by the agitations on account of it, and by the fact that on this account
many thousands in many lands have been killed and burnt. And this was
the article upon which the Reformers, with their gloriously begun work,
fell to pieces. Upon this article Luther renounced his friendship to
Schwenkfeld, and they publicly differed.[160]
Schwenkfeld thought that when they came out from the papacy they should
preach the gospel in its purity, instruct old and young in the catechism,
and earnestly pray until they could come to the right use of the
sacrament.... Whereby whole parishes, towns, and countries should not at
once be taken up, as if fit for the table of the Lord. But it should be
held with those who received the word, and in whom there were tokens of
amendment, whether these were only Caleb and Joshua. Schwenkfeld declared
that he had no command to establish the sacraments, but his command had
been to spread the gospel and point every man to Jesus Christ. “But we
are comforted that we are instructed by God and from the Holy Scripture
that our soul’s salvation is necessarily placed on no outward thing, but
that one thing is needful.” (Luke x.) “But we pray the Lord Jesus Christ
that he will reveal a right use of the sacraments, and himself establish
them. We strive, moreover, to hold his supper daily with the Lord Christ,
in the spirit of faith.” (Rev. iii.[161]) But though Schwenkfeld did not
feel called upon to establish the sacraments, there is nothing in the
catechism of the society opposed to the external rites.
The twelfth chapter of the Explanation, containing nearly eighty pages,
is devoted to Schwenkfeld’s peculiar doctrine, of which I shall content
myself with the heading of the chapter, as follows: “Of the divine
Sonship and glory of the Manhood of Jesus Christ, that the same is no
creature, but extinguished in the Transfiguration, and changed into the
Godhead.”
To one passage in the Catechism I would like to call attention:
_Question._—How did God reveal himself in an external manner?
_Answer._—First, when God, by his almighty word, framed the universe, by
which he has shown how great, almighty, wise, and good he is.[162]
And now may we not also rest our souls upon these expressions from the
constitution of the Schwenkfelder society, translated almost literally?
In the nature of God, we first perceive love as that noble and outflowing
power which binds God and men together.... If the society build upon
this fundamental part of the divine nature, namely, love, then their only
immovable aim will be, first, the glory of God, and second, the promotion
of the common weal of every member.
* * * * *
The preceding article is published nearly as it appeared in the second
edition of this work, which was issued late in 1873, with the date 1874.
Almost as soon as the edition appeared, I learned that baptism had been
introduced among the Schwenkfelders at a meeting held a few months
before; and that perhaps in two cases it had also been administered at
the approach of death.
In the spring of the present year, 1882, I visited a Schwenkfelder
settlement in the upper part of Montgomery County, and was hospitably
entertained at the house of one of their preachers. German or the
Pennsylvania dialect was the language of the family. On Sunday I attended
church, where, as before in another locality, the services were in
German, as were nearly all the proceedings in the Sunday-school. Here I
learned that the rite of the Supper has also been introduced among the
Schwenkfelders, though not without opposition. I inquired on what grounds
the opposition was brought, but received no satisfactory reply.
* * * * *
At the house of my entertainer I was shown a volume, published in 1879,
containing a genealogical record of the descendants of the Schwenkfelders
in this country, to which is prefixed a historical sketch by C. Heydrick,
a lawyer of Franklin, Pennsylvania.
Herein it is stated that Schwenkfeld differed with Luther on several
points; chiefly on the eucharist, the efficacy of the divine word, the
human nature of Christ, and baptism.
Schwenkfeld held, says the writer, that the penitent believer partakes of
the bread and the body of the Lord, not only at the sacramental altar,
but elsewhere.
On the second point Schwenkfeld denied that the external word in the
Scriptures has the power of healing and renewing the mind, but ascribed
this power to the internal word, Christ himself. He regretted that
Luther, who at first agreed with him, saw fit afterward to ascribe to
the written or preached word the efficacy which is only in Christ, the
eternal word.
