THE INQUISITOR’S SECRETARY

(continued)

It was a sad journey for the three friends. The heavy frost. which had been so severe for a long time, had given way to cold, rainy weather. No kind sunshine fell on field or roadway; on the contrary, it seemed as if nature, too, did its part to fill the three travelers with gloom. After the hours of rejoicing they had spent in “The Stone” they were not filled with a premonition of all the terrors that lay ahead of them so that their souls were cast down and disquieted within them. Master Harm greatly missed his Bible, the faithful companion that so often had encouraged him and others in days of affliction. But the Holy Spirit came to the aid of his memory, and from time to time he repeated the words of the Psalms of David to himself and the women, the Psalms which had been composed by the man after God’s heart in days of adversity.

Mrs. Balten’s sister was constantly being assailed by Satan. That old murderer of men kept on trying to rob this weak soul of its refuge-seeking in Christ and to cast her into darkness and despair.

“Just what have you gained,” he whispered to her, “by following this new teaching? What else but contempt, suffering, and an untimely death will it bring you! How can a mother, for the sake of a novelty, deliver her children over to strangers? And why did you have to expose your so-called faith? What will now become of those children? When they have become grown-ups they will curse their unloving mother! And do you think that you are strong enough to endure the tortures of the rack during your examination? Ah, when they but apply the thumbscrews, your faith will fly away like chaff before the wind!”

Sharp as Satan’s darts were, they did wound the poor woman’s flesh; but they did not succeed in killing the life of God within her soul. And both women repeated the words of Psalm 42 which Harm Hiddesz had rerecited a moment ago: “As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? Why are thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

After six hours of riding on the jerking, bumping wagon, they saw the towers of Amsterdam in the distance.

“Do you have any idea, Master Harm, where we are being taken?” Mrs. Baltens asked.

“No, I don’t,” Harm answered. “They will possibly lock us up in St. Olaf’s Gate, because that usually serves as a prison. In Amsterdam they also use as prisons St. Anthony’s Gate, the Tower of Our Lady, John Roden’s Gate and Holy Cross Tower. I am rather well acquainted in Amsterdam and I also have a few friends here. I hope at least that they have managed to stay out of the hands of the Inquisition, because 1 have not heard from them for quite some time. Heretics are also taken to the Herring Packers Tower, although women are often imprisoned in convents.”

The women sighed.

“Ah,” Mrs. Baltens said, “if only the Lord will make us faithful, then it makes no difference where they take us. No matter how much they will torment us, I know this, that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ; and, Sister,” said the woman who felt the courage of her faith grow stronger again, “is it not a great comfort that in this our flesh we shall see God?”

“ ‘Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another,’ “ Harm Hiddesz continued, and lifing up his eyes to heaven, he said after Job: “My reins are consumed with longing within me!”

(To be continued)

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