USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 64
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On October 2, 1807, with these three students, Hazelius and Bech- ler commenced their work and the Moravian College and Theo- logical Seminary had its humble beginning. In 1809 difficulties arose in connection with this institution. Besides the lack of clear- ness in the relations held to it by the General Conference of Helpers and the Elders' Conference at Nazareth respectively, which caused misunderstandings, it soon became evident that the former body would not be able to enforce the kind of supervision and regulations, in all minute details, which, under the system of the time, they thought they must exercise. The dominant spirits among them, the Rev. John Gebhard Cunow seconded by the Rev. Andrew Benade, were disposed to press such supervision to an extent which Professor Hazelius chafed under as offensively pragmatical and a species of petty tyranny. Strained relations developed which, with a different kind of men in control, might easily have been restored, but which at last issued in a complete rupture. Hazelius had taken some unneces- sary liberties, was hasty and indiscreet in issuing a manifesto and enlisting co-operation, and in general seemed too ambitious to head a premature crusade. A variety of objectionable features in the official regime of the time, extraneous to the points in contention, were merged in a body of grievances in which common cause was
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made by some leading men at Nazareth with whom the Professor was personally very popular and who warmly espoused his cause. Then that most flagrant of all offences in those days, "insubor- dination," an offence which officials of Cunow's way of thinking could condone less than any other, put the General Conference to the necessity of asserting themselves. Involved in it all was the inquisi- torial meddling of the authorities in men's private affairs, which so many could no longer brook, and the unbearable supervision of officialdom in the matter of contracting marriages, with the appli- cation of the lot not yet relaxed, against the excessive use of which, in all kinds of matters, an almost irresistible opposition had begun to appear. Some, particularly Cunow, insisted upon it with an insensate determination to enforce every letter of the oppressive regulations regardless of consequences. Other men in the general board were not in sympathy with his extreme views and were disposed to accom- modate some things, not only in the interest of peace but also in the interest of common sense and in the line of modifications in the system that were imperatively demanded. They were placed in a difficult position by the supposed necessity of preserving collegiate relations and of standing together.
The situation was rendered very trying for Bishop Loskiel, who was constrained to act contrary to his personal inclinations, but especially for Jacob Van Vleck, who was a man of more liberal views than Cunow and Benade, and, unlike them, was disposed to be gen- erous and conciliatory. He was for a while placed in the perplexing situation of being a member of the General Board of Helpers and at the same time President of the Elders' Conference at Nazareth which disputed some points of control over the young divinity school with the General Board. Furthermore, he stood, as Head Pastor at Nazareth, in relations of a kind which did not trouble Cunow and Benade, to the men of that place who were siding with Hazelius, while he felt a warm interest in the latter as the leading man in his educational corps, too valuable to be alienated for insuffi- cient reasons. He was also most interested in the new institution which he had so strongly plead for and to the prosperity of which he attached so much importance. Thus strangely the Theological Seminary became the storm center where the disturbed elements began the agitation that was to break forth and clear the heavy atmosphere.
