Appendix. — The Pennsylvania German Dialect
The “Pennsylvania Dutch,” which is spoken over a large portion of our own State, and is also heard in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, is not divided into dialects as are the languages of many European countries, but seems to be nearly homogeneous. The following specimen was taken from the lips of a working-woman born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, of German descent, but who learned most of her “Dutch” in the State of Maryland. She now lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. An English article was read to her; and with some little difficulty she turned it into the version given. This version was submitted to a learned gentleman born in the eastern part of this State, but now living in Lancaster, and he declared it to be a good specimen of Pennsylvania German. I have abbreviated it, and give the English first, so that the difficulty may be observed which the translator found in the version.
“At Millville, New Jersey, about noon, while everybody in town was going to dinner, a deer came dashing down through the main street, and right behind it followed a dozen dogs, barking the loudest they knew how. Every dog on the line of the chase joined in, so that when the edge of the town was reached there were nearly fifty dogs after the deer. One solitary horseman caught on to the procession before it left town, and he was soon followed by a score of others, and inside of half an hour there were only women and factory hands left in the town. The deer got into the woods and escaped. A hound, which a merchant sent to Philadelphia for on Thursday, brought the deer to bay, and the merchant’s son fired the fatal shot.”
“An Millville, New Jersey, about Mitdog, wie all die Leit in der Stadt zu Mittag gange sin, en Hayrsch is darrich die main Schtross schprunge, und recht hinne noch ein dutzet Hund noch schprunge, und hen so laut gejolt als sie hen könne. All die Hund in der Schtadt sind oof die Geschpoor und sin noch; so wie sie an die End von der Schtadt sin der ware about fufzig Hund am Hayrsch noch. Ein ehnzige Reiter ist noch eh sie aus der Schtadt kumme sind und es ware gly zwanzig meh, und in weniger als en Halb-stund da war Niemand meh in der Schtadt als Wipesleit und die factory Hendt. Der Hayrsch ist in der Busch kumme und sie hen ihn verlore. En Houns voo ein Merchant in Philadelphia geschickt hat dafore, hat den Hayrsch schtill schteh mache; und der Merchant sei Sohn hat ihn dote schosse.”
But although the Pennsylvania German is not divided into the great number of dialects or varieties found in Europe (I hear that there are about fifty in little Switzerland), yet there are differences here in the spoken dialect. While visiting at the house of a gentleman born in Lehigh County, but living in Lebanon, the following were pointed out to me. In Lehigh a lantern is a lutzer; in Lebanon, lattern. In the former the word for orchard is boongart; in the latter, bomegarte. Meadow is Schwamm in the former, and Viss in the latter. The adverb orrick (arg) is very much used in Pennsylvania German; but a clergyman coming to live in Lebanon County was reproved by some of his plain friends for its use. Perhaps it is nearly synonymous with our darned,—“That’s darned cheap.” Der Arge in the Bible is the evil one.
Mr. Weiser, of the Reformed Church, finds differences in adjoining counties. Thus, in Berks a set of bars in a fence is en Falder; in Montgomery, E’fahrt (or a place to drive through). In Lehigh they say of a drunken man, “Er hat e Kischt ah” (he carries a chest); but this is not heard in the near parts of Montgomery. Tomatoes are sometimes, I think, called Goomeranze in Allentown, and in Bucks County Boomeranze (from Pomeranze, an orange); but this is not heard in Lancaster County.
A learned German in Philadelphia says that several different dialects have flowed like streams into Pennsylvania,—one the Palatinate, another the Suabian, a third Allemanian, a fourth Swiss; and Prof. Dubbs, of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, but born in Allentown, finds in the region with which he is familiar, east of the Susquehanna, three plainly marked sub-dialects. The one east of the Schuylkill is marked by the diminutive chen in the place of lein. In that district a little pig is called Säuche, and west of the Schuylkill Säulie (for Säulein). A third sub-dialect, he says, is peculiar to some of the sects of Lancaster County. It is probably of Swiss origin, and is marked by a broad drawl. (The late Prof. Haldeman remarked that in our dialect the perfect is used for the imperfect tense, as in Swiss; so that for “ich sagte” (I said) we have “ich hab ksaat” (gesagt), and for “ich hatte” (I had) we have “ich hab kat” (gehabt)).
(The following excellent remarks on the Pennsylvania dialect are taken from an article in the Mercersburg Review by Prof. Stahr, now also of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster. I have made some trifling alterations, mostly in parenthesis.)
“It is of course impossible in our present limits to specify all the peculiarities of Pennsylvania German, so as to give an adequate idea of its form to those who are not familiar with it. We may, however, state a few general principles, which will enable any one conversant with High German to read and understand the dialect without difficulty. In the first place it must be borne in mind that the letters have the South German sound: a has the broad sound like the English aw; st and sp whenever they occur sound broad, like scht and schp, etc. Secondly, letters are commuted or changed. Instead of the proper sound of the modified vowel or Umlaut ō, we find the sound of the German ē or the English ā, and instead of ü we find ie or i, equivalent to the English i in machine, or the same shortened as in pin. Instead of the proper sound of eu, we have the German ei or the English ī. Instead of au, particularly when it undergoes modification in inflections, we have broad a or aa in the unmodified, and ä or āā in the modified, form. Thus we have Baam for Baum, and Bääm’ for Baüme; laafe’ for laufen, and laaft or lääft for laüft. The diphthong ei is often changed into long e or ee. Thus for Stein we have Stee’ (pronounced Shtay), for Bein, Bee’, for Eid we have Eed, for Leid, Leed. A is often changed into o, as Johr for Jahr, Hoor for Haar; i is changed into e, as werd for wird (Es wird Schlimm is spoken Schvate schlimm), Hert for Hirt, etc. Consonants are also frequently changed; b into w (Bievel is heard for Bibel), p into b, t into d, etc. Thirdly, words are shortened by dropping the terminations, especially n of the infinitive or generally after e. Prefixes are frequently contracted, so also compound words. Thus instead of werden, folgen, fangen, we have werre’, folge’, fange’; einmal becomes emol; nicht mehr, nimme, etc. Fourthly, the Pennsylvania dialect uses High German words in a different sense. Thus for Pferd, horse, we have Gaul, which in High German means a heavy farm-horse or an old horse; gleiche, from the High German gleichen, to resemble, means in the Pennsylvania dialect, to like; gucke’, from High German gucken, to peep, to pry, means to look. Finally, we find English words introduced in their full form, either with or without German prefixes and modifications; e.g., Store (Schtore), Rüles, Cäpers, Circumstänces, trävele, stärte, fixe, fighte.
“Nouns have scarcely any changes of form, except to distinguish singular and plural. These, where they exist, are the same as in High German. One of the most striking peculiarities is this: the genitive case is never used to indicate possession, the dative is used in connection with a possessive pronoun. Thus instead of Der Hut des Mannes (the hat of the man) we find Dem Mann sei’ Hut (to the man his hat).... The definite article is used for dieser, diese, dieses (this), and seller, selle, sell, for jener, jene, jenes (that). The adverb wo is used instead of the relatives welcher, welche, welches.
“In inflecting pronouns, mir is used instead of wir (us). The verb has no imperfect tense; the perfect is always used for it in Pennsylvania German. (And it will be observed, I think, that those accustomed to speaking the dialect will use the perfect thus in English.)
“From wollen we have: Ich will, du witt, er will, mir wolle’, ihr wolle’, sie wolle’; and from haben: Ich hab, du hoscht, er hot, mir hen (from han, haben), ihr hen, sie hen.”
The number of writers in the dialect is becoming numerous. There are Mr. Zimmermann and Dr. Bruner, of Berks County, Rev. F. J. F. Schantz, originally of Lehigh, and Rev. Eli Keller and Mr. Henninger of the same; also Miss Bahn and Mr. H. L. Fisher, of York County. The most popular writer is the late Henry Harbaugh, of the Reformed Church, whose poems are collected under the title Harbaugh’s Harfe. Among them the favorite is Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick. (The old school-house on the creek.) In publishing this volume, the English words introduced after the manner of our Pennsylvania Germans have been generally replaced by German, so that it is not a perfect specimen of the spoken language. Here follow a few lines from Harbaugh’s Heimweh, or Homesickness:
“Wie gleich ich selle Babble-Beem!
Sie schtehn wie Brieder dar;
Un uf’m Gippel—g’wiss ich leb!
Hock’t alleweil ’n Schtaar!
’S Gippel biegt sich—guk, wie’s gaunscht,
’R hebt sich awer fescht;
Ich seh sei rothe Fliegle plehn
Wann er sei Feddere wescht;
Will wette, dass sei Fraale hot
Uf sellem Baam ’n Nescht.”
How well I love those poplar-trees,
That stand like brothers there!
And on the top, as sure’s I live,
A blackbird perches now.
The top is bending, how it swings!
But still the bird holds fast.
How plain I saw his scarlet wings
When he his feathers dressed!
I’ll bet you on that very tree
His deary has a nest.
The most witty prose articles that I have met are some in Wollenweber’s Gemälde aus dem Pennsylvanischen Volkleben. (Pictures of Pennsylvania Life.)
Mr. E. H. Rauch (Pit Schwefflebrenner) accommodates himself to the great number of our “Dutch” people who do not read German by writing the dialect phonetically, in this manner: “Der klea meant mer awer, sei net recht g’sund for er kreisht ols so greisel-heftict orrick (arg) in der nacht. De olt Lawbucksy behawpt es is was mer aw gewocksa heast, un meant mer set braucha derfore. Se sawya es waer an olty fraw drivva im Lodwaerrickshteddle de kennt’s aw wocksa ferdreiv mit warta, im aw so a g’schmeer hut was se mocht mit gensfet.” (The little one seems to me not to be quite well, for he cries so dreadfully in the night. Old Mrs. Lawbucks maintains that he is what we call grown (enlargement of the liver), and thinks that I should powwow for it. She says that there was an old woman in Apple-butter town who knew how to drive away the growth with words, and who has too an ointment that she makes with goose-fat.)
I have already stated that our Pennsylvania dialect has been thought to be formed from different European sources; but Mr. H. L. Fisher, of York, has lately shown me a collection of Nadler’s poems in the Palatinate dialect, which, he says, more nearly resemble our idiom than anything else which he has seen. Also at Allentown, Mr. Dubbs, of the Reformed Church, has mentioned a collection which he thinks resembles much our Pennsylvania German. It is the poems of Ludwig Schandein, in the Westrich dialect. These are both dialects of the Rhenish Palatinate, the former of the district on the Rhine, the latter of the western or more mountainous part. And as the Germans coming into Pennsylvania were at one time called Palatines, it is not remarkable that these Palatinate dialects resemble ours. Here is a specimen of the eastern or lowland dialect:
“Yetz erscht waasz i’s, yetz erscht glaaw i’s,
Was mar in de Lieder singt;
Yetz erscht glaaw i’s, dann jetz waasz i’s,
Dasz die Lieb aam Schmerze bringt.
“Nachdigalle dhune schlage,
Dasz ’s dorch Berg un Dhäler klingt;
Unser Bawrebuwe awwer
Dasz aam’s Herz im Leib verschpringt!”
At last I know, at last believe it,
That what our poets sing is so;
At last I think, yes, now I know it,
That love brings also pain and woe.
The nightingales so sweetly warble,
Their notes through hill and dale do ring;
But oh! the heart in the breast is riven
Whene’er our peasant boys do sing!
Here is a specimen from Schandein’s poems in the Westrich dialect:
“So lewe wul, ehr liewe Alte,
Do i’s mei’ Hann, Glick uf die Rês!
De’ liewe Herrgott losze walte,
Dann Er es wul am beschte wêsz;
Un machen euch kê’ Gram und Sorje
Ya denken an ihn alle Dah:
Er sorgt jo heut, er sorgt ah morje,
Er sorgt ah in Amerika.”
Dr. Dubbs, of Franklin and Marshall College, has kindly given me this verse from his own translation:
“Farewell! and here’s my hand, old neighbors!
May blessings on your journey rest!
Leave God to order all the future,
For He alone knows what is best.
And do not yield to grief or sorrow,
Trust in His mercy day by day;
He reigns to-day, he reigns to-morrow,
He reigns too in America.”
Various estimates have been given me of the numbers speaking the dialect in different parts of our State. Thus a lawyer in York County, beyond the Susquehanna, says that there are still witnesses coming to court, natives of the county, who do not speak English, and whose testimony is translated by an interpreter. Crossing the Susquehanna easterly, we come to my own county, Lancaster. My own neighborhood, near the Pennsylvania Central Railway, is much Anglicized. The southern part of the county is greatly “English,” but as I was riding lately in the north, on the railway which connects Reading in Berks, to Columbia in Lancaster, a conductor estimated that along the forty-six miles of the railway about nine out of ten of the travellers can speak German. In Reading I am told in a lawyer’s office that three-fourths of the women who come in to do business speak “Pennsylvania Dutch.” My tavern-keeper says that many come to his house, born in the county, who cannot speak English. Another lawyer estimates that of the country people born in Berks County, three-fourths would rather speak Pennsylvania German than English; and another thinks that in the rural districts of the county from one-half to two-thirds prefer to speak the dialect, although perhaps half of these can talk English. Another person says that when there is a circus or county fair at Reading, which draws the farmers’ families, you hardly hear English, for the store-keepers accommodate themselves to the visitors. One of my friends, born in Germany, says that she saw at a forge in Berks County colored people, men, women, and children, that could not speak English; they spoke Pennsylvania German. If, now, we pass northerly to Lehigh County, we come to “Pennsylvania Dutch” land par excellence, for in no other county of our State are the people so nearly of unmixed German origin. I am told of Allentown, the county seat, with a population of about nineteen thousand, that Pennsylvania German, “Dutch,” is the prevailing language. A lawyer estimates that more than one-fourth of its inhabitants do not speak English if they can help it, and a considerable number in town, born in this region, do not speak English at all. Of the county, a physician says that three-fourths of the people speak Pennsylvania German more easily than English, and another that nearly all the country people would rather speak the dialect.
East of Lehigh lies another very German county, Northampton. The county town Easton is, however, connected with New Jersey by a bridge over the Delaware, and Easton is to a very considerable degree Anglicized. Easton is the seat of a great Presbyterian institution, Lafayette College; yet a professor tells me that the Presbyterian Church cannot overcome the Lutheran and Reformed element. The Lutheran Church, he says, is very strong. Of the same county I was told some years ago that the people generally spoke German, except along the New Jersey line, and that outside of Easton and Bethlehem three-fourths of the people are Reformed and Lutheran. At the same period, about nine years ago, a physician told me that the public-school teachers in the rural parts must necessarily speak German for the children to obtain ideas, or must interpret English to them. These counties, with Lebanon, six in number, are the great German ones, beginning with York on the southwest, and ending with Northampton on the northeast; but the Pennsylvania German population is by no means confined to these counties. It spreads along the cultivated soil like grass. Adjoining Berks and Lehigh is Montgomery, the northern part of which is very “Dutch.” Here I visited a preacher of one of our plain sects, whose great-grandfather came from Germany. But he, himself, speaks very little or no English, and he employed the ticket-agent to answer an English letter. One son and his children live under the same roof, making six generations in Pennsylvania; but the whole household uses the German dialect.
It must not be supposed of a large part of the Pennsylvania Germans that they are unacquainted with pure German. A simple and pure German they find in the Bible and in their German newspapers, of which there are several, altogether enjoying a large circulation. Also, at least in the Reformed and Lutheran Churches, there are many ministers who preach in pure German. Yet, when the minister goes to dine with a parishioner, they generally speak the dialect. The minister who speaks this to his flock is more popular. They could understand the higher German; but they say of him when he speaks the dialect, “Er iss en gemehner Mann” (He is a common, plain man, or one who doesn’t put on airs.)
