"We fear," they wrote to the Count himself, "that our settling here may be a burden to you; and therefore we most humbly entreat you to grant us your protection, to continue to help us further still, and to show kindness and love to us poor distressed and simple-minded petitioners."
As the building of the first house proceeded the pious Heitz grew more and more excited. He drove in the first nail; he helped to fix the first pillar; and, finally, when the house was ready, he opened it in solemn religious style, and preached a sort of prophetic sermon about the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. The Count himself soon blessed the undertaking. As he drove along, one winter night, on the road from Strahwalde to Hennersdorf, he saw a strange light shining through the trees {Dec. 2nd.}. He asked what the light could mean. There, he was told, the Moravian refugees had built the first house on his estate. He stopped the carriage, entered the house, assured the inmates of his hearty goodwill, fell down on his knees, and commended the enterprise to the care of God.
Again the restless David was on the move. As he knelt one day to fix a plank in the new manor-house which Zinzendorf was building in the village, it suddenly flashed on his busy brain that he ought to do something out of the common to show his gratitude to God {1723.}. His wife had just passed through a dangerous illness; he had vowed to God that if she recovered he would go to Moravia again; and, throwing down his tools on the spot, he darted off in his working clothes, and without a hat on his head, and made his way once more to Sehlen, the old home of the Neissers. He brought a letter from the Neissers in his pocket; he urged the rest of the family to cross the border; and the result was that before many days were gone a band of eighteen more emigrants were on their way to Herrnhut.
His next step had still more momentous results. As he made his way from town to town, and urged his friends to come to "David's City," he had no further aim than to find a home where Protestants could live in peace and comfort. He knew but little, if anything at all, of the old Church of the Brethren; he had never been a member of that Church himself; he had no special interest in her welfare; and the emigrants whom he had brought to Herrnhut were mostly evangelical folk who had been awakened by the preaching of the Pietist pastor, Steinmetz, of Teschen. But now, in the village of Zauchtenthal, he found a band of five young men whose bosoms glowed with zeal for the ancient Church. They were David Nitschmann I., the Martyr; David Nitschmann II., the first Bishop of the Renewed Church; David Nitschmann III., the Syndic; Melchior Zeisberger, the father of the apostle to the Indians; and John Toeltschig, one of the first Moravian preachers in Yorkshire. They were genuine sons of the Brethren; they used the Catechism of Comenius; they sang the Brethren's hymns in their homes; and now they were looking wistfully forward to the time when the Church would renew her strength like the eagle's. For some months they had made their native village the centre of an evangelical revival. At last events in the village came to a crisis; the young men were summoned before the village judge; and the judge, no other than Toeltschig's father, commanded them to close their meetings, and to take their share, like decent fellows, in the drunken jollifications at the public-house. For the brave "Five Churchmen" there was now no way but one. Forthwith they resolved to quit Moravia, and seek for other Brethren at Lissa, in Poland {May 2nd, 1724.}; and the very next night they set out on their journey, singing the Moravian Emigrants' song:—
Blessed be the day when I must roam,
Far from my country, friends and home,
An exile poor and mean;
My father's God will be my guide,
Will angel guards for me provide,
My soul in dangers screen.
Himself will lead me to a spot
Where, all my cares and griefs forgot,
I shall enjoy sweet rest.
As pants for cooling streams the hart,
I languish for my heavenly part,
For God, my refuge blest.
For them the chosen haven of rest was Lissa. There the great Comenius had taught; and there, they imagined, Brethren lingered still. As they had, however, heard a good deal from David of the "town" being built at Herrnhut, they resolved to pay a passing call on their way. At Lower Wiese they called on Pastor Schwedler. He renewed their zeal for the Church in glowing terms.
"My children," he said, "do you know whose descendants you are? It is a hundred years since the persecutions began against your fathers. You are now to enjoy among us that liberty of conscience for the sake of which they shed their blood. We shall see you blossom and flourish in our midst."
It was a memorable day when they arrived at Herrnhut {May 12th, 1724.}. The first sight of the holy city did not impress them. The excited David had painted a rosy picture. They expected to find a flourishing town, and all they saw was three small houses, of which only one was finished.
"If three houses make a city," said David Nitschmann, "there are worse places than Herrnhut."
And yet there was something to look at after all. At a little distance from the three small houses, sat Friedrich de Watteville on a log of wood; Christian David was working away at another building; in the afternoon the Count and Countess appeared; and the Count then laid the foundation stone of a college for noblemen's sons. They stayed to see the ceremony. They heard the Count deliver an impressive speech. They heard de Watteville offer a touching prayer. They saw him place his jewels under the stone. They were touched; they stayed; and became the firmest pillars of the rising temple.