USA > Ohio > History of the state of Ohio > Part 15
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Madame De Stael has left to us the following pleasing description of a Moravian village:5
"I was sometime ago at Dentendorf, a little village near Erforth, where a Moravian community is established. This village is three leagues distant from every great road; it is situated between two mountains, upon the banks of a rivulet; willows and lofty poplars environ it; there is something tran- quil and sweet in the look of the country, which prepares the soul to free itself from the turbulence of life. The buildings and the streets are marked by perfect cleanliness ; the women, all clothed alike, hide their hair, and bind their heads with a riband, whose color indicates whether they are married, maidens or widows; the men are clothed in brown, almost like Quakers. Mercantile industry employs nearly all of them ; but one does not hear the least noise in the vil-
5) See her " Germany ; " Philadelphia edition, 1814; vol. ii., p. 276.
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lage. Everybody works in regularity and silence; and the internal action of religious feelings lulls to rest every other impulse.
"Instead of bells, wind instruments, of a very sweet har- mony, summon them to divine service. As we proceeded to church, by the sound of this imposing music, we felt our- selves carried away from the earth; we fancied that we heard the trumpets of the last judgment, not such as remorse makes us fear them, but such as a pious confidence makes us hope them ; it seemed as if the divine compassion manifested itself in this appeal, and pronounced beforehand the pardon of regeneration.
" The church was dressed out in white roses, and blossoms of white thorn ; pictures were not banished from the temple ; and music was cultivated as a constituent part of religion ; they only sang psalms ; there was neither sermon, nor mass, nor argument, nor theological discussion ; it was the worship of God in spirit and in truth. The women, all in white, were ranged by each other without any distinction what- ever ; they looked like the innocent shadows who were about to appear together before the tribunal of the Divinity.
" The burying ground of the Moravians, is a garden, the walks of which are marked out by funeral stones : and by the side of each is planted a funeral shrub. All these grave stones are equal; not one of these shrubs rises above the other ; and the same epitaph serves for all the dead. 'He was born on such a day; and on such an other, he returned into his native country.' Excellent expression to designate the end of our life ! The ancients said 'he lived ;' and thus threw a veil over the tomb, to divest themselves of its idea ; the Christians place over it the star of hope.
"On Easter-day, divine service is performed in the bury-
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ing ground, which is close to the church, and the resurrec- tion is announced in the middle of the tombs. All those who are present at this act of worship, know the stone is to be placed over their coffin ; and already breathe the perfume of the young tree, whose leaves and flowers will penetrate into their tombs.
" The communion of the Moravians cannot adapt itself to the social state, such as circumstances ordain it to be; but as it has been long and frequently asserted that Catholicism alone addressed the imagination, it is of consequence to remark that what truly touches the soul in religion is com- mon to all Christian churches. A sepulchre and a prayer exhaust all the power of the pathetic : and the more simple the faith, the more emotion is caused by the worship."6
But the characteristic of the Moravians which has led to this extended notice of the sect, is their missionary zeal. " Their missionaries," it has been observed, " are all of them volunteers ; for it is an inviolable maxim with them to per- suade no man to engage in missions. They are all of one mind as to the doctrines they teach, and seldom make an attempt, where there are not half a dozen of them in the
6) This picture, by the author of Corinne, is repeated in its leading features at Bethlehem and Litiz, which, with Nazareth, are still Moravian villages. In Howe's Pennsylvania, (p. 515) Bethlehem is thus described : "The town has always clicited the admiration of travelers by its substantial, neat and orderly appearance. The principal buildings and other objects of interest are the spacious church, capable of containing about 2,000 persons, the only one in the place ; the Brother's house and Sister's house, where those who choose to live in a state of single-blessedness, and still earn an independent support, can do so; the corpse house and cemetery; the museum of the Young Men's Missionary Society, containing a cabinet of minerals and a col- lection of curiosities, sent in by the missionary brethren from all parts of the world ; the celebrated female seminary ; the water works on the Manock- isy, said to have been in operation more than 90 years, (prior to 1813,) and which furnished the model for those in Philadelphia. 9*
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mission. Their zeal is calm, steady, persevering. They would reform the world, but are careful how they quarrel with it. They carry their point by address, and the insinu- ations of modesty and mildness, which commend them to all men, and give offence to none. The habits of silence, qui- etness, and decent reserve, mark their character. If any of their missionaries are carried off by sickness or casualty, men of the same stamp are ready to supply their place." Perhaps by no class of Protestant Christians was so much missionary merit acquired as by the Moravian brethren. In the education of their own children, not less than in their exertions to instruct adult heathens, the members of this society were preëminently successful. One main cause, doubtless, was, that they regarded tuition, whether children in years, or children in understanding, as a process calcula- ted alike for the benefit of the instructors and the pupils : and were primarily careful to apply to themselves, and prac- tically demonstrate in their intercourse with others, the influ- ence of the doctrines and precepts which they communicated.
