As soon, therefore, as Rauch had struck this note, the Brethren boldly undertook the task of preaching to all the Red Indians in North America. The Count himself set off to spy the land, and undertook three dangerous missionary journeys. First, accompanied by his daughter Benigna, and an escort of fourteen, he visited the Long Valley beyond the Blue Mountains, met a delegation of the League of the Iroquois, and received from them, in solemn style, a fathom made of one hundred and sixty-eight strings of wampum {1742.}. The fathom was a sign of goodwill. If a missionary could only show the fathom he was sure of a kindly welcome. In his second journey Zinzendorf went to Shekomeko, organised the first Indian Mission Church, and baptized three converts as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In his third journey he visited the Wyoming Valley, and interviewed the chiefs of the Shawanese and Mohicans. He was here in deadly peril. As he sat one afternoon in his tent two hissing adders darted across his body; and a few days later some suspicious Indians plotted to take his life. But a government agent arrived on the scene, and Zinzendorf's scalp was saved.
And now the Brethren began the campaign in earnest. At Bethlehem Spangenberg had a Mission Conference and a Mission College. The great hero of the work was David Zeisberger. He was, like most of these early missionaries, a German. He was born at Zauchtenthal, in Moravia; had come with his parents to Herrnhut; had followed them later to Georgia; and was now a student at Spangenberg's College at Bethlehem. For sixty-three years he lived among the Indians, and his life was one continual series of thrilling adventures and escapes. He became almost an Indian. He was admitted a member of the Six Nations, received an Indian name, and became a member of an Indian family. He was an Iroquois to the Iroquois, a Delaware to the Delawares. He understood the hidden science of belts and strings of wampum; he could unriddle their mysterious messages and make speeches in their bombastic style; and he spoke in their speech and thought in their thoughts, and lived their life in their wigwams. He loved their majestic prairies, stretching beyond the Blue Mountains. He loved their mighty rivers and their deep clear lakes. Above all, he loved the red-brown Indians themselves. Full well he knew what trials awaited him. If the reader has formed his conception of the Indians from Fenimore Cooper's novels, he will probably think that Zeisberger spent his life among a race of gallant heroes. The reality was rather different. For the most part the Indians of North America were the reverse of heroic. They were bloodthirsty, drunken, lewd and treacherous. They spent their time in hunting buffaloes, smoking pipes, lolling in the sun, and scalping each other's heads. They wasted their nights in tipsy revels and dances by the light of the moon. They cowered in terror of evil spirits and vicious and angry gods. But Zeisberger never feared and never despaired. As long as he had such a grand Gospel to preach, he felt sure that he could make these savages sober, pure, wise, kind and brave, and that God would ever shield him with His wing. He has been called "The Apostle to the Indians." As the missionaries of the early Christian Church came to our rude fathers in England, and made us a Christian people, so Zeisberger desired to be an Augustine to the Indians, and found a Christian Indian kingdom stretching from Lake Michigan to the Ohio.
He began his work with the League of the Iroquois, commonly called the Six Nations {1745.}. At Onondaga, their headquarters, where he and Bishop Cammerhof had arranged to meet the Great Council, the meeting had to be postponed till the members had recovered from a state of intoxication. But Cammerhof addressed the chiefs, brought out the soothing pipe of tobacco, watched it pass from mouth to mouth, and received permission for two missionaries to come and settle down. From there, still accompanied by Cammerhof, Zeisberger went on to the Senecas. He was welcomed to a Pandemonium of revelry. The whole village was drunk. As he lay in his tent he could hear fiendish yells rend the air; he went out with a kettle, to get some water for Cammerhof, and the savages knocked the kettle out of his hand; and later, when the shades of evening fell, he had to defend himself with his fists against a bevy of lascivious women, whose long hair streamed in the night wind, and whose lips swelled with passion. For Cammerhof the journey was too much; in the bloom of youth he died (1751).
But Zeisberger had a frame of steel. Passing on from tribe to tribe, he strode through darkling woods, through tangled thickets, through miry sloughs, through swarms of mosquitoes; and anon, plying his swift canoe, he sped through primeval forests, by flowers of the tulip tree, through roaring rapids, round beetling bluffs, past groups of mottled rattlesnakes that lay basking in the sun. At the present time, in many Moravian manses, may be seen an engraving of a picture by Schüssele, of Philadelphia, representing Zeisberger preaching to the Indians. The incident occurred at Goschgoschünk, on the Alleghany River (1767). In the picture the service is represented as being held in the open air; in reality it was held in the Council House. In the centre of the house was the watch-fire. Around it squatted the Indians—the men on one side, the women on the other; and among those men were murderers who had played their part, twelve years before, in the massacre on the Mahony River. As soon as Zeisberger rose to speak, every eye was fixed upon him; and while he delivered his Gospel message, he knew that at any moment a tomahawk might cleave his skull, and his scalp hang bleeding at the murderer's girdle. "Never yet," he wrote, "did I see so clearly painted on the faces of the Indians both the darkness of hell and the world-subduing power of the Gospel."
