CHAPTER XII.
Meredith paused, half closed his book, was evidently pondering for aminute, and then exclaimed, "I have learned something!"
"Why, so have we all," said his sister. "What now particularly?"
"I have got a hint."
"What about? There is no fortress for you to storm, and you do not wantthe treasure."
"I think I should like to have lived in those times," Meredith went on."People were in earnest, Mr. Murray."
"Yes. So are some people in these times."
"But not the world generally; or only about making money. _Then_ peoplewere in earnest about things worth the while."
"It does seem so from these stories," said Mr. Murray; "but, dearMeredith, you may be equally in earnest about the same things now, andwith as good reason."
"Isn't it more difficult, sir, when nobody else, or only a few here andthere, think and feel with you?"
"Yes, more difficult; or rather, more easy to go to sleep; but so muchthe greater need of men who are not asleep. What is your hint? I amcurious, with Miss Flora."
"The way that fellow spent his treasure, sir. I was thinking, wouldn't achapel--that is, a little church--a little free church, at Meadow Parkbe a good thing? The nearest church is two miles off; we can drive toit, but the people who have no horses cannot, and the poor people"----
Meredith got a variety of answers to this suggestion. His sister openedher mouth for an outcry of dismay. Maggie clapped her hands with a burstof joy. Esther stared; and a smile, very sweet and wise, showed itselfon Mr. Murray's lips.
"Quixotic!--ridiculous!" said Flora. "Isn't it, Mr. Murray? Ditto hasnot money enough for everything, either. A church!--and then, I suppose,a minister!"
"Is it a bad notion, Mr. Murray?" inquired Meredith.
"I should think not very."
"Is it extravagant?"
"Miss Flora thinks so."
"Well, Mr. Murray, think what it would cost!" cried the young lady.
"Not so much as a large evening party--that is, it ought not. I supposeMeredith is not thinking of stone carvings and painted windows, but of aneat, pleasant, pretty, plain house, where people can worship God andhear the words of life."
"That is it exactly," said Meredith.
"Then I should say that one very fine evening entertainment would buildtwo."
"But the minister! he must be paid," said Flora.
"Yes, and I am not for starving a minister, either," said Mr. Murray."But what is Meredith to do with his income, Miss Flora?"
"That's just what I want to know," remarked Meredith in an undertone;while Flora answered with some irritation--
"He can let it accumulate till he has made up his mind."
"'Riches kept for the owners of them, to their hurt,'" said Mr. Murray."Better not, Miss Flora. Remember, Meredith is only a steward. 'Thesilver is mine, and the gold is mine,' saith the Lord of hosts."
"Do you mean, Mr. Murray, that we cannot do what we like with ourmoney?"
"You can do what you like with it, certainly."
"But I mean, isn't it _right_ for us to do what we like with it?"
"I should like to do that," murmured Meredith.
"Miss Flora, the question is, rightly stated,--May a steward use hislord's money for his own or his lord's pleasure?"
Flora coloured and pouted. "But that makes religion----Why, I neverthought religion was strict like _that_. Then it isn't right to buyjewels or dresses?"
"Dresses--certainly."
"But I mean, rich dresses--dresses for company. And pictures--andhorses--and books--and"----
"Stop, Miss Flora. The servant himself belongs to his lord; therefore hemust make of himself the very best he can. For this, books willcertainly be needed, and to some degree all the other things you havenamed, except jewels and what you call _rich_ dresses. The only questionin each case is--'How can I do the Lord's work best? how can I spendthis money to honour and please Him most?' That will not always be bythe cheapest dress that can be bought, nor by checking the cultivationof taste and the acquiring of knowledge, nor even by the foregoing ofarts and accomplishments. Only the question comes back at every step,and must at every step be answered--'What does the Lord want me to do_here_? Does He wish me to spend this money--or time--on myself, or onsomebody else?'"
"Why it would be _always_ on somebody else," said Flora looking ready toburst into tears; "and there would be no real living at all--no enjoyingof life."
"A mistake," said Mr. Murray quietly. "The Lord told us long ago--'Hethat will save his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life formy sake, _the same shall find it_.'"
