he village came to be
known as Hernhuters. Between these conflicting statements, (and both
were communicated to me on the spot,) I do not pretend to decide. I
only know that to Count Zinzendorf,--of well-established notoriety,--the
fathers were in 1722 indebted for their settlement on the spot of
ground which their sons still occupy; and that, grateful for the
kindnesses which their sect received both from him and his children,
they have ever held the name in the highest possible respect.

Count Zinzendorf was, beyond all question, partially insane. His
opinions, wild and extravagant in the extreme, had a strong tendency to
vitiate the moral principle; and the Hernhuters having derived from his
bounty all that they possessed, would not refuse to listen when he
chose to address them, even in their religious meetings. But it is a
mistake to attribute to him the character of a leader. He was their
protector in civil affairs, but he was not their bishop. He had a voice
in their synods, but he was not supreme. In spite, therefore, of the
obscene rhapsodies which were printed, and put into circulation, as his
discourses, I see no reason to believe that his opinions were ever
adopted as those of the community. On the contrary, they have all along
professed to subscribe in sincerity to the Augsburg Confession; and
surely their own assertions are more to be relied upon, than those of
their enemies.

Hernhut is, as I have said, in the strictest sense of the term, a
missionary settlement. The people inhabit a town, cleaner, neater, and
in every respect more attractive, than any of a similar size, which I
have visited in Germany. They own a considerable tract of country round
it, which they cultivate with excellent skill; and they carry on among
themselves all manner of trades and professions. Civil magistrates they
have none, for the supreme government has not forced such upon them;
but their affairs are regulated by a synod, in which all the clergy,
with a certain number of lay-elders, have seats. The law, again, to
which they profess to pay obedience, is that of God. Whatever
contradicts the morality of the Gospel is, by them, accounted illegal,
and they punish the guilty by spiritual censures, and at last by
excommunication. This latter amounts, in fact, to expulsion from the
place; for an excommunicated brother or sister finds no one with whom
to maintain a correspondence. I found, indeed, by the presence of a
gendarme among