"My heart impelled me to come," he said; "to forsake my country and its cause would have been sinning against my conscience. Here am I, my God, do unto Thy servant as seemeth good unto Thee. I would rather die myself than see my country die."

As he sat in his room on the Saturday evening—two days before the execution—he was visited by two Capuchin monks. He was amazed at their boldness. As they did not understand Bohemian, the conversation was conducted in Latin. They informed him that their visit was one of pity.

"Of pity?" asked the white-haired old Baron, "How so?"

"We wish to show your lordship the way to heaven." He assured them that he knew the way and stood on firm ground.

"My Lord only imagines," they rejoined, "that he knows the way of salvation. He is mistaken. Not being a member of the Holy Church, he has no share in the Church's salvation."

But Budowa placed his trust in Christ alone.

"I have this excellent promise," he said, "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Therefore, until my last moment, will I abide by our true Church."

Thus did Budowa declare the faith of the Brethren. The Capuchin monks were horrified. They smote their breasts, declared that so hardened a heretic they had never seen, crossed themselves repeatedly, and left him sadly to his fate.

For the last time, on the Monday morning, he was given another chance to deny his faith. Two Jesuits came to see him.

"We have come to save my lord's soul," they said, "and to perform a work of mercy."

"Dear fathers," replied Budowa, "I thank my God that His Holy Spirit has given me the assurance that I will be saved through the blood of the Lamb." He appealed to the words of St. Paul: "I know whom I have believed: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day."

"But," said the Jesuits, "Paul there speaks of himself, not of others."

"You lie," said Budowa, "for does he not expressly add: 'and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.'"

And after a little more argumentation, the Jesuits left in disgust.

The last moment in Budowa's life now arrived. The messenger came and told him it was his turn to die. He bade his friends farewell.

"I go," he declared, "in the garment of righteousness; thus arrayed shall I appear before God."

Alone, with firm step he strode to the scaffold, stroking proudly his silver hair and beard.

"Thou old grey head of mine," said he, "thou art highly honoured; thou shalt be adorned with the Martyr-Crown."

As he knelt and prayed he was watched by the pitying eyes of the two kind-hearted Jesuits who had come to see him that morning. He prayed for his country, for his Church, for his enemies, and committed his soul to Christ; the sword flashed brightly in the sun; and one strong blow closed the restless life of Wenzel von Budowa, the "Last of the Bohemians."

And with his death there came the death of the Ancient Church of the Brethren. From the moment when Budowa's hoary head fell from the block the destruction of the Church was only a question of time. As Budowa died, so died the others after him. We have no space to tell here in detail how his bright example was followed; how nearly all departed with the words upon their lips, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit"; how the drums beat louder each time before the sword fell, that the people might not hear the last words of triumphant confidence in God; how Caspar Kaplir, an old man of eighty-six, staggered up to the scaffold arrayed in a white robe, which he called his wedding garment, but was so weak that he could not hold his head to the block; how Otto von Los looked up and said, "Behold I see the heavens opened"; how Dr. Jessen, the theologian, had his tongue seized with a pair of tongs, cut off at the roots with a knife, and died with the blood gushing from his mouth; how three others were hanged on a gallows in the Square; how the fearful work went steadily on till the last head had fallen, and the black scaffold sweated blood; and how the bodies of the chiefs were flung into unconsecrated ground, and their heads spitted on poles in the city, there to grin for full ten years as a warning to all who held the Protestant faith. In all the story of the Brethren's Church there has been no other day like that. It was the day when the furies seemed to ride triumphant in the air, when the God of their fathers seemed to mock at the trial of the innocent, and when the little Church that had battled so bravely and so long was at last stamped down by the heel of the conqueror, till the life-blood flowed no longer in her veins.

Not, indeed, till the last breath of Church life had gone did the fearful stamping cease. The zeal of Ferdinand knew no bounds. He was determined, not only to crush the Brethren, but to wipe their memory from off the face of the earth. He regarded the Brethren as a noisome pest. Not a stone did he and his servants leave unturned to destroy them. They began with the churches. Instead of razing them to the ground, which would, of course, have been wanton waste, they turned them into Roman Catholic Chapels by the customary methods of purification and rededication. They rubbed out the inscriptions on the walls, and put new ones in their places, lashed the pulpits with whips, beat the altars with sticks, sprinkled holy water to cleanse the buildings of heresy, opened the graves and dishonoured the bones of the dead. Where once was the cup for Communion was now the image of the Virgin. Where once the Brethren had sung their hymns and read their Bibles were now the Confessional and the Mass.

Meanwhile the Brethren had been expelled from Bohemia. It is a striking proof of the influence of the Brethren that Ferdinand turned his attention to them before he troubled about the other Protestants. They had been the first in moral power; they had done the most to spread the knowledge of the Bible; they had produced the greatest literary men of the country; and, therefore, now they must be the first to go. What actually happened to many of the Brethren during the next few years no tongue can tell. But we know enough. We know that Ferdinand cut the Letter of Majesty in two with his scissors. We know that thirty-six thousand families left Bohemia and Moravia, and that the population of Bohemia dwindled from three millions to one. We know that about one-half of the property— lands, houses, castles, churches—passed over into the hands of the King. We know that the University of Prague was handed over to the Jesuits. We know that the scandalous order was issued that all Protestant married ministers who consented to join the Church of Rome might keep their wives by passing them off as cooks. We know that villages were sacked; that Kralitz Bibles, Hymn-books, Confessions, Catechisms, and historical works of priceless value— among others Blahoslaw's "History of the Brethren"—were burned in thousand; and that thus nearly every trace of the Brethren was swept out of the land. We know that some of the Brethren were hacked in pieces, that some were tortured, that some were burned alive, that some swung on gibbets at the city gates and at the country cross-roads among the carrion crows. For six years Bohemia was a field of blood, and Spanish soldiers, drunk and raging, slashed and pillaged on every hand. "Oh, to what torments," says a clergyman of that day, "were the promoters of the Gospel exposed! How they were tortured and massacred! How many virgins were violated to death! How many respectable women abused! How many children torn from their mothers' breasts and cut in pieces in their presence! How many dragged from their beds and thrown naked from the windows! Good God! What cries of woe we were forced to hear from those who lay upon the rack, and what groans and terrible outcries from those who besought the robbers to spare them for God's sake." It was thus that the Brethren, at the point of the sword, were driven from hearth and home: thus that they fled before the blast and took refuge in foreign lands; thus, amid bloodshed, and crime, and cruelty, and nameless torture, that the Ancient Church of the Bohemian Brethren bade a sad farewell to the land of its birth, and disappeared from the eyes of mankind.

Let us review the story of that wonderful Church. What a marvellous change had come upon it! It began in the quiet little valley of Kunwald: it ended in the noisy streets of Prague. It began in peace and brotherly love: it ended amid the tramp of horses, the clank of armour, the swish of swords, the growl of artillery, the whistle of bullets, the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the moans of the wounded and the dying. It began in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount: it ended amid the ghastly horrors of war. What was it that caused the destruction of that Church? At this point some historians, being short of facts, have thought fit to indulge in philosophical reflections; and, following the stale philosophy of Bildad—that all suffering is the punishment of sin—have informed us that the Brethren were now the victims of internal moral decay. They had lost, we are told, their sense of unity; they had relaxed their discipline; they had become morally weak; and the day of their external prosperity was the day of their internal decline. For this pious and utterly unfounded opinion the evidence usually summoned is the fact that Bishop Amos Comenius, in a sermon entitled "Haggai Redivivus," had some rather severe remarks to make about the sins of his Brethren. But Bishops' sermons are dangerous historical evidence. It is not the business of a preacher to tell the whole truth in one discourse. He is not a witness in the box; he is a prophet aiming at some special moral reform. If a Bishop is lecturing his Brethren for their failings he is sure to indulge, not exactly in exaggeration, but in one-sided statements of the facts. He will talk at length about the sins, and say nothing about the virtues. It is, of course, within the bounds of possibility that when the Brethren became more prosperous they were not so strict in some of their rules as they had been in earlier days; and it is also true that when Wenzel von Budowa summoned his followers to arms, the deed was enough, as one writer remarks, to make Gregory the Patriarch groan in his grave. But of any serious moral decline there is no solid proof. It is absurd to blame the Brethren for mixing in politics, and absurd to say that this mixing was the cause of their ruin. At that time in Bohemia religion and politics were inseparable. If a man took a definite stand in religion he took thereby a definite stand in politics. To be a Protestant was to be a rebel. If Budowa had never lifted a finger, the destruction of the Brethren would have been no less complete. The case of Baron Charles von Zerotin proves the point. He took no part in the rebellion; he sided, in the war, with the House of Hapsburg; he endeavoured, that is, to remain a Protestant and yet at the same time a staunch supporter of Ferdinand; and yet, loyal subject though he was, he was not allowed, except for a few years, to shelter Protestant ministers in his castle, and had finally to sell his estates and to leave the country. At heart, Comenius had a high opinion of his Brethren. For nearly fifty weary years—as we shall see in the next chapter—this genius and scholar longed and strove for the revival of the Brethren's Church, and in many of his books he described the Brethren, not as men who had disgraced their profession, but as heroes holding the faith in purity. He described his Brethren as broad-minded men, who took no part in religious quarrels, but looked towards heaven, and bore themselves affably to all; he said to the exiles in one of his letters, "You have endured to the end"; he described them again, in a touching appeal addressed to the Church of England, as a model of Christian simplicity; and he attributed their downfall in Bohemia, not to any moral weakness, but to their neglect of education. If the Brethren, he argued, had paid more attention to learning, they would have gained the support of powerful friends, who would not have allowed them to perish. I admit, of course, that Comenius was naturally partial, and that when he speaks in praise of the Brethren we must receive his evidence with caution; but, on the other hand, I hold that the theory of a serious moral decline, so popular with certain German historians, is not supported by evidence. If the Brethren had shown much sign of corruption we should expect to find full proof of the fact in the Catholic writers of the day. But such proof is not to hand. Not even the Jesuit historian, Balbin, had anything serious to say against the Brethren. The only Catholic writer, as far as I know, who attacked their character was the famous Papal Nuncio, Carlo Caraffa. He says that the Brethren in Moravia had become a little ambitious and avaricious, "with some degree of luxury in their habits of life";53 but he has no remarks of a similar nature to make about the Brethren in Bohemia. The real cause of the fall of the Brethren was utterly different. They fell, not because they were morally weak, but because they were killed by the sword or forcibly robbed of their property. They fell because Bohemia fell; and Bohemia fell for a variety of reasons; partly because her peasants were serfs and had no fight left in them; partly because her nobles blundered in their choice of a Protestant King; and partly because, when all is said, she was only a little country in the grip of a mightier power. In some countries the Catholic reaction was due to genuine religious fervour; in Bohemia it was brought about by brute force; and even with all his money and his men King Ferdinand found the destruction of the Brethren no easy task. He had the whole house of Hapsburg on his side; he had thousands of mercenary soldiers from Spain; he was restrained by no scruples of conscience; and yet it took him six full years to drive the Brethren from the country. And even then he had not completed his work. In spite of his efforts, many thousands of the people still remained Brethren at heart; and as late as 1781, when Joseph II. issued his Edict of Toleration, 100,000 in Bohemia and Moravia declared themselves Brethren. We have here a genuine proof of the Brethren's vigour. It had been handed on from father to son through five generations. For the Brethren there was still no legal recognition in Bohemia and Moravia; the Edict applied to Lutherans and Calvinists only; and if the Brethren had been weak men they might now have called themselves Lutherans or Calvinists. But this, of course, carries us beyond the limits of this chapter. For the present King Ferdinand had triumphed; and word was sent to the Pope at Rome that the Church of the Brethren was no more.



