Mother tells the story of Heinrich the Noble, the family’s oldest remembered ancestor. Against the backdrop of the Reformation, Heinrich stands at the Falls of the Rhine and consecrates his life to reform, leaving his homeland to be baptized a grown man and to help build Zion at Münster. His voice and Mother’s alternate through the night, while in the present the children drift to sleep, Henry snuffs the forbidden candle, and Marshall keeps his silent vigil at the window.
1 Lush hillsides rolled onward and outward beyond the winding river, adding to their height row after row and mile after mile southward.
2 These slopes emerged not as mere hills but as tempestuous climbs shooting skyward, blending into the distant Alpine peaks at the horizon.
3 This Swiss patchwork of rolling fields betwixt river and peaks had long cradled me as a boy and, longer still, had cradled the infant Rhine, the backdrop of my youth.
4 Its torrenting waters, birthed calmly a distance upstream from a lake of trickling height, here cascaded and crashed around me on both sides.
5 I had come to the falls of the Rhine in Schaffhausen, aided by a friend fisherman’s boat, to embark at its base and then summit the rocky mass jetting and cutting the cascades in two. I had come as one of God’s converted wanderers to stand atop its sea of foggy mist and amidst its roar, catch His beams of dawn bare-handed.
6 This morning I had determined to make of my life a dedication to His will and to right the corrupt wrongs of the land.
7 Despite some agreement with reforming words of Ulrich Zwingli, I believed still more was needed, and in the necessity of believer’s baptism. My attempts to persuade others to follow Christ as converted adults had met the opposition of the city’s leaders, and then left me no choice.
8 “Geloove sunder Werke is dood,” I shouted at the crashing waves now, as I had to the gathered crowd the day before—faith without works is dead—knowing this would mark me as an outcast and make this morning my final in my homeland. Yet I feared God more than man.
9 “The man in this story was your many-great-grandfather Heinrich, generations back on your father's side,” Mother explained, looking at the children seated before her, and glancing at Marshall's attentive eyes.
10 “He is the oldest ancestor in our family line about whom we still have stories to tell. He traces us back to Western Europe—to Germany and Switzerland.”
11 “Heinrich followed one of the Protestant Reformation movements that prepared the way for the restoration of the gospel in our own time,” she said.
12 None of the children but Jeff had any inkling of where Europe lay, nor any grasp of the plight of the Anabaptist movement—the movement that led Heinrich to break with tradition, to face persecution, and that at last drove his children to flee in search of religious freedom, first to eastern and then to western America.
13 “Heinrich is a noble ancestor, a hero for our family,” Mother said with pride, “for standing up courageously against what he saw as corruption among the Catholics. God prepared him, and other reformers like him.” And she read on.
14 On that morning, and in that very spot, I stood at the Falls of the Rhine—Heinrich of Hessen, son of Hans—gazing at the river as it curved before me.
15 What I had once thought meandering, I now saw whole: a determined course, carving its own way.
16 ‘This mighty river can give no thanks,’ I whispered to myself. ‘Indeed, it cannot give thanks to our motherland.’
17 ‘For if a river is to change the landscape, it cannot simply wash atop the soil. Its waters must combine, and curve, and cut deeply into the earth—even into the motherland that bore them.’
18 I climbed the waterfall's jutting pinnacle of rock, raising my eyes to the sky as if in ascension.
19 I saw the lush green moss at my feet, the sea-blue and frothing-white river surrounding me, and the snow-capped Alpine peaks on the horizon.
20 Above all, I saw the birthing sky—pink and deep blue—tearing itself away from the retreating black nothingness of night.
21 I had arrived early, but for the last time; a place I knew so well, it would henceforth be gone to me forever.
22 “Ik verbind mi hier, as de Stroom, to en neien Sinn,” I said aloud—I bind myself here, like the river, to a renewed purpose—“to a renewed purpose, and to meander no more.”
23 “I am newly called to cut and to carve—however jarring, however wrenching—a more righteous future, and to toss aside the worthless chaff from the imperfect patchwork stretched out before me.”
24 For God has said, “He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
25 The river had carved its winding path from its mountain-lake origin, and here it pooled and hastened as it neared me, before hurling itself downward in cascading rapids.
26 Rebellious against the rocks that refused to move, each droplet left its microscopic mark of erosion before merging back into the calm.
27 The Rhine, its falls, and Schaffhausen had cradled me since my infancy.
28 But now, as a man, I had resolved—like the river—to slash back at the world and cut it in return, as it had tried to cut my course. And now that I had publicly turned away, I knew there was no choice but to leave this homeland.
29 I had risen early and packed two hardened bread rolls, a brimmed hat, Luther's German scriptures, and a small dagger for protection.
30 Change had to come. I felt called to bring it; I chose it. I would leave my home and make pilgrimage to join the faithful at Münster, to build Zion before the coming of the Lord.
