Because I did not always agree with the many foolish and unscriptural speculations of the Eckerlings, they oft accused me of irreverence and lacking in spirituality. Be that as it may, and although I knew many comets had appeared to the eyes of men since the creation without any apparent change in the rules and order of the universe, yet I felt the same awe that enveloped our little group. Calling Sonnlein to me I said to him as we all clustered about him, "I have taught thee somewhat of the stars; thine are the youngest eyes here. Look thou carefully. Is that yonder pale star such as thou seest at night?"
And then with our awe reflected in his childish face he gazed steadily at the star, and then turning as in doubt, he said to me as though the others were not present, "'Tis a star, Vaterchen."
"What knoweth such a child?" exclaimed our astrologer peevishly.
"Have patience, my good brother; look again, my son; make a funnel of thy hands; thou knowest how I taught thee to," I said gently to Sonnlein, who in loving obedience put his hand rounded like a spyglass to his eye, and again he looked steadily at the apparition. Then my boy turned again to me and said simply, "It is but a little star, Vaterchen," and as if it were of no importance he added, "There is something like smoke behind it."
"Smoke! What nonsense is this?" cried Brother Enoch in disgust.
"Smoke," shouted Brother Jephune, "the child seeth that which I tell ye I see, ye blind scoffers. Was the smoke like a tail or a bundle of switches—had it shape?" he cried eagerly.
"Like a tail," said Sonnlein timidly.
"Oh, wondrous sight of innocent childhood," murmured the astrologer, "to see what world-blinded eyes cannot see!"
And indeed a comet it was, for it rapidly increased to great size and brilliancy, and for two months from early evening until after midnight flamed fiercely across the northwestern sky, a fearful, awesome sight, even to the least superstitious among us.
Brother Jephune, and many with him, accepted the star, since it had appeared on the twenty-fifth day of the month, as the one prophesied in the Zohar, which was to hang in the heavens for seventy days, to be seen of all men as a warning, at the end of which time there would arise a great tumult and confusion upon the earth, to be followed by the universal peace of God's kingdom. The settlers in the country round about us relying upon Num. 24 : 17, 18, fully believed this was the "Star out of Jacob," and that a sceptre should arise to smite the evil in the earth; that the millennium was nigh, and Brother Beissel taught with his usual fiery zeal that when the fulfillment of the prophecy finally came, our Mount Sinai would be the center of the New Jerusalem in this evening land; that the Brotherhood of Zion would be chosen as the Priests of the Temple, and many there were who though hitherto they had hardened their hearts against our preaching and our charity, now through fear and superstition hastened to be gathered under the protecting wings of our community.