Second:—As we drive through the Amish community and observe their farms and farm buildings we need to remember that there is no fire insurance on the buildings. They look upon insurance as an effort to thwart the will of God. But, let the biggest barn in the Amish community burn to the ground, in ten days or so after the fire, some morning a hundred, two hundred, as high as three hundred Amishmen, will appear; armed with hammers, hatchets, saws—whatever it takes to build a barn—and by evening a new barn will stand on the site. For the material, they will contribute into a common fund. The women will serve two dinners, one at noon, one in the evening. The writer saw a barn raising one day. At four fifteen o’clock in the evening the completed barn stood there. On this barn 201 men were helping. The writer said to the farmer “Uncle Isaac, this must have cost you a pretty penny, just to feed so many men.” Said Uncle Isaac, “It didn’t cost me a cent, the brethren furnished it all.” Mutual helpfulness is still a virtue. Third:—During the economic depression of the thirties not one penny was paid to an Amish family out of public funds by way of relief. They took care of themselves. Fourth:—When the Roosevelt administration came to power in 1932 and its department of agriculture found too much wheat, too many pigs, they said, “Let your land lie fallow. We will pay you a subsidy.” The answer of our Amish farmer was, “Nothing doing. This land is a trust from God. Farm it, we will. If you don’t want wheat, we will not farm wheat, nor will we raise pigs, if they are not needed, but farm our land we will, and we don’t want your subsidy. Self reliance is still a virtue.” [Illustration: Photo by Jim Hess LANCASTER COUNTY BARN RAISING] The third sect of plain people is the Church of the Brethren or Dunkards. They stem from Alexander Mack, a Mennonite clergyman who seceded from the Mennonites in Schwarzenau, Germany in 1708 on his interpretation of baptism. The Mennonite commonly sprinkles in baptism. Mack taught that to be baptized properly one ought to be immersed, “dunked” if you please. The Church of the Brethren have largely lost their “Plain Way” of life. Since they have gone in for higher education, their garb has largely disappeared. Few of the men wear beards and most of the Brethren use regular clothing. However, some still wear a garb similar to the Mennonites, the favorite color of the men being grey. There is one sect of Dunkards, the Old Order River Brethren, very plain, just as plain as the Amish. These people are not a numerically large sect, for there are only approximately 12,000 of them in America. However, they deserve mention, for it was from them that President Eisenhower descended, whose grandfather, the Rev. Jacob Eisenhower, was a minister in the sect.