SONNLEIN COMETH TO MAN'S ESTATE
For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a
woman shall compass a man.
--Bible.
Many were the changes that came over our little community while my boy
was growing into a man!
It was not long after the Solitary had united themselves at Ephrata that
the Eckerlings conceived various enterprises whereby our cells should be
filled with what to so many weak mortals is as precious as honey to the
bees, namely, money.
In our early life our chief labor was the tilling of the soil, for which
we had by reason of our scanty means and our own peculiar views the most
primitive methods, so that we not only dragged the plow but even drew
our carts, and oft when we traveled we resembled a caravan of camels,
so heavily laden were we. I can still see when the plowing came to be
done the whole Brotherhood trooping around the hill of Zion. Under the
Eckerlings, however, we consented to the use of beasts of burden for our
heavy work; but in reparation of what many of us considered an unjust
use of these animals we treated them with exceeding kindness.
Our first industry under the Eckerlings was the building of a bakehouse,
which we used not only for our own modest requirements but even in the
interests of the poor settlers, no charge being made whatever for the
bread or the baking.
Another movement looking toward our enrichment was the planting of a
large orchard of over a thousand apple trees, as well as a row of fruit
trees entirely surrounding the Kloster grounds. The Eckerlings also
proposed to set out a vineyard on the hillside; but this met with such
determined opposition the project was abandoned, for we feared it might
lead to winebibbing among us, and this we could not have, as we
permitted the use of fermented liquors only when actually necessary as
physic.
Then came a small grist mill, the first to be put up in this region,
which we purchased shortly after the death of Brother Agonius. The mill
we entirely rebuilt in stone, increasing its capacity to three run, and
day after day for a number of years the splash, splash of the water
wheel and the rumbling murmur of the mill stones were sweet music in the
ears of the Eckerlings and their followers.
Soon after came a sawmill; and then what was, perhaps, more important to
us, the paper mill, whereby we made not only all the paper for the
printing of our various hymns and books and pamphlets, but also
furnished much of the paper that was used at this period throughout the
province, our Brother Christopher Sauer making frequent demands on us.
Within a few years an oil mill was put up, the stones of which were
unlike any others in America. This oil, like our paper, was not only
used in our printing, but was sent far and wide for the making of
printer's ink. There were looms for weaving linen and cloth, and a mill
where the homespun made in the community and by the neighbors was fulled
and prepared for use; and as there was no end to the money-making
projects of the Eckerlings, a tannery was erected, where both tanning
and tawing were carried on, in the meadow a short distance west of where
we later built the Brother House.
Then of necessity, as one evil deed ever requires its fellow, followed a
mill for grinding the oak and hemlock bark. This leather, by such as
were hostile to us, was called in derision "Jesuit leather," but the
nickname did not in the least injure the quality of the leather or
impair the demand for it, for--and I say it not boastfully--this
leather, like our paper and cloth and flour and other products, was all
of good, honest quality, and sought far and wide for its excellence.
The Brothers and Sisters thought more of how well they could do that
which they were called upon to do than how much they were to receive for
it. Thus they ennobled their work and gave dignity to their humble
labors, all of which honesty of work and affection for it was expressed
in the quality of the products; nothing slipshod, nothing half-finished
in haste was permitted; nothing could go forth from our hands unless it
was as sound and wholesome and perfect as our means and skill could make
it--and surely there is nothing more honorable in man than to serve his
Maker and his children by faithful, honest, affectionate toil.
To meet the demands of our various industries horses and wagons were
procured, so that three teams were almost constantly kept upon the road.
Agencies were established in Philadelphia and elsewhere for the purchase
and sale of our different products, and material, and my records show
that among such agents were well-to-do citizens of Philadelphia, as
Johannus Wüster and Christopher Marshall, the former being the same
gentleman who in later years honored us by plucking from our little
garden one of the most beautiful of the Roses of Saron, our dear Sister
Anastasia.
But as we had a printing press we must needs have a book bindery, and in
a short time we had the largest and best-equipped bindery in the
colonies, and I must say in justice to the Eckerlings, that however I
disagreed with them in many of their various enterprises, I always felt
we owed them much for establishing the printing press and the bindery,
for man without books is as a plant without light.
Even the Sisters were not forgotten, for in addition to the domestic
duties that ever so fitly fall to the lot of woman, they were constantly
engaged in spinning, besides assisting in the lighter work of the
fields. Many of the Sisters acquired great skill in embroidery and in
calligraphy; and hundreds of our hymns, composed by our superintendent,
the Sisters, and the Brethren, were written in the beautiful style of
the Sisterhood, so that even now after the lapse of almost half a
century since our sisters--many of them now resting in their narrow
graves along the roadside--placed their love and devotion for their
Master in their humble tasks. We greatly prize our hymn books--the notes
and letters and graceful decorations coming from our sisters' hands
shining forth still in all the clearness and purity of their first
writing.