CHAPTER XVI.

COMENIUS AND THE HIDDEN SEED, 1627-1672.

But the cause of the Brethren's Church was not yet lost. As the Brethren fled before the blast, it befell, in the wonderful providence of God, that all their best and noblest qualities—their broadness of view, their care for the young, their patience in suffering, their undaunted faith—shone forth in undying splendour in the life and character of one great man; and that man was the famous John Amos Comenius, the pioneer of modern education and the last Bishop of the Bohemian Brethren. He was born on March 18th, 1592, at Trivnitz, a little market town in Moravia. He was only six years old when he lost his parents through the plague. He was taken in hand by his sister, and was educated at the Brethren's School at Ungarisch-Brod. As he soon resolved to become a minister, he was sent by the Brethren to study theology, first at the Calvinist University of Herborn in Nassau, and then at the Calvinist University of Heidelberg. For two years (1614-1616) he then acted as master in the Brethren's Higher School at Prerau, and then became minister of the congregation at Fulneck. There, too, the Brethren had a school; and there, both as minister and teacher, Comenius, with his young wife and family, was as happy as the livelong day. But his happiness was speedily turned to misery. The Thirty Years' War broke out. What part he took in the Bohemian Revolution we have no means of knowing. He certainly favoured the election of Frederick, and helped his cause in some way. "I contributed a nail or two," he says,54 "to strengthen the new throne." What sort of nail he means we do not know. The new throne did not stand very long. The troops of Ferdinand appeared at Fulneck. The village was sacked. Comenius reeled with horror. He saw the weapons for stabbing, for chopping, for cutting, for pricking, for hacking, for tearing and for burning. He saw the savage hacking of limbs, the spurting of blood, the flash of fire.

"Almighty God," he wrote in one of his books, "what is happening? Must the whole world perish?"

His house was pillaged and gutted; his books and his manuscripts were burned; and he himself, with his wife and children, had now to flee in hot haste from Fulneck and to take refuge for a while on the estate of Baron Charles von Zerotin at Brandeis-on-the-Adler. To the Brethren Brandeis had long been a sacred spot. There Gregory the Patriarch had breathed his last, and there his bones lay buried; there many an historic Brethren's Synod had been held; and there Comenius took up his abode in a little wood cottage outside the town which tradition said had been built by Gregory himself. He had lost his wife and one of his children on the way from Fulneck; he had lost his post as teacher and minister; and now, for the sake of his suffering Brethren, he wrote his beautiful classical allegory, "The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart."55 For historical purposes this book is of surpassing value. It is a revelation. It is a picture both of the horrors of the time and of the deep religious life of the Brethren. As Comenius fled from Fulneck to Brandeis he saw sights that harrowed his soul, and now in his cottage at the foot of the hills he described what he had seen. The whole land, said Comenius, was now in a state of disorder. The reign of justice had ended. The reign of pillage had begun. The plot of the book is simple. From scene to scene the pilgrim goes, and everything fills him with disgust. The pilgrim, of course, is Comenius himself; the "Labyrinth" is Bohemia; and the time is the early years of the Thirty Years' War. He had studied the social conditions of Bohemia; he had seen men of all ranks and all occupations; and now, in witty, satirical language, he held the mirror up to nature. What sort of men were employed by Ferdinand to administer justice in Bohemia? Comenius gave them fine sarcastic names. He called the judges Nogod, Lovestrife, Hearsay, Partial, Loveself, Lovegold, Takegift, Ignorant, Knowlittle, Hasty and Slovenly; he called the witnesses Calumny, Lie and Suspicion; and, in obvious allusion to Ferdinand's seizure of property, he named the statute-book "The Rapacious Defraudment of the Land." He saw the lords oppressing the poor, sitting long at table, and discussing lewd and obscene matters. He saw the rich idlers with bloated faces, with bleary eyes, with swollen limbs, with bodies covered with sores. He saw the moral world turned upside down. No longer, said Comenius, did men in Bohemia call things by their right names. They called drunkenness, merriment; greed, economy; usury, interest; lust, love; pride, dignity; cruelty, severity; and laziness, good nature. He saw his Brethren maltreated in the vilest fashion. Some were cast into the fire; some were hanged, beheaded, crucified;56 some were pierced, chopped, tortured with pincers, and roasted to death on grid-irons. He studied the lives of professing Christians, and found that those who claimed the greatest piety were the sorriest scoundrels in the land. "They drink and vomit," he said, "quarrel and fight, rob and pillage one another by cunning and by violence, neigh and skip from wantonness, shout and whistle, and commit fornication and adultery worse than any of the others." He watched the priests, and found them no better than the people. Some snored, wallowing in feather beds; some feasted till they became speechless; some performed dances and leaps; some passed their time in love-making and wantonness.

For these evils Comenius saw one remedy only, and that remedy was the cultivation of the simple and beautiful religion of the Brethren. The last part of his book, "The Paradise of the Heart," is delightful. Comenius was a marvellous writer. He combined the biting satire of Swift with the devotional tenderness of Thomas Kempis. As we linger over the closing sections of his book, we can see that he then regarded the Brethren as almost ideal Christians. Among them he found no priests in gaudy attire, no flaunting wealth, no grinding poverty; and passing their time in peace and quietness, they cherished Christ in their hearts. "All," he says, "were in simple attire, and their ways were gentle and kind. I approached one of their preachers, wishing to speak to him. When, as is our custom, I wished to address him according to his rank, he permitted it not, calling such things worldly fooling." To them ceremonies were matters of little importance. "Thy religion," said the Master to the Pilgrim—i.e., to the Brethren's Church—"shall be to serve me in quiet, and not to bind thyself to any ceremonies, for I do not bind thee by them."

But Comenius did not stay long at Brandeis-on-the-Adler {1628.}. As Zerotin had sided with the House of Hapsburg, he had been allowed, for a few years, to give shelter to about forty Brethren's ministers; but now commissioners appeared at his Castle, and ordered him to send these ministers away. The last band of exiles now set out for Poland. The leader was Comenius himself. As they bade farewell to their native land they did so in the firm conviction that they themselves should see the day when the Church of the Brethren should stand once more in her ancient home; and as they stood on a spur of the Giant Mountains, and saw the old loved hills and dales, the towns and hamlets, the nestling churches, Comenius raised his eyes to heaven and uttered that historic prayer which was to have so marvellous an answer. He prayed that in the old home God would preserve a "Hidden Seed," which would one day grow to a tree; and then the whole band struck up a hymn and set out for Poland. Pathetic was the marching song they sang:—

Nought have we taken with us, All to destruction is hurled, We have only our Kralitz Bibles, And our Labyrinth of the World.

Comenius led the Brethren to Lissa, in Poland, and Lissa became the metropolis of the exiles.

What happened to many of the exiles no tongue can tell. We know that some Brethren went to Hungary and held together for thirty or forty years; that some were welcomed by the Elector of Saxony and became Lutherans; that some found their way to Holland and became Reformed Protestants; that some settled in Lusatia, Saxony; that a few, such as the Cennicks, crossed the silver streak and found a home in England; and that, finally, a number remained in Bohemia and Moravia, and gathered in the neighbourhood of Landskron, Leitomischl, Kunewalde and Fulneck. What became of these last, the "Hidden Seed," we shall see before very long. For the present they buried their Bibles in their gardens, held midnight meetings in garrets and stables, preserved their records in dovecotes and in the thatched roofs of their cottages, and, feasting on the glorious promises of the Book of Revelation—a book which many of them knew by heart—awaited the time when their troubles should blow by and the call to arise should sound.

