CHAPTER VIII.

CONFERENCE MEETING.

The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory, and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from eight o'clock till two.

Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.

At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy of Handel's sacred oratorio of The Messiah in his hand. Evidently he was waiting for Sister Benigna.

But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.

"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and Elise?"

"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with that folly, as his next words showed.

"It is, and yet I have done it—only because all this might have been so easily avoided."

"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.

"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."

Startled by the expression the minister was giving to her secret thoughts, Benigna exclaimed, "And yet what can be done?"

"Nothing," he answered. "If Loretz should yield to Spener, and if I should—do you not see he has had everything his own way here?—he would feel that nothing could stand in opposition to him. If he were a different man! And they are both so young!"

"I know that Elise has a conscience that will hold her fast to duty," said Benigna, but she did not speak hopefully: she spoke deliberately, however, thinking that these words conscience and duty might arrest the minister's attention, and that he would perhaps, by some means, throw light upon questions which were constantly becoming more perplexing to her. Was conscience an unfailing guide? Was one person's duty to be pronounced upon by another without scruple, and defined with unfaltering exactness? But the words had not arrested the minister's attention.

"If they could only see that there is nothing to be done!" said he. "Oh, they will, Benigna! Had they only the faith, Benigna!"

"Yet how vain their sacrifice, for they have it not!" said she. And as if she would not prolong an interview which must be full of pain, because no light could proceed from any words that would be given them to speak, Sister Benigna turned abruptly toward the basement door when she had said this, and entered it without bestowing a parting glance even on the minister.

He walked away after an instant's hesitation: indeed there was nothing further to be said, and she did well to go.

Going homeward by a path which led along the hillside above the village street, he must pass the small house separated from all others—the house which was the appointed resting-place of all who lived in Spenersberg to die there—known as the Corpse-house. To it the bodies of deceased persons were always taken after death, and there they remained until the hour when they were carried forth for burial.

As Mr. Wenck approached he saw that the door stood open: a few steps farther, and this fact was accounted for. A bent and wrinkled old woman stood there with a broom in her hand, which she had been using in a plain, straight-forward manner.

"Ah, Mary," he said, "what does this mean, my good woman?"

"It is the minister," she answered in a low voice, curtseying. "I was moved to come here this morning, sir, and see to things. It was time to be brushing up a little, I thought. It is a month now since the last."

"I will take down the old boughs then, and garnish the walls with new ones. And have you looked at the lamp too, Mary?"

"It is trimmed, sir," said the woman; and the minister's readiness to assist her drew forth the confession: "I was thinking on my bed in the night-watches that it must be done. There will one be going home soon. And it may be myself, sir. I could not have been easy if I had not come up to tidy the house."

Having finished her task, which was a short one and easily performed, the woman now waited to watch the minister as he selected cedar boughs and wove them into wreaths, and suspended them from the walls and rafters of the little room; and it comforted the simple soul when, standing in the doorway, the good man lifted his eyes toward heaven and said in the words of the church litany:

and devoutly she joined in with him in the solemn responsive cry.

It was very evident that the minister's work that day was not to be performed in his silent home among his books.

On the brightest day let the sun become eclipsed, and how the earth will pine! What melancholy will pervade the busy streets, the pleasant fields and woods! How disconsolately the birds will seek their mates and their nests!

The children came together, but many a half hour passed during which the shadow of an Unknown seemed to come between them and their teacher. The bright soul, was she too suffering from an eclipse? Does it happen that all souls, even the most valiant, most loving, least selfish, come in time to passes so difficult that, shrinking back, they say, "Why should I struggle to gain the other side? What is there worth seeking? Better to end all here. This life is not worth enduring"? And yet, does it also come to pass as certainly that these valiant, unselfish, loving ones will struggle, fight, climb, wade, creep on, on while the breath of life remains in them, and never surrender? It seemed as if Sister Benigna had arrived at a place where her baffled spirit stood still and felt its helplessness. Could she do nothing for Elise, the dear child for whose happiness she would cheerfully give her life, and not think the price too dear?

By and by the children were aware that Sister Benigna had come again among them: the humblest little flower lifted up its head, and the smallest bird began to chirp and move about and smooth its wings.

Sister Benigna! what had she recollected?—that but a single day perhaps was hers to live, and here were all these children! As she turned with ardent zeal to her work—which indeed had not failed of accustomed conduct so far as routine went—tell me what do you find in those lovely eyes if not the heavenliest assurances? Let who will call the scene of this life's operations a vale of tears, a world of misery, a prison-house of the spirit, here is one who asks for herself nothing of honors or riches or pleasures, and who can bless the Lord God for the glory of the earth he has created, and for those everlasting purposes of his which mortals can but trust in, and which are past finding out. Children, let us do our best to-day, and wait until to-morrow for to-morrow's gifts. This exhortation was in the eyes, mien, conduct of the teacher, and so she led them on until, when they came to practice their hymns for the festival, every little heart and voice was in tune, and she praised them with voice so cheerful, how should they guess that it had ever been choked by anguish or had ever fainted in despair?

O young eyes saddening over what is to you a painful, insoluble problem! yet a little while and you shall see the mists of morning breaking everywhere, and the great conquering sun will enfold you too in its warm embrace: the humble laurels of the mountain's side, even as the great pines and cedars of the mountain's crest, have but to receive and use what the sterile rock and the blinding cloud, the wintry tempest and the rain and the summer's heat bestow, and lo! the heights are alive with glory. But it is not in a day.