A gentleman in Lebanon, born in Berks, told me that he should be pleased to speak German as it is in the Bible. “But,” he added, “as soon as a person begins to use pure German here among his acquaintances the Pennsylvania Dutch will say, ‘Des iss ane Fratz-Hans,’ or a high-flown fellow; or, as it may be rendered, ‘He’s full of conceit.’”
One of the most amusing things in the dialect is the adopting and transforming of English words, as “Ich habe en Prediger entgetscht,”—I have engaged a preacher; “Do hat der Eirisch gemehnt er wott triede,”—the Irishman thought he would treat; “Sie henn en guter Tietscher katt, der hot die Kinner vieler Leut getietscht,”—they had a good teacher, who taught the children of many people; “Ich will dir’s exsplehne,”—I will explain it to you; “Er hat mich inweitet,”—he invited me; “Do hen sie anfange ufzukotte und zu lache,”—then they began to cut up and laugh. A workman who was tired of waiting for material said, “Sie hen us nau lang genug ’rum gebaffelt”—they have baffled or disappointed us long enough.
On the amount of English that is sometimes introduced into the dialect, a lawyer in Lebanon says that of the Pennsylvania Dutch which he uses in his political speeches, or in his practice, fully one-third is English. This specimen was given to me by a lawyer in Allentown, as the opening of a political speech: “Ich bin desirous um euch zu explaine die prerogative powers fum President.” And this a lawyer to his client: “Ich bin certain das die Opinion was ich den morge geexpress hab, correct war.”
Before leaving the subject of the idiom, I give some of the peculiar expressions heard in speaking English. A neighbor told me of her daughter’s being invited to a picnic, and added, “I don’t know what I’ll wear on her.”
Said a tavern-keeper’s wife, “Don’t jine sweeping.” “It’s time to jine sweeping,” was the reply.
A girl got into a car near Mauch Chunk, and had headache.
“Don’t sit with your back to the engine,” I suggested.
“Do you sink?” she asked me. (Do you think so?)
“I guess it will give a gust,” is said in Lancaster County.
“Do you want butter-bread?” (or bread and butter.) “No, I’d rather have coffee-soup,”—i.e., bread broken into coffee.
“Mary, come down to the woods.” “I dassent.” She does not mean that she is afraid, but that she is not permitted, like the German durfen.
“I’m perfectly used to travel every wich way.”
“A body gets dired if they dravel.”
“Mind Ressler? He was in Sprecher’s still;” or, “Do you remember Ressler? He used to be employed in Sprecher’s store.”
“It’s raining a’ready, mother,” or, “Where’s Mrs. M.?” “She went to bed a’ready.”
“I guess that Mrs. B. does not spend all her income.”
“She didn’t still.”
“She’d rather be married to him as to keep house for him” (like the German als).
We think those very “Dutch” who say “Sess” for Seth, “bass-house” for bath-house. Thus it would be, Beslem is in Norsampton County.
“I’m fetching a pig. I had it bestowed.”
“We’re getting strangers, and I was fetched.” (They are expecting company at our house, and they sent for me to come home.)
“Mrs. M., how does your garden grow?” “Just so middlin’.”
“Your head is strubly,” means that your hair is tumbled.
A scientific friend, wishing to examine a specimen, said, “Let me see it once.”
Of the same kind are these: “When we get moved once.” “You’ll know what it is when you hain’t got no father no more once.” (This use of once has been alluded to in the text.)
“Mother, don’t be so cross!” “I ought to be cross” (angry).
I do not know that it is “Dutch” to say, “Did you kiss your poppy?” or, “Barbara, where’s your pap?” (for father).
“How are you, Chrissly?” (diminutive of Christian.) “Oh! I’ve got it so in the back.”
Those who live among Pennsylvania Germans cannot fail to observe that when they, speaking English, make mention of a couple, as, “She gave me a couple of peaches,” they do not generally mean two only. Couple has doubtless to them the same meaning as the German word Paar, which is defined by Whitney “a couple, two or three, a few, sundry.”
I cannot tell the deviation of our interjection of pain, Owtch!
Ok! is doubtless the German Ach! or is it Irish?
And what is the derivation of “Sahdie?” so much used by children for “Thank you.”
There is a word neither of English nor German origin which is sometimes used as a salutation by Pennsylvania Germans. It is familiarly Hottiay. Few would divine to see it thus that it is the French adieu.
Proper Names
Changes equally remarkable are found in proper names. The family of my own neighbor Johns was originally Tschantz, as is more easily perceived by the pronunciation; Johns ending with the s sound and not the z. The important family in Lancaster County named Carpenter were Zimmerman when they came in, the name being translated. But of a family in Berks County, some are Hunter and some Yäger. Some persons named Bender, who have removed to California, are there called Painter.
It is surprising in Pennsylvania to hear of persons with Irish or Scottish names who can scarcely speak English. A gentleman in Harrisburg told me of one he knew in Dauphin County named Hamilton (whose father was born in Dublin), and of two others named Dougherty. I have met in Berks County a person with a purely Scottish name who spoke of Norsampton County, and of Souss Reading (not pronouncing the th). But his mother was of a German family, and “Pennsylvania Dutch” his mother-tongue.
A lawyer in York, with an English name, tells me that his ancestors came from New England, and settled first in the Wyoming Valley, but some moved southward, and by intermarriage, to use, I think, his own expression, became quite Dutchified. He himself can speak the dialect.
Several families with French names are now not to be distinguished from the Pennsylvania Germans among whom they live and intermarry. It is said that the Bushongs were once Beauchamp; then probably the Deshongs were Du Champ. The Shopells were Chapelle; the Levans perhaps Levin. Delaplaine is pronounced Dillyplen. There are still Bertolettes, De Bennevilles, De Turks, De Planks, Philippes, Philippis, and Philippys. Coquelin has become Cockley and Gockley. These families were perhaps French Huguenots who sought refuge in Germany, where so many went on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. From the Palatinate came very many of our Pennsylvania Germans, and that state is directly east of France.
But it is also probable that many French names were translated when their owners removed to Germany. One of my acquaintances in Philadelphia is a German, born in the Palatinate. She tells me that her grandfather left France during the revolution. He was a Mennonite, and named Coquerel; but this was translated into Hähnchen; so that my friend was a Miss Hähnchen. Coquerel, Hähnchen, and our English word cockerel are synonymous.
Changes in the names of persons of the same family in Pennsylvania will be observed. I know a gentleman in Lebanon County with an English name, who tells me that his mother’s name was Besore; supposed to have been La Bessieur. The name has also been spelled Basore, Bashor, and Bayshore. The name Beinbrecht is said to have gone through these changes; in Philadelphia there is a Bonbright, in Chambersburg a Bonbrake, and there are Bonebreaks. In Lancaster County, I hear of a father who writes his name Bear; but one son is Barr, and another Bair. There is a large Reformed family in Pennsylvania named Wotring, now turned into the English Woodring, which was originally the French Voiturin. Probably within the Reformed German Church are more French Calvinistic families than in the Lutheran.
Of the Buchanans and Livingstones in our country we might assume the Scottish origin; but Der Deutsche Pionier tells us that the German name Buchenhain [meaning Beech grove] has been changed to Buchanan, and Löwenstein to Livingstone. A more grievous change is said to have befallen the name Hochmayer or Hochmier [high steward], for in Virginia it has become Hogmire!
Politics
One of the most remarkable distinctions between our Pennsylvania Germans is that which ranges the counties and townships inhabited by the wehrlos, or peaceable sects, with one political party; and those where the Reformed and Lutherans are strongest with the other. We might once have thought that the Democratic party was the war party; but during the great rebellion the counties of Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton still remained adherents of the Democratic party in its opposition to the war. The county of Montgomery, in the eastern part of the State, is thus divided; the Mennonites, Schwenkfelders (with Quakers), are almost invariably Republican; while the strong Democratic townships are almost entirely Reformed and Lutheran. Of course there are in all such localities many who do not belong to any religious body.
A Democratic editor in the same county of Montgomery says that he does not know a Mennonite or Schwenkfelder who is not Republican; so also are the great majority of the German Methodists. He, however, added that the Reformed and Lutherans are nearly equally divided in politics. But every politician who knows the people must concede that the counties which are the stronghold of these two churches are an immense Democratic stronghold.
Mr. H., of Easton, tells me of a man who stood looking at a procession in honor of the funeral of Jackson, Harrison, or some other distinguished person. In the procession were Freemasons, Odd-Fellows, and other societies. “Oh,” said he, “des ish alle letz! That is all wrong. There ought to be only two societies,—the Democrats and the Lutherans. If a man lives up to the principles of General Jackson and Martin Luther, that is enough.” He took his boys to delegate or town-meetings. “Now, boys,” he said, “are you going to vote the Democratic ticket as long as you live? Always stick to the Democratic party, and carry out the principles of General Jackson. If you intend to do this, you can vote for delegates.” (This anecdote is a little injured by the introduction in the beginning of the name of Harrison, who was a Whig. But it was given to me by a person of a well-known Democratic and Lutheran family.)
A few years ago, in an adjoining county, an adherent of the Democratic party told me that the word democracy has a magic sound for the people of Lehigh. “A Democratic parade,” he added, “can easily be got up in Allentown two miles in length, composed in a great measure of farmers on horseback; and in Presidential campaigns sometimes farmers’ daughters also appear on horseback in the procession. A skilful speaker, generally a lawyer, who speaks the dialect, and who will frequently introduce the words democrat and democracy, can lead the crowd. Even if he do not speak the dialect, if he will introduce those words, he can bring out the applause of his hearers.”
An acquaintance tells me of a political speaker in Berks County, that Democratic stronghold. He was telling of die Demokratie, which he said goes over hill and dale, over the sea, and strikes the seat from under kings. “And if you ask where that democracy comes from, they will tell you from Berks County.”
Yankees
An acquaintance once explained to me the prejudice against Yankees by telling me how, about fifty years ago or longer, the tin-peddlers travelled among the innocent Dutch people, cheating the farmers and troubling the daughters. They were (says he) tricky, smart, and good-looking. They could tell a good yarn, and were very amusing, and the goodly hospitable farmers would take them into their houses and entertain them, and receive a little tin-ware in payment.
A lawyer in Easton, from the State of New York, says that he never saw so large a body of people so honestly inclined as the Pennsylvania Germans. He speaks from a knowledge of the people of Northampton and Lehigh. They have an especial dread of the people of New England and New York, from their having been so terribly victimized by patent-rights’ men. He adds that they are not a reading people, but by their careful and slow manner of getting along they really accomplish more than the people of New England and New York, who, he says, make a great display, and then frequently compromise with their creditors by paying fifteen or twenty cents on the dollar. A person present added of these Pennsylvania Germans that they never headed any great moral reforms and never drowned witches.
Another thinks that in his youth the Yankee drovers in Lehigh County were respected for their acuteness. He adds, however, that when the “Dutch” call a man a Yankee, it is not near so opprobrious as to call him a Jew. “But,” says another, “when a Yankee comes to Reading with patent rights and inventions they point and say, ‘Do geht en Yoot.’” (There goes a Jew.) Dr. L., of Lebanon County, says that the “Dutch” idea of a Yankee is not of one who starts out to cheat for the pleasure of cheating, but of one who prefers to make his living by his wits rather than by hard labor. He starts with the idea of making money easily, and does not care much finally about the honesty of his proceedings.
In the market at York a learned man of New England origin asked a farmer, “What is the price of your apples,—twenty-five cents?” “Yes, you can have them for that; but I wouldn’t let Kochersperger have them for a quarter,—he’s a Yankee.”
Thrift
In his speech in Congress upon the death of John Covode, Simon Cameron declared that he honored Covode for his true courage when he proclaimed in Philadelphia what weaker men would have tried to suppress, giving as a reason for his hostility to every species of human bondage the fact that his father had been sold as a redemptionist near the spot where he was then speaking. “Scarcely a generation had passed away,” adds Cameron, “before the hired servants began to buy their masters’ lands, to marry their masters’ daughters, and to make good their claim to full equality with those whose bondsmen they had been. For a time the Scotch-Irish made a sturdy stand for that supremacy and superiority which seem to be their peculiar inheritance, place them where you may. At length the thrift, the superior patience, and the perseverance of the German blood prevailed. They bought, and still possess, the old homesteads, and have furnished us with an array of distinguished men of whom every citizen of our State is justly proud.” The superior patience, says Mr. Cameron. Geduld ist das beste Kraut, das man in America baut,—patience is the best plant grown in America,—is a saying I have heard in Lancaster County. But I must interrupt my regular course to explain the word redemptionist used by Mr. Cameron. It was applied to persons coming here from Germany who were unable to pay the expenses of their passage, and who were sold or indentured for a term of years until that expense was paid. Minor children were bound out until of age.
Mr. Cameron also speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans dispossessing the Scotch-Irish, and plenty of corroborative evidence of this can be found. A learned gentleman has said to me that the Scotch-Irish element, which used to be the leading one in Franklin County, is in a great measure replaced by the Pennsylvania German. “As the Irish farmers got poor and sold their land it was bought by the Pennsylvania Germans, who then got rich by their extreme thrift or severe economy and great industry.” A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, in 1871, goes further, and writing from Brown’s Mills in the same county, from “the fertile and picturesque Cumberland valley,” speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans of that region as wearing the short gown and petticoat, the shad-belly coat, and broad-brimmed hat. The district, he says, was first settled by Scotch-Irish and Welsh, but these have mostly been replaced; a few families of Lutherans and German Reformed linger here, but their numbers annually grow less, and the difficulty of supporting their ministers is yearly more serious. Then, if we may trust this correspondent, it appears that the wehrlos, or defenceless men (who do not pay ministers), are gaining possession of that region. It was said of old time that the meek shall inherit the earth. Far east of Franklin County, in Montgomery, I was told of peacemen, the Schwenkfelders and Mennonites, that they buy good farms. “They don’t buy the hilly, stony ones; and, at the same time, I don’t know how it comes they can afford to pay for them.”
The severe economy of the Pennsylvania Germans has been just mentioned. One New-Year’s day I saw in a bank a young man who was asked to subscribe for something. He declined, and spoke of “our old Dutch rule that it is a bad plan to buy on New-Year’s morning. Always get money in before you pay it out.” In Northampton County an old resident is reported to have said, “Do you know the difference between a Yankee farmer and a Dutch one? When a Yankee farmer has apples, he sells the scrubby ones and eats the good ones at home; and a Dutch farmer picks out the scrubby ones to eat at home, and sells the good ones.”
One of my Lancaster County neighbors has grain-bags that have been in use on the farm for about seventy years, and bid fair to last for twenty more. They were made from flax and hemp grown on the farm. A young member of the family says that their preservation not only shows the economy, but impresses him with proofs of the good judgment of those who made them, in selecting material, and in the thorough manner of their work. He adds, “All these characteristics were, I think, possessed in full measure by the people, somehow and somewhere misnamed Dutch, in whose hands the largest part of Lancaster County has become what it is.”
Charms and Superstitions
Mrs. G., born in Lebanon County, says that when they were children one would take a looking-glass and go down the cellar-stairs backward, in order to see therein the form of a future spouse. Another custom was to melt lead and pour it into a cup of cold water, expecting thence to discover some token of the occupation of the same interesting individual. A person in York also remembers that at Halloween her nurse would melt lead and pour it through the handle of the kitchen door-key. The figures were studied and supposed to resemble soldier-caps, books, horses, and so on. This nurse was Irish, but the other domestics were German. A laboring woman from Cumberland County, and afterward from a “Dutch” settlement in Maryland, says that she has heard of persons melting lead to see what trade their man would be of. My German friend before quoted says that in the Palatinate they melted the lead on New-Year’s eve. In Nadler’s poems in the Palatinate dialect, St. Andreas’ night is the time spoken of for melting the lead. This is the 30th of November. Further, in a work called “The Festival Year” (Das Festliche Yahr), by Von Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Leipsic, 1863, the custom of pouring lead through the beard, or wards, of a key is mentioned.
