EPHRATA.
This quiet village in Lancaster County has been for over a century distinguished as the seat of a Protestant monastic institution, established by the Seventh-Day German Baptists about the year 1738.
Conrad Beissel, the founder of the cloister, was born in Germany, at Oberbach, in the Palatinate, in the year 1691. He was by trade a baker, but, after coming to this country, he worked at weaving with Peter Becker, the Dunker preacher, at Germantown. He is said to have been a Presbyterian, which I interpret to mean a member of the German Reformed Church. According to the inscription upon his tombstone, his “spiritual life” began in 1716, or eight years before he was baptized among the Dunkers.
This may be explained by an article written by the Rev. Christian Endress, who seems to have studied the Ephrata community, in connection with their published writings, more than some others who have endeavored to describe this peculiar people.[46]
Mr. Endress says, “The Tunkers trace their origin from the Pietists near Schwarzenau, in Germany.”[47]
While they yet belonged among the Pietists, there was a society formed at Schwarzenau composed of eight persons, whose spiritual leader was Alexander Mack, a miller of Schriesheim.
The members of this little society are said to have been rebaptized (by immersion), because they considered their infant baptism as unavailing, and to have first assumed the name ofTaeuffer, or Baptists.[48]
The Dunkers first appeared in America in 1719, when about twenty families landed in Philadelphia, and dispersed to Germantown, Conestoga, and elsewhere.
Beissel was baptized among them in 1724, in Pequea Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna. He lived fora while at Mühlbach, or Mill Greek, in Lancaster County. Some time after this baptism, or in 1728, he published a tract upon the Seventh Day as the true Sabbath. This tract caused a disturbance among the brethren at Mill Creek, and Beissel and some with him withdrew from the other Dunkers, and Beissel rebaptized those of his own society.[49]
Not long after, says Endress, Beissel, who had appointed several elders over his people, withdrew from them, and retired to live a solitary life in a cottage that had been built for a similar purpose, and occupied by a brother called Elimelech. This cottage stood near the place where the convent was afterward built. Here we infer that he lived for several years.
To live the life of cenobites or hermits, says Rupp, was in some measure peculiar to many of the Pietists who had fled from Germany to seek an asylum in Pennsylvania. “On the banks of the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, several hermits had their cells, some of them men of fine talents and profound erudition.”
Of some of these hermits, and of the monastic community afterward settled at Ephrata, it is probable that a ruling idea was the speedy coming of Christ to judge the world. It is stated that after the formation of Beissel’s “camp” midnight meetings were held, for some time, to await the coming of judgment. Those who remember the Millerite, or Second Advent, excitement ofthe year 1843, can appreciate the effect that this idea would have upon the minds of the Dunkers, and how it could stimulate them to suffer many inconveniences for the brief season that they expected to tarry in the world.[50]
While Beissel was dwelling in his solitary cot, about the year 1730, two married women joined the society, of whom the Ephrata Chronicle tells us that they left their husbands and placed themselves under the lead of the director (orvorsteher, the title applied to Beissel in the Chronicle). He received them, although it was against the canon of the new society. One of these was Maria Christiana, wife of Christopher Sower, him who afterward established the celebrated German printing-office at Germantown. She escaped in the year 1730, and was baptized the same fall. In the beginning she dwelt alone in the desert, “and showed by her example that a manly spirit can dwell in a female creature.”[51]
While Beissel was still in his hermitage, discord andstrife arose among the brethren of his society, news of which reached him by some means, for in the year 1733 he cited them to appear at his cottage.
They met, and some of the single brethren agreed to build a second cottage near that occupied by their leader. Besides this, a house was also built for females, and in May, 1733, two single women retired into it.[52]
In 1734, a third house for male brethren was built and occupied by the brothers Onesimus and Jotham, whose family name was Eckerlin.[53]
Soon after, says Endress, they all united in the building of a bake-house and a storehouse for the poor. And now the whole was called the camp (das Lager).
The early history of the society is quaintly narrated by Morgan Edwards, the Baptist historian. They had, he says, their existence as a society in 1724, when Conrad Beissel and six others were baptized in Pequea River by Rev. Peter Baker. The same day these seven incorporated into a church, and chose Conrad Beissel to be their minister. After this they continued some time at Mill Creek, and then, removing about three miles northward, pitched on the land of Rudolph Neagley, in Earl Township. Here they continued about seven years; and hither resorted many to see them, some of whom joined the society. Here they began their economy, the men living by themselves on the fore-mentioned lands, and the women also by themselves on the adjoining lands of John Moyly.
