SCHWENKFELDERS.
I had before seen the Schwenkfelders mentioned as a people who, like the Mennonites, Quakers, etc., are opposed to war, but I never became personally acquainted with them until the spring of 1873. At that time, a gentleman of West Chester advised me to inform myself concerning them, speaking of them as a delightful people. On arriving at Norristown, I therefore made inquiry about them from citizens of that borough, and was kindly furnished with several letters of introduction to members of the Schwenkfelder community living about seven miles north of the town.[116]
It was about noon when the stage left me at the house of one who had formerly been a preacher in the society. Here I dined, conversed with my host about his people, and looked at various large old volumes which he showed to me. Then, having been supplied with an escort, I went to a house in the same neighborhood, thedwelling of an elderly brother, who had learned my errand, and had expressed a wish to meet me.
Under his hospitable care, I remained until Sunday evening; he taking me to the meeting-house and other places. Through him I also received a present of several books, giving the history and doctrines of the society.
On Sunday evening he took me to the house of another member, whose kindly care did not cease until he had conveyed me—on Monday morning—again to the borough of Norristown.
The church which I visited is in Towamensing Township, Montgomery County, and is one of six in Eastern Pennsylvania which hold all the Schwenkfelders now living. I was surprised to find the church in neat order and in good preservation, thus indicating no lack of vitality in this small religious body, which, like a transplanted tree, has thrown out so few roots into adjoining soil. The plain meeting-house stood upon the edge of a wood; the graveyard was neat, and was enlivened by the blossoms of the mountain pink,[117]and the bright sunshine and tender green of May animated the scene.
Among the monumental stones was a rough one bearing this inscription only: “A. R. W. 1745.” And this was, I believe, the oldest here. Of nine years’ later date was a gravestone, still unhewn and irregular in shape, but with a longer inscription: “Psal. 90 v. 7. Baltzer Anders, Gestorben 1754, 56.” The passage cited fromthe Psalms is the text of the funeral sermon. The rest we may translate: “Balthazar Anders. Died 1754, at the age of 56.”
At the date 1762 we find a carved marble head-stone, but no showy monuments have been erected here. One of the more modern stones says, “Rosina Kribelin, geb. Hübnerin, alt 27 Yahr 5 monat,”—or “Rosina Kribel, born Hübner, aged twenty-seven years and five months;” the feminine termination in being added to both the names.[118]
Inscriptions older than these may be found at the meeting-house in Lower Salford Township, and one of them goes to a somewhat greater length in honor of him for whom it was erected. Translated it reads thus: “In memory of George Weiss, was born in Silesia, and first teacher of the Schwenkfelder community in Pennsylvania; died the 11th of March 1740, 53 years old.”
(The word teacher means preacher.)
Within the meeting-house there were enclosed benches or open pews; the pulpit and the ends of these benches upon the aisle being painted white. The men sat upon one side of the house, the women upon the other; the women removing their bonnets and wearing caps. These caps were not severely plain, like those of the Mennonites, etc., but were trimmed with white satin ribbon.[119]
The Schwenkfelder women bent the knee at the name of Jesus, but this observance has fallen into disuse among the men.
Before the morning service there is school, in which the children are taught from the Catechism and Testament; the Catechism containing the Apostles’ Creed. On Sunday afternoon, a school is held in which the children are taught to read the German language, in which tongue the church exercises are conducted.[120]The Schwenkfelders claim to have been among the earliest to establish Sabbath-schools, but their school is of later date than that of Ludwig Hoecker.[121]
During service, the pulpit or desk was occupied by three preachers. The oldest had a fine countenance, forehead, and coronal region of the head. The youngest, a very solid-looking, fair-haired man, read a portion of Scripture, andreada prayer.[122]Singing accompanied these exercises, and then a few extemporaneous remarks were made by the youngest preacher; the open Bible lying before him, upon which his eyes were cast. The oldest preacher spoke at length, and was followed by the third, who wore a heavy black beard.
The ministers of the Schwenkfelders, like those of our similar sects, are unsalaried and without special theological training.
I have mentioned that he whom I first visited brought out a number of large books for me to examine. They were all in the German language.
The first bore title, “The first part of the Christian, orthodox book, of the man noble, dear, and highly favored by God, Caspar Schwenckfeldt.” The volume was a folio; the place of printing not given; the date 1564. It is embellished by a large plate, which apparently represents Christ with Death and Satan under his feet. Below, upon the left, is a man in a furred robe kneeling, with the motto, “Caspar Schwenckfeldt von Ossing. Nil Christo triste recepto” (or, “If I have Christ, nothing makes me sad”). On the right is a troop of similar appearance, with the motto, “And the fellow-believers of the glories and truth of Jesus Christ.”[123]
Another ancient folio, bound in parchment, with brazen clasps, tips, and bosses, was said to be a volume of Schwenkfeld’s letters. There is no place of printing; the date is 1570. The same plate as the preceding. These epistles, says my host, are upon the popish doctrine and faith.