It was the beginning of movements that issued, during the next decade, in the first breach made in the close regime of the time, and
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therefore has a proper place here as revealing the genesis of develop- ments yet to be narrated. Things even went so far that some of the men at Nazareth-among whom William Henry, Jr., founder of the gun-factory; Dr. Schmidt, Christian Senseman, the store- keeper, and Frederick Beitel, son of the former wagon-master and farmer-general at Bethlehem took the lead-had the temerity to hold a meeting, without official sanction or authority, and even to elect a chairman and secretary, in order to give formal expres- sion to their views on the situation as also on various related matters. The fathers of the General Conference stood aghast at this unprecedented act of "insubordination." A document drawn up by Benade, discussed, amended and adopted by the General Conference, was sent to Nazareth to be read to these daring men. Their radical step had gone so far that Jacob Van Vleck and the Elders' Conference at Nazareth felt officially bound to concur in calling them to account. Quite unabashed they returned answer, in which they expressed their sentiments concerning Cunow and Benade against whom, particularly the former, strong feeling prevailed. Cunow had even been accused by some of persistently harrying Professor Hazelius for the purpose of discour- aging him and thus frustrating the plan of the new institution, because he had been overruled when it was decided to locate it at Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, where he wished to have it under his eye. A new sensation was caused a few weeks later by the discovery that the document written by Hazelius, discussing the system and methods of the time, had been copied and sent to Bethlehem, Lititz, Philadelphia, Lancaster, New York and even Salem, N. C. Now all the members of the General Conference of Helpers, including the Rev. John Herbst, of Lititz, who had not attended the previous meeting, assembled at Bethlehem to draw up another manifesto to be sent to all of these places. But they had more to reckon with than they supposed. Early in June they had before them a copy of a paper signed by twenty-seven men of Nazareth which was to be sent to the Unity's Elders' Conference, setting forth not only their views on the contention between the Board of General Helpers and the Professor at Nazareth, but also a list of grievances under the existing system of government and a strong protest against various harassing restrictions and particularly against the excessive use of the lot. This, as it then entered into the machinery of government, had far less the character of great faith in God than of great lack
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of faith in men. Instead of being, as it once was before it was reduced to system, a simple-hearted way of occasionally seeking guidance in perplexities, in the belief that the result, being inde- pendent of human will or judgment, was therefore to be taken as Divinely overruled and directed, it had become a complicated system of perfunctory official mechanism by which either the responsibility of judgment and choice was evaded, or objections of people to the results of official action were supposed to be silenced because these results did not then rest on the will or judgment of any man or body of men. Next to its employment in ultimately deciding the question of a proposed marriage, which was becoming intolerable to many, its use in making up the personnel of boards and confer- ences was most strongly objected to. The simple, fervent piety requisite to an acceptable employment of such a method did not exist. In the absence of this it became a grievous yoke and even seemed to many sheer mockery, in view of the theory under which it was used and the phraseology employed in connection with it; especially when they were unable to credit those officials who insisted upon its full retention, with the exalted spirit, thoughts and purposes which belonged to the practice.
If the situation of that time is analyzed it is not surprising that intelligent independence of thought was emboldened to take this initiative at Nazareth rather than at Bethlehem. At the latter place where those who dominated the official policy of the time lived, their constant presence, their connection with the village boards and their consequent personal touch with all local affairs rendered it more difficult to make any such attempt. Besides this, when the asso- ciations of the two places as educational centers are had in mind, it is easy to understand how opinion and purpose would more readily develop and acquire force in the academic atmosphere of Nazareth Hall than in that of the girls' school at Bethlehem.
In 1809, while these complications were at their height, a new man appeared upon the scene who, although he assumed a cautious attitude, was inclined to side with the liberal party at Nazareth and Bethlehem. This was Charles Frederick Seidel, who came from North Carolina as Principal of Nazareth Hall and associate minister there, when Jacob Van Vleck became Head Pastor. He was a man of varied accomplishments, engaging personality and specially gifted as a preacher. The general popularity he enjoyed among the people added force to the awakening and stirring tendency that had
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set in, and led to his soon being looked upon, notwithstanding his cautious course, as at variance with the position and policy repre- sented by Cunow and Benade who evidently also regarded him as not fully in sympathy with them. The whole matter between them and Hazelius, in reference to the lot and other things, with the memorial of the citizens of Nazareth and various questions growing out of the trouble, were referred to the Unity's Elders' Conference. Their opinions and decisions were received in July, 1810. While they sustained the position taken by the Board of General Helpers on the main questions, they did not approve the course pursued at the beginning towards Hazelius. They thought that it unnecessarily irritated relations and brought on trouble which might have been averted. A protracted succession of interviews, personal reconcili- ations and readjustments with the representative men at Nazareth followed, and matters settled down for the time being; but the entering wedge had been inserted, and not withdrawn, for cleaving and shattering the strait-jacket in which the old system held men and things. The scene of disturbance was afterwards shifted to Beth- lehem with new elements entering into the contention.