Here Conrad Beissel appointed two elders and a matron to preside over his church in the wilderness, binding them by a solemn promise (and at the same time giving to each a Testament) to govern according to the rules of that book. Then he withdrew, and made as though they should see him no more. This was done in the year 1732 or 1733. He travelled northward, till he came to the spot where Ephrata or Tunkerstown now stands, and with his hoe planted Indian corn and roots for his subsistence. But he had not been long in the place before the society found him out, and repaired to his little cot, the brethren settling with him on the west bank of Cocalico, and the sisters on the east, all in sight of one another, with the river running between them. The next year they set about building their village, beginning with a place of worship.
Endress tells us that about the time of the formation of the camp there was a revival in Falconer Swamp, in consequence of which many families took up land round about the camp, and moved upon it. Another revival on the banks of the Schuylkill drove many more into the neighborhood; by it the sister establishment gained accessions; but only two, Drusilla and Basilla, remained steadfast. “A further revival in Tolpehoccon,” 1735, brought many to the society. Hereupon they built a meeting-house, with rooms attached to it for the purpose of holding [preparing?] love-feasts, and called it Kedar. About the same time, a revival in Germantown sent additional brothers and sisters to the camp.[54]
It was in 1735, during the revival at Tulpehocken, that Peter Miller was baptized[55]or rebaptized. Miller, in one of his letters (see Hazard’s Register, vol. xvi.), speaks of several persons who, as it appears, were baptized with him; namely, the schoolmaster, threeelderlings(one of them Conrad Weyser), five families, and some single persons. This, he says, raised such a fermentation in that church (by which I suppose he means the Reformed Church, which they left), that a persecution might have followed had the magistrates consented with the generality.
Peter Miller, whom we are now quoting, was one of the most remarkable men that joined the Ephrata Baptists. He was born in the Palatinate, and is said to have been educated at Heidelberg. He came to this country when about twenty years old. He is mentioned, it seems, in an interesting letter of the Rev. Jedediah Andrews, under date of Philadelphia, 1730, which letter may be found in Hazard’s Register. He says that there are “in this province a vast number of Palatines. Those that have come of late years are mostly Presbyterian, or, as they call themselves, Reformed, the Palatines being about three-fifths of that sort of people.”
Mr. Andrews says, in substance, “There is lately come over a Palatine candidate for the ministry, who applied to us at the Synod for ordination. He is an extraordinary person for sense and learning. His name is JohnPeter Miller,[56]and he speaks Latin as readily as we do our vernacular tongue.”[57]
Peter Miller, in one of his letters, speaks of his baptism (or rebaptism) in the year 1735. He says at that time the solitary brethren and sisters lived dispersed “in the wilderness of Canestogues, each for himself, as hermits, and I following that same way did set up my hermitage in Dulpehakin [Tulpehocken], at the foot of a mountain, on a limpid spring; the house is still extant [1790], with an old orchard. There did I lay the foundation of solitary life.[58]
“However,” he continues, “I had not lived there half a year, when a great change happened; for a camp was laid out for all solitary persons, at the very spot where now Ephrata stands, and where at that same timethe president [Beissel] lived with some hermits. And now, when all hermits were called in, I also quitted my solitude, and changed the same for a monastic life; which was judged to be more inservient to sanctification than the life of a hermit, where many under a pretence of holiness did nothing but nourish their own selfishness.... We were now, by necessity, compelled to learn obedience.... At that time, works of charity hath been our chief occupation.[59]
“Canestogues was then a great wilderness, and began to be settled by poor Germans, which desired our assistance in building houses for them; which not only kept us employed several summers in hard carpenter’s work, but also increased our poverty so much that we wanted even things necessary for life.”
He also says, “When we settled here, our number was forty brethren, and about so many sisters, all in the vigor and prime of their ages, never before wearied of social life, but were compelled, ... with reluctance of our nature, to select this life.”[60]
It was, it seems, about the same time that Miller was baptized that the midnight meetings were held at the camp, “for the purpose of awaiting the coming of judgment.”
Not long after the building of the meeting-house called Kedar (says Endress), a widower, Sigmund Lambert, having joined the camp, built out of his own means an addition to the meeting-house and a dwelling for Beissel. Another gave all his property to the society, and now Kedar was transformed into a sister-convent, and a new meeting-house was erected.