A lawyer, born in Franklin County, tells me that it is a common superstition among Pennsylvania Germans that persons born on Christmas night can see supernatural things and hear similar sounds. He adds that his mother told him of a person who was sceptical and ridiculed the idea, and was told to go out into his feeding-room and listen. He lay down on the hay, and while there one of the oxen said, “Uebermorgen schieben mir unser Meschter auf den Kirch-hof.” (Day after to-morrow we will haul our master to the graveyard.) And his funeral was on the day specified. My German friend before quoted says that in the Palatinate they believe that as it strikes twelve on Christmas eve, all animals talk together. She adds, “I think that idea is through Germany.”
A gentleman connected with schools in Northampton County says that at Halloween his daughters meet their companions and melt lead into water to tell their fortunes. They also fill their mouths with water that they may not speak, as speaking would break the charm; and walk around a block of houses. The first name which they hear is that of their future spouse. Another practice, which, unlike the foregoing, may be tried at any time of year, is to take a large door-key and tie it within the leaves of a small Bible, the handle remaining out. Two girls rest the handle upon their fingers, and repeat some cabalistic verse; of which, he thinks, each line begins with a different letter, and the key will turn at the initials of the future spouse. These, he says, are the remnants of old superstitions, and he suspects that the human mind is naturally superstitious. He adds, “The population of Easton is mixed so that we cannot tell how many of these are purely German; but by going into the rural German districts of Northampton County you will find many strange ideas, such as that on a certain church festival, say Ascension day, you must not sweep your house, lest it become full of fleas.”
A simple-minded woman in Lancaster County, who showed some regard for the Reformed Church, said that she had sat up late sewing the night before, so as not to sew on Ascension day. “My mother,” she said, “knew a girl that sewed on Ascension day; and there came a gust and killed her.”
One of my German acquaintances calls my attention to the salt-cake eaten in Lancaster. It is made extremely salt, and is eaten by girls, who then go to bed backward without speaking and without drinking; and he of whom they dream is to be their future husband. This, he says, is a custom also in Germany.
But the most universal ideas of this superstitious kind are those connected with the signs in the almanac. Baer’s Almanac, published in Lancaster, still has the signs of the zodiac down the pages, like one shown to me in the Palatinate, where a man of some education said, “Here is where I see how to plant my garden.” What, however, is very mysterious is that when our people tell you you must not plant now, for IT is in the Posy-woman (and the things will all run to blossom, and not bear fruit), they cannot tell what is in the Posy-woman, or Virgo. I infer, however, that it is the moon.
I have been shown a German Bible, which belonged to the grandfather of one of my neighbors, wherein the family births were entered in the German language. I endeavored to decipher one, as follows:
“1797, September den 9ten 1st uns ein Sohn gebohren ihm Zeichen Witter, ehr ist ihn dem nehmlichen Mohnat ihm Herren entshlafen.”
“On the 9th of September, 1797, a son is born to us in the sign of the Ram [Aries]. In the same month he fell asleep in the Lord.”
The same neighbor who owns the old Bible just mentioned tells me that one of the Russian Mennonites showed him a pamphlet in the German language, which the man had brought from Europe; wherein was told what would be the fortune of a child born in each sign, his health, wealth, etc.; but my neighbor says that he, himself, had no faith in it.
“Grain should be sowed in the up-going; meat butchered in the down-going will shrink in the pot.” But my worthy neighbors do not appear to know what it is that is going up and going down. I infer, of course, that it is the moon. Is it not remarkable that my neighbors should be so attached to book-farming? I knew a woman, born among Friends, but in a Pennsylvania German settlement, who was lamenting the smallness of the piece of meat on the table. “What a little piece, and so big before it was cooked! How it has shrunk! It is in the down-going. And those strawberries, too, that I preserved, that went away to so little; they were done in the down-going.” But one of her family spoke up, bravely, “Just so, mother; that must be it. Now I know what’s the matter with my portemonnaie, that it shrinks away so; it’s the down-going.”
These beliefs in the influence of the heavenly bodies must be the relics of astrology remaining in the almanacs, and never drawn now from actual observation of the weather and the planets.
Mrs. Nevin relates the following (Philadelphia Press, June 2, 1875): “There are several superstitions connected with death and funerals in the country, which are a strange blending of the ludicrous with the mournful. One is that if the mother of a family is dying, the vinegar-barrel must be shaken at the time to prevent the ‘mother’ in it from dying. Said a man once in sober earnest to me, ‘I was so sorry Mr. D. was not in the room when his wife died.’ ‘Where was he?’ ‘Oh, in the cellar a-shaking the vinegar-barrel; but if he had just told me, I would have done it and let him been in the room to see her take her last breath.’”
Mrs. Nevin adds: “Another superstition is that the last person that goes out of a house at a funeral will be the next one to die, and as the audience begins to thin, you may see people slip very nimbly out of a back or kitchen door to avoid being that last one.”
The belief in spooks or ghosts is not lost in “Pennsylvania Dutch” land. In some of his verses Mr. Schantz tells (Allentown Friedensbote) of an abandoned school-house standing near a sand-pit, beside some woods. He says,—
“kam mir zu Ohr
Vom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am Kreuzweg
Was Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg.
S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’
En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’
Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!
Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!”
“About the sand-pit school-house, at the cross-roads, things were said that I do not like to tell. It was told that there were spooks at the sand-pit, and ‘In what shape?’ was asked. People riding by rode rapidly, and those on foot hurried swiftly by.” There are still standing near the Conestoga, close to Lancaster, the remains of a building long and extensively known as “the spook house.” It probably became unpopular from a suicide in it, or from having been built in a field where strangers were buried.
A Lutheran clergyman said lately, “I do not believe in spooks myself, but plenty of people do; and sad enough it is that there should be such superstition.”
Medical Superstitions
The peculiarities of a people are always best observed by those who do not live among them, or rather by those who visit them occasionally. Most of my notes on this subject are taken from the conversation of physicians born in other localities than those in which they practise. One in my own county mentions the “apnehme,” or wasting away of children. He says that popular remedies are measuring the child and greasing it by certain old women. Another says that the “Pennsylvania Dutch” also measure for wild-fire or erysipelas, generally using a red silk string, and measuring about sundown. They blow across the affected part to blow the fire outside of the string, at the same time they “say words” or powwow. This physician says that the greasing above mentioned is for liver-grown children, and not for “abnehme” (as it is spelled). One class of powwowers do not interfere, he says, with regular practitioners; but one old woman in this county (who builds a fire in the brick oven, and says words over the coals) has been known to hide the prescriptions of regular physicians. He adds: “If a person is burned, recourse is sometimes had to a professional blower, who blows across the surface, saying words in the interval. Along the Pennsylvania Canal, on the Susquehanna, where ague prevails, the patient who has a chill is tied to a tree by a long string, and he runs around the tree until the string is exhausted, and then on to some distance. This is tying the chill to a tree. A ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ remedy for whooping-cough, and one by which they bother the millers a good deal, is to put the child into a hopper with grain, and let the child remain until the grain is all ground out. Blood-stopping is very common in Pennsylvania. I saw a man with an artery cut, in whose case a blood-stopper was called in. The man pressed his hand on the bleeding part and repeated something, raising his eyes to heaven; but the artery was too powerful for him.”
On the west side of the Susquehanna the only county that can distinctively be called Pennsylvania German is York. A physician in the borough says that town and county are full of superstitions. He says, “In case of hemorrhage from the nose, from a wound or from other cause, a common cure is to wrap a red woollen string round each finger; another is to lay an axe under the bed, edge upward; and you can’t talk them out of it. I used to get angry when I first came here, but I found that it was of no use. These are not occasional things only, but I have seen them over and over again. Then there are prayers for stopping blood, always in ‘Dutch.’ They can’t be sick in English, and the first question to me as a physician has been ‘Kann er Deutsch?’ (Do you speak German?) One of the prayers for stopping blood is, I understand, for human beings, and another for animals; and I think that the names of the persons of the Trinity are introduced. I have often asked, but they are not allowed to tell. Soon after I came here, I ordered some boneset tea for a patient, and the mother asked in ‘Dutch’ whether the leaves should be pulled upwards or downwards. ‘Will it make any difference?’ I asked. ‘Oh, yes; if you pull them upwards, it will work upwards; and if you pull them downwards, it will work downwards.’ [A valuable hint for a physician if the same plant can be used both as an emetic and a purgative.] Of the blood of a black fowl,—no other color will do,—three drops are given internally. I think this is for convulsions; but I hear so many of these things, and have heard them so many years, that they make no impression on my mind. These are pure ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ peculiarities; I have found none or few of them among foreign Germans.”
I asked whether these ideas still continue or whether they are wearing out. “No,” he said, “they don’t wear out. I meet them every day. They still speak of horses and animals being bewitched (verhext). I have a story from good authority of a horse that was said to be verhext, and that turned out to have a nail in his hoof. That is a fact. What are you going to do about it?”
But to come to another county, Berks. I hear that in Reading there is a woman called the Wurst-frau, because her mother sold sausages and “puddings.” This woman has a large office practice in salves and powwowing. In an adjoining county, Lehigh, I remember a few years ago to have seen the names of two persons put down in the directory as powwowers; the word being spelled as pronounced in “Dutch.”
Norristown, in Montgomery County, is greatly Anglicized; but a physician says that an idea exists of stopping blood by a religious lingo, into which come the words “der Vater, Sohn, und heilig Geist.” “A certain man told me that he had never failed to arrest bleeding from wounds or even from the lungs, nor was it necessary to be upon the spot; he could go home and repeat his lingo. This was his only medical skill; he did not claim to be a doctor.”
In Norristown also I met a woman who had been quite ill; but I heard that when better she would not get up on Sunday, lest she should never get well, and Friday was as bad. Her little grandchild having a birth-mark, she passed the hand of a dead person over it to take it away, but was unsuccessful.
To return, however, to this county of Lancaster, which I know better. A physician says that he found a child very ill with membranous croup, for which he left powders to be administered every half-hour, saying that when he called again, if it seemed possible to dislodge the membrane he would give an emetic. When he called, he found a powwower sitting, who looked very smiling. The doctor went up to the little patient, and asked whether the mother had given the medicine. She had given only one dose; the man had said that it was not necessary to give any powders. “Don’t you think the child is better?” the mother asked. On examination the doctor declared, “I am sorry to tell you that the child will not live two hours;” which caused the countenance of the powwower to fall. The child died, and this case caused the doctor to declare that he would not practise in conjunction with powwowers; and if they are now called in, it is done privately.
Although one physician spoke of not finding many of these ideas among foreign Germans, yet my friend, before mentioned, from the Palatinate says that when children have earache there, or abnehme (wasting away), or when persons are in the early stages of consumption, country people say, “Lasz dir brauche” (or, Consult a powwower); and a woman comes and whispers some words. “My father” (she adds that he was a Reformed preacher) “knew a blacksmith to whom children were brought, suffering with earache. The man would heat the big tongs, hold them close to their ears, and whisper something. My father asked him what he said. He answered, ‘Nothing; but if he did not whisper, the people would not believe in him;’ and my father told him that he ought not to impose upon them.”
Holidays — Easter
I live in the country, but on last Good-Friday was at Reading, and was surprised to see so many persons going to church. Easter is greatly observed by Reformed and Lutherans. It is the time of confirmation and administering the sacrament; and you may hear of churches in country localities having as high as six hundred communicants. At Easter, of course, eggs greatly abound. At a boarding-house at Allentown I heard of colored eggs being offered to callers or taken to friends. Fragments of egg and of colored shells may be seen on the pavements for about a week.
A little childish myth is found in these more eastern counties, of which I have heard very little in Lancaster County. It is that the rabbit lays the colored eggs. A young man in Reading says that when they were children they always made a nest the evening before Easter Sunday, of an old hat or something similar, which they set near the door for the rabbit to lay the colored eggs in. An old man in a tavern, however, says that it is foolishness, like Bellschnickel. At my own tavern the landlady was coloring eggs, and had bought some canton-flannel rabbits with which to dress the guests’ tables at breakfast on Sunday morning.
In Lehigh County a lawyer says that when they were children they would take flax and each make his nest under a bush in the garden. On Easter Sunday morning they would run out and find three eggs of different colors in each nest. Literalness has gone so far in Allentown that I hear of cakes in a baker’s window in the form of a rabbit laying eggs.
At Easton a lady spoke of making nests for her two boys by taking plates, ornamenting them with cut paper in the form of a nest, putting into each a large candy egg and colored eggs, and placing a rabbit in one and a chicken in the other, and hiding them for the boys to find.
This myth of the rabbits’ eggs is very common among the Moravians. One of my “Dutch” acquaintances, born west of us in Cumberland County, and afterward living in Maryland, says that her mother told them when children to set their bonnets at Easter for nests for the rabbits’ eggs.
This is an old German myth. A gentleman from Switzerland says that he heard the fable there, and he thinks that it prevails all over Germany. Many or most of our early German emigrants into Pennsylvania seem to have come from or through the Palatinate. My friend before mentioned, who was born there, thus describes the custom at her former home. If the children have no garden, they make nests in the wood-shed, barn, or house. They gather colored flowers for the rabbit to eat, that it may lay colored eggs. If there be a garden, the eggs are hidden singly in the green grass, box-wood, or elsewhere. On Easter Sunday morning they whistle for the rabbit, and the children imagine that they see him jump the fence. After church, on Easter Sunday morning, they hunt the eggs, and in the afternoon the boys go out in the meadows and crack eggs or play with them like marbles. Or sometimes children are invited to a neighbor’s to hunt eggs.
Prof. Wackernagel, of Allentown, has kindly pointed out to me the antiquity of the myth. The old German goddess of spring was called Ostara (whence Easter). She rode over the fields in the spring in a wagon drawn by hares. (Our Pennsylvania rabbit is really a hare, as it does not burrow in the ground.) The egg is an emblem, says the professor, of the resurrection from the dead; so herein he finds heathenism and Christianity blended. However, the author of Das Festliche Yahr (Leipsic, 1863) considers the myth older than Christianity; for he says that in Thuringia, Hesse, Suabia, and Switzerland it is said now, as apparently in ante-Christian times, that the hare or Easter hare lays the eggs. Finally, one of my German friends finds the whole a myth of the renewal of life in the spring.
Halloween
On the 30th of last October our farmer locked the gate on the road, lest it should be taken off. Therefore the Halloween visitors limited themselves to taking down bundles of corn-fodder in the field and building a fence across the road, and to propping up one end of the market-wagon on the fence. I am told of a person who once had his wagon taken apart, and the pieces put up into different trees, so that it was some time before all were found. In Lebanon County a similar custom is found. One of my acquaintances living in a small town says that they celebrate Halloween roughly,—hanging beets and cabbages at the doors, moving steps, taking gates from hinges, throwing corn. The speaker was born in Lehigh County, where nothing of this prevailed, and this fact constitutes one of the chief distinctions among our Pennsylvania Germans of Lancaster and Lebanon on one hand, and Lehigh, Berks, upper Montgomery, and probably Northampton on the other. In Montgomery a young “Dutchman” did not even know when Halloween is, and when I described our Lancaster County custom, said, “That ain’t any use.” Traces of similar observances of Halloween are found, however, in other regions. In Philadelphia the boys indulge in ringing front-door bells. In Harrisburg people who had wooden door-steps used to take them into the house, lest they should be carried off. Of Franklin County, beyond the Susquehanna, I am told that at Waynesboro’ it has been a favorite amusement at Halloween to gather store-boxes and build a fortification around the town pump, and collect wheeled vehicles around the public square. At Lockhaven, up the West Branch of the Susquehanna, my landlady was anxious that her cabbage should be housed, for fear that it would be carried off on Halloween.
