It accords not well with my ideas of humility and self-effacement that I should ever be writing of myself, and yet it seemeth not possible to tell this tale without bringing into it much that befell me in connection with those who were so dear to me, and of whose lives it is my pleasure and pain to relate. And of those who were so precious to me there were none so dear to me as my Sister Bernice, not even Sonnlein; for however beloved he was of me he was none the less of my sex, while my dear sister was of that sex which a true man, so it appeareth to me, can no more help holding with a more or less tender feeling than he can help breathing. I know this will seem unto many as foolishness, especially as I--like my Brother Beissel, who had published his "_Ehebüchlein_," or "Booklet on Matrimony," denouncing marriage as the penitentiary of carnal man--have ever been an advocate of the beauty and superiority of the virgin life; but in my reading of history I have noted how more than one man much stronger than I, changed utterly his beliefs and principles for the love of some daughter of Eve. It is not that I have never been greatly attracted by the charms of my sisters, whom we in Ephrata regarded not so much opposite as complementary to our own, man's nature. I loved my mother dearly; her love hath been as a sweet fragrance to me in all my long life, and in many a trial and temptation have I felt her presence near, strengthening and upholding me in the right. And however cold and indifferent I may have borne myself outwardly to the gentler ones, still I never could speak otherwise than tenderly, and even reverently to them, as it seemed to me their pure, finer natures deserved; so that it hath ever grieved me to hear any one belittle a woman. I shall never forget the first time I saw the slight, delicate form and sweet face of Sister Bernice. It was at one of our love feasts (_Liebesmahl_), which with us was not like among the other denominations, merely symbolic, but was patterned after that of the early Christians; for we took a regular meal--and not merely a wafer or cake--in utter silence before communion, the love feast being an introduction to the more solemn part of the evening's service. I remember full well how the Brethren were sitting on one side of the long table in Kedar, with heads uncovered, the Sisters on the other side not with their enveloping bonnets, but bedecked with the pretty prayer covering, which they always seemed glad to wear, which was a neat lace cap with strings beneath the chin. After the reading of the Scriptures I raised my head, and then for the first time in my life saw the Sister opposite me--Bernice. I do not think she saw me or in any way observed me, for she seemed rapt in ecstatic adoration, her eyes turned upward and her lips slightly parted, as if she already saw and heard the glories of that heavenly home she was to visit ere many years passed over her fair head.