At the oaken door of the Franciscan monastery at Gorheim, in the principality of Hohenzollern, faltered one morning a timid knock. The monk who answered found a cringing wretch there, broken with years of suffering: He identified himself as a onetime Colonel of the Kaiser's armies, personal friend of the Crown Prince, who had led his regiment gallantly to France. But a sense of guilt for his part in war obsessed him, and now he sought to make penitential amends, following the example of the gentle St. Francis of Assisi.
He was admitted, donned...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In