Further, Schwenkfeld rejected infant baptism, and held that baptism and
the Supper were not intended as means by which the unregenerate partaker
can obtain salvation.
* * * * *
Two other volumes on these subjects have very lately come within my
notice. One in German, by a pastor named Kadelbach, published about
1860, at Lauban, which is within forty miles of the city of Liegnitz,
where Schwenkfeld was canon in a church. As early as 1846, in composing
a history of the village of Probsthayn (where some of the Schwenkfelders
formerly lived), he added to it some material concerning these people.
As this subject attracted attention, he endeavored to obtain material
for a history of them, in which matter he met with much difficulty.
It came to pass, however, that the Schwenkfelders in America sent an
inquiry to the burgomaster of Probsthayn, asking whether there were
still Schwenkfelder communities (_Gemeinden_) there. This inquiry came,
in 1855, into the hands of Kadelbach, who was very glad to communicate
with the Schwenkfelders in America, as he had never before been able to
do. His volume is called “Complete History of Kaspar von Schwenkfeld and
of the Schwenkfelders in Silesia, Upper Lusatia, and America.”[163] A
copy has been placed in the archives of the German Society’s library in
Philadelphia.
We may inter that the attention of the author was attracted to his
subject by certain local objects or remains. He tells us that the
Catholic chapel at Harpersdorf, and the graves on the cow-path
(_viehweg_), are the last memorials that testify of the existence there,
and of the persecution of the Schwenkfelders. The Catholic chapel was
built for one of the missionaries who was striving to convert them. As to
the graves on the cow-paths, the statement has before been quoted (in a
note on page 222), that three hundred persons lay upon the cow-paths at
Harpersdorf and Langenneudorff (or Langendorff).
The other volume in which the Schwenkfelders are especially noticed is
Barclay’s Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth.
London, 1876. Barclay finds that on several points the teaching of
Schwenkfeld was identical with that of George Fox, the first Quaker.
Barclay gives a passage from Schwenkfeld, in which he says that the true
knowledge of Christ, that which is according to the Holy Ghost must be
expected, not alone out of the Scriptures, but much more from the gifts
of grace revealed by the Father, yet so that this revelation should
always be in unison with the witness of the Scriptures.[164]
Struck with the similarity between the Schwenkfelders and Quakers,
Barclay appears to have written to the former, and to have received an
answer, from which the following passages are taken:
To Robert Barclay, England:
... “Judging from the brief notices of the teachings of George
Fox in our possession, we have reason to believe that they did
not differ materially from those of Schwenkfeld, and among
the followers of both, here in America, there is a striking
similarity in the almost total absence of formalities and
ceremonies in their religious practices. Both are discarding
judicial oaths, carnal weapons, and are unostentatious in dress.
“Notwithstanding the fact that the Friends are of English
descent, having their books, worship, and conversation in the
English language, and the followers of Schwenkfeld here all
of it in German, yet there always existed a lively sympathy,
love, and esteem between the parties.... It is, however, proper
to mention the fact that neither in Europe nor here have the
followers of Schwenkfeld at any time administered baptism and
the Lord’s Supper.[165]
“Owing to the persecutions which prevailed from 1630 to 1640,
the religious practices of our ancestors in Germany about that
period were chiefly confined to meeting in private houses for
prayer and admonition, and in endeavors in the daily work of
life to imitate as much as possible the example of the heavenly
Master.
“In the love of Christ, sincerely your friends,
“GEORGE MESCHTER.
“WILLIAM SCHULTZ.
“JACOB MESCHTER.
“Per DAN. S. SHULTZ.
“December 17th, 1875. COLEBROOKDALE, PENNA.”
A FRIEND.
About twenty miles from the line that divides Maryland and Pennsylvania,
there stands, in the latter State, a retired farm-house, which was
erected more than fifty years ago by Samuel Wilson, a Quaker of Quakers.
His was a character so rare in its quaintness and its nobility, that it
might serve as a theme for a pen more practised and more skilful than the
one that now essays to portray it.