Soon after 1738 a large house for the brethren was built, called Zion, and the whole camp was named Ephrata.[61]The solitary life was changed into the conventual one; Zion was called a kloster, or convent, and put under monastic rules. Onesimus (Eckerlin) was appointed prior, and Conrad Beissel named father. (His general title appears to bevorsteher, superintendent or principal.)
It was probably about this time, or earlier, that the constable entered the camp, according to Miller, and demanded the single man’s tax. Some paid, but some refused. Miller says that some claimed personal immunity on the ground that they were not inferior to the monks and hermits in the Eastern country, who supplied the prisons in Alexandria with bread, and who weredeclared free of taxes by Theodosius the Great and other emperors. But these Ephrata brethren were not to be thus exempted. Six lay in prison at Lancaster ten days, when they were released on bail of a “venerable old justice of peace.” When the brethren appeared before the board of assessment, the gentlemen who were their judges saw six men who in the prime of their ages had been reduced to skeletons by penitential works. The gentlemen granted them their freedom on condition that they should be taxed as one family for their real estate, “which is still in force (1790), although these things happened fifty years ago.” (See Miller’s letters in Hazard’s Register.)
A monastic dress was adopted by the brethren and sisters, resembling that of the Capuchins.[62]
The Chronicle, published in 1786, speaks of the sisters as having carefully maintained the dress of the order for nearly fifty years. About the same date we read of Miller in his cowl.
It appears from the Chronicle that the other members of the society at one time adopted a similar dress, butthat the celibates (die Einsamen) appeared at worship in white dresses, and the other members (die Hausstände) in gray ones. The secular members, however, “saddled themselves again” and conformed to the world in clothing and in other things.
In an article upon Ephrata in Hazard’s Register, vol. v., 1830, will be found the statement that, thirty or forty years before, the Dunkers were occasionally noticed in Philadelphia (when they came down with produce), with long beards and Capuchin habiliments; but this statement does not seem to agree in date with that of the Chronicle, if these were secular brethren.
Among the austerities practised at Ephrata formerly, was sleeping upon a bench with a block of wood for a pillow.[63]
The late Dr. William Fahnestock tells us that these and other austerities were not intended for penance, but were undertaken from economy. Their circumstances were very restricted, and their undertaking was great. They studied the strictest simplicity and economy. For the Communion they used wooden flagons, goblets, and trays. The plates from which they ate were thin octagonal pieces of poplar board, their forks and candlesticks were of wood, and every article that could be made of that substance was used by the whole community.
Rupp says that the chimneys, which remain in use tothis day (1844), are of wood; and the attention of the present writer was called in 1872 to wooden door-hinges.
Rupp says also that they all observed great abstemiousness in their diet; they were vegetarians, and submitted to many privations and to a rigid discipline exerted over them by a somewhat austere spiritual father. Peter Miller himself says that he stood under Beissel’s direction for thirty years, and that it was as severe as any related in the Romish Church (but this sounds exaggerated).
In the brother- and sister-houses, it has been stated that six dormitories surrounded a common room in which the members of each subdivision pursued their respective employments. “Each dormitory was hardly large enough to contain a cot, a closet, and an hour-glass.”[64]
Of the industries established at Ephrata, one of Peter Miller’s letters gives us a good idea. He complains, as before mentioned, of Eckerlin’s obliging them to interfere so far in worldly things, and that money was put out at interest. He adds that they erected a grist-mill, with three pairs of stones; a saw-mill, paper-mill, oil-mill,and fulling-mill; had besides three wagons with proper teams, a printing-office, and sundry other trades.
He adds, “Our president [by whom he means Beissel] never meddled with temporal things.”
Mr. Rupp (who cites the Life of Rittenhouse) says that the women were employed in spinning, knitting, sewing, making paper lanterns and other toys. A room was set apart for ornamental writing, called “Das Schreibzimmer,” and “several sisters,” it has been said, devoted their whole attention to this labor, as well as to transcribing the writings of the founder of the society; thus multiplying copies before they had a press. But the press appears to have been early established, and it was the second German one in our State. It has been stated that Miller was at one time the printer.[65]
Among the books published at Ephrata were some of Beissel’s, who had adopted the name of Peaceful (Friedsam). One of their publications was a collection of hymns, and was entitled “The Song of the Solitary and Abandoned Turtle Dove, namely, the Christian Church, ... by a Peaceful Pilgrim travelling towards Quiet Eternity.” Ephrata, from the press of the Fraternity, 1747. 500 pages, quarto.[66]
Beissel also wrote a dissertation on man’s fall, of which Miller says (1790), “When, in the late war, a marquis from Milan, in Italy, lodged a night in our convent, I presented to him the said dissertation, and desired him to publish it at home, and dedicate it to his Holiness.”
