Peter Rosegger

“ I have to bear testimony to the Father in heaven and of His tidings, and therefore I am ready to die. If I were not willing to die for My words, they would be like sand in the desert. If I were not willing to die, My friends would not be justified, and would doubt Me. A good shepherd must lay down his life for his flock."
"Master," said Thomas, and his voice trembled, "not when you live; only when you die, could we doubt you."
Then Jesus looked sadly round the circle, and said: "One among you doubts Me, though I live."
"What do you mean by that, Lord?" asked Judas. ”

“ Above it, a cloudless sky presses hot and heavy on his heart. Then it comes to his mind: "Say thy grace, Jacob, for this place is the table of a mighty people. Those who live in the mountains must tend their poultry and their cattle, and fetch the bread of corn from this table."
Then Jacob awakes, pulls himself up by the stook, and says into the night, "It'll have to come to that. And yet the cornfield is beautiful—more beautiful than anyhow else—when it lies between the forest and meadow! And a home, if it's a real home, should yield its children everything that they need." ”

“ It is the Son of God who hangs on the cross!" The cry rolled through the crowd like the dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made since the world began. He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of God. Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner. He struggles up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the cross with rolling eyes. A prayer for mercy wells up from his heart like a bloody spring. ”

“ Then gradually everything begins to grow green, the tiny leaves curl and bend earthwards again as if they are listening for any good counsels about life that the Mother may have to give them. Then they aspire upwards, rolling themselves into sheaths, out of which, little by little, emerges the stalk and the inmost being of the corn. By the time Ascension Day is there the corn is looking skywards even in the mountain districts, as if gazing in loving gratitude after Him who called it to life, and who will come again to waken the human seeds that are sown in all the churchyards. ”

“ Later, when the afternoon shadows had lengthened outside, far over the glittering snow-clad meadow-land, when, in the parlour, Joseph was painting the black cross on the coffin-lid, father sat down beside it and said, softly:
"Please God, after all, she has a house of her own again."
On the first day after mother's death, no fire had been lit on the cottage-hearth. One and all had forgotten that a mortal man wants a basin of hot soup in the morning and at mid-day. ”

“ I need the prophet and you the army. Warrior and orator allied, we shall take Jerusalem. I have made a mistake. For many years it has been my illusion that all strength lay in the body. And so I have cared for their bodies, fed and nourished them that they might become strong. But instead of becoming strong and daring, they have become indolent and cowardly. And now that I wish to use this army to free Judaea from the yoke of the Romans, they laugh in my face and answer me with words I once taught them. We have only this life, they cry, and we will not risk it any more. ”

“ One seized the ass's bridle, the other grasped Joseph's arm, and said: "Give us what you have with you."
The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven. The little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was not afraid.
"If you've bread with you, give it us," said Dismas, who was holding the ass.
"Fool!" shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, "everything they have belongs to us. Whether we will give anything, that's the question. I will give you the most precious thing—life. Such a beautiful woman without life would be a horror." ”

“ Thereupon my father came up softly to my bed, with one hand hidden behind his back.
"Look here, lad, just you tell me what you've done with your new Sunday jacket!"
That soft slinking with his hand behind his back at once struck me as suspicious; and my face fell; and, bursting into tears, I cried:
"Oh, father, I thought I was giving it to God!"
"Lord, lad, what a duffer—what an idiot you are!" cried my father. "You're much too good for this world and yet quite too silly to die! What you want is to have your soul thrashed out of your skin with a stout besom." ”

“ And fishing delights me not. Everything is a burden. Often when I lie here and look up into the blue sky, I think: If only a storm would come and drive me out on the open sea—into the wild, dark terror, then, Simon, you would lie there and extend your arms and say: Gods or God, do with me what you will."
"Don't talk like that, Simon. You must not jest with the Lord. There, take it."
And so saying, Beka took a magnificent bunch of grapes out of her basket, and handed it to him. ”

“ All's aglow in the wood and alight in the young larches; and the blooms are fragrant and the birds singing in every tree-top.
Ah, child-time is May-time!
A dull, heavy knocking roused me from my dream; I started up. Now they are laying my mother in the coffin; now they are nailing down the lid.
I rushed out of the shed and into the house. There, in the passage, stood the narrow, white, closed coffin; and the dimly-flickering oil-lamp now lit up only the empty, desolate plank on which the bier had stood. ”

“ The difficult path which leads to the gardens where the waters of life sparkle, takes us first to a big city in which the hearts of men pulsate with feverish unrest.
There is such a great crowd in the broad square in front of the law courts that the electric cars are forced to stop. Six or eight of them are standing in a row, and the police cannot break through the crowd. Every one is making for the law courts; some hurry forward excitedly, others push their way through quietly, and fresh streams of people from the side streets are continually joining the rest. ”