As the years rolled on, this dauntless hero won completely the confidence of these suspicious savages. He was known as "Friend of the Indians," and was allowed to move among them at his ease. In vain the sorcerers plotted against him. "Beware," they said to the simple people, "of the man in the black coat." At times, in order to bring down the vengeance of the spirits on Zeisberger's head, they sat up through the night and gorged themselves with swine's flesh; and, when this mode of enchantment failed, they baked themselves in hot ovens till they became unconscious. Zeisberger still went boldly on. Wherever the Indians were most debauched, there was he in the midst of them. Both the Six Nations and the Delawares passed laws that he was to be uninterrupted in his work. Before him the haughtiest chieftains bowed in awe. At Lavunakhannek, on the Alleghany River, he met the great Delaware orator, Glikkikan, who had baffled Jesuits and statesmen, and had prepared a complicated speech with which he meant to crush Zeisberger for ever; but when the two men came face to face, the orator fell an easy victim, forgot his carefully prepared oration, murmured meekly: "I have nothing to say; I believe your words," submitted to Zeisberger like a child, and became one of his warmest friends and supporters. In like manner Zeisberger won over White Eyes, the famous Delaware captain; and, hand in hand, Zeisberger and White Eyes worked for the same great cause. "I want my people," said White Eyes, "now that peace is established in the country, to turn their attention to peace in their hearts. I want them to embrace that religion which is taught by the white teachers. We shall never be happy until we are Christians."
It seemed as though that time were drawing nigh {1765-81.}. Zeisberger was a splendid organizer. As soon as the "Indian War" was over, he founded a number of Christian settlements, and taught the Indians the arts of industry and peace. For the Iroquois he founded the settlements of Friedenshütten (Tents of Peace), on the Susquehanna, Goschgoschünk, on the Alleghany, and Lavunakhannek and Friedenstadt (Town of Peace), on the Beaver River; and for the Delawares he founded the settlements of Schönbrunn (Beautiful Spring), Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace), Lichtenau (Meadow of Light), on the Tuscawaras, and Salem, on the Muskinghum. His settlements were like diamonds flashing in the darkness. Instead of the wildness of the desert were nut trees, plums, cherries, mulberries and all manner of fruits; instead of scattered wigwams, orderly streets of huts; instead of filth, neatness and cleanliness; instead of drunken brawls and orgies, the voice of children at the village school, and the voice of morning and evening prayer.
No longer were the Indians in these settlements wild hunters. They were now steady business men. They conducted farms, cultivated gardens, grew corn and sugar, made butter, and learned to manage their local affairs as well as an English Urban District Council. At the head of each settlement was a Governing Board, consisting of the Missionaries and the native "helpers"; and all affairs of special importance were referred to a general meeting of the inhabitants. The system filled the minds of visitors with wonder. "The Indians in Zeisberger's settlements," said Colonel Morgan, "are an example to civilized whites."
No longer, further, were the Indians ignorant savages. Zeisberger was a great linguist. He mastered the Delaware and Iroquois languages. For the benefit of the converts in his setlements, and with the assistance of Indian sachems, he prepared and had printed a number of useful books: first (1776), "A Delaware Indian and English Spelling-book," with an appendix containing the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, some Scripture passages and a Litany; next (1803), in the Delaware language, "A Collection of Hymns for the use of the Christian Indians," translated from the English and German Moravian Hymn-books, and including the Easter, Baptismal and Burial Litanies; next, a volume of "Sermons to Children," translated from the German; next, a translation of Spangenberg's "Bodily Care of Children"; next, "A Harmony of the Four Gospels," translated from the Harmony prepared by Samuel Leiberkühn; and last, a grammatical treatise on the Delaware conjugations. Of his services to philology, I need not speak in detail. He prepared a lexicon, in seven volumes, of the German and Onondaga languages, an Onondaga Grammar, a Delaware Grammar, a German-Delaware Dictionary, and other works of a similar nature. As these contributions to science were never published, they may not seem of much importance; but his manuscripts have been carefully preserved, some in the library of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, others at Harvard University.
Thus did Zeisberger, explorer and scholar, devote his powers to the physical, moral and spiritual improvement of the Indians. For some years his success was brilliant; and when, on Easter Sunday morning, his converts gathered for the early service, they presented a scene unlike any other in the world. As the sun rose red beyond the great Blue Mountains, as the morning mists broke gently away, as the gemmed trees whispered with the breath of spring, the Indians repeated in their lonely cemetery the same solemn Easter Litany that the Brethren repeated at Herrnhut, Zeisberger read the Confession of Faith, a trained choir led the responses, the Easter hymn swelled out, and the final "Amen" rang over the plateau and aroused the hosts of the woodland.