Meanwhile Comenius had never abandoned hope. He was sure that the Brethren's Church would revive, and equally sure of the means of her revival. For some years there had flourished in the town of Lissa a famous Grammar School. It was founded by Count Raphael IV. Leszczynski; it had recently become a Higher School, or what Germans call a gymnasium, and now it was entirely in the hands of the Brethren. The patron, Count Raphael V. Leszczynski, was a Brother;57 the director was John Rybinski, a Brethren's minister; the co-director was another Brethren's minister, Michael Henrici; and Comenius accepted the post of teacher, and entered on the greatest task of his life. He had two objects before him. He designed to revive the Church of the Brethren and to uplift the whole human race; and for each of these purposes he employed the very same method. The method was education. If the Brethren, said Comenius, were to flourish again, they must pay more attention to the training of the young than ever they had done in days gone by. He issued detailed instructions to his Brethren. They must begin, he said, by teaching the children the pure word of God in their homes. They must bring their children up in habits of piety. They must maintain the ancient discipline of the Brethren. They must live in peace with other Christians, and avoid theological bickerings. They must publish good books in the Bohemian language. They must build new schools wherever possible, and endeavour to obtain the assistance of godly nobles. We have here the key to the whole of Comenius's career. It is the fashion now with many scholars to divide his life into two distinct parts. On the one hand, they say, he was a Bishop of the Brethren's Church; on the other hand he was an educational reformer. The distinction is false and artificial. His whole life was of a piece. He never distinguished between his work as a Bishop and his work as an educational reformer. He drew no line between the secular and the sacred. He loved the Brethren's Church to the end of his days; he regarded her teaching as ideal; he laboured and longed for her revival; and he believed with all the sincerity of his noble and beautiful soul that God would surely enable him to revive that Church by means of education and uplift the world by means of that regenerated Church.

And now for thirteen years, in the Grammar School at Lissa, Comenius devoted the powers of his mind to this tremendous task. What was it, he asked, that had caused the downfall of the Brethren in Bohemia and Moravia? It was their cruel and senseless system of education. He had been to a Brethren's School himself, and had come to the conclusion that in point of method the schools of the Brethren were no better than the other schools of Europe. "They are," he declared, "the terror of boys and the slaughter-houses of minds; places where a hatred of literature and books is contracted, where two or more years are spent in learning what might be acquired in one, where what ought to be poured in gently is violently forced and beaten in, and where what ought to be put clearly is presented in a confused and intricate way as if it were a collection of puzzles." The poor boys, he declared, were almost frightened to death. They needed skins of tin; they were beaten with fists, with canes and with birch-rods till the blood streamed forth; they were covered with scars, stripes, spots and weals; and thus they had learned to hate the schools and all that was taught therein.

He had already tried to introduce a reform. He had learned his new ideas about education, not from the Brethren, but at the University of Herborn. He had studied there the theories of Wolfgang Ratich; he had tried to carry out these theories in the Brethren's schools at Prerau and Fulneck; and now at Lissa, where he soon became director, he introduced reforms which spread his fame throughout the civilized world. His scheme was grand and comprehensive. He held that if only right methods were employed all things might be taught to all men. "There is," he said, "nothing in heaven or earth or in the waters, nothing in the abyss under the earth, nothing in the human body, nothing in the soul, nothing in Holy Writ, nothing in the arts, nothing in politics, nothing in the Church, of which the little candidates for wisdom shall be wholly ignorant." His faith in the power of education was enormous. It was the road, he said, to knowledge, to character, to fellowship with God, to eternal life. He divided the educational course into four stages—the "mother school," the popular school, the Latin school and the University; and on each of these stages he had something original to say.

For mothers Comenius wrote a book, entitled the "School of Infancy." In England this book is scarcely known at all: in Bohemia it is a household treasure. Comenius regarded it as a work of first-rate importance. What use, he asked, were schemes of education if a good foundation were not first laid by the mother? For the first six years of his life, said Comenius, the child must be taught by his mother. If she did her work properly she could teach him many marvellous things. He would learn some physics by handling things; some optics by naming colours, light and darkness; some astronomy by studying the twinkling stars; some geography by trudging the neighbouring streets and hills; some chronology by learning the hours, the days and the months; some history by a chat on local events; some geometry by measuring things for himself; some statics by trying to balance his top; some mechanics by building his little toy-house; some dialectics by asking questions; some economics by observing his mother's skill as a housekeeper; and some music and poetry by singing psalms and hymns. As Comenius penned these ideal instructions, he must surely have known that nine mothers out of ten had neither the patience nor the skill to follow his method; and yet he insisted that, in some things, the mother had a clear course before her. His advice was remarkably sound. At what age, ask mothers, should the education of a child begin? It should begin, said Comenius, before the child is born. At that period in her life the expectant mother must be busy and cheerful, be moderate in her food, avoid all worry, and keep in constant touch with God by prayer; and thus the child will come into the world well equipped for the battle of life. She must, of course, nurse the child herself. She must feed him, when weaned, on plain and simple food. She must provide him with picture books; and, above all, she must teach him to be clean in his habits, to obey his superiors, to be truthful and polite, to bend the knee and fold his hands in prayer, and to remember that the God revealed in Christ was ever near at hand.

Again, Comenius has been justly called the "Father of the Elementary School." It was here that his ideas had the greatest practical value. His first fundamental principle was that in all elementary schools the scholars must learn in their native language only. He called these schools "Mother tongue schools." For six or eight years, said Comenius, the scholar must hear no language but his own; and his whole attention must be concentrated, not on learning words like a parrot, but on the direct study of nature. Comenius has been called the great Sense-Realist. He had no belief in learning second-hand. He illustrated his books with pictures. He gave his scholars object lessons. He taught them, not about words, but about things. "The foundation of all learning consists," he said, "in representing clearly to the senses sensible objects." He insisted that no boy or girl should ever have to learn by heart anything which he did not understand. He insisted that nature should be studied, not out of books, but by direct contact with nature herself. "Do we not dwell in the garden of nature," he asked, "as well as the ancients? Why should we not use our eyes, ears and noses as well as they? Why should we not lay open the living book of nature?" He applied these ideas to the teaching of religion and morals. In order to show his scholars the meaning of faith, he wrote a play entitled "Abraham the Patriarch," and then taught them to act it; and, in order to warn them against shallow views of life, he wrote a comedy, "Diogenes the Cynic, Revived." He was no vulgar materialist. His whole object was moral and religious. If Comenius had lived in the twentieth century, he would certainly have been disgusted and shocked by the modern demand for a purely secular education. He would have regarded the suggestion as an insult to human nature. All men, he said, were made in the image of God; all men had in them the roots of eternal wisdom; all men were capable of understanding something of the nature of God; and, therefore, the whole object of education was to develop, not only the physical and intellectual, but also the moral and spiritual powers, and thus fit men and women to be, first, useful citizens in the State, and then saints in the Kingdom of Heaven beyond the tomb. From court to court he would lead the students onward, from the first court dealing with nature to the last court dealing with God. "It is," he said, "our bounden duty to consider the means whereby the whole body of Christian youth may be stirred to vigour of mind and the love of heavenly things." He believed in caring for the body, because the body was the temple of the Holy Ghost; and, in order to keep the body fit, he laid down the rule that four hours of study a day was as much as any boy or girl could stand. For the same reason he objected to corporal punishment; it was a degrading insult to God's fair abode. For the same reason he held that at all severe punishment should be reserved for moral offences only. "The whole object of discipline," he said, "is to form in those committed to our charge a disposition worthy of the children of God." He believed, in a word, in the teaching of religion in day-schools; he believed in opening school with morning prayers, and he held that all scholars should be taught to say passages of Scripture by heart, to sing psalms, to learn a Catechism and to place their trust in the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. And yet Comenius did not insist on the teaching of any definite religious creed. He belonged himself to a Church that had no creed; he took a broader view of religion than either the Lutherans or the Calvinists; he believed that Christianity could be taught without a formal dogmatic statement; and thus, if I understand him aright, he suggested a solution of a difficult problem which baffles our cleverest politicians to-day.