The third folio was of the same date, 1570, and was in a splendid state of preservation. This contains letters upon the Lutheran doctrine, with which Schwenkfeld did not agree.
Two of the folios brought out by my host were manuscripts, bound in leather, with brazen clasps. One ofthem had the great number of thirteen hundred and three pages, very neatly written in the German hand. It contained the sermons, “Postilla,” of Michael Hiller, preacher at Zobten, in Silesia, who “disappeared in God” in 1554; written and collected by Nicholas Detschke, 1564, and now written anew, 1747. I did not find the name of the copyist.
Although my host told me he that he had never been in Quaker meeting in his life, yet I found among his books a history of the rise, etc., of the Christian people called Quakers, originally written in Dutch by William Sewel, and by himself translated into English, from English translated into German (Hochdeutsch), 1742. This is Sewel’s History, one of the most celebrated of the Quaker books.
At the second house which I visited there lay in the window-seat several books in German. One was a large copy of the Scriptures, a clasped volume, with many plates. Lying loose in it were two plates of Caspar Schwenkfeld, in his furred robe, with beard descending upon his breast, and his motto (already given) in German: “Wenn ich Christum habe, so bin ich nicht traurig”; or, “If I have Christ, I am not sorrowful.” In selecting this motto, he may have had reference to his exiled condition.
(There seems to be among the Schwenkfelders much more regard than among most of our plain Pennsylvania Germans for the pictures, the “counterfeit presentments,” of men.[124])
The volumes given to myself, while among these people, are:
1. Schwenkfeld’sErläuterung, or Explanation, concerning many points in history and theology. Not written by their leader himself, but composed by several of the “godly exiles from Silesia to Pennsylvania.” An appendix contains, among other matter, a sketch of the life of Schwenkfeld, and an account of the journey of the Silesian emigrants from Altenau to this State. Of this volume I have made much use.[125]
2. Questions on the Christian Doctrine of Faith, for Instructing Youth in the First Principles of Religion. By the Rev. Christopher Schultz, Sen. My copy is a translation.
3. Constitution of the Schwenkfelder Society, subscribed in 1782, etc.
In the year 1490, seven years after the birth of Luther, two years before the discovery of America by Columbus, and one hundred and thirty-four before the birth of George Fox, was born in Silesia,[126]in the German or Austrian empire, Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossing, of avery old and noble extraction. His brother-in-law is mentioned as Conrad Thumb von Neuburg, hereditary marshal of the principality of Würtemberg. Caspar Schwenkfeld was a person of very handsome mien, dignified behavior, remarkable modesty, courtesy, and gentleness, accompanied by godliness, and fervency in prayer, and was of a Christian, pure, and temperate life. It is added that thus much even his bitter enemies must acknowledge, “as the clergy know.”[127]In his youth he studied two years at Cologne, and lived several years at other universities. He at length became well read in the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers. He was also many years in the confidential service of his liege lord, the Prince of Liegnitz (the Duke of Liegnitz?). Afterwards “God touched his heart,” and he turned away from his life at court, and became a teacher at St. John’s Church, in Liegnitz. He diligently read the writings of Luther and of others who were leaving the papacy, and he afterwards remarked that he had been as good a Lutheran as any. With the fiery reformer he, however, differed greatly afterwards; the first cause of difference being, as it appears, Luther’s views upon the Supper. Schwenkfeld says that the Lord Jesus had shown to him that he was not a bodily bread, but a spiritual and heavenly one.
Schwenkfeld also wrote a little work upon the misuse of the sacraments, which, without his knowledge, was printed in Switzerland. Hereupon Dr. Faber, bishop at Vienna, represented to the emperor, Ferdinand, that Schwenkfeld held false doctrines concerning the sacramentof the Supper, etc.; and Ferdinand was himself angry because his enemies had published the book. The emperor (or, as he is called, the king) wrote to the duke at Liegnitz to punish Schwenkfeld, but as his innocence was known to the duke, this prince thought it well that Schwenkfeld should ride away for a while.[128]
He did ride away in 1529, but, although he lived for thirty-three years after, he never rode back again.
He travelled to many places in Germany, and was prized and heard at many noble courts. Many times he stopped in cities of the empire, and suffered much opposition from the preachers.
A letter of pardon was sent to him by the emperor, Ferdinand, saying that if he would recall his opinion, and act differently, he should receive his knightly possessions; but, as already stated, he never returned to Silesia.