And yet the name of this wonderful man is almost unknown in England. We are just coming to the reason. At the very time when his influence was at its height the American War of Independence broke out, and Zeisberger and his converts, as an Indian orator put it, were between two exceeding mighty and wrathful gods, who stood opposed with extended jaws. Each party wished the Indians to take up arms on its side. But Zeisberger urged them to be neutral. When the English sent the hatchet of war to the Delawares, the Delawares politely sent it back. When a letter came to Zeisberger, requesting him to arouse his converts, to put himself at their head, and to bring the scalps of all the rebels he could slaughter, he threw the sheet into the flames. For this policy he was suspected by both sides. At one time he was accused before an English court of being in league with the Americans. At another time he was accused by the Americans of being in league with the English. At length the thunderbolt fell. As the Christian Indians of Gnadenhütten were engaged one day in tilling the soil, the American troops of Colonel Williamson appeared upon the scene, asked for quarters, were comfortably, lodged, and then, disarming the innocent victims, accused them of having sided with the British. For that accusation the only ground was that the Indians had shown hospitality to all who demanded it; but this defence was not accepted, and Colonel Williamson decided to put the whole congregation to death {March 28th, 1782.}. The log huts were turned into shambles; the settlers were allowed a few minutes for prayer; then, in couples, they were summoned to their doom; and in cold blood the soldiers, with tomahawks, mallets, clubs, spears and scalping knives, began the work of butchery. At the end of the performance ninety corpses lay dabbled with blood on the ground. Among the victims were six National Assistants, a lady who could speak English and German, twenty-four other women, eleven boys and eleven girls. The Blood-Bath of Gnadenhütten was a hideous crime. It shattered the Indian Mission. The grand plans of Zeisberger collapsed in ruin. As the war raged on, and white men encroached more and more on Indian soil, he found himself and his converts driven by brute force from one settlement after another. Already, before the war broke out, this brutal process had commenced; and altogether it continued for twenty years. In 1769 he had to abandon Goschgoschünk; in 1770, Lavunakhannek; in 1772, Friedenshütten; in 1773, Friedenstadt; in 1780, Lichtenau; in 1781, Gnadenhütten, Salem and Schönbrunn; in 1782, Sandusky; in 1786, New Gnadenhütten; in 1787, Pilgerruh; in 1791, New Salem. As the old man drew near his end, he endeavoured to stem the torrent of destruction by founding two new settlements—Fairfield, in Canada, and Goshen, on the Tuscawaras; but even these had to be abandoned a few years after his death. Amid the Indians he had lived; amid the Indians, at Goshen, he lay on his death-bed {1808.}. As the news of his approaching dissolution spread, the chapel bell was tolled: his converts, knowing the signal, entered the room; and then, uniting their voices in song, they sang him home in triumphant hymns which he himself had translated from the hymns of the Ancient Brethren's Church.
As Zinzendorf drew near to his end, he saw that his efforts in the cause of Christ had not ended as he had hoped. His design was the union of Christendom, his achievement the revival of the Church of the Brethren. He had given the "Hidden Seed" a home at Herrnhut. He had discovered the ancient laws of the Bohemian Brethren. He had maintained, first, for the sake of the Missions, and, secondly, for the sake of his Brethren, the Brethren's Episcopal Succession. He had founded the Pilgrim Band at Marienborn, had begun the Diaspora work in the Baltic Provinces, had gained for the Brethren legal recognition in Germany, England and North America, and had given the stimulus to the work of foreign missions. At the same time, he had continually impressed his own religious ideas upon his followers; and thus the Renewed Church of the Brethren was a Church of a twofold nature. The past and the present were dove-tailed. From the Bohemian Brethren came the strict discipline, the ministerial succession, and the martyr-spirit; from Zinzendorf the idea of "Church within the Church," the stress laid on the great doctrine of reconciliation through the blood of Christ, and the fiery missionary enthusiasm. Without Zinzendorf the Bohemian Brethren would probably have never returned to life; and without the fibre of the Bohemian Brethren, German Pietism would have died a natural death.
We must, however, keep clear of one misconception. Whatever else the Renewed Church of the Brethren was, it did not spring from a union of races. It was not a fusion of German and Czech elements. As the first settlers at Herrnhut came from Moravia, it is natural to regard them as Moravian Czechs; but the truth is that they were Germans in blood, and spoke the German language. It was, therefore, the German element of the old Brethren's Church that formed the backbone of the Renewed Church. It was Germans, not Czechs, who began the foreign missionary work; Germans who came to England, and Germans who renewed the Brethren's Church in America. In due time pure Czechs from Bohemia came and settled at Rixdorf and Niesky; but, speaking broadly, the Renewed Church of the Brethren was revived by German men with German ideas.
As the Church, therefore, was now established in the three provinces of Germany, Great Britain and North America, one problem only still awaited solution. The problem was the welding of the provinces. That welding was brought about in a simple way. If the reader is of a thoughtful turn of mind, he must have wondered more than once where the Brethren found the money to carry on their enterprises. They had relied chiefly on two sources of income: first, Zinzendorf's estates; second, a number of business concerns known as Diaconies. As long as these Diaconies prospered, the Brethren were able to keep their heads above water; but the truth is, they had been mismanaged. The Church was now on the verge of bankruptcy; and, therefore, the Brethren held at Taubenheim the so-called "Economical Conference." {1755.}
In the time of need came the deliverer, Frederick Köber. His five measures proved the salvation of the Church. First, he separated the property of Zinzendorf from the general property of the Church. Secondly, he put this general property under the care of a "College of Directors." Thirdly, he made an arrangement whereby this "College" should pay off all debts in fixed yearly sums. Fourthly, he proposed that all members of the Church should pay a fixed annual sum to general Church funds. And fifthly, on the sound principle that those who pay are entitled to a vote, he suggested that in future all members of the Church should have the right to send representatives to the General Directing Board or Conference. In this way he drew the outlines of the Moravian Church Constitution.
Meanwhile, Count Zinzendorf's end was drawing near. The evening of his life he spent at Herrnhut, for where more fitly could he die?
"It will be better," he said, "when I go home; the Conferences will last for ever."