Samuel Wilson was by nature romantic. When comparatively young, he made
a pedestrian tour to the Falls of Niagara, stopping upon his return
journey, and hiring with a farmer to recruit his exhausted funds;
and when he had passed his grand climacteric, the enthusiasm of his
friendship for the young, fair, and virtuous, still showed the poetic
side of his character.
Veneration induced him to cherish the relics of his ancestry,—not
only the genealogical tree, which traced the Wilsons back to the time
of William Penn, and the marriage certificates of his father and
grandfather, according to the regular order of the Society of Friends;
but such more humble and familiar heirlooms as the tall eight-day clock,
and the high bookcase upon a desk and chest of drawers, that had been
his father’s, as well as the strong kitchen-chairs and extremely heavy
fire-irons of his grandfather.
To this day there stands beside the Wilson farm-house a stone taken
from one of the buildings erected by Samuel’s father, and preserved as
an heirloom. Upon it the great-grandchildren read nearly the following
inscription:
“James Wilson, ejus manus scripsit. [His hand wrote.] Deborah Wilson, 5
mo. 23d, 1757.”
Samuel Wilson, having been trained from his earliest years to that
plainness of speech in which the Discipline requires that Friends bring
up those under their care, not only discarded in speaking the simple
titles in use in common conversation, but did not himself desire to be
addressed as Mr. Wilson.
A colored woman, the wife of one of his tenants, said that he refused to
answer her when she thus spoke to him.
A pleasant euphemism was generally employed by these people in addressing
him. He and his wife were “Uncle Samuel” and “Aunt Anna” to their
numerous dependents.
The apparel of Samuel and Anna was of the strict pattern of their
own religious sect. To employ a figure of speech, it was the
“wedding-garment,” without which, at that time and place, they would not
have become elders in their society, and thus been entitled to sit with
ministers, etc., upon the rising seats that faced the rest of the meeting.
But the plainness of Uncle Samuel was not limited to the fashion of his
own garments. When Aunt Anna had made for her son a suit of domestic
cloth, dyed brown with the hulls of the black walnut, and had arrayed
him in his new clothes, of which the trousers were made roomy behind,—or,
as the humorist says, “baggy in the reverse,”—she looked upon him with
maternal pride and fondness, and exclaimed, “There’s my son!”
For this ejaculation she was not only reproved at the time by her
husband, but in after-years, whenever he heard her, as he thought, thus
fostering in the mind of their dear and only child pride in external
appearance, he repeated the expression, “There’s my son!” which saying
conveyed a volume of reproof.
From this and other circumstances of the kind, it may be supposed that
Friend Wilson was a cold or bitter ascetic. But he possessed a vein of
humor, and could be gently and pleasantly rallied when he seemed to run
into extremes. But, though his intellect was good, the moral sentiments
predominated in his character. His head was lofty and arched. His wants
were very few; he possessed an ample competence, and he had no ambition
to enter upon the fatiguing chase after riches. He disliked acquisitive
men as much as the latter despised him. “I want so little for myself,” he
said, “I think that I might be allowed to give something away.”
Sometimes—but rarely—a little abruptness was seen in his behavior. He had
the manners of a gentleman by birth,—tender and true, open to melting
charity, thinking humbly of himself, and respecting others.
The vein of humor to which I have alluded prompted the reply which he
made on a certain occasion to a mechanic or laboring man employed in his
own family. In this section of Lancaster County the farming population is
composed principally of a laborious and in some respects a humble-minded
people, who sit at table and eat with their hired people of both sexes.
The same custom was pursued by Samuel and Anna; but, as their hired
people were mostly colored, they sometimes offended the prejudices or
tastes of many who were not accustomed to this equality of treatment,
which was maintained by several families of Friends. The white hired
man to whom I have alluded, when he perceived who were seated at the
table, hesitated or refused to sit down among them. As soon as Samuel
was conscious of the difficulty, for which indeed his mind was not
unprepared, he thus spoke aloud to his wife: “Anna, will thee set a plate
at that other table for this stranger? He does not want to sit down with
us.” And his request was quietly obeyed. The man who was thus set apart
probably became tired of this peculiar seclusion, for he did not stay
long at the Quaker homestead.
