Part 9

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 author states that the Dunkers number in the United States (for they have also missions in Europe) about two hundred thousand souls, with nearly two thousand ministers, none of whom receives a salary. They have three collegiate institutions,—one in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, and one in Illinois.

He states that those who fail in business among the Dunkers are aided to make a new effort, and such assistance may be lent three times [twice?]. After the third failure, they take it to be the will of God that the unfortunate brother shall not succeed. Dr. Seidensticker says, too, that in the holy kiss of the Dunkers, the first kiss among the women is applied by the minister to the first sister’s hand, which differs from the statement that I have made of the Love-Feast.

EPHRATA.

This quiet village in Lancaster County has been for over a century distinguished as the seat of a Protestant monastic institution, established by the Seventh-Day German Baptists about the year 1738.

Conrad Beissel, the founder of the cloister, was born in Germany, at Oberbach, in the Palatinate, in the year 1691. He was by trade a baker, but, after coming to this country, he worked at weaving with Peter Becker, the Dunker preacher, at Germantown. He is said to have been a Presbyterian, which I interpret to mean a member of the German Reformed Church. According to the inscription upon his tombstone, his “spiritual life” began in 1716, or eight years before he was baptized among the Dunkers.

This may be explained by an article written by the Rev. Christian Endress, who seems to have studied the Ephrata community, in connection with their published writings, more than some others who have endeavored to describe this peculiar people.[46]

Mr. Endress says, “The Tunkers trace their origin from the Pietists near Schwarzenau, in Germany.”[47]

While they yet belonged among the Pietists, there was a society formed at Schwarzenau composed of eight persons, whose spiritual leader was Alexander Mack, a miller of Schriesheim.

The members of this little society are said to have been rebaptized (by immersion), because they considered their infant baptism as unavailing, and to have first assumed the name of _Taeuffer_, or Baptists.[48]

The Dunkers first appeared in America in 1719, when about twenty families landed in Philadelphia, and dispersed to Germantown, Conestoga, and elsewhere.

Beissel was baptized among them in 1724, in Pequea Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna. He lived for a while at Mühlbach, or Mill Greek, in Lancaster County. Some time after this baptism, or in 1728, he published a tract upon the Seventh Day as the true Sabbath. This tract caused a disturbance among the brethren at Mill Creek, and Beissel and some with him withdrew from the other Dunkers, and Beissel rebaptized those of his own society.[49]

Not long after, says Endress, Beissel, who had appointed several elders over his people, withdrew from them, and retired to live a solitary life in a cottage that had been built for a similar purpose, and occupied by a brother called Elimelech. This cottage stood near the place where the convent was afterward built. Here we infer that he lived for several years.

To live the life of cenobites or hermits, says Rupp, was in some measure peculiar to many of the Pietists who had fled from Germany to seek an asylum in Pennsylvania. “On the banks of the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, several hermits had their cells, some of them men of fine talents and profound erudition.”

Of some of these hermits, and of the monastic community afterward settled at Ephrata, it is probable that a ruling idea was the speedy coming of Christ to judge the world. It is stated that after the formation of Beissel’s “camp” midnight meetings were held, for some time, to await the coming of judgment. Those who remember the Millerite, or Second Advent, excitement of the year 1843, can appreciate the effect that this idea would have upon the minds of the Dunkers, and how it could stimulate them to suffer many inconveniences for the brief season that they expected to tarry in the world.[50]

While Beissel was dwelling in his solitary cot, about the year 1730, two married women joined the society, of whom the Ephrata Chronicle tells us that they left their husbands and placed themselves under the lead of the director (or _vorsteher_, the title applied to Beissel in the Chronicle). He received them, although it was against the canon of the new society. One of these was Maria Christiana, wife of Christopher Sower, him who afterward established the celebrated German printing-office at Germantown. She escaped in the year 1730, and was baptized the same fall. In the beginning she dwelt alone in the desert, “and showed by her example that a manly spirit can dwell in a female creature.”[51]

While Beissel was still in his hermitage, discord and strife arose among the brethren of his society, news of which reached him by some means, for in the year 1733 he cited them to appear at his cottage.

