The Heidenmauer Author:James Fenimore Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THK gomasters of Duerekheim, and the monks of Liinburg, heard of his arrival with satisfaction. The haughty and warlike baron had imbibed a standing prejudice... more » against all devotees, from an inherited enmity to the adjoining convent, which had contested the sovereignty of the valley with his family for ages; while the magistrates had a latent jealousy of every influence which custom and the laws had not rendered familiar. As to the monks, the secret of their distrust was to be found in that principle of human nature which causes us to dislike being outdone in any merit of which we make an especial profession, even though superior godliness be its object. Until now the Abbot of Limburg was held to be the judge, in the last resort, of all intercessions between earth and heaven; and as his supremacy had the support of time, he had long enjoyed it in that careless security which lures so many of the prosperous to their downfall. These antipathies on the part of the honoured and powerful might, to say the least, have rendered the life of the anchorite very uncomfortable, if not positively insecure, were it not for the neutralising effect of the antagonist forces which were set in motion. Opinion, deepened by superstition, held its shield over the humble hut, and month after month glided away, after the arrival of the stranger, during which he received no other testimonials of the feelings excited by his presence, than those connected with the reverence of the bulk of the population. An accidental communication with Berehthold was ripening into intimacy, and, as wiH be seen in the course of the narrative, there were others to whom his counsel, or his motives, or his prayers, were not indifferent. The latter fact was made sufficiently apparent to those who, on account of their mut...« less