I think that Samuel was also in a humorous mood when he called that
unpretending instrument, the accordion,—from which his daughter-in-law
was striving one evening to draw forth musical sounds,—“Mary’s fiddle.”
But, indeed, he left the house and went to call upon a neighbor, so
greatly did he partake of that prejudice which was felt by most Friends
against music.
The Discipline asks whether Friends are punctual to their promises; and
(to quote a very different work) Fielding tells us that Squire Allworthy
was not only careful to keep his greater engagements, but remembered also
his promises to visit his friends.
Anna Wilson on one occasion having thoughtlessly made such a promise,—as,
indeed, those in society frequently do when their friends say, “Come and
see us,”—was often reminded of it in after-years by her husband. When
he heard her lightly accepting such invitations, he would reprove her
by saying in private, “When is thee going to see Benjamin Smith?”—the
neighbor to whom the ancient promise was still unfulfilled.
The hospitality which the Scriptures enjoin was practised to a remarkable
degree by Samuel and Anna. It has always been customary in their
religious society to entertain Friends who come from a distance to
attend meetings, and those travelling as preachers, etc. But the Wilson
homestead was a place of rest and entertainment for many more than these.
It stood not far from the great highway laid out by William Penn from
Philadelphia westward, and here called the “Old Road.” Friends travelling
westward in their own conveyance would stop and refresh themselves and
their horses at the hospitable mansion, and would further say to their
own friends, “Thee’d better stop at Samuel Wilson’s. Tell him I told thee
to stop.” A further and greater extent of hospitality I shall mention
hereafter.
The Discipline asks whether Friends are careful to keep those under
their charge from pernicious books and from the corrupt conversation of
the world; and I have heard that Samuel Wilson was grieved when his son
began to go to the post-office and take out newspapers. Hitherto the
principal periodical that came to the house was _The Genius of Universal
Emancipation_, a little paper issued by that pioneer, Benjamin Lundy,
who was born and reared in the Society of Friends. It does not appear,
however, that the class of publications brought from the little village
post-office to the retired farm-house were of the class usually called
pernicious. They were _The Liberator_, _The Emancipator_, and others of
the same order.
Samuel himself became interested in them, but never to the exclusion of
the “Friends’ Miscellany,” a little set of volumes containing religious
anecdotes of Friends. These volumes were by him highly prized and
frequently read.
It has been said that he was a humorist; and perhaps he was partly
jesting when he suggested that his infant granddaughter should be named
Tabitha. The mother of the little one, on her part, suggested Helen.
“He-len!” the grandfather broke out in reply; “does thee know who _she_
was?” thus expressing his antipathy to the character of the notorious
beauty of Greece. He did not insist, however, on endowing the precious
newly-born infant with that peculiar name which is by interpretation
Dorcas, the name of her who, in apostolic times, was full of good works
and alms-deeds.
Friend Wilson shared the Quaker disregard for the great holidays of the
church. To the colored people around him, who had been brought up at the
South, where Christmas is so great a festival,—where it was so great a
holiday for them especially,—it must have been a sombre change to live in
a family where the day passed nearly like other working-days. One of the
colored men, however, who had started at the time of the great festival
to _take Christmas_, was seen, before long, coming back; “for,” said he,
“Massa Wilson don’t ’prove on’t nohow.”
Among the lesser peculiarities of Samuel Wilson was his objection to
having his picture taken,—an objection, however, which is felt to this
day by some strict people belonging to other religious societies, but
probably on somewhat different grounds.
One who warmly loved and greatly respected Friend Wilson took him once to
the rooms of an eminent daguerreotypist, hoping that while he engaged the
venerable man in looking at the objects around the room, the artist might
be able to catch a likeness. But Samuel suspected some artifice, and no
picture was taken. Some time after, however, the perseverance of his
friend was rewarded by obtaining an excellent oil-painting of the aged
man, from whom a reluctant consent to sit for his likeness had at length
been obtained. It was remarked, however, that the expression of the face
in the painting was sorrowful, as if the honorable man was grieved at
complying with a custom which he had long stigmatized as idolatrous,—as
idolatry of the perishing body.
