Dark purple as the moorland-heath, when rain Lo! on the deck, with patriarchal grace, On earth obscure;-like some sequester'd star, Unseen by man, till telescopic eye, Whence are the pilgrims? whither would they roam? Greenland their port-Moravia was their home. Sprung from a race of martyrs, men who bore The cross on many a Golgotha of yore; When first Sclavonian tribes the truth received, And princes at the price of thrones believed; a 1 The names of the three first Moravian Missionaries to Greenland were, Christian David, Matthew Stach, and Christian Stach. The The Church of the United Brethren (first established under that name about the year 1466) traces its descent from the Sclavonian branch of the Greek Church, which was spread throughout Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the ancient Dalmatia. Bulgarians were once the most powerful tribe of the Sclavic nations; and among them the gospel was introduced in the ninth century. The story of the introduction of Christianity among the Sclavonic tribes is interesting. The Bulgarians, being borderers on the Greek empire, frequently made predatory incursions on the Imperial territory. On one occasion the sister of Bogaris, King of the Bulgarians, was taken prisoner, and carried to Constantinople. Being a royal captive, she was treated with great honour, and diligently instructed in the doctrines of the gospel, of the truth of which she became so deeply convinced, that she desired to be baptized; and when, in 845, the Emperor Michael III made peace with the Bulgarians, she returned to her country a pious and zealous Christian. Being earnestly concerned for the conversion of her brother and his people, she wrote to Constantinople for teachers to instruct them in the way of righteousness. distinguished bishops of the Greek Church, Cyrillus and Methodius, were accordingly sent into Bulgaria. The king Bogaris, who heretofore had resisted conviction, conceived a particular affection for Methodius, who, being a skilful painter, was desired by him, in the spirit of a barbarian, to compose a picture exhibiting the most horrible devices. Methodius took a happy advantage of this strange request, and painted the day of judgment in a style so terrific, and explained its scenes to his royal master in language so awful and affecting, that Bogaris was awakened, made a profession of the true faith, and was baptized by the name of Michael, in honour of his benefactor, the Greek Emperor. His subjects, Two 1 -When Waldo, flying from the apostate west, And ere he vanish'd, with a prophet's breath, according to the fashion of the times, some by choice, and others from constraint, adopted their master's religion. To Cyrillus is attributed the translation of the Scriptures still in use among the descendants of the Sclavonian tribes, which adhere to the Greek Church; and this is probably the most ancient European version of the Bible in a living tongue. But notwithstanding this triumphant introduction of Christianity among these fierce nations (including the Bohemians and Moravians), multitudes adhered to idolatry, and among the nobles especially many continued Pagans, and in open or secret enmity against the new religion and its professors. In Bohemia, Duke Borziwog, having embraced the gospel, was expelled by his chieftains, and one Stogmirus, who had been thirteen years in exile, and who was believed to be a heathen, was chosen by them as their prince. He being, however, soon detected in Christian worship, was deposed, and Borziwog recalled. The latter died soon after his restoration, leaving his widow, Ludomilla, regent during the minority of her son Wratislaus, who married a noble lady, named Drahomira. The young duchess, to ingratiate herself with her busband and her mother-in-law, affected to embrace Christianity, while in her heart she remained an implacable enemy to it. Her husband dying early, left her with two infant boys. Venceslaus, the elder, was taken by his grandmother, the pious Ludomilla and carefully educated in Christian principles; the younger, Boleslas, was not less carefully educated in hostility against them by Drahomira; who, seizing the government during the minority of her children, shut up the churches, forbade the clergy either to preach or teach in schools, and imprisoned, banished, or put to death those who disobeyed her edicts against the gospel. But when her eldest son, Wenceslaus, became of age, he was persuaded by his grandmother and the principal Christian nobles to take possession of the government, which was his inheritance. He did so, and began his reign by removing his pagan mother and brother to a distance from the metropolis. Drahomira, transported with rage, resolved to rid herself of her mother-in-law, whose influence over Wenceslaus was predominant. She found two heathen assassins ready for her purpose, who, stealing unperceived into Ludomilla's oratory, fell upon her as she entered it for evening prayers, threw