Part 14

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 choicest apple-butter.[150] Nothing beyond these is set, but these are of the first water. The bare benches, but lately occupied by devout worshippers, serve as tables, along which the guests are lined out. Not in silence, nor in sullenness, do they eat their simple meal, but spicing it with cheerful talk, they dine with hearts full of joy. Still, you need fear no profane utterance or silly jest. They are mindful of the spirit of the occasion, of the place in which they congregate, and of the feast itself, which the singing of some familiar hymn has consecrated. If any one thirst, let him drink cold water.

And now think not that they feign simply to eat and drink,—that the meal from first to last is but a poor pretence. A full and hearty dinner is “made out” there. It is a bona fide eating and drinking that is done in the meeting-house of the Schwenkfelders on their _Gedächtniss Tag_ (Remembrance Day). They are all hard-working men and women,—farmers and farmers’ wives and farmers’ children. They are sunburnt, healthy, and hungry besides. And why should they not relish the sweet bread, with their sweet butter and apple-butter, then? Even strangers who attend and are hospitably entertained by the society show that one can make a full hand, even at such a table.

At two o’clock the tables become pews again, and the afternoon exercises are conducted according to the programme of the morning. These concluded, a general invitation is again extended to partake of the baskets of fragments gathered up and stored away in the rear of the meeting-house. A fraternal hand-shaking closes the anniversary for the year. The reflection that many part now who may never meet again on earth causes tears to trickle down some furrowed cheek, which generally prove more or less contagious, as is always the case in a company of hearts, when those tears flow in sincere channels. Hence, though all were happy all day long, they now feel sad.

To appreciate the meaning and spirit of this apparently homely scene, it is necessary to know that it is a memorial service all through. It was on this very 24th of September, 1734, that some seventy [forty] families of Schwenkfelders, who had landed on the 22d, and declared their allegiance on the 23d, held their thanksgiving service, in gratitude to God for a safe deliverance to the colony of Pennsylvania. They had arrived in the ship “St. Andrew,” at Philadelphia, as fugitives from Silesia.

Poor, but feeling rich in view of their long-sought liberty, they blessed God in an open assembly. We may judge their store and fare to have been scant and lean indeed; and to perpetuate the original service of their forefathers from generation to generation, they statedly celebrate their _Gedächtniss Tag_.

The poor fare before them is finely designed to impress the sore fact of their ancestors’ poverty indelibly upon their minds, memories, and hearts. They eat and drink in remembrance of former days,—the days of small things. They join thereto at the same time a gladsome worship, in thankfulness for the asylum opened up for them from their former house of bondage, and which proved so fair a heritage to their people ever since.[151]

CUSTOMS.

A lawyer of Norristown tells me that he taught a subscription school among the Schwenkfelders, some thirty years ago, and a day or two before the school closed he sent out his bills by the scholars. Every cent of the money due was paid in on the next morning,—and as he was then poor this was a delightful and memorable circumstance.[152]

Further, I find it laid down as a rule of their community that members must see to it that their debts are paid without legal proceedings.

Another instance of exactness in money matters is given in their history, namely, that while they were sojourning with or near Zinzendorf, some of their well-wishers in Holland sent to them a considerable contribution in money, of which they knew nothing until the merchants of Gorlitz announced and paid it to them. By their diligence in labor, and their skilful use of this money, they were able to supply the pressing wants of their poor, and to pay the expenses of the same to Altona. On their arrival at Haarlem, a little that remained was laid at the feet of their noble benefactors.[153]

I met with a young Dunker woman, in the neighborhood of the Schwenkfelder community, who said, “The poor always find their way to the Schwenkfelders;” and on my mentioning this subject at one of the houses which I visited, my host told me of persons having come to his house asking “how far they had to the Schwenkfelder _Thal_” (or valley).

The language spoken at two of the houses which I visited was almost entirely the Pennsylvania German; but my ignorance of the dialect forbids my knowing whether these Silesian emigrants speak it differently from the South German Palatines.

My power of talking German was perhaps never more exercised in the same length of time than during my visit here; the women and children in the houses alluded to speaking no English. In the second, the mother, who was in delicate health, had been reading German books, but was unable to read English. A like circumstance is certainly very uncommon, if not unknown, among the “Dutch” of my own county.

Neither does there appear to be the same objection to education there that exists among some of our people here. One of the Schwenkfelders said to me that he told his boys to learn as much as they can; “I’d not seen a man yet that had been too wise; and the girls may do the same.” He also told me that they do not neglect to teach the children in their family to read and write German, a custom which tends to preserve the purity of the language. But the Schwenkfelders find it difficult to preserve a knowledge of German, since the language is no longer taught in the public schools in their neighborhoods.