In 1748, a stupendous book was published by the society at Ephrata. It is the Martyr’s Mirror, in folio, of which copies may be seen at the libraries of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and of the German Society, in Philadelphia.
The Chronicon Ephratense, or Ephrata Chronicle, so often alluded to in this article, was also from their press, but was published thirty-eight years later. It contains the life of Beissel, under the title of the venerable “Father in Christ, Peaceful Godright (Friedsam Gottrecht), late founder andvorsteherof the Spiritual Order of the Solitary (Einsamen) in Ephrata, collected by Brothers Lamech and Agrippa.” I have heard of several copies being still extant,—one in Lancaster County, one in Montgomery, and one in the library of the Historical Society at Philadelphia. The last I have been allowed to consult.
In speaking of the occupations practised at Ephrata, it may be permitted to include music. Beissel is said to have been an excellent musician and composer. “There was another transcribing-room,” says Fahnestock, “appropriated to copying music. Hundreds of volumes,each containing five or six hundred pieces, were transferred from book to book, with as much accuracy, and almost as much neatness, as if done with the graver.” In composing music, Beissel is said to have taken his style from nature. “The singing is the Æolian harp harmonized.... Their music is set in four, six, and eight parts.”
Morgan Edwards[67](as cited in Day’s Historical Collections) says, “Their singing is charming,—partly owing to the pleasantness of their voices, the variety of parts they carry on together, and the devout manner of performance.” This style of singing is said by Rupp (1844) to be entirely lost at Ephrata, but to be preserved in a measure at Snow Hill, in Franklin County. Fahnestock, who was himself a Seventh-Day Baptist (orSiebtaeger), gives a very enthusiastic account of the singing at Snow Hill. It may be found in Day’s Historical Collections, article “Franklin County.”[68]
In addition to the various industries which claimed the attention of the community, there must not be forgotten the care of their landed estate. It has been said that they bought about two hundred and fifty acres of land.[69]
A very large tract was once offered to them by one of the Penns, but they refused it. I was told at Ephrata that they were “afraid they would get too vain.”
Count Zinzendorf, the celebrated Moravian bishop, came to Pennsylvania in 1741. At one time he visited Ephrata, and was entertained in the convent, where his friendly behavior was very agreeable to the brothers. (We may suppose that Miller, and Eckerlin, who was not yet deposed, were men fit to entertain him.) He also expressed a wish to see Beissel. This was made known to the latter, who answered, after a little reflection, that Zinzendorf was no wonder to him, but if he himself were a wonder to Zinzendorf, he must come to him (or as it seems, to Beissel’s own house). Zinzendorf was now in doubt what to do, but he turned away and left without seeing the father (vorsteher). The Chronicle adds that thus did two great lights of the church meet as on the threshold, and yet neither ever saw the other in his life.
The Moravians also erected brother- and sister-houses, but they were not monastic institutions.[70]
Dissension arose at one time between some of the brethren of the Ephrata Society and Count Zinzendorf, at a conference held by the latter at Oley, now in Berks County. Zinzendorf seems to have desired to unite some of the sects with which Pennsylvania was so abundantly supplied. But the solitary brethren (of Ephrata) were so suspicious of the thing that they would no longer unite with it. They had prepared a writing upon marriage, how far it is from God, and that it was only a praiseworthy ordinance of nature. This they presented, whereupon there arose a violent conflict in words.
The ordinarius (Zinzendorf) said that he was by no means pleased with this paper; his marriage had not such a beginning; his marriage stood higher than the solitary life in Ephrata. The Ephrata delegates strove to make all right again, and spoke of families in their society who had many children.[71]
But Zinzendorf left his seat as chairman, ... and at last the conference came to an end, all present being displeased.[72]
About this date (or about 1740) took place the formation of the Sabbath-school, by Ludwig Hoecker, called Brother Obed.[73]He was a teacher in the secular school at Ephrata,—a school which seems to have enjoyed considerable reputation. The Sabbath-school (held on Saturday afternoon) is said to have been kept up over thirty years. This was begun long before the present Sunday-school system was introduced by Robert Raikes. (American Cyclopædia, articleDunkers.)
