Fourth, there is the Brethren's medical work, conducted by a Diakonissen-Verband, or Nurses' Union. It was begun in 1866 by Dr. Hermann Plitt. At Gnadenfeld the Brethren have a small hospital, known as the Heinrichstift; at Emmaus, near Niesky, are the headquarters of the Union; the work is managed by a special committee, and is supported by Church funds; and on the average about fifty nurses are employed in ministering to the poor in twenty-five different places. Some act as managers of small sick-houses; others are engaged in teaching poor children; and others have gone to tend the lepers in Jerusalem and Surinam.
Fifth, there is the Brethren's Diaspora work, which now extends all over Germany. There is nothing to be compared to this work in England. It is not only peculiar to the Moravians, but peculiar to the Moravians on the Continent; and the whole principle on which it is based is one which the average clear-headed Briton finds it hard to understand. If the Moravians in England held services in parish churches—supposing such an arrangement possible—formed their hearers into little societies, visited them in their homes, and then urged them to become good members of the Anglican Church, their conduct would probably arouse considerable amazement. And yet that is exactly the kind of work done by the Moravians in Germany to-day. In this work the Brethren in Germany make no attempt to extend their own borders. The Moravians supply the men; the Moravians supply the money; and the National Lutheran Church reaps the benefit. Sometimes the Brethren preach in Lutheran Churches; sometimes, by permission of the Lutheran authorities, they even administer the Communion; and wherever they go they urge their hearers to be true to the National Church. In England Zinzendorf's "Church within the Church" idea has never found much favour; in Germany it is valued both by Moravians and by Lutherans. At present the Brethren have Diaspora centres in Austrian Silesia, in Wartebruch, in Neumark, in Moravia, in Pomerania, in the Bavarian Palatinate, in Würtemburg, along the Rhine from Karlsruhe to Düsseldorf, in Switzerland, in Norway and Sweden, in Russian Poland, and in the Baltic Provinces. We are not, of course, to imagine for a moment that all ecclesiastical authorities on the Continent regard this Diaspora work with favour. In spite of its unselfish purpose, the Brethren have occasionally been suspected of sectarian motives. At one time the Russian General Consistory forbade the Brethren's Diaspora work in Livonia {1859.}; at another time the Russian Government forbade the Brethren's work in Volhynia; and the result of this intolerance was that some of the Brethren fled to South America, and founded the colony of Brüderthal in Brazil (1885), while others made their way to Canada, appealed for aid to the American P.E.C., and thus founded in Alberta the congregations of Brüderfeld and Brüderheim. Thus, even in recent years, persecution has favoured the extension of the Moravian Church; but, generally speaking, the Brethren pursue their Diaspora work in peace and quietness. They have now about sixty or seventy stations; they employ about 120 Diaspora workers, and minister thus to about 70,000 souls; and yet, during the last fifty years, they have founded only six new congregations—Goldberg (1858), Hansdorf (1873), Breslau (1892), and Locle and Montmirail in Switzerland (1873). Thus do the German Moravians uphold the Pietist ideals of Zinzendorf.
Section III.—THE MORAVIANS IN GREAT BRITAIN.—For the last fifty years
the most striking feature about the British Moravians is the fact that they have steadily become more British in all their ways, and more practical and enthusiastic in their work in this country. We can see it in every department of their work.
They began with the training of their ministers. As soon as the British Moravians became independent, they opened their own Theological Training Institution; and then step by step they allowed their students to come more and more under English influences. At first the home of the Training College was Fulneck; and, as long as the students lived in that placid abode, they saw but little of the outside world. But in 1874 the College was removed to Fairfield; then the junior students began to attend lectures at the Owens College; then (1886) they began to study for a degree in the Victoria University; then (1890) the theological students were allowed to study at Edinburgh or Glasgow; and the final result of this broadening process is that the average modern Moravian minister is as typical an Englishman as any one would care to meet. He has English blood in his veins; he bears an English name; he has been trained at an English University; he has learned his theology from English or Scotch Professors; he has English practical ideas of Christianity; and even when he has spent a few years in Germany—as still happens in exceptional cases—he has no more foreign flavour about him than the Lord Mayor of London.