During his life he published ninety-two treatises, and after his death many of his books were published by his fellow-believers. All his writings were forbidden to be printed by the Papists and Lutherans, and in different places his writings were burnt, “nevertheless God has given means for several of these books to be published four or five times.”[129]
Many years after the publication of his little work,before spoken of, upon the misuse of the sacraments, Schwenkfeld sent to Luther a number of his own works, and called Luther’s attention to one of his favorite doctrines, “the glory of the manhood of Jesus Christ.” To the noble messenger who bore the letter, etc., Luther returned an answer, speaking in severe and ignominious terms of the author, reproaching him with having kindled a fire in Silesia against the holy sacrament, and with his Eutychianism, as Luther calls Schwenkfeld’s doctrine that the manhood of Jesus Christ is no creature.[130]
It was not the desire of Schwenkfeld to build up a sect of his own, nor did he judge any congregation already collected, but he exhorted all to pray in spirit and in truth in all places. He is said to have directed men only to Christ and his power, and to have filled, until his death, the office of a true evangelical preacher.
Before he departed, we read that he heard a voice, “Up, up into heaven!” which voice he had heard also before he rode out of his fatherland, saying, “Up, up out of the fire!” (His hearing had failed nearly forty years before his death.)
Not long before dying he said, “Now home; home into the true fatherland.”
“He died in God, and went home to his rest,” in the city of Ulm, in 1562.[131]
He was buried in a cellar. (It may be remembered that Menno was buried in a garden.)
Nearly three hundred years after the birth of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossing, the first Schwenkfeld congregation was organized; he was born in 1490, it was formed in 1782. It was upon the new continent discovered by Columbus, in the English colony of Pennsylvania, that a little band of exiled Schwenkfelders formed this society after they had sojourned here nearly fifty years. How were they able to continue Schwenkfelders, during the period of more than two hundred years between the death of their founder and their organization here?[132]
In Silesia the ruling church was Roman Catholic, but the Lutherans were generally tolerated. The Lutheran preachers, coming into contact with the Schwenkfelders, were often hostile and unfriendly to them; but the final self-banishment of the Pennsylvania colony was owing to the rigorous measures taken by the Jesuits for their conversion.[133]
In one of the persecutions of earlier times, we read of a certain Anthony Oelssner, who was called to strengthen the scattered faithful, about the year 1580; in which call he showed great diligence in prayer and preaching, until he was seized and lay imprisoned a while at Liegnitz. Afterward he was imprisoned at Löwenberg, in the tower, where he suffered almost the same strong temptations of Satan as we read in the lives of the fathers that old Anthony did, from which he was happily set free, as he writes in a long letter. One of his letters is from the lowest dungeon at Vienna, where he lay among thieves and malefactors.
He was also dragged about in the trenches and galleys,[134]all which he bore without a murmur, and met his persecutors with cheerfulness, encouraging the faithful by letters when he did not lie in dungeons too dark, or when ink, paper, etc., were not denied him. Of these writings a great part is still extant.
Certain of the Schwenkfelder prisoners, it seems, were sent upon the galleys to the Turkish war. “In taking the castle Gran, in 1593, they were obliged to go before the soldiers, through a narrow street; but they never killed a Turk, nor stained their hands with the blood of men (as is proper for the soldiers of Christ).”[135]
Another sufferer, old Martin John, tells how, when he lived at Kaufig, he beheld the lives of the priests, how they loaded themselves with eating and drinking, avarice and gaming, dancing and debauchery, and produced uproar in the beer-houses, and made a nine-pin alley, and played together in the parsonage yard. “And I thought that I could not any longer approve their godlessness. I was thus induced to stay at home, and read to my wife and children, and call them to repentance. Then the priest ran to my landlord,[136]and complained of me, but he would not listen, and I was left in peace for a year. Then my old master died, and his son, to please the godless preacher, drove me from my paternal inheritance.” The priest was named George M., and this was in 1584.
Martin John also says that the priest made jest of the Holy Ghost, saying, “Thou wilt have to wait long before the Holy Ghost will come and teach thee.”
Martin tells further, that he found a property cheap at Armenruh; but there he saw the same manner of life. “I did not have to go far, but heard in my own yard how the priest fiddled, and the rest danced and cried out, and found it much worse than in my own (former) home. So I stayed at home, and read, prayed, and sang, and other people came to hear. Then the priests ran to our landlords, and we were put into prison, where I was kept over four years, and the others over a year, and to these nothing was given to eat nor to drink.”
These cases of persecution all took place within fifty years after the death of Schwenkfeld, and seem to have befallen those who lived around the Spitzberg, in Lower Silesia; but in Upper Silesia, and in the district of Glatz, there was repose; and toward the end of the sixteenth century persecution appears to have declined, forwe do not find that any one writes letters from prison.
