USA > Pennsylvania > History of the Church of the brethren of the Eastern district of Pennsylvania > Part 17
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Perhaps the truth is something like this. Naas with Becker saw the danger in Beissel and so concurred with Becker in opposition; but not with Becker saw the good in the ultra-mystic. Naas was a big-hearted, tolerant man. We cannot but believe that he was back of Amwell's attitude
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toward Beissel at the time of the visit. The whole Amwell organization helped the visitors back over the Delaware. But Naas kept himself out of Beissel's sight. Perhaps Beissel's eyes were holden that he saw him not-the state in which Beissel, in his marvelous spiritual pride, regarded Alexander Mack as being at Falckner's Swamp.
The " Chronicon " says they broke bread together in Jer- sey, which certainly means they communed together. Naas, the tolerant peace-maker, had the spirit of the Brethren. Yet Naas was not Alexander Mack, our founder. Mack would not have kept back from personally meeting Beissel in Jersey. He had the spirit of Him who felt under obli- gation to lay down his life for the Brethren. This is Breth- renism; this is loyalty to the Church of the Brethren. But John Naas was a grand, noble man, and torture could not make him renounce his Master; and he yielded to the spirit that was in Alexander Mack-he was a brother and a Breth- ren preacher.
B. ISRAEL POULSON, SR.
The parents of Elder Israel Poulson are unknown. He was left by them at the age of seven near Centreville, N. J., where he was reared. He is said to have had Indian blood in his veins. He was bound over when a youth to a man named Jerry King, who utterly neglected his education. When he married his first wife, he was unable to write his own name. She taught him to read. She died soon with- out children. He then married her sister, who was long and lovingly known as Aunt Hannah Poulson. She was the mother of all his children. His home was at Head- quarters, now called Grover. In later life he married the widow of old Henry Laushe.
He was greatly beloved by children. His habit was to lay his hand on their heads. He was always a welcome visitor. Every one clung to old "Uncle Israel." A certain false prophet once came into the neighborhood, announcing that the world was about to come to an end. A man not altogether of sound mind was asked what he would do. He replied : "I would hold on to Uncle Israel's coat-tail."
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He was always in demand as a preacher ; there was always a place for him. In church visiting he always walked, going across fields to cut off corners. His cane and his pipe were his ever-present companions. Unlike most elders in the Brethren Church, he played the fiddle. He was a man of medium height, had straight, black hair, and always wore a pleasant smile. He was not particular in the form of his dress, yet intended to conform to the order of the Brother- hood. Nor were the three degrees of the ministry clearly defined in Jersey in his day. He was a common man and took an interest in public affairs. He built the stone wall around the cemetery at Amwell. Three hundred dollars having been charged for assessing the township, Uncle Israel declared it was too much; it was robbing the people. He said he would do it for one hundred dollars. The work was given to him, and he was assessor for three years.
In the early days, he preached in school-houses and in the private homes. The people flocked to hear him. And so it was decided to build a meeting-house. He gave the ground. If any in the nineteenth century should be called the father of the Jersey church, it was old Israel Poulson. And he belonged to Jersey exclusively. Outside of this state he was little known. In 1846 we find him among the Elders at Annual Meeting.
Like all, he had his failings, which have been seen in the election of his son to the ministry and the expulsion of John P. Moore. But we believe, as in his vision of the scales which we herewith relate, that his good deeds had the pre- ponderance, and that he has found acceptance with the Great Judge of All.
Visions of Israel Poulson, Sr. (Related to the writer by Bro. Abr. Cassel. )
The Loaf of Bread. Once upon a time he seemed to be in an immense concourse of people, nothing but people as far as he could see. All seemed to be slowly pressing toward a certain point. Looking intently in the direction of the mov- ing, he could discern a large scales erected. Men were con- tinually being lifted into one side. Some would hold their
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side down; but many, many would go up into the air. They were weighed in the balances and found wanting. Then it dawned on Brother Poulson that they were in the last judgment, and that he too must be weighed. How would it go with him? He hardly knew. Sometimes he thought he might hold his side of the scales down, but then he doubted. They kept pressing closer and closer. Soon he would be weighed. His heart began to fail. Finally he was at the scales. He was placed in the balances. For an instant he seemed to hold his own, then he could feel himself slowly but surely rising. "Weighed and found wanting." He was just being condemned, when the judge was halted by some one running in the distance, frantically waving his hand, and calling at the top of his voice. It was a boy who held something under his arm. On he came, pushing fiercely through the crowd as fast as he could. The judge waited. The boy forced himself under the scales. Taking what was under his arm, in both hands, he gave it a toss up into the scale in which Brother Poulson was standing. Down came the scale in balance. "Accepted," pronounced the judge. Brother Poulson looked down at his feet. There lay a loaf of bread. He recognized it as the loaf he had once given to a poor widow.
