empty, nor can they leave a real blessing for the heart. By his wounds and his blood, and by the spirit of his pleura and his Philadelphia, the Savior has formed and sealed the Brethren's Church, and whoever is seeking the kingdom of the cross, to him we say, 'Here it is!' Therefore, we believe that all those who are born out of the pleura, and, therefore, are children of God, will love us and appreciate our doctrine of the Lamb.”

It was at this meeting that Henry Antes was appointed Consenior Civilis. Because he was an officer of the Province he was given charge of the political affairs of the congregation.

Amid such surroundings and under such influences John Henry Antes was educated. He passed the plastic days of his youth under the fostering care of the great Moravian leaders, and of many who later, during the Indian troubles, gave their lives for the faith. There was the constant stimulus of heroic deeds related by those who went forth on missionary tours and returned to rest and regain their strength in the peaceful courts of the choir houses.

In the Life of Henry Antes," I have written as follows: “Having thus far traced the course of the life of this prominent man, we have found him to be endowed with such faculties as well fitted him for an adviser and a leader of the people. With a great heart, loving his friends intensely, but his Lord and Savior more, ready to make any amount of personal sacrifice in order to serve his Master and his fellow men, and in the midst of all manner of opportunities for self aggrandizement, keeping himself unspotted from the world. As we see him the loving companion of Spangenberg, of Nitschman, of Zeisberger, men of purest character and indisputable zeal for the Lord, we naturally think that nothing but death could sever such strong and reciprocated ties, and yet, strange as it may seem, there was a severance of the ties that bound them-not the ties of friendship-but the ties of fellowship in the work of the Lord. And the severance was sharp, emphatic and irreversible. It sorely grieved the hearts of all parties, and yet, for conscience sake, Antes felt that he could not return to the fold he had done so much to establish. He allowed his children to follow the dictates of their own consciences. Some of them remained with the Moravians, and some went to the Reformed Church."

The account of the separation from the Brethren is very short. It is this: "In April, 1750, the Moravians at Bethlehem introduced the wearing of the white robe or surplice by the Minister at the celebration of the Eucharist. Henry Antes disapproved of this, and withdrew from their communion."

Taking into consideration the zeal and practical common sense of Henry Antes, this statement has not been satisfactory in accounting for such a vital action on his part. But we are no longer in the dark about the matter, which is clearly explained by Rev. Levin Theodore Reichel in his "Early History of the Moravians in America." We give his account in full.

"Brother Spangenberg, to whom was entrusted all the affairs of the Brethren in America, though able to accomplish a great deal and always willing to perform any kind of work, gradually became convinced that without an able and efficient assistant he could not do justice to the multifarious demands on his time and strength, and therefore, in 1745, urgently desired that his brethren in Europe might send him an assistant. Even before his letters arrived, the Synod of the Brethren assembled at Zeist, in Holland, in May, 1746, had appointed Brother John Christian Frederick Cammerhof for this office, who arrived in Pennsylvania January, 1747, and labored there four years. By his influence considerable changes were brought about both in the spirit of the congregation and in the external arrangements.

"Schrautenbach characterizes him as a young man of amiable and affable disposition, well versed in the metaphysical and ecclesiastical sciences, of much spirit, great courage and untiring energy in the service of the Savior and the Brethrens' Church. He was born on July 28, 1721, near Magdeburg, and studied. theology in the University of Jena, where he became acquainted with the Brethren and especially with Brother John Nitschman, afterwards his colleague at Bethlehem. He became teacher in Kloster Bergen, a Protestant school under the direction of Abt Steinmetz, who highly esteemed him and his fellow student, Theopolis Shumann. Acquainted with the pietistic method of edification, and not finding therein peace for their souls, Cammerhof and Shumann left the ranks of the Lutheran Church and went in 1743 to Marienborn, where they were received into the

Seminary of the Brethren, and for a time assisted in transcribing missionary reports, under the immediate superintendence of Count Zinzendorf.