" As early as 1727," says Loskiel, " which was soon after the restoration of the Unity of the Brethren, they began to
" All the property belongs to the Society, who lease out the lots only to members of their own communion. Each individual, when of age, becomes a subseriber to the rules of the Society, with the right of withdrawing him- self at pleasure; in which case, however, he is required to dispose of his property, if a householder, and remove from the town. Eael member pur- sues his occupation on his own private account; but if any particular trade should suffer by too great competition, the Society will not permit a new competitor in the same trade, althoughi a member of the Society, to locate himself in the place. This secures to all a competence." The same love of masic in their worship-having an organ and a full band of instruments. The grave-yard, as described by De Stael. The bodies of the dead lie in a corpse-house three days before interment. When a member dies, they have a peculiar ceremony : four musicians ascend to the tower of the church with trumpets, and announce the event by performing a dirge.
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take the conversion of the Heathen in general into the most earnest consideration." The first missionaries went to St. Thomas, an island in the West Indies, in 1732; next year to Greenland, and in 1734, a party of Moravians, who had started for Georgia, changed their minds on reaching Holland, and went to Pennsylvania. Another company left Herrnhut in November, 1734, and on the invitation of the Society in England for propagating the Gospel, proposed to emigrate to Savannah. Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, had previ- ously corresponded with Count Zinzendorf, and been liberal in his encouragement of the Moravians. A free passage ; provisions in Georgia for a whole season ; land for themselves and their children, free for ten years, then to be held for a small quit-rent; the privileges of native Englishmen ; free- dom of worship-these were the promises made by the trus- tees of the colony, accepted and honorably fulfilled. Count Zinzendorf dismissed his brethren to their Georgia destination, with written instructions, in which he particularly recom- mended, that they should submit themselves to the wise di- rection and guidance of God in all circumstances, seek to preserve liberty of conscience, avoid all religious disputes, and always keep in view that call, given unto them by God himself, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Heathen, and further, that they should endeavor as much as possible to earn their own bread.
According to Loskiel, the first detachment of Moravians arrived in Georgia in the spring of 1735, but their number was increased by a larger company during the summer. Before embarking, they all disclosed to the trustees their determination not to engage in war, and received a pledge that they should be exempted from military service.
On one of these voyages, probably the latter, the Wesleys,
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John and Charles, emigrated to Savannah. They had already attracted attention in England for their zealous piety, and were induced by the trustees to join the infant colony-Charles as secretary to Oglethorpe, and John with fervent longings to become an apostle to the Indians. " Our end in leaving our native country," said they, " is not to gain riches and honor, but singly this-to live wholly to the glory of God." With such sentiments, their attention could not fail to be drawn to the walk and conversation of their Moravian companions. The journal of John Wesley, now known to Christendom as the founder of a numerous sect, contains the following testi- mony :
" I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behavior. Of their humility they had given a continual proof by performing those servile offices for the other passen- gers, which none of the English would undertake : for which they desired and would receive no pay, saying, 'It was good for their proud hearts, and their Saviour had done more for them.' And every day had given them occasion of show- ing a meekness which no injury could move. If they were pushed, struck or thrown down, they rose again and went away ; but no complaint was found in their mouth. There was now an opportunity of trying whether they were deliv- ered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger and revenge. In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, a storm arose, the sea broke over us, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Ger- mans calmly sang on. I asked one of them afterwards, 'Was you not afraid ?' He answered, 'I thank God, no!' I asked, ' But were not your women and children afraid ?' He replied
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mildly, ' No; our women and children are not afraid to die.'" At the time when the danger seemed most imminent, and the vessel was expected immediately to founder, an infant was brought to Wesley to be baptized. " It put me in mind," he says, " of Jeremiah's buying the field when the Chaldeans were on the point of destroying Jerusalem, and seemed a pledge of the mercy God designed to show us even in the land of the living."