During the Thirty Years’ War the Schwenkfelders, like others who opposed the Romish Church, did not remain undisturbed. Once during this period complaint was made of them to the prince at Liegnitz, but they sent to him one of Caspar Schwenkfeld’s books, which he graciously received, and permitted them to hold meetings in their houses. Meetings in the open air were forbidden by the emperor.[137]
At the close of the war they were again persecuted, the preachers complaining of them to the nobility. But the prince at Liegnitz set them all free, and allowed them to worship again in their houses.
Simple religious services, formerly held among the Schwenkfelders, are thus described.[138]
If any one had books and read on Sunday, the others went and listened. But this was the order: in the morning, after each prayed when he rose, they came together. (Elsewhere it is stated that they were generally fasting.) They sang morning songs standing;afterward prayed out of a prayer-book; then all, standing, sang prayer-songs, especially to the Holy Spirit; they also sang sitting, and prayed, and then read several sermons; then prayed again and sang a couple of songs; then ate dinner. Afterward prayed again standing, and sang prayer-songs; afterward read till toward evening; then standing prayed and sang. That was the order on Sunday.
And if, in week-time, the people came together at a spinning (beym spinnen), then there was almost always singing, and when they would go home they knelt down together and prayed.
In coming down to the year 1730, we read that there being no longer any great persecution, the zeal of most began to be extinguished; the young people liked to go to church, especially at Harpersdorf, where there was beautiful music. Some dreaded contempt; some, it is said, found freedom to live in sin, for if they only went to the Supper they might live as they pleased, and receive a beautiful funeral sermon; many left on account of a marriage. Thus the Schwenkfelders greatly declined.[139]
It was somewhat before the date above given, or in the year 1719, that the celebrated Jesuit mission came among the Schwenkfelders; that is, by imperial decree, there arrived two missionary priests. In 1721, the Schwenkfelders sent delegates to the emperor, craving further indulgence.
While the missionaries were trying to make them Catholic, the Lutherans offered protection to those who should join them; but a few (“a little heap”) remained true, without falling off on either side. Of the delegates sent to the emperor, two remained in Vienna five years, and found him not ungracious. He ordered that time should be taken for further consideration.
During this time the mission was taking severe measures, with fine and imprisonment. No Schwenkfelder was to be buried in the churchyard, but upon the cattle-paths (highways?), and none should accompany them to burial (but this they could not prevent).[140]None shouldbe married who did not promise their offspring to the Catholics, which none would do; therefore many marriages were postponed for long years. On the contrary, when the new Lutherans (converts) were buried there was a great parade and procession, and a great throng at weddings. At length, in 1725, a severe edict was issued to oblige old and young to attend the mission teachings, and the Schwenkfelders were threatened with being fastened to wheelbarrows (Schübkarren), and with having their children taken away.
Now when affairs had come to an extremity, they heard that they might flee for a while to an honorable senator in Gorlitz, and also to his excellency Louis, Count of Zinzendorf, and Lord of Berthelsdorf;[141]and in 1726, and afterward, several families broke off by night, and in great danger, leaving their estates and property behind. More followed, and as they could better earn a living in the villages,[142]the greater part went to Berthelsdorf, and enjoyed protection there for eight years. But while living here in all stillness, in 1733, Zinzendorf informed them unexpectedly that theywere no longer to be tolerated in Saxony. In this matter they suspected the influence of the Jesuits with the elector. (Zinzendorf himself was banished from 1736 to 1747.[143])
One year was allowed them before removing, and, after looking elsewhere, they concluded to come to Pennsylvania. In 1733 a couple of Schwenkfelder families had come hither,—and, as they say, “Our faithful friends in Holland advised us strongly to go.” About forty families, therefore, began the journey in the latter part of April, 1734, and cast anchor at Philadelphia on the 22d of September. “There, by the praiseworthy constitution of the country, we were made citizens, and partakers of all civil and religious freedom.”
After this flight the missionaries continued their efforts in Silesia, and several more families fled and came to Pennsylvania. In 1740 an imperial command was issued, that the Schwenkfelder heresy must out. Now were they greatly urged to join the Lutherans for their protection; and now, in houses, two were against three, and three against two, and a man’s foes were those of his own household. At last, the greater part went over to the Lutheran Church. However, in the following autumn, the emperor died, and Silesia was soon after conquered for Prussia by Frederick the Great.
All the Roman Catholic offices were then vacated, and Pater Regent, one of the mission, “retreated after us into Saxony; and other instruments sought shelter out of the country. The books of which we were robbed by the doctors and their followers were, we heard, taken toLiegnitz; and as for the homes and goods we had left behind, they had helped themselves to them, which is all one to us. We hope their enjoyment of them will be as profitable to them as the abandoning of them has been to us.”