Again Comenius introduced a new way of learning languages. His great work on this subject was entitled "Janua Linguarum Reserata"—i.e., The Gate of Languages Unlocked. Of all his works this was the most popular. It spread his fame all over Europe. It was translated into fifteen different languages. It became, next to the Bible, the most widely known book on the Continent. For one person who read his delightful "Labyrinth," there were thousands who nearly knew the "Janua" by heart. The reason was obvious. The "Labyrinth" was a religious book, and was suppressed as dangerous by Catholic authorities; but the "Janua" was only a harmless grammar, and could be admitted with safety anywhere. It is not the works of richest genius that have the largest sale; it is the books that enable men to get on in life; and the "Janua" was popular because, in truth, "it supplied a long-felt want." It was a Latin grammar of a novel and original kind. For all boys desiring to enter a profession a thorough knowledge of Latin was then an absolute necessity. It was the language in which the learned conversed, the language spoken at all Universities, the language of diplomatists and statesmen, the language of scientific treatises. If a man could make the learning of Latin easier, he was adored as a public benefactor. Comenius's Grammar was hailed with delight, as a boon and a blessing to men. For years all patient students of Latin had writhed in agonies untold. They had learned long lists of Latin words, with their meanings; they had wrestled in their teens with gerunds, supines, ablative absolutes and distracting rules about the subjunctive mood, and they had tried in vain to take an interest in stately authors far above their understanding. Comenius reversed the whole process. What is the use, he asked, of learning lists of words that have no connection with each other? What is the use of teaching a lad grammar before he has a working knowledge of the language? What is the use of expecting a boy to take an interest in the political arguments of Cicero or the dinner table wisdom of Horace? His method was the conversational. For beginners he prepared an elementary Latin Grammar, containing, besides a few necessary rules, a number of sentences dealing with events and scenes of everyday life. It was divided into seven parts. In the first were nouns and adjectives together; in the second nouns and verbs; in the third adverbs, pronouns, numerals and prepositions; in the fourth remarks about things in the school; in the fifth about things in the house; in the sixth about things in the town; in the seventh some moral maxims. And the scholar went through this book ten times before he passed on to the "Janua" proper. The result can be imagined. At the end of a year the boy's knowledge of Latin would be of a peculiar kind. Of grammar he would know but little; of words and phrases he would have a goodly store; and thus he was learning to talk the language before he had even heard of its perplexing rules. One example must suffice to illustrate the method. The beginner did not even learn the names of the cases. In a modern English Latin Grammar, the charming sight that meets our gaze is as follows:—

Nom. Mensa.—A table. Voc. Mensa.—Oh, table! Acc. Mensam.—A table. Gen. Mens.—Of a table. Dat. Mens.—To or for a table. Abl. Mensa.—By, with or from a table.

The method of Comenius was different. Instead of mentioning the names of the cases, he showed how the cases were actually used, as follows:—

Ecce, tabula nigra.—Look there, a black board. O tu tabula nigra.—Oh, you black board! Video tabulam nigram.—I see a black board. Pars tabul nigr.—Part of a black board. Addo partem tabul nigr.—I add a part to a black board. Vides aliquid in tabula nigra.—I see something on a black board.

With us the method is theory first, practice afterwards; with Comenius the method was practice first, theory afterwards; and the method of Comenius, with modifications, is likely to be the method of the future.

But Comenius's greatest educational work was undoubtedly his "Great Didactic," or the "Art of Teaching All Things to All Men." It was a thorough and comprehensive treatise on the whole science, method, scope and purpose of universal education. As this book has been recently translated into English, I need not here attempt the task of giving an outline of its contents. His ideas were far too grand and noble to put in summary form. For us the point of interest is the fact that while the Thirty Years' War was raging, and warriors like Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus were turning Europe into a desert, this scholar, banished from his native land, was devising sublime and broad-minded schemes for the elevation of the whole human race. It is this that makes Comenius great. He played no part in the disgraceful quarrels of the age; he breathed no complaint against his persecutors. "Comenius," said the Jesuit historian Balbin, "wrote many works, but none that were directed against the Catholic Church." As he looked around upon the learned world he saw the great monster Confusion still unslain, and intended to found a Grand Universal College, which would consist of all the learned in Europe, would devote its attention to the pursuit of knowledge in every conceivable branch, and would arrange that knowledge in beautiful order and make the garden of wisdom a trim parterre. He was so sure that his system was right that he compared it to a great clock or mill, which had only to be set going to bring about the desired result. If his scheme could only be carried out, what a change there would be in this dreary earth! What a speedy end to wars and rumours of wars! What a blessed cessation of religious disputes! What a glorious union of all men of all nations about the feet of God!

At last Comenius became so famous that his friend, Samuel Hartlib, invited him to England; and Comenius found upon his arrival that our English Parliament was interested in his scheme {1641.}. His hopes now rose higher than ever. At last, he thought, he had found a spot where he could actually carry out his grand designs. He had a high opinion of English piety. "The ardour," he wrote, "with which the people crowd to the Churches is incredible. Almost all bring a copy of the Bible with them. Of the youths and men a large number take down the sermons word by word with their pens. Their thirst for the word of God is so great that many of the nobles, citizens also, and matrons study Greek and Hebrew to be able more safely and more sweetly to drink from the very spring of life." Of all countries England seemed to him the best suited for the accomplishment of his designs. He discussed the project with John Dury, with Samuel Hartlib, with John Evelyn, with the Bishop of Lincoln, and probably with John Milton. He wanted to establish an "Academy of Pansophy" at Chelsea; and there all the wisest men in the world would meet, draw up a new universal language, like the framers of Esperanto to-day, and devise a scheme to keep all the nations at peace. His castle in the air collapsed. At the very time when Comenius was resident in London this country was on the eve of a revolution. The Irish Rebellion broke out, the Civil War trod on its heels, and Comenius left England for ever.

>From this moment his life was a series of bitter and cruel disappointments. As the Thirty Years' War flickered out to its close, Comenius began to look forward to the day when the Brethren would be allowed to return to Bohemia and Moravia {1648.}. But the Peace of Westphalia broke his heart. What provision was made in that famous Peace for the poor exiled Brethren? Absolutely none. Comenius was angry and disgusted. He had spent his life in the service of humanity; he had spent six years preparing school books for the Swedish Government; and now he complained— perhaps unjustly—that Oxenstierna, the Swedish Chancellor, had never lifted a finger on behalf of the Brethren.

And yet Comenius continued to hope against hope. The more basely the Brethren were deserted by men, the more certain he was that they would be defended by God. He wrote to Oxenstierna on the subject. "If there is no help from man," he said, "there will be from God, whose aid is wont to commence when that of man ceases."

For eight years the Brethren, undaunted still, held on together as best they could at Lissa; and Comenius, now their chosen leader, made a brave attempt to revive their schools in Hungary. And then came the final, awful crash. The flames of war burst out afresh. When Charles X. became King of Sweden, John Casimir, King of Poland, set up a claim to the Swedish throne. The two monarchs went to war. Charles X. invaded Poland; John Casimir fled from Lissa; Charles X. occupied the town. What part, it may be asked, did the Brethren play in this war? We do not know. As Charles X. was, of course, a Protestant, it is natural to assume that the Brethren sympathised with his cause and hailed him as a deliverer sent by God; but it is one of the strangest features of their history that we never can tell what part they took in these political conflicts. Comenius was now in Lissa. It is said that he openly sided with Charles X., and urged the Brethren to hold out to the bitter end. I doubt it. For a while the Swedish army triumphed. In that army was an old Bohemian general, who swore to avenge the "Day of Blood"; and the churches and convents were plundered, and monks and priests were murdered. For a moment the Day of Blood was avenged, but for a moment only. As the arm of flesh had failed the Brethren in the days of Budowa, so the arm of flesh failed them now.

The Polish army surrounded the walls of Lissa {1656.}. A panic broke out among the citizens. The Swedish garrison gave way. The Polish soldiers pressed in. Again Comenius's library was burned, and the grammar school where he had taught was reduced to ashes. The whole town was soon in flames. The fire spread for miles in the surrounding country. As the Brethren fled from their last fond home, with the women and children huddled in waggons, they saw barns and windmills flaring around them, and heard the tramp of the Polish army in hot pursuit. As Pastor John Jacobides and two Acoluths were on their way to Karmin, they were seized, cut down with spades and thrown into a pit to perish. For Samuel Kardus, the last martyr of the fluttering fragment, a more ingenious torture was reserved. He was placed with his head between a door and the door-post, and as the door was gently but firmly closed, his head was slowly crushed to pieces.

And so the hopes of Comenius were blasted. As the aged Bishop drew near to his end, he witnessed the failure of all his schemes. Where now was his beloved Church of the Brethren? It was scattered like autumn leaves before the blast. And yet Comenius hoped on to the bitter end. The news of his sufferings reached the ears of Oliver Cromwell. He offered to find a home for the Brethren in Ireland. If Comenius had only accepted that offer it is certain that Oliver would have been as good as his word. He longed to make Ireland a Protestant country; and the whole modern history of Ireland might have been altered. But Comenius had now become an unpractical dreamer. For all his learning he was very simple-minded; and for all his piety he had a weak side to his character. He had listened in his youth to the prophecies of Christopher Kotter; he had listened also to the ravings of Christina Poniatowski; and now he fell completely under the influence of the vile impostor, Drabik, who pretended to have a revelation from heaven, and predicted that before very long the House of Austria would be destroyed and the Brethren be enabled to return to their native home. Instead, therefore, of accepting Cromwell's offer, Comenius spent his last few years in collecting money for the Brethren; and pleasant it is to record the fact that much of that money came from England. Some was sent by Prince Rupert, and some by officials of the Church of England; and Comenius was able to spend the money in printing helpful, devotional works for the Brethren. His loyalty now to the Brethren was beautiful. It is easy to be faithful to a prosperous Church; Comenius was faithful when the whirl was at the worst. Faster than ever the ship was sinking, but still the brave old white-haired Captain held to his post on the bridge. Few things are more pathetic in history than the way in which Comenius commended the Brethren to the care of the Church of England. "To you, dear friends," he wrote in hope, "we commit our dear mother, the Church herself. Even in her death, which seems approaching, you ought to love her, because in her life she has gone before you for more than two centuries with examples of faith and patience." Of all the links between the old Church of the Brethren and the new, Comenius was the strongest. He handed on the Brethren's Episcopal Orders. He consecrated his son-in-law, Peter Jablonsky; this Peter consecrated his own son, Daniel Ernest; and this Daniel Ernest Jablonsky consecrated David Nitschmann, the first Bishop of the Renewed Church of the Brethren.