Again, the influence of English ideas has affected their public worship. At the Provincial Synods of 1878 and 1883, the Brethren appointed Committees to revise their Hymn-book; and the result was that when the next edition of the Hymn-book appeared (1886), it was found to contain a large number of hymns by popular English writers. And this, of course, involved another change. As these popular English hymns were wedded to popular English tunes, those tunes had perforce to be admitted into the next edition of the Tune-book (1887); and thus the Moravians, like other Englishmen, began now to sing hymns by Toplady, Charles Wesley, George Rawson and Henry Francis Lyte to such well-known melodies as Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Coena Domini," Sebastian Wesley's "Aurelia," and Hopkins's "Ellers." But the change in this respect was only partial. In music the Moravians have always maintained a high standard. With them the popular type of tune was the chorale; and here they refused to give way to popular clamour. At this period the objection was raised by some that the old chorales were too difficult for Englishmen to sing; but to this objection Peter La Trobe had given a crushing answer.[160] At St. Thomas, he said, Zinzendorf had heard the negroes sing Luther's fine "Gelobet seiest"; at Gnadenthal, in South Africa, Ignatius La Trobe had heard the Hottentots sing Grummer's "Jesu, der du meine Seele"; in Antigua the negroes could sing Hassler's "O Head so full of bruises"; and therefore, he said, he naturally concluded that chorales which were not above the level of Negroes and Hottentots could easily be sung, if they only tried, by Englishmen, Scotchmen and Irishmen of the nineteenth century. And yet, despite this official attitude, certain standard chorales fell into disuse, and were replaced by flimsier English airs.
Another proof of the influence of English ideas is found in the decline of peculiar Moravian customs. At present the British congregations may be roughly divided into two classes. In some, such as Fulneck, Fairfield, Ockbrook, Bristol, and other older congregations, the old customs are retained; in others they are quite unknown. In some we still find such things as Love-feasts, the division into choirs, the regular choir festivals, the observance of Moravian Memorial Days; in others, especially in those only recently established, these things are absent; and the consequence is that in the new congregations the visitor of to-day will find but little of a specific Moravian stamp. At the morning service he will hear the Moravian Litany; in the Hymn-book he will find some hymns not found in other collections; but in other respects he would see nothing specially distinctive.
Meanwhile, the Brethren have adopted new institutions. As the old methods of church-work fell into disuse, new methods gradually took their place; and here the Brethren followed the example of their Anglican and Nonconformist friends. Instead of the special meetings for Single Brethren and Single Sisters, we now find the Christian Endeavour, and Men's and Women's Guilds; instead of the Boys' Economy, the Boys' Brigade; instead of the Brethren's House, the Men's Institute; instead of the Diacony, the weekly offering, the sale of work, and the bazaar; and instead of the old Memorial Days, the Harvest Festival and the Church and Sunday-school Anniversary.
But the most important change of all is the altered conception of the Church's mission. At the Provincial Synod held in Bedford the Brethren devoted much of their time to the Home Mission problem {1863.}; and John England, who had been commissioned to write a paper on "Our Aim and Calling," defined the Church's mission in the words: "Such, then, I take to be our peculiar calling. As a Church to preach Christ and Him crucified, every minister and every member. As a Church to evangelize, every minister and every member." From that moment those words were accepted as a kind of motto; and soon a great change was seen in the character of the Home Mission Work. In the first half of the nineteenth century nearly all the new causes begun were in quiet country villages; in the second half, with two exceptions, they were all in growing towns and populous districts. In 1859 new work was commenced at Baltonsborough, in Somerset, and Crook, in Durham; in 1862 at Priors Marston, Northamptonshire; in 1867 at Horton, Bradford; in 1869 at Westwood, in Oldham; in 1871 at University Road, Belfast; in 1874 at Heckmondwike, Yorkshire; in 1888 at Wellfield, near Shipley; in 1890 at Perth Street, Belfast; in 1896 at Queen's Park, Bedford; in 1899 at Openshaw, near Manchester, and at Swindon, the home of the Great Western Railway Works; in 1907 at Twerton, a growing suburb of Bath; and in 1908 in Hornsey, London. Of the places in this list, all except Baltonsborough and Priors Marston are in thickly populated districts; and thus during the last fifty years the Moravians have been brought more into touch with the British working man.