OFT say we, we are weak and poor,
But which of us believes
Truth so unwelcome can be true?
And he who knows it grieves.
He only who is naught loves low estate
For who is nothing seeks not to be great.
This nothingness shall be my home :
Lord, something let me never be,
My joy and glory Thou alone,
My all eternally.
Let me pass out of sight, no more to lie,
"Thou only seen and heard, O Lord, in me.
—G. TERSTEEGEN.
IT was in 1734 that Tersteegen set forth to visit the "awakened," in the region now———familiar to us, of Schwarzenau and Berleburg. Here he made many new friends, and was two years later invited by a family named Fleischbein, whose acquaintance he had made during his travels, to stay for a time in their house,
The Fleischbein family consisted of an old couple with several children—one a daughter who was married to a pious Baron von Prilschenk, living in the neighbourhood.
Besides parents and children, the household included a " spiritual guide," the friend and teacher of the young Fleischbein, who had made his acquaintance in the woods of Wittgenstein. In this man, Count Charles Hector de Marsay, Tersteegen became deeply interested. His strange history, too long to be given in detail, may serve as a beacon, and latterly as a guiding light, to many in our own time.
Charles de Marsay was the son of a persecuted Huguenot noblemen in the neighbourhood of la Rochelle. This good man died when Charles was an infant. His mother, now a widow, fled with her children from the dragonnade persecution, and took refuge at first in Germany, later in Switzerland.
In Germany, Charles was committed to the care of a couple named Castell, who became his devoted foster-parents. Later on he entered the army, deeply impressed by the Bible teaching and exhortation of the Castells, who were amongst " the quiet in the land." The young soldier set apart several hours in the day for the study of the Bible and of Thomas á. Kempis, and lived a strictly moral life, praying continually at stated hours, and denying himself even needful food and rest.
In consequence he became seriously ill and melancholy, and the more so as he found that his mortifications were labour lost, his evil desires becoming stronger, instead of dying out as he had expected. He therefore owned himself vanquished, and gave himself up to worldly pleasure with an evil conscience which tormented him continually.
At this point a young fellow-soldier, Lieutenant Cordier, wrote to him, sending him the writings of Antoinette Bourignon, and at the same time reproaching him severely for his return to the world. Cordier proposed to his friend that they should both leave the army at once, and live as recluses in some solitary place, taking with them a young field-preacher named Baratier.
Count de Marsay was convinced that Cordier was right. He agreed to go with him and find some lonely forest where they could build a hermitage, but in which direction to go to find such a solitude they knew not.
At this moment de Marsay remembered that his foster-parents had had a son, who, having been originally a barber, had finally married a countess, and that this singular couple were living as hermits in a wood.
On enquiry, the countess proved to be the sister of Count Henry Albert of Berleburg, the same Sophie to whom the Countess Louisa wrote the account of her uncle Rudolf's evil ways. Caste11, the former barber, was, later on, in the service of Count Henry Albert, who had been, as the reader may remember, extremely annoyed at his sisters' unsuitable marriages.
To the hermit Caste11, Count de Marsay sent a message by his foster-parents, asking if he might be allowed a retreat in the woods of Wittgenstein. Having received a warm invitation from Caste11 and the Countess Sophie, the three friends hastened to Wittgenstein, and were much astonished to find so many hermits and hermitesses already peopling the woods. But just a week before their arrival Caste11 had died, and only Sophie remained to welcome them, now a middle-aged lady of forty-six.
They began at once their life of mortification, each one being pledged to make it his object "to break his will, deny himself, and do the will of the other two." They got up each morning at four, and read several chapters in the Bible, Cordier and de Marsay then worked in the fields till seven, whilst Baratier united in himself the offices of housemaid and cook. The cooking was but nominal, for their seven o'clock breakfast consisted only of dry bread. De Marsay then carded wool and knitted, whilst Cordier span. Afterwards Cordier went out to cater for the remaining meals, and de Marsay collected fern and dry leaves, which were to supply beds for the three hermits.
At noon they dined on bread and soup, which varied each week, ringing the changes upon peas, barley, buckwheat, and oatmeal. During dinner Antoinette Bourignon's books were read aloud. Field work and other manual labour lasted till seven, when they supped upon vegetables, either salad, carrots, or radishes, or sometimes water gruel. When Baratier wished to give them a treat, he made milk gruel. They drank only water.
They never spoke except as a necessity, and during their work they were pledged to unbroken meditation and mental prayer. De Marsay confessed later that his meditations were very commonly on the subject of dinner, as he was living in a state of semi-starvation. He therefore determined to demolish the propensity to such unspiritual thoughts by mixing wormwood with his food. On one occasion he yielded to the temptation of eating a potato between meals,
and spent days in self-reproach and repentance, almost in despair, for he "felt that God had given him up to his evil ways." After confessing his sin to his friends he felt relieved, but joy or peace were unknown to him.