31 Mother summarized Heinrich's journey: “After that day, Heinrich left his home, stepped aboard a riverboat, and was baptized a grown man in the Rhine at Basel.”
32 “Heinrich's departure from the old church of his fathers marked the beginning of our family's journey into the Reformation of Christianity—paving the way for the later restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
33 “Like him, you are bound for greatness: to change the world, and to lead it back to God. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
34 Sleep had overtaken the two youngest, their shadowed heads now converged as one.
35 The middle child rose from his seat, reached out, and seized the base of the candle.
36 The room's lit lines tilted, and its dark corners shifted like a storm-tossed boat, as he lifted the light to his lips, careful not to overcorrect and spill more wax over its edge.
37 He drew a breath and snuffed it. An edge collapsed, and a line of molten scent hardened along the candle's side as it ran down.
38 The turbulent shadows vanished and darkness settled in, as he set a glass cover over the smoking wick and watched the curling black smoke spin.
39 The children lay limp and motionless as Marshall lifted them—the older ones merely climbed—and tucked them into bed. With the night's memories pressed into their minds, Cleo prayed she had minted heavenly coinage for their lives by moonlight. After closing the door she continued, with only Marshall, the deaf one, still in earshot; yet she would speak to the ether, to the ripples of air and space, and send the words out even if unheard.
40 The mist of the Rhine Falls still clung to Heinrich's boots as he stepped back aboard the riverboat.
41 He left his home behind him, never to return, his heart filled with conviction and purpose.
42 The boat glided down the river, its wooden hull creaking as the oars pushed it along the muddy banks.
43 Heinrich sat in silence, one hand clasped around the handle of the small dagger in his pocket, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. Change had certainly come.
44 He had spent much of his life anticipating this moment—the day he had suspected might come, when he would leave behind all he knew to follow the Lord's calling.
45 Now, as the boat carried him away, he felt the weight of his decision bearing down on him; but there was no turning back.
46 Heinrich would later write that the journey ahead would be difficult, filled with trials and persecution.
47 Yet, like the Rhine that carved its path through the land, he was determined to cut his own course through life.
48 “The Lord has called me to this path,” he whispered, “and I shall not waver.”
49 The riverboat made its way down and northward, passing towns and villages, each filled with people about their daily lives—unaware of the man aboard who had taken the risks they would not.
50 Heinrich prayed as he sailed, asking God for strength and guidance in the days to come.
51 His mind turned to Münster, the city where he hoped to build Zion—a city of believers, where faith and action would unite.
52 But he knew the path would not be easy, for the forces of the world were arrayed against him and his fellow believers in change.
53 Already he could hear the voices of those who would stand in his way, who would call him heretic and fool.
54 “But I will not falter,” Heinrich vowed. “For God is with me, and I shall see His will done.”
55 As Heinrich sailed on in the tale, Mother's voice carried the story forward—though no children remained awake to receive it.
56 “Heinrich knew that leaving his home meant leaving behind his family, his friends, and everything he had ever known.
57 “But his faith in God was greater than his fear of the unknown,” she said.
58 Henry, the middle child, lay awake in bed, listening to her words as they drifted with the dim moonlight beneath the door into the room he shared. He imagined the riverboat gliding down the Rhine, carrying Heinrich toward his destiny.
59 “Heinrich's faith,” he heard her continue, “was tested many times, but he never gave up. He never lost sight of the mission God had given him.”
60 “He believed that through his faith and his actions he could change the world—just as we are called to do today.” Marshall had returned to the reply-less window.
61 The boat reached its destination at last, docking near Münster along the river Ems, where Heinrich would begin his mission.
62 The city was full of tension, a place where reformers like Heinrich were both feared and hated.
63 Yet Heinrich stepped ashore without hesitation, his heart filled with resolve.
64 “De Herr is min Kraft un min Schild,” he muttered—the Lord is my strength and my shield—as he walked toward the city gates. “I shall not fear what man can do to me.”
65 He entered the city, his eyes scanning the streets for any sign of the believers he had come to join.
66 The city was a clamor of noise and motion, the market square crowded with traders, townspeople, and the occasional soldier.
67 Heinrich felt out of place—a stranger in a foreign land—yet resolute in his purpose.
68 “Hier is, wo Zion opstaen sall,” he thought—here is where Zion shall rise—“and I shall be one of its builders.”
69 As Heinrich began his work in Münster, spreading the teachings of the Reformation, Mother's voice echoed on into the present day.
70 “Heinrich's journey did not end with his arrival in Münster,” she said, looking toward her husband's back at the window, her eyes full of conviction.
71 “His work continued; and through him, our family's faith was born.”
72 “Each of us has a path to walk, a mission given us by God, just as Heinrich had his. And it is our duty”—my duty, she thought—“to follow it, no matter the cost.”
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