Not long after the visit of Zinzendorf, or about 1745, occurred the deposition of Eckerlin, the prior Onesimus. In one of his letters, Miller says (1790), “Remember, we have lost our first prior and the sisters their first mother ... because they stood in self-elevation, and did govern despotically;” and adds, “the desire to govern is the last thing which dies within a man.” (It seems probable that Eckerlin has not received sufficient credit, however, for the pecuniary success of the infant community.)
Some ten years after his deposition (or in 1755), began the old French and Indian war. Fahnestock tells us that the doors of the cloister, including thechapels, etc., were opened as a refuge for the inhabitants of Tulpehocken and Paxton[74]settlements, which were then the frontiers, to protect the people from the incursions of the hostile Indians. He adds that all these refugees were received and kept by the society during the period of alarm and danger. Upon hearing of which, a company of infantry was despatched by the royal government from Philadelphia to protect Ephrata.[75]
But why, we might ask, did these people seek refuge in a communion of non-combatants? The question bears on the controversy, as to whether the men of peace or the men of war were nearer right in their dealings with the savages.[76]
Beissel died in the year 1768, or about thirty years after the establishment of the cloister. Upon his tombstone was placed, in German, this inscription:
“Here rests a Birth of the love of God, Peaceful, a Solitary, but who afterward became a Superintendent of the Solitary Community of Christ in and around Ephrata: born in Oberbach in the Palatinate, and named Conrad Beissel.”
“He fell asleep the 6th of July,A.D.1768: of his spiritual life 52, but of his natural one, 77 years and 4 months.”
Endress says, “He appears to me to have been a man possessed of a considerable degree of the spirit of rule; his mind bent from the beginning upon the acquirement of authority, power, and ascendency.” For ourselves, we have just seen how he received Count Zinzendorf, who had crossed the ocean, and come, as it were, to his threshold.
Mr. Endress further says, “Beissel, good or bad, lived and died the master-spirit of the brotherhood. With him it sank into decay.”
The British officer who wrote in 1786 (?), eighteen years after Beissel’s death, gives the number of the celibatesas seven men and five women. I do not consider him good authority; but if the numbers were so much reduced from those of 1740, it seems probable that they had begun to decline before the decease of Beissel.[77]
Eighteen years after Beissel’s death, was published at Ephrata the Chronicle of which I have so often spoken, giving an account of his life. He was succeeded by Peter Miller. Miller was sixty-five years old when our Revolutionary war broke out, and had been the leader at Ephrata seven years.
Fahnestock says that after the battle of Brandywine “the whole establishment was opened to receive the wounded Americans, great numbers of whom (Rupp says four or five hundred) were brought here in wagons a distance of more than forty miles, and one hundred and fifty of whom died and are buried on Mount Zion.”[78]
It is also narrated that before the battle of Germantown a quantity of unbound books were seized at Ephrata by some of our soldiers, in order to make cartridges. “An embargo,” says Miller, “was laid on all our printed paper, so that for a time we could not sell any printed book.”
A story has appeared in print, and not always in the same manner, about Miller’s going to General Washington and receiving from him a pardon for his old enemy Widman, who was condemned to die.
This story Mr. Rupp thinks is based upon tradition;one version has been told in a glowing manner, and is attributed to Dr. Fahnestock. It runs thus: On the breaking out of the Revolution, committees of safety were formed in different districts to support our cause. At the head of the Lancaster County Committee was Michael Widman, who kept a public house, and who had been a vestryman in the Reformed Church. This church Miller had left when he joined the Baptists. He persecuted Miller to a shameful extent, even spitting in his face when he met him.
Widman was at first bold and active in the cause of independence, but he became discouraged, and resolved to go to Philadelphia and conciliate General Howe, the British commander, who then held that city. Howe, however, declined his services,[79]but gave orders to see him safely beyond the British outposts. His treasonable intentions having become known to the Americans, he was arrested and taken to the nearest block-house, at the Turk’s Head, now West Chester; was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be hung. Peter Miller, hearing of his arrest, went to General Washington and pleaded for mercy towards him. The general answered that the state of public affairs was such as to make it necessary that renegades should suffer, “otherwise I should most cheerfully release your friend.”
“Friend!” exclaimed Miller: “he is my worst enemy,—my incessant reviler.”[80]
Said the general, “My dear friend, I thank you for this example of Christian charity!” and he granted Miller’s petition.