My German acquaintances, before quoted, born in the Palatinate, do not report to me anything of this kind as existing in Germany at Halloween. One of them says, however, that at the time of putting up string-beans (which are preserved like sour-krout), children throw the strings into front doors. And Mr. Wollenweber, of Reading, also a native of the Palatinate, says that when the farm-work was over in October, they used to practise tricks. He has helped to take a wagon to pieces, and put it together again in a stable or barn. “We troubled ourselves very much,” he says. He adds that the boys were expected, when the fun was over, to come together and take it down again; but this is not the case in Lancaster County.
Can it be that some of these practices belong to the season of the year, and are a warning to the tardy to gather the fruits of the earth and their farm implements?
In his work called Die Alte Zeite, or Old Times, Mr. H. L. Fisher, of York, Pennsylvania, describes such pranks as played at weddings or home-comings “infares.” The boys hid the bridegroom’s horse in a quarry, and the young men’s saddles and bridles were put upon trees, straw-stacks, etc.
In the text I have spoken of Bellschnickel, who in “Pennsylvania Dutch” land takes the part of Santa Claus, being in fact the same personage; Bellschnickel, or Peltz Nickel, being St. Nicholas in furs. St. Nicholas day is not, however, Christmas eve. It is the 6th of December; but it is in Advent. One of my German friends thus describes Peltz Nickel: “In the Palatinate at Christmas they have the Christ-kindchen, which is a little girl dressed in white and riding on a donkey. I often made one myself, dressed in my mother’s wedding-veil. If you have no donkey, a boy is dressed to represent one and goes on all-fours. The Peltz Nickel is a boy leading; he is blackened, and has a beard and rattling chains. He gives a switch to the mother, which sticks behind the glass the whole year, if the children do not hide nor break it. This begins on the first Sunday of December, with Advent, and may be practised till Christmas. He carries apples and nuts. The children must kneel and say their prayers, and if they say them nicely they get some of these, and perhaps honey-cakes and candy, which the Christ-kindel and Peltz Nickel distribute; but they do not give the Christmas gifts.” She adds, “We only went to one or two houses.”
As regards the New Year, Mr. Wollenweber says that in Berks County, around Womelsdorf, a dozen boys or so will form a company, choose a captain, take a gun, and go around the neighborhood, calling on different persons and asking leave to wish them a New Year. If they obtain consent, they will form into a rank, and the captain will repeat the following verses:
“Nau wunschen wir euch en Neues Yohr,
En Bretzel wie en Scheuer Thor,
En Brodwurst wie en Ofen Rohr,
Und in der Midde-Stub en Tisch
Oof yedem Eck en gebrodener Fisch,
Und in der Mitt en Bottell Wein,
Das soll unser Neu Yohr’s Wunsch sein.”
“Now we wish you a New Year; a pretzel like a barn-door; a fried sausage like a stove-pipe; and in the middle room a table, with a fried fish at each corner, and in the midst a bottle of wine,—that shall be our New Year’s wish.”
Then they fire off the gun, and are invited to come in and take a supper. Generally they go to farm-houses, where there are a number of daughters, and these daughters are usually prepared to give them a hospitable reception.
This custom, says Mr. Wollenweber, also prevails in the Palatinate.
I am also told that the custom of firing-in the New Year is found in Lehigh, Berks, and Lebanon Counties.
The Plainer Sects
Some of our Pennsylvania German Baptist sects cannot escape a suspicion of asceticism. I speak of them as Baptists, for not only the Dunkers who dip, but the Mennonites who pour, are Baptists, because they baptize on faith, adults or young persons, and not infants. At the time of the great Centennial Exposition one of our farmers told me that although their members were not forbidden to visit it, yet it had been recommended for them not to do so. He said that there were worldly things there, unnecessary things. Of the stricter sect of New Mennonites I heard that they were forbidden. But as these churches are of simple congregational form, this rule and this recommendation may have been local.
I met another farmer on a railway train, and asked about the Exposition. He answered, “I don’t think the Lord has any love to them things. It’s like those picnics and things; those that will go to them will do anything.” But his name was afterward connected with a more disreputable thing than a picnic.
In some things our New Mennonites are very strict. It is said that one was obliged to take down his front porch and another to cut down his evergreen-trees, apparently because they were suspected of being “proud.” A woman inclined to the same sect cultivated no flowers. Yet it is surprising how showily the members allow their unbaptized children to dress, in which they are a great contrast to the Amish. It is the same New Mennonites who have so rigid a ban in the church of which I have spoken in the text. I have spoken of a father who did not come to the family table. A member of the church was kind enough to explain to me the cause. He gave way to a selfish spirit, found fault unnecessarily. The wife bore it a long time, and then complained to the meeting, whereupon he did not show a penitent spirit; he was not willing to humble himself before her. So they continued to eat apart, to be separate. Our Old Mennonites confess their faults to each other in an open meeting of the members. If the same rule prevails among the New Mennonites, we can see that it would not be at all grateful to the pride of “the natural man” to apologize thus to a meeting of which the wife was a part.
As regards another sect, the River Brethren, an acquaintance tells me that he was expelled from them for voting at elections; but still some of the brethren will vote. But against him there were two other charges, namely, of having a melodeon in his house and having his property insured.
Another division of the Mennonites are the Amish, who are very simple in dress and habits, very recluse. I once called on a plain old Amish farmer in moderate circumstances. His clothing was long worn, but clean and well mended, and his bent form, silver beard and hair commanded regard. A neighbor was with him whom he called Chrissly, the nickname of Christian. In conversation I spoke of one of my relatives as a lawyer, and I saw that this had an immediate effect. The neighbor remarked that when Judge Jasper Yeates was growing old, he said that lawyers are like woollen yarn, they will stretch. The old man added, “I guess they must tell rather more than the truth when they blead.”
I said to the old man, “You all vote?”
“Yes; there’s some of them a little conscientious; but if they are, they can just leave it alone. It may be I’m dumb; but I just think we must have government,—we have Scripture for it,—and if the good people—what I call the tame people—stays away and leaves it all to the rowdies, how would it be? We must bray for the government; do all we can. We mustn’t go to pole-raisings. It oughtn’t to be, but sometimes they will, you know.”
“Do any of your young men learn trades?” I asked.
“Yes; some are carpenters or cabinet-makers.”
“But you would rather have them farmers; why do you like that best?”
“I think if a man’s a Gristian, that’s the best thing he can undertake.”
I have been told of an Amish farmer who was sitting at table with several young men who had lately joined the meeting, having been baptized. One of these was his hired man called Yoney (a nickname for Jonathan). The Amish here do not in general wear suspenders, and the old man, addressing Yoney, said, “Was hasht du verschproke in der Gemeh?” (What did you promise in meeting?) The young man looked at his clothes, and the elder pointed out the suspenders.
Yoney answered that he was allowed to wear the clothes that he already had until they were worn out.
“These look like new ones.”
“They were my best ones,” he answered, “and I have just begun to wear them every day.”
A girl who has lived among the Amish has told me that they are obliged to give to beggars or “stragglers,” or they would be turned out of meeting. She does not know indeed that they are obliged to give to those who are able to work; but she did not believe that she ever saw them turn any away.
The impression prevails concerning the Amish that they endeavor to fulfil the saying, “Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” When I turn my mind to these plain people, I sometimes recall the trailing arbutus, which is found partly buried under the leaves and clinging close to the surface of the ground, but which when drawn up displays, though sometimes disfigured with dead, brown leaves, such a delicate form and tint, and exhales so sweet a perfume.
And I also have recalled Pope’s Temple of Fame:
“Next came the smallest tribe I yet had seen,
Plain was their dress and modest was their mien;
‘Great idol of mankind, we neither claim
The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!
But safe in deserts from the applause of men
Would die unheard of, as we lived unseen.’
...
‘And live there men who slight immortal Fame,
Who then with incense shall adore our name?’”
Yet our Amish are not a highly-educated people. Some years ago I inquired of a neighbor (who did not speak English fluently) on the subject of education. He said that they were not opposed to school-learning, but to high learning. “To send children to school from ten to twenty-one, we would think was opposed to Holy Scripture. There are things taught in school that don’t agree with Holy Scripture.”
I asked whether he thought it was wrong to teach that the earth goes round the sun. “I don’t know anything about it; but I am not in favor of teaching geography and grammar in the schools: it’s worldly wisdom.”
All these Baptist sects have an unpaid ministry. Dr. H., of Bucks County, had a patient who was a Mennonite preacher, and the doctor refused to receive payment, saying that his father had taught him never to take pay from ministers of the gospel. The preacher looked sober and worried, but left quietly, and not long after he came bringing oats and corn for the doctor’s horse. Afterwards he would bring flour or buckwheat-meal and choice bits about butchering time. Thus he seems, without entering into argument, to have relieved conscientious scruples about taking pay for preaching.
The ceremonial of these plain German sects is not formal and stately, like that of the Romish Church. A Moravian of Bethlehem was amused with one of their ministers, who, in ordaining a preacher, said, “Nau kannscht du taufe, und nau kannscht du copulire.” (Now you can baptize, and now you can marry.) Then turning to a brother, “Hab ich net ebbes vergesse? Oh, ya; nau kannscht du auch beim Abendmahl diene.” (Haven’t I forgotten something? Oh, yes; now too you can serve in the Supper.)
Perhaps I would better translate the foregoing, “Thou can serve in the Supper,” for our Pennsylvania Germans generally use the pronouns thee and thou.
The Mennonites have not a great yearly meeting like that of the Dunkers. In 1874 a correspondent of one of our Lancaster papers spoke of a national meeting held in Illinois by the Dunkers. He said, “They had abundant provision for the comfort of the brethren. The tent held ten thousand people. Eighty beeves were on the ground for steaks and roasts, and one baker had orders for eleven thousand loaves of bread.” This year I see a statement that the national Conference was held in Indiana, and that twenty thousand people were on the ground. Dr. Seidensticker (Century Magazine, December, 1881) states the number of the Dunkers in the United States at about two hundred thousand, with nearly two thousand ministers, none of whom receives a salary. They pay more attention to education than the Mennonites, having now three collegiate institutes.
Mennonites are still found in Europe; in Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, the Palatinate, etc. They are sometimes distinguished in Germany into Heftler and Knöpfler, or Hook men and Button men; whence it seems that one of the distinctions here is widespread and of former origin. In 1881 I visited a family in the Palatinate, where I was shown a black satin waistcoat which the father had once worn, with hooks and eyes down the front; but none of our Amish here would wear anything so showy as a black satin waistcoat.
In the same year, 1881, a Mennonite preacher in the Palatinate gave me a list of many of the European communities, with names of their officers, such as preachers, deacons, etc. Many of the same names are found in Lancaster County, though not generally spelled in the same way. Such are Frantz, Lichti, Landes, Lehmann, Bachmann, Oesch, Bähr and Bär, Zercher, Krehbiel, Neff, Binkele, Muselmann, Brubacher, Staehly, Wickert. The family of Stauffer, in my own immediate neighborhood, has possessed for several generations the given names John and Christian. On the European list I find two Christian Stauffers, and one marked Johann Stauffer II.
I met in the Palatinate one who had travelled in Switzerland, and who had seen Mennonites there. All that he met there were farmers, who sold milk when near towns, or made butter and cheese when at a distance. They were mostly Amish. One Amish family, who still wore hooks and eyes, were named Stauffer. Other families whom he knew or heard of were named Wenger, Schwartz, Rettiger, etc.
I find in the volume just mentioned a little description of a Mennonite congregation near Tilsit, in Prussia, which shows how closely agricultural the people are. There are altogether about eight hundred (five hundred and twenty being baptized). Seven hundred and seventy live in the country, in town thirty. Fifteen belong to the mercantile class, to mechanics twenty-four, to laborers seventy. The rest own or rent land (sind Grundbesitzer und Rentier).
From this volume, some of the Russian Mennonites appear to have adopted river-baptism. One body of Russians went to Taschkant in Middle Asia, and seem to have been quite unfortunate, as most of us would expect non-resistants to be among those nearly barbarians. And these emigrants were extremists, refusing obedience to worldly authorities; they were unwilling to plant forests in lieu of military service in Russia; the office of preacher they considered a human institution, and called themselves the spouse of the Lord. (Brautgemeinde des Herrn.)
I have received a copy of the Family Almanac for 1882, published by a Mennonite company in Indiana, which bears on the cover a little engraving of the sword being beaten into the ploughshare, and the motto above, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Within the almanac, among other matter, is the well-known engraving of a man surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, and headed thus, “Anatomy of Man’s Body as said to be governed by the Twelve Constellations.” I find the words said to be significant,—perhaps the introduction of some scrupulous person. On the same page is the statement, “Jupiter is the ruling planet this year.”
A meeting calendar at the close of the almanac gives forty-two meeting-houses in Lancaster County, and twenty-two others in this State. Also eleven in Indiana, one in Michigan, and seventeen in Virginia. There are many Mennonites in Ohio, but this list does not speak of them. Those meeting-houses mentioned make nearly one hundred; but probably the list contains none of the New or Reformed Mennonites, also none of the Amish, who almost invariably meet in private houses. A peculiarity of the Mennonite meetings in the list just spoken of is the long interval between meetings, which is mostly two or four weeks, and in three cases eight weeks.
In the article in the text called Schwenkfelders a careful observer will note a discrepancy. The author speaks of their holding the Spirit above the Scriptures; but also quotes Schwenkfeld as speaking in substance of “the gifts of grace revealed by the Father; yet so that this revelation should unite with the witness of the Scriptures.” The author has not read Schwenkfeld’s works, but quotes from different sources.
Before closing these remarks on the plainer sects, I may add that they are all evangelical, at least there are no Socinian “Menists” here as in Holland in the time of William Penn. The Dunkers do not believe in eternal perdition.
Further as regards one of these plainer sects, I may ask, Are they degenerating physically? This must be the tendency, it would seem, in all small religious bodies, limited in marriage to their own membership; but this may be compensated for by simplicity and purity of life and freedom from agitation and pecuniary distress.
The People Contrasted
It will be seen that there are among the Pennsylvania Germans two classes who may be compared or contrasted. The one party may be called the people of Lancaster and Lebanon, the Baptist and peace; the other, the people of Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton, the Reformed and Lutheran party. There are, however, many Reformed and Lutherans in the former division, but extremely few of the peace people in the latter. In Bucks and Montgomery on the east, Cumberland and other counties on the west, the different classes are mingled with many “English.” I have already pointed out that many of the peace people are of Swiss origin; of the other division, many or most appear to have been Palatines, and perhaps French refugees. I have already pointed out also how these two parties differ, the most astonishing difference being that of politics. During the civil war the one party opposed the government, which the other sustained. I find a surprising instance in my notes: A worthy Schwenkfelder told me of places in the northern part of Montgomery where party spirit seemed to have run riot, where vendue-criers would use such language as this: one held up an old scythe, and, as if to enhance its merits, said that it would do to cut old Lincoln’s head off. The great contrast, however, in politics between the two districts alluded to may of course have had some other origin than the sectarian differences of the people. It must be remembered, however, in Germany, that for a long period the Reformed and Lutheran were state churches; and these other bodies that existed there were dissenters.
In language I have pointed out small differences. In holidays I have shown how Lancaster and Lebanon keep Halloween, in a manner unknown to the eastern counties. In the three “Dutch” counties of the east we have the rabbit myth more extensive than here in Lancaster. While those three have great agricultural county fairs, Lancaster has held none since before the war. I attribute this in a great measure to the opposition of our Baptist farmers to horse-racing and its concomitants.