Of the manners of the Germans in Georgia, Wesley sub- sequently gives this representation : "They were always employed, always cheerful themselves, and in good humor with one another." He adds, "They met this day to con- sult concerning the affairs of their church ; Mr. Spangenburg being shortly to go to Pennsylvania, and Bishop Nitschman to return to Germany. After several hours spent in confer- ence and prayer, they proceeded to the election and ordina- tion of a Bishop. The great simplicity as well as solemnity of the whole almost made me forget the seventeen hundred years between, and imagine myself in one of those assemblies where form and state were not, but Paul, the tent-maker, or Peter, the fisherman, presided yet with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
After their arrival, a spot for their village was chosen and called Ebenezer. "In a few years, the produce of raw silk by the Germans amounted to ten thousand pounds a year ; and indigo also became a staple. In earnest memorials, they long deprecated the employment of negro slaves, pleading the ability of the white man to toil even under the suns of Georgia. Their religious affections bound them together in the unity of brotherhood ; their controversies were decided among them- selves ; every event of life had its moral, and the fervor of their worship never disturbed their healthy tranquillity of
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judgment. They were cheerful and at peace."7 A school house for the children of the Creek nation was established- the good will of the Indians was secured, and they frequently came to hear the great word, as they expressed it-the Rev. Peter Boehler, of the University of Jena, was chosen and ordained minister of the Georgia colony, in 1737, and arrived there in the year following, and everything seemed auspicious, until the outbreak of hostilities with the Spaniards subjected the Moravians to peculiar trials.
In 1739, war was declared by England against Spain. An act of Parliament was passed at the same time for nat- uralizing all foreign Protestants settled in any of the British colonies in America. If this act was meant to gratify or retain the Moravian settlers in Georgia, its efficacy was com- pletely defeated by the contemporary proceedings of the English inhabitants of this province. About a year before, when a provincial force was hastily assembled to encounter an apprehended invasion of the Spaniards, the Moravians were summoned to join their fellow-colonists in defending their adopted country. This summons they mildly but firmly refused to obey; declaring that no human power or motive could induce them to take the sword, and appealing to the pledge they had received from the trustees, of exemp- tion from military service. The magistrates were con- strained to admit the force of the appeal; but so much jealousy and displeasure were expressed on this account by the bulk of the planters against the Moravians, that several of these sectaries, unwilling to remain among a people in whom their presence excited unfriendly sentiments, abandoned the province and retired to the peaceful domain of the Qua- kers in Pennsylvania, where already a numerous society of
7) Bancroft's United States.
