Time has wrought many changes, but the spirit of Zinzendorf still hovers over Bethlehem and Nazareth, and the Moravians of to-day remain faithful to the beautiful creed and the tender and gracious traditions of their fathers. Bethlehem nestles among the hills of Pennsylvania's beautiful Lehigh valley, and its ancient buildings, elbowed by snug modern houses, silently recount a peaceful history, dating back to the time when, threescore years more than a century ago, a small Moravian missionary band took shelter by Lehigh's stream, and founded there, amid forest hills and on land bought from William Penn, a wilderness home.

It was in the early winter of 1740 that the founders of Bethlehem cut down the first trees and built the log hut which sheltered themselves and their animals until the return of spring. Previous to that time a handful of Moravians had settled in Georgia, but when England began war against Spain and demanded that the peace-loving Moravians should perform military service, they concluded to remove to Pennsylvania. Count Zinzendorf, their leader, arrived from Germany before the second house in the new settlement was completed, and celebrated the Christmas Eve of 1741 with his followers. The latter had intended to call their new home Beth Leschem, — house upon the Lehigh, — but towards midnight of the Christmas Eve in question Zinzendorf, deeply moved by the spirit of the occasion, seized a blazing torch, and marching around the room, began singing a German hymn:

“Not from Jerusalem, but from Bethlehem, comes that which benefits my soul.”

And thus it was that the infant settlement came to be called Bethlehem. A very remarkable man was the one who gave the town its name. The descendants of the followers of the Protestant reformer and martyr John Huss, the Moravians, driven chaff before the wind, for three centuries endured persecutions as bitter as they were unrelenting, but with the birth of Zinzendorf in 1700 the hour of their deliverance struck. Descended from an ancient and noble Austrian family, Zinzendorf was one of the truly great men of his time, combining in signal and rare degree the qualities of the statesman, the administrator, the poet, the preacher, and the missionary. Carefully educated and with a brilliant public career at his command, when in 1722 a small band of Moravians, fleeing from Bohemia, found refuge on his estate at Berthelsdorf, he saw in their coming the hand of God, and thereafter and until his death was the wise leader and loving protector of the persecuted sect. Ordained a bishop of the Moravian Church in 1737, Zinzendorf proved a marvel of untiring endeavor, travelling constantly and preaching and writing almost without cessation. His missionary zeal was absorbing and persistent, and he was never so happy as when making converts to his faith. Eloquent, resolute, and forceful, he builded better than he knew, and before he died his followers had carried their faith to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Nowhere was it planted more firmly than at Bethlehem. The first settlement in Central Pennsylvania, then the freest and most tolerant country in the world, for upward of a hundred years the little town by the Lehigh was an exclusive church settlement, offering a unique example of the union of church and municipal order and authority. No one was permitted to engage in business pursuits or handicrafts within its corporate limits unless he was a member of the Moravian Church; and its secularities were administered by a board of overseers appointed by the congregation council. Still, the colony prospered from the first. Thriving mercantile and manufacturing enterprises were speedily set on foot; the settlement soon contained skilled operatives in almost every trade that could be mentioned, and (luring the Revolutionary period Bethlehem became one of the most important manufacturing centres on the continent, its shops and factories rendering invaluable aid to the patriot cause.

Moreover, during the first years of its existence the Bethlehem community presented almost a counterpart of the early Christian community of Jerusalem, who “had all things in common.” In this missionary economy the products of the labor of the entire community were held in common, for the providing of a livelihood for all, the members carrying on a general housekeeping, in order to secure the necessary support of the men and women chosen to give up all their time to missionary labors among the scattered settlers along the Atlantic coast, and especially among the Indians of Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. Marvellous was the success of the Moravian evangelists among the aborigines. Villages of Christianized and civilized Indians sprang up in the heart of the wilderness, and made it to blossom as the rose with the fruits of industry and peace. Mysterious seems the Providence which permitted these Indian settlements, one by one, to be blotted out in fire and blood at the murderous hands of allied white and red foes; and the tragedies of the two Gnadenhuttens (Tents of Grace) — the one in 1755, on the Mahoning Creek, in Eastern Pennsylvania; the other in 1788, on the Muskingum River, in Northern Ohio — mark pages in earlier American history as dark as they are inscrutable.

