Since the foregoing was published, there has appeared in the Century magazine, December, 1881, an article by Dr. Seidensticker on the Ephrata Baptists. In this article the author states that the Dunkers number in the United States (for they have also missions in Europe) about two hundred thousand souls, with nearly two thousand ministers, none of whom receives a salary. They have three collegiate institutions,—one in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, and one in Illinois.
He states that those who fail in business among the Dunkers are aided to make a new effort, and such assistance may be lent three times [twice?]. After the third failure, they take it to be the will of God that the unfortunate brother shall not succeed. Dr. Seidensticker says, too, that in the holy kiss of the Dunkers, the first kiss among the women is applied by the minister to the first sister’s hand, which differs from the statement that I have made of the Love-Feast.
EPHRATA.
This quiet village in Lancaster County has been for over a century distinguished as the seat of a Protestant monastic institution, established by the Seventh-Day German Baptists about the year 1738.
Conrad Beissel, the founder of the cloister, was born in Germany, at Oberbach, in the Palatinate, in the year 1691. He was by trade a baker, but, after coming to this country, he worked at weaving with Peter Becker, the Dunker preacher, at Germantown. He is said to have been a Presbyterian, which I interpret to mean a member of the German Reformed Church. According to the inscription upon his tombstone, his “spiritual life” began in 1716, or eight years before he was baptized among the Dunkers.
This may be explained by an article written by the Rev. Christian Endress, who seems to have studied the Ephrata community, in connection with their published writings, more than some others who have endeavored to describe this peculiar people.[46]
Mr. Endress says, “The Tunkers trace their origin from the Pietists near Schwarzenau, in Germany.”[47]
While they yet belonged among the Pietists, there was a society formed at Schwarzenau composed of eight persons, whose spiritual leader was Alexander Mack, a miller of Schriesheim.