They met, and some of the single brethren agreed to build a second cottage near that occupied by their leader. Besides this, a house was also built for females, and in May, 1733, two single women retired into it.[52]

In 1734, a third house for male brethren was built and occupied by the brothers Onesimus and Jotham, whose family name was Eckerlin.[53]

Soon after, says Endress, they all united in the building of a bake-house and a storehouse for the poor. And now the whole was called the camp (_das Lager_).

The early history of the society is quaintly narrated by Morgan Edwards, the Baptist historian. They had, he says, their existence as a society in 1724, when Conrad Beissel and six others were baptized in Pequea River by Rev. Peter Baker. The same day these seven incorporated into a church, and chose Conrad Beissel to be their minister. After this they continued some time at Mill Creek, and then, removing about three miles northward, pitched on the land of Rudolph Neagley, in Earl Township. Here they continued about seven years; and hither resorted many to see them, some of whom joined the society. Here they began their economy, the men living by themselves on the fore-mentioned lands, and the women also by themselves on the adjoining lands of John Moyly.

Here Conrad Beissel appointed two elders and a matron to preside over his church in the wilderness, binding them by a solemn promise (and at the same time giving to each a Testament) to govern according to the rules of that book. Then he withdrew, and made as though they should see him no more. This was done in the year 1732 or 1733. He travelled northward, till he came to the spot where Ephrata or Tunkerstown now stands, and with his hoe planted Indian corn and roots for his subsistence. But he had not been long in the place before the society found him out, and repaired to his little cot, the brethren settling with him on the west bank of Cocalico, and the sisters on the east, all in sight of one another, with the river running between them. The next year they set about building their village, beginning with a place of worship.

Endress tells us that about the time of the formation of the camp there was a revival in Falconer Swamp, in consequence of which many families took up land round about the camp, and moved upon it. Another revival on the banks of the Schuylkill drove many more into the neighborhood; by it the sister establishment gained accessions; but only two, Drusilla and Basilla, remained steadfast. “A further revival in Tolpehoccon,” 1735, brought many to the society. Hereupon they built a meeting-house, with rooms attached to it for the purpose of holding [preparing?] love-feasts, and called it Kedar. About the same time, a revival in Germantown sent additional brothers and sisters to the camp.[54]

It was in 1735, during the revival at Tulpehocken, that Peter Miller was baptized[55] or rebaptized. Miller, in one of his letters (see Hazard’s Register, vol. xvi.), speaks of several persons who, as it appears, were baptized with him; namely, the schoolmaster, three _elderlings_ (one of them Conrad Weyser), five families, and some single persons. This, he says, raised such a fermentation in that church (by which I suppose he means the Reformed Church, which they left), that a persecution might have followed had the magistrates consented with the generality.

Peter Miller, whom we are now quoting, was one of the most remarkable men that joined the Ephrata Baptists. He was born in the Palatinate, and is said to have been educated at Heidelberg. He came to this country when about twenty years old. He is mentioned, it seems, in an interesting letter of the Rev. Jedediah Andrews, under date of Philadelphia, 1730, which letter may be found in Hazard’s Register. He says that there are “in this province a vast number of Palatines. Those that have come of late years are mostly Presbyterian, or, as they call themselves, Reformed, the Palatines being about three-fifths of that sort of people.”