It is not necessary for me to go further, and describe the scene of Miller’s arriving upon the ground with the pardon just as Widman was to be hung, nor the subsequent proceedings there, for I am quite sure that they did not take place. Evidence to this effect is found in the Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., where Peter Miller writes to Secretary Matlack, interceding (apparently) for a man named Rein. Miller says, “I have thought his case was similar to Michael Wittman’s, who received pardon without a previous trial.”
The secretary replies (1781), “Witman did not receive a pardon previous to a surrender.”
Thus it seems that the story of Widman’s trial by court-martial is also wrong. That his property was confiscated, as I was lately told at Ephrata, I have no reason to doubt, as the Colonial Records, vol. xii., show that in council, in 1779, it was resolved that the agents for forfeited estates should sell that of Michael Wittman, subject to a certain claim.[81]
At Ephrata, during the past winter, I stood in the loft of the brother-house beside a great chimney of wood and clay, and was told that here Widman had been hidden. Whether he actually concealed himself in the brother-house, as has been narrated, I do not find that history declares.
At a subsequent date, 1783, we find in the Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., that Miller intercedes for certain Mennonites who had been fined for not apprehendingBritish deserters; the Mennonites not being permitted by their principles to do so. Does this mean deserters from ourselves to the British,—who were, as deserters, liable to the punishment of death? a punishment which the Mennonites, as non-resistants, could not inflict.
Certain letters of Peter Miller, published in Hazard’s Register, and of which I have made considerable use, were written at an advanced age,—eighty or thereabout. He says in one of them (December, 1790), “Age, infirmity, and defect in sight are causes that the letter wants more perspicuity, for which I beg pardon.”
He died about six years after, having lived some sixty years a member of the community at Ephrata. Upon his tombstone was placed this inscription in German:
“Here lies buried Peter Miller, born in Oberampt Lautern, in the Palatinate (Chur-Pfalz); came as a Reformed preacher to America in the year 1730; was baptized by the Community at Ephrata in the year 1735, and named Brother Jaebez; also he was afterward a preacher (Lehrer) until his end. He fell asleep the 25th of September, 1796, at the age of eighty-six years and nine months.”
In the plain upon the banks of the Cocalico still stand the brother- and sister-houses (although not the buildings first erected). But the society is feeble in numbers, and the buildings are going to decay. They are still, however, occupied, or partly so. I found several women living here in 1872. Some of these were never married, but the majority are widows; and not all of them members of the Baptist congregation. Nor are the voices of children wanting.
The last celibate brother died some forty years ago.One, indeed, has been here since, but, as I was told, “he did not like it,” and went to the more flourishing community of Snow Hill, in Franklin County.
The little Ephrata association (which still owns a farm), instead of supporting its unmarried members, now furnishes to them only house-rent, fuel, and flour. The printing-press long since ceased from its labors, and many of the other industrial pursuits have declined.
No longer do the unmarried or celibate members own all the property, but it is now vested in all who belong to the meeting, single and married, and is in the hands of trustees. The income is, I presume, but small.
The unmarried members wear our usual dress, and none are strictly recluse.
Formerly a large room or chapel was connected with the brother-house. It was furnished with galleries, where sat the sisters, while the brethren occupied the floor below. (This building, I am told, is not standing.) In the smaller room or chapel (saal) connected with the sister-house, about twenty people now meet on the Seventh day for public worship. But among all these changes the German language still remains! All the services that I heard, while attending here in February of 1872, were in that tongue, except two hymns at the close. We must not suppose that this language is employed because the members are natives of Germany. One or two may be, but the preacher’s father or grandfather came to this country when a boy.
Around the meeting-room are hung charts or sheets of grayish paper, containing German verses in ornamental writing, the ancient labors of the celibates, or perhaps of the sisters alone. One small chart here is said to representthe three heavens, and to contain three hundred figures in Capuchin dress, with harps in their hands, and two hundred archangels. Perhaps this and their celibate doctrine are drawn, at least in part, from the opening of chapter xiv. of the book called the Revelation of John.
But for these old labors in pen and ink, the chapel is as plain as a Quaker meeting-house. It is kept beautifully clean.[82]Opening out of it is a kitchen, furnished with the apparatus for cooking and serving the simple repasts of the love-feasts. Among these Baptists, love-feasts are held not only, as I understand, in a similar manner to the other Dunkers, but upon funeral occasions,—a short period after the interment of a brother or sister. Rupp speaks of their eating lamb and mutton at their paschal feasts. In the old monastic time, it was only at love-feasts that the celibate brothers and sisters met.
