AM I not enough, Mine own? enough, Mine own, for thee?
Hath the world its palace towers,
Garden glades of magic flowers
Where thou fain wouldst be?
Fair things and false are there,
False things but fair.
All shalt thou find at last,
Only in Me.
Am I not enough, Mine own? I, for ever and alone,
I, needing thee?
—G. TERSTEEGEN.
ERNEST Christopher Hochmann von Hochenau was the son of a nobleman, who in his later days settled at Nüremburg. Ernest's elder brother Henry was a member of the Imperial council, and a privy councilor at the little court of Gotha.
To Ernest himself was offered, when very young, the post of syndic in the town of Nuremburg. Henry, who was fond of his brother, was pleased at this opening for him, and urged him to accept it. But Ernest replied that "he had devoted himself to the service of a far higher Master; namely, the Lord Jesus, the King of kings."
He had been awakened and brought to Christ at the Pietist University of Halle, by means of the godly professor, Augustus Hermann Francke.
It has been said, perhaps truly, as a proof of our human imperfection, that he who never feels too much never feels enough, and we need not wonder that Ernest Hochmann appears to have been carried away by some fanatical outbreak, in which several students distinguished themselves by noisy demonstrations, and was for a time imprisoned.
Yet at this time it was more to religion than to Christ that he had been converted ; and, consequently, whilst he was one day led away by religious excitement, he was on other days carried along in the stream of pleasure and amusement.
God follows His own, and uses strange means for winning hearts to Himself. One day, when Ernest was out hunting, he leapt through a hedge, and left the scabbard of his dagger sticking on a branch. When he turned to take it, he saw that the scabbard and the branch formed a Latin cross, and in that moment the thought that the Lord had loved him, and given Himself for him, struck him to the heart.
He unfastened his belt, and threw it away with dagger and sheath. "No more of that !" he said aloud. " Henceforward I give myself up, wholly, determinately, to God my Saviour. I am resolved to risk all for Him, joyfully and gladly, body, life, goods, my heart's blood, all for Christ, fearing neither sword, nor fire, nor gallows, nor wheel."
For at that time tidings came across the Rhine of the brave people of the Cevennes, who were tortured, hanged, broken on the wheel, hunted and massacred for Christ.
A friend of Hochmann's relates, that after this memorable day his joy was constantly so great, and so full, that he could not refrain from singing aloud, and rejoicing like one who was already in heaven.
"I willingly confess," he wrote to his beloved brother, " that when the Heavenly Wisdom gives me a sight of the great glory of those who shall sit with Christ upon His throne, I feel so mightily stirred to the great conflict, that if I had a thousand lives, I would gladly give them all, and thank Him. It is but a trifle to suffer in this world, and who would not welcome the suffering, having once had a foretaste of the majesty and glory of the Son of God in the Father's house—the glory of Christ upon His throne ! My heart melts within me with love and delight, when I think that henceforward my daily task will be to lose myself in that love, in that love which is unto death, the love of Christ, to share His death, Who gave me life, in order that as a willing sacrifice I should offer up myself to Him."
Ernest Hochmann's love did not expend itself in ecstasies. He felt constrained by a mighty power to work for God, seeking first the conversion of his brother.
Amongst all awakened Pietists the blessed hope of the Lord's return was to be found; and joined to this, in all cases, a fervent desire for the conversion and restoration of the ancient people of God, the Jews, who had been, till now, simply the objects of the hatred and contempt of Christians.
Hochmann laboured diligently amongst the Jews of Frankfort, and so aroused them by his preaching, that numbers melted into tears and groans when he spoke to them of Jesus. He readily believed that the beloved people of God were now on the point of turning to Him whom they had pierced. But a more experienced Pietist, Gichtel, assured him that God's time for this great miracle was not yet come, and that for the present only here and there would some be gathered out for Christ.
It was in the year 1699 that Hochmann, then twenty-nine years old, took refuge in the forests of Wittgenstein. A violent persecution of the Pietists had broken out in 1698 in the neighbourhood of Frankfort, and in Hesse Darmstadt, where Hochmann was preaching, and he was marked out as being a heretic and an "enthusiast."
He built himself a hermitage in the woods near Schwarzenau, and lived much alone, but preached and taught in the castles of the counts. Through him it was that the Countess Hedwig was at this time brought to Christ. In consequence of this, Count Rudolf, her brother, dispatched his servants to thrash Hochmann within an inch of his life, and to drag him off to prison. After a while he let him go, sending after him a mounted servant to drive him at full speed from his territories. This was in August, 1700.