Like Quakers, Dunkers, etc., the Schwenkfelders have an unpaid ministry. One whom I met, who had been a preacher, cultivated fourteen acres of ground, and joined to this labor the mechanical occupations of making brooms and cigar boxes. I said to one of the society, “You do not pay your ministers?”

“No,” he answered, “but they are excused from all church expenses, such as the treasury for the poor, and building and keeping in repair our meeting-houses. Then, as one minister will be a farmer and another a mechanic, and one is called upon to leave his shop and the other his farm to attend funerals, we generally make such a one a present.

“It has been at times the case that presents have been offered to men in good circumstances, who would answer, thanking the giver, but they had no need of the gift; if at any other time it should be necessary they would accept it.”

Candidates for the ministry are elected by ballot; the votes being collected in a hat. Women do not vote, and of course they do not preach. If the candidates when elected prove to be “men of able tongues,” they are confirmed. Formerly the Schwenkfelders did not vote for preachers, but it seemed to them that the right kind did not come forward, and those who did come forward were not always desirable persons.

The sacraments of baptism and the supper have never been held among them.[154] A modern custom, originating in this country, and established in 1823, has thus been described: After the birth of a child, it is brought by the parents into church, and a preacher prays for the happiness and prosperity of the child, and admonishes the parents to bring it up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the will of God. Then there is prayer, and the singing of some appropriate verses. If the child or mother is delicate, this service is sometimes performed at their house.[155]

Not only are the Schwenkfelders forbidden to become soldiers, but also to train in military exercises. Upon this point, however, the late rebellion seems to have tried some of their members, as it did some Quakers.

“Do you bring lawsuits?” said I to a member.

“Not if we can help it. I never brought a lawsuit, nor had one brought against me, and hope I never shall.”

DOCTRINES.

In plainness of speech, behavior, and apparel, in opposition to war, to oaths, and to a paid ministry, in a belief in the teachings of the Divine Spirit and in the inferiority of the written word to the indwelling Spirit, in discarding religious forms, in opposition to priest-craft or a hierarchy, and, although not practising silent worship, yet in their desire to live “in the stillness,” the Schwenkfelders resemble Quakers. We might almost say that they are Quakers of an older type (Quakers it may be of whom George Fox had never heard). They differ from Quakers in employing stated prayers, in electing preachers, in not acknowledging the spiritual equality of women, and in their peculiar doctrine of the “glory of the manhood of Jesus Christ,—how it is no creature.”[156]

We give from the _Erläuterung_, or Explanation, some striking extracts upon some of these points. Upon the word of God, Schwenkfeld and Illyricus had a violent contest. Schwenkfeld holds that the tables upon which God writes, and the book or paper upon which man writes, are entirely two kinds of thing: between all printed and written books in the world and the true word of God a fundamental difference is to be maintained. The word is a living, internal, spiritual word, and can only be contained in the book of the believing heart.[157] Faith existed many hundred years before the Scripture. It proceeded from the eternal Word or Son of God, Jesus Christ, and from God, the All-powerful.[158]

Against what are called “the means of grace” Schwenkfeld preached. (Spiritual things, it is said, come not through canals.) Schwenkfeld maintained that Christ is only to be sought above with the Father, and thence we must all draw that which will make us upright and blessed. This was also recognized by the leaders who came out from the papacy; but there came a time when they taught that Christ and salvation were to be found below in external works and worship. But Schwenkfeld neither could nor would admit that Christ and the Holy Spirit were in outward works of preaching and hearing and in elements of this earthly existence, in water, bread, and wine.[159]

On baptism we find the following: The first and most eminent work of the sacrament of baptism is, the internal grace of inworking faith in the love of God, which moves, glows, and lives through the outpouring of the heavenly waters which flow from the Word of God, which is Christ. The other point is the external word and water which is outwardly poured upon and washes the body outwardly as the internal does the soul.

John the Baptist says, “I baptize with water to repentance, but he who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Here he distinguishes the work of the minister from the office of the Lord, and the visible water from the Holy Spirit.

Ambrose says, “Peter has not purified, nor Ambrose, nor Gregory, for ours is the ministry, but thine, Lord, are the sacraments. It is not the work of man to give divine things, thine is it, Lord, and the Father’s, who says through the prophets [prophet,] I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

That the subject of the Holy Supper is especially weighty may be judged by the agitations on account of it, and by the fact that on this account many thousands in many lands have been killed and burnt. And this was the article upon which the Reformers, with their gloriously begun work, fell to pieces. Upon this article Luther renounced his friendship to Schwenkfeld, and they publicly differed.[160]