The Laborers by the Way. At another time he seemed to be walking along a road. Many men were at work digging a trench. As he drew nearer there seemed to be a great dif- ference among the workmen. They divided themselves into two classes. One class was gloomy and listless. They worked hard but could make little headway. The others were cheerful and singing, and made the ground fly as though it had wings. They accomplished much. Why the difference? He could see no cause for it. They had the same kind of work. It seemed that they might be of equal strength. The gloomy ones were not sick. The sun beat with equal heat on both. The breeze that fanned the cheer- ful man, fanned the gloomy ones equally. Their tools were equally good. Everything was the same, yet what a dif- ference! Why? He could not solve the mystery. He would inquire of the foreman. "Why the difference in
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the work of your men?" "The hard workers keep at their task only from a sense of duty; the cheerful ones love their work."
Then Brother Poulson saw that this applied to our work for Christ.
The Old Fiddle. He played the fiddle and " he could get music out of it." Once he seemed to have an old fiddle. He tried to produce music, but none would come. He tried again and again. He bent himself to the task. He vexed himself. But all in vain. He could get no music out of that " darned " old fiddle.
It was a dream, a vision. What did it mean? He be- lieved the Lord showed him the visions, and that they had a lesson for him. What meant the vision of the old fiddle ? He could get nothing out of it. The vision was as dry as the fiddle itself. It needed interpretation.
Soon after he was to preach, but could not hit on a sub- ject. Finally he decided to take a subject on which he had preached once before. The sermon was one which seemed to him to have taken very well. He got up to preach, but it wouldn't go. He exerted himself, forced himself, worried himself, yea, even to sweating ; but all in vain. It was dry, lifeless. The sermon was a flat failure.
"Trying to play on the old fiddle," he afterward said to himself. God had given him the vision as a warning.
C. ISRAEL POULSON, JR.
The younger Poulson was born April 14, 1821, at Head- quarters, N. J. He received his education in Moore's public school, about a mile from Headquarters. He then clerked for a time in a store at New Hope, in Pennsylvania, but practically his life was spent in the vicinity of the Amwell Church. His occupation was farming, which he began on his own responsibility at the age of twenty-one. About this time, October 6, 1841, he was married. The partner of his new home, immediately north of the Amwell meeting- house, was Harriet Johnston. His children are Urania and William J.
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He was elected to the ministry April 8, 1848. The un- brotherly way in which he suffered himself to be placed above John P. Moore, even to the extent of expelling the unyielding Moore from the church, was a sowing which after thirty years was destined to bring him trouble and humiliation, and the extinction of his family in the church of the Brethren. Yet, during these years he did faithful work as a preacher. The author remembers him yet faintly when he stopped at his grandfather's home on the occasion of love-feasts at Green Tree. Our child heart went out toward him, and from our child impressions we believe he was a good man.
He moved to Upper Dublin in the spring of 1881, imme- diately following his reverses in Jersey; but he returned to his native state in 1885. He became a member of the Bethel Church, which, with Brother R. Hyde, he continued to serve till death, February 28, 1896. He is said to have been "off hand" in his preaching. The name Poulson stands out big in the history of the Jersey church during, and we might say throughout, the nineteenth century. It is to be regretted that it has not continued prominent into the twentieth. Let us learn the lesson to be learned from these two lives !
D. THE Two MOORES.
They were not father and son, but uncle and nephew. The name Moore goes back to the beginning of the Jersey Church, Jacob Moore being one of the five original heads of families of Brethren who located at Amwell in 1733. Gideon Moore, father of John P. and grandfather of Charles W., was one of the two deacons of the church in 1835, and a prominent and influential member of the Am- well fraternity. He was a trustee of the Amwell Meeting- house. In the minute of April 13, 1839, we find these words : " Agreed to take a lot of Gideon Moore for a bury- ing place."
