Otir Church Literature. ■ 0 OUR CHURCH LITERATURE A PAPER Read at the Fifth Synod of the Second District of THE MORAVIAN CHURCH, CONVENED AT YORK, PENN’A, May 7th to 9th, 1901,. BY The Rev. CHARLES NAGEL. YORK, PA., Gazette Print, 1901 . N Thursday, May 9th, 1901, Pa., it was unanimously Synod being in session at York, Resolved , That the Secretary of Synod be instructed to have 2,000 copies of the paper, “Our Church Literature,” by Bro. Charles Nagel, printed in pamphlet form, the expense of print¬ ing and mailing the same to be borne by the Synodal Expense Fund; and that he furthermore be instructed to mail copies of the same to the pastors of all our congregations in proportion to the number of families in each congregation. Attest: Leon G. Luckenbach, Secretary of Synod. 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2020 with funding from Columbia University Libraries https://archive.org/details/ourchurchliteratOOnage h “ OUR GHURGM LITERATURE.” I shall confine myself in this paper wholly to that portion of our Church Literature of which the most part was published in America and has its circulation here. Much of it lies almost forgotten on the shelves of our archives and historical societies and is known only to its official cnstodians or to a few others to whom the love of research in Ihistorical lore has opened the door of access to these venerable and valuable records. Prized as they are by men who are judges of such things, they do not, obviously, appeal to the general reader. Registers of membership, special religious experiences of certain individuals, controversial de¬ tail, diaries of the earlier congregations dating back to the colonial period, form dreary reading to any ex¬ cept the historian. But from this vast collection of reading matter, much of which is in manuscript form and not easily legible, besides written largely in the German language, there has been carefully culled and collated whatever was thought to be essential to an exact and broad knowledge of the Church’s history in all that pertains to its doctrine and institutions, its men and its times. Thus, while the past, in the literary forms in which it once found expression, is rapidly receding from our view, we have in our work¬ ing libraries today that which is still more valuable, because more practical and convenient, viz: a well- balanced compendium of all that the fathers wrote so 6 extensively. In this respect we have not been made to suffer any loss. The extent of literary activity which prevailed in the North American branch of the Moravian Church in the last century and a half, is astonishing. We wonder that those busy men found time to write so much. What faithful diarists they were ! Very little escaped the attention of their recording pen. That which in their communications we skip over lightly as irrelevant was accorded the same painstaking care as anything from their pens which is held in supreme regard today. Histories biogrophical, congregational and missionary, proceedings of Synods and Confer¬ ences, sermons, hymns and hymn books, catechisms, vocabularies and grammars of foreign tongues, tracts, official and personal publications followed each other in rapid succession from the beginning of the Church in the North American colonies in 1740 up to that latest and most excellent contribution to our liter¬ ature by Prof. J. Taylor Hamilton, in his “History of the Moravian Church,” 1900, and his “Moravian Mis¬ sions,” 1901. What a wealth of information all these productions contain ! How creative of loyalty to and understanding of the salient features of the church in its teaching and work they are 1 How they help us to catch the spirit of the Brethren and inspire us to fol¬ low in their footsteps! What dignity, what force these simple annals of the past reflect upon our cher¬ ished Unity in nearly every phase of its being and action, and how helpful they are in answering the questions: “who are the Moravians, and what are they, and why am I a Moravian?” And of this I am certain that there is no one who has ever given thought- 7 ful perusal to our literature, whether in whole or in part, throbbing as it is with the energy of the Divine Spirit, who has not been influenced, by means of that perusal, to a better knowledge of and more loving and enthusiastic fellowship with his Lord, to a clearer per¬ ception of the Saviour’s last command and promise : “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel, and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world,” and to a warmer love of the brethren ! But what is our church literature? I trust I shall not weary you by the enumeration of most of the works, and the authors of them, which together