The community at Ephrata were decided Whigs in the Revolution, although they considered contention with arms and at law as inconsistent with the Christian character and profession. In the war of 1756, the doors of the cloister, including the meeting-room, the chapels, and every other building, were opened to afford a refuge to the inhabitants of Tulpehocken and the Paxton settlements, then on the frontiers, as they fled before the murdering and marauding bands of Indians; and all were kept and fed by the Society during the period of alarm and danger. Upon hearing of this the royal government despatched from Philadelphia a company of infantry to protect and defend the place; and becoming aware of the character of the Society, presented them with a pair of large and beautiful communion goblets, which was the only recompense they could be prevailed on to receive. At a much earlier period they attracted the attention of the Penn family, and Lady Juliana Penn, in England, opened a correspondence with the Society. Governor Penn visited them frequently, and being desirous to bestow upon them a solid evidence of his regard, had a large tract of five thousand acres of land surveyed and conveyed to them as the Seventh-day Baptist Manor. This, however, they refused to accept, believing that large possessions tended to engender strife, and that it was inconsistent with the Christian character to be absorbed in the gains of this world and the accumulation of temporal property. A few days after the battle of Brandywine, Sept. 11th, 1777, the whole establishment was opened to receive the wounded Americans, great numbers of whom were brought there in wagons, a distance of forty miles; and that long train of various conveyances, that came slowly up the valley where the field had been contested—the train that bore those whose shattered limbs seemed to defy all surgical aid, or whose contagious disease was like the pestilence that wasteth at noonday, was received by the brothers of Ephrata as if it bore forward the gathered harvest of summer. And those sisters,—did they shrink from that dreadful exhibition of human suffering? did they turn pale, and sicken at the view of bruised and mangled limbs, clotted gore, and the sound of deep heart-rending groans? Oh no; their sympathy was of the practical kind. It prompted them to assuage and relieve. And with the kindest and tenderest feelings they garnered up the sick, the wounded, and the dying, in their rooms, their chapels, and their edifices, devoted to public worship or domestic duties, with a welcome and care that only religion could dictate, and that only true patriotism could have evinced. Of the five hundred who were brought there one hundred and fifty died, notwithstanding the attendance of Doctors Scott, Yerkel, and Harrison. The dead were buried with all the decencies of friendship, and with all the ceremonies of military propriety. They were principally from the Eastern States and Pennsylvania.