He employed his last days in revising the Text-book, which was to be daily food for the Pilgrim Church {1760.}; and when he wrote down the final words, "And the King turned His face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel," his last message to the Brethren was delivered. As his illness—a violent catarrhal fever—gained the mastery over him, he was cheered by the sight of the numerous friends who gathered round him. His band of workers watched by his couch in turn. On the last night about a hundred Brethren and Sisters assembled in the death chamber. John de Watteville sat by the bedside.
"Now, my dear friend," said the dying Count, "I am going to the Saviour. I am ready. I bow to His will. He is satisfied with me. If He does not want me here any more, I am ready to go to Him. There is nothing to hinder me now."
He looked around upon his friends. "I cannot say," he said, "how much I love you all. Who would have believed that the prayer of Christ, 'That they may be one,' could have been so strikingly fulfilled among us. I only asked for first-fruits among the heathen, and thousands have been given me...Are we not as in Heaven? Do we not live together like the angels? The Lord and His servants understand one another...I am ready."
As the night wore on towards morning, the scene, says one who was present, was noble, charming, liturgical. At ten o'clock, his breathing grew feebler {May 9th, 1760.}; and John de Watteville pronounced the Old Testament Benediction, "The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace." As de Watteville spoke the last words of the blessing, the Count lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes; and a few seconds later he breathed no more.
At Herrnhut it is still the custom to announce the death of any member of the congregation by a chorale played on trombones; and when the trombones sounded that morning all knew that Zinzendorf's earthly career had closed. The air was thick with mist. "It seemed," said John Nitschmann, then minister at Herrnhut, "as though nature herself were weeping." As the Count's body lay next day in the coffin, arrayed in the robe he had worn so often when conducting the Holy Communion, the whole congregation, choir by choir, came to gaze for the last time upon his face. For a week after this the coffin remained closed; but on the funeral day it was opened again, and hundreds from the neighbouring towns and villages came crowding into the chamber. At the funeral all the Sisters were dressed in white; and the number of mourners was over four thousand. At this time there were present in Herrnhut Moravian ministers from Holland, England, Ireland, North America and Greenland; and these, along with the German ministers, took turns as pall-bearers. The trombones sounded. John Nitschmann, as precentor, started the hymn; the procession to the Hutberg began. As the coffin was lowered into the grave some verses were sung, and then John Nitschmann spoke the words: "With tears we sow this seed in the earth; but He, in his own good time, will bring it to life, and will gather in His harvest with thanks and praise! Let all who wish for this say, 'Amen.'"
"Amen," responded the vast, weeping throng. The inscription on the grave-stone is as follows: "Here lie the remains of that immortal man of God, Nicholas Lewis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf; who, through the grace of God and his own unwearied service, became the honoured Ordinary of the Brethren's Church, renewed in this eighteenth century. He was born at Dresden on May 26th, 1700, and entered into the joy of his Lord at Herrnhut on May 9th, 1760. He was appointed to bring forth fruit, and that his fruit should remain."
Thus, in a halo of tearful glory, the Count-Bishop was laid to rest. For many years the Brethren cherished his memory, not only with affection, but with veneration; and even the sober Spangenberg described him as "the great treasure of our times, a lovely diamond in the ring on the hand of our Lord, a servant of the Lord without an equal, a pillar in the house of the Lord, God's message to His people." But history hardly justifies this generous eulogy; and Spangenberg afterwards admitted himself that Zinzendorf had two sides to his character. "It may seem a paradox," he wrote, "but it really does seem a fact that a man cannot have great virtues without also having great faults." The case of Zinzendorf is a case in point. At a Synod held a few years later (1764), the Brethren commissioned Spangenberg to write a "Life of Zinzendorf." As the Count, however, had been far from perfect, they had to face the serious question whether Spangenberg should be allowed to expose his faults to public gaze. They consulted the Lot: the Lot said "No"; and, therefore, they solemnly warned Spangenberg that, in order to avoid creating a false impression, he was "to leave out everything which would not edify the public." The loyal Spangenberg obeyed. His "Life of Zinzendorf" appeared in eight large volumes. He desired, of course, to be honest; he was convinced, to use his own words, that "an historian is responsible to God and men for the truth"; and yet, though he told the truth, he did not tell the whole truth. The result was lamentable. Instead of a life-like picture of Zinzendorf, the reader had only a shaded portrait, in which both the beauties and the defects were carefully toned down. The English abridged edition was still more colourless.