In this wise matters went on until our Eckerlings almost proved our
undoing, for it gradually became noised about that we were nothing more
than merchants, tradespeople using our kloster life as a cloak to give
us the appearance of honest, devout people, caring naught for gain; and
there was much truth in what our printer at Germantown published, that
in a short time the ringing and clinking, tinkling, clanking, and
dangling at Zion, Ephrata, Kedar, Peniel, and Saron would equal Rome,
Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Babylon.
The only remedy for this show and excessive love of money lay in the
removal of the Eckerlings. This all the rest of the Solitary who loved a
simple life knew must come sooner or later, and yet they dreaded the
coming. Wherefore they groaned heavily in spirit under the bondage of
the Eckerlings for seven long years. Then, and I have not space to
relate how all this came about, were the Eckerlings dethroned, and their
lording it over us brought to a certain end.
On a bright day in August the Solitary Brethren arranged in a circle
about a heap of burning brush fed by most willing hands, we consigned to
the glowing embers all the books and writings of Onesimus, among them
being his polemic against the Moravians; and three days later the
Sisterhood of Saron repeated a similar ceremony, upon which occasion two
of his German broadsides and a pillar against the Moravians as well as
his hymns were consumed by the fire. And to make sure naught of
contamination remained with us, on the sixth day the brethren of the
Secular Congregation gathered all the writings and mementos of Onesimus
and committed them also to the flames.
[Illustration: "We consigned to the glowing embers all the books
and writings of Onesimus." Page 198.]
Not many weeks later the prior and his brother, Jephune, with Timotheus
and several other followers, fled about four hundred miles toward the
setting of the sun, until beyond all Christian government they reached a
stream which runs toward the Mississippi, New River by name, where they
were joined soon after by the rest of the Eckerlings.
With their exit an immediate change took place. The mills were
immediately closed, and word sent abroad that all our agreements were
cancelled--only we would fulfill our standing orders--but that hereafter
no grain or seed or logs or rags would be purchased by us, excepting
such as would be absolutely necessary for our own use. Our horses and
wagons and oxen were sold, and the different helpers who were not of our
belief discharged, for we were determined that, as we had come here to
serve God and not Mammon, God we would serve. But in spite of our
resolution such was the excellence of the flour and the wheat and the
oil, and the quality of the paper and cardboard we had made, that for
many years demands were made upon us repeatedly; but I rejoice to say no
effort was made in all the long after years again to reinstate these
things for anything except our own uses, and when two years later three
of our mills were lost by fire, which certain malicious ones attributed
to our superintendent, and which could not be extinguished either by our
wooden fire charms or our incantations, not one of us greatly regretted
the event, so far as the loss of the mills themselves were concerned,
only that we felt the loss of the large stores of wheat and other grain.
Thus as Brother Lamech hath well said, "Did the fire, with God's
permission, make an end to all the mammon which the Eckerlings, by their
flaying, scraping, miserly conduct had gathered in the former
household."
And now I feel I must turn again to my Sonnlein, who by this time was a
sturdy boy of about thirteen, and that it may be known from his actions,
instead of my great love for him what manner of boy he was, I shall tell
of his first fight, that is, the first one I knew of; and this I can say
of him, even though he was not a perfect example of the doctrine of
non-resistance, he cared naught for fighting, but suffered in silence
many a taunt and vile insult that made the blood rush to his cheeks; for
not only did the neighbors' children--learning this from their
idle-tongued parents--call him a "nobody's child"--for as he grew older
he soon found there were ever ready ones to poison his happiness by
telling him of his unknown parentage--but the elders themselves oft
nicknamed him "Brother Jabez' chicken," for that he was always under my
wing.
But one hot day in summer--and I take an unholy pleasure in writing
this--Sonnlein and a lot of other boys and girls, were paddling
bare-legged in the cool waters of the Cocalico, nigh the turnpike ford,
filling the air with their thoughtless shrieks and laughter, so that the
quiet-loving Brothers and Sisters were sorely tried in patience.
Suddenly the harmless shrieks and laughter rose into a tremendous
uproar, and so unusual was this tumult to mine ears I started hurriedly
for the ford, fearing some awful calamity had befallen the children. As
I came nigh I saw a lot of boys of all ages and sizes--so I wondered
where they all came from--gathered in a struggling, yelling mass in the
meadow along the creek, a fringe of frightened, white-faced little girls
in the background--each boy, large and small, with might and main
pressing forward toward the center of the howling little maniacs as if
something of great moment were proceeding there. And indeed there was,
for I was almost on them before they saw me or heard me call out
sternly, "What meaneth all this noise?" When they did hear me and see my
form hanging over them like some great thunder cloud they fled quickly,
only that some from a distance in derision of my tonsure cried out at
me, "_Alter_ _Blatkopf_" (old baldhead), so that like Elisha I wished
the bears to eat them up.