form the great bulk of church history, remote and near, in our possession today. Let us go back to what we may call the “Zinzendorfian Period,” dating from colonial times to about the time of the French and Indian War. During that period the literary activity of the church was at its zenith. After that there is very little worthy of record until we come to our more modern publications in about 1823. The very first American publication was a collection of hymns by Zinzendorf, entitled ‘ ‘ Hirten Lieder von Bethle¬ hem,” and printed by Lauer of Germantown, in 1742. A second edition of the same appeared in London, in 1754. The Count compiled this hymn book during his stay in America. In it occurs that allusion to Bethlehem, Palestine, as the spot whence salvation came to men, in the lines made very famous, by the way, through special mention during the recent Ses- qui-centennial celebration of the founding of Bethle¬ hem on the banks of the Lehigh. “Nicht aus Jerusalem, sondern Bethlehem, Aus dem kommt was mir frommet.” 8 Thus it was that our Bethlehem received its name. Probably the most interesting to Moravians and his¬ torians in general is a Catechism, compiled by John Bechtel, of Germantown, a licensed preacher among the Reformed in Pennsylvania, for use in the church. The full set of four well bound little volumes is iu the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The order in which they occur is, first, “Ein Kurzer Cate¬ chisms,” published in 1742, by Benjamin Franklin, who was on excellent terms with the Brethren and published many of their writings. The second is the translation into English of the former, published by Josiah Warner, of Philadelphia, in 1742. The third is a Swedish Edition of the same and intended for use among the Swedish Lutherans in Pennsylvania, en¬ titled “En Kort Catechismus 1 ” printed by Benjamin Franklin, in 1743, and the fourth, ‘‘Ein Kurzer Cate¬ chismus,” which was printed in Germany, in 1742, but of which the title page bears Franklin’s imprint. To that same period, the Zinzendorfian, belong the Journals of the undenominational Pennsylvania Synods, in seven parts, also printed by Franklin in 1742. Dur¬ ing the same year were published eighteen books and pamphlets for and against the Moravian Brethren, printed for their authors by that trio of typographers, Franklin, Bradford and Saur, and ten other books and pamphlets, also of a polemical character, in 1743 These publications arose out of that disturbed period from 1740-1743, when, in our own state, Zinzen- dorf, amid vigorous and perilous opposition, sought to bring about some kind of ^ecclesiastical union be¬ tween the shepherdless churches of the Lutheran and Reformed denominations and the many sectarians who 9 rail into every extreme of pseudo-religious license. Many of us hope that the work upon which Bro. F. F. Hagen is engaged, the translation of Count Zin- zendorf’s sermons, some twenty-seven of them, many of which were delivered during this period of storm and stress, may find its successful completion in a sufficient number of subscriptions. These sermons will form most interesting reading from a doctrinal and historic standpoint. Another favorite printer in those early days was Henry Miller. He was a noted publisher of Moravian literature. For example, he printed two thousand German spelling books for the incipient church in America. The following is a partial list of British and Ameri¬ can works and rescripts current here after the revolu- . tionary period of 1776. We need a literary revival on this side of the Atlantic to rescue from inevitable oblivion some, if not all the books about to be men¬ tioned. They are standard works, every one,.of them. Crantz’s “History of the Moravian Church,” a conspic¬ uous authority, London, 1780. La Trobe’s translation of Bishop G. H. Loskiel’s “History of Moravian Mis¬ sions” among the Indians of North America, London, 1794. La Trobe’s translation of Spangenberg’s “Life of Zinzendorf.” Spangenberg’s “Idea Fidei Fra- trum,” 1796. Crantz’s “History of Greenland,” 2vols. 1820. John Holmes’ “History of the United Brethren’s Church,” 2 vols., 1825 and his “History of Missions,” 1 vol., same year. Then, there are the helpful “Peri¬ odical Accounts,” quarterly, from 1790-1901. The “Budingsche Sammlung,” 3 vols., containing very valuable data relating to the early church. Bovets’ IO “The Banished Count” (Zinzendorf,) 1865. Lock- wood’s “Life of Boehler,” London, 1868. “Moravian Missions,” by A. C. Thompson, D. D. Every minis¬ ter of our American Church and every Sunday School library ought to possess this volume. Had Thompson been a Moravian he could not have entered more fully and devoutly into the history of