to take up their staves and depart. Disputes concerning doctrine as well as discipline soon sprang up, and the evil passions by which dissension, schism, and the mutual hatred of religious factions are produced, seemed at one time likely to destroy the new settlement. Perhaps this is the only instance in ecclesiastical history wherein such disputes have been completely adjusted; and this event must be ascribed to the influence which Count Zinzendorf possessed as the patron and protector of the emigrants, at least as much as to his great talents and undoubted piety. The day upon which they all agreed to a constitution, ecclesiastical and civil, he ever afterwards called the critical day, because it was then decided "whether Herrnhut should prove a nest of sects, or a living congregation of Christ." It was, however, subsequently taken into consideration more than once, whether they should lay aside their peculiar discipline for the sake of avoiding evil reports; Count Zinzendorf himself inclined at one time to this concession, and thought it better that they should be entirely embodied in the Lutheran church, with which they professed a perfect conformity in doctrine: the brethren, who were then between 5 and 600 in number, regarded the discipline as the precious inheritance which had been left them by their fathers, but they consented to let the question be decided by lot, in full confidence that the decision would be directed by immediate Providence. Two verses therefore from St. Paul were written on separate papers. The

first was in support of Count Zinzendorf's motion: "To them that are without law, be ye as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law in Christ,) that ye may gain them that are without law." The text of the second lot was this,

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught." The trial was preceded by fervent prayer: a child of four years old drew the second lot; and they " entered from that day (in their own words) into a covenant with each other, to remain upon this footing, and in this constitution to carry on the work of the Lord, and to preach his gospel in all the world, and among all nations whithersoever he should be pleased to send and scatter them abroad."

By this time the establishment at Herrnhut had excited much curiosity in Germany. In one day above fifty letters were received soliciting information concerning it, and many visitors, among whom were persons of high rank, came to see things with their own eyes. The new community was attacked also from various quarters. A Jesuit began the war, and there were Lutheran divines who entered into it upon the same side. Count Zinzendorf was too wise to engage in controversy himself. "The world hates me," said he; "that is but natural: some of my mother's children are angry with me; this is grievous. The former is not of sufficient importance to me that I should lose my time with it, and the others are too important to me, to put them to shame by an answer." t2 Thess. ii. 15.

* 1 Cor. ix. 21.

But although his own conduct was more uniformly discreet than that of any other founder of a Christian community, (it would be wronging the Moravian brethren to designate them as a sect,) he was involved in difficulties by the indiscretion of others, and the jealousy of the government under which he lived. He was therefore ordered to sell his estates, and afterwards banished. Against the first of these mandates he had provided by conveying his estates to his wife; and though he was soon permitted to return to his own country, yet as the brethren were only continuing in Saxony upon sufferance, it was judged advisable to enlarge themselves by establishing colonies in countries, where the magistrates would not interfere with them, and no foreign prince would interfere with their protectors. When the Count resigned his estates, he devoted himself from that time wholly to the service of the Lord, and more especially among that congregation of exiles which God had committed to his care, and which he regarded as a parish destined to him from eternity. Having now resolved to enter into holy orders, he wished at once to obtain a rank in the reformed church, which might not, according to common opinion, appear derogatory to the royal order of Danebrog, wherewith the King of Denmark had invested him. There was in the duchy of Wurtemberg a convent of St. George, in the Black Forest, near the Brigach, which is one of the sources of the Danube: at the Reformation this convent had been made a bishopric, but having been destroyed by fire in

1634, it had not been rebuilt, and the prelacy had ceased. Count Zinzendorf proposed to the Duke if he would renew it in his favour, to restore the convent at his own expence, and found a theological seminary there as a prelate of the Wurtemberg church. But the Duke, who was a Roman Catholic, though the sovereign of a Protestant country, would do nothing which could give umbrage to those of his own persuasion.

It is seldom that a German of high birth enters into holy orders. Hitherto, perhaps, the Count had retained something of the pride of birth. Upon this repulse the last remains were subdued. Under the name of De Freydek, which, though it was one of his titles, sufficiently disguised him, he went as private tutor into a merchant's family at Stralsund, that he might pass through the regular examination of the clergy in that character, as a candidate in divinity; and having preached and been approved in that city, he was ordained at Tubingen, resigning his Danish order, because he was not permitted to wear it in the pulpit. Missionaries were now sent abroad from Herrnhut, and colonies established in various parts of the Continent. Nitschmann was consecrated at Berlin by Jablonsky and his colleague, to be a bishop or senior of the Moravian Brethren, and in the ensuing year he and Jablonsky, in the same city, consecrated the Count. He had previously been in England to consult with Archbishop Potter whether or no there would be any objection on the part of the Church of England, to employing

the Brethren as their missionaries in Georgia. The reply of that learned and liberal prelate was, that the Moravian Brethren were an Apostolical and Episcopal Church, not sustaining any doctrines repugnant to the Church of England; that they, therefore, could not with propriety, nor ought to be hindered from preaching the Gospel to the heathen. And after the Count had been consecrated, the Archbishop addressed to him a letter.

The Count was still a banished man from Saxony, when Wesley with his old fellow-traveller Ingham, and six other companions of the same spirit (three of whom were Germans), left England to visit the Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut; in expectation that by communion with them his faith would be established. They landed at Rotterdam and proceeded to Ysselstein; by desire of the Princess Dowager of Orange, a colony had been established here on her barony, as a convenient station where they who were about to embark for foreign missions might prepare for the voyage. Baron de Watteville was residing here, and here Wesley found some of his English acquaintance domesticated, and passed a day with the community in religious exercises, and in 66 hearing from them," he says, "the wonderful work which God was beginning to work over all the earth." They travelled on foot to Cologne, went up the Rhine to Mentz, and were received at Frankfort by Peter Boehler's father. The next day they reached Marienborn, where Zinzendorf had a family of disciples, consisting of about fifty persons, gathered out of many nations. " And