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If a man could prove that his name was John Smith, the presumption was that John Smith was a loyal citizen; but if he was known as Gussenbauer or Ockershausen, he was probably another Guy Fawkes, and was forming a plot to blow up the House of Commons. At the outset therefore the Brethren were accused of treachery.
The whole neighbourhood was soon mapped out, and the workers stationed at their posts. At Pudsey were Gussenbauer and his wife; at Great Horton, near Bradford, Toeltschig and Piesch; at Holbeck, near Leeds, the Browns; and other workers were busy soon at Lightcliffe, Wyke, Halifax, Mirfield, Hightown, Dewsbury, Wakefield, Leeds, Wortley, Farnley, Cleckheaton, Great Gomersal, and Baildon.
As soon as Wesley was out of the way, James Hutton came to the front; a good many Moravians Bishop Nitschmann, Anna Nitschmann, John Toeltschig, Gussenbauer, and others began to arrive on the scene; and step by step the Society became more Moravian in character. For this Hutton himself was chiefly responsible.
Gussenbauer gives an account of a juggler who turned his head to bow an acknowledgment of applause while swallowing a sword; he thus brought his upper incisors against the sword, which broke off and slipped into his stomach. To relieve suffocation the sword was pushed further down.
At Pudsey Gussenbauer was arrested, tried at Wakefield, and imprisoned in York Castle. At Broadoaks, in Essex, the Brethren had opened a school, and were soon accused of being agents of the Young Pretender. They had, it was said, stored up barrels of gunpowder; they had undermined the whole neighbourhood, and intended to set the town of Thaxted on fire.
The Moravian system of discipline was introduced. At the head of the men were John Toeltschig and Richard Viney; at the head of the women Mrs. Pietch and Mrs. Gussenbauer; and Monitors, Servants, and Sick Waiters were appointed just as in Herrnhut. Here was a glorious field of labour; here was a chance of Church extension; and the interesting question was, what use the Brethren would make of it.
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