He feared he did not know the will of God as exactly as he ought to know it, and betook himself to a shoemaker in the neighbourhood, who was known as an "enthusiast," to ask his advice. The shoemaker wisely advised him rather to go to the Lord for counsel. De Marsay now reproached himself the more for having done the wrong thing in asking human advice; and as a penance, he determined to learn shoemaking from his friend the shoemaker.
But he was now becoming so weak from bad food that work was impossible, and he reproached himself anew for having set his heart too keenly upon shoemaking.
He therefore determined to do nothing but pray, feeling at first a relief and satisfaction in prayer, but by degrees reasoning and arguing with himself, till he found that he was in a labyrinth of confusion.
Meanwhile his two friends had also been making the discovery that their rules and austerities had the effect only of withering and maddening them, and were, in fact, a spiritual treadmill, of which they were becoming heartily weary. Almost unconsciously they began to neglect their regulations ; and before they were aware, they found themselves chatting and joking at all hours. They therefore owned to one another they had been aiming at impossibilities, and now their days were spent in uproarious mirth. They laughed and sang, played games and played tricks, like riotous schoolboys.
De Marsay sometimes had a moment of terror and remorse when he realized the downfall of his endeavours after holiness. A spark of life seems to have been glimmering in his soul all the while, but he felt himself in the power of his now ungodly friends. He determined to give himself up into the hands of God, and betook himself to the reading of Madame Guyon and of Gottfried Arnold.
Cordier, however, was awakened to a sense of his folly by the reproaches of his conscience soon after, and betook himself to a stricter life than before. He left his two friends to live alone, and to give himself up to unlimited mortifications. But, alas ! for his best endeavour—those best endeavours of which so many talk, but to which so few betake themselves with the zeal of Cordier.
Near his new abode there lived a hermitess. Cordier admired her holiness and devotion, and very shortly after married her, and gave himself up thenceforth to a life of luxury and self-indulgence, together with his wife. As a salve to his conscience, he determined to take her on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They stopped short, however, at Damascus, and after a while returned to the neighbourhood of Wittgenstein—Cordier having become a freethinker, proud, profane, and notoriously foolish. He sank at last into atheism.
De Marsay took alarm at the fate of his friend, and in order to strengthen himself in the ways of godliness, he also married, in his turn, a lady who would, he trusted, be a spiritual helpmeet.
This lady, Clara von Callenberg, was thirteen years older than himself, had led an erratic life, at times of the greatest worldliness ; but latterly, in order to regain peace of mind, she too had become a hermitess, living not alone, but at first in the house of a married hermit, who allowed her a corner in a loft, up to which she climbed each night " like a hen."
Afterwards a lady who inhabited some rooms in one of Count Casimir's castles had taken her in ; and for two years she had lived a quiet life, spinning with an old peasant woman, fetching her own wood out of the forest, and believing herself to be on the way to perfection.
When she married Charles de Marsay their united fortunes amounted to a crown ; but friends having provided them with some small sums, they bought from Cordier the hut, about two miles from Schwarzenau, in which he had lived before his marriage, and for which they paid him twelve crowns. They took possession of this abode on New Year's-day, 1713, bringing all their worldly goods in a wheelbarrow (a proof, says their biographer, that a bed was not amongst their possessions).
Their house was eight feet long. It had no window but a pane of glass stuck into the whitewashed wall. The floor was the bare earth, and the damp so great that the stove had to burn three hours before the room was in any degree warm. Not a creature lived anywhere within two miles, except the widow of a pastor, Frau Gruber, who, with one daughter, inhabited a lonely hut.
Here De Marsay and Clara were so happy, and so lost in "pious meditations," that they merely existed in a passive state without any household cares. In order to save time, which might otherwise be expended on cooking, they lived on bread and butter and drank cold water. This trance-like existence lasted, however, but a short time. Clara's health broke down, as might be expected, and the ecstatic feelings upon which their happiness was built, proved a sandy foundation.
To gain peace of soul they wandered forth, both bitterly disappointed at their failure. De Marsay went on foot to Geneva, hoping to convert his mother. She was also anxious to convert him ; being deeply grieved at his marrying against her expressed wishes without visible means of subsistence. She regarded him as a fanatic, and almost as a lunatic.
After ten days spent in fruitless arguments, De Marsay returned to his hut with a fresh project in hand. Clara, who had wandered about during his seven weeks' absence, and who now returned to him, was enthusiastic as to the new plan.
