Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family

And then, moreover, Herr Reichenbach has much to tell me about Brother Martin Luther, who is at the head of the Eremite or Augustine Convent here, and seems to me to be the grea...

What then? Indulgences. Indulgences from what? From the temporal consequences of sin? Too obviously not these. Do the ecclesiastical indulgences save men from disease, and sorro...

The design of the author is to so reproduce the times of the Reformation as to place them more vividly and impressively before the mind of the reader than has been done by ordin...

Fritz is at home with us again. He looks as much a man now as our father, with his moustache and his sword. How cheerful the sound of his firm step and his deep voice makes the...

In other ways more than I can number he and his words have helped me. No one seems to understand as he does what the devil is and does. It is the _temptation_ in the sorrow whic...

For had not my own good, pure, pious mother doubts and scruples almost as bitter? Did not she also live too often as if under a curse? Who or what has thrown this shadow on so m...

On the grandmother's heart the light is more like dawn than sunset--so fresh, and soft, and full of hope her old age seems. The marks of fretting, daily anxiety, and care have b...

Yes; when Dr. Luther speaks he makes us feel we have to do with persons, not with things,--with the devil who hates us, with God who loves us, with the Saviour who died for us....

"But one day the Diet of Egypt met, and resolved that their young queen must be persuaded to marry. They sent a deputation to her in her palace, who asked her, if they could fin...

I have a hope of escape. In a corner of my prison I discovered, some days since, the top of an arch, which I believe must belong to a blocked-up door. By slow degrees--working b...

It goes to my heart to see Aunt Agnes meekly learning from me how to render the little services required at the sick-bed. She smiles, and says her feeble blundering fingers had...

Dr. Luther himself has engaged Dr. Melancthon's assistance in correcting and perfecting the translation of the New Testament, which he made in the solitude of the Wartburg. Thei...

The other half of the story of the picture, however, would not do for Aunt Ursula. In the apron of the saint, instead of loaves of bread are beautiful clusters of red roses. Our...

"Aunt Thekla, why does Dr. Luther preach some times as if his preaching had done no good? Have not many of the evil things he attacked been removed? Is not the Bible in every ho...

Our grandmother would doubtless have understood her better than either our gentle mother or I, but the dear feeble form seems to have been gradually failing since that meeting w...

But bitterer than all other things to him, are the divisions among evangelical Christians. Every truth he believes flashes on his mind with such overwhelming conviction that it...

We would have lingered to parley further, but the heavy nailed doors were closed against us, we heard the massive bolts rattle as they were drawn, and all our assaults with fist...

But in the night, as the wind howled through the countless stems of the pines, not with the soft varieties of sound it makes amidst the summer oak-woods, but with a long monoton...

I lay down again, resolved not to think any more about it. Fritz and I proved once, a long time ago, how useless it is for me, at least, to attempt to get beyond the Ten Command...

"O Lord, my God, where art thou? Come, come; I am ready--ready to forsake life for thy truth, patient as a lamb. For it is a righteous cause, and it is thine own. I will not dep...

When we left our old home in the forest many years since, when Heinz and I were quite children; and it only lingered in our memories as a kind of Eden or fairy-land, where, amon...

Monks can, indeed, do this. The world is open before them, and in some way they are sure to find occupation. But with us it is different. Torn away from our natural homes, the w...

They speak most respectfully and cordially of the Elector Frederick, who must indeed be a very devout prince. Not many years since, he accomplished a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, an...

The chapter of the Augustinian Order in Thuringia and Misnia has met here within this last month, to consider the question of the irrevocable nature of monastic vows. They have...

Now and then we pay a visit to the castle, where our noble sister Chriemhild is enthroned. But my tastes have always been burgher like, and the parsonage suits me much better th...

I went instantly. He was talking very rapidly and vehemently, and in an incoherent way it was difficult to understand. My mother sat quite still, holding his hand. His eyes were...

Save them; yes, save their souls! Did not my vow save precious lives? And shall not my fastings, vigils, disciplines, prayers be as effectual for their souls? And, then, hereaft...

He has seen the monasteries from within; he has felt the monastic life from within. He can say of all these internal rules, "I have proved them, and found them powerless to sanc...

"It sounds to me, children, like an old story of my childhood. Have I not heard such words half a century since in Bohemia? and have I not seen the lips which spoke them silence...

God has given us during these last days to see, as I verily believe, some glimpses into Eden. The mountains with snowy summits, like the white steps of His throne; the rivers wh...

"Is Dr. Luther much changed?" said Heinz. "I think I never saw a nobler face, so resolute and true, and with such a keen glance in his dark eyes. He might have been one of the e...

"Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified; learn to sing to him, and, despairing of thyself, to say to him, 'Lord Jesus, thou art my righteousness, but I am th...

But I know my own mother would not even herself have uttered a word to keep Fritz back. When first we heard of it, and I entreated her to write and remonstrate, although the tea...

My mother, however, is greatly cheered by these words of his, "Our lord and Saviour grant us joyfully to see each other again hereafter. For our faith is sure, and we doubt not...

When I hear him in the debates of the students, all waiting for his opinions, and applauding his eloquent words, I see the laurel already among his black hair, wreathing his mas...

Well, dearly as I loved the old name, I cannot complain of the change. Sister Ave will be as dear to me as Cousin Eva, only a little bit further off, and nearer heaven.

Our house has become rather a gathering place of late; partly, I think, on account of my father's blindness, which always insures that there will be some one at home.

Personally I feel a strong attachment to that brave knight. I can never forget the generous letter he wrote to Luther before his appearance at the Diet:--"_The Lord hear thee in...

Mansfeld, however, is a very holy place. There are many monasteries and nunneries there, and in one of them two of the countesses were nuns. There is also a castle there, and ou...

"But remember, dear mother," I said, "your fears when first Dr. Luther assailed Tetzel and his indulgences three years ago! And who has gained the victory there? Dr. Martin is t...

He had so often been dangerously ill that the thought of death was very familiar to him. In one of his sicknesses he said, "I know I shall not live long. My brain is like a knif...