A friend gives me another small point of difference. In Lancaster, at Christmas-time, is sold a cake called Motzebom, which is not seen in Eastern Pennsylvania. This, he adds, is from the Italian marzepane, or bread of St. Mark, which came from Italy into Germany; in England called marchpain.
Miscellaneous
Said a young man to us, “My daddy won’t sit in no rocking-chair. He has a crutch agin’ a rocking-chair.” It appears that the same objection has been felt by other Pennsylvania Germans. Wollenweber gives us a farmer talking to his children in the spring, who says especially that none of the girls is to sit in a rocking-chair on a working-day. In sounding the praises of Womelsdorf, Berks County, the same author tells us that the women are never seen sitting in a rocking-chair.
We may sometimes judge of a person’s character by hearing the arguments used to induce him to act. Thus does Wollenweber endeavor to induce the people of Womelsdorf to erect a monument to Conrad Weiser, who is buried near the town, and who was a distinguished German pioneer. Wollenweber encourages them to raise a subscription. Certainly, he says, the man who owns the place would not object to having a beautiful monument on his farm; and thousands would go to see it; so that the railroad company, the turnpike company, and all the tavern-keepers in the neighborhood would make a good thing of it. “Alas!” he adds, “most of the people who live round there do not know how to prize the treasure they possess.”
These are rural similes used by Wollenweber, whose little volume is “in the idiom and manner of speech of the Pennsylvania Germans.” It tells of girls who want to be English (who profess to talk English), but when some one from town talks to them, they stand like a hen who has dropped an egg. Again, we read that Weiser remonstrated with Stiegel on account of his extravagance, etc.; but he might as well have talked to a dead calf.
Perhaps the best article in the collection (which is indeed of very unequal merit) is the story of the dreadful noise that was heard just before daylight in Lancaster County, near Berks. The people went to Squire Reinhold’s to talk about it, and the squire, who was very high learned, thought it must be the train of the wild huntsman, presaging war, pestilence, and scarcity. He had a German book that told about it. One stout young fellow, however, had a mind to see for himself; and he took with him an old shoemaker, who had fought in the Buckshot war, and who was fearfully full of courage when he had emptied a pint of whiskey, but whom anybody could chase away when he was sober. (The Buckshot war was a bloodless affair at Harrisburg, in 1838.)
This pair went to watch, and heard nothing for two or three nights, but at last about three in the morning a noise was heard as if every storm-wind had broken loose. The shoemaker was so frightened that he sank down at the foot of a tree and buried his head in the fallen leaves. But the young man discovered that the noise was caused by an immense flock of wild pigeons.
It has been hinted in the text that the Pennsylvania Germans are not refined. One of their preachers has told me of their being a gross, unrefined people, and of his being often obliged to see things that he would rather not. Another preacher gave me this anecdote: A man, speaking of his son, said, “I would rather have lost my best horse as Jake. He was such a fellow to work.”
Of those who are yoked together in life and do not pull together, the “Dutch” of Berks and Lehigh say, “Der ehne keht chee un der onnere keht haw.” (One gees and the other haws.) It is applied also to others who do not agree, and is heard also thus, “Ehnce will chee, oonce anner will ho.”
Although our “Pennsylvania Dutch” are of undoubted German origin, yet in common speech they almost always speak of themselves as Dutch, which sounds much more like Deutsch than German does; and it is not a great length of time since Germans were so called. I think that it was in Miss Aiken’s life of Elizabeth that I found the following. One of the suitors to the queen was brother to the emperor of Austria. The Earl of Sussex wrote to Elizabeth, “His highness, besides his natural language of Dutch, speaketh very well Spanish and Italian.”
The following are from newspapers of different dates:
In 1869 a literary society in Lancaster County discussed the question, Resolved, that wealth exerts a greater influence than knowledge. The decision was in favor of the affirmative.
In 1872 a lyceum in the same county debated the subject that wealth has a greater influence on the people in general than education. The decision was in favor of education, “contrary to expectation.”
In 1879, in another literary society in our county, this referred question was answered, Is laziness a habit, a disease, or a sin? If we only had the answer!
At a lyceum in Berks County in 1882 was discussed this subject, Resolved, that ambition is a greater evil than intemperance. The judges decided in favor of the affirmative; the house afterwards in the negative.
The following seems to be from a report in the Reading Eagle: Samuel J. and his wife returned from their wedding trip on Monday evening, when they were serenaded early by a band, and later Butcher arrived before the bride’s house with the si-gike, followed by about one hundred little boys. After making the welkin ring for about one hour, Samuel handed over a V, and the band left in high glee.
At my own home I have heard the sound of these rough serenades, borne over the fields in notes by distance made less harsh. The instruments are pots and pans beaten, and a horse-fiddle, made by putting rosin on edges of a box, and drawing a rail over them. In my own neighborhood I hear that this rough play is going out of fashion as musical bands are coming in.
In the south of England I saw an aged pair who had received a rough serenade on account of conjugal disturbances.
A friend, born in the Palatinate, tells me that rough serenades were formerly practised there, and called Katzen-musik (cat music), or charivari. They were introduced on the occasion of disproportionate marriages. Thus,—
“Eine alte Frau und ein junger Mann
Die müsse Charivari han.”
“An old wife and a young husband must have a serenade.”
In Berks County a young publisher told me that when visiting the country and asking his subscribers how they liked his paper, he received answer that it was “a very nice paper for the cupboard.” Being a large-sized paper, it was a good one to spread upon shelves to keep them clean.
Lancaster County men connected with the press have had similar experiences. One canvassing for a paper to be published in a small town came across an old man and his wife tying covers on pots of apple-butter, and showed them a specimen copy. He was answered, “Ich verlang’s net. Es macht net vier Happe-deckel.” (I don’t want it. It won’t make four pot-covers.)
When the Lancaster County Farmer was started it was in small pamphlet form. A person in the office showed it to a man, who took hold of it, opened it, and looked at the other side, but believed he would not take it: it was almost too small to tie apple-butter crocks with.
A man came into the office of the Lancaster Express, Republican, and wished to “pay his paper.” I will call his post-office Blackburn. Considerable time was spent in looking over the list of the weekly paper and trying to find his name, and then he was asked whether it was not the daily. No, he did not think it was. And was he sure that he got it from Blackburn Post-Office “Yes.”
“Well, maybe it’s the Intelligencer.”
“I guess maybe it is; it’s a Democrat paper.”
I have spoken of old apple-butter. The following is condensed from a Lancaster paper of 1874: “A gentleman handed us a few days since a bottle of apple-butter made in 1820, being fifty-three years old last fall. It is still good, and retains its original flavor. It was part of the ‘housestire’ of Mrs. R. of this county after her marriage.” (Haus steur is the house-furnishing. Apple-butter kept so long dries away to a very small bulk, but can be renewed by boiling it with water.)
At a Quaker settlement in Lancaster County, nearly extinct among the “Dutch,” a father urged his son to activity thus: “Let me see if thee’ll go on and help me like a little Dutch boy would do, or whether thee’ll linger and loiter about.” When the boy had got into college he told of his neighbors’ saying, “Too much eddication, you know, makes a man lazy.” A neighboring farmer was inquiring for a person to help him in haying and harvest, and the lad spoke for himself, saying that some people thought he was lazy, but that he could work and was willing to work. “Still, you’re a little lazy,” answered the farmer.
Riding one evening we met an Amish farmer on horseback driving a very clean sow. We stopped, and I asked whether he had a certain book which contains a notice of the Amish. He answered that he did not have many books.
“My Bible and Testament’s enough for me to read;” then, recollecting himself, “and the Martyr-Book, I have that.”
“Does Mr. Kennel live here?” inquired a stranger of an Amish farmer.
“Joe Kennel lives here. I’m the man.”
Mr. R. has told me that in 1853, at the age of six, he went to public school in this county. He had just learned to read, and was put into a class in the Testament. They read four to six times a day. It took them about three months to accomplish the Testament, and then the teacher put them into the Bible, which they completed, Mr. R. says, before he was eight years old, but under a succeeding teacher.
“We hadn’t many books in those days,” says Mr. R.; “I used to read the weekly Tribune down to the names of the Kansas settlers.”
The custom of barring out the teacher at Christmas appears not yet to be extinct in Lancaster County.
The scholars demand a Christmas gift, but are not always successful. One teacher near here walked calmly home, and allowed the scholars to open the door at their leisure.
An acquaintance, born in Northampton County, tells me that at his native place the teacher was locked out not at Christmas, but on Shrove-Tuesday, and merely for sport.
That peculiarity of some Germans by which they pronounce Goble like Kopel is also found in Pennsylvania. A certain carpenter could not tell me whether his son’s name was Beck or Peck. And an “English” boy supposed that a certain man had a hare-lip, as he heard him spoken of as Cutlip, but his name was Gottlieb.
A neighboring farmer came to our house with his little boy, about five years old. I handed the little fellow a penny, and he began to pull his father, who was talking.
“He gives it to you, does he?” I asked.
“Yes, to put into his box. He’s got two full. I’ll have to steal them some day, I guess,” winking at me.
“That’s the way you teach them to save?” said I.
“Yes, keep them till he gets big. Buy a horse and buggy with them, he says.”
Then, with paternal pleasure, “He tells his mother he don’t want no hilly land.” Strange for a family of Swiss descent? Their ancestors had enough hills in Switzerland. How they enjoy this level limestone land!
One of my acquaintances thinks that the reason these people or this class got the rich limestone land was that they were not afraid of the labor of cutting down the heavy timber which grew on it.
I have just told how the little fellow was saving his pennies to “buy a horse and buggy,”—the great pride of our farmer boy’s heart. On a neighboring farm to ours lived the grandfather, who had his own plain carriage, the father with another, and two sons, aged about twenty-one, each with a buggy. This must be the great extravagance of our young farmers now. But having buggies they can take the girls to ride; and they can sometimes take others too. The other day a lad kindly took me up; an Amish boy, in a plain buggy, driving a pretty good horse. As our Amish so often drive in wagons, covered with light-colored oil-cloth, I made some remark about the buggy, and the lad answered that it was his. He is fourteen years old.
On the other hand, I have heard of a Miss K., who was considered a great catch, being thought rich by the young “Dutch fellows.” Among the numerous young men who came to see her was one who drove two horses. Her father asked him what business he was in.
“Not in any just now.”
“Then I don’t see how you can keep two horses;” which remark was fully understood as putting an end to the young man’s suit. He needn’t come there no more!
The mania for a driving-team accounts for the occasional disappearance of harness when left unguarded.
A lawyer in Lancaster describes a peculiarity of our people. In most places, he says, a man comes in, tells you what he wants, and perhaps retains you in his case. But here there is first a conversation on diverse subjects.
Another says that the country people expect you to hear an account of their ailings and those of their friends and the state of the crops before proceeding further.
A neighbor coming to our house to get a horse and vehicle, talked perhaps half an hour, as if on a friendly call, before she told her errand.
It is hard for some of our Pennsylvania Germans to write a letter in English. I wrote once to a preacher, who got the ticket-agent at the railroad to answer. The following was sent by a workingman:
“Dear A B Your man have pacts that Roof has left some stuff mite I have them to pact my slate roof the leeke I sought the might spile so I mite youse it as well as let the leek away ensur soon. Yours C D.”
Which may be interpreted thus: “Your man has patched that roof, and has left some stuff. Might I have it to patch my slate-roof,—the leak? I thought it might spoil, so I might use it as well as let it leak away. Answer soon.”
A young “English” girl was visiting a “Dutch” one, and the father of the latter, a substantial farmer, was kindly going to take the visitor part way home. The girls stayed talking above until the voice of the farmer was heard at the foot of the stairs, “Staytsch!” He was no more to be trifled with than the stage-driver.
Once when absent from home he bought a plaster cast of Canova’s Three Graces. Such things are not seen in “Dutch” farm-houses, and ere long the Three Graces were provided with petticoats of pink and blue tissue-paper.
An expression that is very offensive to our Pennsylvania Germans, when applied to them by “English” folks, is “dumb Dutch.” Dumb is of course the German dumm, stupid, and it is familiarly used by our Pennsylvania Germans themselves. One of my friends said that she thought she could learn to use a sewing-machine,—“People as dumb as me has learned to use them.”
A Lancaster gentleman gave me this little anecdote:
Old Mrs. H., anxious to see a baptism by immersion, proposed to her hired girl, Susan, to go across the fields to the place where there was to be baptism in the creek. Waymaking they were to cross the same creek by a log, but Mrs. H. fell in to her waist. Wading back to the bank, Susan standing alarmed, Mrs. H. said, quietly and quickly, “Suss, mir hens yetst g’seh; yetst welle mir hame geh;” or, “Susy, we’ve seen it now; now let’s go home.”
A lawyer, Mr. W., who taught in Schuylkill County about fifteen or twenty years ago, has given me some of his recollections.
He said that among the mines in Schuylkill the population is English, that is, American, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, but in the valleys there are “Dutch” farmers, mostly Lutherans, he thinks.
“The farmers lived well in the valleys of Schuylkill County; no danger of freezing in winter between two feather-beds;” and Mr. W. liked the fried pawn-haus, although he found it rather rich.
“In that county I had some of the pleasantest times. I was there as a teacher, and they immediately appropriated me. I was not obliged to wait for the formality of an introduction in the German community. I could see, however, a tendency to mistrust the man of Yankee origin, and to combine against him; the young men fearing lest the teacher should cut them out with the girls. I was invited to go one evening on a sleighing-party. There were an equal number of young men and girls, and at a village we took in two fiddlers. We drove several miles to a stone tavern or farm-house (for the tavern-keeper is generally a farmer). The fiddlers sat in the window-seats, formed by the thick stone walls; and the dance was lively until the small hours. The dancers made a business of it, and went to work with a will. The dances were called ‘straight eights,’ forward and back, and mostly shuffles. Although at a tavern, none got drunk. Coming home, the driver increased the fun by upsetting the party in the snow.
“I taught public school, and on account of not speaking German I had much difficulty with the younger scholars, who, being under the care of their mothers, seldom heard the English language. The home talk was always in ‘Dutch,’ as they called it, though the fathers, when transacting business, were able to speak English.
“Even the larger pupils were not able to understand all of their lessons in English. Some of the farmers were rich. The ‘Dutch’ farmers were universally Democrats.” So says Mr. W.
Another lawyer, named H. (of Pennsylvania German origin), has given me some of his recollections of Berks County. Berks is that county concerning which it has been a standing joke that its people still voted for Andrew Jackson,—a well-worn joke.
“It must have been a select party,” says Mr. H., “that W. was at, if none of them got drunk.”
“The great dancing tunes in Berks are Fisher’s Hornpipe, Washington’s Grand March, Charlie over the Water, Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and We won’t go Home till Morning.”
“The walls in the stone houses in Berks are generally two feet thick, built like forts, with plenty of room to sit in the window-seats, but usually the landlord had a long bar-room table, on which he put chairs for the fiddlers. About every third dance they must have a drink, which frequent potations sometimes brought them to the floor, unable to distinguish sounds.” “The dancing they indulge in in Berks,” says Mr. H., “is not the fashionable kind, but is more exhausting than mauling rails in August, or thrashing rye with a flail. The figures are called out by some skilful person; the dances are called straight fours or hoe-downs, the dancers being arranged in four rows, in a sort of double column on each side. After the inside couples have danced and all have changed places, the former are allowed to rest while the outside couples dance.”
“The battalion (Pennsylvania Dutch, Badolya?) is an annual day of joy and festivity in Berks County. The annual training, which gave name to the day, has long been given up, but still just before hay-making the landlords of the country towns, such as Kutztown or Hamburg, will advertise that they will hold the annual battalion (without any soldiers). The peanut-venders, the men with flying-horses, and the others who expect to reap the harvest, come during the night before, and by six in the morning everything is ready, and about that hour the farmers begin to come in, wives, sons, daughters, hired men, and maids, even little children and quite small babies.
