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Updated: June 17, 2025
At the schools there were over 600 children, and the Brethren had to issue a notice that they had no room for more. The whole place was a smithy. There the spiritual weapons were forged for service in the foreign field. "Up, up," Spangenberg would say to the young men at sunrise, "we have no time for dawdling. Why sleep ye still? Arise, young lions!"
For that judgment Moravian writers have largely been to blame. It has been asserted again and again that on that famous "Memorial Day" the Brethren made a "special covenant" with Christ. For that legend Bishop Spangenberg was partly responsible.
The sober Spangenberg arrived. The whole movement now was raised to a higher level. As soon as Spangenberg had hold of the reins the members, instead of quarrelling with each other, began to apply themselves to the spread of the Gospel; and to this end they now established the "Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel."
He contrasted Spangenberg with Zinzendorf. In reading Zinzendorf, we constantly need the lead pencil. One sentence we wish to cross out; the next we wish to underline. In reading Spangenberg we do neither. "In these recent works of the Brethren," said Lavater, "I find much less to strike out as unscriptural, but also much less to underline as deep, than in the soaring writings of Zinzendorf."
For some years, with Spangenberg as general manager, the Brethren tried to found a flourishing farm colony. The learned Spangenberg was a practical man. In spite of the fact that he had been a University lecturer, he now put his hand to the plough like a labourer to the manner born.
The difference between him and Zinzendorf was enormous. At St. Croix, a couple of years before, a band of Moravian Missionaries had died of fever; and while Zinzendorf immortalized their exploits in a hymn, the practical Spangenberg calmly considered how such heroic tragedies could be prevented in the future. In political matters he was equally far-seeing.
If any Brother objected to working for the "Economy," and preferred to trade on his own account, he was free to do so; and as soon as the "Economy" had served its purpose it was abolished by Spangenberg himself . It is easy to object that his system interfered with family life.
As soon as Spangenberg had left his American friends, the work was placed, for the time being, under the able management of Bishop Seidal, Bishop Hehl, and Frederick William von Marschall; and then, in due course, the American Brethren were informed that a General Synod had been held at Marienborn , that certain Church principles had there been laid down, and that henceforward their duty, as loyal Moravians, was to obey the laws enacted at the General Synods, and also to submit, without asking questions, to the ruling of the German Directing Board.
If every difficult theological question is to be solved by simply appealing to passages of Scripture, it is obvious that little room is left for profound and original reflection; and that, speaking broadly, was the method adopted by Spangenberg in this volume. His object was twofold.
Spangenberg, who had nearly concluded every thing relative to their embarkation, with the Trustees, and to their accommodation and settlement, with General Oglethorpe. A number of Saltzburgers were also about to emigrate; and three zealous ministers of the Church of England, Mr. John Wesley, together with his brother Charles, and Mr. Benjamin Ingham, went with them in the same ship.
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