| The Youth of
Count Zinzendorf, 1700-1722 from J. E. Hutton's History of the
Moravian Church
IF the kindly reader will take the trouble to
consult a map of Europe he will see that that
part of the Kingdom of Saxony known as Upper
Lusatia runs down to the Bohemian frontier. About
ten miles from the frontier line there stand
to-day the mouldering remains of the old castle
of Gross-Hennersdorf. The grey old walls are
streaked with slime. The wooden floors are
rotten, shaky and unsafe. The rafters are
worm-eaten. The windows are broken. The damp
wall-papers are running to a sickly green. Of
roof there is almost none. For the lover of
beauty or the landscape painter these ruins have
little charm. But to us these tottering walls are
of matchless interest, for within these walls
Count Zinzendorf, the Renewer of the Brethren's
Church, spent the years of his childhood.
He was born at six o'clock in the evening,
1700. Wednesday, May 26th, 1700, in the
picturesque city of Dresden; the house is pointed
out to the visitor; and " Zinzendorf Street
" reminds us still of the noble family that
has now died out. He was only six weeks old when
his father burst a blood-vessel and died; he was
only four years when his mother married again;
and the young Count--Nicholas Lewis, Count of
Zinzendorf and Pottendorf_was handed over to the
tender care of his grandmother, Catherine von
Gersdorf, who lived at Gross-Hennersdorf Castle.
And now, even in childhood's days, little Lutz,
as his grandmother loved to call him, began to
show signs of his coming greatness. As his father
lay on his dying bed, he had taken the child in
his feeble arms, and consecrated him to the
service of Christ; and now in his grandmother's
noble home he sat at the feet of the learned, the
pious, and the refined. Never was a child less
petted and pampered; never was a child more
strictly trained; never was a child made more
familiar with the person and teaching of Jesus
Christ. Dr. Spener, 1 the famous
Pietist leader, watched his growth with fatherly
interest. The old lady was a leader in Pietist
circles, was a writer of beautiful religious
poetry, and guarded him as the apple of her eye.
He read the Bible every day. He doted on Luther's
Catechism. He had the Gospel story at his
finger-ends. His aunt Henrietta, who was rather
an oddity, prayed with him morning and night. His
tutor, Edeling, was an earnest young Pietist from
Franke's school at Halle; and the story of
Zinzendorf's early days reads like a medieval
tale. " Already in my (1704)
childhood," he says, " I loved the
Saviour, and had abundant communion with Him. In
my fourth year I began to seek God earnestly, and
determined to become a true servant of Jesus
Christ." At the age of six he regarded
Christ as his Brother, would (1706) talk with Him
for hours together as with a familiar friend and
was often found rapt in thought, like Socrates in
the market-place at Athens. As other children
love and trust their parents, so this bright lad
with the golden hair loved and trusted Christ.
" A thousand times," he said, " I
heard Him speak in my heart, and saw Him with the
eye of faith." Already the keynote of his
life was struck; already the fire of zeal burned
in his bosom. " Of all the qualities of
Christ," said He, " the greatest is His
nobility; and of all the noble ideas in the
world, the noblest is the idea that the Creator
should die for His children. If the Lord were
forsaken by all the world, I still would cling to
Him and love Him. " He held prayer-meetings
in his private room. He was sure that Christ
Himself was present there. He preached sermons to
companies of friends. If hearers failed, he
arranged the chairs as an audience; and still is
shown the little window from which he threw
letters addressed to Christ, not doubting that
Christ would receive them. As the child was
engaged one day in prayer, the rude soldiers of
Charles XII. burst into his room. Forthwith the
lad began to speak of Christ; and away the
soldiers fled in awe and terror. At the age of
(1708) eight he lay awake at night tormented with
atheistic doubts. But the doubts did not last
long. However much he doubted with the head he
never doubted with the heart; and the charm that
drove the doubts away was the figure of the
living Christ.
And here we touch the springs of the boy's
religion. It is easy to call all this a hot-house
process; it is easy to dub the child a precocious
prig. But at bottom his religion was healthy and
sound. It was not morbid; it was joyful. It was
not based on dreamy imagination; it was based on
the historic person of Christ. It was not the
result of mystic exaltation; it was the result of
a study of the Gospels. It was not, above all,
self-centred; it led him to seek for fellowship
with others. As the boy devoured the Gospel
story, he was impressed first by the drama of the
Crucifixion; and often pondered on the words of
Gerhardt's hymn:--
O Head so full of bruises, So full of pair'
and scorn, 'Midst other sore abuses, Mocked with
a crown of thorn.
