In March, 1742, the fourth of the Unity Conferences was held at the house of Mr. Ashmead, in Germantown. Zinzendorf was at this meeting. During their deliberations the question of the wrongs done the Indians was considered, and Henry Antes was appointed to make a thorough examination of the case and see that justice was done the Indians. The task committed to Antes was of the most delicate nature, requiring the finest address to allay the suspicions of the Indians, and to win their confidence. While the proprietary government was dealing with the Indians from the standpoint of greed, blinded to the power of the poor dupes to obtain revenge when they found themselves deceived, the Moravians, thoroughly upright in all their transactions, labored to win them to Christ. The spirit of the Unity Conferences was not mere theorizing; it was intensely practical to these noble God fearing men. Antes, Weiser and Spangenberg were actuated by the same motives. If they had prevailed there would have been no Indian war. But greed prevailed, and the infant boy in the Antes household was destined to fight in the battle, when the entire province was weltering in the throes of blood.

CHAPTER IV.

SCHOOL DAYS.

HE WORK of the Moravians from the beginning was upon

TH

a system that calculated strictly beforehand every necessity, and provided for every emergency. In the Pennsylvania wilderness they sought to carry forward the methods that had been so well established in Halle and in London.

The entire church at Bethlehem was considered and treated as a family. All the members sat at one table. The divisions, according to sex and age, were placed in choirs. It was somewhat similar to the Ephrata method, but not precisely the same. The Ephrata people considered the solitary state most holy and acceptable to God, while the Moravians honored married life, and emphasized the felicity of the children of God in terms taken from matrimonial life. In 1743 the system was adopted and placed in working order. The mothers retained the charge of their children until they were eighteen months old, then the infants were placed in the nursery, which at first was at Bethlehem and afterward at Nazareth. At four years of age the child was placed in a choir house, where it remained until nine or eleven years of age. Then it was transferred to another choir house, where it was kept until fourteen years of age. Then the young men became members of the choir house of the Single Brethren.

In 1743 Henry Antes sent his children from his home to school. Ann Margaret was sent to England in the care of Count Zinzendorf, where she received her education and married Rev. Benjamin Latrobe, a Moravian minister. Ann Catharine, the eldest daughter, went to Nazareth as one of the caretakers in the nursery. Little John Henry was sent to this school and had the pleasure of being in the company and the care of his own sister.

In 1745 Henry Antes gave up his home in Frederick Township to the needs of the society, and his house became the

school for boys, and he, with his wife, removed to Bethlehem. When this transfer was made John Henry was removed from the boys' choir and placed in the choir house of the Single Brethren, in Bethlehem. Again he was fortunate, for he was now near his parents, and, beside, his brothers, Philip Frederick and William, were already established in this same choir house. In this building there were more than eighty boys, under the spiritual superintendence of Nathaniel Seidel and Gottlieb Pezold. The building in which they were placed is the one now known as the Sisters' Home. In 1748 the Single Brethren built a larger house for themselves, which is now the middle building of the Young Ladies' Seminary, and gave their former house to the Sisters. In the construction of this building the Antes boys were taught masonry and carpentering, for the education the Moravians gave fitted the youths for all the duties of life. The Antes boys remained in this choir house until 1750, when they returned with their parents to their home, in Frederick Township.

The training in all the choir houses was eminently religious. With every new adventure there was a love feast, at which hymns, composed by Bishop Spangenberg, were sung. There were love feasts every Saturday afternoon, commencing January 30, 1745. There was a special love feast at the beginning of plowing, and when the farm work was done, and when buildings were finished. The spinning business was closed with prayer, and love feasts for the milkers, threshers and others were frequent. Writing of the Nazareth Colonists, Spangenberg says: "They connect the Savior and His blood with all they do or say; they highly esteem their patriarchal economy; they grow in spiritual matters while working bodily. Nowhere else have such beautiful and edifying hymns for shepherds, ploughers, threshers, reapers, spinners, knitters, washers, sewers and others been composed as among them and by them. They would fill a whole farmer's hymn book. In Nazareth, as well as in Bethlehem, the special choir and class meetings were introduced, besides which there was also an especial day of festive remembrance for the original Colonists, namely, the twentyseventh day of May, on which day most of the married people, who were now living in one house and formed one family, had been married."