whatever pertained to the men and missions of the church. That there is a great volume of literature, describing very circum¬ stantially, some phases of the church’s inner life and many of its customs in the past, such as the pedela- viurn, the use of the lot, etc., or some of its customs in the present, as the celebration of Easter at Bethle¬ hem, which, in the interest of exact truth, had better been left unwritten, goes without saying. Some novels, based upon entirely fictitious events or else upon half ascertained facts of our history, have ap¬ peared, which in point of literary or historic value, are not worth the paper on which they were printed. The unique character of some of our customs, many of which are now obsolete, furnished enticing literary material to certain minds of morbid tendency, and if the great Longfellow, in his “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem at the consecration of Pulaski’s Banner” did not escape the contagion, can we wonder that intellects of coarser fibre should be found floating like moths about our mystic flame and that all man¬ ner of strange and impossible things are being written about us, and can the writers of these things wonder why, afterward, when their fantasies have appeared in print, the Moravian public should recompense them for this supreme effort of their brains with a pityihg smile? II Let us now take up that portion of our Church Lit¬ erature which covers the period of our operations among the Indians of North America. Zinzendorf began his Gospel campaign among them in 1742. It flourished beyond all expectation. The literary prod¬ ucts of that interesting period were many. The first mention we make is B. A. Grube’s “Delaware Indian Hymn book,” printed at Friedensthal, in 1762. The little volume is in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In addition to this we have his “Harmony of the Gospels,” also in the Delawarean tongue and published at the same place and time as his hymn book. Both were used in the Indian mis¬ sions of Pennsylvania and Ohio until a quarter of a century later when Zeizberger’s new translations of the same books superseded Grube’s. The title of an¬ other work belonging.to those times is “An Essay of a Delaware Indian—English Spelling Book for the use of Christian Indians on the Muskingum River.” This pamphlet was published in Philadelphia in 1776, followed by a second edition in 1806. A “Collection of Hymns for the use of Christian Indians,” translated by Abraham Luckenbach, missionary among them, Philadelphia, 1803 and 1847. A “ History of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” translated by Zeisber- ger, New York, 1821. “Essay on the Onondaga Grammar,” by Zeisberger, and edited by J. W. Jordan, Philadelphia. A “Lenape—English Dictionary,” pub¬ lished by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1888. The world of letters owes an immense debt of gratitude to these early linguists and authors of the Moravian Church. For the evolution of our Hymnology and Liturgies 12 I would refer you to the very instructive Preface in the Hymn Book now in use. An interesting item of information lies in the fact that the first American Text Book was printed in German by John Brandmiller, in Friedensthal, near Nazareth, in 1767. The Text Book has been in con¬ secutive use since 1731. Its circulation has spread far beyond the roll of the Church. It is said that Prince Bismark read it daily. I was astonished to meet it at the breakfast table of a relative of mine, a Uutheran clergyman, in Stuttgart. Special efforts should be made to give this helpful mentor of the Spirit to, at least, every Moravian household. It would seem, sometimes, as if others prized distinctly Moravian privileges and helps more highly than we do ourselves. Passing by this subject, however, it is gratifying to see how literary lamps in the hands of others among God’s people are being lighted at our torch and made to diffuse knowledge concerning His kingdom in direc¬ tions which we could never reach. Thus the Presby¬ terian Sunday School Union has issued from its press quite a list of books bearing on Moravian history, and intended for youthful readers. I cannot give the authors, but the following are the titles of some of these publications: A “History of Moravian Mis¬ sions among the North American Indians,” “Tschoop, the Converted Indian,” “Anecdotes of Missionary Worthies of the Moravian Church,” “Sketches of Moravian Missions.” To the Presbyterian Board of Publications we are indebted for “The Moravian Indian Boy.” Some time ago I came across a brochure on Moravian Mis¬ sion History brought out by the Baptist Board of Pub- 13 lication. In excellent language and