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Schwenkfelders, Tunkers, Labadists, New Born, New Mooners, Separatists, Zion's Brueder, Ronsdorfer, Inspired, Quietists, Gichtelians, Depellians, Mountain Men, River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, and the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, are names which occur in the annals of the province. But these are only a few.
He had welcomed not only Moravians at Herrnhut, but Schwenkfelders at Berthelsdorf; and, therefore, he was now suspected of harbouring dangerous fanatics. But Zinzendorf was not yet satisfied. He regarded the edict as an insult. The words about "behaving quietly" looked like a threat.
The Governor of Georgia, General Oglethorpe, was glad to welcome good workmen; a parcel of land was offered, and the poor Schwenkfelders, accompanied by Böhnisch, a Moravian Brother, set off for their American home. For some reason, however, they changed their minds on the way, and, instead of settling down in Georgia, went on to Pennsylvania. The land in Georgia was now crying out for settlers.
As long as the Brethren were merely "tolerated," their peace was in constant danger; and a King who had driven out the Schwenkfelders might soon drive out the Herrnhuters. He was disgusted. At the time when the edict was issued, he himself was returning from a visit to Tübingen. He had laid the whole case of the Brethren before the Tübingen Theological Faculty.
The Schwenkfelders, Boehmists, and other mystics or pietists, are habitually grouped with these sects, rather because of their similar historical origin and attitude to the established churches than of any identity of religious belief.
Nowhere else in America was such a heterogeneous mixture of races and religions to be found. There were Swedes, Dutch, English, Germans, Welsh, Irish and Scotch-Irish; Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Reformed Lutherans, Mennonites, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders and Moravians.
The farm colony was abandoned; and the scene shifts to Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the good Spangenberg had been busy in Pennsylvania, looking after the interests of the Schwenkfelders. He attended their meetings, wore their clothing a green coat, without buttons or pockets studied the works of Schwenkfeld, and organized them into what he called an "Economy."
In other words, he taught them to help each other by joining in common work on a communist basis. At the same time, he tried to teach them to be a little more broad-minded, and not to quarrel so much with other Christians. But the more he talked of brotherly love the more bigoted the poor Schwenkfelders became. At this time the colony had become a nest of fanatics.
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