benevolent superintendent insisted that we should remain and partake with him of the mid-day meal. We complied, and presently were summoned to the dining-hall, where we found a small circle of the Brothers, and the two head teachers. After a brief but appropriate grace, we took our seats, being introduced by the director.
“At supper all our teachers assemble here,” said Dr. Wichern, “and with them those children whose birthday it is; but at dinner the Brothers remain with their own families.”
The table was abundantly supplied with plain but wholesome food, and the cheerful conversation which ensued gave evidence that the cares of their position had not exerted a depressing influence on their spirits. Each seemed thoroughly in love with his work, and in harmony with all the rest. Dr. Wichern mentioned that I was from America.
“Have you,” inquired one of the Brothers, “any institutions like this in your country?”
“We have,” I answered, “Reform Schools, Houses of Refuge, Juvenile Asylums, and other reformatory institutions; but I am afraid I must say, nothing like this. We are making progress, however, in Juvenile Reform, and I hope that ere long we, too, may have a Rough House whose influence shall pervade our country, as yours has done Central Europe.”
“Dr. Wichern,” inquired another, “have our friends visited the ‘God’s Acre?’ ”[1]
“Not yet,” was the reply; “but I will go thither with them after we have dined, if they can remain so long.”
We assented, and one of the Brothers remarked,—
“Our boys have taken especial pains to beautify that favorite spot, this season.”
“This disposition to adorn the resting-place of the body, so common among us, is becoming popular in your country, I believe,” said our host, courteously.
I replied, that it was,—that in our larger towns the place of burial was generally rendered attractive, but that in the rural districts the burying-grounds were yet neglected and unsightly; and ventured the opinion, that this neglect might be partly traceable to the iconoclastic tendencies of our Puritan ancestors.
Dr. Wichern thought not; the neglect of the earthly home of the dead resulted from the prevalence of indifference to the glorious doctrine of the Resurrection; and whatever a people might profess, he could not but believe them infidel at heart, if they were entirely neglectful of the resting-place of their dead.
The close of our repast precluded further discussion, and at our host’s invitation we accompanied him to the rural cemetery, where such of the pupils and Brothers as died during their connection with the school were buried. An English writer has very appropriately called the Rauhe Haus a “Home among the Flowers”; but the title is far more appropriate to this beautiful spot Whatever a pure and exquisite taste could conceive as becoming in a place consecrated to such a purpose, willing hands have executed; and early every Sabbath morning, Dr. Wichern says, the pupils resort hither to see that everything necessary is done to keep it in perfect order. The air seemed almost, heavy with the perfume of flowers; and though the home of the living pupils of the Rauhe Haus is plain in the extreme, the palace of their dead surpasses in splendor that of the proudest of earthly monarchs. One could hardly help coveting such a resting-place.
It was with reluctance that we at last turned our faces homeward, and bade the excellent director farewell. The world has seen, in this nineteenth century, few nobler spirits than his. Possessed of uncommon intellect, he combines with it executive talent of no ordinary character, and a capacity for labor which seems almost fabulous. His duties as the head of the Inner Mission, whose scope comprises the organization
- ↑ The German name of a grave-yard.