Although at the time of the great division in the Society of Friends
Samuel Wilson had decidedly taken the part of Elias Hicks, yet was he
seldom or never heard to discuss those questions of dogmatic theology
which some have thought were involved in that contest.
Samuel probably held, with many others of his Society, that the highest
and surest guide which man possesses here is that Light which has been
said to illumine every man that comes into the world; that next in
importance is a rightly inspired gospel ministry, and afterward the
Scriptures of truth. One evening, when certain mechanics in his employ
were resting from their labors in the old-fashioned kitchen, he fell
into conversation with them on matters of religion, and shocked one of
his family, as he entered the sitting-room, by a sudden declaration of
opinion. It was probably the uncommon warmth of his manner which produced
this effect, quite as much as or more than the words that he spoke,
which were nearly as follows: “There’s no use talking about it; the only
religion in the world that’s worth anything is what makes men do what is
right and leave off doing what is wrong.”
As far as was possible for one with so much fearless independence of
thought and action, Samuel Wilson maintained the testimony of Friends
against war. Not only did he suffer his corn to be seized in the field
rather than voluntarily to pay the military taxes of the last war with
Great Britain, but he went to what may appear to some a laughable
extreme, in forbidding his young son’s going to the turnpike to see the
grand procession which was passing near their house, escorting General
Lafayette on his last visit to this country. He was not, however, alone
in this. I have heard of other decided Friends who declined to swell the
ovation to a man who was especially distinguished as a military hero. But
we shall see hereafter that Friend Wilson met with circumstances which
tried his non-resistant opinions further than they would bear.
The distinctive trait of his character, however,—that trait which made
him exceptional,—was his attachment to the people of color. It was in
entertaining fugitives from slavery that he showed the wide hospitality
already referred to; and in this active benevolence he was excelled by
few in our country. He inherited from his father this love of man; but I
have imagined that the hostility to slavery was made broad and deep in
his soul by removing, with the rest of his family, in his youth, from
Pennsylvania into Delaware, and seeing the bondage which was suffered by
colored people in the latter State contrasted with what he had seen in
the former. Be that as it may, no sooner was he a householder than his
door was ever open to those who were escaping from the South, coming by
stealth and in darkness, having travelled in the slave States from the
house of one free negro to another, and in Pennsylvania from Quaker to
Quaker, until in later times the hostility to slavery increased in our
community so far that others became agents of this underground railroad,
and other routes were opened.
When the Wilson family came down in the morning, they saw around them
these strange sable or yellow travellers (“strangers,” they were called
in the family), who, having arrived during the night, had been received
by some wakeful member of the household.
What feelings filled the hearts of the exiles! Alone, at times, having
left all that they had ever loved of persons or of places, fearful,
tired, foot-sore, throwing themselves upon the charity and the honor
of a man unknown to them save by name and the direction which they had
received to him, as one trustworthy.
Sometimes they came clothed in the undyed woollen cloth that showed so
plainly to one experienced in the matter, the region of its manufacture;
the heavy, strong cloth which had delighted the wearer’s heart when he
received the annual Christmas suit with which his master furnished him,
but which was now too peculiar and striking for him safely to wear. Women
and children came too, and sometimes in considerable numbers.
When they had eaten and partaken of the necessary repose, they would
communicate to Friend Wilson, in a secure situation, some particulars of
their former history, especially the names and residences of the masters
from whom they had escaped.
Some years after he had begun to entertain these strangers, Friend Wilson
commenced a written record of those who came to him, and whence and from
whom they had escaped. This list is estimated to have finally contained
between five and six hundred names.
The next care was to bestow new titles upon the fugitives, that they
might never be known by their former names to the pursuer and the
betrayer.