De Marsay was to start on an evangelistic walking tour all over the world, dressed in poor apparel, to be like the apostles. Clara was quite ready to walk all over the world also. But Baratier interposed, and assured his friend it was a suggestion of Satan acting upon his natural pride and self-will. De Marsay was struck with remorse, and spent months in self-reproach and humiliation. He came to the conclusion he had never been converted at all.
Next year the widow's daughter married a pastor, and the De Marsays left their hut to live with Frau Gruber in her solitude. The good lady, who was of a commanding nature, ruled her guests with a rod of iron. She kept them hard at work in the hut and in the field ; and De Marsay was glad of such a hard discipline to break the self-will and pride over which he had been lamenting.
Frau Gruber fed them only on pulse, goat's milk, and coarse black bread. Sometimes for a treat she gave them a cake of black corn. Meat was never seen in her establishment. In spring they were allowed boiled nettles and dandelion leaves ; and in summer there were a few vegetables in the little garden, and wild strawberries in the wood.
After awhile another married daughter proposed to live in the hut, and the widow left it. The De Marsays were now free to start on a fresh stretch of their zigzag course. Count Charles betook himself to nursing the sick for a short time. Then, on receiving thirty crowns as a present from his mother, he was again seized with a fervent desire for her conversion, and he and his wife set off together on foot to tramp to Geneva.
The result was the same as on the former occasion; but this time Charles was persuaded to stay for a time in Switzerland amongst Christian friends of his mother's. These good people were much edified by the spiritual conversation of this pair of anchorites, and gave them credit for much more wisdom and knowledge than they possessed. In consequence the heads of both Charles de Marsay and his wife were fairly turned, and they became intoxicated with the praise and adulation bestowed upon them.
During this time one of their Swiss friends gave them the books of Madame Guyon, of whom they became at once fervent disciples. The writings of Antoinette Bourignon now seemed to them something which they had quite outgrown—she was, they said, with unconscious profanity, but the John the Baptist who preceded Madame Guyon.
As on former occasions, their joyful experiences were followed by a time of remorse and repentance. When they had returned to their hut in the forest, they had their eyes opened, they said, to a long array of faults and delusions in which they had been indulging in Switzerland. They therefore reproached themselves unsparingly, and did penance actually and literally in sackcloth and ashes. They resolved to mortify themselves for their pride and vanity by living on bread sprinkled with hot water, and a little butter. They gave away all the money which had been given to Charles by his mother and brother, and also their under linen, and every pot and pan, or cup or plate, which were not absolutely indispensable. They sold their hut to a weaver, and bought a little room near the castle of the Countess Hedwig Sophie, chiefly because it was on damp and unhealthy soil.
Very soon Charles de Marsay repented bitterly of this fit of self-abnegation. He saw that to reduce himself to beggary, and to live upon alms, was to take the alms from the poor who had no rich relations as he had to supply their wants. He and his wife, therefore, set forth again to visit their relations, borrowing money for their respective journeys. Charles went to his brother, who was staying at Paris; Clara to her brother, near Cassel. Charles hoped to find Madame Guyon at Blois, on his way to Paris, but she had died just before he started.
Bearing in mind how on former occasions he had been accustomed to treat his relations with bearish rudeness, by way of expressing that lie regarded them as unconverted heathens, he determined to atone for his past spiritual pride by a display of supernatural humility. His brother was astonished at the excess of his amiability. Charles was ready to go with him to preaching and to the communion, and each time he expressed his sense of unworthiness, and his conviction that none were so unfit as he to be received at the Lord's-table. Yet all this time his conscience reproached him for overdoing his voluntary humility.
His brother invited him, with his wife, to take up their abode near him in Switzerland, in the town of Vevey, and promised him a yearly pension. The Swiss friends who had so admired and flattered him on the former occasion, were now much altered. Their zeal and devotedness had been a hero-worship of favourite pastors and preachers. Now they had all cooled down. Some had returned to the world, some had become freethinkers. De Marsay felt very much bewildered amongst them, and as far as his light went, he warned and exhorted them.
At the same time, now that he had a fixed income, he became anxious and careful, as he had never been when he was penniless, lest he should not be able to provide for his needs, Both he and his wife wished themselves back in the woods of Schwarzenau, and thither they returned. They did not like to turn out the weaver who was installed in their one room, and therefore built for themselves a new and tolerably comfortable house.
Happily they had just escaped, by their absence in Switzerland, an invasion of the " Inspired," who had paid a flying visit to Schwarzenau. Had they fallen in the way of prophets and prophetesses, their history might have become even less commonplace than it now appears to us,