It is Lord ’s Day, in January of the year 1548, and we are in the house of our old friend “Mathis,” now Pastor Tell, beside the cathedral of Strassburg. The bell has been ringing for morning prayer, and around the good pastor are gathered all the exiles living beneath his roof. We are to see for the last time, in this pious gathering, both Tell and his faithful wife Katherine. They have grown old; their hair has turned gray, especially the aged pastor’s, whom we first knew as the happy rosy-cheeked boy “Mathis.” They have been identified with and deeply concerned for the welfare of the Reformation; but now, weak and weary, the aged man frequently repeats the words of the Apostle: “Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Phil. 1:2323For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: (Philippians 1:23)). His beloved companion is no longer the spirited and fearless Katherine she once was, whom we saw in our previous narrative so nobly receiving the exiles in trial. She gravely looks now on the trembling head and bent shoulders of her husband, and on the sickly child, tardy fruit of her old age, who through his weakness of body and mind seemed destined to be a “son of her sorrow.”
Among the guests in the hospitable parsonage are some French Huguenot refugees, and among them is Marcelina, a Waldensian girl, habitually called “Lina,” for short. She had come from the locality of Merindol in Provence. In the days of Peter Waldo, some of his disciples driven by persecution from the Piedmont valleys had established themselves on the banks of the River Durance, and by toil and perseverance converted those sterile regions into cultivated and fruitful fields. They had built up twenty-two communities with a total of 18,000 inhabitants.
In 1525, having heard that the true gospel, to which their fathers had remained faithful through so many persecutions, was being preached in Germany, they sent some of their number to Basle and Strassburg. They were lovingly received by their brethren, the Swiss and German reformers, and strengthened in their faith. They found in the doctrines of the reformation what Peter Waldo had taught, and the apostles before them; they returned, therefore, with rejoicing to their people, strengthened in the bonds of brotherly love, and happy to find themselves no longer isolated and alone in their faith.
But Francis I., the political ally of the Protestant princes of Germany, thought that he must buy of the Romish clergy absolution for his dissolute life by persecutions against the French Protestants. The peaceful Waldenses of Provence, therefore, were exterminated without mercy by fire and sword: their towns were burned, their women and children and old men cast into the flames, their men murdered, or loaded with chains were sent to prison, and left there to languish in noisome dungeons. Thousands of them, in seeking to escape slaughter, perished of hunger and cold among the mountains. Some of the more fortunate succeeded in reaching evangelical Switzerland, where they found pity for their sufferings, and an asylum. Amongst these was the father of Marcelina, who, having sought refuge in Strassburg, died a few days after his arrival, confiding the poor orphan to the care of Katherine Tell, who received her with her usual Christian devotion and with affection.
Marcelina became a blessing to the home of Pastor Tell, ever open as it was to all the unfortunate sufferers. Brought up in the school of adversity, she was so economical, so fitted for, and so active in household duties that in a short time she came to be as Katherine’s right hand. While unable to understand and speak German, she would pass from room to room noiselessly and with quick step—her large soft eyes and sweet, pale face frequently wet with tears. Pastor Tell’s wife, unable to speak French, could not well comfort her, but commended the poor girl to the pious care of Jean Gamier, pastor of the church founded by Calvin for French refugees in Strassburg.
Through the ministry of this faithful servant of God, Marcelina found comfort and peace for her weary heart, so violently torn from her mother and brothers whom she had seen murdered before her eyes, then deprived of her father dying in exile; the bitterness of all these memories were then converted into holy aspirations for the home above. Little by little the dark images of her home in flames, her relatives beheaded at her side, the cries and moans of the dying that had filled the timid girl’s mind were gradually being effaced from her memory, so lacerated by those scenes of terror. Resignation and peace were taking their place, and her faith looked upward to that other and “better country” where her loved ones were awaiting her, forever freed from tribulation and gathered to God’s eternal rest. And as her heart lived there above, dwelling in heaven rather than upon earth, she devoted herself entirely to the Lord whom she found in the exiled and persecuted with whom Strassburg was filled.
The aged pastor Tell particularly was the object of Marcelina’s loving ministrations. When the aged minister became too much disturbed, thinking of the perils to which his beloved church was exposed, then it was that Marcelina would take him tenderly by the hand, and say in her poor German: “Beloved father, eternity is longer than this earthly life; neither king nor emperor can burn the faith at the stake, nor cause one soul to perish that is chosen of Heaven.”