a rope round her neck, and strangled ber. The remorseless Drahomira next plotted against Wenceslaus, to deprive him of the government; but her intrigues miscarrying, she proposed to her heathen son to murder him. An opportunity soon offered. On the birth of a son, Boleslas invited bis Christian brother to visit him, and be present at a pretended ceremony of blessing the infant. Wenceslaus attended, and was treated with unwonted kindness; but suspecting treachery, he could not sleep in his brother's house. He therefore went to spend the night in the church. Here, as be lay defenceless in an imagined sanctuary, Bolestas, instigated by their unnatural mother, surprised and slew him with his sabre. The murderer immediately usurped the sovereignty, and commenced a cruel persecution against the Christians, which was terminated by the interference of the Roman Emperor Otto 1, who made war upon Bolestas, reduced him to the condition of a vassal, and gave peace to his persecuted subjects. This happened in the year 943. With the Waldenses, the Bohemian and Moravian Churches, which never properly submitted to the authority of the Pope, held intimate communion for ages; and from Stephen, the last bishop of the Waldenses, in 1467, the United Brethren received their episcopacy. Almost immediately afterwards, those ancient confessors of the truth were dispersed by a cruel persecution, and Stephen himself suffered martyrdom, being burnt as a heretic at Vienna. * Wickliffe's writings were early translated into the Bobemian tongue, and eagerly read by the devout and persecuted people, who never had given up the Bible in their own language, nor consented to perform their church service in Latin. Archbishop Shinek, of Prague, ordered the works of Wickliffe to be burnt by the hands of the bangman. He himself could scarcely read! 3 It is well known that John Huss (who might be called a disciple of our Wickliffe), though furnished with a safe-conduct by the em -When Ziska, burning with fanatic zeal, peror Sigismund, was burnt by a decree of the council of Constance. Several sayings, predictive of retribution to the priests, and reformation in the Church, are recorded, as being uttered by him in bis last hours. Among others;- A hundred years hence," said he, addressing his judges, ye shall render an account of your doings to God and to me.-Luther appeared at the period thus indicated. After the martyrdom of John Huss, his followers and countrymen took up arms for the maintenance of their civil and religious liberties. The first and most distinguished of their leaders was John Ziska. He seized possession of a high mountain, which he fortified, and called Tabor. Here he and his people (who were bence called Taborites) worshipped God according to their consciences and his holy word; while in the plains they fought and conquered their persecutors and enemies. charch. The genuine followers of John Huss never approved of the war for religion carried on by Ziska, though many of them were ineidentally involved in it. Rokyzan, a Calixtine, having with his party made a compromise with their sovereign and the priests, by which they were allowed the use of the cup in the sacrament, was made archbishop of Prague in the year 1435; and thenceforward, though he had been fully convinced of the truth of the doctrines promulgated by Huss, be became a treacherous friend or an open enemy of his followers, as it happened to serve the purposes of his ambition. The Pope, however, refused to confirm him in his new dignity, unless he would relinquish the cup; on which, for a time, be made great pretensions of undertaking a thorough reform in the All who hoped any thing good of him were disappointed, and none more than his pious nephew Gregorius, who in vain, on behalf of the peace-loving Hussites, besought him to proceed in the work of church-regeneration. He refused peremptorily, at length, after having greatly dissimulated and temporized. His refusal was the immediate cause of the commencement of the Church of the United Brethren, in that form in which it has been recognised for nearly 400 years. They were no sooner known, however, as - Fratres legis Christi, Brethren according to the rule of Christ, than they were persecuted as heretics. Among others, Gregorias, who is styled the Patriarch of the Brethren," was apprebended at a private meeting with a number of his people. The judge who executed the royal authority, on entering the room, used these remarkable words: It is written, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer perser tion; therefore follow me, by command of the higher powers. They followed, and were sentenced to the torture. On the rack, Gregorius fell into a swoon, and all present supposed him to be dead. Hereupon his apostate uncle Rokyzan hastened to the spot, and falling upon his neck, with tears and loud lamentations bewailed him, exclaiming- O, my dear Gregories! would to God I were where thou art! Ilis