“The farmers patronize the landlords by dining and drinking. You can get a good dinner at Kutztown for less money than in any other town I know. As for drinking, bars have even been set up upon the second floor where the dancing took place.
“The old folks amuse themselves by talking together, looking on and seeing how well their sons and daughters can dance, the old men drinking a little whiskey, several times repeated, and perhaps treating their wives to some sarsaparilla. By evening the old folks will be at home; but the daughters, who could hardly expect the young men to walk home with them as long as the sun was shining, stay later, carrying gingerbread and pea-nuts home in their handkerchiefs.
“Roving gamblers also visit the battalion; and many an unwary youth has lost all his money, earned by hard work, and, after that was gone, has striven to better his fortune, but unsuccessfully, by giving up his watch.”
The remark of the last speaker, that they still have the badolya, or annual training, in Berks without any soldiers, reminds me that they still have in Germany the Kirch-weih, church consecration, or saint’s day, without going to any church at all, but dance and are merry after harvest.
I was told some years back of farmers in Berks “worth from thirty to eighty thousand dollars who never bring wheat bread to the table except at Christmas and New Year’s. This is from their great economy and desire to sell the wheat.”
Mrs. R., of Lehigh County, tells me that at her father’s they baked wheat bread on Saturday, for Sunday, but during the week they ate rye.
When her brother-in-law returned from a visit to Ohio, he said, “Daraus in Ohio, ’s is so schane. Sie essen laute waytzbrod;” or, “Out in Ohio it is so fine. They eat altogether wheat bread.”
There is a part of the city of Lancaster which is called Germany. Here natives of that country buy house-lots, and send their children out to beg until they find they have a secure footing. Nor does the average citizen disapprove of this proceeding; although he is dissatisfied if a woman who owns two brick houses sends to the soup-house for a free lunch.
I was amused one day in Lancaster by a boy’s asking, “Won’t you give me a penny to save?” A pretty little girl, comfortably dressed and speaking German, came into one of the newspaper offices for help, the family having been unfortunate. When some one gave her a penny, she took from her pocket a purse and put her money away.
Three great waves of emigration, it may be said, early settled Pennsylvania. The Quakers settled in the southeast. I have travelled among Friends in several localities, but I never saw any other community so strongly Quaker as Chester County.
The German immigration mostly lay outside of this, on the north and west. West of Chester County lies Lancaster, settled in a great measure by German Baptists (Mennonites), and which is probably one of the strongest Baptist populations in the world. Farther west the Scotch-Irish element is very strong. In the west of the State I was surprised by hearing a physician (I will call his name McCalmont) say that the Scotch-Irish had been the making of Pennsylvania. It is this class, doubtless, who have caused the region around Pittsburgh to be called the backbone of Presbyterianism.
This volume does not endeavor to describe the manners and ways of living of all Pennsylvania Germans, but only of the majority. People of wealth and education resemble each other in most civilized lands. And although the Pennsylvania Germans are principally devoted to agriculture, yet about twenty per cent., as I estimate, have gone into cities and into other employments. Among those who have aided less or more in the publication of this volume are ministers, lawyers, physicians, editors, bankers, merchants, and teachers of Pennsylvania German origin. Many persons of note in Pennsylvania have been of German descent, from Peter Muhlenberg, a Lutheran preacher, who commanded a regiment in the Revolution, to a number of governors of this State,—Snyder, Hiester, Shulze, Wolf, Ritner, Shunk, and Hartranft. Governor Hartranft’s ancestor, then called Hertteranfft, came in with the Schwenkfelders in 1734.
To these distinguished Pennsylvania Germans I may add Dr. Gross, the eminent surgeon. The German blood is also found in a great number of families in our country. It is stated that Simon Cameron is of Scottish descent on the father’s side; and on the mother’s is descended from Conrad Pfoutz. The Hon. Jeremiah S. Black and William D. Howells, the well-known author, have told me that they are partly of Pennsylvania German origin.
The End
Footnotes
1 An acquaintance, who lives in Bucks County, tells me that his father, a Mennonite preacher, voted “pretty much always.”
2 The rule against judgment bonds is not universal.
3 For another estimate, see Appendix.
4 Kohl-slaw (i.e., kohl-salat or cabbage-salad) is shredded cabbage, dressed with vinegar, etc. A rich dressing is sometimes made of milk or cream, egg, vinegar, etc. It may be eaten either as warm slaw or cold slaw.
5 Some account of Peltz-nickel in Germany will be found in the Appendix.
6 Written about 1868.
7 Amish is pronounced Ommish, the a being very broad, like aw. This article was first published some years ago.
8 I learn, 1882, that the Amish feet-washing is public.
9 Our German Baptists are more decidedly non-resistant than the Quakers. Some of them refuse to vote for civil officers.
The term Anabaptist is from the Greek, and signifies one who baptizes again. All Baptists baptize anew those who were baptized in infancy. The term Anabaptist, in the present essay, is used indifferently with Baptist, and, in a degree, with Mennonite.
10 Of the heretics executed by Alva in the Spanish Netherlands, a large proportion were Anabaptists.—Encyclopædia Americana.
11 Zschokke, in his History of Switzerland, accuses the Anabaptists of causing great trouble and scandal. Some account of the furious or warlike Anabaptists of Holland may be found in Appleton’s Cyclopædia.
12 This must not be understood as aid in bearing arms.
13 One of Menno’s brothers is said to have been connected with the Anabaptists of Münster, those who took up arms, etc. Of these, whose course was so very different from the lives of our pacific Baptists in this country. Menno may have received some, after their defeat, to come under the peaceable rule. There are in the Netherlands, says a recent authority, 40,000 Mennonites. They are a true, pure Netherlandish appearance, which is older than the Reformation, and therefore must not be identified with the Protestantism of the sixteenth century.
Menno does not merit to be called the father of the Netherlandish Mennonites, but rather the first shepherd of the scattered sheep,—the founder of their church community.
The ground-thought from which Menno proceeded was not, as with Luther, justification by faith, or, as with the Swiss Reformers, the absolute dependence of the sinner upon God, in the work of salvation. The holy Christian life, in opposition to worldliness, was the point whence Menno proceeded, and to which he always returned. In the Romish church we see ruling the spirit of Peter; in the Reformed Evangelical the spirit of Paul; in Menno we see arise again James the Just, the brother of the Lord.
See articles Menno and Mennonites, and Holland, in Herzog’s “Real-Encyclopädie,” Stuttgart and Hamburg, 1858.
Many of the Mennonites of Holland at the present day seem to have wandered far from the teachings of Menno, and to be very different from the simple Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania.
14 The burying of Menno in his garden can be explained by the great secrecy which in times of persecution attended the actions of the persecuted sects. The family graveyards of Lancaster County, located upon farms, may be in some degree traditional, from times of persecution, when Baptists had no churches, but met in secret.
15 To the writer it is a question of some interest how far George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, was acquainted with the lives, sufferings, and writings of the Anabaptists.
The common people of England may readily have obtained some knowledge of the Baptists from the number that were cruelly put to death. In 1534, Henry VIII. commanded foreigners who had been baptized in infancy, and had been rebaptized, to leave the realm in twelve days, on pain of death. It seems that certain Dutch Baptists braved the threatened punishment; for twenty-six were, in different places, and at different dates, burned within a few years. Under Edward VI., many Baptists suffered extreme punishment, Cranmer and Latimer, Ridley and John Rogers, either approving or actually assisting as inquisitors. See “The Baptists; Who they are, and What they have done,” by George B. Taylor, D.D.
The year 1534, in which Henry VIII. issued the proclamation alluded to, was the time of the Anabaptist occupation of Münster. The feelings of Henry towards the Peasants’ War and the Münster kingdom doubtless resembled those of his successor, in 1798, towards the French revolutionists,—but George III. did not put any one to death by fire.
Since the above was written has been published Barclay’s “Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth,” London, 1876. This author speaks of George Fox as having promulgated opinions and founded churches closely approximating to the Mennonite churches in Holland. He further says George Fox tells us that he had an uncle in London who was a Baptist.
16 Hans (or John) Landis is the name of the sufferer just spoken of. Several Landises are mentioned in the martyrologies, and the name is very common in Lancaster County at this time. John Landis is remarkably so.
In quoting from the Martyr-book I employ the English version, “Martyr’s Mirror.” I have lately had an opportunity of seeing an old German copy, from the press of the Brotherhood at Ephrata, about 1750. I find that it is differently arranged from the modern English version, and I suspect there are other variations.
17 From Schaffhausen came some of the Stauffer family, as I have read. The Stauffers are numerous in our county. For some family traditions, see the close of this article.
18 In the duchy of Cleves, the town of Crefeld, some fifty or sixty years later, gave refuge to the Dunkers. It appears also to have harbored some of the French Protestant refugees at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. See “Ephrata.”
19 They were probably conscientiously opposed to the death penalty.
20 Martyr’s Mirror.
21 The troops of the empire of Germany, or of Germany and Spain combined. See Voltaire’s “Age of Louis XIV.”
22 “Age of Louis XIV.” The following is testimony for the Mennonites: “In the words of the Dutch embassador (Van Beuning) to Monsieur de Turenne: ‘The Mennonites are good people, and the most commodious to a state of any in the world; partly because they do not aspire to places of dignity; partly because they edify the community by the simplicity of their manners, and application to arts and industry; and partly because we fear no rebellion from a sect who make it an article of their faith never to bear arms.’ The said industry and frugality they carried with them to Pennsylvania, and thereby are become very wealthy.”—Morgan Edwards.
23 Several towns and townships in southeastern Pennsylvania bear record of the Palatinate, etc. In Lancaster County we have Strasburg, doubtless named for that city in Alsace, and both town and township of Manheim. Adjoining counties have Heidelbergs. The Swiss Palatines do not seem to have preserved enough affection for the land of their origin to bestow Swiss names upon our Lancaster County towns. What wonder?
24 “This year of which I am now writing must ever be remembered as the most fatal to the Protestant religion. In February a king of England declared himself a papist. In June, Charles, the Elector Palatine, dying without issue, the electoral dignity went to the house of Newburgh, a most bigoted popish family. In October the King of France recalled and vacated the edict of Nantes.”—Burnet’s History of his Own Time.
25 This was twenty-eight years after the founding of Penn’s colony. Several years earlier, or in 1701, some Mennonites bought land in Germantown, and in 1708 built a church (or meeting-house). For this information I am obliged to Dr. Seidensticker, of the University of Pennsylvania.
“In the year 1708 about fifty Palatines, who were Lutherans and were ruined, came over to England. Queen Anne allowed them a shilling a day, and took care to have them transported to the plantations; and from these circumstances there arose a general disposition among all the poor of that country to come over. They came to Holland in great bodies: the Anabaptists there were particularly helpful to them, both in subsisting those in Holland and in transporting them to England. Great numbers of these were sent to Ireland, but most of them to the plantations in North America, where it is believed their industry will quickly turn to a good account.”—See Burnet’s “Own Time.” I am told that of those thus sent to Ireland many afterwards came to America; of such was Philip Embury, who, being converted in Ireland, came to New York, and was the first to introduce Methodism on the continent. He and his family were from the Palatinate.
Mention has just been made of Lutherans going to England from the Palatinate. I infer that many who fled thence were of the Reformed Church. The French Huguenots would in Germany probably join the Reformed Church?
26 Barclay’s “Religious Societies of the Commonwealth.” London, 1876.
27 Rupp.
28 Ibid.
29 The question has been discussed, what did the Germans select the limestone lands, and the Scotch-Irish take those less fruitful? Different hints upon this subject may be found in Day’s Historical Collections of Pennsylvania. Under the head of Lancaster County he says that a number of Scotch-Irish, in consequence of the limestone land being liable to frost and heavily wooded, seated themselves (1763) along the northern line of the counties of Chester and Lancaster. It seems that the Germans did not fear the labor of clearing off heavy timber.
A gentleman of Lancaster County says that ninety in one hundred of the regular members of the Mennonite churches are farmers, and that they follow the limestone land as the needle follows the pole.
30 The Pequea Creek (pronounced Peckʹway) waters some of the finest land in the county, if not the very finest. “The Piquaws had their wigwams scattered along the banks of the Pequea.”
31 Not always as at present spelled. The present Kendig appears as Kindeck, Breneman as Preniman, Baumgardner as Bumgarner, Eby as Abye. These were probably English efforts at spelling German names. Rupp says that he was indebted to Abraham Meylin, of West Lampeter Township, for a copy of the act. There appear to have been among the Palatines who came into our county some Huguenot families; but, from intermarrying with the Germans, and speaking the dialect, they are considered “Dutch.” The name of the Bushong family is said to have been Beauchamp.
32 This mention of the Switzers’ wagons reminds me of the great Conestoga wagons, which, before the construction of railroads, conveyed the produce of the interior to Philadelphia. With their long bodies roofed with white canvas, they went along almost, I might say, like moving houses. They were drawn by six powerful horses, at times furnished with trappings and bells; and the wagoner’s trade was one of importance.
33 A test-oath, or oath of abjuration, seems to have been in force at one time in Pennsylvania, concerning the Roman Catholics. (See Rupp’s History of Berks and Lebanon.) Must we not attribute this act to the royal home government rather than to William Penn?
34 “I fear this volume will be deemed a heap of dry records, without a sufficient number of anecdotes to give them a relish; this is owing to the peace and liberty which the Baptists have ever enjoyed in Pennsylvania. In other provinces they have had their troubles, which will make their history interesting to every reader.”—Morgan Edwards: Advertisement [or preface] to “Materials towards a History of the Baptists in Pennsylvania, both British and German.” 1770.
35 Day says that there was policy in the order above given; that the Irish were warlike, and could defend the frontier. It was not long after the above date (in 1763) that the “Paxton Boys” made a raid down to Lancaster and massacred the remnant of the Conestoga Indians in the jail of this town.
36 The Amish seem to have originated in Europe, about the year 1700, when Jacob Amen, a Swiss preacher, set up, or returned to, the more severe rule, distasteful to brethren in Alsace, etc., and enforced the ban of excommunication upon some or all of those who disagreed with him. Appleton’s Cyclopædia calls him Amman, and says that the Amish rose in 1693, in Alsace. A small pamphlet upon this subject has been published at Elkhart, Indiana, and is for sale at the office of the Herald of Truth.
37 See Herzog.
38 The German word leute, people, is here pronounced lite.
39 Traditionary stories exist in our county concerning the Swiss origin, etc., of certain families. I have heard one concerning the Engles and one of the Stauffers. A member of the Johns family has also told me of their Swiss origin, and of their name being formerly written Tschantz.
It is probable that other traditionary stories concerning Swiss families could now be collected, if some one would exert himself to do it before their custodians “fall asleep.” But let those who gather these stories beware of the “fine writer,” lest he add what he considers embellishments, and make the narratives improbable.
The Stauffer traditions were mentioned to me by a venerable member of the family, one who has kindly lent me his aid and sympathy in some of my records of the “Pennsylvania Dutch.” John Stauffer is now a great-grandfather, and he calculates that it was, at the nearest, his own great-great-grandfather who, with his mother and his three brothers, came to this country, his ancestors being of Swiss origin. “The mother,” says my neighbor (in substance), “weighed three hundred, and the sons made a wagon, all of wood, and drawed her to the Rhine. When they got to Philadelphia, they put their mother into the wagon and drawed her up here to Warwick township. There they settled on a pretty spring; that is what our people like.”
The reader of this little story may remember the “pious Æneas,” who “from the flames of Troy, upon his shoulders,” the old Anchises bore. [John Stauffer is now dead, 1882.]
