SECTION III.
PARTICULAR HISTORY OF THE GERMAN SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Ephrata is located in the interior of the state of Pennsylvania, and is one of its earliest settlements. Few places in America are hallowed by more interesting associations, and none perhaps are connected with an institution of such a peculiar character and ancient establishment. It occupies a pleasant position in Cocalico Township, Lancaster County, at the intersection of the Reading Road with the Downingtown and Harrisburg Turnpike, sixty miles northwest of Philadelphia, thirteen northeast from Lancaster, and thirty-eight from Harrisburg. At present this name is applied to the vicinity of Ephrata proper for at least a mile along the turnpike, making Cocalico Creek the centre. Thus considered, it contains many dwellings, several stores, two taverns, and a paper mill. New Ephrata is a small village, about a mile further west on the turnpike.
Ephrata proper is an irregular enclosed village, lying in a triangle formed by the turnpike, the old Reading Road, and the Cocalico Creek, and belongs entirely to a Seventh-day Baptist community. It contains the first Protestant monastery established in America, and several other buildings for the accommodation of the Society; to which is attached and belongs a farm containing one hundred and forty acres of land, with a grist and saw mill. The post-office bearing this name is situated half a mile from the original village.
Kedar and Zion, a meeting-house and convent, were the first buildings of consequence erected by the Society. They were located in a pleasant situation, on a hill called Mount Zion. In the meadow below, larger accommodations were subsequently erected, comprising a sisters' house, called Saron, to which a large chapel is attached, with a "Saal," where are held the Agapas or love-feasts. They likewise erected a brothers' house, called Bethania, with which was connected the large meeting-room with galleries, in which the whole Society assembled for public worship, in the times of their prosperity. These edifices are still standing, surrounded by smaller buildings, which were occupied as a printing-office, school-house, bake-house, almonry, and others for different useful purposes, on one of which the town clock is erected. These buildings are all of singular character, and very ancient architecture, all the outside walls being covered with shingles. The two houses for the brethren and sisters are large and commodious, being three or four stories high. Each contains an apartment particularly appropriated to their night meetings, and the main buildings are divided into small compartments, of which each building contains fifty or sixty. The rooms are so arranged, that six dormitories, which are barely large enough to contain a cot, a closet, and an hourglass, surround one of larger dimensions, in which each subdivision pursued their respective avocations. These silent cells and long winding passages possess an indescribably romantic air; and one can scarcely divest himself of the belief that he is threading the tortuous windings of some old baronial castle. The ceilings have an elevation of about seven feet; the passages leading to the cells, or "kammers," as they are designated, and through the different parts of both convents, are barely wide enough to admit one person, and if two should meet from opposite directions, one would invariably be obliged to retreat. The doors of the kammers are five feet high, and twenty inches wide; and the windows, of which each contains but one, is only eighteen by twenty-four inches. The walls of all these rooms, including the public meeting-room, the private chapels, the saals, and the dormitories, are nearly covered with ink paintings, or, in other words, with large sheets of elegant penmanship. Some of these are texts from the Scriptures, handsomely done in ornamented Gothic letters, called in the German, "Fractur-schrifften."
The sheets of paper employed for this purpose were manufactured at their own mill, and some being put into frames, admonish the residents, as well as the casual visiter, whichever way they may turn their heads. Two very curious ones still remain in the chapel attached to Saron. One represents the straight and narrow way, which it would be difficult to describe. It is very curiously and ingeniously formed on a sheet of about three feet square, the whole of the road being filled with texts of Scripture, reminding the disciples of their duties, and the obligations their profession imposes upon them.
Another is a representation of the three heavens. In the first, Christ, the Good Shepherd, is represented as calling his flock together; in the second, which is one foot in height, and three feet wide, three hundred figures in the Capuchin dress appear with harps in their hands, and behind them the heads of an innumerable host; in the third is seen the throne of glory surrounded by two hundred archangels. Many of these "Fractur schrifften" express the most enthusiastic sentiments on the subject of celibacy, and the happiness of a recluse life, whilst others are devotional pieces. The following are transcribed from two found in the chapel of the sister's convent:
Die Lieb ist unsre Kron und heller Tugend Spiegel,
Die Weisheit unsre Lust, und reines Gottes Siegel;
Das Lamm ist unsre Schatz dem wir uns anvertrans,
Und folgen seinem Gang als reinste Jungfrauen.