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the Moravian brotherhood was collected. The rest, under the direction of their pastor, Boehler, continued to reside in Georgia ; being desirous of discharging the pecuniary debt which they had contracted to the trustees, and unwilling to forsake their missionary labors. But in the present year, they again received a summons to join the provincial militia ; and declining to resume the former controversy, they bade farewell to Georgia, surrendered their flourishing plantations without a murmur, and reunited themselves to their brethren who were established in Pennsylvania. One of their number, John Hagen, returned in 1740 to Georgia, at the request of George Whitefield, for the purpose of prosecuting the work which had been commenced among the Creeks. The Indi- ans were in an unfavorable mood, and, according to Loskiel, Hagen, " finding their hearts and ears shut against him, and that no fruits were to be expected, was obliged to desist and return sometime after to Pennsylvania." Nevertheless, Georgia was not entirely abandoned by the Moravians, for in 1751, when the original prohibition of slavery in that col- ony was annulled, Bancroft represents some of the brethren as "acquiescing" in the change. After the departure of Oglethorpe, he says, " slavers from Africa sailed directly to Savannah, and the laws against them were not rigidly enforced. Whitefield, who believed that God's Providence would certainly make slavery terminate for the advantage of the Africans, pleaded before the trustees in its favor, as essential to the prosperity of Georgia; even the poorest people desired the change. The Moravians still expressed regret, moved partly by a hatred of oppression, and partly by antipathy to the race of colored men. At last, they too began to think that negro slaves might be employed in a Christian spirit, and it was agreed that, if the negroes are
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treated in a Christian manner, their change of country would prove to them a benefit. A message from Germany served to hush their scruples. " If you take slaves in faith, and with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the action will be not a sin, but may prove a benediction."8
In 1739, the brethren at Herrnhut resolved to extend their missions in North America. An incident which occur- red in 1736 served to animate the purpose which the Mora- vian Society in Europe had cherished for some time, of attempting the instruction of the Indians. In the winter of that year Conrad Weisser, a Pennsylvanian colonist of Ger- man descent, and interpreter between the provincial govern ment and the Indians, was dispatched by the Governor of Pennsylvania to treat with the Six Nations and dissuade them from making war, which they were preparing to do, on an Indian tribe within the territory of Virginia. In per- forming this journey of nearly five hundred miles, Weisser, forcing his way mostly on foot through deep snow and thick forests, was nearly exhausted by toil and hardship, when he
8) The trustees, at the outset, adopted a rule that forbade the introduc- tion of slaves. Baneroft quotes some pregnant sentences from the publi- cations of 1734 in favor of this feature of colonial policy. For instance: "Slavery, the misfortune, if not the dishonor of other plantations, is abso- lutely proscribed. Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest relue- tance in humanity against buying and selling and regarding those of our species as our wealth and possessions." "The name of slavery is here un- heard, and every inhabitant is free from unehosen masters and oppression." And the testimony of Ogelthorpe, who yet had once been willing to employ negroes, and once, at least, ordered the sale of a slave, explains the motive of the prohibition. "Slavery," he relates, " is against the gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid erime." "The purchase of negroes is forbidden," wrote Van Reck, "on account of the vicinity of the Spaniards ;" and this was doubtless the governmental view. The colony was also "AN ASYLUM TO RECEIVE THE DISTRESSED. It was necessary, therefore, not to permit slaves in such a country ; for slaves STARVE THE POOR LABORER."
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met two Indians, who exhorted him not to be faint, but to take courage-adding that the sufferings endured by a man in his mortal body cleansed the imperishable soul from sin. On his return, Weisser related this occurrence to Spangen- berg, a Moravian Bishop, by whom it was reported to his brethren in Europe. They were greatly struck with it, and determined to spare no pains to instruct those blind but thinking heathens in the knowledge of a better way to that expiation of which they obscurely felt the necessity, and impart to them the experience of the only fountain capable of cleansing the human soul from sin.
Ranch, a Moravian missionary, arriving at New York from Europe, in the year 1740, commenced a course of apostolic labor among the Mohican Indians inhabiting the borders of Connecticut and New York. The sachem, or chief of the tribe, declared of himself and his people, that they were all helplessly sunk in misery, drunkenness and every vice and crime that could defile and degrade human nature ; and protested that the missionary would confer an inexpressible benefit upon them if he could teach them how to lead a wiser and happier life. They listened with profound aston- ishment to the first promulgation of the doctrines of Chris- tianity, but soon rejected them with unanimous derision. Ranch, however, was not to be discouraged ; he persisted in his pious labors without any other visible fruit except in- creased unpopularity and ridicule among the Indians ; till one day the chief, who was himself the worst man of the tribe, earnestly requested him once more to explain how the blood of a Divine Redeemer could possibly expiate and oblit- erate the defilement of the human soul. Ranch declared that the most valuable gift in the world could not have afforded him a gratification comparable to the delight with
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which that question inspired him. He who so felt was formed to conquer in this glorious and happy field. Appearances of mental conversion and a considerable reformation of man- ners ensued among the tribe. But now was aroused the jealousy of a numerous band of European traders, who derived a guilty gain from the dependence to which the savages were reduced by their vices and poverty. Some of them threatened to shoot Ranch if he remained longer in the country ; others assured the Indians that the missionary's instructions tended to delude them, and that his real purpose was to carry their children beyond seas and sell them for slaves. The abused and ignorant people, as credulous of this falsehood as they had been slow to believe divine truth, began to regard the missionary with rage and detestation, and meanwhile were copiously supplied with strong liquor by those perfidious counsellors, for the purpose of exciting them to wreak their erring fury on their benefactor.