The tradition of the Engle family was narrated to me by two of its members. Mr. Henry M. Engle has felt some difficulty in reconciling the tradition with the fact of the family’s having been in this country only about one hundred years, and with his idea that the Swiss persecution must have ceased before that period. But we have seen that some Baptist families tarried in the Palatinate, etc., before coming here, and a circumstance like the imprisonment of one of their women would be remembered among them for a long time.
Tradition says that it was the grandmother’s mother or grandmother of Henry M. Engle and Jacob M. Engle, who was a prisoner in Switzerland for her faith. The turnkey’s wife sympathized with the prisoner, because she knew that Annie had children at home. So she said to her, in the Swiss dialect, “Annie, if I were you, I would go away once.” (“Annie, wann i die wär, i det mohl geh.”—“Annie, wenn ich dich wäre, ich thut einmal gehen.”)
She therefore set Annie to washing clothes, and, turning her back upon her, gave her opportunity to escape.
Annie’s husband was not a Baptist; nevertheless, he was so friendly as to prepare a hiding-place for her, into which she could go down, if the persecutors came, by means of a trap-door; and she was never taken prisoner again.
40 The Herald of Truth, a Mennonite paper of this country, under the date of July, 1873, contains a “Letter of Authority,” beginning, “We, the Bishops and Directors of the entire body of the Swiss Mennonites in the colonies of Kotusufka, in the district (county or canton) of Schitomir, state of Volkinien, Russia.”
This Letter of Authority concerns the proposed migration above alluded to. Of the six names signed thereto, one at least appears to belong also to this county of Lancaster, where it is now sometimes written Graybill; in the Russian letter Krehbiehl. A similar name is found among the Schwenckfelders, who were of Silesian origin.
41 See the article “Ephrata,” in this volume.
42 See article “Ephrata” in this volume.
43 Our “Dutch”—all of them, I believe—use the singular pronoun “du,” thou.
44 A friend tells me that he once heard a discourse from a celebrated Dunker preacher, named Sarah Reiter. She was allowed to preach, it seems, by a liberal construction of Paul’s celebrated edict, because she was unmarried. Even when afterward married, by a more liberal construction still, the liberty to preach was not forbidden her. Possibly it was assumed that her husband at home was not able to answer all her questions upon spiritual matters. She removed to Ohio.
In the Encyclopædia Americana the following are given as propositions of some of the former Anabaptists: “Impiety prevails everywhere. It is therefore necessary that a new family of holy persons should be founded, enjoying without distinction of sex the gift of prophecy, and skill to interpret divine revelations. Hence they need no learning, for the internal word is more than the outward expression.”
At this time, however, while our German Baptists still believe in an unpaid, untaught ministry, none of them, I think, hold to the doctrine that the gift of prophecy or preaching is without distinction of sex. In this respect, George Fox seems to have agreed with the early Anabaptists just mentioned.
45 See the questions in full,—1 Corinthians, chap. vi.
46 See Hazard’s Register, vol. v. C. L. F. Endress, D.D., preached twelve years in Trinity (Lutheran) Church, Lancaster. To the learned Dr. Seidensticker, of Philadelphia, and to Mr. I. D. Rupp, I am indebted for assistance.
47 A new movement in German theology arose in the second half of the seventeenth century, through Spener, the founder of Pietism. The central principle of Pietism was that Christianity was first of all life, and that the strongest proof of the truth of its doctrines was to be found in the religious experience of the believing subject. The principles of the Pietists were in the main shared by the Moravians. (See American Cyclopædia, article German Theology.) Compare this statement of the main principle of Pietism with this of the Anabaptists, whom the mass of our Dunkers so much resemble: “The opinions common to the Anabaptists are founded on the principle that Christ’s kingdom on earth, or the church, is a visible society of pious and holy persons, with none of those institutions which human sagacity has devised for the ungodly.” (See American Cyclopædia, article Anabaptists.)
48 They took for themselves the name of Brethren, says an article in Rupp’s “Religious Denominations.” The Dunkers in our county call themselves Brethren,—“Old Brethren,” “River Brethren,” etc. Whether the Ephrata Dunkers took the same name, I cannot say.
49 Speaking of a certain Seventh-Day Baptist, an “Old Mennonite” writer says that he was “doubtless unaware that the Lord Christ is also Lord of the sabbath, and that in him no day, except for sake of common law, is to be observed above another.” See Der Waffenlose Waechter (or Unarmed Watchman), Jan. 1873.
50 In the time of the Millerite excitement above alluded to, many prepared ascension robes. One of my acquaintances went to the roof of his house, where, in his robe, he could look for the coming of Christ, and whence he was prepared immediately to ascend. More recently, namely, in August of 1873, I recollect meeting with a person who told me that he writes for Advent papers. He was himself a Time-ist, thinking that “the second coming of the Lord will take place this year.”
51 “Afterward, she held to edification for many years, in the sister-convent, the office of a sub-prioress, under the name of Marcella. Finally, in her age, she was induced by her son to return to her husband,—although another motive was the severe manner of life in the encampment, which she could no longer bear.”—Chronicon Ephratense, p. 45.
52 Are these the married women just spoken of, who had become single?
53 These remarkable men seem to deserve especial notice. In Rupp’s History of Lancaster County it is stated that they were from Germany, and had been brought up Catholics. Israel Eckerlin (Brother Onesimus) became prior of the brother-house at Ephrata. Peter Miller, in an original letter, complains that he obliged them to meddle with worldly things further than their obligations permitted; and that when money came in it was put out at interest, “contrary to our principles.”
They could not, however, have been very rich, for when in 1745 a bell arrived in Philadelphia, from England, which had been ordered by Eckerlin, and which cost eighty pounds, they knew not how to pay for it. The name of Onesimus (or Eckerlin) had been placed upon the bell. When the news of its arrival was received, a council was held in the presence of the spiritual father, Beissel, and it was concluded to break the bell to pieces and bury it in the earth. The next morning, however, the father appeared in the council, and said that he had reflected that as the brothers were poor, the bell should be pardoned. It therefore was sold, and was placed upon the Lutheran church in Lancaster, where it was long in use. Afterwards it was sold to a fire company, and is now on the tower of the house of the Washington Company. It bears a Latin inscription with the name of the “reverend man,” Onesimus.
Miller says that the prior (Eckerlin) conceived a notion to make himself independent of Beissel, and was stripped of all his dignities.
The Eckerlins appear to have gone into the wilderness, and encamped on a creek flowing into the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania, to which stream they gave the name of Dunkard Creek, which it still bears. They afterward seem to have removed to Dunkards’ Bottom, on Cheat River, which they made their permanent residence. After many vicissitudes, Miller tells us that Eckerlin and his brother were taken prisoners by Mohawks, and sold to Quebec, whence they were transported to France, “where, after our prior had received the tonsure and become a friar of their church, they both died.” The Ephrata Chronicle says (chap. xxiii.) that the prior went out of time twenty years before Beissel. The latter died in 1768. By the former reckoning, the prior went out of time in 1748, or about three years after the difficulty about the bell at Ephrata.
54 The reader is referred to an article alluded to in the preceding essay, namely, Dr. Seidensticker’s “A Colonial Monastery,” in The Century magazine for December, 1881. Dr. S. is a professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
55 The Tulpehocken Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill, which rises in Lebanon County, and empties at Reading, in Berks County.
56 In Rupp’s “Thirty Thousand Names” of immigrants to Pennsylvania will be found, under date of August 29, 1730, the names of Palatines with their families, imported in the ship “Thistle” of Glasgow, from Rotterdam, last from Cowes. Among these occurs Peter Müller, whom by a note Rupp connects with the Peter Miller of the text. As to the name John Peter, as given by Andrews, it is surprising to see how many of these immigrants bear the names of John, Hans, Johan, Johann, and Johannes, prefixed to other names. I count twenty in a column of thirty-four.
57 Mr. Andrews, from whom I quote, was a graduate of Harvard, who seems to have come to Philadelphia in 1698, and to have preached in an Independent or Presbyterian church, or in both.
58 The Conestogas were a small tribe... consisting in all of some dozen or twenty families, who dwelt a few miles below Lancaster. They sent messengers with corn, venison, and skins, to welcome William Penn. When the whites began to settle around them, Penn assigned them a residence on the manor of Conestoga. (Day’s Historical Collections.)
59 When this letter was written, Miller was about eighty years old. He doubtless spoke German during the sixty years that he lived at Ephrata, as well as before that time. It will be observed that he does not write English elegantly.
60 In the year 1740, says Fahnestock, there were thirty-six single brethren in the cloisters, and thirty-five sisters; and at one time the society, including the members living in the neighborhood, numbered nearly three hundred.
Rev. C. Endress says that some were anxious to retain the solitary life, and some (it appears) were opposed to giving to Beissel the title of Father. Sangmeister left the society and retired to Virginia (whence, however, he returned to Ephrata). “His book,” says the same writer, “is much tainted with bitterness, and undertakes to cast a dark shade upon the whole establishment.”
61 Larger accommodations were afterward built in the meadow below; a sister-house, called Saron, a brother-house, named Bethania, etc. Most of these are still standing, I believe, in 1882; but the former buildings on the hill long since disappeared.
62 The Ephrata Chronicle speaks nearly in this manner of that of the sisters:
Their dress was ordered, like that of the brethren, so that little was to be seen of the disagreeable human figure (von dem verdriesslichen Bild das durch die Sünd ist offenbar worden). They wore caps like the brethren, but not pointed ones. While at work these caps or cowls hung down their backs; but when they saw anybody, they drew them over their heads, so that but little could be seen of their faces. But the principal token of their spiritual betrothal was a great veil, which in front covered them altogether, and behind down to the girdle. Roman Catholics who saw this garment said that it resembled the habit of the scapular.
63 The Chronicle tells us that once, in Beissel’s absence, a costly feather bed was brought into his sleeping-room. He made use of it one night, but sent it away afterward,—and not even in dying could be brought to give up the sleeping-bench (die Schlafbanck).
64 In “Carey’s Museum” for 1789, will be found a letter from a British officer to the editor of the Edinburgh Magazine, whence it appears that at that time, 1786, a rug was laid upon the sleeping-bench. The writer says that each brother had a cell, with a closet adjoining; that the smallness of the rooms was very disagreeable, and that they were not clean. The churches were clean and neat, but perfectly unadorned, except by some German texts. The house “occupied by the nuns” was uniformly clean, and the cells were in excellent order. (Some of the statements of this writer appear very loose.)
65 At Ephrata, in the winter of 1872, I was told that Miller was once met, as he was taking a load of paper from the mill to the press, by a certain man named Widman. This Widman, according to tradition, had been a vestryman in Miller’s former church. “Is this the way they treat you,” said Widman, “harnessing you up to a wheelbarrow?” and he spat in Miller’s face.
Allusion will be made hereafter to the traditionary tale of Miller and Widman.
66 Of one of the collections of hymns published at Ephrata, Fahnestock says that four hundred and forty-one were written by Beissel, seventy-three by the brethren in the cloister, one hundred by the single sisters, and one hundred and twelve by the out-door members. Endress speaks in unfavorable terms of the literary merits of some of the Ephrata hymns.
67 “Materials towards a History of the American Baptists.” 1770.
68 Dr. Fahnestock resided for a while in the latter part of his life in the sister-house, at Ephrata. Here Mr. Rupp, the historian, visited him. Rev. Mr. Shrigley, librarian of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, who visited Ephrata, has spoken to me of Fahnestock’s venerable appearance.
69 In after-years they seem to have been much troubled by litigation. Dr. Fahnestock says that they considered contention with arms, and at law, unchristian; but that they unfortunately had to defend themselves often in courts of justice. To set an example of forbearance and Christian meekness, they suffered themselves for a long time to be plundered, until forbearance was no longer a virtue. He says (Hazard’s Register, 1835) that the society is just escaping from heavy embarrassments which they incurred in defending themselves from the aggressions of their neighbors. The British officer, whose statement was published as early as 1789, speaks of Peter Miller as often engaged in litigation.
In a recent work (Belcher’s History of Religious Denominations, 1854), the Seventh-Day Baptists at Ephrata are said to possess about one hundred and forty acres.
70 Morgan Edwards, in speaking of the recluses at Ephrata, says that they took the vow of celibacy. But, as so many of our German Baptists are opposed to oaths, I presume that they did not. “Teach, by example, that a promise is truly an oath,” says a late Pennsylvania paper.
71 Somewhat altered from the original.
72 A writer in the Chronicle speaks of being at one of the count’s conferences, where there were Mennonites, Separatists, and Baptists. But when he came home, he told the vorsteher that he regarded the count’s conference as a snare to bring simple awakened souls again into infant-baptism and church-going. Then they held a council, and resolved to have a yearly conference of their own.
The above expression—infant-baptism and church-going—sounds so much like the account of the Baptist or Anabaptist persecutions narrated in the Martyr-book, that we might almost conclude that the Dunkers had a direct connection with the Anabaptists, instead of originating among the Pietists. But it will be remembered that the Ephrata Dunkers had printed an edition of the great Martyr-book, and it is most probable that some of them were familiar with it. Still, there may have been among the Pietists some who were or had been Baptists.
73 Near the close of this sketch mention is made of “Hoeckers a Creveld.” Perhaps Ludwig belonged to the same family.
74 Paxton township is now in Dauphin County. The Paxton church was three miles east of Harrisburg.
75 The Ephrata Chronicle says that, as the enemy approached (the Indians came within thirteen miles of Ephrata), many persons sought refuge in the cloister, with those who were themselves in need of protection. As reports of murders reached Ephrata day after day, the celibates (Einsamen) became despondent, and even the leader turned pale,—a thing that had never been witnessed before. When danger was so imminent, the fathers proposed to take the sisters away on wagons to a safer place. It was then that Beissel received by night a divine revelation to the effect that no Einsamer should perish by the hands of the Indians.
Accordingly they remained at their station, and it really turned out as Beissel had predicted. The people who took refuge in the monastery probably stayed at Ephrata, not with a view of finding protection behind the wooden walls of the cloister, but for the sake of shelter and support. The statement that the government sent a company of soldiers for the protection of Ephrata seems to be verified by the mention in the Chronicle of Rothröcke or Redcoats.
76 The Mennonites and Quakers were peaceably disposed towards the Indians, but the Presbyterians from the north of Ireland, who had settled at Paxton, felt a deadly animosity against them, and, as Day says, against the peaceful Moravians and Quakers, who wished to protect the Indians, at the expense, as the Paxton men thought, of the lives of the settlers. The Paxton rangers were commanded by the Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Colonel Elder, who seems to have opposed the massacre of the Indians at Lancaster by the “Paxton boys.” Day says that no historian ought to excuse or justify the murders at Lancaster and Conestoga, and adds that they must ever remain dark and bloody spots in our provincial history.
77 See Carey’s “American Museum.”
78 An insignificant hill overlooking the meadow where the brother- and sister-houses now stand.
79 A remarkable statement.
80 Compare this inflated language with Miller’s letter, as quoted.
81 The different modes of spelling what appears to be the same name will not surprise those who are familiar with our Pennsylvania German names.
82 It may be observed how nearly this description of the chapel agrees with that given by the British officer of the one he visited here some eighty-five years ago.
83 Fahnestock says that, like some dilapidated castles, Ephrata yet contains many habitable and comfortable apartments. The brother- and sister-houses, etc., form but a small part of the modern village of Ephrata. He wrote some time ago.
84 See article “Francis Daniel Pastorius,” by Dr. Seidensticker, in the Penn Monthly, January and February, 1872.
85 The name Hacker, still heard at Ephrata, is doubtless the same as the above.
86 Schneeberger, or people of Snow Hill?
87 Mr. Endress tells us that with many of the single brethren and sisters at Ephrata, the mystical idea of the union with Christ was evidently used to gratify one of the strongest natural affections of the human heart. “The Redeemer was their bridegroom or bride.... He was the little infant they carried under their hearts, the dear little lamb they dandled on their laps.”
