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Updated: June 23, 2025
As he pondered one day on the state of affairs at Herrnhut, it suddenly flashed upon his mind that the Brethren would do far better without their ancient constitution. At that moment Zinzendorf was calmly attempting to destroy the Moravian Church. He did not want to see that Church revive.
He was General Elder of the whole Brethren's Church. He had become the supreme authority in spiritual matters. He had authority over Zinzendorf himself, over all the Bishops, over all the members of the Pilgrim Band, over all Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut, over the pioneers in England and North America, over the missionaries in Greenland, the West Indies, South Africa and Surinam.
For the noble privilege of paying money instead of fighting in battle. The more these Brethren were encouraged, said he, the more the Colonies would prosper; he proposed that the petition be referred to a Committee, and Velters Cornwall, member for Herefordshire, seconded the motion. As Zinzendorf listened to this speech, some curious feelings must have surged in his bosom.
He was accompanied by his brother Charles and two other missionaries, and on board the vessel was a small band of men from "the meek Moravian Missions." The Moravian sect was then in its earliest working order. It had been founded or perhaps it would be more fitting to say restored not many years before, by the enthusiastic and devoted Count Von Zinzendorf.
As soon as Zinzendorf was laid in his grave the Brethren in Germany formed a Board of Management; but, before long, they discovered that they could not do without Spangenberg. He left America for ever. And thus Brother Joseph was lost to America because he was indispensable in Germany. The second cause of failure was the system of management.
He had met James Hutton, Zinzendorf, Spangenberg, Boehler, and other Moravians in London, and the more he knew of these men the more profoundly convinced he became that the picture of the Brethren painted by John Wesley in his Journal was no better than a malicious falsehood.
He ordered Colonel Zinzendorf to march quietly out of the city at eight o'clock with four hundred of his dragoons, and four hundred British and as many Spanish infantry were to join him outside the walls. The colonels of these three bodies were ordered to say nothing of their intended movement, and to issue no orders until within half an hour of the time named.
The English abridged edition was still more colourless.136 For a hundred years the character of Zinzendorf lay hidden beneath a pile of pious phrases, and only the recent researches of scholars have enabled us to see him as he was. He was no mere commonplace Pietist. He was no mere pious German nobleman, converted by looking at a picture. His faults and his virtues stood out in glaring relief.
But Zinzendorf felt that, filthy or not, it was the very spot which God had chosen for his new work. It suited his high ideas. The more squalid the people, the more reason there was for going. "I will make this nest of vagabonds," he said, "the centre for the universal religion of the Saviour. Christian," he asked, "haven't you been in Greenland?"
He wished, he said, to be quite fair to the Brethren; he wished to give them a chance of clearing themselves; and, therefore, he now published his pamphlet entitled "Queries to Count Zinzendorf." It contained the whole case in a nutshell. For the sum of sixpence the ordinary reader had now the case against the Brethren in a popular and handy form.
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