Mr. Andrews says, in substance, “There is lately come over a Palatine candidate for the ministry, who applied to us at the Synod for ordination. He is an extraordinary person for sense and learning. His name is John Peter Miller,[56] and he speaks Latin as readily as we do our vernacular tongue.”[57]

Peter Miller, in one of his letters, speaks of his baptism (or rebaptism) in the year 1735. He says at that time the solitary brethren and sisters lived dispersed “in the wilderness of Canestogues, each for himself, as hermits, and I following that same way did set up my hermitage in Dulpehakin [Tulpehocken], at the foot of a mountain, on a limpid spring; the house is still extant [1790], with an old orchard. There did I lay the foundation of solitary life.[58]

“However,” he continues, “I had not lived there half a year, when a great change happened; for a camp was laid out for all solitary persons, at the very spot where now Ephrata stands, and where at that same time the president [Beissel] lived with some hermits. And now, when all hermits were called in, I also quitted my solitude, and changed the same for a monastic life; which was judged to be more inservient to sanctification than the life of a hermit, where many under a pretence of holiness did nothing but nourish their own selfishness.... We were now, by necessity, compelled to learn obedience.... At that time, works of charity hath been our chief occupation.[59]

“Canestogues was then a great wilderness, and began to be settled by poor Germans, which desired our assistance in building houses for them; which not only kept us employed several summers in hard carpenter’s work, but also increased our poverty so much that we wanted even things necessary for life.”

He also says, “When we settled here, our number was forty brethren, and about so many sisters, all in the vigor and prime of their ages, never before wearied of social life, but were compelled, ... with reluctance of our nature, to select this life.”[60]

It was, it seems, about the same time that Miller was baptized that the midnight meetings were held at the camp, “for the purpose of awaiting the coming of judgment.”

Not long after the building of the meeting-house called Kedar (says Endress), a widower, Sigmund Lambert, having joined the camp, built out of his own means an addition to the meeting-house and a dwelling for Beissel. Another gave all his property to the society, and now Kedar was transformed into a sister-convent, and a new meeting-house was erected.

Soon after 1738 a large house for the brethren was built, called Zion, and the whole camp was named Ephrata.[61] The solitary life was changed into the conventual one; Zion was called a kloster, or convent, and put under monastic rules. Onesimus (Eckerlin) was appointed prior, and Conrad Beissel named father. (His general title appears to be _vorsteher_, superintendent or principal.)

It was probably about this time, or earlier, that the constable entered the camp, according to Miller, and demanded the single man’s tax. Some paid, but some refused. Miller says that some claimed personal immunity on the ground that they were not inferior to the monks and hermits in the Eastern country, who supplied the prisons in Alexandria with bread, and who were declared free of taxes by Theodosius the Great and other emperors. But these Ephrata brethren were not to be thus exempted. Six lay in prison at Lancaster ten days, when they were released on bail of a “venerable old justice of peace.” When the brethren appeared before the board of assessment, the gentlemen who were their judges saw six men who in the prime of their ages had been reduced to skeletons by penitential works. The gentlemen granted them their freedom on condition that they should be taxed as one family for their real estate, “which is still in force (1790), although these things happened fifty years ago.” (See Miller’s letters in Hazard’s Register.)

A monastic dress was adopted by the brethren and sisters, resembling that of the Capuchins.[62]

The Chronicle, published in 1786, speaks of the sisters as having carefully maintained the dress of the order for nearly fifty years. About the same date we read of Miller in his cowl.

It appears from the Chronicle that the other members of the society at one time adopted a similar dress, but that the celibates (_die Einsamen_) appeared at worship in white dresses, and the other members (_die Hausstände_) in gray ones. The secular members, however, “saddled themselves again” and conformed to the world in clothing and in other things.

In an article upon Ephrata in Hazard’s Register, vol. v., 1830, will be found the statement that, thirty or forty years before, the Dunkers were occasionally noticed in Philadelphia (when they came down with produce), with long beards and Capuchin habiliments; but this statement does not seem to agree in date with that of the Chronicle, if these were secular brethren.

Among the austerities practised at Ephrata formerly, was sleeping upon a bench with a block of wood for a pillow.[63]

The late Dr. William Fahnestock tells us that these and other austerities were not intended for penance, but were undertaken from economy. Their circumstances were very restricted, and their undertaking was great. They studied the strictest simplicity and economy. For the Communion they used wooden flagons, goblets, and trays. The plates from which they ate were thin octagonal pieces of poplar board, their forks and candlesticks were of wood, and every article that could be made of that substance was used by the whole community.

