Part 2 (1/2)

CHAPTER IV.

THE PARSONAGE.

”The Lord thy Shepherd is-- Dread not nor be dismayed-- To lead thee on through stormy paths, By ways His hand hath made.”

On the morning of the day that we have written of, the young Protestant pastor of Dringenstadt was seated in a room of the small house which went by the name of ”Das Pfarrhaus.”

He was meditating more than studying just then. He felt his work there an uphill one. Almost all the people in that little town were Roman Catholics. His own flock was a little one indeed, and only that morning he had received a letter telling him that it had been settled that no regular ministry would be continued there, as funds were not forthcoming, and the need in one sense seemed small. He had come there only a few months before, knowing well that he might only be allowed to remain a short time; but now that the order for his removal elsewhere had come, he felt discouraged and sad. Was it right, he was asking himself, to withdraw the true gospel light from the people, and to leave the few, no doubt very few, who loved it to themselves? Karl Langen was a true Christian, longing to lead souls to Jesus, and was much perplexed by the order he had received. Suddenly a knock at the door roused him, and the woman who took charge of his house on entering told him that a man from the Forest wished to speak to him. Telling her to send him in at once, he awaited his entry.

Johann Schmidt was shown into the room, and told his sorrowful tale in a quiet, manly way.

The pastor was much moved, and repeated with amazement the words, ”A child lost in the Black Forest, and the father dead, you say? Certainly I will come and see. But why, my friend, should you think the man was an Evangelisch?” Then Johann told of the words he had repeated, of the child's prayer and her little brown book.

Suddenly a light seemed to dawn on the mind of the young pastor. ”Oh!”

he said, ”I believe you are right. I think I have seen both the father and the child. Last Sunday there came into our church a gentleman and a lovely little girl, just such a one as you describe the child you speak of to be. I tried to speak to them after wors.h.i.+p, but ere I could do so they had gone. And no one could tell me who they were or whither they had gone. I will now see the Burgermeister about the funeral, and make arrangements regarding it. I think through some friends of mine I can get money sufficient to pay all expenses.”

Johann thanked him warmly, and hastened back to tell what had been agreed on, and then got off to his work.

Late in the afternoon Pastor Langen took his way to the little hut in the Black Forest.

The Forest by the road he took was not well known to him, and the solemn quiet which pervaded it struck him much and raised his thoughts to G.o.d.

It was as if he had entered the sanctuary and heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him. It was, as a poet has expressed it, as if

”Solemn and silent everywhere, The trees with folded hands stood there, Kneeling at their evening prayer.”

Only the slight murmuring of the breeze amongst the leaves, or the flutter of a bird's wing as it flew from branch to branch, broke the silence. All around him there was

”A slumberous sound, a sound that brings The feeling of a dream, As when a bell no longer swings, Faint the hollow echo rings O'er meadow, lake, and stream.”

As he walked, he thought much of the child found in the Forest, and he wondered how he could help her or find out to whom she belonged. Oh, if only, he said to himself, he had been able to speak to the father the day he had seen him, and learned something of his history! Johann had told him that if no clue could be found to the child's relations, Wilhelm Horstel had determined to bring her up; but Johann had added, ”We will not, poor though we be, let the whole expense of her upbringing fall on the Horstels. No; we will go share for share, and she shall be called the child of the wood-cutters.”

As he thought of these words, the young pastor prayed for the kind, large-hearted men, asking that the knowledge of the loving Christ might s.h.i.+ne into their hearts and bring spiritual light into the darkness which surrounded them. The afternoon had merged into evening ere he entered the wood-cutters' Dorf. As he neared Johann's hut, Gretchen came to the door, and he greeted her with the words, ”The Lord be with you, and bless you for your kindness to the poor man in the time of his need.”

”Come in, sir,” she said, ”and see the corpse. Oh, but he's been a fine-looking man, and he so young too. It was a sight to see his bit child crying beside him and begging him to say one word to her--just one word. Then she folded her hands, and looking up said, 'O kind Jesus, who made Lazarus come to life, make dear fader live again.' Oh, 'twas pitiful to see her! Who think you, sir, was the man she spoke of called Lazarus? When I asked her she said it was all written in her little brown book, which she would bring along and read to me some day, bless the little creature.”

The pastor said some words about the story being told by the Lord Jesus, and recorded in the Holy Scriptures. He did not offer her a Testament, as he knew if the priest heard (as it was likely he would) of his having been there, he would ask if they had been given a Bible, and so trouble would follow. But he rejoiced that the little child had it in her heart to read the words of life to the kind woman, and he breathed a prayer that her little brown Bible might prove a blessing to those poor wood-cutters.

Pastor Langen at once recognized the features of the dead man as those of the stranger whom he had seen with the lovely child in the little church. He then made arrangements for the funeral the next day, and departed.

On the morrow a number of wood-cutters met at the house of Johann Schmidt to attend the funeral of the stranger gentleman. Wilhelm Horstel, and his wife, Hans, and little Frida, were there also. The child was crying softly, as if she realized that even the corpse of her father was to be taken from her.

Presently the young pastor entered, and the moment Frida saw him she started forward, saying in her child language, ”O sir, I've seen you before, when fader and I heard you preach some days ago.” All this was said in the pure German language, which the people hardly followed at all, but which was the same as the pastor himself spoke. He at once recognized the child, and sought to obtain from her some information regarding her father. She only said, as she had already done, that he was going to England to see some friends of her mother's. When questioned as to their name, she could not tell. All that she knew was that they were relations of her mother's. Yes, her father loved his Bible, and had given her such a nice little brown one which had belonged to her mother.

Could she speak any English, the pastor asked.