A Still Hour.
“From the Rock that God has riven
Flows the sacred River,
Through the wastes of barren ages
Ever and forever.
Full and fresh from depths unfathomed
Still it flows along;
Making glad the Holy City
Of eternal song.
Still on this side and on that side
Grow the healing trees,
Bearing fruit for all who hunger,
Leaves for all disease.
Still to drink the living waters
Come the souls athirst;
Eyes behold the Face of Jesus
Even as at first.
Sheep lie yet in God’s green pastures
By the waters still;
Lilies grow amidst His meadows,
Cedars on His hill.
Clad in white there walk beside Him
Still the blessed throng;
Through the ages sound unsilenced
Psaltery and song.
In procession never broken,
from the Cross they wend,
To the sacred bridal chamber,
Where the journeyings end.”
“IT is an entirely false supposition,” writes Dr. Keller, “arising from the statements of opponents, and from the analogy of later centuries, that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries present us with a confused mass of heterogeneous church communities amongst the German nations.
“It is true that in the Roman Church, as in the so-called ‘Christian communities,’ certain tendencies or schools existed, produced by the influence of some important men.
“But at the bottom there can be only found in Germany at that period two great currents, represented on the one side by the Romish hierarchy, on the other by the so-called ‘Waldensian Brethren.’
“All forms of spiritual life at that epoch rest upon great and general impulses, and upon the wide stream of traditions of long past ages. As in architecture an individual master produced details in his work which arose from his own individuality, but beneath these details held strictly and unswervingly to traditional forms and rules, so is it with the religious literature which has descended to us from those centuries.
“Indeed one may go further, and assert that as an expert in observing any building of that period can at once decide whether it belongs to the class of Byzantine or Gothic art; so, a historian who is acquainted with the religious sphere of thought of the ‘Christian communities’ on the one hand, and with that of the Roman Church on the other, can at a glance perceive whether a written production of a religious nature has its origin in the one or the other sphere.
“The laws of architecture enable an adept to be certain of the style to which even detached fragments of building belong. There are forms and measurements which to an ordinary observer contain no evidence, but which to an architectural expert contain the clue to the principle upon which the whole building was erected.
“Does the same analogy hold good when applied to religious literature?
“Facts prove to us that the same laws are carried out. From a sentence, a form of expression, even from a single word, it is as possible in this case to arrive at sure results as to the question whether the written work proceeds from Roman or from ‘Christian’ sources.”
Nor can we, as Dr. Keller further explains, arrive at these results by the bare knowledge of the fact that the author was professedly a member of the Roman Church, or a declared “Waldensian Christian.” For the community of thought and of faith was not limited by the outward ecclesiastical position; the writings of priests, monks, and nuns may or may not belong to the sphere of Roman thought.
The teaching of the “Waldensian Brethren” had penetrated into the convents and amongst the priesthood which still retained the name of “Catholic,” and it is only by the confession of faith contained in the writings handed down to us that we can trace the power of the Spirit of God, as a river of pure water flowing through barren tracts, and bringing with it life and gladness.
We may therefore disentangle from the weeds and briers the plants of God’s planting, nourished by the stream of living water; and though we may not know in each case the means by which the Gospel of Christ reached the soul, whether by the immediate teaching of the Spirit, or by means of believing men and women, we can distinguish those souls without difficulty from the benighted, the superstitious, and the formalists around them. To one such believer in the Lord Jesus Christ we will now turn.
More than six hundred years have passed away since the “still hour” in the convent of Hellfde, near Eisleben, when the Abbess Gertrude von Hackeborn wrote suddenly some words, still to be read, upon the tablet which hung by her side.
For “a mighty drawing of the Holy Spirit “led her at that moment to begin to write” that which in secret and in silence the Beloved of her heart had spoken, when in still hours she was alone with Him.” And thus she wrote:—
“The depth of the untreated Wisdom calleth to the depth of the Almighty Love, praising, O Lord, and magnifying the marvels of Thy grace, Thy mercy fathomless and overflowing. For Thou, O God of my life, Thou, the most sweet, Thou, the One only Beloved of my soul, hast poured forth the tide of Thy mercy as a mighty stream, and it has flowed downwards and onwards through the waste and barren places, and has swept away the barriers I had piled up to hinder it, in the valley of my misery and my sin.
“For in the six and twentieth year of my age, or the day to me so blessed, the 24th of February” (the year about 1280), “in an hour for which my heart had longed, and when the twilight of the dawn was breaking, didst Thou, O Truth, O God, make Thyself known to me.
“Thou, who art brighter than all light, and more mysterious than all secret things, Thou didst then tenderly and gently begin the work of my conversion. For thou hadst purposed to enlighten my thick darkness, and to still the restless longing which a month before thou didst awaken in my soul.
“This restless weariness it was, O Lord, which shattered the tower of my vanity and my wisdom, built up by my inordinate love of learning―inordinate, though by my cloister vows I had professed to give myself to Thee.
“And it seemed to me on that day, February the 24th that I was sitting in the choir, in the corner where I was wont to repeat my lukewarm prayers. And it was as if Thine own voice spake to me and said, ‘Thou hast been feeding with Mine enemies on earth and ashes, and seeking for honey amongst the briers. Turn at long last to Me, and I will welcome thee, and I will make thee to drink of the river of My pleasures, and of the joy of God.’
“And when Thou spakest these words, my heart was melted within me, and with a mighty longing would I have drawn nigh to Thee.
“But lo! between my soul and Thee, I saw as it were a fence long and high—so long that neither to right nor left could I see the end thereof. And so thickly was the fence beset with thorns up to the topmost edge, that I saw no way whereby I might break through it to come to Thee, the one only consolation of my heart. And I knew that this was the fence of my sins and my transgressions which stood between my soul and Thee. And I stood there and I wept, for the longing I had after Thee, till there was no more spirit in me.
“Then, O Thou Father of the poor and the sorrowful, Thou, whose mercies are over all Thy works, then didst Thou take me by my hand, and I found that I had passed beyond the fence, and was brought near, how near, to Thee!
“And when I beheld the Hand that held me and brought me nigh, then did I know, O beloved Lord Jesus, how it was that the handwriting which stood against me, Thine enemy, was blotted out, for I saw the blessed glory of Thy wounds, and on that Hand whence flowed of old the precious Blood, was written the assurance of Thine eternal love.
“Therefore, I praise Thee and adore Thee, and I thank from the innermost depths of my heart Thy wise mercy and Thy merciful wisdom. For Thou, my Creator and my Redeemer, hast in loving tenderness bent my stubborn neck beneath Thine easy yoke, and hast caused me to walk in the way where the odors of Thine ointments are sweet, and the light of a new day is fair and clear. So can I bear witness that the yoke which I deemed so hard, and the burden which seemed so heavy, are easy and are light to those who walk with Thee.”