In 1742, or eight years after the principal migration to Pennsylvania, the King of Prussia published an edict in favor of freedom of conscience, inviting the exiled Schwenkfelders to return to his duchy of Lower Silesia, or to dwell in any other part of his possessions. No further persecution afflicted these people, but they have become extinct in Europe, the last having died in 1826.
When these wandering people no longer found a place of refuge in Saxony, in April of 1734 about forty families began that journey to Pennsylvania already spoken of. This was completed in September, in a period of about five months. An account of this long voyage is given at the close of the book already often referred to, theErläuterung, or Explanation.
In Altona (near Hamburg), during a stay of eleven days, they received great hospitalities from the Herren v. Smissen, father and son.
On arriving at Haarlem (from some of whose citizens they had received contributions while still in Saxony), they could not enough admire the common joy and proofs of love with which they were received. The brothers Abraham, Isaac, and Jann v. Byuschanse were especially kind, entertaining them with flesh, fish, all kinds of vegetables, beer, coffee, and tea, and besides thechildren were daily presented with all kinds of baked gingerbread and such things.[144]
As regarded the journey of the exiles to America, the Herren v. Byuschanse had made an agreement with the captain at their own expense.
Two days’ journey from Holland, Gregory Meschter was presented with a healthy little son. Fifteen days they lay at Haarlem, and at Rotterdam, on the 21st of June, they went on board the English ship “St. Andrew,” Captain Stedman commander. While they lay still one week on board this vessel, “God gave David Schubert a young son.”
On the 28th they left Rotterdam. On the 16th of July, six Palatinate women and two men fought each other, and she who began it received her deserts.[145]
At Plymouth, England, which they left on the 29th,a rich woman gave the whole ship’s company one hundred and twenty-five shillings, and when it was divided each person received four and a half stivers, English. (The stiver is a Dutch coin of the value of one English penny, or two cents in our money.)
On the 9th of August a Palatinate mother and daughter fought each other. On the 10th a great fish was seen, which spurted water on high powerfully, as if out of pipes. (Our inland Silesians were not familiar with whales.)
A number of children and several grown persons died upon the sea. On September 22d, “God be forever thanked,” the anchor was happily cast before Philadelphia, and guns were fired. On the 23d, all males over sixteen had to go to the court-house to take the oath of fidelity to the King of Great Britain. “We Silesians, as on account of conscience we could not swear, were readily excused, and were allowed to promise faith by giving the hand” (mit einem Handschlage).
I asked a Schwenkfelder, “What are the exercises of your commemorative festival?” He answered, “It is a day of thanksgiving to God, that we live under a free government, where we can serve him according to our conscience.”
An animated description of the day has been given by the Rev. C. Z. Weiser, in theMercersburg Review. This article, although apparently not quite true to history, and though written in a peculiar style, has a sprightliness which interests the reader.[146]
Mr. Weiser tells us, that whoever is not providentially prevented is bound to attend their yearly reunion. Nor has it been found necessary thus far to enter an urging statute to secure the presence of the fraternity. The “seeding” is done, the corn stands in shocks, and the farm-work of September is timely put aside, in order that all may participate in the memorial ceremonies of the 24th with a light, gay, and thankful heart.[147]It is on the day and day before that you may feast your eyes on many a well-laden carriage, the horses all in good condition, moving on toward one of the Schwenkfelder meeting-houses, selected in rotation, and one whole year in advance. The aged and infirm of both sexes stay not behind. The young men and women are largely and promptly there. The fathers are similarly enough clad to be considered uniformed. So too are the mothers arrayed in a manner very like to one another, with snow-white caps and bonnets that never vary. The sons anddaughters do indeed not love the habits of their elders any the less, yet only the wicked world’s a little more.[148]
The morning service opens at nine o’clock, and is filled out with singing, praying, and recitals of portions of their ancestral history. All is gone through with in the Pennsylvania German dialect, but withal reverentially, solemnly, and earnestly, just as though it were newly and for the first time done.[149]
At twelve o’clock, the noonday feast is set. This is the feature of the day. It consists of light and newly-baked rye bread, sweet and handsomely printed butter, and the choicest apple-butter.[150]Nothing beyond these is set, but these are of the first water. The bare benches, but lately occupied by devout worshippers, serve as tables,along which the guests are lined out. Not in silence, nor in sullenness, do they eat their simple meal, but spicing it with cheerful talk, they dine with hearts full of joy. Still, you need fear no profane utterance or silly jest. They are mindful of the spirit of the occasion, of the place in which they congregate, and of the feast itself, which the singing of some familiar hymn has consecrated. If any one thirst, let him drink cold water.