That very Lord’s Day, when everyone was painfully expecting the Emperor should establish in Strassburg the Roman Catholic service and cast off all the evangelical pastors, the heart of the aged Tell, in view of all these misfortunes, seemed as if about to break. And when his anxious wife saw him rise from prayer pale and trembling, leaning on the arm of the youthful Marcelina, a voice that pierced her soul seemed to whisper in her ear: “He is soon to leave thee to dwell with his Lord.”
“Father,” she said, taking his cold, trembling hands between her own, “you are not well; let some other pastor preach in your place at the cathedral at this cold season.”
“No, no, my beloved Katherine, I will preach while the Lord spares me a remnant of voice. I have not much time to speak to my beloved flock, for I feel Death knocking at my door; but,” he added, with his accustomed cheerfulness, “when I can no more speak to you, know that I ever love you and shall think of you in heaven.”
Then he entered his study room and seated himself in his big armchair to rest and collect his thoughts for the sermon. When the hour arrived for service, the Lord gave him strength to speak for the last time to his beloved congregation on this text: “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:1515And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: (Luke 22:15)). With calm faith he told them that his end was drawing near, and even gave them the communion with his own hand; after which he bade farewell to his beloved flock in the words of the Apostle Paul: “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up...Therefore watch and remember, that by the space of thirty years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:32, 3132And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)
31Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. (Acts 20:31)). Moved to the very depths of their souls, his hearers left the cathedral with the sorrowful consciousness that they had heard their beloved pastor’s voice for the last time. Yet he appeared to revive after finishing his sermon and was even able to attend another service at midday. In the evening, having learned of the death of Glaser, one of his colleagues and friends, he was taken with a sudden hemorrhage. “Why,” said he, with a sweet smile, “should we afflict ourselves for his death as those that have no hope? God has taken our friend from this world of sin and suffering, and has called him as of old He called Elijah, not leaving him to languish on a bed of pain! May the Lord grant me the same favor before persecution falls upon us, and may I, as he, lay down my poor worn body as one lays aside his garments before casting himself on his couch to sleep.”
As Marcelina was helping him to his room, he stopped several times on the way to take breath, and said: “I am tired, my poor Lina; the Lord will soon allow me to fall asleep sweetly till His kingdom come.”
Tell became weaker and weaker—not suffering but breathing with difficulty. His devoted wife and Marcelina passed the night with him. Katherine read to him the fifth chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Tell then exhorted them to continue in service to the poor and the persecuted. He urged his colleagues to preach Christ to all men without distinction, to gather the sheep, and not scatter them. Then, feeling the chill of death coming over him, he kneeled, and gathering all his strength in a last effort, prayed as follows: “O Lord, permit me still to commend to Thee my beloved flock! They have loved me, and Thou lovest them. Send them not trials above what they are able to bear, that what I have built up on Thee may not be torn-down. Be Thou Thyself their chief Shepherd ... ” His voice failed, his clasped hands fell, and his head rested upon his breast. They raised the dying man to his chair. His eyes opened once more, and gazing with tenderness on his beloved Katherine, Tell expired without a struggle—he slept, rather than died, the 6th of January, 1548, at the age of seventy, after having preached the gospel for twenty-seven years in the cathedral of Strassburg, and made his dwelling a refuge for the oppressed and those that suffered persecution for Christ’s sake.
The death of Pastor Tell spread through Strassburg a feeling as if each family had lost one of its own members. All desired to see his beloved remains for a last farewell. His beloved Katherine was so sustained from above and her faith so bright that her eyes had no tears, and her countenance was almost joyful while she remained by the one she had so much loved. Some might even have misinterpreted this Christian fortitude, born of the glorious hope that takes away the sting of death. “I should prefer to see dear mother weep,” said Marcelina, while she wept with the tenderness of a child for her father.
When the mortal remains of this servant of God were borne to their resting-place, it was such a funeral as Strassburg had never seen before. Five thousand persons in reverential procession followed the modest bier, and the tears in many eyes were the best tribute that could be paid to his beloved memory.
Tell was buried in the cemetery of Saint Urban. No sculptured stone adorned his tomb.
Another monument, imperishable for time and eternity, had been raised in the hearts of the people who in all the evangelical churches mourned his death.
The testimony that the Apostle confessed of himself might be applied, in measure, at least, to the good Pastor Tell: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:7-87I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7‑8)).