[131] Ulm, a town in Würtemberg, on the left bank of the Danube. It was long an imperial free city.
[132] This title was probably not in former times their chosen name. In a little inartistic aria, near the close of the Erläuterung, they are twice called die Stillen, or the quiet ones. Looking in a German dictionary for this word, I find “die Stillen” is rendered Quakers. In the same aria they are called die Friedlichen, or the peaceful ones. One of Schwenkfeld’s volumes, a collection, states that they were gathered and put in order by the fellow-confessors and lovers of the glories and truth of Jesus Christ.
[133] As in the principality of Lower Silesia Lutheran preachers had been installed in nearly all the offices, many of the common people who had accepted Schwenkfeld’s teachings stood back in stillness, not being able conscientiously to agree with these teachers. This was very offensive to the parsons, and they soon made use of their high dignity against tender consciences to force such persons to their means of grace,—to make them come to the baptismal font, to the pulpit, and the altar.—Schwenkfeld’s Erläuterung, chap. iv. The Schwenkfelders express the opinion that the action of the Lutheran clergy, in calling attention to them, frequently caused their persecution by the Catholic authorities.
[134] Digging trenches for military defence, and working the galleys or great boats of the Mediterranean.
[135] They do not seem to have been very profitable as soldiers. One man can lead a horse to water, but several cannot make him drink.
[136] Herrschaft. The narrative is condensed from the Erläuterung, or Explanation.
[137] Mention is made of the time when the destroyer came upon the destroyer because his measure was full,—namely, the Thirty Years’ War, and the banishment of the Lutherans from the imperial dominions.
[138] See Erläuterung, or Explanation. The passage is slightly abridged.
[139] Hence we may infer that the Schwenkfelders forbade marriages with those not of their own persuasion. During the period of their troubles it seems that marriage by the church was at times refused them, no doubt from their refusing the sacrament. Maimed funeral rites were also among the persecutions of which they complained. In speaking thus of their decline, they may, however, overestimate their numbers in former times.
The following characteristic sketch may be introduced here nearly in the words of the original: The two pastors in Harpersdorf having been called to a new church, there came as pastor Herr John Samuel Neander (the pastor Neander who died in July 1759). He was by nature a very fiery man, so that he hardly knew how to govern his passions; by birth a Brandenburger, from Frankfort on the Oder. When he was installed, the Herr Superintendent in Liegnitz brought before him that he was a stranger, and therefore he might not know how it was in Harpersdorf, that there was a people there, who had already lived there about two hundred years, called Schwenkfelders. Therefore he would give him good advice, that he should leave these people in peace; preceding pastors had tried it enough, and had accomplished nothing by force. But if he thought he could not endure these people, he should say so, and another would be put into the place.