For this his tutor, Edeling, was partly
responsible. "He spoke to me," says
Zinzendorf," of Jesus and His
wounds."
But the boy did not linger in Holy Week for
ever. He began by laying stress on the suffering
Christ; he went on to lay stress on the whole
life of Christ; and on that life, from the cradle
to the grave, his own strong faith was based.
" I was," he said, " as certain
that the Son of God was my Lord as of the
existence of my five fingers. " To him the
existence of Jesus was a proof of the existence
of God; and he felt all his limbs ablaze, to use
his own expression, with the desire to preach the
eternal Godhead of Christ. " If it were
possible, " he said, " that there
should be another God than Christ I would rather
be damned with Christ than happy with another. I
have," he exclaimed, "but one
passion_'tis He only He."
But the next stage in his journey was not 1710
so pleasing. At the age of ten he was taken by
his mother to Professor Franke's school at Halle;
and by mistake he overheard a conversation
between her and the pious professor. She
described him as a lad of parts, but full of
pride, and in need of the curbing rein. He was
soon to find how much these words implied. If a
boy has been trained by gentle ladies he is
hardly well equipped, as a rule, to stand the
rough horseplay of a boarding-school; and if, in
addition, he boasts blue blood, he is sure to
come in for blows. And the Count was a delicate
aristocrat, with weak legs and a cough. He was
proud of his noble birth; he was rather officious
in his manner; he had his meals at Franke's
private table; he had private lodgings a few
minutes' walk from the school; he had plenty of
money in his purse; and, therefore, on the whole,
he was as well detested as the son of a lord can
be." With a few exceptions," he sadly
says, " my school fellows hated me
throughout. "
But this was not the bitterest part of the
pill. If there was any wholesome feeling missing
in his heart hitherto, it was what theologians
call the sense of sin. He had no sense of sin
whatever, and no sense of any need of pardon. His
masters soon proceeded to humble his pride. He
was introduced as a smug little Pharisee, and
they treated him as a viper. Of all systems of
school discipline, the most revolting is the
system of employing spies; and that was the
system used by the staff at Halle. They placed
the young Count under boyish police supervision,
encouraged the lads to tell tales about him,
rebuked him for his misconduct in the measles,
lectured him before the whole school on his rank
and disgusting offenses, and treated him as half
a rogue and half an idiot. If he pleaded not
guilty, they called him a liar, and gave him an
extra thrashing. The thrashing was a public
school entertainment, and was advertised on the
school notice-board. ' Next week," ran the
notice on one occasion, " the Count is to
have the stick. " For two years he lived in
a moral purgatory. The masters gave him the fire
of their wrath, and the boys the cold shoulder of
contempt. The masters called him a malicious
rebel, and the boys called him a snob. As the
little fellow set off for morning school, with
his pile of books upon his arm, the others
waylaid him, jostled him to and fro, knocked him
into the gutter, scattered his books on the
street, and then officiously reported him late
for school. He was clever, and, therefore, the
masters called him idle; and when he did not know
his lesson they made him stand in the street,
with a pair of ass's ears on his head, and a
placard on his back proclaiming to the public
that the culprit was a " lazy donkey.
"
His private tutor, Daniel Crisenius, was a
bully, who had made his way into Franke's school
by varnishing himself with a shiny coating of
piety. If the Count's relations came to see him,
Crisenius made him beg for money, and then took
the money himself. If his grandmother sent him a
ducat, Crisenius pocketed a florin. If he wrote a
letter home, Crisenius read it. If he drank a cup
of coffee, Crisenius would say, " You have
me to thank for that, let me hear you sing a song
of thanksgiving." If he tried to pour out
his soul in prayer, Crisenius mocked him,
interrupted him, and introduced disgusting topics
of conversation. He even made the lad appear a
sneak. " My tutor," says Zinzendorf,
" often persuaded me to write letters to my
guardian complaining of my hard treatment, and
then showed the letters to the
inspector."
