A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the CocalicoJabez, Brother
Religion
A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the Cocalico
Jabez, Brother
Christian fiction; Ephrata Cloister -- Fiction; Seventh-Day Baptists -- Fiction
After much talk with the Sisters--and even the Brethren deigned to give
most grave and solemn suggestions which I gratefully accepted and wisely
disregarded--it was decided the wedding, or _Hochzeit_, should be held
in Peniel, which as will be recalled we built in the meadow during that
dreadful winter just before the death of our poor Brother Agonius.
So great a delight did our little community find in the wedding to be,
that not only were invitations sent out to all the housefathers, their
good wives and sturdy sons and buxom daughters; but we even sent
invitations to our English Brethren in Nantmill and Coventry and to our
German Brethren on the Wissahickon; for we were not ashamed to let the
world see that although we had high regard for our views of celibacy,
yet we knew when it became us to bow gently to that which could not be
helped, for surely when two be bent on marrying each other naught
availeth to hinder them.
And now that we had decided upon such grave matters as the fixing of the
day, the selection of the person to perform the ceremony, our justice,
Conrad Weiser, having graciously accepted that honor, and the sending
out of the invitations, the Sisters immediately set to work for the
feeding of the great multitude we earnestly hoped would come, for on
such a day we must feed our guests well and not subject them to the
thinness of our Kloster fare.
Then too, though Sonnlein concerned himself not much about his wedding
suit, the Sisters made great ado that their beloved Genoveva could in no
wise be properly married unless she had most beautiful garments
befitting such a wedding as this; so that between the baking and sewing
and all the other endless things that women ever seem to regard
necessary for weddings, I fear that at our midnight meetings Sisters and
Brothers did not always have their thoughts turned toward the heavenly
Bridegroom and the celestial Virgin, the hymns having more of love in
them than ever before. Whether this was mere coincidence I know not,
and I leave this for wiser men to determine, only that Brother Beissel
the day before the wedding complained to me he verily believed it were
next to useless to hold any more midnight services until we got through
with this marrying business; that even so solemn and stern a Sister as
the prioress seemed now to think only of one thing, which was that
Genoveva should be married in proper state.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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