Here I was shown a wooden goblet made by the brethren for the Communion. It has been said that they preferred to use such, even after more costly ones had been given to them.
After attending the religions services in the chapel, three or four of us—strangers—were supplied with dinner in the brother-house, at a neat and well-filled table.[83]
I afterward sat for an hour in the neat and comfortable apartment of Sister Sarah in the sister-house. Here she has lived twenty-two years, and, though now much advanced in life, has not that appearance. She seemed lovely, and, I was told, had not been unsought. One of her brothers has been thirty-three years at the Snow Hill community.
Sister Sarah produced for me a white cotton over-dress, such as was formerly worn by the sisters. It was a cap or cowl, with long pieces hanging down in front and behind nearly to the feet; and, if I remember it right, not of the pattern described in the Chronicle. But fashions change in fifty to a hundred years.
She also showed me some verses recently written by one of the brethren at Snow Hill. They were in German, of which I offer an unrhymed version:
“Oh divine life, ornament of virginity!How art thou despised by all men here below!And yet art a branch from the heavenly throne,And borne by the virgin Son of God.”
“Oh divine life, ornament of virginity!How art thou despised by all men here below!And yet art a branch from the heavenly throne,And borne by the virgin Son of God.”
“Oh divine life, ornament of virginity!How art thou despised by all men here below!And yet art a branch from the heavenly throne,And borne by the virgin Son of God.”
“Oh divine life, ornament of virginity!
How art thou despised by all men here below!
And yet art a branch from the heavenly throne,
And borne by the virgin Son of God.”
I was surprised to find such prominence given to the idea of the merits of celibacy, for I had not then seen theChronicon Ephratense.
One object which especially attracted my attention was an upright clock, which stood in the room of Sister Sarah, and which was kept in very good order. It was somewhat smaller than the high clocks that were common forty or fifty years ago.
All that I heard of its history was that it had come from Germany. It had four weights suspended on chains. Above the dial-plate hovered two little angels,apparently made of lead, one on either side of a small disk, which bore the inscription “Hoeckers a Creveld,”—as I interpret, made by the Hoeckers at Crefeld. Crefeld,—historic town! Here then was a relic of it, and standing quite disregarded,—it was only an old German clock!
When the Dunkers were persecuted in Europe, soon after their establishment, some of them took refuge in Crefeld, in the duchy of Cleves; and I have lately read that in Crefeld, Mühlheim, etc., William Penn and others gained adherents to the doctrine of the Quakers.[84]
We also find in the American Cyclopædia that at Crefeld (Ger.Krefeld), a colony of Huguenot refugees in the seventeenth century introduced the manufacture of silk—Dunkers and Quakers; perhaps also Huguenots fleeing from France when Louis XIV. revoked that edict of Nantes which had so long protected them. (Crefeld is now in Rhenish Prussia.)
Who were the Hoeckers, or who was the Hoecker that made this old clock?[85]Who bought it in historic Crefeld? Who brought it from Europe, got it up into Lancaster County, and lodged it in the monastery or nunnery at Ephrata? What, if anything, had Ludwig Hoecker or Brother Obed to do with it—he who taught the early Sabbath-school? What tales could it not tell! But it is well cared for in the comfortable apartment of the kindly sister.
The Snow Hill settlement, I presume, is named fromthe family of Snowberger,[86]one of whom endowed the society. It is situated on the Antietam, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania; where a large farm belongs to “the nunnery” (an expression that I heard at Ephrata). There were, until lately, five sisters and four brothers at Antietam, but one of the brethren has died.
The brethren have sufficient occupation in taking care of their property; the sisters keep house, eating in the same apartment at the same time with the brothers. Under these circumstances I could imagine the comfort and order of the establishment, and think of the brothers and sisters meeting in a cool and shaded dining-room. What question then should I be likely to ask? This one: “Do they never marry?”
I was told that marriages of the brothers and sisters (celibates) are not unknown; but I also understood that such a thing is considered backsliding. Persons thus married remain members of the church, but must leave the community, and find support elsewhere.[87]
In an article by Redmond Conyngham (Hazard’s Register, vol. v.) will be found the statement that the“President of the Dunkers” says, “We deny eternal punishment; those souls who become sensible of God’s great goodness and clemency, and acknowledge his lawful authority, ... and that Christ is the only true Son of God, are received into happiness; but those who continue obstinate are kept in darkness until the great day, when light will make all happy.” According to Dr. Fahnestock, however, the idea of a universal restoration, which existed in the early days, is not now publicly taught.