All but two had fled, and they were rolling about in the grass, now one
on top and then the other, then to their feet, striking, clawing, and
scratching like nothing so much as two angry cats; but suddenly the
smaller but more active one, who seemed to me strangely like Sonnlein,
delivered a marvelously directed blow full upon the upturned nose of the
other, bringing forth a goodly stream of rich, red blood, whereupon the
bleeding one put across the meadows, his hand to his face, bawling at
the top of his lungs, the victorious gladiator following a short
distance and crying after the vanquished, "Dost want some more of
'Brother Jabez' chicken'?" and then horrors upon horrors, I saw through
all the mud and dirt and disordered hair, and the fierce, distorted
features, 'twas my boy Sonnlein!
He saw me about the same time, and then the angry face fell into one of
shame as I called to him, "Come hither!" He came obediently enough,
saying nothing; but the wild passion of conflict could not die out at
once, and as he stood there, digging his toes into the earth and casting
sullen, rebellious glances at me, such as I had never received from him,
and sorely they wounded me, he blurted out, "He began 't."
"Have I not often told thee," I demanded, as much in sorrow as in
anger, "thou must not fight? Would couldst see thyself now to know how
much like the beasts we become when we stoop to fight and tear each
other asunder."
Still he said, but less defiantly, "He began 't, I tell thee."
"Art thou not sorry for breaking his nose?" I asked.
"Nay, he began 't; I had to fight. He hath been calling me names and
trying to stir up a quarrel. Now he hath what he looked for."
"Couldst thou not have left him? Thou hast legs to carry thee," I
reminded him.
But he only replied more firmly, "I'm glad I beat him, and that right
well. He will trouble me no more."
And then as I took him by the hand and we were about to go to our cells
I noticed within a few steps one of the little girls who had formed part
of the frightened group in the background. She seemed about my boy's
age, perhaps a trifle younger, with such deep blue eyes and long yellow
hair, I thought of our Sister Bernice, only that our poor sister was
never so rosy-cheeked and strong looking as this pretty little maid
standing timidly nigh, and finally bursting into a plaintive appeal,
"Don't whip him, Brother Jabez, it was Johann's own fault." Johann I
suppose being the name of the still fleeing one.
"And why should I not punish Sonnlein for fighting, my little sister?" I
asked gently.
"Because," she replied falteringly, and I could see her face was red as
fire.
"'Because' may be reason sufficient for little girls, but not for big
men," I replied still gently.
"Johann called him names," she rejoined.
"But surely hard names break no bones. If we fought whenever we heard
ill of ourselves we should have little time for else than fighting. Now
tell me truly why did they fight?"
And then I felt Sonnlein tugging at my hand and looking up at me more
shamefaced than ever as he cried out, "Let us go, _Vaterchen_, I told
thee why we fought," all the while frowning at our little sister as
though warning her not to say anything.
I am not overly inquisitive, but now I was resolved to know all, so I
said to her sternly, "My little sister, tell me the truth," and then
more tenderly I said, "thou knowest Brother Jabez would not hurt thee or
Sonnlein--not overmuch." Upon which great assurance she spake up as
bravely as she could between the sobs that would not keep back, "Johann
said I must be his wife when I was grown up, and Sonnlein said I was to
be his wife, and--and--I--I--said so too."
"Well, what then?" I asked between stern surprise and tenderness as she
wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Why, then we will keep house together," she replied innocently.
"I meant not what ye were going to do. I meant what did Johann do after
thou didst promise thyself to Sonnlein?"
"Why Johann called Sonnlein bad names and struck me in the face and
Sonnlein hit him." And then she said with such proud defiance I was
greatly shocked, "Sonnlein licked him."
"And so ye two are to be man and wife when ye are grown up? What is thy
name?" I asked turning to the little shrew.
"Mary."
"Well," and I spake out strongly, "let me not hear of this again, else
will I tell thy parents, Mary; and as for thee, Sonnlein, if I hear
aught of this man and wife wickedness again thou shalt have opportunity
to celebrate thy first whipping." Thus did I threaten in my unwisdom
these poor, innocent children.
"Ye do promise ye will never again speak to each other such nonsense?"
Whereat they both promised so willingly they would not that I greatly
doubted the promise would stand any great strain.
As Sonnlein and I turned back again to the Kloster, leaving Mary to find
her way home without the protection of her young knight, he looked up at
me innocently and asked as sweetly as though he had never known such
fierce feeling as fighting, "Wast never in love, _Vaterchen_?"
I was about to reply with unwonted crossness, "What is't to thee," but
just then I caught a glimpse of the mound, not more than a stone's throw
to our right, beneath which lay our Bernice, so I merely remained quiet
and answered not at all, only I could not help thinking that even
Ecclesiastes sayeth there is a time for love and a time for war, and
though Sonnlein was rather young for me to predict what his manhood
would be, it will be seen that my fond hopes were none of the brightest
for making him a gentle, peaceful celibate.