“ Late in the evening, when the crescent moon stood in the dark, clear sky and shed its twilight over the woods and gleaming, snow-clad meadows and over the little house in the forest on the hill-side, the snow creaked continually on the roads and people came up from farmsteads and distant cottages. Even though they had carried on loud and cheerful conversations with one another on the paths by which they had come, they became silent now that they were nearing the cottage and we heard only the crackling of their footsteps on the snow. ”

“ Cursed be ye, ye hypocrites! You forbid others to be the heralds of salvation; you even stone them. You will not go yourselves into the Kingdom of Heaven, and you keep out those who wish to go in. Cursed be ye, ye, with your semblance of holiness, who take to yourselves the houses of widows and the property of orphans under the pretence of love! Ye fools and blind guides who lead the people to petty, unimportant things, to outward observances and customs, instead of to the important things—to justice, to mercy, and to love! That is as wise as to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel. ”

“ The snow falls thicker and heavier, night draws in and Lily does not come. The children by now are crying for their milk; the father is eager to be after his game; the mother sits up in bed:
"Lily!" she calls. "Wherever are you, child, trotting about in that pitch-dark forest? Come home!"
How can the sick woman's weak voice reach the wanderer through the fierce snowstorm?
As the night grows darker and stormier, Berthold's craving to go poaching grows deeper, while his fears for his Lily-of-the-Forest rise higher and higher. She is a frail little twelve-year-old girl. ”

“ He had been in the stable at Bethlehem, he had wandered by the Lake of Gennesaret, and spent nights in the wilderness of Judaea. He had journeyed to Sidon, and across the mountains to Jerusalem. He, a prisoner in jail and sentenced to death, had stood on the Mount of Olives, he had been in Bethany and supped at Jesus' side. But now he felt almost indifferent to the thought. Had he not lived through that glorious death at Golgotha? All else sank into insignificance beside that. It almost seemed to him as if he had passed beyond the veil. The Risen One possessed all his soul. ”

“ Many a time, while a thunderstorm was raging over Altenmoos, Jacob would stand under the heavy eaves over his door, looking out quiet and resigned. Man cannot alter things, God is almighty; what is the good, then, of trembling or complaining? When it grows light, he sees his whole cornfield, now nearly ripe, beaten down. Jacob says, "Thanks and praise be to God that there was no ice in it—all the stalks lie in order and flat on the ground, not one lifts so much as a knee! The heavy rain has laid the corn low, the wind will dry it—lift it up again." ”

“ Jesus, pale-faced, his eyes sparkling with delight, held on to the railing. Joseph and Mary tried to protect him. He thrust them back, and without ceasing to gaze at the awful splendour, said: "Let me alone! Don't you see that I'm with my Father?"
It is written of him that he is the only man who had no father on earth, and so he sought and found Him in heaven.
Others who saw the youth that night became almost calm in spite of their terror. If he is not afraid for his young life, is ours so much more valuable? ”

“ The dark and glossy hair (she had no grey hairs yet) was carefully braided and peeped out a little at the temples from under the brown kerchief, the one which she loved best to wear upon her head when she went to church on holidays. She held her hands folded over her breast, with the rosary and the wax candle between them. She lay there just as though she had fallen asleep in church on Whit Sunday, during the solemn High Mass; and thus, even in death, she comforted her child. But the rough hands clearly showed that the slumberer had led a hard and toilful life. ”

“ I am not come to judge and to punish. I am come to find what is lost, to heal what is sick, and to revive what is dead. I am come to the sad to console them, to the fallen to raise them up. I give Myself for the redemption of many. My power is not of this world. I am Master in the Kingdom of God, where all are blessed in trustful, joyful love. Come to Me, all ye who have erred and gone astray. I have joy and eternal life for you."
The disciples looked at each other in astonishment: He had never before spoken with such divine gentleness. ”

“ Through all the house there was washing and scrubbing; even into the living-room itself came the maids with their water-pails and straw wisps and brooms. I always looked forward to the cleaning, because I loved the turning topsy-turvy of everything, and because the glazed pictures in the corner where the table was, the brown clock from the Black Forest with its metal bell, and the various things which, at other times, I saw only at a distance high above me, were taken down and brought nearer to me, and I could observe them all much more closely and from all sides. ”

“ Simeon clearly heard the strange words, and thought to himself: "Can this be He? No, a wise man does not surround himself with such a shabby, poverty-stricken crowd. And yet they say it is He." Simeon got out of his litter and drew his scimitar. Then he pressed forward amid the disagreeable smell of old clothes and of the perspiring crowd. Oh, how repulsive is the odour of the poor! The multitude shyly gave way to the brilliant figure, for never had its like been seen in the Master's neighbourhood. Jesus stood calmly under the fig tree and saw the stranger coming. ”