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Updated: May 27, 2025
He had learned his new ideas about education, not from the Brethren, but at the University of Herborn. He had studied there the theories of Wolfgang Ratich; he had tried to carry out these theories in the Brethren's schools at Prerau and Fulneck; and now at Lissa, where he soon became director, he introduced reforms which spread his fame throughout the civilized world.
The streams had met: the new river was formed; and thus the course of Renewed Brethren's History had begun.
and it was down the valley of Ettrick, beneath the dark "Three Brethren's Cairn," that I half-hoped to watch when "the troubled army fled" fled with battered banners of mist drifting through the pines, down to the Tweed and the sea.
No longer did they speak with contempt of marriage; they spoke of it as a symbol of holier things. It was time, thought some, for these broad-minded men to have their due reward. It was time to amend the insulting law, and tear the musty Edict of St. James to tatters. Of all the members of the Brethren's Church, the most powerful and the most discontented was Baron Wenzel von Budowa.
From the child to the old man, from the serf to the lord, from the acoluth to the bishop, the same strict law held good. What made the Brethren's Church shine so brightly in Bohemia before Luther's days was not their doctrine, but their lives; not their theory, but their practice; not their opinions, but their discipline. Without that discipline they would have been a shell without a kernel.
From such facts as these we may draw one broad conclusion; and that broad conclusion is that the Brethren's labours paved the way for some of the greatest missionary institutions of modern times. As soon as Zinzendorf was banished from Saxony, he sought another sphere of work.
It was recognised and praised by Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Bucer, Bullinger and other saints. As long as the moral life of the Church of Rome remained at such a low ebb, so long would there be need for the Brethren's Church. "If the Church of Rome will mend her ways, the Brethren," said he, "will return to her fold; but till that blessed change takes place they will remain where they are."
As he travelled about from country to country he spread the fame of the Brethren's labours in every great city in Germany, in England, in Switzerland, in North America, and in the West Indies; and by this time he was known personally to the King of Denmark, to Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, to John and Charles Wesley, to Bengel, the famous commentator, and to many other leaders in the Lutheran Church.
"At that time," he said, "when the Brethren's congregations appeared afresh on the horizon of the Church, he found, on the one hand, the lust of concupiscence carried to the utmost pitch possible, and the youth almost totally ruined; and on the other hand some few thoughtful persons who proposed a spirituality like the angels." But again the Brethren rode their horse to death.
For a while this ridiculous story was believed; and the Brethren's creditors, in a state of panic, pressed hard for their money. The little Church of the Brethren was now on the brink of ruin. At one moment Zinzendorf himself expected to be thrown into prison, and was only saved in the nick of time by the arrival of money from Germany. But the English Brethren now showed their manhood.
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