[136] For a hundred years the character of Zinzendorf lay hidden beneath a pile of pious phrases, and only the recent researches of scholars have enabled us to see him as he was. He was no mere commonplace Pietist. He was no mere pious German nobleman, converted by looking at a picture. His faults and his virtues stood out in glaring relief. His very appearance told the dual tale. As he strolled the streets of Berlin or London, the wayfarers instinctively moved to let him pass, and all men admired his noble bearing, his lofty brow, his fiery dark blue eye, and his firm set lips; and yet, on the other hand, they could not fail to notice that he was untidy in his dress, that he strode on, gazing at the stars, and that often, in his absent-mindedness, he stumbled and staggered in his gait. In his portraits we can read the same double story. In some the prevailing tone is dignity; in others there is the faint suggestion of a smirk. His faults were those often found in men of genius. He was nearly always in a hurry, and was never in time for dinner. He was unsystematic in his habits, and incompetent in money matters. He was rather imperious in disposition, and sometimes overbearing in his conduct. He was impatient at any opposition, and disposed to treat with contempt the advice of others. For example, when the financial crisis arose at Herrnhaag, Spangenberg advised him to raise funds by weekly collections; but Zinzendorf brushed the advice aside, and retorted, "It is my affair." He was rather short-tempered, and would stamp his foot like an angry child if a bench in the church was not placed exactly as he desired. He was superstitious in his use of the Lot, and damaged the cause of the Brethren immensely by teaching them to trust implicitly to its guidance. He was reckless in his use of extravagant language; and he forgot that public men should consider, not only what they mean themselves, but also what impression their words are likely to make upon others. He was not always strictly truthful; and in one of his pamphlets he actually asserted that he himself was in no way responsible for the scandals at Herrnhaag. For these reasons the Count made many enemies. He was criticized severely, and sometimes justly, by men of such exalted character as Bengel, the famous German commentator, and honest John Wesley in England; he was reviled by vulgar scribblers like Rimius; and thus, like his great contemporary, Whitefield, he
But serious though his failings were, they were far outshone by his virtues. Of all the religious leaders of the eighteenth century, he was the most original in genius and the most varied in talent; and, therefore, he was the most misunderstood, the most fiercely hated, the most foully libelled, the most shamefully attacked, and the most fondly adored. In his love for Christ he was like St. Bernard, in his mystic devotion like Madame Guyon; and Herder, the German poet, described him as "a conqueror in the spiritual world." It was those who knew him best who admired him most. By the world at large he was despised, by orthodox critics abused, by the Brethren honoured, by his intimate friends almost worshipped. According to many orthodox Lutherans he was an atheist; but the Brethren commonly called him "the Lord's disciple." He was abstemious in diet, cared little for wine, and drank chiefly tea and lemonade. He was broad and Catholic in his views, refused to speak of the Pope as Antichrist, and referred to members of the Church of Rome as "Brethren"; and, while he remained a Lutheran to the end, he had friends in every branch of the Church of Christ. He had not a drop of malice in his blood. He never learned the art of bearing a grudge, and when he was reviled, he never reviled again. He was free with his money, and could never refuse a beggar. He was a thoughtful and suggestive theological writer, and holds a high place in the history of dogma; and no thinker expounded more beautifully than he the grand doctrine that the innermost nature of God is revealed in all its glory to man in the Person of the suffering Man Christ Jesus. He was a beautiful Christian poet; his hymns are found to-day in every collection; his "Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness" was translated into English by John Wesley; and his noble "Jesus, still lead on!" is as popular in the cottage homes of Germany as Newman's "Lead, kindly light" in England. Of the three great qualities required in a poet, Zinzendorf, however, possessed only two. He had the sensibility; he had the imagination; but he rarely had the patience to take pains; and, therefore, nearly all his poetry is lacking in finish and artistic beauty. He was an earnest social reformer; he endeavoured, by means of his settlement system, to solve the social problem; and his efforts to uplift the working classes were praised by the famous German critic, Lessing. The historian and theologian, Albrecht Ritschl, has accused him of sectarian motives and of wilfully creating a split in the Lutheran Church. The accusation is absolutely false. There is nothing more attractive in the character of Zinzendorf than his unselfish devotion to one grand ideal. On one occasion, after preaching at Berlin, he met a young lieutenant. The lieutenant was in spiritual trouble.
"Let me ask you," said Zinzendorf, "one question: Are you alone in your religious troubles, or do you share them with others?"
The lieutenant replied that some friends and he were accustomed to pray together.
"That is right," said Zinzendorf. "I acknowledge no Christianity without fellowship."