nephew, lowever, revived, and was set at liberty. He afterwards, according to tradition, declared that in his trance he had seen a vision;-a tree, covered with leaves and blossoms and fruits, on which many beautiful birds were feeding and melodiously singing. Under it, was a shepherd's boy, and near at hand, three venerable old men (as guardians of the tree), whose habiliments and countenances were those of the three persons who, several years afterwards, were consecrated the first bishops of the Church of the United Brethren, by Stephen, the last bishop of the Waldenses. Fair in the midst, beneath a morning sky, In simple garb, with apostolic mien, Who mark'd the distant fields convulsed with strife, John Amos Comenius, one of the most learned as well as pious men of his age, was minister of the Brethren's congregation at Fulneck, in Moravia, from 1618 to 1627, when the Protestant nobility and clergy being expatriated, he fled with a part of his people through Silesia into Poland. forming the boundary, he turned his sorrowful eyes towards Bobemia and Moravia, and kneeling down with his brethren there, implored God, with many tears, that he would not take away the light of his holy word from those two provinces, but preserve in them a remnant for himself. A remnant was saved. On the summit of the mountains Comenius afterwards visited and resided in various parts of Germany, Holland, and England; every where, on his travels, recommending, with earnestness and importunity, the case of his oppressed brethren in Bohemia and Moravia to men in power. But his appeals were in vain; and when, at the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, he found that nothing was provided for their protection in the free exercise of their religion, he published an affecting representation of the peculiar hardships of their church, in which be observed: We justly, indeed, deserve to bear the wrath of Almighty God; but will such men (alluding to the Protestant diplomatists and their constituent authorities) e able to justify their actions before God, who, forgetting the common cause of all Protestants, and the old covenants amongst us, neglect to assist those who are oppressed in the same engagements? Having made peace for themselves, they never gave it a thought, that the Bohemians and Moravians, who at the first, and for so many centuries, asserted the truth in opposition to Popery, were likewise worthy to be mutually considered by them; that the light of the gospel, which first was enkindled and put upon the candlestick in the Brethren's church, might not now be extinguished, as it appears to be. This afflicted people, therefore, which on account of its faithful adherence to the apostolic doctrines, following the footsteps of the primitive church, and the instructions of the holy fathers, has been so much hated, persecuted, tossed to and fro, and even forsaken by those of its own household, and now finds mercy from no man;this afflicted people has nothing left, but to cast itself upon the aid of the eternally merciful Lord God, and with the ancient prophet, when his nation was overthrown by its enemies, to exclaimFor these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me.' Lam. i, 16.But Thou, O Lord God! who abidest for ever and ever, and whose throne is eternal, why wilt Thou forget us, and even forsake us in this extremity? O bring us Lord, again to Thyself, that we may return to our homes. Renow Ilis prayer was heard :—that Church, through ages past Assail'd and rent by persecution's blast ; Whose sons no yoke could crush, no burthen tire, our days as of old." In 1649, Comenius published a History of the Brethren's Church, which he dedicated, as his last will and testament, to the Church of England, to preserve for the successors of the brethren in future ages, as to the last hour of his life be cherished the hope of their revival and establishment in peace and freedom. This work was translated from the original Latin, and published in London in 1661. Previous to the Reformation, for about fifty years, the prisons in Bobemia, and especially at Prague, were filled, from time to time, in consequence of special decrees, with membres of the Brethren's Church. Michael, one of their first bishops, was long under rigorous confinement. Many perished in deen dungeons, with cold and hunger; others were cruelly tortured. The remainder were obliged to seek refuge in thick forests, and to hide themselves by day in caverns and recesses among the rocks. Fearing to be betrayed in the day-time by the smoke, they kindled their fires only at night, around which they employed their time in reading the Scriptures, and in prayer. If they were under the necessity of going out in the snow, either to seek provisions or to visit their neighbours, they always walked behind one another, each in his turn treading in the footsteps of the first, and the last dragging a piece of brushwood after him, to obliterate the track, or to