Very few of the Moravians here are engaged in agriculture. They have remained in towns, as it seems, and rarely or never become large and wealthy farmers; a circumstance that I do not comprehend. That religious scruples against the acquisition of wealth, or of individual property, have influenced their actions, I have not been able to discover.
I have not in my reports of aged citizens repeated some of the “orthodox” expressions which they used.
“The distinguishing feature of Moravian theology,” says Appleton’s Cyclopædia, “is the prominence given to the person and atonement of Christ.”
I noticed at Bethlehem a sweet simplicity in speaking to or of the preachers.
A young man told me that Brother W. had sent him, and one of the sisters unaffectedly addressed a venerable bishop as Brother S. One of these gentlemen said to a person, not a member of his church, “Call me brother.”
I have never heard Moravians call themselves Herrnhutters. The favorite name of their churchmen for their organization is Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of Brethren. A venerable preacher tells me that they have been called the Johannische Gemein, or community like St. John; or their view the Johannische Auffassung, or John-like expression, of the spirit of the gospel, especially as we read in the seventeenth chapter of John the prayer of Christ, “That they, Father, may be one, as we are one.”[115]