In those words he pointed to the loadstar of his life. For that holy cause of Christian fellowship he spent every breath in his body and every ducat in his possession. For that cause he laboured among the peasants of Berthelsdorf, in the streets of Berlin, in the smiling Wetterau, in the Baltic Provinces, on the shores of Lake Geneva, in the wilds of Yorkshire, by the silver Thames, on West Indian plantations, and in the wigwams of the Iroquois and the Delaware. It is not always fair to judge of men by their conduct. We must try, when possible, to find the ruling motive; and in motive Zinzendorf was always unselfish. Sometimes he was guilty of reckless driving; but his wagon was hitched to a star. No man did more to revive the Moravian Church, and no man did more, by his very ideals, to retard her later expansion. It is here that we can see most clearly the contrast between Zinzendorf and John Wesley. In genius Zinzendorf easily bore the palm; in practical wisdom the Englishman far excelled him. The one was a poet, a dreamer, a thinker, a mystic; the other a practical statesman, who added nothing to religious thought, and yet uplifted millions of his fellow men. At a Synod of the Brethren held at Herrnhut (1818), John Albertini, the eloquent preacher, described the key-note of Zinzendorf's life. "It was love to Christ," said Albertini, "that glowed in the heart of the child; the same love that burned in the young man; the same love that thrilled his middle-age; the same love that inspired his every endeavour." In action faulty, in motive pure; in judgment erring, in ideals divine; in policy wayward, in purpose unselfish and true; such was Zinzendorf, the Renewer of the Church of the Brethren.[137]
As we enter on the closing stages of our journey, the character of the landscape changes; and, leaving behind the wild land of romance and adventure, we come out on the broad, high road of slow but steady progress. The death of Zinzendorf was no crushing blow. At first some enemies of the Brethren rejoiced, and one prophet triumphantly remarked: "We shall now see an end of these Moravians." But that time the prophet spoke without his mantle. Already the Brethren were sufficiently strong to realize their calling in the world. In Saxony they had established powerful congregations at Herrnhut and Kleinwelke; in Silesia, at Niesky, Gnadenberg, Gnadenfrei and Neusalz; in Central Germany, at Ebersdorf, Neudietendorf and Barby; in North Germany, at Rixdorf and Berlin; in West Germany, at Neuwied-on-the-Rhine; in Holland, at Zeist, near Utrecht. At first sight this list does not look very impressive; but we must, of course, bear in mind that most of these congregations were powerful settlements, that each settlement was engaged in Diaspora work, and that the branches of that work had extended to Denmark, Switzerland and Norway. In Great Britain a similar principle held good. In England the Brethren had flourishing causes at Fulneck, Gomersal, Mirfield, Wyke, Ockbrook, Bedford, Fetter Lane, Tytherton, Dukinfield, Leominster; in Ireland, at Dublin, Gracehill, Gracefield, Ballinderry and Kilwarlin; and around each of these congregations were numerous societies and preaching places. In North America they had congregations at Bethlehem, Emmaus, Graceham, Lancaster, Lititz, Nazareth, New Dorp, New York, Philadelphia, Schoeneck and York (York Co.); and in addition, a number of preaching places. In Greenland they had built the settlements of New Herrnhut and Lichtenau. In the West Indies they had established congregations in St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Jan, Jamaica and Antigua. In Berbice and Surinam they had three main centres of work. Among the Red Indians Zeisberger was busily engaged. As accurate statistics are not available, I am not able to state exactly how many Moravians there were then in the world; but we know that in the mission-field alone they had over a thousand communicant members and seven thousand adherents under their special care.
As soon, then, as the leading Brethren in Herrnhut—such as John de Watteville, Leonard Dober, David Nitschmann, the Syndic, Frederick Köber, and others—had recovered from the shock occasioned by Zinzendorf's death, they set about the difficult task of organizing the work of the whole Moravian Church. First, they formed a provisional Board of Directors, known as the Inner Council; next, they despatched two messengers to America, to summon the practical Spangenberg home to take his place on the board; and then, at the earliest convenient opportunity, they summoned their colleagues to Marienborn for the first General Representative Synod of the Renewed Church of the Brethren. As the Count had left the affairs of the Church in confusion, the task before the Brethren was enormous {1764.}. They had their Church constitution to frame; they had their finances to straighten out; they had their mission in the world to define; they had, in a word, to bring order out of chaos; and so difficult did they find the task that eleven years passed away before it was accomplished to any satisfaction. For thirty years they had been half blinded by the dazzling brilliance of Zinzendorf; but now they began to see a little more clearly. As long as Zinzendorf was in their midst, an orderly system of government was impossible. It was now an absolute necessity. The reign of one man was over; the period of constitutional government began. At all costs, said the sensible Frederick Köber, the Count must have no successor. For the first time the Synod was attended by duly elected congregation deputies: those deputies came not only from Germany, but from Great Britain, America and the mission-field; and thus the voice of the Synod was the voice, not of one commanding genius, but of the whole Moravian Church.
The first question to settle was the Church's Mission. For what purpose did the Moravian Church exist? To that question the Brethren gave a threefold answer. First, they said, they must labour in the whole world; second, their fundamental doctrine must be the doctrine of reconciliation through the merits of the life and sufferings of Christ as set forth in the Holy Scriptures and in the Augsburg Confession; and, third, in their settlements they would continue to enforce that strict discipline—including the separation of the sexes—without which the Gospel message would be a mockery. Thus the world was their parish, the cross their message, the system of discipline their method.
Secondly, the Brethren framed their constitution. Of all the laws ever passed by the Brethren, those passed at the first General Synod had, for nearly a hundred years (1764-1857), the greatest influence on the progress of the Moravian Church. The keyword is "centralization." If the Church was to be a united body, that Church, held the Brethren, must have a central court of appeal, a central administrative board, and a central legislative authority. At this first Constitutional Synod, therefore, the Brethren laid down the following principles of government: That all power to make rules and regulations touching the faith and practice of the Church should be vested in the General Synod; that this General Synod should consist of all bishops and ministers of the Church and of duly elected congregation deputies; that no deputy should be considered duly elected unless his election had been confirmed by the Lot; and that during an inter-synodal period the supreme management of Church affairs should be in the hands of three directing boards, which should all be elected by the Synod, and be responsible to the next Synod. The first board was the Supreme Board of Management. It was called the Directory, and consisted of nine Brethren. The second was the Brethren's ministry of foreign affairs. It was called the Board of Syndics, and managed the Church's relations with governments. The third was the Brethren's treasury. It was called the Unity's Warden's Board, and managed the Church finances. For us English readers, however, the chief point to notice is that, although these boards were elected by the General Synod, and although, in theory, they were international in character, in actual fact they consisted entirely of Germans; and, therefore, we have the astounding situation that during the next ninety-three years the whole work of the Moravian Church—in Germany, in Holland, in Denmark, in Great Britain, in North America, and in the rapidly extending mission-field—was managed by a board or boards consisting of Germans and resident in Germany. There all General Synods were held; there lay all supreme administrative and legislative power.