He adds that this at least was found much more among the single than among those whose affections were consecrated in a conjugal life. “The powers of human nature would evince their authority.” “According to Sangmeister, some sank under the unceasing struggle.” See Hazard’s Register, 1830.
88 Upon this subject of the New Testament as a creed, etc., all or nearly all our German Baptist sects seem to unite.
89 This article now appears nearly as it was published in the second edition of this work, issued several years ago.
90 The general use of the lot was abrogated in 1817. Although marriage by lot is no longer obligatory, yet a Moravian gentleman has told me that this manner of decision is still resorted to,—and frequently in Europe. Bishops are usually appointed by lot.
91 The lease system, so called, was abolished in 1844. The Moravian communities abroad, especially upon the continent of Europe, are close communities, no one being allowed to buy of their lands who is not a member of the Moravian Church. They retain more plainness of dress in Saxony and Prussia, and even in Great Britain, than prevails in America. There the women all wear caps in religious services.
92 The heavy expense entailed by enterprises so great does not fall entirely upon the Church. The Mission Report of 1872, in speaking of Australia, mentions that the missionaries are cheered by the sympathy and aid of Christians of different denominations; and adds that the mission has sustained a loss in the death of the Rev. Mr. Mackie, of the Presbyterian Church, in Melbourne. The Moravian Manual also speaks of missions that are self-supporting, and of missionaries who labor, like Paul, for their own support.
93 Its use is taught it seems even to barbarians, for the Mission Report, in speaking of an Esquimaux church, says, “The corner-stone was solemnly laid, when the native trombone players discoursed sweet music.”
94 In the following from the litany, I observed an inconvenience:
Preacher.—“By thy glorious resurrection and ascension,
By thy sitting at the right hand of God.”
Congregation.—“Bless and comfort us, gracious Lord and God.”
95 The frequent repetition of the word love-feast has caused it to be often shortened in conversation, it being pronounced by some as if written luff-east.
96 To the Rev. W. C. Reichel, author of several historical works, I am indebted for a correction in the article “The Dunker Love-feast.”
97 Tombstones are placed on the newly-made graves, old tombstones are cleaned, etc. These stones are “breast-stones,” not of large size, and lie flat upon the graves,—in the Moravian manner.
98 I am quite at a loss to know why the colored eggs, purple, red, and yellow, in use among the Moravians (as among other Germans), should here have been called rabbits’ eggs, and the idea been held out that the eggs were of different colors because different rabbits brought them.
(This note was published in the second edition. Other remarks on the subject of the Easter rabbit and eggs will be found in the Appendix.)
99 A lady in Bethlehem told me that she had expected a man to help her put down carpet, who had failed to appear. About nine the next morning she met him upon the street somewhat intoxicated and friendly and communicative. “Oh, Mrs. —,” said he, “I couldn’t come yesterday. It was my bursday.” Whence we may infer that the celebration of birthdays has spread in the community.
100 The bell upon Nazareth Hall is still rung at a quarter before twelve, daily.
101 The brethren’s house was thus given up in 1812, some time before the date above assigned.
102 An enthusiastic friend says, “It is a well-known and abundantly substantiated fact that fewer unhappy marriages were known among the Moravians than among the same number of people in any other denomination of Christians while the lot was in practice.” If so, let us burn our romances.
103 This perhaps occurred during Zinzendorf’s banishment from Saxony. See note at close of this article.
104 This building, Ephrata, was once a “nursery,” where as many as fifty-six young children were placed at one time. Some were removed from their mothers at as early an age as eighteen months, and placed under the common charge. See Transactions of Moravian Historical Society, 1857-58.
105 A friend adds: “These Christmas dialogues are still to be heard in Moravian towns, in their parochial schools.”
106 The tendency to pronounce s like sh will be observed.
107 A friend says, “Schmaus” is a vulgar term,—use “Fest.”
108 The corpse is sent to the corpse-house by some families, to this day.
109 Another person says, that if a man had no proposal to make, he left it to the authorities to suggest a woman; but the authorities never forced a woman upon him against his will.
110 A lady whom I met at Nazareth spoke of the visits that she used to make in the widow-house, when they went at one, had vesper of coffee and sugar-cake at two, and left at five.
111 Upon this passage, a friend makes the following remark: “Not regular occupants, but Moravian missionaries or strangers who might arrive in large bodies; twenty, I think, would be a large number.”
112 Ayfrahtaw I heard this word pronounced.
113 There were two log houses, says a friend.
114 They not only receive tuition here, but board and clothing, and a similar privilege is extended to the sons of preachers.
115 During the period of the anti-slavery agitation, preceding the war, the Moravians as a body did not take an anti-slavery stand. Their members were allowed to hold slaves, like those of almost all the other sects in this country. Their European brethren did not agree with them on this subject.
116 A recent writer tells us that the upper, middle, and lower parts of Montgomery County, the lower end of Berks, and the south corner of Lehigh contain the only settlement of Schwenkfelders in the wide world. He adds that it is no misnomer to call these people the Pennsylvania German Quakers. It will be seen, however, that they are more ancient than George Fox.
117 Phlox subulata.
118 This feminine termination has not disappeared from the dialect. Mr. Rauch speaks of “de olt Lawbucksy,” which is rendered, old Mrs. Lawbucks.
119 The decline in the severity of the cap seems to have reached its lowest point among the Moravians, where but few women in this country wear caps in church. See “Bethlehem and the Moravians.”
120 At Flourtown, or Chestnut Hill, the English language is used, and there is no instruction in German.
122 It appears that there was also extemporaneous prayer during the exercises.
123 Why is not Schwenkfeld spoken of by the title von Ossing? We read of Ulrich von Hütten, German scholar and reformer.
124 In using the name Schwenkfeld, I have abbreviated it a little, giving it as it is in the New American Cyclopædia, which calls him, however, Von Schwenkfeld. The Cyclopædia, in speaking of his writings, some ninety treatises, says that they are regarded as one of the most valuable sources of the history of the Reformation.
125 A copy of this volume has been deposited for reference in the library of the German Society, Philadelphia.
126 That portion of Silesia which was the home of the Schwenkfelders lies east of Saxony, the home of Count Zinzendorf. It, or the greater part of it, was conquered by Frederick the Great, and added to Prussia.
127 The clergy, die Gelehrten.
128 Erläuterung.—Schwenkfeld appears to have abstained from the sacraments for a great part of his life,—from the outward forms, at least, if we may add the expression.
129 The three folios before spoken of in this article were published within ten years after his death, and it seems possible that the place of printing was omitted on account of the opposition to his works.
130 In the New American Cyclopædia Schwenkfeld is said to have differed from Luther and others upon the deification of the body Christ. In the latter part of this essay this point is spoken of again.
131 Ulm, a town in Würtemberg, on the left bank of the Danube. It was long an imperial free city.
132 This title was probably not in former times their chosen name. In a little inartistic aria, near the close of the Erläuterung, they are twice called die Stillen, or the quiet ones. Looking in a German dictionary for this word, I find “die Stillen” is rendered Quakers. In the same aria they are called die Friedlichen, or the peaceful ones. One of Schwenkfeld’s volumes, a collection, states that they were gathered and put in order by the fellow-confessors and lovers of the glories and truth of Jesus Christ.
133 As in the principality of Lower Silesia Lutheran preachers had been installed in nearly all the offices, many of the common people who had accepted Schwenkfeld’s teachings stood back in stillness, not being able conscientiously to agree with these teachers. This was very offensive to the parsons, and they soon made use of their high dignity against tender consciences to force such persons to their means of grace,—to make them come to the baptismal font, to the pulpit, and the altar.—Schwenkfeld’s Erläuterung, chap. iv. The Schwenkfelders express the opinion that the action of the Lutheran clergy, in calling attention to them, frequently caused their persecution by the Catholic authorities.
134 Digging trenches for military defence, and working the galleys or great boats of the Mediterranean.
135 They do not seem to have been very profitable as soldiers. One man can lead a horse to water, but several cannot make him drink.
136 Herrschaft. The narrative is condensed from the Erläuterung, or Explanation.
137 Mention is made of the time when the destroyer came upon the destroyer because his measure was full,—namely, the Thirty Years’ War, and the banishment of the Lutherans from the imperial dominions.
138 See Erläuterung, or Explanation. The passage is slightly abridged.
139 Hence we may infer that the Schwenkfelders forbade marriages with those not of their own persuasion. During the period of their troubles it seems that marriage by the church was at times refused them, no doubt from their refusing the sacrament. Maimed funeral rites were also among the persecutions of which they complained. In speaking thus of their decline, they may, however, overestimate their numbers in former times.
The following characteristic sketch may be introduced here nearly in the words of the original: The two pastors in Harpersdorf having been called to a new church, there came as pastor Herr John Samuel Neander (the pastor Neander who died in July 1759). He was by nature a very fiery man, so that he hardly knew how to govern his passions; by birth a Brandenburger, from Frankfort on the Oder. When he was installed, the Herr Superintendent in Liegnitz brought before him that he was a stranger, and therefore he might not know how it was in Harpersdorf, that there was a people there, who had already lived there about two hundred years, called Schwenkfelders. Therefore he would give him good advice, that he should leave these people in peace; preceding pastors had tried it enough, and had accomplished nothing by force. But if he thought he could not endure these people, he should say so, and another would be put into the place.
But Herr Neander promised everything good, and did not keep to it. For soon after entering upon his office he gave out that he had sworn to bury none of the Schwenkfelders as before practised, and this he began to carry out. See Erläuterung, chap. v.
140 The aria already alluded to says,—
“Throw their dead away, like foul corruption,
The cow-path is too good; don’t tread upon the grass;
The father shall not follow the body of his child,
Nor the wife accompany her husband to the house of death.”
The word that I have translated cattle-path, etc., is viehweg. A note upon this verse of the aria says, “1722. Three hundred persons lie upon the cow-paths at Harpersdorf and Langendorff.” If so many were buried during the time of the Catholic mission, these people must have been numerous.
141 Zinzendorf’s estate of Berthelsdorf was, it seems, near the town of Gorlitz.
142 By agriculture? rather than in the town of Gorlitz.
143 See “Bethlehem and the Moravians.”
144 The word translated gingerbread is Pfeffer-kuchen, or pepper-cakes. Pepper-nuts are now made in Lancaster County,—a delicate cake, as I have seen them, somewhat resembling jumbles. If plainer they would be like the New England cookies. Cooky comes from the German kuchen?
In Allentown, a young gentleman tells me that the people of Lehigh County, all through, eat Schwenkfelder-cake. “Our mothers made them for us. They are a kind of vesper-cake, or rusk baked in a loaf.” In Allentown the name is sometimes pronounced Schwinkfelder.
145 No one should confound these emigrants from the Palatinate with the Palatines for whom William Penn desires the friendship of the Indians. See “Swiss Exiles,” in this volume. The numerous refugees from the Palatinate probably came from different motives; some for religious freedom, and some to earn their bread. Many German emigrants were redemptionists,—i.e., they sold their time to pay for their voyage. Of this class, we learn, was an ancestor of the late John Covode.
146 Mr. Weiser tells us, in speaking of the Schwenkfelders, that on a late occasion, having heard that the tombs of their ancestors, near Liegnitz and Gorlitz, were fast being desecrated, and the earth, with their very dust, carried away for road-making purposes, their Pennsylvania posterity collected a handsome sum and forwarded it to the authorities, with a view of purchasing the grounds, and having them set apart and enclosed as the burying-ground of the Silesian Schwenkfelders. It is not believed, however, he adds, that their moneys were appropriated to the laudable end which they had in view.
This narrative might apply to those Silesians who were buried upon the cow-paths (Mr. Weiser says, taken to the carrion pit or bone commons), but does it apply to them after they had taken refuge at Gorlitz?
147 It has been estimated that ninety-five in one hundred of the Schwenkfelders are farmers.
148 In the Rules and Ordinances of the Schwenkfelder community may be found this passage: “Yet a Christian places no holiness in wearing the oldest fashioned clothes; he also takes care not quickly to ape all new fashions, much less does he make it his business to bring up new ones.”
149 Mr. Weiser speaks as if the singing was in the dialect. The following is a copy of some lines which were sung at their meeting-house when I attended, from which the student of German may observe the quality of the language, and the theologian may notice, as it seems to me, two or three of their peculiar doctrines:
“Jehovah, Vater, Sohn, und Geist!
O Segens Bronn, der ewig fleuszt!
Durchfleusz Herz, Sinn, und Wandel wohl;
Mach uns dein’s Lob’s und Segens voll!”
Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit! Oh, spring of blessing, forever flowing! Flow through heart, thought, and life; make us full of thy praise and blessing!
150 Wheat bread is now used. At a Schwenkfelder house I ate apple-butter, sweet, because made from sweet apples, and seasoned with fennel, of which the taste resembles anise.
151 It may be observed that I have used Mr. Weiser’s language.
152 Before public schools were established the Schwenkfelders had a fund for the education of their poorer members.
153 “Which these ordered back into our fund, to supply the wants of the poor, when we should arrive at Philadelphia.”
154 It is probable that baptism will be introduced, but only optionally.
155 Mr. Weiser tells us that a mother whose adult daughter entered the Reformed Church, by baptism, earnestly protested against the performing of the sacrament over her, on the ground that “prayers were had for their child in the meeting-house.”
156 All Quakers do not teach the inferiority of the written word. Mr. Weiser says, “In general terms it may be said that Caspar Schwenkfeld has been the George Fox of Silesia, or the veritable George Fox, perhaps somewhat educated and sublimated.”
Although some of the doctrines taught by George Fox seem to have been given before him by Schwenkfeld, yet were these not previously taught among the Anabaptists, and possibly among the Waldenses?
It has been said that the better classes of Anabaptists claimed a descent from the Waldenses, the Wickliffites, and the Hussites, who had struggled for a church separated from the world and distinguished by the holiness of its members.
157 A note says, “No one can deny that at last all books must perish, but the word of the Lord endureth forever.”
158 On his death-bed Schwenkfeld declared that he believed that all in the Old and New Testament was profitable for salvation to the elect; that he was certain that his own writings, if read impartially, and after prayer, agreed with Holy Scripture, but he must acknowledge to the praise of God that they proceeded more from gracious revelation.
159 See the Erläuterung, or Explanation, chap. x. These passages in general are greatly abbreviated, or are picked out, I may say.
160 Erläuterung, chap. xi.
161 The passage alluded to is doubtless this: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
162 The thoughtful reader may perhaps find something in this answer to contrast with these passages from the decrees of the late Ecumenical Council at Rome:
“If any one shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that any one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine, and that such assertions may not be condemned by the church, let him be anathema. If any one shall say that at any time it may come to pass, in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the church must be taken in another sense than that in which the church has ever received and yet receives them, let him be anathema.” Quoted from a report of a dogmatic decree on Catholic faith, confirmed 1870.
163 Ausführliche Geschichte Kaspar v. Schwenkfelds, etc.
164 Kadelbach tells us of George Mattern, a teacher in Silesia, who inclined to the opinions of Schwenkfeld, and who migrated to Holland, and afterward to England, where he joined the Quakers. He wrote a letter with this expression: “Dear father, thou must not be surprised that I thee and thou thee. Dich. dutze.”
165 This letter is dated 1875. It was late in 1873 that I heard of baptism as having been administered among them.
166 I believe the paper is discontinued, 1882.
167 I received permission to use the name of Mr. Mahony, the manufacturer. His brother wrote “The Bells of Shandon.” The other names used are substitutes.
168 Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary, County Cork.
169 One was erected a few years ago at Manchester, and I was told there that the Queen and Prince of Wales had not visited the town since.