"I doubt not thou art right," said our leader, and Brother Wohlforth also seemed to think that Brother Onesimus did not deem it wise to incarcerate himself for forty days and leave us unwatched by him for that time; but his own slyness in time proved his overthrow. I have not space here to set forth in detail all the practices of our thirteen neophytes, which at this time were known only to the Eckerlings and their followers, being, as I said, a sort of Freemasonry, but in later years I learned from Sonnlein a great deal concerning this ordeal and it may be that, later, I shall have somewhat to say of it. I do know this, however, that at the end of the forty days the thirteen emerged, claiming they had successfully completed the ordeal, with physical bodies as clean and pure as though new-born, their spirits filled with divine light, visions without limit, mental power sunbounded, and no other ambition than to enjoy a state of complete rest and peace while waiting for immortality, so that each could say at the end, "I am that I am." So far as I could see, and I say this not in levity or prejudice but as being absolutely true, all the change I could see beyond their looking even thinner and paler than before, each of the regenerated could say more truly instead of, "I am that I am," "I am what I was before I entered." I could not see in all my later life that physically or mentally or religiously these adepts were any different or better than the rest of us, but seemed subject to the same weakness and infirmities as the unregenerated, only that the silly thirteen did ever after by their aversion for labor show they really believed they had attained a state of complete rest. All of which goes to show that in every community error is bound to come and that there are ever those who, not content with serving God in the simple manner he hath set forth in the Scriptures, must devise all sorts of foolish and even difficult modes of living the Almighty doth not ask for and which, I doubt, not do not please him. However, while our _Vorsteher_, or superintendent, and Brother Wohlforth and myself were not in accord with the Eckerlings and their followers in establishing the Zionitic Brotherhood, who were ever looked upon with awe and veneration by the secular members, we did all in our power to live peaceably with them, Brother Beissel even bringing out a hymn book, known as the "_Weyrauch's Hügel_" (Incense Hill), for the use of the Brotherhood as well as for general circulation among the Germans in the province.