Brother Cammerhof having been married in July, 1746, to Anna de Pahlen, a Livonian baroness, was consecrated in London September, 1746, by Zinzendorf, Martin Dober and Steinhofer as Bishop of the Brethrens' Church for the country congregations of North America. Soon after his arrival in Pennsylvania he commenced his epistolary correspondence with the directing Board of the Unity in Europe, which probably has never been carried on with such minuteness, for some of these letters, of which copies have been preserved for the Bethlehem archives, contain more than a hundred closely written pages, giving a full insight into the work of the Brethren, even to its most minute details. From these letters of the youthful Bishop it appears plainly that the enthusiastic love for the Savior which was cherished by Cammerhof and that band of disciples with whom he was associated bordered on fanaticism. He had left the new settlements of the Brethren in Wetteravia at a time when the most sober-minded brethren began to talk sentimental nonsense, and the whole church was in imminent peril of being led away from the substance of the Gospel by a puerile and often silly mode of expression, and of embracing fatal delusions. For more than a century the Brethrens' Church has acknowledged that this was the period of sifting, the time in which much chaff was separated from the wheat, the time in which much wood, hay and stubble was built on that foundation than which no other can be laid-a superstructure which but a few years later was consumed in that fiery persecution by which Herrnhaag, the most numerous of all the congregations, was scattered to the winds. We would not revert to these times at all if the assertions made now and then, that these delusions had not found their way to America, were perfectly correct. Bishop Cammerhof introduced them, fostered them, and was praised for it. With his death all vestiges of these delusions ceased at once."

And wherein did these delusions consist? Bishop Holmes gives the following concise and sufficient answer: "In their zeal to root out self-righteousness, the Brethren were not suffi

ciently on their guard against levity in expression. The delight they took in speaking of the sufferings of Christ, which arose from the penetrating sense they had of their infinite value, by degrees degenerated into fanciful representations of the various scenes of His passion. Their style in speaking and writing lost its former plainness and simplicity and became turgid, puerile and fanatical, abounding in playful allusions to Christ as the Lamb, the Bridegroom, &c., by which he is described in Holy Writ, and in fanciful representations of the wound in His side. In describing the spiritual relation between Christ and His Church the highly figurative language of the Canticles was substituted in the place of the dignified simplicity used by our Savior and His Apostles when speaking on this subject. Some less experienced preachers even seemed to vie with each other in introducing into their discourses the most extravagant and often wholly unintelligible expressions. This kept the hearers in a state of constant excitement, but was not calculated to subject every thought of the heart to the obedience of Christ. Religion, instead of enlightening the understanding, governing the affections and regulating the general conduct, became a play of the imagination.

"This species of fanaticism first broke out at Herrnhaag in the year 1746, and from thence spread into several other congregations. Many were carried away by it, for it seemed to promise a certain joyous perfection, representing believers as innocent, playful children, who might be quite at their ease amidst all the trials and difficulties incident to the present life. The effect produced was such as might be expected. The more serious members of the Church (and these after all formed the major part) bitterly lamented an evil which they could not eradicate. Others, considering the malady as incurable, withdrew from its communion. The behavior of such as were most infected with this error, though not immoral and criminal, was yet highly disgraceful to their Christian profession.

"Pictorial representations of the sufferings of Christ, illuminations of the church and other public buildings, birthday celebrations, connected with expensive love-feasts, were manifestations of the unnaturally excited poetic spirit of the congregation,

which in its practical consequences led to extravagances-and to debts. Peter Bohler, at the time in England as superintendent of the monetary affairs of the Chuch there, was fully aware of the fearful increase of their liabilities, and raised a warning voice, but his protest was not heeded. Neither was any attention paid to the wise counsels of Spangenberg, who in a letter to Count Zinzendorf, in 1746, expressed his forebodings in reference to the lavish expenditures in the European settlements and their inevitable consequences. This letter was not answered, and Spangenberg, the most faithful and indefatigable of all the brethren, had reason to suppose that some of the most influential of his brethren in Europe looked upon him with a suspicious eye, considering him as having become lukewarm because he, the man of good common sense, could not appreciate their extravagant religious notions, nor approve of the sentimental nonsense, which in a flood of hymns was pouring over to America also. He rejoiced to receive in Cammerhof a faithful and able assistant, but was inwardly grieved when he perceived that the latter had received secret instructions according to which he acted in such a manner that the original idea of Zinzendorf of a Church of God in the Spirit was gradually but entirely set aside."

It can easily be seen how these extravagances would affect the practical man of affairs, Antes. There would be toleration and hope of change for awhile, then, as constant friction would take place between him, as Consenior Civilis, and the Bishop, he would lose the spirit of toleration and act with firmness and decision. There can be no doubt but that this change affected the entire future career of his three oldest sons. They left the Moravian fold and became men of affairs in the Commonwealth. They were by nature leaders of men, and all through their lives they were thus recognized by their fellows. If this breach had not occurred, they might have become preachers of the Gospel; as it was, they became patriots, and foundation stones in the constitutional edifice of Pennsylvania.

In a conversation with Bishop Levering, of the Moravian Church, I learned the following particulars relative to the separation of Henry Antes from the Moravians. Bishop Levering