The “economy” which the church organization of the Moravians devised for the Bethlehem community lasted only thirty years, — having served its purpose it was discontinued, but until 1844 the town and its environs remained under the absolute control of the Moravian Church. In the year named the exclusive system was abandoned by vote of the church council, — before that time only those who affirmed allegiance to the Moravian faith could hold property in the town, — and since then great changes have been wrought in Bethlehem. New elements, business and social, have made themselves felt in the town, which has become an active business community, but the Moravian Church, strong in the sustaining power of a heroic and consecrated past, still dominates Bethlehem, and its schools, edifices, and institutions are the most conspicuous objects to be seen in a walk about the city.

Sisters' House, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Such a walk is pretty sure to lead one past the old Sun Inn, built by the Moravians in 1758, and the shelter in its early days of Washington, Lafayette, and many other famous men; the Moravian Theological College and Female Seminary, the latter the first boarding-school for girls established in the colonies, and the several houses wherein dwelt respectively the members of the different choirs or divisions of the congregation. Thus, the unmarried women lived in what is still known and used as the Sisters' House,  — the dwelling of the Single Sisters' Choir. It must not be supposed, however, that these sisters were nuns and recluses, as their name and mode of life might at first suggest. On the contrary, like the members of the Single Brethren's Choir, they simply occupied a common dwelling apart from the other choirs, mingling freely with the rest of the community in daily intercourse. Even this primitive manner of living has now been discontinued, nor are the members of the different choirs longer distinguished by the slight differences in dress, as was customary in bygone years, when the choir to which a woman belonged was known by the color of the ribbon in her cap: the Single Sisters wearing pink, the Married Sisters blue, and the Widows white, while the young members of the Great Girls' Choir had their caps trimmed with red ribbons.

Memory of these neglected customs, however, serves to recall the somewhat rigid regulations in reference to age and sex which in old times governed every Moravian community. There was no courtship, and it was unusual for the bride to have seen her intended husband previous to the betrothal. Both ministers and laymen submitted the decision of their connubial choice to lot, discovering in this now discarded practice proof of a higher order of Christianity, in which all things were submitted to the supreme will and direction. Still, confession must be made that, in cases where the affections were already placed, the decision by lot was often evaded. In such cases the romance of courtship usually led to a suspension from the rights and privileges of the particular congregation where the infringing parties resided. They were asked to remove without its pale, and were no longer considered members.

Adjoining the Sisters' House at Bethlehem and connecting it with the Congregation House — the abode of the ministers and their families — is the old Bell House, now occupied by members of the congregation, but formerly serving for the occupation of the female seminary. On the opposite side of the street is located the Widows' House, still occupied by members of the Widows' Choir; and close to this group of buildings is a little chapel, used even to this day for the holding of German services, and a larger church edifice, with odd open-belfry steeple, which overlooks an ancient cemetery. This Moravian God's Acre is, strange as it may seem, one of the most cheerful spots in Bethlehem. The townspeople find it pleasant to sit in, and in the summer-time women and children spend entire afternoons there. Nearly three-score of the Indian converts to the Moravian faith are buried in this field. One of them is Tschoop, believed to be the father of Cooper's Uncas. Tschoop was a Mohican chief, famed for his bravery and eloquence. In 1741 Christian Rauch, a Moravian missionary, went to Tschoop's hut and asked him if he did not want to save his soul. “We all want to do that,” was the chief's reply. Rauch explained the Christian religion to him, and prayed and pleaded with him even with tears, but apparently in vain. He remained for months near the Indian. Tschoop was a fierce, gigantic savage, the terror of the whites, and Rauch was small in build and mild of temper. The chief at last professed Christianity, and was baptized under the name of John. In a letter which he sent to the Delawares he says, “I have been a heathen. A preacher came to preach to me that there is a God. I said, ‘Do I not know that? Go back whence thou camest.’ Another came and preached that it was ruin for me to lie and get drunk. I said, ‘Do I not know that? Am I a fool?’ Then Christian Rauch came into my hut and sat down beside me day after day, and told me of my sins and of Jesus who died to save me from them. I said, ‘I will kill you.’ But he said, ‘I trust in Jesus.’ So one day, being weary, he lay down in my hut and fell asleep. And I said, ‘What kind of man is this little fellow? I might kill him, and throw him into the woods, and no man would regard it. Yet there he sleeps, because Jesus will take care of him. Who is this Jesus? I, too, will find the man.’”