Rupp says that the chimneys, which remain in use to this day (1844), are of wood; and the attention of the present writer was called in 1872 to wooden door-hinges.

Rupp says also that they all observed great abstemiousness in their diet; they were vegetarians, and submitted to many privations and to a rigid discipline exerted over them by a somewhat austere spiritual father. Peter Miller himself says that he stood under Beissel’s direction for thirty years, and that it was as severe as any related in the Romish Church (but this sounds exaggerated).

In the brother- and sister-houses, it has been stated that six dormitories surrounded a common room in which the members of each subdivision pursued their respective employments. “Each dormitory was hardly large enough to contain a cot, a closet, and an hour-glass.”[64]

Of the industries established at Ephrata, one of Peter Miller’s letters gives us a good idea. He complains, as before mentioned, of Eckerlin’s obliging them to interfere so far in worldly things, and that money was put out at interest. He adds that they erected a grist-mill, with three pairs of stones; a saw-mill, paper-mill, oil-mill, and fulling-mill; had besides three wagons with proper teams, a printing-office, and sundry other trades.

He adds, “Our president [by whom he means Beissel] never meddled with temporal things.”

Mr. Rupp (who cites the Life of Rittenhouse) says that the women were employed in spinning, knitting, sewing, making paper lanterns and other toys. A room was set apart for ornamental writing, called “Das Schreibzimmer,” and “several sisters,” it has been said, devoted their whole attention to this labor, as well as to transcribing the writings of the founder of the society; thus multiplying copies before they had a press. But the press appears to have been early established, and it was the second German one in our State. It has been stated that Miller was at one time the printer.[65]

Among the books published at Ephrata were some of Beissel’s, who had adopted the name of Peaceful (_Friedsam_). One of their publications was a collection of hymns, and was entitled “The Song of the Solitary and Abandoned Turtle Dove, namely, the Christian Church, ... by a Peaceful Pilgrim travelling towards Quiet Eternity.” Ephrata, from the press of the Fraternity, 1747. 500 pages, quarto.[66]

Beissel also wrote a dissertation on man’s fall, of which Miller says (1790), “When, in the late war, a marquis from Milan, in Italy, lodged a night in our convent, I presented to him the said dissertation, and desired him to publish it at home, and dedicate it to his Holiness.”

In 1748, a stupendous book was published by the society at Ephrata. It is the Martyr’s Mirror, in folio, of which copies may be seen at the libraries of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and of the German Society, in Philadelphia.

The Chronicon Ephratense, or Ephrata Chronicle, so often alluded to in this article, was also from their press, but was published thirty-eight years later. It contains the life of Beissel, under the title of the venerable “Father in Christ, Peaceful Godright (_Friedsam Gottrecht_), late founder and _vorsteher_ of the Spiritual Order of the Solitary (_Einsamen_) in Ephrata, collected by Brothers Lamech and Agrippa.” I have heard of several copies being still extant,—one in Lancaster County, one in Montgomery, and one in the library of the Historical Society at Philadelphia. The last I have been allowed to consult.

In speaking of the occupations practised at Ephrata, it may be permitted to include music. Beissel is said to have been an excellent musician and composer. “There was another transcribing-room,” says Fahnestock, “appropriated to copying music. Hundreds of volumes, each containing five or six hundred pieces, were transferred from book to book, with as much accuracy, and almost as much neatness, as if done with the graver.” In composing music, Beissel is said to have taken his style from nature. “The singing is the Æolian harp harmonized.... Their music is set in four, six, and eight parts.”