John P. Moore. John P. Moore was elected deacon of the Amwell Church, to fill the place of his father, deceased, November II, 1840. April 13, 1844, he was elected
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"elder," or, correctly, to the ministry. October 10, 1848, he was illegally expelled, shortly after the election of the younger Poulson to the ministry.
He then became the founder of the "Mooreites" who built their meeting-house at Sand Brook. It was he who, in 1879, first suggested going to Annual Meeting, which trip, with his nephew, Charles W. Moore, resulted in the readmission of the "Mooreites" into the Brotherhood. At a special council of the Sand Brook Church, August 23, 1882, he was ordained elder-Elders present, Samuel Harley and Christian Bucher.
He showed himself loyal to the Brotherhood. We find him reading the report of the Annual Meeting to his congre- gation, and urging his flock to be true to it and the order of the Brotherhood. He was also noted for going on the outer borders, into school-houses, to hold meetings. He started meetings in the Rockton school-house, which were kept up for many years.
He lies buried at Sand Brook, which church is his real monument.
Charles W. Moore. Charles W. Moore, in a sense, was the complement of his uncle, John P. Moore. Had it not been for Charles, the "Mooreites" would have fallen short of getting back into the Brotherhood, and would never have secured full vindication. He was an earnest, zealous, pa- tient worker, but not much of a preacher. As he himself stated, his work was more to go out and gather others in that another might preach to them. As seen, he was deacon, preacher, and elder. He organized the Sand Brook Sunday School and was its superintendent for many years.
Brother Moore was a man of faith. He believed that the gift of healing was not a lost gift today. He cited more than one case in his own experience to prove his position.
An infant in the neighborhood was sick unto death. The doctor had given it up, stating that nothing could help it. Brother Moore called at the home. At the close of his visit, in leaving the house, he passed the cradle in which lay the dying infant. He felt a strong inward impulse to kneel at the cradle and to ask God to restore the child. He knelt
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and prayed. On reaching home he told his wife that the babe would recover. In a short time it was perfectly well.
The hospitality of his home made Sand Brook a sacred spot to at least one heart. He was a good man, and an humble, and to know him was to love him.
E. JOHN HOPPOCK AND ROBESON HYDE.
The leading preachers in Jersey seem to go in pairs. We have had the two Poulsons and the two Moores, and now we come to two preachers who were elected to the ministry on the same day and labored together for many years. Data is not at hand to give sketches of the lives of either. We can do little more here than preserve their names.
John Hoppock and his family, through all the troubles in Jersey, stood by the old church. He was elder of the Am- well Church for many years. For many years he kept stor- ing away in his garret our church papers, and gave to the writer, as a gift, his whole valuable collection for the Breth- ren's Historical Society. While he was not a specially great preacher, yet to be in his presence was a sermon-you felt that you were with a man who was good through and through.
Robeson Hyde labored chiefly in the Bethel congregation. See the account of that church. He continued with the old church until his end, but his able and useful son Lam- bert cast in his lot with the Progressives. This family, if any, makes us feel that all the Brethren of Jersey should be one again. There was in Brother Hyde something primi- tive, a freedom from conventionality, that made his pres- ence very enjoyable.
There is within the Jersey homes, often unpainted on the outside, so much of Christian hospitality, so much of love and good-will, that one is made to wonder how the spirit of schism could ever find entrance. Satan is the author of it all. But as the Jersey Brethren resist him, he will flee from them. And surely the great home missionary spirit of John Naas, the father of the church in Jersey, must revive. As Bro. Frank Holsopple said, the Jersey Church is his mon- ument, and this monument must not be allowed to tarnish.
COVENTRY CHURCH OF TO-DAY.
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PART IV. THE COVENTRY GROUP.
CHAPTER I.
THE COVENTRY CHURCH.
Coventry, the second oldest Brethren Church in America, was organized, November 7, 1724. The charter members were nine : Martin Urner and wife Catharine, Henry Landis and wife, Daniel Eicher, Peter Heffly, Owen Longacre, and Andrew Sell. Martin Urner was chosen the preacher; and his home seems to have been the chief place of meeting. Some time after Alexander Mack arrived in 1729, he or- dained Martin Urner to the office of Bishop. An account of the facts leading up to the organization of this old church, only ten months younger than the old Mother Church at Germantown, will be found set forth in the ac- count of the Missionary Tour of 1724.
A love feast was held at Martin Urner's on Whitsuntide, in 1726. Members from both Germantown and Conestoga were present. But Peter Becker was not among the num- ber. Conrad Beissel officiated. "Extraordinary powers of eternity " were manifested; and the followers of Beissel called it the congregation's Pentecost. Says the "Chron- icon": "On the first day of the festival everybody in the meeting was as though drunken with wine, and it was noticed that several, who had engaged in prayer, soon after- ward married, and so dragged the gifts of the Spirit into the flesh." After the meeting Beissel baptized eleven. This was the largest baptism up to this time in America.
The Brethren were thrown into a quandary concerning Beissel. They had to admire his gifts, yet they looked upon him as a seducer and forbidder of wedlock. Their amaze-
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ment and perplexity were increased by a meeting on the following day, when "the powers of the new world were again poured out like a river, the singing was Pentecostal and heavenly; yea, some declared they heard angel voices mingling with it." Martin Urner became greatly distressed. He is said to have embraced his wife, exclaiming : "O, my dear wife! I pray you for God's sake, do not leave me!"
Across the Schuylkill from Coventry, in back of Potts- town, is Falckner's Swamp, where already in 1724 families of Brethren had settled, and in this year had the Lord's Supper administered to them by the Brethren on their not- able Missionary Tour. Here Beissel did not have to en- counter so much the penetrating eye of Martin Urner, and here he was victorious. But in Coventry his way was pretty effectually blocked. Inasmuch as Falckner's Swamp, which later ceased to be a Brethren's settlement, was nearer to Coventry than to any other enduring congregation, we deem it proper at this place to give a brief account of the work there.
FALCKNER'S SWAMP.
A few of the Brethren who had arrived in Germantown in 1719, had settled shortly after their arrival at Falckner's Swamp. We have mentioned the love feast there in 1724. Beissel, on being made teacher in Conestoga, soon began to regard himself as General Superintendent of the work in America. Because of several newly awakened ones at Falckner's Swamp, Beissel in the latter part of 1727, sent Michael Wohlfahrt to look after the interests of the work. Wohlfahrt's report was so favorable, that Beissel with three others visited Falckner's Swamp, and on March 8, 1728, baptized eleven persons. In the following May five more were baptized. Through this activity Beissel acquired such a control of affairs at Falckner's Swamp that the German- town Brethren, later reinforced by Alexander Mack, were unable to dislodge him. Andreas Frey was appointed Elder here. He gave up his office and was succeeded by Michael Wohlfahrt. "He fell from his office with shame and dis- grace, and thereupon fell at the feet of the Superintendent,
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who revoked the judgment and received him again into spir- itual communion." Beissel now placed a John Landes, per- haps the son-in-law of John Naas, at the head of the work. But Landes was a novice, became puffed up, and lasted only six weeks.
Beissel was unreconciled with a brother at Coventry and had placed two of the Germantown Brethren under the ban. The Germantown Brethren thought it proper to warn the newly awakened about Beissel. Beissel then wrote a letter to the Brethren at Germantown, sternly rebuking them for the falseness, deceit, and craftiness which they had prac- tised on the newly awakened ones. The Germantown Breth- ren showed this letter at Falckner's Swamp, and proposed to leave the Brethren judge in regard to the "insult" in the letter, for which purpose they appointed a meeting at which both Germantown and Conestoga were to be represented. Beissel was not minded to be subject to this arrangement. With arch-craftiness he sent six members from Conestoga to forestall it. Beissel's emissaries were received, and they maintained his hold.
In October, 1730, Alexander Mack, who had come to this country the year before, undertook with several of his Brethren a visit to Falckner's Swamp. Be it remembered that Beissel had already in 1728 given back his baptism to the Brethren. Beissel, not knowing of the visit, was at Falckner's Swamp when they arrived. We quote from the "Chronicon," pp. 49-50.
" Alexander Mack made an address and said : 'The peace of the Lord be with you!' The Superintendent replied : ' We have the same peace !' Thereupon Alexander Mack asked why they had put them under the ban; and proposed that both parties should betake themselves to prayer that God might reveal to them which was guilty of the separa- tion. ... They accordingly fell upon their knees, and after making their complaints to God, they arose, and A. M. asked : 'Where is Conrad Beissel?' They pointed towards him and said: 'There he stands!' He answered : 'I am a stranger to him; I do not see him; let him speak.' It seems that his eyes were holden that he could not see him. This
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happened several times to the Superintendent, as not less to Christ himself and other holy ones. Thereupon the Super- intendent answered thus: 'I am the man after whom you ask.' A. M. then began asking the reasons why such things had been done. The Superintendent answered : Why they came here in so improper a manner to disturb the meeting; they should have chosen a different time for this matter ; and then spoke not a word more. Then things became lively. One brother of Conestoga said : 'Alexander Mack, I regard you as a servant of God!' Peter Becker replied : 'What kind of a servant do you consider him? a servant of his righteousness ?'"
Alexander Mack, humanly speaking, the great leader of the Church of the Brethren, had in the love of Christ won Beissel and he knew it; but he realized that it would require a long time for the fact to become manifest ; but in his long- suffering, he was willing to abide the Lord's revelation of his victory. The author of the "Chronicon" states that those who knew how affairs stood between the two congre- gations, knew also that a close union between them was im- possible; " for they were born of diverse causes, since one had the letter for its foundation, the other, the Spirit; and while both had the same Father, they had different Mothers." Alexander Mack taught that the letter and the Spirit go to- gether.
The Elder at Falckner's Swamp in 1731 had trouble with his wife. This elder himself adhered to Beissel but the wife forsook him to be a solitary one with the Superintendent. The man told his wife that she was his, that he would not give her up, that she must be subject to her husband. Sev- eral times he brought her home by force. His outraged feelings carried him to the extent of violently assaulting Beissel, who afterward advised the wife to go to her hus- band. Once when a love feast was to be held, he tied her fast lest she should run away. After his death she joined the community, and lived with it till her death in 1779.
"In 1734 the awakened at Falckner's Swamp, it being the seventh year of their awakening, began to break up and to move toward the settlement. They bought up the
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regions around Ephrata, so that in a few years the country for three or four miles around was taken up by them. Wherever there was a spring of water, no matter how un- fertile the soil, there lived some household, waiting for the Lord's salvation " (p. 66).
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Thus did Ephrata absorb Falckner's Swamp, which gave itself to Beissel. Falckner's Swamp above all other places seems to have peopled Beissel's newly found home on the Conestoga. During the troubles between Conestoga and Germantown when Falckner's Swamp was the bone of con- tention between them, Coventry though the nearest congre- gation to Falckner's Swamp, held aloof. Martin Urner held the love of his wife and the allegiance of his flock; but not so the Elder across the Schuylkill at Falckner's Swamp. Beissel carried away some from Coventry but even on them he did not have a lasting hold. The "Chronicon " tells us, p. 67, "After these (those from Falckner's Swamp) the awakened from the Schuylkill (Coventry) also came and settled down at the Settlement. From these the Sister's Convent gained a number; but only two, Drusiana and Basilla, natural sisters, endured till the end."
"The Coventry Church," says Abraham Cassel, "in- creased fast, and in 1770 would have been a very large con- gregation had not so many gone away to get better lands elsewhere, as they were mostly husbandmen. Numbers went to what was then called the Conococheague, in Frank- lin and Perry counties, in Pennsylvania, and some also to Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
"The old Brethren were opposed to having a meeting- house. They held their meetings in a kind of rotation, at Martin Urner's and at four other places, and the custom then was that where the meeting was, most of the people stayed for dinner, and the afternoons were spent in private conversation, singing, and prayer, which was so edifying to the people that it was the means of drawing many into the church."1 Up to 1770 the Coventry Brethren were without a meeting-house. Only two years later, however, in 1772,
1 See "History of the Brethren Coventry Church," by Isaac Urner, p. 20.
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they built one of logs, on the old Martin Urner homestead, on or near the site of the present church.
"From corroborative facts known to me," continues Abraham Cassel, "I have no doubt but that the Coventry Church had hundreds of additions between its organization in 1724 and its census of 1770."
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