Succeeding in his quest, the great chief preached the Christian religion with the same fiery eloquence which had given him power among his people, and for many years went up and down among the tribes in the Western wilderness. The inscription on the stone above Tschoop's grave says that he was “one of the first-fruits of the mission at Shekomo, and a remarkable instance of the power of divine grace.” Beside the grave some one has planted a white rose-bush, — the only one among them all on which a flower grows.

After Bethlehem the most important Moravian villages in America are Nazareth and Lititz. Nazareth is in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, not far from Bethlehem, and is one of the quaintest of New World towns. Perched high among the mountains, its old-fashioned houses, well-shaded streets, and slow-moving people seem to belong to another age. The founding of Nazareth antedated that of Bethlehem. In 1740, Whitefield, the great field preacher, bought the land upon which the town stands, designing to build in the wilderness of Pennsylvania an orphanage for colored children. In the erection of the buildings included in his project Whitefield had recourse to the Moravian craftsmen who had lately fled from Georgia to Pennsylvania. The preacher and his workmen soon quarrelled over religious matters, and the former's funds becoming exhausted about that time, his landed holdings were purchased by Spangenberg, the Moravian bishop and, after Zinzendorf, the most heroic figure in Moravian history. Spangenberg at once took up his residence in the new settlement, which was given the name of Nazareth, and for many years directed its affairs with vigor and wisdom.

The “economy” plan was followed at the outset, and the Nazareth colony prospered from the first. The “economy of Nazareth” was dissolved in 1764, and seven years later the present town of Nazareth was laid out. In August, 1858, it was incorporated into a borough, but it is still in every particular a Moravian village, with characteristics not to be found in any other town of the United States. Its most famous institution is Nazareth Hall, a boarding-school for boys. Erected in 1755, it was originally designed as a home for Count Zinzendorf, who expected to become a resident of Nazareth, but the Moravian leader, after his visit in 1741, never returned to America, and the house was devoted to other uses. For some years it was used by Bishop Spangenberg as a residence, but in October, 1775, was opened as a boarding-school for boys, and from that date to this it has been used for educational purposes, being noted far and wide for the sound mental and moral training imparted by its teachers, under whom many of the makers of Moravian history have begun their education.

Pleasant and profitable was the life led by the Nazareth Hall school-boys in the old days. In the summer season there were swimming excursions, eagerly looked forward to and keenly enjoyed by all the boys. In the autumn there were nutting parties, and in the winter sledding and skating. It was the custom after the first deep fall of snow to go out among the neighboring farmers and engage a convoy of sleighs sufficient for the accommodation of the entire school. The departure was always attended by the music of bells, the cheers of the boys, and the shouts of the spectators, and for a stopping-place some inn was usually selected where the cooking stood in fair repute, and where due notice of the party and of the hour of its arrival had been sent the day before. Another pleasurable custom, now fallen into disuse, was the celebration with feasting and social intercourse of each teacher and pupil's birthday. Then as now life at Nazareth Hall was a charming and happy one, and “no boy,” says one who was once a pupil, “ever passed a portion of his youth there without being the wiser and better for it.”