Morgan Edwards[67] (as cited in Day’s Historical Collections) says, “Their singing is charming,—partly owing to the pleasantness of their voices, the variety of parts they carry on together, and the devout manner of performance.” This style of singing is said by Rupp (1844) to be entirely lost at Ephrata, but to be preserved in a measure at Snow Hill, in Franklin County. Fahnestock, who was himself a Seventh-Day Baptist (or _Siebtaeger_), gives a very enthusiastic account of the singing at Snow Hill. It may be found in Day’s Historical Collections, article “Franklin County.”[68]

In addition to the various industries which claimed the attention of the community, there must not be forgotten the care of their landed estate. It has been said that they bought about two hundred and fifty acres of land.[69]

A very large tract was once offered to them by one of the Penns, but they refused it. I was told at Ephrata that they were “afraid they would get too vain.”

Count Zinzendorf, the celebrated Moravian bishop, came to Pennsylvania in 1741. At one time he visited Ephrata, and was entertained in the convent, where his friendly behavior was very agreeable to the brothers. (We may suppose that Miller, and Eckerlin, who was not yet deposed, were men fit to entertain him.) He also expressed a wish to see Beissel. This was made known to the latter, who answered, after a little reflection, that Zinzendorf was no wonder to him, but if he himself were a wonder to Zinzendorf, he must come to him (or as it seems, to Beissel’s own house). Zinzendorf was now in doubt what to do, but he turned away and left without seeing the father (_vorsteher_). The Chronicle adds that thus did two great lights of the church meet as on the threshold, and yet neither ever saw the other in his life.

The Moravians also erected brother- and sister-houses, but they were not monastic institutions.[70]

Dissension arose at one time between some of the brethren of the Ephrata Society and Count Zinzendorf, at a conference held by the latter at Oley, now in Berks County. Zinzendorf seems to have desired to unite some of the sects with which Pennsylvania was so abundantly supplied. But the solitary brethren (of Ephrata) were so suspicious of the thing that they would no longer unite with it. They had prepared a writing upon marriage, how far it is from God, and that it was only a praiseworthy ordinance of nature. This they presented, whereupon there arose a violent conflict in words.

The ordinarius (Zinzendorf) said that he was by no means pleased with this paper; his marriage had not such a beginning; his marriage stood higher than the solitary life in Ephrata. The Ephrata delegates strove to make all right again, and spoke of families in their society who had many children.[71]

But Zinzendorf left his seat as chairman, ... and at last the conference came to an end, all present being displeased.[72]

About this date (or about 1740) took place the formation of the Sabbath-school, by Ludwig Hoecker, called Brother Obed.[73] He was a teacher in the secular school at Ephrata,—a school which seems to have enjoyed considerable reputation. The Sabbath-school (held on Saturday afternoon) is said to have been kept up over thirty years. This was begun long before the present Sunday-school system was introduced by Robert Raikes. (American Cyclopædia, article _Dunkers_.)

Not long after the visit of Zinzendorf, or about 1745, occurred the deposition of Eckerlin, the prior Onesimus. In one of his letters, Miller says (1790), “Remember, we have lost our first prior and the sisters their first mother ... because they stood in self-elevation, and did govern despotically;” and adds, “the desire to govern is the last thing which dies within a man.” (It seems probable that Eckerlin has not received sufficient credit, however, for the pecuniary success of the infant community.)

Some ten years after his deposition (or in 1755), began the old French and Indian war. Fahnestock tells us that the doors of the cloister, including the chapels, etc., were opened as a refuge for the inhabitants of Tulpehocken and Paxton[74] settlements, which were then the frontiers, to protect the people from the incursions of the hostile Indians. He adds that all these refugees were received and kept by the society during the period of alarm and danger. Upon hearing of which, a company of infantry was despatched by the royal government from Philadelphia to protect Ephrata.[75]

But why, we might ask, did these people seek refuge in a communion of non-combatants? The question bears on the controversy, as to whether the men of peace or the men of war were nearer right in their dealings with the savages.[76]

Beissel died in the year 1768, or about thirty years after the establishment of the cloister. Upon his tombstone was placed, in German, this inscription: