I do know this, however, that at the end of the forty days the thirteen emerged, claiming they had successfully completed the ordeal, with physical bodies as clean and pure as though new-born, their spirits filled with divine light, visions without limit, mental power sunbounded, and no other ambition than to enjoy a state of complete rest and peace while waiting for immortality, so that each could say at the end, "I am that I am." So far as I could see, and I say this not in levity or prejudice but as being absolutely true, all the change I could see beyond their looking even thinner and paler than before, each of the regenerated could say more truly instead of, "I am that I am," "I am what I was before I entered." I could not see in all my later life that physically or mentally or religiously these adepts were any different or better than the rest of us, but seemed subject to the same weakness and infirmities as the unregenerated, only that the silly thirteen did ever after by their aversion for labor show they really believed they had attained a state of complete rest.
All of which goes to show that in every community error is bound to come and that there are ever those who, not content with serving God in the simple manner he hath set forth in the Scriptures, must devise all sorts of foolish and even difficult modes of living the Almighty doth not ask for and which, I doubt, not do not please him.
However, while our Vorsteher, or superintendent, and Brother Wohlforth and myself were not in accord with the Eckerlings and their followers in establishing the Zionitic Brotherhood, who were ever looked upon with awe and veneration by the secular members, we did all in our power to live peaceably with them, Brother Beissel even bringing out a hymn book, known as the "Weyrauch's Hügel" (Incense Hill), for the use of the Brotherhood as well as for general circulation among the Germans in the province.
According to the ritual of the Eckerlings, Weyrauch meant nothing more than Gebet, or prayer. It was taught that the gum, made after a mystical formula and kept exclusively for religious uses, when ignited during supplication or prayer became corporeal and was wafted in fragrant clouds to heaven. Hügel, or hillock, also denotes an object held in special veneration, as the rising sun first gilds the hilltops in the east, and it is well known that from time immemorial hills have always been designated as holy ground and were the chosen places for offering sacrifices, so that the title of the hymn book meant to the adepts more than a mere hill of incense. It typified the book as a volume of prayer which, if properly used would, like the visible flames of the burning incense, go direct to the throne of grace.
But this peace offering, besides containing a few old, popular German hymns, being chiefly made up of hymns composed by Brother Beissel and the rest of the Solitary, like so many other peace offerings failed to effect its purpose. Not only did the Eckerlings grow more and more swollen in their power and arrogance, but the printing of the book itself was greatly delayed; and as our good Christopher Sauer, the printer, of Germantown, to whom it was intrusted for publication, saw fit to make himself a censor of the hymns, it so occurred that when the four hundredth hymn was set up, a personal controversy, exceedingly bitter, arose and ended in an estrangement lasting fully ten years, during which our leader and our printer hurled at each other most violent accusations, the printer evidently being firm in his mind that our leader regarded himself as somewhat of a pope or a Christ, before whom all others must bow.
Indeed, there were during Brother Beissel's leadership many false stories current about him, rising through superstition or enmity, the coarser part of the people regarding him as a great wizard, fully believing that the spirit whom he served had at times made our brother invisible; wherefore it is related that a justice of the peace sent a constable after our leader with a warrant, taking care to send an assistant. As the constable and his assistant came toward the cabin down in the meadow where our leader lived, they saw him go into his cabin with a pitcher of water; they followed him, and while one stationed himself at the door, the other searched the house from top to bottom, but no superintendent was to be found. Greatly bewildered and even alarmed at such witchcraft they departed, and after they were some distance from the house, on looking back they saw our leader come out as though naught had happened.
It is also true, and I regret to say it, that many of our Brothers, and even the Sisters, who seem ever given to idolizing, fell to the other extreme and, as in the case of John the Baptist, wondered whether our leader might not be Christ. Even Brother Onesimus once tried to poison my mind against our superintendent by remarking that even he thought that, perhaps, our leader might be Christ, whereupon I rebuked our Brother Onesimus so soundly for his folly, I never again heard him repeat such nonsense.
Thus it went back and forth so that it seemed the conflict between our leader and the printer were never to cease, the printer publishing it far and wide that our superintendent was born under a strange conjunction of the stars and that a number of planets manifested in him their characteristics: from Mars, our superintendent had his great severity; from Jupiter, his friendliness; from Venus, that the female sex ran after him; while Mercury had given him the arts of the comedian; and not content with this, our printer must even go so far as to say of our superintendent: "In many points he is very close to Gichtel and still closer to the little beast described in Revelation 13:11, which represents his peculiarity in spiritual things. His figure is such that if one beseeches him he has the horns of a lamb, but if one touches his temper a little he speaks like a dragon, and is, indeed, not to be regarded as the first great beast, whose number is 66. He is not so beast-like, but is also not clean Godly, but is humanly peculiar and no other than CVnraDVs BeIseLVs DcLVVVI—666."
All of which goeth to show that when one man hateth another beyond all reason, the hater maketh a greater fool of himself than of him who is derided.