Of local self-government there was practically none. It is true that so-called "Provincial Synods" were held; but these Synods had no power to make laws. At this period the Moravian Church was divided, roughly, into the six Provinces of Upper Lusatia, Silesia, Holland, England, Ireland, and America; and in each of these Provinces Synods might be held. But a Provincial Synod was a Synod only in name. "A Provincial Synod," ran the law, "is an assembly of the ministers and deputies of the congregations of a whole province or land who lay to heart the weal or woe of their congregations, and lay the results of their conferences before the General Synod or the Directory, which is constituted from one General Synod to another. In other places and districts, indeed, that name does not suit; but yet in every congregation and district a solemn conference of that sort may every year be holden, and report be made out of it to the Directory and General Synod."
In individual congregations the same principle applied. There, too, self-government was almost unknown. At the head of each congregation was a board known as the Elders' Conference; and that Elders' Conference consisted, not of Brethren elected by the Church members, but of the minister, the minister's wife, and the choir-labourers, all appointed by the supreme Directing Board. It is true that the members of the congregation had power to elect a committee, but the powers of that committee were strictly limited. It dealt with business matters only, and all members of the Elders' Conference were ex officio members of the Committee. We can see, then, what this curious system meant. It meant that a body of Moravian members in London, Dublin or Philadelphia were under the authority of a Conference appointed by a Directing Board of Germans resident in Germany.
The next question to settle was finance; and here again the word "centralization" must be our guide through the jungle. At that time the finances had sunk so low that at this first General Synod most of the ministers and deputies had to sleep on straw, and now the great problem to settle was, how to deal with Zinzendorf's property. As long as Zinzendorf was in the flesh he had generously used the income from his estates for all sorts of Church purposes. But now the situation was rather delicate. On the one hand, Zinzendorf's landed property belonged by law to his heirs, i.e., his three daughters, and his wife's nephew, Count Reuss; on the other hand, he had verbally pledged it to the Brethren to help them out of their financial troubles. The problem was solved by purchase. In exchange for Zinzendorf's estates at Berthelsdorf and Gross-Hennersdorf, the Brethren offered the heirs the sum of £25,000. The heirs accepted the offer; the deeds of sale were prepared; and thus Zinzendorf's landed property became the property of the Moravian Church. We must not call this a smart business transaction. When the Brethren purchased Zinzendorf's estates, they purchased his debts as well; and those debts amounted now to over £150,000. The one thing the Brethren gained was independence. They were no longer under an obligation to the Zinzendorf family.
At the next General Synod, held again at Marienborn {1769.}, the centralizing principle was still more emphatically enforced. As the three separate boards of management had not worked very smoothly together, the Brethren now abolished them, and resolved that henceforth all supreme administrative authority should be vested in one grand comprehensive board, to be known as the Unity's Elders' Conference.[138] The Conference was divided into three departments—the College of Overseers, the College of Helpers, and the College of Servants. It is hard for English readers to realize what absolute powers this board possessed. The secret lies in the Brethren's use of the Lot. Hitherto the use of the Lot had been haphazard; henceforth it was a recognized principle of Church government. At this Synod the Brethren laid down the law that all elections,[139] appointments and important decisions should be ratified by the Lot. It was used, not only to confirm elections, but often, though not always, to settle questions of Church policy. It was often appealed to at Synods. If a difficult question came up for discussion, the Brethren frequently consulted the Lot. The method was to place three papers in a box, and then appoint someone to draw one out. If the paper was positive, the resolution was carried; if the paper was negative, the resolution was lost; if the paper was blank, the resolution was laid on the table. The weightiest matters were settled in this way. At one Synod the Lot decided that George Waiblinger should be entrusted with the task of preparing an "Exposition of Christian Doctrine"; and yet when Waiblinger fulfilled his duty, the Brethren were not satisfied with his work. At another Synod the Lot decided that Spangenberg should not be entrusted with that task, and yet the Brethren were quite convinced that Spangenberg was the best man for the purpose. But perhaps the greatest effect of the Lot was the power and dignity which it conferred on officials. No man could be a member of the U.E.C. unless his election had been confirmed by the Lot; and when that confirmation had been obtained, he felt that he had been appointed, not only by his Brethren, but also by God. Thus the U.E.C., appointed by the Lot, employed the Lot to settle the most delicate questions. For example, no Moravian minister might marry without the consent of the U.E.C. The U.E.C. submitted his choice to the Lot; and if the Lot decided in the negative, he accepted the decision as the voice of God. In the congregations the same practice prevailed. All applications for church membership and all proposals of marriage were submitted to the Local Elders' Conference; and in each case the Conference arrived at its decision by consulting the Lot. To some critics this practice appeared a symptom of lunacy. It was not so regarded by the Brethren. It was their way of seeking the guidance of God; and when they were challenged to justify their conduct, they appealed to the example of the eleven Apostles as recorded in Acts i. 26, and also to the promise of Christ, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, I will do it."