Flora put up her hand over her eyes, but Meredith's eyes sparkled.
"Then you think well of my plan, Mr. Murray?" he said.
"As far as I understand it."
"How would the Pavilion do, for a skeleton of the church?"
"O Ditto! the dear old Pavilion!" exclaimed Maggie.
"Why not? I do not want to shut myself off from everybody now; and Ihave the whole house--more than enough. And the Pavilion stands in agood place near the road."
Mr. Murray and Meredith went into a discussion of the plan, and Maggielistened, while Flora after a while resumed her work and went moodily onwith it. At last Mr. Murray remarked--
"This is not so interesting to everybody, Meredith, and we have timeenough to talk it over. Suppose you go on reading."
"Do you like these Saxon stories?" said Meredith pleased.
"Very much."
"There is some more hero about--not Dagefoerde exactly; but that samefight, which I think you would like perhaps to hear."
"And, Meredith, you did not read us about that minister who wasconverted by the catechism," said Maggie.
"No, that is another story--Pastor Gruenhagen. I will read to you firstabout the fight at the Huenenburg.
"'The Huenenburg is situated in a deep dell in the midst of the heathabout an hour from Hermannsburg; and I will relate to you what I havefound in the chronicle about it. It is nine hundred years now since ahard-fought and terrible battle took place here, which was foughtbetween the Christians and the heathen. At that time the pious andChristian Kaiser, Otto the Great, ruled in Germany (A.D. 936-973), wholoved the Lord his God with all his heart. He had gone away out ofGermany into Italy, in order to free a captive queen who was kept inprison there by some godless folk. But he would not leave Germanywithout protection; therefore he made over this country to Duke Hermann,to govern it and to take care of it. In like manner Adaldag, Archbishopof Hamburg and Bremen, who went with the Kaiser, confided his dominionsto the same guardianship. Now the Wends, who lived on the other side ofthe Elbe, especially in Mechlenburg, and had spread themselves abroad onthis side the Elbe also, were at that time still heathen. And now whenthe Kaiser was absent, they thought the time was come for marauding andplundering, hunting the Christians out of their country, or utterlydestroying them. So they summoned up all their warriors, and that sosecretly that the Christians knew nothing of it until they came breakinginto the country. As there was nowhere any preparation for defenceagainst them, they robbed and plundered all that came in their way,burned down the churches, killed the priests, and dragged the rest intocaptivity for slaves. Duke Hermann was just then in the Brementerritory, from whence he had expelled the piratical Northmen (theDanes). There the terrible news found him. In the greatest haste hecollected his warriors to come and save his country. For the Wends hadalready penetrated to Lueneburg, as far as this heath, and had laideverything waste with fire and sword; the Hermannsburg church wasdestroyed by them at that time. Here upon this ground they had made astrong encampment, and surrounded it with ditches and fortificationslike a fortress; they were from fifty to sixty thousand men strong, inhorsemen and footmen, and all of them alive with the same enraged hatredof the Christians, and determined that every trace of Christianityshould be wiped away from the land. In August of the year 945 DukeHermann marched hither out of the Bremen country, over the nor
thernheights of Liddernhausen and Dohnsen. When he saw himself with his eightthousand men on foot and two thousand horsemen confronted by the greathost of the Wends, he said to his faithful followers--"We must fight;whether God will give us the victory, we must leave with Him." Thenstepped up one of his knights before him, who is called in the chronicle"the brave Conrad," of the now extinct race of them of Haselhorst, andspoke:--
"'"Let us get a token from God. I will go forward and challenge one ofthe enemy to single combat; so will the Lord show us to whom He hasallotted the victory."
"'Duke Hermann gave permission. The knight, followed at some distance bya hundred men, who were to see that all was done in order, rode aloneinto the defile and challenged Mistewoi, the leader of the Wends, tosend one of his people to meet him in single combat. Then steppedforward Zwentibold, a Wend of giant stature, clad in a dragon skin andwith a shirt of link-mail over it, and on the head of his helmet theblack image of his god Zernebok; behind him also a hundred men to lookon. The Christian knight first called upon God to be his helper andprotection: "Lord remember how Thou gavest strength to Thy servant Davidagainst the giant Goliath who had reviled Thy name; so now to-dayestablish Thy glory among the heathen, and show plainly that Thou artthe true God."