In vain little Lutz laid his case before his
mother. Crisenius thrashed him to such good
purpose that he never dared to complain again;
and his mother still held that he needed drastic
medicine. " I beseech you," she wrote
to Franke, " be severe with the lad; if
talking will not cure him of lying, then let him
feel it."
At last the muddy lane broadened into a
highway. One day Crisenius pestered Franke with
one of his whining complaints. The headmaster
snapped him short.
"I am sick," he said, "of your
growlings; you must manage the master
yourself."
As the months rolled on, the Count breathed
purer air. He became more manly and bold. He
astonished the masters by his progress. He was
learning Greek, could speak in French and dash
off letters in Latin. He was confirmed, attended
the Communion, and wrote a beautiful hymn 2 recording his feelings; and
already in his modest way he launched out on that
ocean of evangelical toil on which he was to sail
all the days of his life.
As the child grew up in Hennersdorf Castle he
saw and heard a good deal of those drawing-room
meetings 3 which Philip Spener,
the Pietist leader, had established in the houses
of several noble Lutheran families, and which
came in time to be known in Germany as "
Churches within the Church." 4
He knew that Spener had been his father's friend.
He had met the great leader at the Castle. He
sympathised with the purpose of his meetings. He
had often longed for fellowship himself, and had
chatted freely on religious topics with his Aunt
Henrietta. He had always maintained his private
habit of personal communion with Christ; and now
he wished to share his religion with others. The
time was ripe. The moral state of Franke's school
was low; the boys were given to vicious habits,
and tried to corrupt his soul; and the Count, who
was a healthy minded boy, and shrank with disgust
from fleshly sins, retorted by forming a number
of religious clubs for mutual encouragement and
help. " I established little
societies," he says, " in which we
spoke of the grace of Christ, and encouraged each
other in diligence and good works. " He
became a healthy moral force in the school. He
rescued his friend, Count Frederick de
Watteville, from the hands of fifty seducers; he
persuaded three others to join in the work of
rescue; and the five lads established a club
which became a " Church within the Church
" for boys. They called themselves first
"The Slaves of Virtue," next the
"Confessors of Christ," and finally the
"Honourable Order of the Mustard Seed
"; and they took a pledge to be true to
Christ, to be upright and moral, and to do good
to their fellow-men. Of all the school clubs
established by Zinzendorf this " Order of
the Mustard Seed " was the most famous and
the most enduring. As the boys grew up to man's
estate they invited others to join their ranks;
the doctrinal basis was broad; and among the
members in later years were John Potter,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Wilson, Bishop
of Sodor and Man, Cardinal Noailles, the
broad-minded Catholic, and General Oglethorpe,
Governor of Georgia. For an emblem they had a
small shield, with an " Ecce Homo," and
the motto, "His wounds our healing";
and each member of the Order wore a gold ring,
inscribed with the words, "No man liveth
unto himself." The Grand Master of the Order
was Zinzendorf himself. He wore a golden cross,
the cross had an oval green front; and on that
front was painted a mustard tree, with the words
beneath, "Quod fuit ante nihil," i.e.,
"What was formerly nothing." 5
But already the boy had wider conceptions
1715. still. As he sat at Franke's dinner table,
he listened one day to the conversation of the
Danish missionary, Ziegenbalg, who was now home
on furlough, and he even saw some dusky converts
whom the missionary had brought from Malabar. His
missionary zeal was aroused. As his guardian had
already settled that Zinzendorf should enter the
service of the State, he had, of course, no idea
of becoming a missionary himself ; 6
but, as that was out of the question, he formed a
solemn league and covenant with his oung friend
Watteville that when God would show them suitable
men they would send them out to heathen tribes
for whom no one else seemed to care. Nor was this
mere playing at religion. As the Count looked
back on his Halle days he saw in these early
clubs and covenants the germs of his later work;
and when he left for the University the delighted
Professor Franke said, "This youth will some
day become a great light in the
world."
