A very large tract was once offered to them by one of the Penns, but they refused it. I was told at Ephrata that they were “afraid they would get too vain.”
Count Zinzendorf, the celebrated Moravian bishop, came to Pennsylvania in 1741. At one time he visited Ephrata, and was entertained in the convent, where his friendly behavior was very agreeable to the brothers. (We may suppose that Miller, and Eckerlin, who was not yet deposed, were men fit to entertain him.) He also expressed a wish to see Beissel. This was made known to the latter, who answered, after a little reflection, that Zinzendorf was no wonder to him, but if he himself were a wonder to Zinzendorf, he must come to him (or as it seems, to Beissel’s own house). Zinzendorf was now in doubt what to do, but he turned away and left without seeing the father (vorsteher). The Chronicle adds that thus did two great lights of the church meet as on the threshold, and yet neither ever saw the other in his life.
The Moravians also erected brother- and sister-houses, but they were not monastic institutions.[70]
Dissension arose at one time between some of the brethren of the Ephrata Society and Count Zinzendorf, at a conference held by the latter at Oley, now in Berks County. Zinzendorf seems to have desired to unite some of the sects with which Pennsylvania was so abundantly supplied. But the solitary brethren (of Ephrata) were so suspicious of the thing that they would no longer unite with it. They had prepared a writing upon marriage, how far it is from God, and that it was only a praiseworthy ordinance of nature. This they presented, whereupon there arose a violent conflict in words.
The ordinarius (Zinzendorf) said that he was by no means pleased with this paper; his marriage had not such a beginning; his marriage stood higher than the solitary life in Ephrata. The Ephrata delegates strove to make all right again, and spoke of families in their society who had many children.[71]
But Zinzendorf left his seat as chairman, ... and at last the conference came to an end, all present being displeased.[72]
About this date (or about 1740) took place the formation of the Sabbath-school, by Ludwig Hoecker, called Brother Obed.[73] He was a teacher in the secular school at Ephrata,—a school which seems to have enjoyed considerable reputation. The Sabbath-school (held on Saturday afternoon) is said to have been kept up over thirty years. This was begun long before the present Sunday-school system was introduced by Robert Raikes. (American Cyclopædia, article Dunkers.)
Not long after the visit of Zinzendorf, or about 1745, occurred the deposition of Eckerlin, the prior Onesimus. In one of his letters, Miller says (1790), “Remember, we have lost our first prior and the sisters their first mother ... because they stood in self-elevation, and did govern despotically;” and adds, “the desire to govern is the last thing which dies within a man.” (It seems probable that Eckerlin has not received sufficient credit, however, for the pecuniary success of the infant community.)