He handed on, secondly, the Brethren's system of discipline. He published an edition of the "Ratio Disciplin," and this it was that fired Zinzendorf's soul with love for the Brethren's Church.

But, thirdly, and most important of all, Comenius kept the old faith burning in the hearts of the "Hidden Seed." For the benefit of those still worshipping in secret in Bohemia and Moravia, he prepared a Catechism, entitled "The Old Catholic Christian Religion in Short Questions and Answers"; and by this Catholic Religion he meant the broad and simple faith of the Bohemian Brethren. "Perish sects," said Comenius; "perish the founders of sects. I have consecrated myself to Christ alone." But the purpose of the Catechism had to be kept a secret. "It is meant," said Comenius, in the preface, "for all the pious and scattered sheep of Christ, especially those at F., G., G., K., K., S., S. and Z." These letters can be easily explained. They stood for the villages of Fulneck, Gersdorf, Gestersdorf, Kunewalde, Klandorf, Stechwalde, Seitendorf and Zauchtenthal; and these are the places from which the first exiles came to renew the Brethren's Church at Herrnhut.

Fifty years before his prayers were answered, Comenius lay silent in the grave (1672). Yet never did bread cast upon the waters more richly return.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.

THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

As the relations of the Brethren with England were only of a very occasional nature, it is not easy to weave them into the narrative. But the following particulars will be of special interest; they show the opinion held of the Brethren by officials of the Church of England:—

1. The case of John Bernard.—At some period in the reign of Queen Elizabeth a number of scholarships were founded at Oxford for the benefit of Bohemian students; and in 1583 John Bernard, a Moravian student, took his B.D. degree at Oxford. The record in the University Register is as follows: "Bernardus, John, a Moravian, was allowed to supply B.D. He had studied theology for ten years at German Universities, and was now going to the Universities of Scotland." This proves that the University of Oxford recognised Bernard as a man in holy orders; for none but men in holy orders could take the B.D. degree.

2. The case of Paul Hartmann.—In 1652 (October 15th) Paul Hartmann was ordained a Deacon at a Synod of the Moravian Church at Lissa. In 1657 he came to England, along with his brother, Adam Samuel Hartmann, to raise funds for the exiles. In 1660 he was ordained a Presbyter by Bishop Robert Skinner, of Oxford, in Christ Church; in 1671 he was admitted Chaplain or Petty Canon of Oxford Cathedral; and in 1676 he became Rector of Shillingford, Berkshire. This proves that Bishop Skinner, of Oxford, recognised Paul Hartmann's status as a Deacon; and that recognition, so far as we know, was never questioned by any Anglican authorities. But that is not the end of the story. At this period a considerable number of Brethren had found a home in England; the Continental Brethren wished to provide for their spiritual needs, and, therefore, in 1675 they wrote a letter to the Anglican Bishops requesting them to consecrate Hartmann a Bishop. Of that letter a copy has been preserved in the Johannis-Kirche at Lissa. "It is no superstition," they wrote, "that fills us with this desire. It is simply our love of order and piety; and the Church of England is the only Protestant Church beside our own that possesses this treasure, and can, therefore, come to our help." For some reason, however, this pathetic request was not carried out. What answer did the Anglican Bishops give? We do not know; no answer has been discovered; and Hartmann remained a Presbyter to the end.

3. The case of Adam Samuel Hartmann.—He was first a minister of the Moravian Church at Lissa (1652-56). In 1657 he came to England to collect money; in 1673 he was consecrated a Moravian Bishop at Lissa; and in 1680 he received the degree of D.D. at Oxford. His diploma refers to him as a Bishop. This suggests, if it does not actually prove, that the University of Oxford recognised him as a valid Bishop.

4. The case of Bishop Amos Comenius.—Of all the Bishops of the Bohemian Brethren Comenius did most to stir up sympathy on their behalf in England. In 1657 he sent the two Hartmanns and Paul Cyrill to the Archbishop of Canterbury with a MS. entitled, "Ultimus in Protestantes Bohemi confessionis ecclesias Antichristi furor"; in 1660 he dedicated his "Ratio Disciplin" to the Church of England; and in 1661 he published his "Exhortation of the Churches of Bohemia to the Church of England." In this book Comenius took a remarkable stand. He declared that the Slavonian Churches had been planted by the Apostles; that these Churches had "run up to a head and ripened" in the Unity of the Brethren; and that he himself was now the only surviving Bishop of the remnants of these Churches. In other words, he represented himself as the Bishop of a Church of Apostolic origin. In what way, it may be asked, was this claim received by Anglican authorities? The next case will supply the answer.

5. The case of Archbishop Sancroft.—ln 1683 King Charles II. issued a Cabinet Order on behalf of the Brethren; the order was accompanied by an account of their distresses; the account was "recommended under the hands" of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Compton, Bishop of London; and in that account the statement was deliberately made that the Brethren deserved the assistance of Anglicans, not only because they had "renounced the growing errors of Popery," but also because they had "preserved the Succession of Episcopal Orders." The last words can only bear one meaning; and that meaning obviously is that both the Primate and the Bishop of London regarded Moravian Episcopal Orders as valid. The next case tells a similar story.

6. The case of Archbishop Wake.—We have now to step over a period of thirty-three years. As soon as James II. came to the throne, the interest of English Churchmen in the Brethren appears to have waned, and neither William III. nor Queen Anne took any steps on their behalf. And yet the connection of the Brethren with England was not entirely broken. The bond of union was Daniel Ernest Jablonsky. He was Amos Comenius's grandson. In 1680 he came to England; he studied three years at Oxford, and finally received the degree of D.D. In 1693 he was appointed Court Preacher at Berlin; in 1699 he was consecrated a Moravian Bishop; and in 1709 he was elected corresponding secretary of the S.P.C.K. Meanwhile, however, fresh disasters had overtaken the Brethren. As the sun was rising on July 29th, 1707, a troop of Russians rode into the town of Lissa, and threw around them balls of burning pitch. The town went up in flames; the last home of the Brethren was destroyed, and the Brethren were in greater distress than ever. At this point Jablonsky nobly came to their aid. He began by publishing an account of their distresses; he tried to raise a fund on their behalf; and finally (1715) he sent his friend, Bishop Sitkovius, to England, to lay their case before Archbishop Wake. Again, as in the case of Archbishop Sancroft, this appeal to the Church of England was successful. The Archbishop brought the case before George I., the King consulted the Privy Council, the Privy Council gave consent; the King issued Letters Patent to all the Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales, and Wake and John Robinson, Bishop of London, issued a special appeal, which was read in all the London churches. The result was twofold. On the one hand money was collected for the Brethren; on the other, some person or persons unknown denounced them as Hussites, declared that their Bishops could not be distinguished from Presbyters, and contended that, being followers of Wycliffe, they must surely, like Wycliffe, be enemies of all episcopal government. Again Jablonsky came to the Brethren's rescue. He believed, himself, in the Brethren's Episcopal Orders; he prepared a treatise on the subject, entitled, "De Ordine et Successione Episcopali in Unitate Fratrum Bohemorum conservato"; he sent a copy of that treatise to Wake, and Wake, in reply, declared himself perfectly satisfied.

To what conclusion do the foregoing details point? It is needful here to speak with caution and precision. As the claims of the Brethren were never brought before Convocation, we cannot say that the Anglican Church as a body officially recognised the Brethren as a sister Episcopal Church. But, on the other hand, we can also say that the Brethren's orders were never doubted by any Anglican authorities. They were recognised by two Archbishops of Canterbury; they were recognised by Bishop Skinner, of Oxford; they were recognised by the University of Oxford. They were recognised, in a word, by every Anglican authority before whose notice they happened to be brought.



BOOK TWO.

The Revival under Zinzendorf.



CHAPTER I.

THE YOUTH OF COUNT ZINZENDORF, 1700-1722.

If the kindly reader will take the trouble to consult a map of Europe he will see that that part of the Kingdom of Saxony known as Upper Lusatia runs down to the Bohemian frontier. About ten miles from the frontier line there stand to-day the mouldering remains of the old castle of Gross-Hennersdorf. The grey old walls are streaked with slime. The wooden floors are rotten, shaky and unsafe. The rafters are worm-eaten. The windows are broken. The damp wall-papers are running to a sickly green. Of roof there is almost none. For the lover of beauty or the landscape painter these ruins have little charm. But to us these tottering walls are of matchless interest, for within these walls Count Zinzendorf, the Renewer of the Brethren's Church, spent the years of his childhood.