Lititz, the third of the Moravian villages I have named, lies in Lancaster County, and owes its origin to a vision which in 1742 appeared to George Klein, one of the leaders of a Lutheran colony which had been established at Warwick, in Lancaster County, not far from the Dunker village of Ephrata. In the year just named Count Zinzendorf visited Warwick and preached to its inhabitants. Klein was the only person in the settlement who refused to attend the meeting, and was loud in denunciation of all Lutherans who were present. That night a vision appeared to Klein. He saw the Lord face to face, and received evidence of His displeasure at the faithful Lutheran's bitterness and denunciation of the Moravian disciple and missionary. Count Zinzendorf proceeded to Lancaster from Lititz, where he was to preach in the court-house. George Klein was so deeply impressed with the vision which had appeared to him that he followed the missionary to Lancaster, heard him preach, and was there and then converted to the Moravian faith. He became an ardent and self-sacrificing worker in his new field. Through him one of the best Moravian preachers and instructors the Bethlehem colony could supply was sent to Warwick, and in 1744 every German settler there had been converted to the Moravian doctrine.

In that year George Klein built the first Moravian place of worship in the settlement, a portion of which still stands in the lower part of Lititz village. In that ancient structure, which was built of logs and called St. James's Church, the Indian missionary, Christian Rauch, began his career as a preacher. In 1754, George Klein gave to the church six hundred acres of land and erected a stone building two stories high for a place of worship. In 1787 the present church was built, but as early as 1760 one of the buildings that stand near the church was erected for a sisters' house, and another quaint structure belonging to the church was built in 1770. These are now included in the famous Moravian Female Seminary of Lititz, known as Linden Hall. It is the oldest young ladies' seminary in the State, its use as a school dating from 1794. The simple but imposing architecture of these old buildings stands in striking contrast to the ornate style of the Memorial Chapel erected in 1883 by George W. Dixon, of Bethlehem, in memory of his daughter Mary, who died soon after graduation at Linden Hall.

In 1756 the name of Lititz was given to the new Moravian settlement, the christening being by Count Zinzendorf himself, and the name that of an ancient town in Bohemia, where, in 1456, the persecuted Moravian Church found refuge. Lititz saw many stirring events during the Revolution. In 1778 it was converted into a temporary hospital for the sick and wounded of the patriot army, and in a field to the east of the town sleep more than a hundred of Washington's soldiers who died of camp fever at that time. However, until 1855, only professors of the Moravian creed were permitted to settle in Lititz, and even at the present time the church is all-powerful in the conduct of its affairs.

One object of peculiar interest which peaceful Lititz holds for the visitor is a solitary grave in the corner of the village cemetery. A large slab covers it entirely, and the inscription tells that he who sleeps beneath it was born in 1803 and died in 1880. Between these two dates runs the long story of an eventful life, for it is the grave of General John A. Sutter, whose mill-race on the bank of the Sacramento was the source of the mighty stream of gold that has flowed from California. Sutter was always a wanderer. Born in Baden in 1803, he graduated from the military school at Berne at the age of twenty, and enlisted in the Swiss Guard of the French army, the successors of that famous band of mercenaries who died so bravely in the marble halls of Versailles thirty years before. After seven years' service he changed his colors and entered the army of Switzerland, in which he served until 1834. Then he put off his uniform, and shortly afterwards came to this country. In 1838, with six companions, he went across the plains to Oregon, and down the Columbia River to Vancouver, whence he sailed to the Sandwich Islands. There he got an interest in a trading vessel, with which he sailed to Sitka and the seal islands towards Behring Strait. Turning southward, after some profitable trading, he arrived at the bay of San Francisco July 2, 1839. The appearance of the country pleased him and he decided to remain.

Sutter made a settlement some distance up the Sacramento River, built a grist-mill, a tannery, and a fort, founded a colony, and called it New Helvetia. He took a commission as captain in the Mexican service, and afterwards served as a magistrate under the same government. He played no active part in the war against this country, and after the annexation he was alcalde, Indian commissioner, and delegate to the constitutional convention of California. In 1848 came the discovery that enriched the world and impoverished him. Marshall, a laborer, digging out the race to Sutter's mill, picked up a rough lump of something yellow, and Sutter said at once that it was gold. The mill-race was never finished. The laborer turned his pick in another direction and set to work to dig a fortune for himself. The miller bought a shovel and went to take toll of the yellow sand. The stream that was to turn the mill became suddenly worth more than any grist that it could grind. The sequel is well known. The rushing tide of emigrants overwhelmed the little colony of Helvetia, and wiped out Sutter's imperfect title to his land.