And now think not that they feign simply to eat and drink,—that the meal from first to last is but a poor pretence. A full and hearty dinner is “made out” there. It is a bona fide eating and drinking that is done in the meeting-house of the Schwenkfelders on theirGedächtniss Tag(Remembrance Day). They are all hard-working men and women,—farmers and farmers’ wives and farmers’ children. They are sunburnt, healthy, and hungry besides. And why should they not relish the sweet bread, with their sweet butter and apple-butter, then? Even strangers who attend and are hospitably entertained by the society show that one can make a full hand, even at such a table.
At two o’clock the tables become pews again, and the afternoon exercises are conducted according to the programme of the morning. These concluded, a general invitation is again extended to partake of the baskets of fragments gathered up and stored away in the rear of the meeting-house. A fraternal hand-shaking closes the anniversary for the year. The reflection that many part now who may never meet again on earth causes tears to trickle down some furrowed cheek, which generally prove more or less contagious, as is always the case in a company of hearts, when those tears flow insincere channels. Hence, though all were happy all day long, they now feel sad.
To appreciate the meaning and spirit of this apparently homely scene, it is necessary to know that it is a memorial service all through. It was on this very 24th of September, 1734, that some seventy [forty] families of Schwenkfelders, who had landed on the 22d, and declared their allegiance on the 23d, held their thanksgiving service, in gratitude to God for a safe deliverance to the colony of Pennsylvania. They had arrived in the ship “St. Andrew,” at Philadelphia, as fugitives from Silesia.
Poor, but feeling rich in view of their long-sought liberty, they blessed God in an open assembly. We may judge their store and fare to have been scant and lean indeed; and to perpetuate the original service of their forefathers from generation to generation, they statedly celebrate theirGedächtniss Tag.
The poor fare before them is finely designed to impress the sore fact of their ancestors’ poverty indelibly upon their minds, memories, and hearts. They eat and drink in remembrance of former days,—the days of small things. They join thereto at the same time a gladsome worship, in thankfulness for the asylum opened up for them from their former house of bondage, and which proved so fair a heritage to their people ever since.[151]
A lawyer of Norristown tells me that he taught a subscription school among the Schwenkfelders, somethirty years ago, and a day or two before the school closed he sent out his bills by the scholars. Every cent of the money due was paid in on the next morning,—and as he was then poor this was a delightful and memorable circumstance.[152]
Further, I find it laid down as a rule of their community that members must see to it that their debts are paid without legal proceedings.
Another instance of exactness in money matters is given in their history, namely, that while they were sojourning with or near Zinzendorf, some of their well-wishers in Holland sent to them a considerable contribution in money, of which they knew nothing until the merchants of Gorlitz announced and paid it to them. By their diligence in labor, and their skilful use of this money, they were able to supply the pressing wants of their poor, and to pay the expenses of the same to Altona. On their arrival at Haarlem, a little that remained was laid at the feet of their noble benefactors.[153]
I met with a young Dunker woman, in the neighborhood of the Schwenkfelder community, who said, “The poor always find their way to the Schwenkfelders;” and on my mentioning this subject at one of the houses which I visited, my host told me of persons having come to his house asking “how far they had to the SchwenkfelderThal” (or valley).
The language spoken at two of the houses which I visited was almost entirely the Pennsylvania German;but my ignorance of the dialect forbids my knowing whether these Silesian emigrants speak it differently from the South German Palatines.
My power of talking German was perhaps never more exercised in the same length of time than during my visit here; the women and children in the houses alluded to speaking no English. In the second, the mother, who was in delicate health, had been reading German books, but was unable to read English. A like circumstance is certainly very uncommon, if not unknown, among the “Dutch” of my own county.
Neither does there appear to be the same objection to education there that exists among some of our people here. One of the Schwenkfelders said to me that he told his boys to learn as much as they can; “I’d not seen a man yet that had been too wise; and the girls may do the same.” He also told me that they do not neglect to teach the children in their family to read and write German, a custom which tends to preserve the purity of the language. But the Schwenkfelders find it difficult to preserve a knowledge of German, since the language is no longer taught in the public schools in their neighborhoods.
Like Quakers, Dunkers, etc., the Schwenkfelders have an unpaid ministry. One whom I met, who had been a preacher, cultivated fourteen acres of ground, and joined to this labor the mechanical occupations of making brooms and cigar boxes. I said to one of the society, “You do not pay your ministers?”
“No,” he answered, “but they are excused from all church expenses, such as the treasury for the poor, and building and keeping in repair our meeting-houses.Then, as one minister will be a farmer and another a mechanic, and one is called upon to leave his shop and the other his farm to attend funerals, we generally make such a one a present.
“It has been at times the case that presents have been offered to men in good circumstances, who would answer, thanking the giver, but they had no need of the gift; if at any other time it should be necessary they would accept it.”