He was born at six o'clock in the evening, Wednesday, May 26th, 1700, in the picturesque city of Dresden {1700.}; the house is pointed out to the visitor; and "Zinzendorf Street" reminds us still of the noble family that has now died out. He was only six weeks old when his father burst a blood-vessel and died; he was only four years when his mother married again; and the young Count—Nicholas Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf—was handed over to the tender care of his grandmother, Catherine von Gersdorf, who lived at Gross-Hennersdorf Castle. And now, even in childhood's days, little Lutz, as his grandmother loved to call him, began to show signs of his coming greatness. As his father lay on his dying bed, he had taken the child in his feeble arm, and consecrated him to the service of Christ; and now in his grandmother's noble home he sat at the feet of the learned, the pious, and the refined. Never was a child less petted and pampered; never was a child more strictly trained; never was a child made more familiar with the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. Dr. Spener,58 the famous Pietist leader, watched his growth with fatherly interest. The old lady was a leader in Pietist circles, was a writer of beautiful religious poetry, and guarded him as the apple of her eye. He read the Bible every day. He doted on Luther's Catechism. He had the Gospel story at his finger-ends. His aunt Henrietta, who was rather an oddity, prayed with him morning and night. His tutor, Edeling, was an earnest young Pietist from Franke's school at Halle; and the story of Zinzendorf's early days reads like a mediaeval tale. "Already in my childhood," he says, {1704.} "I loved the Saviour, and had abundant communion with Him. In my fourth year I began to seek God earnestly, and determined to become a true servant of Jesus Christ." At the age of six he regarded Christ as his Brother, would talk with Him for hours together as with a familiar friend and was often found rapt in thought {1706.}, like Socrates in the market-place at Athens. As other children love and trust their parents, so this bright lad with the golden hair loved and trusted Christ. "A thousand times," he said, "I heard Him speak in my heart, and saw Him with the eye of faith." Already the keynote of his life was struck; already the fire of zeal burned in his bosom. "Of all the qualities of Christ," said He, "the greatest is His nobility; and of all the noble ideas in the world, the noblest is the idea that the Creator should die for His children. If the Lord were forsaken by all the world, I still would cling to Him and love Him." He held prayer-meetings in his private room. He was sure that Christ Himself was present there. He preached sermons to companies of friends. If hearers failed, he arranged the chairs as an audience; and still is shown the little window from which he threw letters addressed to Christ, not doubting that Christ would receive them. As the child was engaged one day in prayer, the rude soldiers of Charles XII. burst into his room. Forthwith the lad began to speak of Christ; and away the soldiers fled in awe and terror. At the age of eight he lay awake at night tormented with atheistic doubts {1708.}. But the doubts did not last long. However much he doubted with the head he never doubted with the heart; and the charm that drove the doubts away was the figure of the living Christ.

And here we touch the springs of the boy's religion. It is easy to call all this a hot-house process; it is easy to dub the child a precocious prig. But at bottom his religion was healthy and sound. It was not morbid; it was joyful. It was not based on dreamy imagination; it was based on the historic person of Christ. It was not the result of mystic exaltation; it was the result of a study of the Gospels. It was not, above all, self-centred; it led him to seek for fellowship with others. As the boy devoured the Gospel story, he was impressed first by the drama of the Crucifixion; and often pondered on the words of Gerhardt's hymn:—

O Head so full of bruises, So full of pain and scorn, 'Midst other sore abuses, Mocked with a crown of thorn.

For this his tutor, Edeling, was partly responsible. "He spoke to me," says Zinzendorf, "of Jesus and His wounds."

But the boy did not linger in Holy Week for ever. He began by laying stress on the suffering Christ; he went on to lay stress on the whole life of Christ; and on that life, from the cradle to the grave, his own strong faith was based. "I was," he said, "as certain that the Son of God was my Lord as of the existence of my five fingers." To him the existence of Jesus was a proof of the existence of God; and he felt all his limbs ablaze, to use his own expression, with the desire to preach the eternal Godhead of Christ. "If it were possible," he said, "that there should be another God than Christ I would rather be damned with Christ than happy with another. I have," he exclaimed, "but one passion—'tis He, 'tis only He."

But the next stage in his journey was not so pleasing {1710.}. At the age of ten he was taken by his mother to Professor Franke's school at Halle; and by mistake he overheard a conversation between her and the pious professor. She described him as a lad of parts, but full of pride, and in need of the curbing rein. He was soon to find how much these words implied. If a boy has been trained by gentle ladies he is hardly well equipped, as a rule, to stand the rough horseplay of a boarding-school; and if, in addition, he boasts blue blood, he is sure to come in for blows. And the Count was a delicate aristocrat, with weak legs and a cough. He was proud of his noble birth; he was rather officious in his manner; he had his meals at Franke's private table; he had private lodgings a few minutes' walk from the school; he had plenty of money in his purse; and, therefore, on the whole, he was as well detested as the son of a lord can be. "With a few exceptions," he sadly says, "my schoolfellows hated me throughout."

But this was not the bitterest part of the pill. If there was any wholesome feeling missing in his heart hitherto, it was what theologians call the sense of sin. He had no sense of sin whatever, and no sense of any need of pardon. His masters soon proceeded to humble his pride. He was introduced as a smug little Pharisee, and they treated him as a viper. Of all systems of school discipline, the most revolting is the system of employing spies; and that was the system used by the staff at Halle. They placed the young Count under boyish police supervision, encouraged the lads to tell tales about him, rebuked him for his misconduct in the measles, lectured him before the whole school on his rank disgusting offences, and treated him as half a rogue and half an idiot. If he pleaded not guilty, they called him a liar, and gave him an extra thrashing. The thrashing was a public school entertainment, and was advertised on the school notice-board. "Next week," ran the notice on one occasion, "the Count is to have the stick." For two years he lived in a moral purgatory. The masters gave him the fire of their wrath, and the boys the cold shoulder of contempt. The masters called him a malicious rebel, and the boys called him a snob. As the little fellow set off for morning school, with his pile of books upon his arm, the others waylaid him, jostled him to and fro, knocked him into the gutter, scattered his books on the street, and then officiously reported him late for school. He was clever, and, therefore, the masters called him idle; and when he did not know his lesson they made him stand in the street, with a pair of ass's ears on his head, and a placard on his back proclaiming to the public that the culprit was a "lazy donkey."

His private tutor, Daniel Crisenius, was a bully, who had made his way into Franke's school by varnishing himself with a shiny coating of piety. If the Count's relations came to see him, Crisenius made him beg for money, and then took the money himself. If his grandmother sent him a ducat Crisenius pocketed a florin. If he wrote a letter home, Crisenius read it. If he drank a cup of coffee, Crisenius would say, "You have me to thank for that, let me hear you sing a song of thanksgiving." If he tried to pour out his soul in prayer, Crisenius mocked him, interrupted him, and introduced disgusting topics of conversation. He even made the lad appear a sneak. "My tutor," says Zinzendorf, "often persuaded me to write letters to my guardian complaining of my hard treatment, and then showed the letters to the inspector."

In vain little Lutz laid his case before his mother. Crisenius thrashed him to such good purpose that he never dared to complain again; and his mother still held that he needed drastic medicine. "I beseech you," she wrote to Franke, "be severe with the lad; if talking will not cure him of lying, then let him feel it."

At last the muddy lane broadened into a highway. One day Crisenius pestered Franke with one of his whining complaints. The headmaster snapped him short.

"I am sick," he said, "of your growlings; you must manage the matter yourself."

As the months rolled on, the Count breathed purer air. He became more manly and bold. He astonished the masters by his progress. He was learning Greek, could speak in French and dash off letters in Latin. He was confirmed, attended the Communion, and wrote a beautiful hymn59 recording his feelings; and already in his modest way he launched out on that ocean of evangelical toil on which he was to sail all the days of his life.

As the child grew up in Hennersdorf Castle he saw and heard a good deal of those drawing-room meetings60 which Philip Spener, the Pietist leader, had established in the houses of several noble Lutheran families, and which came in time to be known in Germany as "Churches within the Church."61 He knew that Spener had been his father's friend. He had met the great leader at the Castle. He sympathised with the purpose of his meetings. He had often longed for fellowship himself, and had chatted freely on religious topics with his Aunt Henrietta. He had always maintained his private habit of personal communion with Christ; and now he wished to share his religion with others. The time was ripe. The moral state of Franke's school was low; the boys were given to vicious habits, and tried to corrupt his soul; and the Count, who was a healthy minded boy, and shrank with disgust from fleshly sins, retorted by forming a number of religious clubs for mutual encouragement and help. "I established little societies," he says, "in which we spoke of the grace of Christ, and encouraged each other in diligence and good works." He became a healthy moral force in the school. He rescued his friend, Count Frederick de Watteville, from the hands of fifty seducers; he persuaded three others to join in the work of rescue; and the five lads established a club which became a "Church within the Church" for boys. They called themselves first "The Slaves of Virtue," next the "Confessors of Christ," and finally the "Honourable Order of the Mustard Seed"; and they took a pledge to be true to Christ, to be upright and moral, and to do good to their fellow-men. Of all the school clubs established by Zinzendorf this "Order of the Mustard Seed" was the most famous and the most enduring. As the boys grew up to man's estate they invited others to join their ranks; the doctrinal basis was broad; and among the members in later years were John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, Cardinal Noailles, the broad-minded Catholic, and General Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia. For an emblem they had a small shield, with an "Ecce Homo," and the motto, "His wounds our healing"; and each member of the Order wore a gold ring, inscribed with the words, "No man liveth unto himself." The Grand Master of the Order was Zinzendorf himself. He wore a golden cross; the cross had an oval green front; and on that front was painted a mustard tree, with the words beneath, "Quod fuit ante nihil," i.e., what was formerly nothing.62

But already the boy had wider conceptions still. As he sat at Franke's dinner table, he listened one day to the conversation of the Danish missionary, Ziegenbalg, who was now home on furlough, and he even saw some dusky converts whom the missionary had brought from Malabar {1715.}. His missionary zeal was aroused. As his guardian had already settled that Zinzendorf should enter the service of the State, he had, of course, no idea of becoming a missionary himself;63 but, as that was out of the question, he formed a solemn league and covenant with his young friend Watteville that when God would show them suitable men they would send them out to heathen tribes for whom no one else seemed to care. Nor was this mere playing at religion. As the Count looked back on his Halle days he saw in these early clubs and covenants the germs of his later work; and when he left for the University the delighted Professor Franke said, "This youth will some day become a great light in the world."