Sutter made a brave fight and a long one. He laid claim to thirty-three square leagues of land, including that on which the cities of Sacramento and Marysville now stand. After long delay the Commissioner of Public Lands allowed the claim, and after more delay the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the decision. Then General Sutter carried his claim before Congress, to go through the tedious experience of most people who take claims there. He was still prosecuting it in 1871, when he happened to come to Lititz to drink the wholesome waters of its spring. The quiet of the place and the peaceful life of its people appealed to the restless old man, who was beginning to get tired of his long battle, and he made his home there “until I get my claim through,” he said. He was at Washington still getting his claim through when he died, in 1880, and was brought back to Lititz to be buried, his Moravian neighbors making room for him in the corner of their cemetery. Grass grows thick about his resting-place, while overhead, on sunny summer afternoons, rustle the leaves of the lithesome elm; and one turns from the quiet spot knowing that here the time-worn wanderer sleeps more soundly than ever he did in life, and that with the dead all is well.

The creed of the Moravians has ever been a brief and simple one. They accept the Holy Scripture as the Word of God, the only authoritative rule of religious faith and practice. “The great theme of our preaching,” says one of their writers, “is Jesus Christ, in whom we have the grace of the Son, the law of the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. The word of the cross, which bears testimony to Christ's voluntary offering of himself to suffer and to die, and of the rich treasure of divine grace thus purchased is the beginning, middle, and end of our preaching.”

The Moravians eschew dogmatizing and avoid controversy. Quiet earnestness and cheerful piety mark their daily life wherever found, and even death itself is met by them with sweet and cheerful resignation. When one of their number dies, the fact is announced by four trumpeters, who mount to the church tower, and, one standing at each corner, facing north, south, east, and west, play a solemn dirge. Immediately after death the body is taken from the home and is placed in the dead-house, which is a small stone building in the rear of the church. There it is kept three days. On the third day the body is brought from the dead-house to the lawn nearby, where the coffin is covered with a white pall, on which is embroidered in blue silk, “Jesus, my Redeemer, Liveth.” The dead person is never referred to as being dead, but as having “gone home.” After an ordinary funeral service over the coffin the procession starts for the cemetery, which is but a few rods in the rear of the church. The procession moves in the following order: Children lead the line, moving two by two, with their teachers. A brass band, with soft instruments, follows, playing solemn music, which is always that of some hymn expressive of a hope of eternal life and a glorious resurrection. Then come the clergy, the bier, and the relatives, who are followed, if the dead person is a brother in the church, by the brethren, and if a sister, by the sisters of the church. The coffin is lowered in the grave while hymns are sung, and the procession returns in the same order to the church. Here coffee and buns are served, and over this simple repast the friends discuss the good qualities of the departed spirit. The Moravian idea of death is an easy transition from this to the better world, and they only allude after the services to the bright future on the sunny side of the life which has ended only to be renewed in a more beautiful world. Therefore they wear white rather than black at all funerals.

Music, as I have just inferred, plays a leading part in the social and religious life of the Moravians. A love of melody is inherent in them, and in the old days at Bethlehem concerts were regularly given by an orchestra of amateur musicians, aided by the voices of the Sisters' Choir, all of whose members receive a careful vocal training. The most charming of them all was that on the anniversary of Whit-Monday. This entertainment was called the Musical Festival, and lasted the whole day, during which, in addition to a well-selected programme, an oratorio was usually presented. Again, in the Moravian village of Nazareth the citizens were wont in other years to assemble in the evenings and rehearse many of the symphonies of Haydn and other composers. A favorite at these gatherings was the “Farewell,” signalized by the successive disappearance of the lights. One performer after another, each as he closed his part, blew out his taper, the music meanwhile growing fainter and falling gradually to a pensive andante, until the last survivor of the gay symphony was left alone, seeming, as the notes of his violin died away and he quenched his own taper, to close the scene and drop the curtain on some fine dramatic act.

