"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

The leading article in this collection appeared, as first published, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in October, 1869. After this essay was written I became better acquainted with our...

At funerals occurring on Sunday three hundred carriages have been seen in attendance; and so great at all times is the concourse of people of all stations and all shades of beli...

In March we make soap, before the labors of the garden are great. The forests are being obliterated from this fertile tract, and many use what some call _consecrated_ lye; forme...

Work is a cardinal virtue with the “Dutchman.” “He is lazy,” is a very opprobrious remark. At the quilting, when I was trying to take out one of the screws, Katy Groff, who is s...

I had now an opportunity to examine the books. Standing upon a bench, I took down a great volume, well printed in the German language, and entitled “The Bloody Theatre; or, The...

In consequence of this, seven hundred persons, old and young, were constrained to forsake their property, relations, and country, and retire to the Palatinate. Some of them, it...

In addition to the above from the _New York Tribune_, I have found an extract concerning the Mennonites of South Russia, from _The Friend_ (London), in which it is stated that a...

After meeting was over next day, as the bishop was talking with a sister, I ventured to ask him whether a majority was necessary to elect a preacher, or only a plurality. He see...

Since the foregoing was published, there has appeared in the _Century_ magazine, December, 1881, an article by Dr. Seidensticker on the Ephrata Baptists. In this article the aut...

“Here rests a Birth of the love of God, Peaceful, a Solitary, but who afterward became a Superintendent of the Solitary Community of Christ in and around Ephrata: born in Oberba...

My first visit to Bethlehem occurred at Whitsuntide,—Whitsunday or Pentecost falling upon June 1. As early as half-past seven there was music from the steeple of the large Morav...

“At a certain place where the litany speaks of those who are buried in the churchyard, and of their rising again, we walk out into the churchyard, and the trombone players accom...

Before the morning service there is school, in which the children are taught from the Catechism and Testament; the Catechism containing the Apostles’ Creed. On Sunday afternoon,...

At twelve o’clock, the noonday feast is set. This is the feature of the day. It consists of light and newly-baked rye bread, sweet and handsomely printed butter, and the choices...

From this and other circumstances of the kind, it may be supposed that Friend Wilson was a cold or bitter ascetic. But he possessed a vein of humor, and could be gently and plea...

“I found Jemima a good deal altered, now that she had a grown family; but we just began where we left off,—the same friendliness and kindness. When I was in Ohio was just when t...

These gatherings are literary and musical. At Hyde Park it is announced in the Welsh paper, in the spring of the year, that the Philosophical Society will, at the ensuing Christ...

Father ⸺ says, “We need hardly use the word poor-house here, for I never knew a miner to get there. The Irish have a horror of it; but occasionally some aged, dependent person g...

Mr. O’Byrne kindly made inquiry for me, and I found a farmer willing to take a boarder. To see him I went by rail to a certain station. Near by I entered a humble dwelling, wher...

On our return journey I had an admirable opportunity to talk with him as he walked by the wagon. I had called on a magistrate in the market-town, a Protestant gentleman, who had...

I cannot substitute a name for that of my next witness. It is too well known, having been mentioned in Parliament. John Coppithorne is a Methodist. In politics, a Conservative....

Nor does Mrs. Benton have the labor of milking, for it is done by one of the hired men. In the care of poultry she has the assistance of the shepherd’s wife, who raises chickens...

The burden of supporting the poor, while much lighter than in Ireland, must be far heavier than in our country. Huntingdonshire is one of the smallest counties in England. In 18...

Fruit-picking was going on while I was at Haddenham. In fruit-gathering times, when the wives and boys get out a little, meat may be more plentiful in laborers’ houses. There is...

Of the same kind are these: “When we get moved once.” “You’ll know what it is when you hain’t got no father no more once.” (This use of _once_ has been alluded to in the text.)

The peculiarities of a people are always best observed by those who do not live among them, or rather by those who visit them occasionally. Most of my notes on this subject are...

The Mennonites have not a great yearly meeting like that of the Dunkers. In 1874 a correspondent of one of our Lancaster papers spoke of a national meeting held in Illinois by t...

Old Mrs. H., anxious to see a baptism by immersion, proposed to her hired girl, Susan, to go across the fields to the place where there was to be baptism in the creek. Waymaking...

The tradition of the Engle family was narrated to me by two of its members. Mr. Henry M. Engle has felt some difficulty in reconciling the tradition with the fact of the family’...

[109] Another person says, that if a man had no proposal to make, he left it to the authorities to suggest a woman; but the authorities never forced a woman upon him against his...