As the Count, however, in his uncle's opinion was growing rather too Pietistic, he was now sent to the University at Wittenberg, to study the science of jurisprudence, and prepare for high service in the State {April, 1716.}. His father had been a Secretary of State, and the son was to follow in his footsteps. His uncle had a contempt for Pietist religion; and sent the lad to Wittenberg "to drive the nonsense out of him." He had certainly chosen the right place. For two hundred years the great University had been regarded as the stronghold of the orthodox Lutheran faith; the bi-centenary Luther Jubilee was fast approaching; the theological professors were models of orthodox belief; and the Count was enjoined to be regular at church, and to listen with due attention and reverence to the sermons of those infallible divines. It was like sending a boy to Oxford to cure him of a taste for dissent. His tutor, Crisenius, went with him, to guard his morals, read his letters, and rob him of money at cards. He had also to master the useful arts of riding, fencing, and dancing. The cards gave him twinges of conscience. If he took a hand, he laid down the condition that any money he might win should be given to the poor. He prayed for skill in his dancing lessons, because he wanted to have more time for more serious studies. He was more devout in his daily life than ever, prayed to Christ with the foil in his hand, studied the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, spent whole nights in prayer, fasted the livelong day on Sundays, and was, in a word, so Methodistic in his habits that he could truly describe himself as a "rigid Pietist." He interfered in many a duel, and rebuked his fellow students for drinking hard; and for this he was not beloved. As he had come to Wittenberg to study law, he was not, of course, allowed to attend the regular theological lectures; but, all the same, he spent his leisure in studying the works of Luther and Spener, and cultivated the personal friendship of many of the theological professors. And here he made a most delightful discovery. As he came to know these professors better, he found that a man could be orthodox without being narrow-minded; and they, for their part, also found that a man could be a rigid Pietist without being a sectarian prig. It was time, he thought, to put an end to the quarrel. He would make peace between Wittenberg and Halle. He would reconcile the Lutherans and Pietists. He consulted with leading professors on both sides; he convinced them of the need for peace; and the rival teachers actually agreed to accept this student of nineteen summers as the agent of the longed-for truce. But here Count Zinzendorf's mother intervened. "You must not meddle," she wrote, "in such weighty matters; they are above your understanding and your powers." And Zinzendorf, being a dutiful son, obeyed. "I think," he said, "a visit to Halle might have been of use, but, of course, I must obey the fourth commandment."64

And now, as befitted a nobleman born, he was sent on the grand tour, to give the final polish to his education {1719.}. He regarded the prospect with horror. He had heard of more than one fine lord whose virtues had been polished away. For him the dazzling sights of Utrecht and Paris had no bewitching charm. He feared the glitter, the glamour, and the glare. The one passion, love to Christ, still ruled his heart. "Ah!" he wrote to a friend, "What a poor, miserable thing is the grandeur of the great ones of the earth! What splendid misery!" As John Milton, on his continental tour, had sought the company of musicians and men of letters, so this young budding Christian poet, with the figure of the Divine Redeemer ever present to his mind, sought out the company of men and women who, whatever their sect or creed, maintained communion with the living Son of God. He went first to Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where Spener had toiled so long, came down the Rhine to Dsseldorf, spent half a year at Utrecht, was introduced to William, Prince of Orange, paid flying calls at Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and ended the tour by a six months' stay amid the gaieties of Paris. At Dsseldorf a famous incident occurred. There, in the picture gallery, he saw and admired the beautiful Ecce Homo of Domenico Feti; there, beneath the picture he read the thrilling appeal: "All this I did for thee; what doest thou for Me?"; and there, in response to that appeal, he resolved anew to live for Him who had worn the cruel crown of thorns for all.65

At Paris he attended the Court leve, and was presented to the Duke of Orleans, the Regent, and his mother, the Dowager Duchess.

"Sir Count," said the Duchess, "have you been to the opera to-day?"

"Your Highness," he replied, "I have no time for the opera." He would not spend a golden moment except for the golden crown.

"I hear," said the Duchess, "that you know the Bible by heart."

"Ah," said he, "I only wish I did."

At Paris, too, he made the acquaintance of the Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Noailles. It is marvellous how broad in his views the young man was. As he discussed the nature of true religion with the Cardinal, who tried in vain to win him for the Church of Rome, he came to the conclusion that the true Church of Jesus Christ consisted of many sects and many forms of belief. He held that the Church was still an invisible body; he held that it transcended the bounds of all denominations; he had found good Christians among Protestants and Catholics alike; and he believed, with all his heart and soul, that God had called him to the holy task of enlisting the faithful in all the sects in one grand Christian army, and thus realizing, in visible form, the promise of Christ that all His disciples should be one. He was no bigoted Lutheran. For him the cloak of creed or sect was only of minor moment. He desired to break down all sectarian barriers. He desired to draw men from all the churches into one grand fellowship with Christ. He saw, and lamented, the bigotry of all the sects. "We Protestants," he said, "are very fond of the word liberty; but in practice we often try to throttle the conscience." He was asked if he thought a Catholic could be saved. "Yes," he replied, "and the man who doubts that, cannot have looked far beyond his own small cottage."

"What, then," asked the Duchess of Luynes, "is the real difference between a Lutheran and a Catholic?"

"It is," he replied, "the false idea that the Bible is so hard to understand that only the Church can explain it." He had, in a word, discovered his vocation.

His religion purified his love. As he made his way home, at the close of the tour, he called to see his aunt, the Countess of Castell, and her daughter Theodora {1720.}; and during his stay he fell ill of a fever, and so remained much longer than he had at first intended. He helped the Countess to put in order the affairs of her estate, took a leading part in the religious services of the castle, and was soon regarded as almost one of the family. At first, according to his usual custom, he would talk about nothing but religion. But gradually his manner changed. He opened out, grew less reserved, and would gossip and chat like a woman. He asked himself the reason of this alteration. He discovered it. He was in love with his young cousin, Theodora. For a while the gentle stream of love ran smooth. His mother and the Countess Castell smiled approval; Theodora, though rather icy in manner, presented him with her portrait; and the Count, who accepted the dainty gift as a pledge of blossoming love, was rejoicing at finding so sweet a wife and so charming a helper in his work, when an unforeseen event turned the current of the stream. Being belated one evening on a journey, he paid a visit to his friend Count Reuss, and during conversation made the disquieting discovery that his friend wished to marry Theodora. A beautiful contest followed. Each of the claimants to the hand of Theodora expressed his desire to retire in favour of the other; and, not being able to settle the dispute, the two young men set out for Castell to see what Theodora herself would say. Young Zinzendorf's mode of reasoning was certainly original. If his own love for Theodora was pure—i.e., if it was a pure desire to do her good, and not a vulgar sensual passion like that with which many love-sick swains were afflicted—he could, he said, fulfil his purpose just as well by handing her over to the care of his Christian friend. "Even if it cost me my life to surrender her," he said, "if it is more acceptable to my Saviour, I ought to sacrifice the dearest object in the world." The two friends arrived at Castell and soon saw which way the wind was blowing; and Zinzendorf found, to his great relief, that what had been a painful struggle to him was as easy as changing a dress to Theodora. The young lady gave Count Reuss her heart and hand. The rejected suitor bore the blow like a stoic. He would conquer, he said, such disturbing earthly emotions; why should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive scene the young composer offered up on behalf of the happy couple a prayer so tender that all were moved to tears. His self-denial was well rewarded. If the Count had married Theodora, he would only have had a graceful drawing-room queen. About eighteen months later he married Count Reuss's sister, Erdmuth Dorothea {Sept. 7th, 1722.}; and in her he found a friend so true that the good folk at Herrnhut called her a princess of God, and the "foster-mother of the Brethren's Church in the eighteenth century."66

If the Count could now have had his way he would have entered the service of the State Church; but in those days the clerical calling was considered to be beneath the dignity of a noble, and his grandmother, pious though she was, insisted that he should stick to jurisprudence. He yielded, and took a post as King's Councillor at Dresden, at the Court of Augustus the Strong, King of Saxony. But no man can fly from his shadow, and Zinzendorf could not fly from his hopes of becoming a preacher of the Gospel. If he could not preach in the orthodox pulpit, he would teach in some other way; and, therefore, he invited the public to a weekly meeting in his own rooms on Sunday afternoons from three to seven. He had no desire to found a sect, and no desire to interfere with the regular work of the Church. He was acting, he said, in strict accordance with ecclesiastical law; and he justified his bold conduct by appealing to a clause in Luther's Smalkald Articles.67 He contended that there provision was made for the kind of meeting that he was conducting; and, therefore, he invited men of all classes to meet him on Sunday afternoons, read a passage of Scripture together, and talk in a free-and-easy fashion on spiritual topics. He became known as rather a curiosity; and Valentine Lscher, the popular Lutheran preacher, mentioned him by name in his sermons, and held him up before the people as an example they would all do well to follow.

