when these men entered on their duties he informed them that they were the servants, not merely of the Moravian Church, but of the wider "Church of the Brethren." If the Count could now have carried out his scheme, he would have had men from various Churches at the head of each tropus in the Church of the Brethren. For the present he did the best he could, and divided the Brethren into three leading tropuses. At the head of the Moravian tropus was Bishop Polycarp Müller; at the head of the Lutheran, first he himself, and then, later, Dr. Hermann, Court Preacher at Dresden; and finally, at the head of the Reformed, first his old friend Bishop Friedrich de Watteville, and then, later, Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.[98] His scheme was now fairly clear. "In future," he said, "we are all to be Brethren, and our Bishops must be Brethren's Bishops; and, therefore, in this Church of the Brethren there will henceforth be, not only Moravians, but also Lutherans and Calvinists, who cannot find peace in their own Churches on account of brutal theologians." His second remedy was worse than the disease. The great fault in Zinzendorf's character was lack of ballast. For the last few years he had given way to the habit of despising his own common sense; and instead of using his own judgment he now used the Lot. He had probably learned this habit from the Halle Pietists. He carried his Lot apparatus in his pocket;[99] he consulted it on all sorts of topics; he regarded it as the infallible voice of God. "To me," said he, in a letter to Spangenberg, "the Lot and the Will of God are simply one and the same thing. I am not wise enough to seek God's will by my own mental efforts. I would rather trust an innocent piece of paper than my own feelings." He now endeavoured to teach this faith to his Brethren. He founded a society called "The Order of the Little Fools," {June 2nd, 1743.} and before very long they were nearly all "little fools." His argument here was astounding. He appealed to the well-known words of Christ Himself.[100] As God, he contended, had revealed His will, not to wise men, but to babes, it followed that the more like babes the Brethren became, the more clearly they would understand the mysteries of grace. They were not to use their own brains; they were to wish that they had no brains; they were to be like children in arms; and thus they would overcome all their doubts and banish all their cares. The result was disastrous. It led to the period known as the "Sifting Time." It is the saddest period in the history of the Brethren's Church. For seven years these Brethren took leave of their senses, and allowed their feelings to lead them on in the paths of insensate folly. They began by taking Zinzendorf at his word. They used diminutives for nearly everything. They addressed the Count as "Papa" and "Little Papa"; they spoke of Christ as "Brother Lambkin";[101] and they described themselves as