illustrations it dwelt on some • of the most prominent facts of our Mission work. Pulpits of all denominations exalt the Moravian standard of evangelization. It seems to me that the world is waiting, especially the child world in our families and Sunday Schools, for just such pub¬ lications as the kind alluded to above. We possess an unfathomable mine of facts, entertaining and edifying, in the lives and labors of our founders and missionar¬ ies which ought to be brought to the light of day, not in the “Little Missionary” or the “Periodical Ac¬ counts” alone, but in pamphlet form, as for example the late “Tannenreisser, ” or in book form, but put on the market at a reasonable cost. If the Church, by means of a comprehensive and popular literature were to become the world’s teacher with regard to things Moravian, the question “who are the Moravians?” would be less frequently put and would have to be less humiliatingly answered. Another form of our Church Literature, much of w T hich bears an ancient date, is that of our Magazines. We have to report the “United Brethren’s Missionary Intelligencer, a quarterly publication, from 1822- 1848. This was succeeded by another quarterly, the “Moravian Church Miscellany,” from 1850-1855. The “Brueder Blatt,” a monthly, from 1854-1861. The “Moravian” and the “Brueder Botschafter.” This Synod, I am sure, endorses the management of the latter and cordially unites in bidding God-speed to the newly appointed editor of the former. And now I come to publications of more recent date. First of all let me refer to the works of John Hecke- welder, our apostle, with David Zeisberger, to the 14 Indians. From his prolific pen we have the following: A “Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delawares and Mohicans,” Philadelphia, 1820. The “History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations.” This was brought out by the Phil¬ osophical Society of Philadelphia, in 1819, and dedi¬ cated to its President, Caspar Wistar. A second edition was published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1871, by W. C. Reichel. This last book brought the Indian Mission before the people more favorably than any other two books of the same nature, and did a great deal of good. “Names which the Lenni—Uenapeor Delaware Indians gave to rivers, streams, etc., in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia,” edited by W. C. Reichel, in 1872. The late W. C. Reichel is, par excellence, the his¬ torian of our day. His language is fluent and style classic. He gave to our literature some of its most distinguished contributions. I will give his w 7 orks in their chronological order, and all of them. “History of Nazareth Hall, ” 1855, 1869. “History of the Rise and Progress of the Bethlehem Female Seminary,” 1858. “Moravians in New York and Connecticut,” i860. “Memorials of the Moravian Church,” 1870. ‘ ‘ Wyalusing and Moravian Mission at Friedenshutten, ” 1871. “A Red Rose from the Old Time,” &c., 1872. “The Crowm Inn,” 1872. “The Old Sun Inn,” 1873. “A Register of Members of the Moravian Church from 1727-1754, in 1873. “Friedensthal and its stockaded Mill,” 1873. The literary productions of the late Bishop Kdmund de Schweinitz, S. T. D., an eminent authority on things Moravian and a distinguished author, are, in the i5 main, the following: The “Moravian Manual,” two editions, 1859 and 1869. “History of the Unitas Frat- rum,” 1885. The “Moravian Episcopate,” 1885. “Life and Times of David Zeisberger,” 1870. “Finan¬ cial History of the American Province,” 1887. The “Fathers of the American Moravian Church.” The following are some of the many contributions to our literature from the pen of Prof. A. Shultze, D. D. “Seliger Heimgang von Siebenzig Kindern Gottes aus der Brueder Kirche,” 1876. “David Zeisberger, der Apostel der Indianer,” 1878. The First Moravian “Text Book” Aarlig Dagbog,” 1888. “Die Missions- felder der Erneuerten Brueder Kirche,” 1890. The “Books of the Bible briefly analyzed,” 1889, fifth edi¬ tion. “Grammar and Vocabulary of the Eskimo Language of North Western Alaska,” 1891. The “History of the Apostles Peter and Paul in their own Words,” 1896. “A Chronological Table of Ancient and Modern History,” besides a number of Liturgies for our German Hymn books, Catechisms and Tracts setting forth the doctrine of the church. The works of Prof. J. Taylor Hamilton. The “His¬ tory of the Moravian Church,” 1900. The “History of Moravian Missions,” 1901. James Henry, formally years President of the Mora¬ vian Historical Society, contributed many sketches of early history, of which the most conspicuous is his “Moravian Life and Character,” 1859. Then, we have “Old Landmarks,” by F. F. Hagen, 1886. The “History of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia,” by Abraham Ritter, 1857. The “Publications of the Moravian Historical Society, 5 vols, 1859-1901, and the “Proceedings of the S. P. G.,” up to date. “Ma- i5 lin’s Catalogue of Moravian Books,” 1881. ‘‘Life of John Heckewelder,” by his relative, the late Edward Rondthaler, 1847. ‘‘Diary of David Zeisberger,” from 1781-1798, by Bliss, 2 vols., 1885. ‘‘Views of churches, schools and other buildings erected by the United Brethren in America,” by Bishop Samuel Reinke, 1836. Sylvester Wolle’s‘‘Souvenir.” This by no means exhausts the wealth of literary matter with which God has enriched our American Church. From the very imperfect resume just given we learn that the literary activity of the Brethren on this of the Atlantic, was prodigious and that at no time was there a period of literary decadence to any very palpable extent. Some chronicler of events has always stood upon the tower of observation and put down for posterity all that he saw. We may say,, however, that since 1848, the channels for popular in¬ formation on almost any department of the Unity’s work, say that of Foreign Missions, for it is by that that the great outlying world knows us best, have not been made to give forth the volume of matter which existing conditions in that field and the desire on the part of our people and others to know more about them, would seem to call for. With a growing work on our hands, with the old generation rapidly passing away and another coming in which requires to be in¬ structed in the things that the former knew so well and to be helped to love and to further the cause of Mora- vianism in the world, the cause for which the Fathers not only wrote but suffered and died, it seems to me that some adequate provision for the accomplishment of that object should now be made. We, the older brethren among the younger now growing up around 17 us, know much and have much to tell and admire about the church in its various lines of work, and not only we, but the Christian world at large recognizes and appreciates the wonders of heroic endurance of the apostolic men whose name we bear and the equally wonderful spread of the grace of God which an ever present Head and Saviour accorded to Moravian in¬ strumentality. Books on Moravian Missions are found on the shelves of most libraries having any re¬ ligious drift. But it is not the book, with all its wealth of information, that primarily must be depended upon to shed light and kindle love for our doctrine, our institutions and our aim. Books of church history are not in popular esteem. Nor is a book of history contemporaneous. It is limited to a certain period.. It can go no further. It has nothing to say of what comes afterward. What I am pleading for is that we shall in some popular and practical form , convey to the present generation such knowledge about ourselves as shall be new, fresh and progressive of whatever the Lord is enabling us to do for Him noiv. That there is an obstruction here from a commercial standpoint we know full well. Literature costs. And the ex¬ pense of many of our former publications was not defrayed by the church. Would it not be a step for¬ ward in the direction for which this paper pleads if we were to give gratuitous circulation, say, to one hundred copies of some specially instructive issue of the “Moravian,” and to as many copies of the pro¬ ceedings of the last session of the S. P. G., among pastors and representative men and women of our acquaintance in other churches, as well as among the many who still cherish the best of feeling to- 18 ward us through their former connection with our boarding and parochial schools? Here is a plan for the spread of a concurrent church literature which is simple, not costly, practical, and productive, I be¬ lieve, of just such results as we all desire to see achieved. Surely we have tidings to communicate to the world, and testimonies to the power of the grace of God, as the fathers had. We, too, have our heroes * and heroines in the faith. And the number of those w r ho are waiting to receive news from Moravian fields of enterprise for Christ and Humanity today is even greater than it was one hundred years ago. The call, therefore, is for methods which shall be in proportion to our ability, supplemented by an earnest effort, to perpetuate to the use of our children and to their chil¬ dren and to the world, that which is in our possession now of things both old and new, lest we forget the “rock whence we were hewn,” and lest one of the pillars of our temple, a vitalized and helpful literature, crumble away and entail irreparable loss to the entire structure. It j ' v • • r r - •* N