The most characteristic of all music among the Moravians is that of the trombone, played mostly in the open air, — on the belfry, in the graveyard, or at the church door. Here the Moravian hymn is drawn out with wonderful expression, and I have never heard music more weirdly beautiful than is evoked from these pensive wind instruments by Moravian players on Easter morning, added reason for this being found, perhaps, in the statement that among this devout people the anniversary of Christ's resurrection is the most reverently cherished, the most impressively observed of all church days.

Let me describe the Moravian celebration of Easter as it is to be witnessed each returning spring in the little village of Salem, North Carolina. Throughout the entire year this queen of the festivals is anticipated with sober pleasure by the elders, and creates visions of happiness in the minds of the young people of the secluded Southern hamlet. Even the observance of Christmas pales before the splendors of a Moravian Easter at old Salem, a fact which may in part be attributed to the balmy weather, which usually favors the Easter period, and helps Moravian maidens to ornament their house of God with the fresh sweet flowers and foliage of the early spring. These floral decorations are artistic in conception and arrangement, and so profuse that the church interior becomes a veritable firmament of evergreens and flowers.

In addition to the products of forest and garden many rare exotics are imported for the occasion or grown within the greenhouses of the town. Festoons of cedar, ivy, and holly hang in ornate curves from oaken rafters, and gracefully converge towards the garnished chandeliers, whose crystal pendants sparkle with the play of every prismatic color. The galleries are embowered, and the tones of the great organ seem almost muffled amid so lavish an orniture of fragrant exotics. The pulpit and the rostrum are also generously decorated; the fresco on the wall behind is concealed by elaborate decorations, and in the centre, deftly fashioned with white hyacinths and roses, shine forth in large letters the words, “Christ is Risen.”

The celebration begins on Palm-Sunday, when liturgical services are held, accompanied by a sermon appropriate to the commemoration of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, the exercises presenting a foretaste of the musical feast yet to come. During the Passion Week (between Palm-Sunday and Easter) a number of interesting services are held both morning and evening, and attract a very general attendance. Of these the most solemn and impressive take place on Good-Friday. The following day (Saturday) is called “the Great Sabbath,” on which the Love-Feast, in imitation of the apostolical agapæ, is celebrated. This observance is one of the most original and distinctive features of the Moravian Church, and every member of the congregation is present, save the sick and infirm, even the mothers carrying babes being assigned seats in the room adjoining the main auditorium, where prattle and cries may not disturb the services. The specially distinctive feature of this day's worship is the novel service of coffee and sweetened bread. To the air already laden with the scent of flowers is added the delightful aroma of the best Java, distilled in huge urns in the basement below.

At the proper moment as fixed by the programme, the doors facing each aisle on either side of the pulpit are thrown open, and through them file two processions, one of men and one of women, all bearing huge wooden trays containing cakes of sweetened bread. The women, who wear dainty white aprons and snowy mull caps, pass down the right aisle and serve each female member of the congregation with cake; while the men, dressed in conventional black, wait similarly upon their own sex seated on the opposite side of the church. When all are served with sweetened bread, the waiters pass out and return with their trays full of huge porcelain mugs of hot, steaming coffee; these are likewise served the congregation, who, led by the choir, sing through the whole distribution. The choir pauses when the bread and coffee have been passed around; and the minister arises, makes a few remarks, and finally, after asking the blessing of God upon the service, breaks the bread and begins to eat. This is a signal to the congregation to do likewise, after which the choir continues the anthem, which the minister reads out stanza by stanza. The cups and remnants of bread later on are borne out by the same waiters, and after more singing, interspersed by words from the preacher, the congregation rises to receive the benediction, and departs amid sonorous peals from the organ.