Candidates for the ministry are elected by ballot; the votes being collected in a hat. Women do not vote, and of course they do not preach. If the candidates when elected prove to be “men of able tongues,” they are confirmed. Formerly the Schwenkfelders did not vote for preachers, but it seemed to them that the right kind did not come forward, and those who did come forward were not always desirable persons.
The sacraments of baptism and the supper have never been held among them.[154]A modern custom, originating in this country, and established in 1823, has thus been described: After the birth of a child, it is brought by the parents into church, and a preacher prays for the happiness and prosperity of the child, and admonishes the parents to bring it up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the will of God. Then there is prayer, and the singing of some appropriate verses. If the child or mother is delicate, this service is sometimes performed at their house.[155]
Not only are the Schwenkfelders forbidden to become soldiers, but also to train in military exercises. Upon this point, however, the late rebellion seems to have tried some of their members, as it did some Quakers.
“Do you bring lawsuits?” said I to a member.
“Not if we can help it. I never brought a lawsuit, nor had one brought against me, and hope I never shall.”
In plainness of speech, behavior, and apparel, in opposition to war, to oaths, and to a paid ministry, in a belief in the teachings of the Divine Spirit and in the inferiority of the written word to the indwelling Spirit, in discarding religious forms, in opposition to priest-craft or a hierarchy, and, although not practising silent worship, yet in their desire to live “in the stillness,” the Schwenkfelders resemble Quakers. We might almost say that they are Quakers of an older type (Quakers it may be of whom George Fox had never heard). They differ from Quakers in employing stated prayers, in electing preachers, in not acknowledging the spiritual equality of women, and in their peculiar doctrine of the “glory of the manhood of Jesus Christ,—how it is no creature.”[156]
We give from theErläuterung, or Explanation, some striking extracts upon some of these points. Upon the word of God, Schwenkfeld and Illyricus had a violent contest. Schwenkfeld holds that the tables upon which God writes, and the book or paper upon which man writes, are entirely two kinds of thing: between all printed and written books in the world and the true word of God a fundamental difference is to be maintained. The word is a living, internal, spiritual word, and can only be contained in the book of the believing heart.[157]Faith existed many hundred years before the Scripture. It proceeded from the eternal Word or Son of God, Jesus Christ, and from God, the All-powerful.[158]
Against what are called “the means of grace” Schwenkfeld preached. (Spiritual things, it is said, come not through canals.) Schwenkfeld maintained that Christ is only to be sought above with the Father, and thence we must all draw that which will make us upright and blessed. This was also recognized by theleaders who came out from the papacy; but there came a time when they taught that Christ and salvation were to be found below in external works and worship. But Schwenkfeld neither could nor would admit that Christ and the Holy Spirit were in outward works of preaching and hearing and in elements of this earthly existence, in water, bread, and wine.[159]
On baptism we find the following: The first and most eminent work of the sacrament of baptism is, the internal grace of inworking faith in the love of God, which moves, glows, and lives through the outpouring of the heavenly waters which flow from the Word of God, which is Christ. The other point is the external word and water which is outwardly poured upon and washes the body outwardly as the internal does the soul.
John the Baptist says, “I baptize with water to repentance, but he who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Here he distinguishes the work of the minister from the office of the Lord, and the visible water from the Holy Spirit.
Ambrose says, “Peter has not purified, nor Ambrose, nor Gregory, for ours is the ministry, but thine, Lord, are the sacraments. It is not the work of man to give divine things, thine is it, Lord, and the Father’s, who says through the prophets [prophet,] I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”
That the subject of the Holy Supper is especially weighty may be judged by the agitations on account of it, and by the fact that on this account many thousandsin many lands have been killed and burnt. And this was the article upon which the Reformers, with their gloriously begun work, fell to pieces. Upon this article Luther renounced his friendship to Schwenkfeld, and they publicly differed.[160]
Schwenkfeld thought that when they came out from the papacy they should preach the gospel in its purity, instruct old and young in the catechism, and earnestly pray until they could come to the right use of the sacrament.... Whereby whole parishes, towns, and countries should not at once be taken up, as if fit for the table of the Lord. But it should be held with those who received the word, and in whom there were tokens of amendment, whether these were only Caleb and Joshua. Schwenkfeld declared that he had no command to establish the sacraments, but his command had been to spread the gospel and point every man to Jesus Christ. “But we are comforted that we are instructed by God and from the Holy Scripture that our soul’s salvation is necessarily placed on no outward thing, but that one thing is needful.” (Luke x.) “But we pray the Lord Jesus Christ that he will reveal a right use of the sacraments, and himself establish them. We strive, moreover, to hold his supper daily with the Lord Christ, in the spirit of faith.” (Rev. iii.[161]) But though Schwenkfeld did not feel called upon to establish the sacraments,there is nothing in the catechism of the society opposed to the external rites.