Schwenkfeld thought that when they came out from the papacy they should preach the gospel in its purity, instruct old and young in the catechism, and earnestly pray until they could come to the right use of the sacrament.... Whereby whole parishes, towns, and countries should not at once be taken up, as if fit for the table of the Lord. But it should be held with those who received the word, and in whom there were tokens of amendment, whether these were only Caleb and Joshua. Schwenkfeld declared that he had no command to establish the sacraments, but his command had been to spread the gospel and point every man to Jesus Christ. “But we are comforted that we are instructed by God and from the Holy Scripture that our soul’s salvation is necessarily placed on no outward thing, but that one thing is needful.” (Luke x.) “But we pray the Lord Jesus Christ that he will reveal a right use of the sacraments, and himself establish them. We strive, moreover, to hold his supper daily with the Lord Christ, in the spirit of faith.” (Rev. iii.[161]) But though Schwenkfeld did not feel called upon to establish the sacraments, there is nothing in the catechism of the society opposed to the external rites.

The twelfth chapter of the Explanation, containing nearly eighty pages, is devoted to Schwenkfeld’s peculiar doctrine, of which I shall content myself with the heading of the chapter, as follows: “Of the divine Sonship and glory of the Manhood of Jesus Christ, that the same is no creature, but extinguished in the Transfiguration, and changed into the Godhead.”

To one passage in the Catechism I would like to call attention:

_Question._—How did God reveal himself in an external manner?

_Answer._—First, when God, by his almighty word, framed the universe, by which he has shown how great, almighty, wise, and good he is.[162]

And now may we not also rest our souls upon these expressions from the constitution of the Schwenkfelder society, translated almost literally?

In the nature of God, we first perceive love as that noble and outflowing power which binds God and men together.... If the society build upon this fundamental part of the divine nature, namely, love, then their only immovable aim will be, first, the glory of God, and second, the promotion of the common weal of every member.

* * * * *

The preceding article is published nearly as it appeared in the second edition of this work, which was issued late in 1873, with the date 1874. Almost as soon as the edition appeared, I learned that baptism had been introduced among the Schwenkfelders at a meeting held a few months before; and that perhaps in two cases it had also been administered at the approach of death.

In the spring of the present year, 1882, I visited a Schwenkfelder settlement in the upper part of Montgomery County, and was hospitably entertained at the house of one of their preachers. German or the Pennsylvania dialect was the language of the family. On Sunday I attended church, where, as before in another locality, the services were in German, as were nearly all the proceedings in the Sunday-school. Here I learned that the rite of the Supper has also been introduced among the Schwenkfelders, though not without opposition. I inquired on what grounds the opposition was brought, but received no satisfactory reply.

* * * * *

At the house of my entertainer I was shown a volume, published in 1879, containing a genealogical record of the descendants of the Schwenkfelders in this country, to which is prefixed a historical sketch by C. Heydrick, a lawyer of Franklin, Pennsylvania.

Herein it is stated that Schwenkfeld differed with Luther on several points; chiefly on the eucharist, the efficacy of the divine word, the human nature of Christ, and baptism.

Schwenkfeld held, says the writer, that the penitent believer partakes of the bread and the body of the Lord, not only at the sacramental altar, but elsewhere.

On the second point Schwenkfeld denied that the external word in the Scriptures has the power of healing and renewing the mind, but ascribed this power to the internal word, Christ himself. He regretted that Luther, who at first agreed with him, saw fit afterward to ascribe to the written or preached word the efficacy which is only in Christ, the eternal word.

Further, Schwenkfeld rejected infant baptism, and held that baptism and the Supper were not intended as means by which the unregenerate partaker can obtain salvation.

* * * * *

Two other volumes on these subjects have very lately come within my notice. One in German, by a pastor named Kadelbach, published about 1860, at Lauban, which is within forty miles of the city of Liegnitz, where Schwenkfeld was canon in a church. As early as 1846, in composing a history of the village of Probsthayn (where some of the Schwenkfelders formerly lived), he added to it some material concerning these people.

As this subject attracted attention, he endeavored to obtain material for a history of them, in which matter he met with much difficulty. It came to pass, however, that the Schwenkfelders in America sent an inquiry to the burgomaster of Probsthayn, asking whether there were still Schwenkfelder communities (_Gemeinden_) there. This inquiry came, in 1855, into the hands of Kadelbach, who was very glad to communicate with the Schwenkfelders in America, as he had never before been able to do. His volume is called “Complete History of Kaspar von Schwenkfeld and of the Schwenkfelders in Silesia, Upper Lusatia, and America.”[163] A copy has been placed in the archives of the German Society’s library in Philadelphia.

We may inter that the attention of the author was attracted to his subject by certain local objects or remains. He tells us that the Catholic chapel at Harpersdorf, and the graves on the cow-path (_viehweg_), are the last memorials that testify of the existence there, and of the persecution of the Schwenkfelders. The Catholic chapel was built for one of the missionaries who was striving to convert them. As to the graves on the cow-paths, the statement has before been quoted (in a note on page 222), that three hundred persons lay upon the cow-paths at Harpersdorf and Langenneudorff (or Langendorff).