As to the Theological Seminary, that and the Moravian Church lost Hazelius, who, in later years, arose to influence and honor in the Lutheran Church, into which he was followed by the Rev. Joseph Zaeslein who had come to Pennsylvania with him in 1800. His colleague, Bechler, continued in charge of the work, but felt little encouragement to persevere in it. The young institution, which needed much fostering care, received a serious blow from these unfortunate disturbances. The first three students completed their studies. Only two constituted the next class, Charles Anthony Van Vleck, a younger brother of William Henry, and George Benjamin Miller, a son of the Rev. George Godfrey Miller and a grandson of John Levering who, with his wife Susanna, a daughter of John Bechtel, had been conected with the early schools of the Church. Young Miller became disaffected under the methods of tutelage that were so irksome to ever increasing numbers of young men. He fol- lowed his former teacher Hazelius into the Lutheran Church, notwith- standing the efforts made by his uncle, Abraham Levering, at this time warden at Lititz, and John Christian Ebbecke, of Nazareth, to persuade him to be reconciled. He, in later years, became con- spicuous as the honored President of Hartwick Seminary. It may be added in this connection that, a few years later, yet another gifted
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young man, who could not be persuaded to submit to the shackles of the time, left the service of the Church and attained distinction elsewhere. This was Henry Immanuel Schmidt, a son of Dr. Schmidt, of Nazareth, long connected with the faculty of Columbia College in New York. It may be stated, however, that all of them, Dr. Hazelius, Dr. Miller and Dr. Schmidt, notwithstanding the breach between them, in their young days, and the officials who were persisting in keeping the Moravian Church under the bondage of a system that so cramped and repressed men, retained a warm regard for the Church of their youth and were on terms of cordial friendship with many of its later ministers. The Seminary was closed in 181I. In 1820 it was re-opened with a class of three candidates for the ministry : Charles Adolphus Blech, Samuel Thomas Pfohl, and Jacob Zorn. Their professors were Charles Van Vleck, already mentioned, and John Christian Jacobson, who, in later years, long filled a prominent place in the Moravian Church as educator, bishop and President of the Executive Board. He arrived in Bethlehem from Europe on August 18, 1816, and began his long career in the service of the Church as a teacher in Nazareth Hall, Bechler being then Principal. After that the Seminary had an unbroken although, until 1858, migratory existence.1
While the complications which have just been described were engaging the church authorities and spreading the contagion of unrest among the people at Bethlehem, a crisis was approaching in the affairs of another establishment which caused much perplexity and, in connection with other difficulties which ensued, led to serious disturbances, issuing in events of importance. This was the estab-
I In 1830 it was moved out of the Hall into the little building in the yard to the west, long known as "the Cottage." On.May 10, 1838, it was transferred, the first time, to Bethlehem where it remained, in a building on the north side of Broad Street, a little distance west of New Street, until August 5, 1851, when it was moved back to Nazareth. Excepting an in- terval from August, 1855, to November, 1856, when as an emergency arrangement, one class of students sojourned in Philadelphia, the institution remained at Nazareth until the autumn of 1858. During the Nazareth periods a part of the old Sisters' House now known as " the castle " at Nazareth Hall, was also occupied for a while by one of the classes, but the principal home of the institution was the old Whitefield House which in those days came to be called Ephrata, the name Whitefield is said to have intended to give his pro- posed Nazareth orphanage, and by which the place is now commonly known. August 30, 1858, the Seminary was transferred finally to Bethlehem and re-opened in the remodeled school-building on Church Street, east of New Street, before that known as Nisky Hill Seminary, where it remained until 1892, when the present buildings were taken possession of.