make it appear as if some poor peasant had been to the woods to fetch a bundle of sticks. With the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, Melancthon, Bucer, and Capito, the Brethren held the most friendly correspondence, and by all were acknowledged to be a true apostolical church. The strictness of their church-discipline, however, and the difference which subsisted among these great men themselves on that general subject, as well as the insulated locality of the Brethren, probably were the causes why they remained still totally distinct from any of the new Christian societies which were then iustituted. After the Reformation, especially about the beginning and till the middle of the seventeenth century, they were exposed to the same kind of persecutions and proscriptions which their ancestors bad suffered. After the death of the Emperor Rudolph, in 1612, the resolutions of the Council of Trent were decreed to be put in force against all Protestants in Bohemia. This occasioned a civil war, like that of the Hussites. The Brethren, though they are understood to have taken very little share in this defence of the truth, by weapons of carnal warfare, were nevertheless exposed to all the vindictive cruelty, by which the Protestants in Bohemia were nearly extirpated, after their defeat by the Imperialists, on the White Mountain, near Prague, in 1610. On the 21st June 1611, no less than twenty-seven of the Patrons (Defensores) of the Protestant cause, principally nobles and men of distinction, were beheaded, who all died as faithful witnesses and T was thus through centuries she rose and fell: But found no freedom for the voice of prayer: martyrs to the religion of Christ. This execution was followed by a decree of banishment against all ministers of the Brethren's churches in B hemia and Moravia. Many hundred families, both noble and plebeian, fled into the neighbouring provinces. Emigration, however, was rendered as difficult as possible to the common people, who were strictly watched by the emissaries of persecution. Many thousands, notwithstanding, gradually made their escape, and joined their ministers in exile; others, who from age, infirmity, or the burthen of large families, could not do the same, remained in their country, but were compelled to worship God, after the manner of their forefathers, in secret only; for thenceforward neither churches nor schools for Protestants were allowed to exist in Bohemia and Moravia. Search was made for their Bibles and religious books, which were burnt in piles, and in some places under the gallows. In 1731 (ninety-four years after the flight of Comenius), the Church of the United Brethren was revived by the persecuted refugees from Moravia (descendants of the old confessors of that name), who were led from time to time by Christian David (himself a Moravian, but educated in the Lutheran persuasion), to settle on an uncultivated piece of land, on an estate belonging to Count Zinzendorf, in Lusatia. Christian David, who was a carpenter, began the work of building a church in this wilderness, by striking his axe into a tree, and exclaiming Here hath the sparrow found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself; even thine altars, O Lord God of Hosts! They named the settlement Herrnhut, or The Lord's Watch. After the lapse of nearly a century, during which the refugees of the Brethren's churches, in Saxony, Poland, and Prussia, were nearly lost among the people with whom they associated, and the small remnant that continued in Moravia kept up the fire on their family-altars, while in their churches it was utterly extinct, a new persecution against this small remnant drove many of them from their homes, who, under the conduct of Christian David, finding an asylum on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, founded near Bertholsdorf the first congregation of the revived church of the United Brethren. On the 8th of June 1722, Christian David, with four of the first fugitives that arrived in Lusatia, were presented to Couns Zinzendorf's grandmother, who instantly gave them protection, and Soon, homes of humble form, and structure rude, Raised sweet society in solitude: And the lorn traveller there, at fall of night, Unwearied as the camel, day by day, Tracks through unwater'd wilds his doleful way, Yet in his breast a cherish'd draught retains, To cool the fervid current in his veins, While from the sun's meridian realms he brings The gold and gems of Ethiopian Kings: So Christian David, spending yet unspent, On many a pilgrimage of mercy went; O'er Greenland next two youths in secret wept : And vows of ardent consecration made: And light beneath the shadow of the pole Through all their haunts his suffering brethren sought, The tenfold darkness of the human soul; And safely to that land of promise brought; While in his bosom, on the toilsome road, A secret well of consolation flow'd, Fed from the fountain near th' eternal