The system of education thus adopted by the Moravians, in many essential features, is the boast of distinguished colleges of to-day. In Nazareth there was the germ of the agricultural college, in Bethlehem there was the forerunner of the Williamson Industrial School; the church was the first of the American Institutional churches. But the essential and ever active principle of the Moravian school was religion. A consistent, useful and joyful devotion of all one's powers and energies to the service of God and humanity. The men at the head were consecrated men of learning and piety. When the hour came for their baptism of fire they did not shrink from the ordeal, but went triumphantly into the warring and seething flames. Their joyfulness was a prominent feature of their lives. With them the German love of singing found full expression. Music was a part of their being. There was no violation of propriety for them to sing. Melody and praise kept their hearts glad in the darkest hours. As a guide to the devotions of the young students there was used a collection of texts of Scripture called the "Daily Words," or "Meditations for each day in the year." Thus, every day they were reminded of the great object of their lives.

Courage in the presence of contagious diseases was inculcated by the example of the leaders as the following instance will show:

On the organization of the refugees from Shecomeco into a Christian congregation, at Friedenshutten, on the 24th of July, 1746, John-a drunken Indian that had been converted by Rauch-was appointed their teacher. Soon after smallpox broke out at the Indian quarters. To this malady he fell a victim after a painful illness of seven days, during which he gave evidence of the mighty work of grace which the Spirit of God had wrought in his heart. In the presence of his weeping countrymen, who had been summoned to his bed side, and amid the prayers of Spangenberg and Rauch the spirit of the patient sufferer passed away. This was on the 27th of August. In the afternoon of Sunday, the 28th, a funeral sermon was delivered by Rauch, and the remains were conveyed to the grave-yard amid the strains of solemn music. As the body was lowered into the earth Nicodemus, the Elder, knelt by the grave and

offered prayer. Nicodemus, or, as he was called, Weshichagechive, was a half brother to Teedyuscung, the great King of the Delawares. He was baptized by Bishop Cammerhof, at Bethlehem, in June, 1749. In 1754 he withdrew from the mission at Gnadenhutten, returning to the Indian country.

The concurrent testimony of those who knew John shows that he was not unworthy of the name of the beloved disciple which he bore, and that this evangelist among his people was a marvelous instance of the transforming power of divine grace. In the graveyard, at Bethlehem, there were buried fifty-eight Indian converts between 1746 and 1761, representatives of all the tribes and stations where the Brethren had labored as missionaries.

As the ferry across the Lehigh river was at Bethlehem all travelers from upper New York, and all the Indians attending the councils in Philadelphia, passed through the town, stopping for a period of time as suited their necessities, and replenishing their stores of provisions and clothing. Thus, the people of Bethlehem were kept posted concerning the doings all along the frontier.

In October, 1748, Bishop John de Watteville arrived in Bethlehem, accompanied by his wife, Benigna, the oldest daughter of Count Zinzendorf. After a journey through the Indian stations he called a Synod, which was the first of the Moravian Synods that met in America. All the ministers and laborers of the congregation, about one hundred and ten brethren and eighty sisters, and about one hundred guests from twenty-one different places, assembled in a large room of the newly erected Single Brethren's House. Brother Spangenberg opened the Synod, and de Watteville gave the following statement of the doctrines of the Brotherhood: "Our doctrine of the Lamb and his wounds is a power of God and contains a certain something which all must feel who come near us. The description of the pleura and the nail prints of the Lamb shines powerfully into the hearts and eyes, leaving something behind which cannot be erased. And this power of God belongs to the doctrine of the pleura exclusively, compared to which all other methods of doctrine, be they arranged ever so ingeniously, are dry and