"'Upon that, with lances in rest, they charged upon each other; and whenthe spears were splintered in that first shock, then it came to a fightwith swords, man against man. Suddenly comes a traitor's arrow from theWends flying through the air and kills the Christian's horse. But theirwickedness turns to their own knight's ruin. For as the Wend gallops upto the fallen Christian, and is about to cut him down with a stroke fromabove, up springs the Christian knight and thrusts his sword in underthe other's shoulder, so that he falls dead from his horse. The victoryis won! But hereupon comes new treachery. For now those hundred Wendscharge straight down upon the German knight. As his own attendantsperceive this, they hasten to his help, nothing loath; the armies onboth sides close in, and the fight soon becomes general. It is foughtwith the utmost bitterness and bravery on both sides till evening fall.But the Christians all the while press steadily forward.
"'While the men wielded the sword, the wives of the Christians came outto the field, drew away the wounded and sucked the blood from theirwounds (because they believed that the arrows of the Wends werepoisoned), bound them up, and encouraged their husbands and sons to makebrave fight. A company of twelve priests carried a banner with a redcross on a white ground. The priests sang, "Kyrie Eleison!" ("Lord, havemercy upon us!") "Christe Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!" and the people chimedin. A terror of God went with them wherever they went and scattered theWends from every place where the white banner came. As one of theheathen leaders with a company was making a determined rush upon thebanner, the peasant of Dagefoerde drove his spear through the chieftain'scoat of mail into his breast. Thereupon the heathen all fled. And allthe Christians fell upon their knees, and all cried out, "Lord God, wepraise Thee!" Then the priests spoke the benediction over the victorioushost. And they left nothing remaining of the enemy's camp, but destroyedit entirely, because they would not suffer any heathen works upon theirground. But the name has remained; for Huehnen was the name ourforefathers gave to all heathen; that came from the Huns in the firstplace, who fell upon the Christians with such heathenish rage. So thatplace is called Huehnenburg until this day.
"'The church at Hermannsburg was rebuilt again after that time. And soonalso Christianity came to the Wends, and the Lord Jesus was conquerorover them all.'"
"You read part of that before," said Maggie.
"Part of the story; but I thought you would like to have the whole."
"Oh, I do. But I thought it was Zwentibold that Henning of Dagefoerdekilled, when he was trying to get at the white banner."
"Maybe there were two Zwentibolds; or the story got a little confusedamong the old chroniclers."
"Then how is one to know which is true?"
"It is difficult, very often, Maggie," her uncle said smiling. "Humantestimony is a strange thing, and very susceptible of getting confused."
"What will you read next, Ditto? About the minister who was converted?"
"Oh, no," said Flora. "Let the catechism alone. Haven't you got somemore Saxon stories, Meredith?"
"Plenty. Which shall it be, Mr. Murray?"
"Saxon, for this time."
"'THE REMMIGA FARM.
"'As in my former narrations I have told of the glorious victory whichwith God's help Landolf gained over the old priest Heinrich and hischildren, I will tell you now of a third victory which the Lord grantedhim. An hour from here was a farm which in the chronicle is called theRemmiga manor; it was inhabited by a free man named Walo. His wife'sname was Odela, sometimes the chronicle calls her Adela. The name isone, for the word Adel is often written and spoken as Odel in the oldmanuscripts. The pair had a son, who bore his father's name.
