Pine Needles

all?" sai

lace, about He

uch!" said Maggie

he was such an in

, cruel man, you should say," said

emember, to judge a man of one tim

ra, "in some people, which makes th

ture did not prevent Abraham from making preparat

"but I confess to you, I think Abraham acted much more lik

, and so would have entirely missed Abraham's blessing. 'Because thou hast done this thing, saith the

how Abraham

not trust, Flo, that will not g

ou going to read n

stor Harms gives of that old church which Hermann Billing b

escription of i

ful sort of a church is this we

s bank, do

f tree-branches, through which the light comes broken by transom and mullion. And

luten, Meredith,"

ould be a p

of silent pre

rongest

and read. My work

s so wide and free. I have an odd feeling that I am floating with those clouds yonder, and flowin

ain, Meredith,"

e me. Don't you remember, Maggie, something your unc

to the bough

present. This is the loveliest place! And now you shal

in it has raised the ground-level, till now the church lies lower than the churchyard. A hill has grown out of the dust of the dead, and over this hill I go into the church. Does not this walk of itself preach in the most impressive way: "Put thine house in order, O man, for thou must die!" Then, when I step inside the church, what a new sermon I get! Since 972 years after Christ, therefore since 880 years ago, men have worshipped there the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; have sung in his honour the church's songs of praise; have thither brought their children to be baptized; have heard the preaching of the Divine Word there, have eaten and drunk the emblems of the Body and Blood of the Lord there, h

as remained unchanged. And when I think of the blessings that have gone forth from this house, what churches, chapels, and cloisters have sprung from here, in Bergen, in Wiezendorf, in Munster, in Müden, and the chronicle mentions many more; yes, when I remember how from the castles founded by Hermann on the Oerze and Wieze, the castellans of Oerze and Wiezendorf marched out so early as with Duke Bernhard, to help bring the heathen people of Lauenburg and Mechlenburg to Christianity; must not then the zeal of my forefathers kindle my own zeal to bring the Lord's blessing, His Word and His sacraments, to the heathen, to the very ends of the earth? And now that seems no longer strange to me which seems strange to so many, that we from this place should have undertaken to send out a peasant missi

g the view. In the silence, when the strokes of the woodcutters halted, little sweet sounds broke in, every one of them coming like a caress or a murmur of rest; two crows slowly flying over and calling to each other, some crickets chirruping nearer by, a little gentle rustle and lapping of the water, then a

eredith. "And what a

e, "have they a miss

ave a missio

nt mission,' and wh

there on the Lüneburg heath. They are poor people; small farmers, and the like. They have not much money to give; but when Pastor Harms had been with

id the

set to study under Pastor Harms' brother for three years. While they were studying Pastor Harms undertook bui

n a very poor people, I

st a great deal, you know, to pay their passage in a ship belonging to other people, and the freight on all the goods they must carry, for they were going out not merely to preach, but to establish a colony and li

d build it?"

makers made shoes, and the tailors made clothes, to go out with the mission; th

, Ditto,

n-anything,"

proved false. Eight left, to whom another eight joined t

articles, tools, heather brooms, trumpets and horns, even live hogs and poultry, and even potatoes were hauled along-and all was to go. Even a fir-tree with its roots was planted in a large pot filled with earth, in order that on the ocean the travellers might light up a Christmas-tree. Then again came packages of linen made up, and of stuff. And there was a great deal that never came to Hermannsburg. Whatever was prepared on the other side of the Elbe, in Hamburg, Lübeck, Haide, &c., was kept in Hamburg, and we never saw it at all. In Hamburg alone there were handed over from female friends of the Mission, one hundred and twenty-eight cotton shirts, all finished and ready; from Haide forty striped shirts for the natives; from Lübeck and Mechlenburg, besides beautiful under-linen, all sorts of pictures an

hey go to Af

missionaries; yes

outs in

coast, abo

least idea wh

ell to look it

hey there

But others followed them, Maggie, year after year, till now there are,

sent out soldiers to bring heathen Mechlenburg to the Christian religion; and now Mech

people are those they

f them, written by one of the brethren who

so, one for each wife, and then one besides for himself. The women are bought; paid for with cows and oxen; ten and twenty oxen for a wife. These become then the man's slaves, and the man, when he has got a good many wives, hardly does any more work himself. The women must cultivate the maize and sweet potatoes, which is almost all the people live upon. Once in a while they kill an ox; and then so many come together to eat it that it is all disposed of at one meal. Our German brethren aver that ten Caffres in twenty-four hours will eat up a whole ox, skin and entrails and all, which they roast at the fire; that afterwards, however, they can go fasting four days