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Updated: May 16, 2025
For the first time in the history of Protestant Europe a congregation of orthodox Christians had deliberately resolved to undertake the task of preaching the Gospel to the heathen. As the Lot which decided that Dober should go had also decided that his friend Leupold should stay, he now chose as his travelling companion the carpenter, David Nitschmann.
Among the passengers were General Oglethorpe, Bishop David Nitschmann, and twenty-three other Brethren, and thus Moravians and Methodists were brought together by their common interest in missionary work. James Hutton was thrilled. For this he had to thank his friend John Wesley.
"From that time onward," said David Nitschmann, "Herrnhut was a living Church of Jesus Christ. We thank the Lord that we ever came to Herrnhut, instead of pressing on, as we intended, to Poland." And there the humble Brother spoke the truth. As the Brethren returned that evening to Herrnhut, they felt within them a strength and joy they had never known before.
As soon, then, as the leading Brethren in Herrnhut such as John de Watteville, Leonard Dober, David Nitschmann, the Syndic, Frederick Köber, and others had recovered from the shock occasioned by Zinzendorf's death, they set about the difficult task of organizing the work of the whole Moravian Church.
He had first sent three Brethren Wenzel Neisser, John Toeltschig, and David Nitschmann, the Syndic to open up negotiations with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and very disappointed he was when these negotiations came to nothing. He had then sent Spangenberg to London to make arrangements for the first batch of colonists for Georgia.
John Nitschmann, as precentor, started the hymn; the procession to the Hutberg began. As the coffin was lowered into the grave some verses were sung, and then John Nitschmann spoke the words: "With tears we sow this seed in the earth; but He, in his own good time, will bring it to life, and will gather in His harvest with thanks and praise! Let all who wish for this say, 'Amen."
He handed on the Brethren's Episcopal Orders. He consecrated his son-in-law, Peter Jablonsky; this Peter consecrated his own son, Daniel Ernest; and this Daniel Ernest Jablonsky consecrated David Nitschmann, the first Bishop of the Renewed Church of the Brethren. He handed on, secondly, the Brethren's system of discipline.
Full many a stirring and thrilling tale had the refugees to tell; how another David Nitschmann, imprisoned in a castle, found a rope at his window and escaped; how David Schneider and another David Nitschmann found their prison doors open; how David Hickel, who had been nearly starved in a dungeon, walked out between his guards in broad daylight, when their backs were turned; how Andrew Beier and David Fritsch had stumbled against their prison door and found that the bolt was loose; how Hans Nitschmann, concealed in a ditch, heard his pursuers, a foot off, say, "This is the place, here he must be," and yet was not discovered after all.
At Marienborn Castle they now held a series of birthday festivals in honour of Zinzendorf, Anna Nitschmann and other Moravian worthies; and these festivals must have cost thousands of pounds. At such times the old castle gleamed with a thousand lights. At night, says a visitor, the building seemed on fire. The walls were hung with festoons. The hall was ornamented with boughs.
They expected to find a flourishing town, and all they saw was three small houses, of which only one was finished. "If three houses make a city," said David Nitschmann, "there are worse places than Herrnhut." And yet there was something to look at after all.
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