me early. Before the window stood our old church. It was not
beautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a
golden cross, and it appeared very much older and grayer than the other
buildings. I wondered who lived in it, and once I looked in through
the iron-grated door. It was entirely empty, cold and dismal. There
was not even one soul in the whole building, and after that I always
shuddered when I passed the door. But on this Easter morning, it had
rained early, and when the sun came out in full splendor, the old
church with the gray sloping roof, the high windows and the tower with
the golden cross glistened with a wondrous shimmer. All at once the
light which streamed through the lofty windows began to move and
glisten. It was so intensely bright that one could have looked within,
and as I closed my eyes the light entered my soul and therein
everything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring.
It seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was
another being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it
was an Easter song they were singing in the church. What bright, holy
song it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never
been able to discover. It must have been an old church hymn, like
those which many a time stirred the rugged soul of our Luther. I never
heard it again, but many a time even now when I hear an adagio of
Beethoven's, or a psalm of Marcellus, or a chorus of Handel's, or a
simple song in the Scotch Highlands or the Tyrol, it seems to me as if
the lofty church windows again glistened and the organ-tones once more
surged through my soul, and a new world revealed itself--more beautiful
than the starry heavens and the violet perfume.

These things I remember in my earliest childhood, and intermingled with
them are my dear mother's looks, the calm, earnest gaze of my father,
gardens and vine leaves, and soft green turf, and a very old and quaint