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lishment of the single men, which had retrograded numerically, financially and in general tone to such an extent that, when another of the regularly recurring deficits at the close of the fiscal year, in the summer of 1809, was under discussion, the proposition was made in the Conference of General Helpers to close out and abolish that diacony,2 turn the large house to other uses, fit up quarters for the single men who yet remained together, in a smaller house and modify their choir organization into merely that of a division of the mem- bership, put under special pastoral oversight. The frequently men- tioned stone house on Main Street, which had been put to such various uses, and at this time was occupied in part by the boys' school, and in part by sundry Economy pensioners and others as a dwelling, was had in mind for such a modified organization of single men; it being thought that several of the minor trades by which a few of the older men could eke out a living might be continued in that building.
The idea had been broached by the Unity's Elders' Conference, when the erection of a second building for the boarding-school was first under consideration, of devoting the Brethren's House to the use of the school and re-establishing the single men elsewhere on a modified plan. This was now again discussed. The school was prospering and would doubtless soon need all the room this building contained, and the building erected in 1790, could be put to other uses. To a lesser but yet serious degree, financial perplexities were involved in maintaining the other choir diaconies, not only at Bethlehem, but also. at Nazareth and Lititz. The amounts which the General Board of Wardens in Europe had to appropriate from year to year to cover their deficiencies were becoming a severe tax on the common resources. When this and all other aspects of the question were discussed by the Unity's Elders' Conference-the General Wardens of the Unity constituted a department of that body-after the reports and accounts of 1810 were received, it was concluded to risk further losses and make another effort to maintain
2 This term, formerly in common use, meant, as explained in a previous chapter, a fund, treasury and general financial system by which an organization, establishment or line of activity was supported - congregation-diacony, the several choir diaconies of the single men, single women and widows, sustentation, school and mission diaconies. The several trades and industries carried on as sources of income for one and another diacony were called, in the German nomenclature of the Church, Branchen, a term brought into use in the days of Frenchified German, in the sense of special departments of productive activity operated by the diacony.
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the Brethren's House at Bethlehem, by putting it under new manage- ment and introducing various retrenchments and reforms. On February 22, 18II, Thomas Christian Lueders arrived in Bethlehem from Europe, to take charge of the establishment as chaplain and warden, and co-operate with the Rev. John Frederick Stadiger, the warden of the Congregation since 1808, in the effort to rehabilitate some of the industries and get the finances into better shape. Prior to this, from August, 1808, John Jacob Kummer, the successor of Jacob Frederick Loeffler, had been at the head of the establishment of the single men, assisted by Jacob Christian Luckenbach,3 who put forth loyal efforts to maintain the several industries yet carried on by it, and who subsequently took charge of one of the branches, that of tin and copper work, on his own account and built it up into a permanent business.
The Rev. John Gebhard Cunow, in his capacity as Administrator of the Unity's estates in Pennsylvania and agent of the General Wardens of the Unity, did not favor these further efforts. He being, under the interlocked organization of officialdom at that time, a member also of the two village boards, the Conference of Elders and the Board of Supervisors-Aufseher Collegium-as well as a member and the dominant personality of the General Helper's Conference, and therefore to be met and reckoned with everywhere, made his disapproval felt in an obstructive way. It was not long, therefore, before he, on the one hand, and Stadiger and Lueders, on the other hand, were at issue on various points in the complicated situation. In this connection other changes in the official personnel may be noted, so that a proper association of officials and events may be preserved in the course of things now to follow. Bishop Loskiel, disheartened by the difficulties of the situation in which he labored in the midst of prevailing disaffection, and broken in health, was relieved of his duties in May, 1811, and after some months of retirement, received a call to return to Europe ; first to the head of the work at Gnadenfrei in Silesia, and then, after the death of Bishop Jeremiah Risler, to a seat in the Unity's Elders' Conference. Before he was ready to start, the war with England broke out, rendering ocean travel precarious and detaining him. Meanwhile his physical infirmities increased. An opportunity to sail on the ship George Washington for Liverpool, in July, 1812, was
3 Son-in-law of the missionary John Heckewelder, and father of the late Henry B., Reuben O., and J. Edward Luckenbach.
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considered but let pass. When another opportunity occurred in September, Dr. Rudolphi, who was then at Bethlehem, strongly dissuaded him from attempting the journey. Amidst the sympathies of all, he resigned himself to quietly await the outcome of his ailments. He departed this life at Bethlehem on February 23, 1814, and his remains were laid to rest in the cemetery where the dust of so many revered men already reposed, and where "Tschoop" and other notable converts of that race lay buried which, before he came to America, had awakened his special interest and led him to write the valuable book through which he has chiefly become known, his "History of the Missions of the Brethren Among the Indians of North America."