"'As owner of a head manor, Walo was at the same time priest of thecommunity, which dignity always went along with the possession of achief manor among the old Saxons. All the councils and courts of thecommunity were held under his presidency; he brought the sacrificesthereto pertaining; and it is easy to imagine what consideration on allthese accounts he enjoyed. This consideration was still furtherheightened by the fact of his knowledge of the old laws and customs, andby his incorruptible truth and uprightness. Like Heinrich, he too was atthe beginning a determined enemy of the Christian religion. Landolfvisited him frequently and told him about the Lord Jesus, but Walo's earwas deaf to the truth of the gospel. He knew from old legends that onceupon a time two brothers, the white and the black Ewald, who hadpreached Christianity among the Saxons, had been by them sacrificed totheir idols. And so, with Saxon tenacity holding fast to the oldtraditions, he told Landolf to his face that in justice he ought tosuffer the same fate which had fallen upon the two Ewalds; and that itcould not be carried out upon him, simply because the decision of thepeople, taken by the national assembly at the stone-houses, once takenbecame a law, according to which the free preaching of the gospel waspermitted. Landolf did not allow himself to be daunted by this, butcontinued his visits and his teachings; for he observed that Walo, inspite of all that, always listened with attention when he told about theLord Christ.
"'One day Landolf came again to Remmiga. He found Walo sitting in frontof his dwelling, by the place of sacrifice, where the assemblies of thedistrict were wont to be held, still and sunk in his own thoughts. Nearhim stood his wife Odela and his little son, who was perhaps twelveyears old. The boy ran joyously to meet Landolf and said--"It is nicethat you have come. I have just been asking father to let me go awaywith you; I would like to hear a great deal about the Lord Jesus; I wantto be His disciple. Mother is glad; and," he whispered softly, "sheloves the Son of God too; but father feels very troubled, and don't likeit; he says he has lost his wife and his son to-day!" Odela gave Landolfher hand and spoke aloud. "Yes, I love Jesus; I want to be His disciple;but Walo will have none of it; and so I too will go with you, that I mayhear about Jesus and be baptized."
"'Landolf hardly knew where he stood. Until this time Odela and her sonhad listened in silence when he talked about Jesus, but never a word hadthey spoken. Now they told him how, while he talked, the Lord Jesus hadso grown in their hearts that they could not get loose from Him again;and they did not wish to get loose; for they wanted to be saved and tocome into the Christian's heaven, where Jesus is and the holy angels.
"'Then up rose Walo, turned a dark look upon Landolf, and said to him,"Thou hast led astray my wife and my son with thy words, and now I haveno wife and no son any more. Go out of my grounds; take my wife and myson with thee; they have no love for me any longer; their love is forJesus."
"'"O Walo!" Landolf answered, "seest thou not yet that thy gods are deadidols? Dost thou not see that Jesus is the true, the living God? Jesushas won their hearts; thine idols cannot win hearts; thou mayest seethat by thy wife and thy son. Let Jesus gain thy heart too. You shallall three be saved."
"'Walo shook his head. "He wins not my heart!"
"'"Then," cried the servant of the Lord joyfully, "then shall thy wifeand thy son win thy heart for Jesus. Thy wife and thy son desire to bebaptized. Thou canst not hinder them: they are free; they are nobleborn. I am going to baptize them now, this day, in thy presence; forthey believe in Jesus that He is the Son of God. But I know that thywife and thy son are dear to thee, and thou art very dear to them, onlyJesus is dearer yet. Let them remain with thee after they are baptized;do not thrust them out from thy house. And if, when they are baptized,they love thee still better than formerly, if they are more dutiful tothee than formerly, wilt thou then believe that Jesus is mightier thanthine idols? Thou hast often told me that Odela is proud and passionate,though in all else good and noble. Now if when she is baptized shebecomes humble and gentle, wilt thou then believe that Jesus can givepeople new hearts?"
"'Walo looked at the glad Landolf with an astonished face. "Odela humbleand gentle!" said he. "Yes, then I will believe that Jesus can make theheart new; I will believe that He is God, and I will worship Him."
"'"Give me thy right hand, Walo," said Landolf; "I know a Saxon keepshis word and never tells a lie, and Walo before all others."
"'They shook hands. Landolf did not delay. He went immediately forHermann and Heinrich, and fetched them to share in his joy and to act asthe sponsors. And oh, how gladly they came! That same evening Adela andher son were baptized in the name of the Triune God; and Landolfjoyously reminded them that he had promised Walo his wife and his sonshould win his heart for Christ.
