This poor love for my Sister Bernice was not the only thing that troubled me about this time, which was in the same year that Brother Brämer passed away. It was during this very year of 1738 there occurred one of the most important events in the history of our community, and this was the formation of the Zionitic Brotherhood by the Eckerlings and their deluded followers, and the erection of a large building for the use of their mystical society. While Brother Beissel and Brother Wohlforth and myself and our followers rejoiced to see that from all parts of our province and the adjacent provinces men and women and their children flocked to us and became part of our community—so that our secular congregation was now the largest Sabbatarian settlement in the colonies—yet our hearts were oft weighed down with apprehensions as to the outcome of the doings of these Eckerlings, to whose foolish and ambitious schemes there seemed no end.
These Eckerling brothers were the strangest mixture of worldly wisdom, on the one hand, and the most perverse and ridiculous religious beliefs, on the other, I verily believe, I have ever seen. While we taught and enjoined the purity and simplicity of the mode of life of the early Christians, the Eckerlings must continually be running after strange gods, so that at this time and for many years thereafter we were in great danger of total disruption; for experience clearly showeth the Scriptures say truly, a house divided against itself must fall.
Thus by our increased membership and by the scheming of our Eckerlings it came about that the Solitary Brethren clamored for a building similar to the Sisters' house, Kedar, and while for a time the project was kept in abeyance by lack of money, which commodity was never dangerously plenty with us, yet finally, Brother Benedict (and I say this to his praise), a young Swiss from Kilcheryturnen, a scion of a rich family of Berne, who had joined our community, came forward with the necessary funds. Whereupon it came to pass notwithstanding our opposition, so I find it in our Chronicon, that, "Inflamed by the love of God, he resolved to devote his fortune to the erection of a convent"; which was accepted as coming by divine direction, and his proposition granted. There was in the settlement a pleasant elevation from which one had a beautiful view of the fertile valley and the mountains lying opposite. Of this height the Brethren in the hill house at that time held possession. When now it came to the selection of a site, the most held that the valley along the Cocalico creek was the most desirable on account of the water. The superintendent, however, went up the hill until he came within the limits of the property of the hill house, and there was the site chosen. By this the spirit of wonders indicated at the very beginning that the Brotherhood would at first build its structure on the heights of reason and thus soar aloft until at length by a great storm they would be cast down into the valley; all of which was afterwards fulfilled in the minutest detail.
The site for the new chapter-house having been settled, the eager Eckerlings, like children hastening toward a new toy, could stand no delay. The Brethren must be pressed into immediate service, and every one joining in the work as though this heathenish temple were unanimously desired, in a wonderfully short time we had cut and framed the timbers, and a day was fixed in the month of May when the building was to be raised with much ritual and ceremony.
In those days when home or barn or mill was to be built the "raising" (by which we meant the putting into place the large, heavy timbers for the framework) was made the occasion of a great gathering. From miles around, the sturdy, broad-shouldered farmers and their deep-bosomed and hardly less broad-shouldered wives, and even the children, would come trooping along to take part in the raising, the men attending to the heavier work of the building while the women folk took care of the more delicate labor of the cooking, and when we had our raising there was such a swarming from far and wide that the Sisterhood, aided by the visiting wives and daughters, were driven to make such mighty preparations for the hungry workmen we sometimes wondered where all the food was to come from; but our kind helpers, knowing the rigorous state of our larder and relishing not overmuch our thin and ghostly fare, brought along such a rich store of meats and jellies and preserves as threatened to ruin forever the stomachs of the Solitary. I grieve, moreover, to say that on this occasion many a Brother—I among them—and even Sister, did in the hilarity and good cheer vary so much from our usual temperance as to suffer in body and mind for some days after our well-meaning friends had left us.
Not the least of the joyousness of this raising was that in the evening when we were gathered, tired and hungry as wolves, about the long, wooden tables in Kedar, Sister Bernice and I in those few days saw more of each other than in all the months since that blissful love feast. It hath often puzzled me, even now I know not the explanation, that it happened every meal-time Sister Bernice waited on me; for the Sisters and the wives insisting the men must be fed first, knowing no doubt our fretful natures when hungry, gave zest to the meals by adding their womanly presence in the serving of the food. So, as I have said, it chanced that Sister Bernice waited on me, and whether or not the others observed the foolishness of our sweet love, I only know that when, most unaccountably, in handing me the meats, and the bread and the like, her hands would touch me, I came more than once so near grasping those wonderful little, soft things in mine, that most of the meal-time I was distressed lest I do some utterly foolish thing that would make my dear sister and me the laughingstock of every one present, and this I determined must not be, at least for her sake.
Once, though, when the Evil One prompted me no one was looking, and I pinched gently the dear hand that for a moment rested lightly on the table, just by my arm, whereat she smiled at me with such well-nigh irresistible sweetness it seemed now I must simply take her in mine arms and say to all, "This is my Sister Bernice; I am her Brother Jabez. We love each other better than life"; but some remnant of common sense and my ever-present cowardice in all matters pertaining to love saved us both from any noticeable outbreak of our sweet delirium. Ah, me! Ah, me!
But if there was great hilarity and good cheer after the labor of the day when the appetites of all did full justice to the food that came out of the Sisters' kitchen, even this was nothing compared with the bustle and noise and hurrying to and fro that attended the raising of the timbers into their place; for even the heaviest pieces had to be placed by sheer physical strength, the broad-shouldered, iron-muscled giants puffing and straining at their tasks; it seemed to me as though Hercules and Atlas had come to earth again, in the forms of these powerful farmers and woodsmen. As was to be expected, great rivalry, though in the best of humor, existed between these giants as to which could put up the heaviest timbers and the most speedily, and sometimes, though more in fun than for the value of the thing, wagers were laid as to who should prove the stronger. Where there is such a spirit work goes on rapidly, and in a very few days the large posts and the beams and joists were all up and our kind helpers ready to leave us to complete the lighter but more tedious portion of the task. Fortunately we had among us Brethren who were skilled carpenters, so that by fall the building was ready for actual occupation, though it was not finished until five years later.
This building was erected on a hill, called by the Brethren Mount Sinai, within the bounds of the Lager, while the structure itself was called Zion. It was three stories in height. The lower floor consisted of one large room, known as the refectory, connected with which were three small chambers, Kabinettchen. Of these, two served as pantries for storing the provisions and necessaries for the forty days' seclusion which, according to the beliefs of our Eckerlings, were necessary in connection with certain rites to attain perfection. The remaining chamber consisted of receptacles for the paraphernalia used by the Eckerlings in their ceremonies. The second floor of Zion was a circular chamber without any window or means of admitting light from the outside. In the center on a pedestal was placed a lamp which was kept burning continually during the forty days' rite.
Thirteen cots or pallets radiated from the pedestal like the spokes of a wheel. This chamber was known as "Ararat," meaning thereby the heavenly rest the Almighty had vouchsafed exclusively to his chosen people, just as the ark of Noah had settled down on the mount of that name, there to rest forever.