ity by solemn music from a band of
instruments. Outward appearances of mourning are discountenanced. The
whole congregation follows the bier to the graveyard, (which is commonly
laid out as a garden,) accompanied by a band, playing the tunes of
well-known verses, which express the hopes of eternal life and
resurrection; and the corpse is deposited in the simple grave during the
funeral service. The preservation of the purity of the community is
intrusted to the board of elders and its different members, who are to
give instruction and admonition to those under their care, and make a
discreet use of the established church discipline. In cases of immoral
conduct, or flagrant disregard of the regulations of the society, this
discipline is resorted to. If expostulations are not successful, offenders
are for a time restrained from participating in the holy communion, or
called before the committee. For pertinacious bad conduct, or flagrant
excesses, the culpable individual is dismissed from the society. The
ecclesiastical church officers, generally speaking, are the
bishops,--through whom the regular succession of ordination, transmitted to
the United Brethren through the ancient church of the Bohemian and
Moravian Brethren, is preserved, and who alone are authorized to ordain
ministers, but possess no authority in the government of the church,
except such as they derive from some other office, being, most frequently,
the presidents of some board of elders,--the civil seniors,--to whom, in
subordination to the board of elders of the Unity, belongs the management
of the external relations of the society,--the presbyters, or ordained
stated ministers of the communities, and the deacons. The degree of deacon
is the first bestowed upon young ministers and missionaries, by which they
are authorized to administer the sacraments. Females, although elders
among their own sex, are never ordained; nor have they a vote in the
deliberations of the board of elders, which they attend for the sake of
information only.
The Moravians that first visited the United States, settled at Savannah,
Ga., in 1735.
TUNKERS.
A denomination of Seventh-Day Baptists, which took its rise in the year
1724. It was founded by a German, who, weary of the world, retired to an
agreeable solitude, within sixty miles of Philadelphia, for the more free
exercise of religious contemplation. Curiosity attracted followers, and
his simple and engaging ma
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