"'A year passed away, and on the very day on which Adela and her son hadbeen baptized, Walo also received baptism; for the Christianised Adelahad become humble and gentle, because Jesus dwelt in her heart; andafter their baptism she and her son had loved the husband and fatherstill more ardently, and had been more obedient to him than before. Waloconfessed, "they are better than I." Oh, the Christian walk, theChristian walk! how mighty it is to convert! The walk of Christians isthe living preaching of the living God.
"'And now a Christian chapel was erected by Walo at Remmiga, on theplace of sacrifice; and around the chapel there rose up a Christianvillage, which established itself upon his soil and territory; a brookran through the new village, which was therefore called Bekedorf, and iscalled so at the present day; it lies in the parish of Hermannsburg. Thechapel stood till the Thirty Years' War; it was burnt down then byTilly's marauders, and has never been built up again. But there is moreof the story. Walo died old and full of days, in the arms of his wifeand son. Landolf had gone home long before, and so had old Hermann andHeinrich. But the young Walo had grown to be the most faithful friend ofHermann's son, who was also named Hermann, and who by Kaiser Otto theGreat was made Duke of Saxony. So then, when Hermann Billing was madethe Kaiser's lieutenant of the kingdom in Northern Germany, uponoccasion of Otto's journey into Italy, Hermann made his faithful Walo agraf, that is, one of the chief judges of the country; and he travelledabout and wrought justice and righteousness, and was, as the Scripturesays of an upright judge, "for a terror to evil-doers and the praise ofthem that did well." He married Odelinde, a noble young lady, who alsoloved the Saviour, and had been brought up by the good cloister ladiesat the Quaenenburg. They led a happy and God-fearing life, but they hadno children. When now both of them were old and advanced in years,Odelinde one day was reminding her husband of the blessing she hadreceived from the pious training of the cloister ladies; and she askedhim whether, as they had no children, and were rich, they might notfound another cloister with their money, in which noble young girlsshould be educated by good cloister sisters. Walo complied with her wishgladly; for he loved the kingdom of God, and at that time the cloisterswere simply the abodes of piety; they were not yet places of idleness,but of diligence; not homes of lawlessness, but of modesty; not ofsuperstition, but of faith.
"'About four miles from his place on the river Boehme lay a wide tract ofmeadow land, bordered by a magnificent thick wood of oaks and beeches.When Walo travelled through the country as graf, he had often beengreatly pleased with this spot; and it had occurred to him that suchbeauty ought not to remain any longer given up to wild beasts, butshould become a dwelling-place for men. This thought recurred nowvividly to his mind. His wife desired to see the place too. So they wentto view it, and decided to build a cloister there, around which thenother human dwellings would grow up, but the cloister itself should bethe home of pious ladies whose special business should be the bringingup of nobly-born young girls. The wood was rooted up' (_roden_ is toroot up); 'and on the _Rode_' (that is, the space cleared) 'the cloisterwas built, which thereupon was called _Walo's Rode_; about which laterthe village _Walsrode_ was settled, which still later spread itself outinto a little city, having the cloister to thank for its origin. Walonot only built the cloister at his own expense, but also endowed it forits support with the tithes of the Bekedorf village, which belonged tothe manor. It is but a little while since the Bekedorfers bought offthese tithes.
"'I must state, however, that in my extracts from the chronicle thereoccurs a divergence from the usual dates. That is, I have formerly readunder a picture of Graf Walo in the cloister church at Walsrode thenumber of the year 986. In my extracts, on the other hand, it is saidthat the cloister was founded by Walo in the year of grace 974, andconsecrated by Bishop Landward of Muenden. The last can be explained bythe fact that the valley of the Oerze belonged to the see of Muenden andnot to the nearer Verden, and therefore Walsrode also being founded fromhence, must be consecrated by the Muenden bishop. But as to thedifference of the two dates, I can do nothing further to clear that up,since I am no investigator of history, but have singly written down whatI have found.'"
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