The other volume in which the Schwenkfelders are especially noticed is Barclay’s Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. London, 1876. Barclay finds that on several points the teaching of Schwenkfeld was identical with that of George Fox, the first Quaker. Barclay gives a passage from Schwenkfeld, in which he says that the true knowledge of Christ, that which is according to the Holy Ghost must be expected, not alone out of the Scriptures, but much more from the gifts of grace revealed by the Father, yet so that this revelation should always be in unison with the witness of the Scriptures.[164]

Struck with the similarity between the Schwenkfelders and Quakers, Barclay appears to have written to the former, and to have received an answer, from which the following passages are taken:

To Robert Barclay, England:

... “Judging from the brief notices of the teachings of George Fox in our possession, we have reason to believe that they did not differ materially from those of Schwenkfeld, and among the followers of both, here in America, there is a striking similarity in the almost total absence of formalities and ceremonies in their religious practices. Both are discarding judicial oaths, carnal weapons, and are unostentatious in dress.

“Notwithstanding the fact that the Friends are of English descent, having their books, worship, and conversation in the English language, and the followers of Schwenkfeld here all of it in German, yet there always existed a lively sympathy, love, and esteem between the parties.... It is, however, proper to mention the fact that neither in Europe nor here have the followers of Schwenkfeld at any time administered baptism and the Lord’s Supper.[165]

“Owing to the persecutions which prevailed from 1630 to 1640, the religious practices of our ancestors in Germany about that period were chiefly confined to meeting in private houses for prayer and admonition, and in endeavors in the daily work of life to imitate as much as possible the example of the heavenly Master.

“In the love of Christ, sincerely your friends,

“GEORGE MESCHTER. “WILLIAM SCHULTZ. “JACOB MESCHTER. “Per DAN. S. SHULTZ.

“December 17th, 1875. COLEBROOKDALE, PENNA.”

A FRIEND.

About twenty miles from the line that divides Maryland and Pennsylvania, there stands, in the latter State, a retired farm-house, which was erected more than fifty years ago by Samuel Wilson, a Quaker of Quakers.

His was a character so rare in its quaintness and its nobility, that it might serve as a theme for a pen more practised and more skilful than the one that now essays to portray it.

Samuel Wilson was by nature romantic. When comparatively young, he made a pedestrian tour to the Falls of Niagara, stopping upon his return journey, and hiring with a farmer to recruit his exhausted funds; and when he had passed his grand climacteric, the enthusiasm of his friendship for the young, fair, and virtuous, still showed the poetic side of his character.

Veneration induced him to cherish the relics of his ancestry,—not only the genealogical tree, which traced the Wilsons back to the time of William Penn, and the marriage certificates of his father and grandfather, according to the regular order of the Society of Friends; but such more humble and familiar heirlooms as the tall eight-day clock, and the high bookcase upon a desk and chest of drawers, that had been his father’s, as well as the strong kitchen-chairs and extremely heavy fire-irons of his grandfather.

To this day there stands beside the Wilson farm-house a stone taken from one of the buildings erected by Samuel’s father, and preserved as an heirloom. Upon it the great-grandchildren read nearly the following inscription:

“James Wilson, ejus manus scripsit. [His hand wrote.] Deborah Wilson, 5 mo. 23d, 1757.”

Samuel Wilson, having been trained from his earliest years to that plainness of speech in which the Discipline requires that Friends bring up those under their care, not only discarded in speaking the simple titles in use in common conversation, but did not himself desire to be addressed as Mr. Wilson.

A colored woman, the wife of one of his tenants, said that he refused to answer her when she thus spoke to him.

A pleasant euphemism was generally employed by these people in addressing him. He and his wife were “Uncle Samuel” and “Aunt Anna” to their numerous dependents.

The apparel of Samuel and Anna was of the strict pattern of their own religious sect. To employ a figure of speech, it was the “wedding-garment,” without which, at that time and place, they would not have become elders in their society, and thus been entitled to sit with ministers, etc., upon the rising seats that faced the rest of the meeting.

But the plainness of Uncle Samuel was not limited to the fashion of his own garments. When Aunt Anna had made for her son a suit of domestic cloth, dyed brown with the hulls of the black walnut, and had arrayed him in his new clothes, of which the trousers were made roomy behind,—or, as the humorist says, “baggy in the reverse,”—she looked upon him with maternal pride and fondness, and exclaimed, “There’s my son!”

For this ejaculation she was not only reproved at the time by her husband, but in after-years, whenever he heard her, as he thought, thus fostering in the mind of their dear and only child pride in external appearance, he repeated the expression, “There’s my son!” which saying conveyed a volume of reproof.