this church has rarely been excelled, and it received continual accessions of new members from the banks of the Wissahickon, and from Lancaster County. In this county, another community was soon after established by Conrad Beissel, a native of Germany. He was a man of eminent piety and ability, much given to metaphysical speculations, and distinguished for his love of solitude. Being determined to seek out the true obligations of the Word of God, independent of all preconceived opinions and traditional observances, he was soon led to perceive that the sentiments of the Dunkers were erroneous so far as they related to the day designed to be hallowed as the Sabbath. It appeared evident to him "that the seventh day was the command of the Lord God, and that day being established and sanctified by the Great Jehovah, for ever, and no change, nor authority for change, ever having been announced to man, by any power sufficient to set aside the solemn decree of the Almighty, he felt it to be his duty to contend for the observance of that day." These opinions he maintained, not only in many eloquent discourses, but, about the year 1725, he published a short treatise which entered into a full and very able discussion of this point. The publication of this tract formed, in more ways than one, an epoch in the community, and created so much stir and excitement among the Society at Mill Creek, that Beissel quietly retired from the settlement, and took up his abode in a small cell on the banks of the Cocalico, which had been occupied previously by one Elimelech, an anchorite. Here, retired from all the world, he sought, by prayer, fasting, and meditation, to converse with superior intelligences, and to perfect himself in holy knowledge. But the community that had opposed his fervent and spiritual teachings when present, found his absence a great deprivation, and although many inquiries were made, it was a long time before the place of his retirement became known. By this time many members of the society at Mill Creek had become convinced of the truth of his proposition relative to the Sabbath, who now removed and settled around him in solitary cottages. They rested from secular labours and celebrated the public services of religion upon the original Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, which has ever since been observed by their descendants.