To the visitor at Salem during the Easter festivities the early morning services on Sunday in the graveyard are the most solemn and impressive of the entire week. Long before the faint streaks of dawn are seen in the eastern horizon the church band ascends to the belfry in the steeple, high above the roofs of the tallest houses, and there in the deepest darkness that precedes the dawn the sweet, solemn music of a Moravian hymn floats out from the trombones upon the cool, quiet air of early morning, — soft and low at first, each succeeding note swelling in volume, evoking countless echoes that are wafted back from distant vale and hill-side until all the air seems filled with the sweet, joyous strains announcing “Christ is risen.”

Soon lights here and there indicate the awakening of the households, increasing in number until no dwelling can be seen without a gleaming casement. All is activity within each home, and sounds of merry voices and ripples of youthful laughter are heard on every side.

Already people are on the streets wending their way to the church, before whose massive doors the congregation is quickly assembling. The old clock in the steeple peals forth the hour of five; the pastor comes out from the church and pauses upon the broad stone steps beneath the light of a gas-jet. He reads a litany and a hymn, — which is sung by the multitude, with whose voices sound the clear, mellow notes of the cornets. A procession is formed in twos, and, with the band at its head playing a sacred hymn, marches slowly past the church into an avenue lined on either side with majestic cedars a century old, and then proceeds to the burial-ground.

Strangely impressive, almost weird, is this early morning pilgrimage to the city of the dead. The sombre shadows of the night are beginning to disappear, as in long line delicately defined silhouettes wend their way. At regular intervals, on either side of the white gravelled walk, sentinel-like, stand venerable mossy cedars, and the bracing air is sweet with the perfume of the first flowers of spring. Clearly and slowly the band plays its measured march, while echoing footfalls keep perfect time to the cadence of the plaintive yet joyous melody. Arriving at the cemetery the band ceases playing, and with head bared the man of God reads in slow and solemn tones the Easter morning litany. Silence, solemn and profound, broods over the gathered throng, seeming to stay the breathing of the thousand souls whose faith sheds a radiance of sanctity and heavenly grandeur upon their humble and devout expectancy, as on this balmy morning of the early spring they await, in spiritual communion with their departed loved ones, the Resurrection hour. Above the hill the dawn appears, awaking into life the sleeping earth, while darkling clouds, born of the night, flee the presence of coming day. Then from the voices of the assembled host there bursts a melody of joyous song, and, mingling with the full, resounding strains of trumpets and trombones, arises in glad hosannas to the splendent sky, where now shines the sun, — God's symbol of the resurrected life; and earth and heaven peal forth in glad accord, “The Lord is risen! Hallelujah, praise the Lord!”

After this the throng of participants and spectators disperse, but later in the morning, and again in the evening, sermons appropriate to the day are preached, the one delivered at night concluding the formal ceremonies of the Moravian Easter. The music during these services is grander, if possible, than that which accompanies any of the other exercises of Passion Week, and partakes of a more joyous nature.

Though the forms are different the same deeply reverential spirit animates and colors the Moravian celebration of Christmas, which at Bethlehem and in the other Moravian villages of this country on Christmas Eve is solemnly ushered in with a service of song and praise, held in the church appropriately decorated for the occasion, and usually opened with St. Luke's poetic chronicle of the Nativity: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo! the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

After this simple recital there is a short discourse and a service of song, followed by a love-feast, consisting of cakes and coffee, which are distributed among all present, the congregation and guests often numbering at Bethlehem between one and two thousand souls. During this collation a portion of Beethoven's mass is performed, and the German words are sung. Simultaneous with the singing large trays of lighted tapers are brought in and distributed among the children, this as a prelude to the most moving feature of and a dramatic close to the services, for as the singing proceeds the tapers are extinguished in gradual succession; the mugs are gathered up and carried away; the music wanes slowly into silence, and the last tones of the organ fall gently upon the ears of the hushed and reverent multitude as its members emerge into the starry December night. Once more a king and Saviour has been born to men!