He was suceeded, in May, 18II, as President of the General Helpers' Conference and Head Pastor at Bethlehem, by Bishop Charles Gotthold Reichel, previously at the head of affairs at Salem, North Carolina. The Rev. Andrew Benade remained Principal of the boarding-school and associate minister at Bethlehem until January, 1813, when he went to Lititz to succeed the Rev. Jacob Van Vleck as Head Pastor; Van Vleck, who had been transferred to that position from Nazareth in 1811, now following in office Bishop John Herbst, who died a short time after his consecration to the episco- pacy and transfer from Lititz to Salem. The Rev. Lewis Huebener, in January, 1813, followed Benade as Principal and associate minister at Bethlehem, but died, greatly mourned by school and congregation, in December of the same year. Cunow then filled the place ad interim until the close of 1815, when Bishop Reichel assumed the Principal's duties until February, 1816. The Rev. Christian Frederick Schaaf remained at Bethlehem, devoting himself to pastoral labor among the married people of the place and engaging in various other duties. The men who figured principally in the interminable deliberations and debates which finally issued in a solution of the Brethren's House problem and then, in connection with various related questions, which enlisted the active participation of prominent laymen at Bethlehem, ran out on other lines and brought a subse- quent crisis, were, besides Bishop Reichel, as President of the General Conference of Helpers and Head Pastor at Bethlehem, Cunow, as Administrator, Benade, of Lititz, and Abraham Reinke, of Nazareth, as members of the General Conference, besides the two wardens, Stadiger and Lueders. Thus it will be seen that the two last named were the only principal parties to these official discussions
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who, in the interlinked make-up of the boards, represented exclu- sively the local interests of Bethlehem, especially in material concerns. In the conflict of opinions and interests, they formed together a kind of distinct party of those combined bodies in some of the important questions at issue. This appears quite strikingly in some of the minutes of the General Helpers' Conference. On the other hand, in the persons of Benade, of Lititz, and Reinke, of Nazareth, as members of that Conference, the nead pastors of two other congregations, or, in other words, the presidents of the ruling boards of two other villages were, at a subsequent stage of the complications, helping to officially deliberate and act upon grave questions in controversy which related exclusively to the property and finances of the village of Bethlehem-questions of a kind which had not arisen in connection with their own villages-were even eventually helping their colleague, the Administrator, to antagonize the local officials and citizens of Bethlehem in action they proposed to take with their own property. The extraordinary state of affairs finally produced by the manner in which supervision and control were then organized, did much to impress thinking men with the objec- tionableness of the system and the necessity of amending it. Such a product of the old principle of community of interests had not been contemplated when the system was created.
In September, 1812, when the General Wardens in Europe finally wrote that they would not be able to further support the choir house diaconies that were carried on at a loss every year, because to pursue this course any longer would plunge the whole Unity into bankruptcy, the question what to do with the institution of the single men at Bethlehem was taken up anew. The diacony of the single men at Nazareth had been closed out on May 1, 1812. That at Lititz was yet continued for a while. At Bethlehem the financial condition of the concern had not improved. There was much indifference and even lack of conscientiousness among the single men, according to the records of the General Helpers' Conference. Carelessness and extravagance in the culinary department and unnecessary expense in entertaining many visitors were complained of. This latter fault was also found with the Sisters' House. It was even intimated-and probably not without reason-that certain ones were disposed to help on the ruin of the diacony so that they might capture some wreckage, in getting control of certain trades to their own advan- tage. At an interview had by the General Conference with Stadiger
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