throne, -Bliss to the world unyielded and unknown. In stillness thus the little Zion rose; But scarcely found those fugitives repose, Ere to the west with pitying eyes they turn'd; Their love to Christ beyond the' Atlantic burn'd. Forth sped their messengers, content to be Captives themselves, to cheer captivity: Soothe the poor Negro with fraternal smiles, And preach deliverance in those prison-isles, Where man's most hateful forms of being meet, -The tyrant and the slave that licks his feet.1 promised to furnish them with the means of establishing themselves on one of her family-estates. Count Zinzendorf himself gives the following account of the circumstances under which he fixed upon the situation for these settlers. He proposel a district called the Hutberg, near the high road to Zittau. It was objected, by some who knew the place, that there was no water there: he answered, God is able to help; and the following morning early be repaired thither to observe the rising of the vapours, that he might determine where a well might be dug. The next morning he again visited the place alone, and satisfied himself of its eligibility for a settlement. He adds, I laid the misery and desire of these people before God with many tears; beseeching Him, that his hand might be with me and frustrate my measures, if they were in any way displeasing to Him. I said further to the Lord: Upon this spot i will, in thy name, build the first house for them. In the meantime the Moravians returned to the farm-house (where they had been previously lodged), having brought their families thither out of their native country. These I assisted to the best of my power, and then went to Hennersdorf to acquaint my lady (his grandmother aforementioned) with the resolution I bad taken. She made no objection, and immediately sent the poor strangers a cow, that they might be furnished with milk for their little children; and she ordered me to show them the trees to be cut down for their building. In 1732, when the congregation at Herrnhut consisted of about six hundred persons, including children, the two first missionaries sailed for the Danish island of St Thomas, to preach the gospel to the negroes; and such was their devotion to the good work, that being told that they could not have intercourse otherwise with the objects of their Christian compassion, they determined to sell themselves for slaves on their arrival, and work with the blacks in the plantations. But this sacrifice was not required. Many To man, a task more hopeless than to bless Three chosen candidates at length went forth, Heralds of mercy to the frozen north; Like mariners with seal'd instructions sent, They went in faith, (as childless Abram went To dwell by sufferance in a land, decreed The future birthright of his promised seed), Unknowing whither;-uninquiring why Their lot was cast beneath so strange a sky, Where cloud nor star appear'd, to mortal sense Pointing the hidden path of Providence, And all around was darkness to be felt; -Yet in that darkness light eternal dwelt : They knew,-and 't was enough for them to know, The still small voice that whisper'd them to go; For lie, who spake by that mysterious voice, Inspired their will, and made His call their choice. See the swift vessel bounding o'er the tide, That wafts, with Christian David for their guide, Two young Apostles on their joyful way To regions in the twilight verge of day; Freely they quit the clime that gave them birth, Home, kindred, friendship, all they loved on earth; What things were gain before, accounting loss, And glorying in the shame, they bear the cross; thousand negroes have since been truly converted in the West Indies. 1 Matthew Stach and Frederick Boenisch, two young men, being at work together, preparing a piece of ground for a burial-place at Herrnhut, disclosed to each other their distinct desires to offer themselves to the congregation as missionaries to Greenland. They therefore became joint candidates. Considerable delay, however, occurred; and when it was at length determined to attempt the preaching of the gospel there, Frederick Boenisch Leing on a distant journey, Christian David was appointed to conduct thither Matthew Stach and his cousin, Christian Stack, who sailed from Copenhagen on the 10th of April 1733, and landed In Ball's River on the 20th of May following. WHAT are thine hopes, Humanity?-thy fears? The fragile skiffs, in which thy children sail But when Religion bids her spirit breathe, How changed, how wond'rous!-On this tide of years, The wrath of God abideth here: his breath 'T was Mercy wrote the lines of judgment there; The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace, A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt, Day following day the current smoothly flows; Then sink,-to wake in some transporting dream. Ere long the pulse beats quicker through his breast, Strange Isle! a moment to poetic gaze Rise in thy majesty of rocks and bays, |