raying no doubt for
the outcast German souls for the saving of which he worked so hard and
so well; and (a picture that Minna dearly loved) St. Joseph and the
sweet Virgin and the little Christ-child fleeing together through the
desert from the wrath of the Judean king. And ranged around the walls on
perches high aloft are statues of various minor saints and of the Twelve
Apostles; of which Minna's favorite was the Apostle Matthias, because
this saint, with his high forehead tending towards baldness, and his
long gray beard and gray hair, and his kindly face, and even the axe in
his hand (that was not unlike a baker's peel), made her think always
of her dear father. The pew that Gottlieb paid for so regularly, and so
irregularly occupied, was just beneath the statue of this saint; which,
however, gave Minna less pleasure than would have been hers had not the
next saint in the row been the Apostle Simon with his dreadful saw. It
must have hurt so horribly to be sawed in two, she thought. In the dusky
depths of the great chancel gleamed the white marble of the beautiful
altar, guarded by St. Peter with his keys and St. Paul with his naked
two-edged sword; and above the altar was the dead Christ on Calvary,
with His desolate mother and the despairing Magdalene and St. John the
divine.

Into this beautiful church it was that Gottlieb, led thither by his
good angel, entered; and the devil--raging in the terrible but impotent
fashion that is habitual with devils when they see slipping away from
their snares the souls which they thought to win to wickedness--of
course was forced to remain outside. But what feelings of keen
repentance filled this poor sinning baker's heart within that holy
place, what good resolves came to him, what light and refreshment
irradiated and cheered his darkened, harried soul--all these are things
which better may be suggested here than written out in full. For these
things are so real, so sacred, and so beautiful with a heavenly beauty,
that they may not lightly be used for decorative purposes in mere
romance.

Let it suffice, then, to tell--for so is our poor human stuff put
together that trivial commonplace facts often exhibit most searchingly
the changes for good or for evil which have come to pass in our
inmost souls--that Gottlieb, on returning to the Cafe Nuernberg, ate
a prodigious dinner; and after his dinner, for the first time in a
fortnight, smoked a thoroughly refreshing pipe.

Over