He paused for a moment, and thought of his helplessness in a worldly point of view, and of his weeping wife. He then continued: Still heavy is thy heart? Still sink thy spirits down? And every care be gone. What though thou rulest not, Yet heaven, and earth, and hell, Leave to his sovereign sway To choose and to command; His counsel shall appear, When fully he the work hath wrought That night two gentlemen came riding to the inn, and inquired for Paul Gerhardt, the Lutheran preacher and poet. "I am Paul Gerhardt," said the poet firmly, not knowing what new calamity might follow the confession. "We have come from Duke Christian," said the men, "who wishes us to express to you his sympathy in your persecutions and afflictions, and to invite you to come to Merseburg, and make that city your home." "God be praised," said the poet, looking upon the men more in the light of celestial messengers than despatch-bearers from an earthly court. "It is his will." "He shall direct thy wandering feet, Gerhardt thanked the messengers with a heart full of emotion, tears filling his eyes. He went to his room with a beaming countenance, where his poor wife was trying with Christian confidence to restrain her feelings. He told her the news, and handed her the hymn he had written in the garden. "See," he said, "how God provides. Did I not bid you trust in God, and all would be well?" His wife opened the paper, and her eyes fell upon the poet's words written in the darkest hour of his life, when even her fortitude was giving way to despondency. "Commit thou all thy griefs And ways into His hands." Gerhardt died at the age of seventy. His last days were serene, and witnessed to the end the consolations of an all-victorious faith. He was spending the hour in holy exercises, and was in the act of repeating the lines, "Death has no power to kill, But from many a dreaded ill Bears the spirit safe away;" when the heavenly summons came. We have said that Schiller loved the hymns of Gerhardt, that he learned them in his boyhood, and that their influence lingered, tinging with a certain spiritual brightness the last poetic dreams of his life. But Schiller's faith was not clear. He, too, died repeating poetry, but not, like Gerhardt, with a triumphant expression of Christian confidence, but, like his own religious life, now gloomed, now shining, a poem of hope mingled with doubt and uncertainty: "From out this dim and gloomy hollow, "Aloft I see a fair dominion, Through time and change all vernal still, "For lo! between us rolls a river, O'er which a wrathful tempest raves; I feel the spirit shrink and shiver To gaze upon its gloomy waves !" The heavenly way, which, to Gerhardt, was one of excessive brightness, had a shadow for Schiller, even in life's sunset, but he still aspired for the religious faith of the great master of German sacred song. Another hymn by Gerhardt has many translations: QUIETLY rest the woods and dales, Then, my soul, in thought arise, Now my body seeks for rest, From its vestments all undressed, Types of immortality : Christ shall give me soon to wear White robes of majesty. Weary limbs now rest ye here, My couch among the dead. While my eyes I gently close, Who shall now my guardian be? Soul and body now I leave, And thou wilt the trust receive, Israel's Watchman, unto thee. This is the favorite evening hymn in Germany. The same thoughts are expressed in Elder John Leland's evening hymn, beginning, "The day has passed and gone, The evening shades appear; The night of death draws near. "We lay our garments by, Upon our beds to rest; So death will soon disrobe us all KLOPSTOCK'S HYMN. IN an old churchyard in Ottensen, near the venera-' ble city of Hamburgh, stood a memorial stone, around which groups of thoughtful people used to gather in the soft twilights of the golden summer days. It marked the grave of a lady, famous both as the wife of an admired Christian poet, and as a model of intellectual loveliness and of simple, trustful religious faith. At the top of the antique memorial were carved two sheaves of wheat, one leaning on the other, and beneath the touching emblem was inscribed: "Seed sown by God, To ripen in the day of harvest. MARGARETTA KLOPSTOCK Waits where death is not, for her friend, her lover, her husband, whom she so much loves, and by whom she is so much beloved. But we shall rise from this grave, thou, my Klopstock, and I, and our son, for whom I died, to worship Him, who died, and was buried, and is risen." Margaretta Moller was born March 19, 1728. She was the daughter of a Hamburgh merchant, and she received a liberal education. She possessed great beauty of mind and of character even in girlhood. Her æsthetic tastes predominated; her thoughts were tinged with poetic fancy, and her heart was a pure fountain ever brimming with love. She was a pious maiden, and her dispositions were attuned in perfect harmony by the sweet influences of prayer. When verging on womanhood, she became enamored of the poetry of Klopstock. The Messiah, as far as it was written, was passing through rapid editions, and the German Milton was in the zenith of his sudden and resplendent fame. He was a stranger to Margaretta Moller she had never met with him, nor seen him, but she begun to take a mysterious interest in his history, and to find loving companionship in the creations of his muse. No music was so sweet to her as his mellifluous hexame |