Chapter Twenty-Three

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

     Upstairs in his study, Hans Warsow sat and workt on his sermon for Sunday to-morrow.  The day was already getting dark when he put down his pen.  Until then, he had spoken to his congregation in peace and about peace.  It was the first war sermon that he had written in his life.

     Now he had gone to bed.  Although he was tired from the strenuous trip and the long night work, he did not find sleep.  Too violent were the feelings that rushed at him, who was easy to take hold of.  He felt that an old world was now going to ruins, a new one was rising up.  Everything that he had until now thought and written, what he had read, planned, mulled over, appeared so empty and pointless to him in these hours lying awake at night; the entire structure that his never-idle spirit had organized in industrious work fell together like a house of cards; the outlook on life that he, after long years of inner struggling, after long doubting and hesitating, thought he had firmly established for his life, the events of a few days had raged over it like a storm tide and had torn gaps and holes in it that could not be filled again.  And he was become anew a searcher who set out on a journey for new values to put in the place of the old ones.

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     Certainly, he had sometimes thought about the war, but it had always been just a game in his thoughts.  Now it was here and with it a completely new time.

     When he came to the breakfast table around six o'clock, he found Else already there.  She prepared the tea for him, she poured for him, she made a piece of bread for him, all in her faithful, homely way.  A solemn calm lay on her plain features and at the same time, a firm, strong confidence.

     Hans had never before seen his church so full as on this Sunday.  He wanted not to believe his eyes:  even half an hour before the start of the church service, all seats were occupied, the people were crowing in the walkways; as the organ started playing its prelude when the clock struck ten, no corner in the enormous church was empty, like a black wall the crowd stood in the wide aisles.  And above it towered the high Gothic vault.  Softly bathed in sun-gold, the old whitewashed sandstone pillars rose heavenwards.  The spider webs and the venerable dust that had gathered on them in the course of the centuries made them gleam and glow in this lightning, as if they were made of marble.  Through the old church windows, the bright daylight peered from above like a greeting eye and let its light play over the expensive, carved council pew.

     There sat Mayor Stoltzmann with his wife, just like back at his trial sermon.  But that was already over a year ago, and he had never seen him here again since then.  Now, however, he had come and his councillors with him, and not one was missing.  As if the whole city with its head in the lead wanted to bow before

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God, Who now showed that despite all worldly powers and wisdom, He alone held the government in His hands.

     With slow steps, Hans paced up and down through his vestry, once more working through his sermon in his mind.  The thought of speaking in such an hour to such a gathering, to those who moved out to give their lives in death for their fatherland, to those who stayed behind and with heavy hearts saw them leave, caused in this hour nothing but a deep hesitation and worry in his soul.  With a fervor and purity, at the same time with an elemental force, like a storm sweeping away everything with it, as he had not heard them until now, the Luther tune rang out through the enormous church, into his quiet vestry:

A mighty fortress is our God,

A trusty shield and weapon;

He helps us free from ev'ry need,

That hath us now o'ertaken.

The old evil foe,

Now means deadly woe;

Deep guile and great might

Are his dread arms in fight;

On earth is not his equal.

     It sounded like a cry out of deepest need, like a confession at the same time of confidence and of faith, the mountain moves and rising tides ebb.  Now confidence and victory were also in his soul, enthusiastically and in high spirits as never before, he went to the pulpit, he read the text:

     "Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.  There is a river

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whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.  God will help her when morning dawns.  The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress."

     One had never before heard him speak as on this day.  Usually, his sermon was full of intellect and deep thoughts, this time it was like a thriving fire of his words that, restrained only with effort, burned out of everyone and inflamed all who heard them.  And there was not one in the large church who went away from this service not lifted and purified.

     "That was the man whom we needed, especially for such a difficult time!  I saw it straight away back then and have made the right choice," said Mayor Stoltzmann to his wife at the exit.

     Edith went silently between the two.  The conversation again reminded her that she had not had Hans Warson in her home for a long time.