As the Count, however, in his uncle's opinion
April, was growing rather too Pietistic, he was
now (1716) sent to the University at Wittenberg,
to study the science of jurisprudence, and
prepare for high service in the State. His father
had been a Secretary of State, and the son was to
follow in his footsteps. His uncle had a contempt
for Pietist religion; and sent the lad to
Wittenberg " to drive the nonsense out of
him. " He had certainly chosen the right
place. For two hundred years the great University
had been regarded as the stronghold of the
orthodox Lutheran faith; the bi-centenary Luther
Jubilee was fast approaching; the theological
professors were models of orthodox belief; and
the Count was enjoined to be regular at church,
and to listen with due attention and reverence to
the sermons of those infallible divines. It was
like sending a boy to Oxford to cure him of a
taste for dissent. His tutor, Crisenius, went
with him, to guard his morals, read his letters,
and rob him of money at cards. He had also to
master the useful arts of riding, fencing, and
dancing. The cards gave him twinges of
conscience. If he took a hand, he laid down the
condition that any money he might win should be
given to the poor. He prayed for skill in his
dancing lessons, because he wanted to have more
time for more serious studies. He was more devout
in his daily life than ever, prayed to Christ
with the foil in his hand, studied the Bible in
Hebrew and Greek, spent whole nights in prayer,
fasted the livelong day on Sundays, and was, in a
word, so methodistic in his habits that he could
truly describe himself as a "rigid Pietist.
" He interfered in many a duel, and rebuked
his fellow students for drinking hard; and for
this he was not beloved. As he had come to
Wittenberg to study law, he was not, of course,
allowed to attend the regular theological
lectures; but, all the same, he spent his leisure
in studying the works of Luther and Spener, and
cultivated the personal friendship of many of the
theological professors. And here he made a most
delightful discovery. As he came to know these
professors better, he found that a man could be
orthodox without being narrowminded; and they,
for their part, also found that a man could be a
rigid Pietist without being a sectarian prig. It
was time, he thought, to put an end to the
quarrel. He would make peace between Wittenberg
and Halle. He would reconcile the Lutherans and
Pietists. He consulted with leading professors on
both sides; he convinced them of the need for
peace; and the rival teachers actually agreed to
accept this student of nineteen summers as the
agent of the longed-for truce. But here Count
Zinzendorf's mother intervened. "You must
not meddle," she wrote, "in such
weighty matters; they are above your
understanding and your powers." And
Zinzendorf, being a dutiful son, obeyed. "I
think," he said, "a visit to Halle
might have been of use, but, of course, I must
obey the fourth commandment." 7
And now, as befitted a nobleman born, he 1719.
was sent on the grand tour, to give the final
polish to his education. He regarded-the prospect
with horror. He had heard of more than one fine
lord whose virtues had been polished away. For
him the dazzling sights of Utrecht and Paris had
no bewitching charm. He feared the glitter, the
glamour, and the glare. The one passion, love to
Christ, still ruled his heart. "Ah !"
he wrote to a friend, " What a poor,
miserable thing is the grandeur of the great ones
of the earth ! What splendid misery ! " As
John Milton, on his continental tour, had sought
the company of musicians and men of letters, so
this young budding Christian poet, with the
figure of the Divine Redeemer ever present to his
mind, sought out the company of men and women
who, whatever their sect or creed, maintained
communion with the living Son of God. He went
first to Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where Spener had
toiled so long, came down the Rhine to
Dusseldorf, spent half a year at Utrecht, was
introduced to William, Prince of Orange, paid
flying calls at Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam and
Rotterdam, and ended the tour by a six months'
stay amid the gaieties of Paris. At Dusseldorf a
famous incident occurred. There, in the picture
gallery, he saw and admired the beautiful Ecce
Homo of Domenico Feti; there, beneath the picture
he read the thrilling appeal: "All this I
did for thee; what doest thou for Me?";
and there, in response to that appeal, he
resolved anew to live for Him who had worn the
cruel crown of thorns for all. 8
At Paris he attended the Court levee, and was
presented to the Duke of Orleans, the Regent, and
his mother, the Dowager Duchess.
"Sir Count," said the Duchess,
" have you been to the opera
to-day?"
"Your Highness," he replied, "
I have no time for the opera." He would not
spend a golden moment except for the golden
crown.
"I hear," said the Duchess,
"that you know the Bible by
heart."
"Ah," said he, "I only wish I
did."
