Prussian Penance

At the oaken door of the Franciscan monastery at Gorheim, in the principality of Hohenzollern, faltered one morning a timid knock. The monk who answered found a cringing wretch there, broken with years of suffering: He identified himself as a onetime Colonel of the Kaiser's armies, personal friend of the Crown Prince, who had led his regiment gallantly to France. But a sense of guilt for his part in war obsessed him, and now he sought to make penitential amends, following the example of the gentle St. Francis of Assisi.

He was admitted, donned the rude brown habit with hempen girdle, the sandals on his bare feet. That was two years ago. Word of his entering the monastery spread through the land.

One by one, brother officers, Prussians and Bavarians, followed him to Gorheim, not only because they were sad for the blood they had shed, but also because they disliked the post-war world. During the last few months the penitents have come by twos and threes, until last week it was calculated that at least 200 had been received as novices at the monastery. Most of them were socially prominent in Berlin and Munich, living lives of blithesome ease, swanking at regimental reunions.

Now they rise at 3 o'clock for lauds, and at 5 o'clock go each to his post: some to herd swine, some to cultivate the fields, some to clerks' desks. Each day has periods for prayer and meditation. To prior and sub-priors they owe utter obedience.

In the bright places that will know them no more, friends of the 200 novices declared soberly that their tortured haste to do penance showed "the deep-founded desire for peace among the German people."