp a nobler melody.

Thy loveliness without compare

The robes of thy Son's righteousness Beaming through all the Holy PlaceSweet Mother! I shall know thee there!

MARTIN LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG.

IN the beautiful land of Thuringia, where rich plains covered with golden grain surround gentle swelling hills clad in luxurious foliage and crowned with hoary old castles, there arises a mountain dear to all Germans and sacred to those who love their Protestant faith. On its crest stands a group of noble old buildings, looking with long rows of bright windows far into the distance, and in their midst a lofty tower surmounted by a cross. The way to the top is narrow and steep; now winding around masses of moss-covered rock, or rising on steep stone steps; now passing over deep green meadows, overshadowed with noble trees, until from a detached structure a trembling bridge leads you right under the old worn-out drawbridge into the castle it self. In the cluster of buildings you hardly know at first where to turn to; whether to laugh at the eccentric spouts with their huge dragon-mouths and scaly bodies, or to stand admiringly before the long rows of Gothic windows, grouped by fours and fives right opposite the old Landgrave's tower with the covered stairway winding around it on the outside.

This is the famous Wartburg, a name which acts upon Germans with a charm equalled only by that of the Kyffhauser, where their great Emperor awaits the restoration of the Empire, and is even now asking once more the oft-repeated question: Watchman, what of the time? There is no Emperor here, however, and no political greatness is hoped for from modest Thuringia; but the memories that cluster around the unpretending castle are dear to the heart, and full of sweet memories of the past.

As far back as the twelfth century the Wartburg was famous in all lands, where poetry was known and the love of fair ladies in favor with noble knights, as the home of all that adorned life in those days of chivalrous strife and youthful love. The whole splendor of medieval hospitality, heightened by the charms of poetry, was here displayed by the Landgrave Her

mann the First, and great is the number of chronicles, and glowing with admiration are the poems and songs, which celebrate the festive days at the castle, when valiant knights and far-famed Minnesingers crowded its halls and were all the guests and the friends of the generous prince. It was in those days, about the year 1207, that the Wartburg became the scene of the most magnificent tournament ever held in times of old; a tournament where no swords were wielded and no blood was spilled, where the strong arm was of no avail and brute force was despised. Six of Germany's most famous poets met at the hospitable court, and, surrounded by all that was great and fair in the Fatherland, entered into a glorious strife with each other for the crown that was to adorn the brow of its greatest poets. So fierce was the struggle, that the loser was, by common agreement, to fall into the hands of the executioner; so serious the threat that Henry of Ofterdingen, to save his life from the wrath of his five competitors, had to seek refuge in the rooms of the Landgravine Sophia. Nor is the event less dear to German hearts, less interesting to all Christian souls, because it was the conflict between simple, childlike faith as praised in sweet verse by the deeply pious Wolfram von Eschenbach and the worldly wisdom and sceptic sneering of the famous singer from Hungary, whom the chroniclers of the day extolled as the able philosopher, the deeply learned master in worldly arts, and especially well versed in astronomy and the "black art." The strife remained undecided, and to this day Germany is torn by the same old and ever new struggle in the heart of her children.

Once more the Wartburg became ineffably dear to all loving and believing men through the memory of Elizabeth, the wife of Landgrave Ludwig. The tender love and unshaken fidelity with which the young couple clung to each other, the deep piety of the princess, and her silent

deeds of charity, are proverbial among they thus rode for their lives, the child Christians. Even when the extrava- cried for food and could not be silenced. gance of the faith of her day misled Then the prince checked his horse and her, we cannot deny her our admiration, with the cry: "Hold, friends, the child though our sympathy may be destroyed. must drink and should it cost me all ThuNo one can read with unmoved heart ringia!" they stop and wait until the the story of her self-denying life; how infant's wants are satisfied. The daring she spun and wove for the poor, how she deed and the defiant appearance of the fed the hungry when the failure of the little troop had so happy an effect upon crops had brought starvation to the once the enemy that the noble prince reached happy land, how she bore privations and the convent unharmed and the child was even scourged herself in order to please christened at once. God after the manner of her time. All the error of such self-inflicted torture is forgotten, when she loses her darling husband on his way to the Holy Land, and is then driven by a brutal brother-in-law from her home to wander helpless and friendless in midwinter through the land that once owed her allegiance. No wonder that only a few years after she had died worthily of her life, she was canonized, and is to this day revered throughout all Christendom as Holy Elizabeth.

Many are the legends and many the sweet songs that carry us back in later times to the old castle, and every now and then we meet some of those touchingly simple traits that never fail to move the heart even in distant times and faroff lands. Thus the little principality was once in the hands of a Frederick, who bore the curious surname of the Bitten, because his mother, driven out by an inhuman husband and saved by a faithful servant, bit her child into the cheek in taking leave of him, before she, an Emperor's daughter, was lowered down in a basket from the walls of the castle, and thus escaped the hired assassin. This Frederick found himself once besieged in the Wartburg by a large army, and just then God gave him a child, which the pious father was anxious to have christened at once. But there was no priest in the beleaguered castle. The brave old knight, however, thought it his solemn duty to bring the little girl at once to the Saviour, and, with ten followers only, the nurse with the child in the midst, he rode in a dark night from his house to a distant convent. As day broke he was seen by the enemy and fiercely pursued. While

But of all traditions and historical accounts that are connected with the Wartburg, none can compete in deep and world-wide interest with the record of Martin Luther's residence in the castle. A pious minister of the neighborhood who had made the study of the history of the place his favorite pursuit, contributed to the eight hundredth anniversary of its existence a few facts connected with this episode which we hope will not prove uninteresting to our readers, as they have never been published before.

Luther's last words at the Diet of Worms: "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen!" had destroyed every hope to induce him to recant. His enemies swore he should be silenced, and especially not be allowed to return to Wittenberg. These openly avowed intentions of his adversaries naturally made it the duty of his friends to provide for his safety; but the power and the good-will to do so were granted but to one man, his high protector, the wise Elector Frederick of Saxony. At the same time it was all-important for this prince, who was a most conscientious man, that he should in candor be able to assure his liege lord, the Emperor, of his ignorance of Luther's abode. He therefore entrusted the whole matter to his secretary Spalatin, with the understanding that nothing more should come to his ears about the affair. The secretary, a pious but timid minister, again preferred entrusting a "bold blade," the keeper of the castle of the Wartburg, with the execution of the plan. How he managed to send from Worms, where weighty matters of state kept him engaged, safe

« AnteriorContinuar »