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
In brief, we traveled in this way until we reached the City of
Lancaster, which to us seemed all bustle and confusion. The constable,
as became his dignity, alighted from his litter and took the lead, with
his deputies following, and we after the deputies, in single file,
creating great excitement, especially as it was conjectured by some that
we were Papists--this by reason of our monkish cowls and long cloaks and
abstracted air. Others of the idlers whom we passed jeered us and spat
on us as being spies--of what, I am certain I never could learn--and
that we were to be hanged as traitors.
As no one had known of our coming, the idlers and the busybodies were
unprepared to give us such greeting as they no doubt would have
relished, and we were led without any great difficulty to the
court-house where, upon refusal to pay the taxes and in default of bail,
we were committed to prison. Here we were held in a cold, bare room
which we minded not; for our jailor permitted us to occupy it together,
which gave us great joy, and we complained neither at the confinement
nor the coarse food, but the rather spent our time in praising God and
most of all praying for our persecutors, all of us being unshaken in the
hope that deliverance would come from above and that in due time our
prison door would be opened unto us.
At last--and in this I believe our constable had a grateful part--when
Tobias Hendricks (whose name I write here that his good deed may shine
far out into the world), a venerable old man and himself a justice of
the peace, came forth and offered bail for us, though knowing none of us
except by rumor and repute, taking our bare word for our appearance in
court when wanted, we were released from our captivity, and quietly and
undisturbed we started out for our beloved Kloster, and upon the twelfth
day of our departure with the constable and his eager deputies, we six
Brethren once more filed into our little camp on the Cocalico, where we
were greeted with all the love and affection that the sobriety of our
lives permitted.
Not many weeks thereafter, the May Court convened in Lancaster and we
six Brethren, agreeable to our promise, put in our appearance before the
commissioners and assessors of taxes who, when they saw before them
these six gentle Brethren, in the bloom of youth, who had raised such a
warfare against the world, the fear of the Lord came upon our judges so
that they did not speak to us otherwise than friendly and offered us
every favor.
The first question put to us was, "Will ye be lawful subjects of the
king?" To which we replied--but in all respect--that as we had already
pledged allegiance to another King we could therefore obey the earthly
king only so far as his rights accorded with those of our eternal King.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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