The Master rose and moved towards the window; outside a gentle breeze whispered to the river, to the town, and to the surrounding country, in the stillness of the night. Gutenberg looked up with emotion to the brilliant starlight of the heavens. “Lord,” murmured he, in a low voice, “thou knowest the aim which I have sought, and the nature of my work, may it all end in Thee; let my poor life, my name, be forgotten, if such be thy will; let them be lost in the vastness of thy Infinity!” He spoke, and disappeared in the recess of the room, where he was in the habit of seeking repose for the night. Claude watched him with surprise; but Lawrence Beildech, who had not listened to his beloved Master without being moved to tears, said softly to the young man, “He is often so--he has the heart of a child--may the Almighty have him in His holy keeping!”
_How two Crosiers being engaged in a quarrel, the poor people of Maïence were the sufferers, and Master John Gutenberg in particular._
Perhaps, Reader, you may have happened to witness a threatening storm enclosing the hills around with its gloomy wings, while the valley below sleeps carelessly in the last rays of a lingering sun. The labourers are standing outside their doors contemplating their harvest with satisfied looks, the blue smoke curls as it rises lightly from the chimneys; all is calm and stillness, when in one hour, only one short hour.... Spare me, Reader, the representation of such a picture.
Never in the worst times of religious warfare had the city of Maïence such a day to endure as that of the 23rd of October, 1462. In the calendar it is named Simon and Jude; and one asks oneself if the people of Maïence should mark it with a black cross in sign of mourning, as a day really worthy of its patron Judas, or with a red cross in commemoration of the blood which flowed in their city, and the flames which bursting out on all sides consumed their houses. The prince Adolfe of Nassau, in order to compel the Archbishop Diether to let go his hold, conceived the somewhat novel expedient, (especially so, when we reflect that it emanated from the brain of a spiritual shepherd,) of smoking his competitor out, as bees are smoked in order to oblige them to vacate their hives. It might have been about four hours after midnight when a hundred of the boldest and most enterprising of the followers of Adolfe of Nassau scaled the wall of the city at its highest point; for, exactly on account of its height, and, above all, of its position on the edge of the river, which bathed its feet, it was thought peculiarly safe, and the sentinels, which were posted elsewhere, were considered unnecessary at that spot.