Hochmann wrote at that time to Count Augustus, "The Lord has strengthened me so wonderfully and so endlessly in all my persecutions, that nothing terrible or disgraceful seems capable of moving me ; for the uninterrupted peace of God, and the perfect joy of the Lord Jesus, give me constant cheer, and cause me to tread under foot all that is not of God and Christ. So that if God preserves me in this state, and gives me increasing strength, I do not doubt that all tortures and ill-treatments of His enemies would be unable to make my heart to fail."
After this we hear of Hochmann's wanderings, everywhere preaching the gospel, for ten or eleven years. He traversed the whole of Western and Northern Germany with several friends, who also preached and held meetings, in houses, in farm yards, fields, and forests, by day and by night. Crowds came together, drawn by the singing of hymns, as later in England, when Wesley preached through the length and breadth, of the land.
Not only so, but following the example of George Fox the Quaker, Hochmann would stand up in the churches, and call the preachers to account for their false teaching, his spirit being stirred within him when he saw the blind multitudes following their blind leaders.
When we read the accounts of the lives and the teaching of Lutheran and Reformed pastors of those days, we are inclined to think Hochmann's strange conduct far less strange than that of the men and women who sat in their seats Sunday after Sunday to listen in silence.
Great and blessed exceptions there were ; but when we meet with these exceptional preachers and teachers, we find that it was by their lips the loudest condemnation was spoken of the fallen Protestant Churches. " Christianity," writes one, " is become anti-christianity, because the lives of those who profess it are utterly unchristian. And the preachers are, in the first place, answerable for this, because many amongst them are themselves unconverted."
"The pastors in many villages," writes Goebel, "had to he warned not to encourage the tippling of beer and brandy in their own houses, and also not to frequent in such unseemly fashion the common taverns and beer-houses, lest tidings should be brought to the civil magistrate that they had been the cause, or the abettors, of drunkenness, debauchery, brawls, fighting, card-playing, casting of dice, dancing, rioting, unseasonable tobacco-smoking, and other disorderly practices."
On the other hand, amongst the Reformed clergy, to preach against the Lutherans, with long Latin quotations, was far more common than to preach the gospel of Christ ; to preach the law, than to preach the glad tidings of the love of God ; to warn men against "enthusiasm," than to arouse them from lukewarmness and from the sleep of death. If we compare the drunken, or the hard and dry preacher, the dead, sleepy congregation, and the Pietist Hochmann, is it more shocking to us that he raised his voice to witness for Christ, not only in season but out of season, than that pastor and people bore witness so loudly, and at all seasons, to the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil ?
Like George Fox, too, Hochmann was entirely regardless of consequences. We find him, in 17o2, in prison at Detmold ; next year, in Hanover ; in 1708 and 1709, in a dungeon at Nuremburg; 1711, imprisoned at Halle. From Ntiremburg prison he wrote, "My heart can find rest in nothing, but only in the one only love, the love of Jesus, and he who once has tasted what it is, will lose all taste for the things of this world. The Lord Jesus will henceforward do with me as He will, come what may. I have given myself up to the service of my gracious Lord, and His I remain. I shall find no better Lord and Master, turn where I will."
One day, as he sat by the road side, a nobleman with a train of servants rode by. Hochmann went up to him, and spoke to him of Christ. "Thrash him soundly," said the enraged man to his servants, "the fantastic enthusiast !" Hochmann was quite ready to be thrashed. " Thank you," he said to the servant, with a pleasant smile, when he could thrash him no more. The poor fellow broke down, and humbly begged his pardon.
During these years of wandering, Hochmann returned from time to time to his hermitage in Wittgenstein. This little hermitage was built on the side of a mountain cleft, not far from the castle of Schwarzenau. A steep, stony path led up to the quiet and beautiful glen, whence there was a glorious view of the wooded valleys below. There stood the solitary hut, amongst spreading fruit trees, " where," writes Goebel, " Hochmann lived alone with a servant. His furniture was scanty, his dress very plain and simple, but neat and clean, his food of the plainest sort. He lived in this solitude, in the company of the Saviour, a life still and quiet, peaceful, and more than satisfied."
In summer he had many visits from his scattered friends, and he spent much of his time in writing letters. To his little hut, which was only a few paces long and broad, and consisted only of a sleeping room and a kitchen, he gave the name of Fricdensburg, "the home of peace." He dated from Frieciensburg many of his beautiful letters, which accorded well, in letter and in spirit, with the motto he had taken for his correspondence : 1 Cor. 11:1616But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:16), "'If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God.' The rule of our order, to be observed in this hermitage is, the love of God and of one another."
"Not without feeling my heart much touched and moved," writes Goebel further, " did I succeed in the year 1849 in my search for the remains of this hut, and of others not very far from it. The outline of the foundations can still be traced, and the little glen is still called by the country folk, the "valley of peace," or the " valley of the huts."
From this sweet and solitary place Hochmann would go forth, strengthened and refreshed for his missionary journeys.