Night's curtains now are closing
Round half a world reposing
In calm and holy trust;
All seems one vast, still chamber,
Where weary hearts remember
No more the sorrows of the dust.
—Mathias Claudius.
Hardly had Peniel been completed and dedicated, when there occurred an event that wrought great consternation, not only in our little community but among all the settlers in the province. This was nothing less than a comet. Many firmly believed this celestial visitant to be the precursor of war and its kindred evils, famine and pestilence; for full many of our German settlers had still fresh in their minds the fiery comet that had appeared in the sky of the Vaterland immediately before the Thirty Years' War, when the Palatinate was devastated from end to end and almost depopulated. Thus it was feared this fiery, flaming star foretold similar bloodshed and disaster in this hitherto peaceful New World. Many of our Brotherhood thought the flaming tail was a bundle of switches, with which the Almighty was about to punish the unrepentant and unregenerate.
To our brother hermits of the Wissahickon the comet was looked upon as a harbinger of the celestial Bridegroom, for whose coming they had so long devoutly waited.
I remember well the night this wonderful star appeared. It was early in the year 1742. The Kloster bell with its sweet tones was calling the Brotherhood of Zion to their midnight devotions. I still see our long slender line in cloaks and cowls file out of the narrow corridors, and silently and reverently take up our march toward the Hall of Prayer on Mount Sinai. There was no moon, but through the clear, frosty air was spread the light of a multitude of stars that twinkled brightly over head. Not a twig stirred on the leafless trees. Everything was quiet, Kedar and Zion looming up distinctly on the hillside, and the sharp roof of Peniel, down in the meadow, seemed wrapt in deep slumber.
As the notes of the bells died away there was absolute stillness, save for the creaking and crunching of our wooden shoes on the frozen ground. We had passed over half the distance to the prayer house, when suddenly we saw in the eastern heavens a blazing star, with its bright, fiery tail flashing upon the face of the sky. I shall never forget the awe that took possession of us so that we trembled with fear, Brother Obed who was next to me, his teeth chattering violently, whispering hoarsely it was the judgment day and Gabriel would blow his horn. I myself was not without a feeling that something dreadful was about to happen, for it was the first comet I had ever seen, and I knew not what it portended. Still, I am glad to say I was not so utterly bereft of my senses as most of my poor brethren seemed to be.
Brother Alburtus, however, was least concerned of all, a peaceful smile lighting up his face as though the celestial Bridegroom were coming on some fiery chariot to take him to heaven; but Brother Onesimus fell on his knees on the hard ground, and prayed for mercy and that the great evil and calamities foreshadowed by the fiery messenger in the heavens might be turned aside and that the Almighty would hear our prayers.
And then I felt moved to quote the sublime words of Job:
Is not God in the height of heavens?
And behold the height of the stars,
How high they are.