The twelfth chapter of the Explanation, containing nearly eighty pages, is devoted to Schwenkfeld’s peculiar doctrine, of which I shall content myself with the heading of the chapter, as follows: “Of the divine Sonship and glory of the Manhood of Jesus Christ, that the same is no creature, but extinguished in the Transfiguration, and changed into the Godhead.”
To one passage in the Catechism I would like to call attention:
Question.—How did God reveal himself in an external manner?
Answer.—First, when God, by his almighty word, framed the universe, by which he has shown how great, almighty, wise, and good he is.[162]
And now may we not also rest our souls upon these expressions from the constitution of the Schwenkfelder society, translated almost literally?
In the nature of God, we first perceive love as that noble and outflowing power which binds God andmen together.... If the society build upon this fundamental part of the divine nature, namely, love, then their only immovable aim will be, first, the glory of God, and second, the promotion of the common weal of every member.
The preceding article is published nearly as it appeared in the second edition of this work, which was issued late in 1873, with the date 1874. Almost as soon as the edition appeared, I learned that baptism had been introduced among the Schwenkfelders at a meeting held a few months before; and that perhaps in two cases it had also been administered at the approach of death.
In the spring of the present year, 1882, I visited a Schwenkfelder settlement in the upper part of Montgomery County, and was hospitably entertained at the house of one of their preachers. German or the Pennsylvania dialect was the language of the family. On Sunday I attended church, where, as before in another locality, the services were in German, as were nearly all the proceedings in the Sunday-school. Here I learned that the rite of the Supper has also been introduced among the Schwenkfelders, though not without opposition. I inquired on what grounds the opposition was brought, but received no satisfactory reply.
At the house of my entertainer I was shown a volume, published in 1879, containing a genealogical record of the descendants of the Schwenkfelders in this country, to which is prefixed a historical sketch by C. Heydrick, a lawyer of Franklin, Pennsylvania.
Herein it is stated that Schwenkfeld differed with Luther on several points; chiefly on the eucharist, the efficacy of the divine word, the human nature of Christ, and baptism.
Schwenkfeld held, says the writer, that the penitent believer partakes of the bread and the body of the Lord, not only at the sacramental altar, but elsewhere.
On the second point Schwenkfeld denied that the external word in the Scriptures has the power of healing and renewing the mind, but ascribed this power to the internal word, Christ himself. He regretted that Luther, who at first agreed with him, saw fit afterward to ascribe to the written or preached word the efficacy which is only in Christ, the eternal word.
Further, Schwenkfeld rejected infant baptism, and held that baptism and the Supper were not intended as means by which the unregenerate partaker can obtain salvation.
Two other volumes on these subjects have very lately come within my notice. One in German, by a pastor named Kadelbach, published about 1860, at Lauban, which is within forty miles of the city of Liegnitz, where Schwenkfeld was canon in a church. As early as 1846, in composing a history of the village of Probsthayn (where some of the Schwenkfelders formerly lived), he added to it some material concerning these people.
As this subject attracted attention, he endeavored to obtain material for a history of them, in which matter he met with much difficulty. It came to pass, however, that the Schwenkfelders in America sent an inquiryto the burgomaster of Probsthayn, asking whether there were still Schwenkfelder communities (Gemeinden) there. This inquiry came, in 1855, into the hands of Kadelbach, who was very glad to communicate with the Schwenkfelders in America, as he had never before been able to do. His volume is called “Complete History of Kaspar von Schwenkfeld and of the Schwenkfelders in Silesia, Upper Lusatia, and America.”[163]A copy has been placed in the archives of the German Society’s library in Philadelphia.
We may inter that the attention of the author was attracted to his subject by certain local objects or remains. He tells us that the Catholic chapel at Harpersdorf, and the graves on the cow-path (viehweg), are the last memorials that testify of the existence there, and of the persecution of the Schwenkfelders. The Catholic chapel was built for one of the missionaries who was striving to convert them. As to the graves on the cow-paths, the statement has before been quoted (in a note onpage 222), that three hundred persons lay upon the cow-paths at Harpersdorf and Langenneudorff (or Langendorff).
The other volume in which the Schwenkfelders are especially noticed is Barclay’s Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. London, 1876. Barclay finds that on several points the teaching of Schwenkfeld was identical with that of George Fox, the first Quaker. Barclay gives a passage from Schwenkfeld, in which he says that the true knowledge of Christ, that which is according to the Holy Ghost must be expected,not alone out of the Scriptures, but much more from the gifts of grace revealed by the Father, yet so that this revelation should always be in unison with the witness of the Scriptures.[164]
Struck with the similarity between the Schwenkfelders and Quakers, Barclay appears to have written to the former, and to have received an answer, from which the following passages are taken: