An edifying account of the illness and death of the wife of H. K.
Addressee, date, and source
The Seventy-Ninth Letter.
An edifying account of the illness and death of the wife of H. K.
In the grace of Jesus, dearly beloved brother!
By this I must make known to you and to your household, and through you also to our dear fellow members in S. and in your region, that it has pleased the Lord to take our dear sister K. over to Himself out of the wretched prison of her body last Sunday evening, a little after nine o’clock — just as we were laying down her soul in prayer, out of our hands into the faithful hand of her Redeemer. A scant half hour before, I had also prayed with her and with those standing round about, which she still fully understood and confirmed, expressing thereby her believing trust in God in Christ; but the last prayer she will have understood not at all, or but little, as I think.
In the last stretch of time it went truly hard with her, and for that reason I had the members best known to her come together some days beforehand, in order to offer her up to the Lord in a common frame of prayer; and this would have been done again on the Monday, had not the Lord — contrary to our expectation, though not contrary to her hope — hastened her dissolution. Her ground was preserved to the end in childlike trust toward the Lord, and her inward will wholly given over to every suffering; but on the natural side it fell hard and long upon her, so that in the night before the Sunday she let fall over-hasty expressions which did not taste of patience; over which she became greatly distressed, notwithstanding that she at once prayed it away, and said also to her daughter: You must pray to God for me, that He may forgive me this sin!
When I came to her in the morning, she stretched out both her hands to me from a distance, and lamented her fault in patience, and asked for brotherly help; and whenever I let go of her hand a little, she would call out again: Brother, brother! — which happened often that day. Yes, I said, you call me brother, and I both am and remain so, even though you have committed a fault in patience; so then God also remains your Father, etc. — by which she was made childlike and was strengthened. I asked her whether she had such pains in her head. I do not think about it, she said, nor about all the other pains and oppression either; I am only afraid that I might become impatient, offend God, and be a stumbling block to the members. Under it all, however, there remained a quiet trust in God in Christ, with the most inward longing after His eternal fellowship. About five o’clock in the evening she said to me, among other things, on being asked: it had seemed to her at times as though she had someone with her, whom she embraced and kissed — who might that be? I said: Who else should that be but Jesus? etc. Whereupon she said something further which I did not understand, but closed with the words: I, a dead block of wood. Toward six o’clock in the evening I went home, at which time her hands were indeed beginning to grow cold; but I thought of a fever, and not that the dissolution was so near. Then, before eight o’clock, I was called there again, because she much wished that I should accompany her at her departure — which then also came about according to her desire, in that she, in my presence and that of several other friends, at the hour already mentioned, fell asleep very gently under prayer.
That same day she further asked of me that I should make this known to you and to the other members immediately after her departure, so that through you too the Lord might be thanked for all the graces, the sufferings, the support, and the blessed dissolution out of the dungeon of the body. She, who was so busy in serving poor suffering people in manifold ways and in refreshing them — more than one would believe — and who also many a time harbored the dear Savior as a guest in His members, will assuredly find a refreshing little resting place in the eternal dwellings too, although out of grace. The Lord certainly does not forget the work of faith and the labor of love, even though His blessed ones forget it. Matthew 25:37-39. Hebrews 6:10.
For want of time I must close. I embrace you in the spirit of love, and greet you and your household, and also the S. members, tenderly in the Lord, who is our only hope, our love, and our life for ever! Oh, let us make over to Him our whole self, that this immeasurable eternal Good may also fill our whole self, and adorn it, and make it blessed! Ah, how beautiful and contenting it is to be alone with Him, outside place and time! Thither He kindly calls us in, and there we have it all in One. Selah!
— I am ailing again these few days past, and this night too I have had scarcely any rest; and every day brings its own work with it besides. Ah, if only we content our Friend, what does it matter about us? Once more heartily greeted in the Lord! Pray for me!
Your obliged weak brother.
Mülheim, the 24th of October, 1746.
German
Der neunundsiebzigste Brief.
Erbaulicher Bericht vom Krankseyn und Sterben der Ehefrau H. K.
In der Gnade JEsu herzlich geliebter Bruder!
Hierdurch muß dir und deinem Haus, und auch durch dich unsern lieben Mitgliedern in S. und eurer Gegend, bekannt machen, daß es dem HErrn gefallen hat, unsere liebe Schwester K. verwichenen Sonntag Abends, ein wenig nach neun Uhr, aus dem elenden Gefängniß ihres Leibes zu sich über zu nehmen …
— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.
German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. The letter Brief 78 was waiting for. There, Tersteegen could not travel because a friend was dying; here she has died, and he sits down the same week to tell her circle how. It is a death-report of the kind these communities passed hand to hand — an “edifying account,” as the old heading calls it — and it is entrusted to one man in Solingen with instructions to pass it on: tell the members, so that thanks may be given “through you too.” What makes it unusual is how little of it is edifying in the smoothing sense. He reports the impatience as carefully as the peace.
A few words and echoes.
- the wretched prison of her body. And at the end of the same account, “the dungeon of the body” — two words for one thought, and both of them hers as much as his: what she was let out of.
- her ground. The Grund — the innermost ground of the soul, where these letters locate the real person. It “was preserved to the end,” whatever the surface was doing.
- a common frame of prayer. Gebets-Fassung — not a service but a shared inward posture, a company composing itself to pray for one woman.
- the members best known to her. The circle called each other Kinder, children; the word here means brothers and sisters of the congregation, and it is the same word she uses when she fears being “a stumbling block to the members.”
- did not taste of patience. His verdict on her outburst keeps her metaphor of taste — an odd, gentle way to record a lapse.
- prayed it away. Abbeten — to undo a thing by prayer, get it lifted. She did it “at once.”
- brotherly help. Handreichung, literally a reaching-out of the hand: she stretches out both hands, asks for a hand, and he takes hers — the word and the gesture are the same thing here.
- oppression. Benautheit — the tightness and constriction of the dying chest, named plainly and then set aside.
- I, a dead block of wood. Ich todter Klotz — the self-accusation of a soul that feels unmoved, spoken minutes after describing an embrace she could not name.
- at her departure. Hingang, the going-hence; he uses the same word twice, for the dying and for the news of it.
- the eternal dwellings. The everlasting habitations of the parable — the place the poor she refreshed will receive her into.
- out of grace. Placed exactly where the reader expects the reward to be reckoned, and canceling the reckoning without canceling the praise.
- our whole self. Unser Ganzes — the totality: what we cede, and what gets filled. The same phrase twice in one sentence, deliberately.
- contenting. An old sense of vergnügt — not cheerful but satisfying, wanting nothing else.
- Selah. The Hebrew rest-mark from the Psalms, used as a full stop for something too full to continue.
- our Friend. Unser Freund — and contentiren, to satisfy him: if that is done, “what does it matter about us?”
- obliged weak brother. The subscription, and after this letter not a formula: he really is ill, and says so in the line above it.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-079 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.