§ 168.7. =The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s Administration.=--For its present form the Brotherhood is indebted to its wise and sensible bishop, =Aug. Gottl. Spangenberg=, who died A.D. 1792. Born in 1704, he became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf in 1727, after he had completed his studies at Jena under Buddæus, and continued ever after on terms of close intimacy with him and his community. Through the good offices of G. A. Francke, son and successor of A. H. Francke, he was called in Sept., 1732, to the office of an assistantship in the theological faculty at Halle, and appointed school inspector of the Orphanage; but very soon offence was taken at the brotherly fellowship which he had, not only with the society of Herrnhut, but also with other separatists. The misunderstanding that thus arose led in April, 1733, to his deprivation under a royal cabinet order, and his expulsion by military power from Halle. He now formally joined the communion of the Brethren. The first half of his signally blessed ministry of sixty years among the Moravians was chiefly devoted to foreign mission work, both in their colonies abroad and in their stations in heathen lands. In Holland in 1734, in England and Denmark in 1735, he obtained official permission for the founding of Moravian colonies in Surinam, in the American state of Georgia, and in Santa Cruz, the forming and management of which he himself undertook, besides directing the mission work in these places. Returning from America in 1762, he won, after Zinzendorf’s death, so complete an ascendency in the church in every respect, that he may well be regarded as its second founder. At the Synod of Marienborn, in A.D. 1764, the constitution was revised and perfected. Zinzendorf’s monarchical prerogative was surrendered to the eldership, and Spangenberg prudently secured the withdrawal of all excrescences and extravagances. But the central idea of a special covenant was not touched, and Sept. 16th is still held as a grand pentecost festival. In the fifth section of the statutes of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1819, it distinguishes itself from all the churches as a “society of true children of God; as a family of God, with Jesus as its head. ” In the fourth section of the “Historical Account of the Constitution of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1823,” the society is described as “a company of living members of the invisible body of Jesus Christ;” and in its litany for Easter morning, it adds as a fourth particular to the article of the creed: “I believe that our brothers _N. N._, and our sisters _N. N._ have joined the church above, and have entered into the joy of the Lord.” The synod of A.D. 1848 modified this article, and generally the society’s distinctive views are not made so prominent. This liberal tendency had dogmatic expression given to it in Spangenberg’s “_Idea Fidei