Chapter V (3)

"My brother was so habitually upright that he even mistrusted his own feelings. Easy though it was to many of the brotherhood to declare the day and the hour of their being sealed to redemption, which warranted their living in a state of pure, spiritual, heavenly joyfulness, and raised them to the rank of God's children, yet little could my brother forgive himself this spiritual falsehood; he could not coincide in what was so lightly and so repeatedly spoken of by others. He therefore fell into immoderate grief over the greatness of his sins, which were alone his hindrance; he not only prayed, but he moaned half the night before the Lord, but there was no change in his feelings. He seldom eat meat, no white or wheaten bread; he considered himself quite unworthy even of existence. Every night, when I had gone to sleep, he stole secretly out of bed, crept into the small adjoining library, knelt or lay down on the floor, and gradually lost, in his passionate emotions, all caution as to speaking softly and gently. His moaning and lamenting awoke me. I sought him out, and small confidence as I had in myself to produce any great effect--being as yet little advanced in conversion,--yet I repeated to him at intervals such beautiful lines and verses, both Greek and Hebrew, that he often embraced me and sighed, Haying, 'Ah, if this would but begin in me.' I answered sometimes hastily, that this was perversion instead of conversion, and how impossible it was for that way to be right and true, wherein one acted contrary to the intentions of God, and made one's-self into an utterly useless, helpless creature. 'Yes,' he said, 'that is what I am, and cannot sufficiently acknowledge it.' I talked with my mother, who wept over her son, who might now have been our mainstay, if he had not been spoilt by these false ideas. My father disapproved of all this still more strongly, and expatiated at such length from dogmatic and polemical divinity, that I could well see in what account he held these new spiritual institutions. Meanwhile he was obliged to be on his guard, for the whole Court were in favour of this party; many were undoubtedly very well-meaning Christians, but there were also undeniably many idlers and adventurers, who entered these institutions, and found their good, comfortable life very easy. All the evidence of their life in the flesh--which evidence was not rare nor imperceptible--was of no avail; who could succeed here? Occasionally there was a convert who lived in shame with his maidservant; it was not investigated, it was a calumny, and in case of necessity they placed him elsewhere, if his peasants were too Lutheran. By degrees my brother insinuated that my father also had not yet entered the narrow way, and that he could not be helped to it. They roamed about the woods day and night, so that moonlight devotion, which many now again recommend, is nothing new. They sang the new hymns together; the Duke often indeed gave the conveyances for these meetings, together with refreshments; nay, he often himself was the coachman, when he wished publicly to do honour to some old shoemakers' wives who had much faith, for the Saviour's sake. I am so far from wishing to exaggerate the state of things, that indeed I have not said all. The period for the annual pilgrimage came, for this custom had been retained from the old times and institutions of the monks. In many places the grace of the Saviour was supposed to dwell abundantly, almost visibly, and thither did the brothers and sisters make their pilgrimages, in reality contrary to the principle laid down by Christ, that neither Jerusalem nor Samaria was the special abiding-place of His spirit. Many of them brought their provisions with them. My brother assuredly did not travel to Ebersdorf without money, but brought nothing back, for he had bought this or that little book to give to the brothers as a memento. This enthusiasm had its real views, that aspired to great ends, although directly afterwards they were moderated, because the Philadelphian reckoning did not coincide with them. During these my brother's pious journeys, my mother died, for the remembrance of whom I daily bless my God. My brother found her in her coffin when he returned; he felt all the grief of a son, threw himself upon her, and lay there long, crying aloud, 'Ah, if I, useless creature, had but died in my mother's stead!' Now we obtained an entrance to his heart; this journey on foot had much weakened his hypochondria; the exhortations of the brotherhood called forth some ideas which he could not himself realize; he was to a certain extent calmed, or began to believe himself so. We represented to him that he must make his gifts serviceable to his fellow-men, however small they might be. He first took a situation as preceptor in a small orphan-house, and afterwards with Herr von Dieskau, who dwelt in a castle of that name, in the most beautiful country that one could select for oneself One portion of this old castle stands upon the city wall; under the wall there is a small footpath with a hedge planted as a protection against slipping, but just under this fragment of rock flows the Saale, sometimes very full and broad, but always deep enough to allow the passage of rafts and boats; from the castle the eye falls upon a half circle of wood and hills. Here my brother might perhaps have found rest and refreshment, but he did not live much longer."

Here we close Sender's narrative. He himself became infected later by the prevailing spiritual tendency, and he strove, whilst still a youth, after regeneration, but the powerful tone of his mind enabled him to recover. The state of the times also helped to bring this about.

The year 1740 was fatal to Pietism. The new King of Prussia was as averse to the Pietists, as his father had been favourable to them. Almost at the same time they ceased to prevail in the Saxon courts. The time of enlightenment now began; the nation pursued another path; the "_Stillen im lande_" only existed as an isolated community. The association of brothers, of Count Zinzendorf, for a longer period developed a praiseworthy missionary activity in foreign countries, but they ceased to influence the stream of German life, which now began to flow on with a deeper and more powerful current.

Pietism had drawn together large numbers of individuals; it had raised them from the narrowness of mere family life, it had increased in the soul the longing after a deeper spiritual aim, it had introduced new forms of intercourse; here and there the strong distinctions of classes had been broken through, and it had called forth greater earnestness and more outward propriety in the whole nation, but it had not strengthened national union. He who gave himself up to it with zeal, was in great danger of withdrawing himself, with those who were like-minded, from the great stream of life, and of looking down from his solitude, like the shipwrecked man from his island, on the great waste of waters around him.

The new scientific development also produced, at first, only individual men of learning; then a free culture; after that a nation, which dared to struggle and to die, and finally to live, for its independence.