The observance of the Seventh day as a sabbath must always be onerous, in a community like ours. Hired people are not required by the Siebentaeger (or Seventh-Day men) to work on Saturday; and, unless of their own persuasion, will not work on Sunday.
It has been said that the customs at Ephrata resembled the Judaic ones; and Endress says that they consider baptism similar to purification in the Mosaic law,—as a rite which may be repeated from time to time when the believer has become defiled by the world, and would again renew his union with Christ. But Miller says (1790), “Our standard is the New Testament.”[88]
Fahnestock says that they do not approve of paying their ministers; and it seems that the women, or at least the single sisters, are at liberty to speak in religious meetings.
In the correspondence of one of our Lancaster papers of 1871, there was given the following account: “Ephrata, May 21.—The Society of the Seventh-Day Baptistsheld their semi-annual love-feast yesterday, when one new member was added to the society by immersion. In the evening the solemn feast of the Lord’s Supper was celebrated, the occasion attracting a large concourse of people,—only about half of whom could obtain seats. The conduct of a number of persons on the outside was a disgrace to an intelligent community.”
The article also mentions preachers as present from Bedford, Franklin, and Somerset Counties. However, the whole number of the Seventh-Day German Baptists, in our State, is very small.
The foregoing article is published nearly as it appeared in the second edition of this volume. In the present year, 1882, Mr. Adam Konigmacher Fahnestock, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has lent me a little memorial which he had prepared of his own family. A passage in it seems to elucidate the history of the clock at Ephrata, which bears on its face “Hoeckers a Creveld.” On St. John’s day, November 13, 1753, Diedrich Fanestuck writes to his brother in Prussia. (The letter is said to have been written near Ephrata.) He writes that his son, who is going to Europe, will stop at Crefeld, “where he is to have some clocks made for us.” He adds, “I pray you to write again. You may send the letters to Crefeld, there are three brothers living there, Wilhelmus, Christophorus, and Lucas Heckers, to them you might send them.”
In a foot-note A. K. Fahnestock says, 1878, October 17: “I had the pleasure this day of seeing one of thoseclocks (seven feet high), still showing the time of day. It is in the ‘sister-house’ at Ephrata.” (The preposition a on the clock, Hoeckers a Creveld, would seem to indicate that this Hoeckers were French refugees. Perhaps with a translated name.)
In this year, 1882, the writer of this volume again visited Ephrata. One of her acquaintance spoke to her of the community at Snow Hill, on the Antietam. She said, “It’s a large nunnery, and the rooms are all empty; there’s hardly any one there.” She added, however, that there are a good many married Seventh-Day Baptists at Snow Hill.
The old buildings at Ephrata, the brother- and sister-house, are still kept in sufficient repair to make inmates comfortable, and are occupied by unmarried women, widows, and families; not all Seventh-Day Baptists. The farm belonging to the Baptists contains about eighty acres.
As I drew near one of these buildings on Sunday, I saw washed clothes hanging out. Saturday is the Sabbath of these Baptists, and like the rest of the world it appears that such begin their week with washing.
The little community at the time of my visit was grievously exercised over a lawsuit among the members. The matter had been referred to a master in chancery, who thus speaks of them in his report: “At the time of the commencement of the differences from which has sprung the present controversy, and for some years previously, the members of the society in regular attendance at its meetings, and habitually observant of its religious ordinances, were in number about thirty, of whomnot less than three-fourths appear to have been women. They seem to be an uneducated or but slightly educated people, in narrow circumstances as to property, the male members being in general mechanics and laboring men, resident in and about the village of Ephrata, in this county, and a considerable proportion of all the members, male as well as female, being dependent for subsistence either wholly or partially upon the funds of the society. They do not appear to have formulated specifically articles of faith or rules of discipline, but profess to take for their guidance simply the Bible and New Testament, and the distinctive features of their practice are, their observance of the seventh day of the week instead of the first as the Sabbath; the administration of the rite of baptism by trine immersion, with forward action, in a stream of flowing water; and by the love-feasts held annually at their communion, and lasting from Friday evening until Sunday morning, at which food is provided for all members, as well as all strangers who may choose to attend the meeting; and by the washing of each other’s feet by the members, previously to the breaking of bread at the communion.... The church at Ephrata, it should be mentioned, is one of four branches, as they are called, of the society of [German?] Seventh-Day Baptists. The other three being established, respectively, at Snow Hill, Bedford, and Alleghany, in this State.”