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Updated: September 11, 2025
But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions. A great throng of people were gathered around it in a half-circle, their backs to the open glade, their faces toward the oak. Seen against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious. The travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the thicket, and took counsel together.
"Hide me no cross," cried Winfried, lifting his staff, "for I have come to show it, and to make these blind folk see its power. There is more to be done here to-night than the slaying of a steed, and a greater evil to be stayed than the shameful eating of meat sacrificed to idols. I have seen it in a dream. Here the cross must stand and be our rede."
In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset hour. All day long there had been a strange and joyful stir among the nuns. A breeze of curiosity and excitement had swept along the corridors and through every quiet cell. A famous visitor had come to the convent. It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany.
A little company of pilgrims, less than a score a men, were creeping slowly northward through the wide forest that rolled over the hills of central Germany. At the head of the band marched Winfried, clad in a tunic of fur, with his long black robe girt high about his waist, so that it might not hinder his stride. His hunter's boots were crusted with snow.
"Do you need him more than the Master does?" asked Winfried; "and will you take the wood that is fit for a bow to make a distaff?" "But I fear for the child. Thy life is too hard for him. He will perish with hunger in the woods." "Once," said Winfried, smiling, "we were camped on the bank of the river Ohru.
For this was the rule of the cloister, that at the table all should sit in stillness for a little while, and then one should read aloud, while the rest listened. "It is the turn of my grandson to read to-day," said the abbess to Winfried; "we shall see how much he has learned in the school. Read, Gregor; the place in the book is marked."
As the shout died away the people saw the lady Irma, with her arms clasped round her child, and above them, on the altar-stone, Winfried, his face shining like the face of an angel.
"Hide me no cross," cried Winfried, lifting his staff, "for I have come to show it, and to make these blind folk see its power. There is more to be done here to-night than the slaying of a steed, and a greater evil to be stayed than the shameful eating of meat sacrificed to idols. I have seen it in a dream. Here the cross must stand and be our rede."
His words shall give us judgment, whether he is to live or to die." Winfried lifted himself high upon the altar, drew a roll of parchment from his bosom, and began to read. "A letter from the great Bishop of Rome, who sits on a golden throne, to the people of the forest, Hessians and Thuringians, Franks and Saxons. In nomine Domini, sanctae et individuae trinitatis, amen!"
He is but a child, too young for the dangers of strife." "A child in years," replied Winfried, "but a man in spirit. And if the hero must fall early in the battle, he wears the brighter crown, not a leaf withered, not a flower fallen." The aged princess trembled a little. She drew Gregor close to her side, and laid her hand gently on his brown hair. "I am not sure that he wants to leave me yet.
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