said Meredith looking up.

"Here, this bank, do you mean?"

"This bank; and these pillars of tree-stems; and these wonderful Gothic windows of tree-branches, through which the light comes broken by transom and mullion. And the incense which fills nature's cathedral. And the stillness. And the preaching."

"Don't get highfaluten, Meredith," said his sister.

"No; that would be a pity, here."

"I never heard of silent preaching before."

"The strongest of all."

"Is it? Well, go on and read. My work gets on best then."

"It is too lovely to do anything but look and breathe. The air is most delicious. And nature seems so wide and free. I have an odd feeling that I am floating with those clouds yonder, and flowing softly with the river, and hovering about generally, like those eagles. Do you see those eagles?"

"Highfaluten again, Meredith," said his sister.

"Well, one good poet has been highfaluten then before me. Don't you remember, Maggie, something your uncle was repeating one day? I have never forgotten it--

"'My soul into the boughs does glide.'

"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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d's house, and G.o.d is my Father, and so it is justly and truly my home.

"'And how wonderfully G.o.d 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 Muden, 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 n.o.body 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 Luneburg 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?"

"They had to be put to school first. They were too ignorant to instruct the heathen or anybody. So they were set to study under Pastor Harms'

brother for three years. While they were studying Pastor Harms undertook building a ship which should carry them to Africa. The ship and the men were ready together about the same time."

"They could not have been a very poor people, I should think," said Flora.

"They were, though; but you see, they began by giving themselves to the Lord; and when people do that, I guess they generally find that there is a good deal else to give. Oh, they were poor enough; but it would cost a great deal, you know, to pay their pa.s.sage in a ship belonging to other people, and the freight on all the goods they must carry, for they were going out not merely to preach, but to establish a colony and live among the heathen. And then, whenever new recruits for the mission were sent out, the expense would have to be incurred over again, so they thought the cheapest way in the end would be to build their own ship."

"And they did build it?" said Maggie.

"Certainly. The good ship 'Candace.' And everybody helped in some way.

The shoemakers made shoes, and the tailors made clothes, to go out with the mission; the women knitted and sewed. Do you want to hear what Pastor Harms says about it?"

"Oh, yes, Ditto, please!"

"Yes, read on--anything," said Flora.

"Two men of the first twelve had died, and two others had proved false.

Eight left, to whom another eight joined themselves, who would go out as colonists. Now I will read:--

"'So by G.o.d's grace, everything was ready. And now one should have seen the busy industry, the lively expectation, the gleesome bustle, as the last hand, I may say, was put to everything. In the Mission-house, what learning and counselling and arranging; in the workshops belonging to it, what smithwork and cabinetwork and tailoring; how our women and girls sewed! Our village shoemaker worked with his might at the foot-gear to be taken along; our village cooper did the same at the great water casks for the ship; my brother went out with the Mission pupils in leisure hours and picked berries which were to be taken along.

Here people brought dried apples, pears and plums; there buckwheat and buckwheat groats; here rye, flour, peas, wheat; there sides of bacon, hams, and sausages. Then again house-furnishing articles, tools, heather brooms, trumpets and horns, even live hogs and poultry, and even potatoes were hauled along--and all was to go. Even a fir-tree with its roots was planted in a large pot filled with earth, in order that on the ocean the travellers might light up a Christmas-tree. Then again came packages of linen made up, and of stuff. And there was a great deal that never came to Hermannsburg. Whatever was prepared on the other side of the Elbe, in Hamburg, Lubeck, Haide, &c., was kept in Hamburg, and we never saw it at all. In Hamburg alone there were handed over from female friends of the Mission, one hundred and twenty-eight cotton shirts, all finished and ready; from Haide forty striped shirts for the natives; from Lubeck and Mechlenburg, besides beautiful under-linen, all sorts of pictures and little things for the heathen; from some children here came writing boxes, pens, and writing books for the heathen children. Also from here, from Osnabruck, Schaumburg, Luneburg, Bremen, and neighbourhood, whole rolls of linen cloth. There was a stir and spring of love that moved people's hearts. Every one of the emigrants was to take a gun with him, for in East Africa there are a great many wild beasts, lions, elephants, serpents, &c. Scarcely had this become known, when guns, rifles, double-barrelled rifles, pistols, and daggers came in, till we had enough to leave some for a future party that might be sent out. Then would come our harbourmaster, or our captain, from Harburg, to arrange this or that; then our pupils journeyed to Harburg to bring money for the ship. One hardly knew where his head was.'"

"Well, did they go to Africa, Ditto?"

"The colonists and missionaries; yes, sixteen of them."

"Whereabouts in Africa?"

"The east coast, about Natal."

"I haven't the least idea where Natal is."

"You would do well to look it out on the map."

"And are they there yet, Ditto?"

"They went in the year 1853. It is not likely they are all there now.

But others followed them, Maggie, year after year, till now there are, I believe, between twenty and thirty stations where they are settled."

"All from Hermannsburg! Ditto, it is very curious! So many years ago, Hermann's castles sent out soldiers to bring heathen Mechlenburg to the Christian religion; and now Mechlenburg gives shirts and pictures for Hermannsburg to send to other heathen in Africa."

"What sort of heathen people are those they went to?" Esther asked.

"Quite a good sort. Here is a description of them, written by one of the brethren who sailed in that first trip of the 'Candace':--

"'I cannot make it out how the heathen can be as they are, although they are day and night before my eyes. They are powerful, muscular men, with open faces and sparkling eyes; they all go either quite naked or with a very slight covering. A late law obliges them, however, to put a shirt on when they are going into a city. They live in houses which resemble beehives, into which you must creep. The whole stock of valuables which you find in these huts is an a.s.saghai (javelin), a club, a mat, a bit of wood for a pillow, and a great horn for smoking. I have seen nothing else in them. The people have almost no wants. So many wives as a man has, so many huts has he also, one for each wife, and then one besides for himself. The women are bought; paid for with cows and oxen; ten and twenty oxen for a wife. These become then the man's slaves, and the man, when he has got a good many wives, hardly does any more work himself.

The women must cultivate the maize and sweet potatoes, which is almost all the people live upon. Once in a while they kill an ox; and then so many come together to eat it that it is all disposed of at one meal. Our German brethren aver that ten Caffres in twenty-four hours will eat up a whole ox, skin and entrails and all, which they roast at the fire; that afterwards, however, they can go fasting four days at hard labour. They are fond of adorning themselves with coral and rings, and snuff-boxes are to be seen in the hands of both men and women. They cork up the snuff in their nostrils with a hollowed-out bit of wood, till the tears run down their cheeks. The women are so hardly used that a mother with a little five-days-old baby must go out to work in the hot sun with the baby on her back, and the father does not concern himself at all about the child. Of twins, one is almost always killed at once. In short, they are not much above the beasts in their way of life; and the worst of all is, they are almost inaccessible to the truth, and laugh at everything sacred.'"

CHAPTER VIII.