Sometimes there would be young persons attached to each other for a couple of years, and the lot being unfavorable, they would go away and leave the congregation. “Well, it was a pretty hard thing,” said the old man, “for a pair of young people who loved each other dearly to have the lot go against them.” He continued nearly thus: “There was one of the boys who was with me in the brother-house who, I think, left the congregation to be married to a member. It was generally the case, then, that after a couple of years they would ask pardon, and be taken back. We used to say, ‘You’ll have to take your hat under your arm and ask pardon.’”
Mr. M. told me, concerning the Moravians formerly, that the verlobung, or betrothal, lasted sometimes only about a week. “When I was married we had a kind of love-feast after the marriage. Some were picked out to stay, and we had wine or coffee and cake in the church. That was the old custom.”
I suggested to Mr. M. that as there were meetings held every evening the young people could see each other there. “There were meetings nearly every evening,” he answered. “I remember when I worked at my trade breaking off work and going to church. We went in our every-day clothes, just putting on our coats. Most every evening it was, when I was young. My trade was a blacksmith, and I was seven years an apprentice with my father. He was a pretty strict master, and I had to get up, winter or summer, at five o’clock, and now I wake at that hour although eighty-six.”
Recollections of a people would be imperfect without those of the women.
I saw at Nazareth Mrs. B., who was born at the Moravian town of Litiz, in Lancaster County, and who was in her eightieth year.
“When I was a child,” said she, “we had Christmas dialogues, about the birth of Christ, his sufferings and death, which were repeated by the children. The dialogues were in the school on Christmas-day, but were repeated several times, so that all might hear, and we never got tired of it.[105] Christmas-trees were put up then, as they are now. The Christmas Putzes or decorations were left standing until after New Year.
“On Easter morning we meet in the church at five in the morning, and the first tune they sing is:
“‘Der Herr ist aufershtanden,
Er ist wahrhaftig aufershtanden,’[106]
“‘The Lord has arisen,