[1] The country of Moab is clearly visible from around Bethlehem.
BETHLEHEM, a borough of Northampton and Lehigh counties, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the N. bank of the Lehigh river, opposite South Bethlehem and 55 m. N. by W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 6762; (1900) 7293 (350 foreign-born); (1910) 12,837. It is served by the Central of New Jersey, the Lehigh & New England, the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways, and is connected by two long bridges with South Bethlehem. The borough lies on a ridge of ground commanding delightful landscape scenery extending north up the course of the river to the Blue Mountains 20 m. away. In Church Street and its vicinity still stand several specimens of the 17th-century style of architecture of eastern Germany. The same sect that erected these buildings, the Moravians, or United Brethren, maintain here the Moravian College and Theological Seminary, and a well-known school for girls (the Moravian Seminary), founded as a church boarding school in 1749 and reorganized in 1785, for girls of all denominations. During the War of Independence, from December 1776 to April 1777, and from September 1777 to April 1778, the old Colonial Hall in this seminary (built 1748) was used as a general hospital of the continental army. From its roof the famous Moravian trombones were long played on festal or funeral occasions, and later summoned the people to musical festivals. The Moravians have given Bethlehem a national reputation as a musical centre. Only a few years after the city was founded, Benjamin Franklin was strongly impressed with the fine music in its church, and towards the close of the 19th century a choir under the direction of the organist, J. Frederick Wolle, became widely known by rendering for the first time in America Bach’s St John Passion (in 1888), followed after short intervals by the St Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, the Mass in B Minor, and finally by an annual Bach festival continuing for three days, which was discontinued after Wolle’s removal to the university of California in 1905. Bethlehem has often been called the American Bayreuth. Among the borough’s industrial establishments, the manufactories of iron and steel are the most important, but it also manufactures brass, zinc, and silk and knit goods. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks. Bethlehem was founded by the Moravians, led by Count Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf, shortly before Christmas in 1741, and the season of the year suggested its name; for the first century of its existence it was almost exclusively a settlement of that sect, and it is still their American headquarters. Bethlehem was incorporated as a borough in 1845. In 1904 the borough of West Bethlehem (pop. in 1900, 3465) was consolidated with Bethlehem.
See J.M. Levering, A History of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (Bethlehem, 1903).
BETHLEHEMITES, a name borne at different times by three orders in the Roman Catholic Church. (1) A community of friars at Cambridge, in 1257, whose habit was distinguished from that of the ordinary Dominicans by a five-rayed red star (in reference to Matt. ii. 9 f). (2) An order of knighthood similar to the Knights of St John, established by Pius II. in 1459 to resist the inroads of the Turks. (3) The Bethlehemite Order of Guatemala, a nursing community founded in 1650 by Pedro Betancourt (d. 1667), extended by the brothers Rodrigo and Antonio of the Cross, and raised to an order by Innocent XI. in 1687. They wore a dress like that of the Capuchins, and Clement XI. in 1707 gave them the privileges of the mendicant orders. They spread throughout Central America and Mexico and as far south as Lima, and with the order of sisters, founded in 1668 by Anna Maria del Galdo, were conspicuous for their devotion during times of plague and other contagious diseases. This order became extinct about 1850. The name Bethlehemites has also sometimes been given to the Hussites of Bohemia because their leader preached in the Bethlehem church at Prague.
BETHLEN, GABRIEL (Gábor) (1580-1629), prince of Transylvania, the most famous representative of the Iktári branch of a very ancient Hungarian family, was born at Illyé, and educated at Szarhegy, at the castle of his uncle András Lázár. Thence he was sent to the court of Prince Zsigmond Báthory, whom he accompanied on his famous Wallachian campaign in 1600. Subsequently he assisted Stephen Bocskay to mount the throne of Transylvania (1605), and remained his chief counsellor. Bethlen also supported Bocskay’s successor Gabriel Báthory (1608-1613), but the prince became jealous of Bethlen’s superior abilities, and he was obliged to take refuge with the Turks. In 1613 he led a large army against his persecutor, on whose murder by two of his officers that year Bethlen was placed on the throne by the Porte, in opposition to the wishes of the emperor, who preferred a prince who would incline more towards Vienna than towards Constantinople. On the 13th of October 1613, the diet of Klausenburg confirmed the choice of the sultan. In 1615 Gábor was also officially recognized by the emperor Matthias. Bethlen no sooner felt firmly seated on his throne than he seized the opportunity presented to him by the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War to take up arms in defence of the liberties and the constitution of the extra-Transylvanian Hungarian provinces, with the view of more effectually assuring his own position. While Ferdinand was occupied with the Bohemian rebels, Bethlen led his armies into Hungary (1619), and soon won over the whole of the northern counties, even securing Pressburg and the Holy Crown. Nevertheless he was not averse to a peace, nor to a preliminary suspension of hostilities, and negotiations were opened at Pressburg, Kassa and Beszterczebánya successively, but came to nothing because Bethlen insisted on including the Bohemians in the peace, whereupon (20th of August 1620) the estates of North Hungary elected him king. Bethlen accepted the title but refused to be crowned, and war was resumed, till the defeat of the Czechs at the battle of the White Hill gave a new turn to affairs. In Bohemia, Ferdinand II. took a fearful revenge upon the vanquished; and Bethlen, regarding a continuation of the war as unprofitable, concluded the peace of Nikolsburg (31st of December 1621), renouncing the royal title on condition that Ferdinand confirmed the peace of Vienna (which had granted full liberty of worship to the Protestants) and engaged to summon a general diet within six months. For himself Bethlen secured the title of prince of the Empire, the seven counties of the Upper Theiss, and the fortresses of Tokaj, Munkács and Ecsed. Subsequently Bethlen twice (1623 and 1626) took up arms against Ferdinand as the ally of the anti-Habsburg Protestant powers. The first war was concluded by the peace of Vienna, the second by the peace of Pressburg, both confirmatory of the peace of Nikolsburg. After the second of these insurrections, Bethlen attempted a rapprochement with the court of Vienna on the basis of an alliance against the Turks and his own marriage with one of the Austrian archduchesses; but Ferdinand had no confidence in him and rejected his overtures. Bethlen was obliged to renounce his anti-Turkish projects, which he had hitherto cherished as the great aim and object of his life, and continue in the old beaten paths. Accordingly, on his return from Vienna he wedded Catherine, the daughter of the elector of Brandenburg, and still more closely allied himself with the Protestant powers, especially with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who, he hoped, would assist him to obtain the Polish crown. He died before he could accomplish any of his great designs (15th of November 1629), having previously secured the election of his wife Catherine as princess. His first wife, Susannah Károlyi, died in 1622.
Gabriel Bethlen was certainly one of the most striking and original personages of his century. A zealous Calvinist, whose boast it was that he had read the Bible twenty-five times, he was nevertheless no persecutor, and even helped the Jesuit Kaldy to translate and print his version of the Scriptures. He was in communication all his life with the leading contemporary statesmen, so that his correspondence is one of the most interesting and important of historical documents. He also composed hymns.