But Zinzendorf had not yet reached his goal. He was not content with the work accomplished by Spener, Franke, and other leading Pietists. He was not content with drawing-room meetings for people of rank and money. If fellowship, said he, was good for lords, it must also be good for peasants. He wished to apply the ideas of Spener to folk in humbler life. For this purpose he now bought from his grandmother the little estate of Berthelsdorf, which lay about three miles from Hennersdorf {April, 1722.}; installed his friend, John Andrew Rothe, as pastor of the village church; and resolved that he and the pastor together would endeavour to convert the village into a pleasant garden of God. "I bought this estate," he said, "because I wanted to spend my life among peasants, and win their souls for Christ."

"Go, Rothe," he said, "to the vineyard of the Lord. You will find in me a brother and helper rather than a patron."

And here let us note precisely the aim this pious Count had in view. He was a loyal and devoted member of the national Lutheran Church; he was well versed in Luther's theology and in Luther's practical schemes; and now at Berthelsdorf he was making an effort to carry into practical effect the fondest dreams of Luther himself. For this, the fellowship of true believers, the great Reformer had sighed in vain;68 and to this great purpose the Count would now devote his money and his life.

He introduced the new pastor to the people; the induction sermon was preached by Schfer, the Pietist pastor at Grlitz; and the preacher used the prophetic words, "God will light a candle on these hills which will illuminate the whole land."

We have now to see how far these words came true. We have now to see how the Lutheran Count applied his ideas to the needs of exiles from a foreign land, and learned to take a vital interest in a Church of which as yet he had never heard.



CHAPTER II.

CHRISTIAN DAVID, 1690-1722.

It is recorded in John Wesley's "Journal,"69 that when he paid his memorable visit to Herrnhut he was much impressed by the powerful sermons of a certain godly carpenter, who had preached in his day to the Eskimos in Greenland, and who showed a remarkable knowledge of divinity. It was Christian David, known to his friends as the "Servant of the Lord."

He was born on December 31st, 1690, at Senftleben, in Moravia; he was brought up in that old home of the Brethren; and yet, as far as records tell, he never heard in his youthful days of the Brethren who still held the fort in the old home of their fathers. He came of a Roman Catholic family, and was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. He sat at the feet of the parish priest, was devout at Mass, invoked his patron saint, St. Anthony, knelt down in awe before every image and picture of the Virgin, regarded Protestants as children of the devil, and grew up to man's estate burning with Romish zeal, as he says, "like a baking oven." He began life as a shepherd; and his religion was tender and deep. As he tended his sheep in the lonesome fields, and rescued one from the jaws of a wolf, he thought how Christ, the Good Shepherd, had given His life for men; and as he sought his wandering sheep in the woods by night he thought how Christ sought sinners till he found them. And yet somehow he was not quite easy in his mind. For all his zeal and all his piety he was not sure that he himself had escaped the snare of the fowler. He turned first for guidance to some quiet Protestants, and was told by them, to his horror, that the Pope was Antichrist, that the worship of saints was a delusion, and that only through faith in Christ could his sins be forgiven. He was puzzled. As these Protestants were ready to suffer for their faith, he felt they must be sincere; and when some of them were cast into prison, he crept to the window of their cell and heard them sing in the gloaming. He read Lutheran books against the Papists, and Papist books against the Lutherans. He was now dissatisfied with both. He could see, he said, that the Papists were wrong, but that did not prove that the Lutherans were right; he could not understand what the Lutherans meant when they said that a man was justified by faith alone; and at last he lost his way so far in this famous theological fog that he hated and loathed the very name of Christ. He turned next for instruction to some Jews; and the Jews, of course, confirmed his doubts, threw scorn upon the whole New Testament, and endeavoured to convince him that they alone were the true Israel of God.

He turned next to the Bible, and the fog lifted a little {1710.}. He read the Old Testament carefully through, to see if the prophecies there had been fulfilled; and, thereby, he arrived at the firm belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah. He then mastered the New Testament, and came to the equally firm conclusion that the Bible was the Word of God.

And even yet he was not content. As long as he stayed in Catholic Moravia he would have to keep his new convictions a secret; and, longing to renounce the Church of Rome in public, he left Moravia, passed through Hungary and Silesia, and finally became a member of a Lutheran congregation at Berlin.

But the Lutherans seemed to him very stiff and cold. He was seeking for a pearl of great price, and so far he had failed to find it. He had failed to find it in the Church of Rome, failed to find it in the Scriptures, and failed to find it in the orthodox Protestants of Berlin. He had hoped to find himself in a goodly land, where men were godly and true; and he found that even the orthodox Protestants made mock of his pious endeavours. He left Berlin in disgust, and enlisted in the Prussian Army. He did not find much piety there. He served in the war against Charles XII. of Sweden {1715.}, was present at the siege of Stralsund, thought soldiers no better than civilians, accepted his discharge with joy, and wandered around from town to town, like the old philosopher seeking an honest man. At last, however, he made his way to the town of Grlitz, in Silesia {1717.}; and there he came into personal contact with two Pietist clergymen, Schfer and Schwedler. For the first time in his weary pilgrimage he met a pastor who was also a man. He fell ill of a dangerous disease; he could not stir hand or foot for twenty weeks; he was visited by Schwedler every day; and thus, through the gateway of human sympathy, he entered the kingdom of peace, and felt assured that all his sins were forgiven. He married a member of Schwedler's Church, was admitted to the Church himself, and thus found, in Pietist circles, that very spirit of fellowship and help which Zinzendorf himself regarded as the greatest need of the Church.

But now Christian David must show to others the treasure he had found for himself. For the next five years he made his home at Grlitz; but, every now and then, at the risk of his life, he would take a trip to Moravia, and there tell his old Protestant friends the story of his new-found joy. He preached in a homely style; he had a great command of Scriptural language; he was addressing men who for many years had conned their Bibles in secret; and thus his preaching was like unto oil on a smouldering fire, and stirred to vigorous life once more what had slumbered for a hundred years since the fatal Day of Blood. He tramped the valleys of Moravia; he was known as the Bush Preacher, and was talked of in every market-place; the shepherds sang old Brethren's hymns on the mountains; a new spirit breathed upon the old dead bones; and thus, through the message of this simple man, there began in Moravia a hot revival of Protestant zeal and hope. It was soon to lead to marvellous results.

For the last three hundred and forty years there had been established in the neighbourhood of Fulneck, in Moravia, a colony of Germans.70 They still spoke the German language; they lived in places bearing German names and bore German names themselves; they had used a German version of the Bible and a German edition of the Brethren's Hymns; and thus, when David's trumpet sounded, they were able to quit their long-loved homes and settle down in comfort on German soil. At Kunewalde71 dwelt the Schneiders and Nitschmanns; at Zauchtenthal the Stachs and Zeisbergers; at Sehlen the Jaeschkes and Neissers; and at Senftleben, David's old home, the Grassmanns. For such men there was now no peace in their ancient home. Some were imprisoned; some were loaded with chains; some were yoked to the plough and made to work like horses; and some had to stand in wells of water until nearly frozen to death. And yet the star of hope still shone upon them. As the grand old patriarch, George Jaeschke, saw the angel of death draw near, he gathered his son and grandsons round his bed, and spoke in thrilling, prophetic words of the remnant that should yet be saved.

"It is true," said he, "that our liberties are gone, and that our descendants are giving way to a worldly spirit, so that the Papacy is devouring them. It may seem as though the final end of the Brethren's Church had come. But, my beloved children, you will see a great deliverance. The remnant will be saved. How, I cannot say; but something tells me that an exodus will take place; and that a refuge will be offered in a country and on a spot where you will be able, without fear, to serve the Lord according to His holy Word."

The time of deliverance had come. As Christian David heard of the sufferings which these men had now to endure, his blood boiled with anger. He resolved to go to their rescue. The path lay open. He had made many friends in Saxony. His friend Schfer introduced him to Rothe; Rothe introduced him to Zinzendorf; and Christian David asked the Count for permission to bring some persecuted Protestants from Moravia to find a refuge in Berthelsdorf. The conversation was momentous. The heart of the Count was touched. If these men, said he, were genuine martyrs, he would do his best to help them; and he promised David that if they came he would find them a place of abode. The joyful carpenter returned to Moravia, and told the news to the Neisser family at Sehlen. "This," said they, "is God's doing; this is a call from the Lord."

And so, at ten o'clock one night, there met at the house of Jacob Neisser, in Sehlen, a small band of emigrants {May 27th, 1722.}. At the head of the band was Christian David; and the rest of the little group consisted of Augustin and Jacob Neisser, their wives and children, Martha Neisser, and Michael Jaeschke, a cousin of the family.72 We know but little about these humble folk; and we cannot be sure that they were all descendants of the old Church of the Brethren. Across the mountains they came, by winding and unknown paths. For the sake of their faith they left their goods and chattels behind; long and weary was the march; and at length, worn out and footsore, they arrived, with Christian David at their head, at Zinzendorf's estate at Berthelsdorf {June 8th, 1722.}.

The streams had met: the new river was formed; and thus the course of Renewed Brethren's History had begun.



CHAPTER III.

THE FOUNDING OF HERRNHUT, 1722-1727.

As these wanderers from a foreign land had not been able to bring in their pockets certificates of orthodoxy, and might, after all, be dangerous heretics, it occurred to Zinzendorf's canny steward, Heitz, that on the whole it would be more fitting if they settled, not in the village itself, but at a safe and convenient distance. The Count was away; the steward was in charge; and the orthodox parish must not be exposed to infection. As the Neissers, further, were cutlers by trade, there was no need for them in the quiet village. If they wished to earn an honest living they could do it better upon the broad high road.