What purpose the Lord had in placing such a mixture of imperatives inside him he didn’t know. But a growing sense of urgency steadily deepened upon him to permanently record, not only the events of his life, but also his perceptions concerning the historical struggles of his people, his modern perspective on the spiritual cataclysms of the sixteenth century, in which, since he was a schoolboy, he had taken a great interest, in addition to many observations he had made on a great variety of topics throughout his life.

In spite of the activity in the house above him, as often as he had opportunity he ventured down into the bowels of Lebenshaus, here to relive former epochs, both of his and many others’ life-journeys, and various of the spiritual pathways he and his predecessors in the Spirit had trod.

He forced himself to find time to work diligently, setting pen to paper as often as he could steal an hour or two away from his fields and his guests. He kept his notes and writings safely concealed, where he could be sure they would not fall into any but the hands the Lord destined to receive them.

PART VI: The Mystery of Sacrifice-1944

PART VI

The Mystery of Sacrifice—1944

75 The House of Schmundt

75

The House of Schmundt

The years of the war had not been spiritually serviceable for Gustav von Schmundt, heir apparent to the Schmundt estate of north Germany.

They had given him all external advantages needful for a successful climb to the high echelons of the Third Reich. He had learned to deport himself in every way like the superior specimen of humanity he considered himself. He possessed power and prestige and was moving progressively upward within the hierarchy of the SS, and in carriage and physical appearance, no German mother could have been more proud of such a son as he.

Currents of true life, however, flow along underground rivers through the hidden caverns of will, motive, desire, and choice. While Gustav had been maturing in worldly stature and climbing the ladder of social prominence, these subterranean tides of being had steadily dried up within him. The parched streambeds of character contained now but scarce a trickle, an inevitable result when the demon of self occupies the throne in that concealed kingdom of the soul.

His desires were his own, his motive to please none but himself, his will bent only toward his own satisfaction. How could it be otherwise when the multitude of choices of his existence had for years pointed in no direction but fleshward, each tiny volition further deepening the arid rut of his self-preoccupation?

Neither the strength of his motives nor the efforts of his will could achieve for him stature of the most important kind, an inner integrity of true manhood. Nor had they been sufficient to gain the one thing most important to him in all the world.