At this Synod the financial problem came up afresh. The Brethren tried a bold experiment. As the Church's debts could not be extinguished in any other way, they determined to appeal to the generosity of the members; and to this end they now resolved that the property of the Church should be divided into as many sections as there were congregations, that each congregation should have its own property and bear its own burden, and that each congregation-committee should supply the needs of its own minister. Of course, money for general Church purposes would still be required: but the Brethren trusted that this would come readily from the pockets of loving members.
But love, though a beautiful silken bond, is sometimes apt to snap. The new arrangement was violently opposed. What right, asked grumblers, had the Synod to saddle individual congregations with the debts of the whole Church? The local managers of diaconies proved incompetent. At Neuwied one Brother lost £6,000 of Church money in a lottery. The financial pressure became harder than ever. James Skinner, a member of the London congregation, suggested that the needful money should be raised by weekly subscriptions. In England this proposal might have found favour; in Germany it was rejected with contempt. The relief came from an unexpected quarter. At Herrnhut the members were celebrating the congregation Jubilee {1772.}; and twenty poor Single Sisters there, inspired with patriotic zeal, concocted the following letter to the U.E.C.: "After maturely weighing how we might be able, in proportion to our slender means, to contribute something to lessen the debt on the Unity—i.e., our own debt—we have cheerfully agreed to sacrifice and dispose of all unnecessary articles, such as gold and silver plate, watches, snuff-boxes, rings, trinkets and jewellery of every kind for the purpose of establishing a Sinking Fund, on condition that not only the congregation at Herrnhut, but all the members of the Church everywhere, rich and poor, old and young, agree to this proposal. But this agreement is not to be binding on those who can contribute in other ways." The brave letter caused an immense sensation. The spirit of generosity swept over the Church like a freshening breeze. For very shame the other members felt compelled to dive into their pockets; and the young men, not being possessed of trinkets, offered free labour in their leisure hours. The good folk at Herrnhut vied with each other in giving; and the Brethren at Philadelphia vied with the Brethren at Herrnhut. The Sinking Fund was established. In less than twelve months the Single Sisters at Herrnhut raised £1,300; the total contributions at Herrnhut amounted to £3,500; and in three years the Sinking Fund had a capital of £25,000. Thus did twenty Single Sisters earn a high place on the Moravian roll of honour. At the same time, the U.E.C. were able to sell the three estates of Marienborn, Herrnhaag and Lindsey House; and in these ways the debt on the Church was gradually wiped off.
The third constitutional Synod was held at Barby, on the Elbe, near Magdeburg {1775.}. At this Synod the power of the U.E.C. was strengthened. In order to prevent financial crises in future, the Brethren now laid down the law that each congregation, though having its own property, should contribute a fixed annual quota to the general fund; that all managers of local diaconies should be directly responsible to the U.E.C.; and that each congregation should send in to the U.E.C. an annual financial statement. In this way, therefore, all Church property was, directly or indirectly, under the control of the U.E.C. The weakness of this arrangement is manifest. As long as the U.E.C. was resident in Germany, and as long as it consisted almost exclusively of Germans, it could not be expected to understand financial questions arising in England and America, or to fathom the mysteries of English and American law; and yet this was the system in force for the next eighty-two years. It is true that the Brethren devised a method to overcome this difficulty. The method was the method of official visitations. At certain periods a member of the U.E.C. would pay official visitations to the chief congregations in Germany, England, America and the Mission Field. For example, Bishop John Frederick Reichel visited North America (1778-1781) and the East Indies; Bishop John de Watteville (1778-1779) visited in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; and John Henry Quandt (1798) visited Neuwied-on-the-Rhine. In some ways the method was good, in others bad. It was good because it fostered the unity of the Church, and emphasized its broad international character. It was bad because it was cumbrous and expensive, because it exalted too highly the official element, and because it checked local independent growth.
Finally, at this third constitutional Synod, the Brethren struck a clear note on doctrinal questions. The main doctrines of the Church were defined as follows: (1) The doctrine of the universal depravity of man; that there is no health in man, and that since the fall he has no power whatever left to help himself. (2) The doctrine of the Divinity of Christ; that God, the Creator of all things, was manifest in the flesh, and reconciled us unto Himself; that He is before all things, and that by Him all things consist. (3) The doctrine of the atonement and the satisfaction made for us by Jesus Christ; that He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification; and that by His merits alone we receive freely the forgiveness of sin and sanctification in soul and body. (4) The doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the operations of His grace; that it is He who worketh in us conviction of sin, faith in Jesus, and pureness of heart. (5) The doctrine of the fruits of faith; that faith must evidence itself by willing obedience to the commandments of God, from love and gratitude to Him. In those doctrines there was nothing striking or peculiar. They were the orthodox Protestant doctrines of the day; they were the doctrines of the Lutheran Church, of the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland; and they were, and are, all to be found in the Augsburg Confession, in the Thirty-nine Articles, and in the Westminster Confession.
Such, then, were the methods and doctrines laid down by the three constitutional Synods. In methods the Brethren were distinctive; in doctrine they were "orthodox evangelical." We may now sum up the results of this chapter. We have a semi-democratic Church constitution. We have a governing board, consisting mostly of Germans, and resident in Germany. We have the systematic use of the Lot. We have a broad evangelical doctrinal standpoint. We are now to see how these principles and methods worked out in Germany, Great Britain and America.