Ranch overcame this opposition by a wisdom and virtue equal to every emergency. He softened the resentment of some of the white settlers and traders by the mild courtesy of his manners, and gained the protection of one of them by teaching his children to read and write. To the Indians he behaved with an unabated tenderness and confidence, which powerfully appealed to their remaining virtue-to that sense of good which is never wholly obliterated while human life endures. They were struck with the new proof which he afforded of the efficacy of the principles which he had preached, in shielding their professor from evil and fear, and rendering him always secure and happy ; they were aston- ished that a man, whom they studiously endeavored to insult by contumely, and terrify by menace, should persist in fol- lowing them with patience, benedictions, tears, and every
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other demonstration of affectionate and disinterested regard ; and one of them, who had made an attempt to take the mis- sionary's life, contemplating him as he lay stretched in placid slumber on the floor of the Indian's own hut, was constrained to acknowledge to himself, " This cannot be a bad man ; he fears no evil ; not even from us who are so savage ; but sleeps comfortably, and places his life in our hands." The Indians at length became generally convinced that evil could not be meditated by a man who was himself so completely exempted from the suspicion of it ; his influence was restored and aug- mented, and his ministry attended with happy effects. All the Moravian missionaries were charged by their ecclesiastical superiors to study rather the confirmation of the faith than the increase of the numbers of professed converts. Ranch's first congregation consisted of ten baptized Indians, whose devotion, simple yet profound, enthusiastic yet sincere and sustained, excited the grateful delight of their pastor and his associates, and the wonder and admiration of the wildest of the surrounding savages. Meanwhile, from the increasing resort of members of the Moravian brotherhood to Pennsyl- vania, there were formed the principal settlements of the society at places which obtained the names of Nazareth and Bethlehem ; and from which, with all convenient speed, mis- sionaries, animated with the same spirit as Ranch, carried the benefit of their instructions and example among the Del- aware Indians, with the usual varieties of success which ever attend the preaching of the gospel, and which are far more strikingly manifested in tribes and nations to which the tidings are delivered for the first time than in societies which have been long nominally christianized, and where habit blunts the force of impressions and veils the significance of language.
In the year 1742, Count Zinzendorf, who was chief bishop
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or warden of the society of Moravian brethren, having visited their settlements in America,9 traveled, along with Conrad Weisser, Peter Boehler, and other associates, into the Indian territories and preached to a great variety of tribes. Some of the fiercest warriors of the Six Nations, who, from a recent quarrel among themselves, had been roused to a state of high and dangerous excitement at the time when he casually met them, were exceedingly struck with the mixture of simplicity, authority and benevolence that characterized his address to them, and after some consultation, thus replied to it :- "Brother, you have made a long voyage over the seas, to preach to the white people and to the Indians. You did not know that we were here, and we knew nothing of you. This proceeds from above. Come, therefore, to us, both you and your brethren ; we bid you welcome, and take this fathom of wampum in confirmation of the truth of our words." After a short but successful ministry in America, Zinzendorf returned to Europe in 1743, leaving a numerous and increas- ing body of missionaries to pursue the labors thus felicitously begun. It was a rule with these missionaries to earn their own livelihood by bodily labor for behoof of the objects of their pious concern ; and this rule their Christian moderation enabled them generally to practice, although their savage employers could afford only a slender recompense of their toil ; but whenever they could not subsist in this manner, they were supplied with the necessaries of life by the society at Bethlehem. They lived and dressed in the Indian style ; and one of them, Frederick Post, did not scruple to marry a baptized Indian woman. In addition to the inevitable
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