At Paris, too, he made the acquaintance of the
Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Noailles. It is
marvellous how broad in his views the young man
was. As he discussed the nature of true religion
with the Cardinal, who tried in vain to win him
for the Church of Rome, he came to the conclusion
that the true Church of Jesus Christ consisted of
many sects and many forms of belief. He held that
the Church was still an invisible body; he held
that it transcended the bounds of all
denominations; he had found good Christians among
Protestants and Catholics alike; and he believed,
with all his heart and soul, that God had called
him to the holy task of enlisting the faithful in
all the sects in one grand Christian army, and
thus realizing, in visible form, the promise of
Christ that all His disciples should be one. He
was no bigoted Lutheran. For him the cloak of
creed or sect was only of minor moment. He
desired to break down all sectarian barriers. He
desired to draw men from all the churches into
one grand fellowship with Christ. He saw, and
lamented, the bigotry of all the sects.
"We Protestants," he said, "are
very fond of the word liberty; but in practice we
often try to throttle the conscience." He
was asked if he thought a Catholic could be
saved. "Yes," he replied," and the
man who doubts that, cannot have looked far
beyond his own small cottage."
"What, then, " asked the Duchess of
Luynes, " is the real difference between a
Lutheran and a Catholic? "
"It is," he replied, " the
false idea that the Bible is so hard to
understand that only the Church can explain
it." He had, in a word, discovered his
vocation.
His religion purified his love. As he made
(1720) his way home, at the close of the tour, he
called to see his aunt, the Countess of Castell,
and her daughter Theodora; and during his stay he
fell ill of a fever, and so remained much longer
than he had at first intended. He helped the
Countess to put in order the affairs of her
estate, took a leading part in the religious
services of the castle, and was soon regarded as
almost one of the family. At first, according to
his usual custom, he would talk about nothing but
religion. But gradually his manner changed. He
opened out, grew less reserved, and would gossip
and chat like a woman. He asked himself the
reason of this alteration. He discovered it. He
was in love with his young cousin, Theodora. For
a while the gentle stream of love ran smooth. His
mother and the Countess Castell smiled approval;
Theodora, though rather icy in manner, presented
him with her portrait; and the Count, who
accepted the dainty gift as a pledge of
blossoming love, was rejoicing at finding so
sweet a wife and so charming a helper in his
work, when an unforeseen event turned the current
of the stream. Being belated one evening on a
journey, he paid a visit to his friend Count
Reuss, and during conversation made the
disquieting discovery that his friend wished to
marry Theodora. A beautiful contest followed.
Each of the claimants to the hand of Theodora
expressed his desire to retire in favour of the
other; and, not being able to settle the dispute,
the two young men set out for Castell to see what
Theodora herself would say. Young Zinzendorf's
mode of reasoning was certainly original. If his
own love for Theodora was pure--i.e., if it was a
pure desire to do her good, and not a vulgar
sensual passion like that with which many
love-sick swains were afflicted--he could, he
said, fulfil his purpose just as well by, handing
her over to the care of his Christian friend.
" Even if it cost me my life to surrender
her," he said, " if it is more
acceptable to my Saviour, I ought to sacrifice
the dearest object in the world." The two
friends arrived at Castell and soon saw which way
the wind was blowing; and Zinzendorf found, to
his great relief, that what had been a pain- ful
struggle to him was as easy as changing a dress
to Theodora. The young lady gave Count Reuss her
heart and hand. The rejected suitor bore the blow
like a stoic.
He would conquer, he said, such disturbing
earthly emotions; why should they be a thicket in
the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was
sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf
composed a March 9th, cantata for the occasion;
the cantata was sung, (1721) with orchestral
accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house
of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive
scene the young composer offered up on behalf of
the happy couple a prayer so tender that all were
moved to tears. His self-denial was well
rewarded. If the Count had married Theodora, he
would only have had a graceful drawing-room
queen. About eighteen months later he married
Count Reuss's sister, Erdmuth Dorothea; and in
her he found a Sept. 7th, friend so true that the
good folk at Herrnhut 1722. called her a princess
of God, and the "foster mother of the
Brethren's Church in the eighteenth
century." 9
If the Count could now have had his way he
would have entered the service of the State
Church; but in those days the clerical calling
was considered to be beneath the dignity of a
noble, and his grandmother, pious though she was,
insisted that he should stick to jurisprudence.
He yielded, and took a post as King's Councillor
at Dresden, at the Court of Augustus the Strong,
King of Saxony. But no man can fly from his
shadow, and Zinzendorf could not fly from his
hopes of becoming a preacher of the Gospel. If he
could not preach in the orthodox pulpit, he would
teach in some other way; and, therefore, he
invited the public to a weekly meeting in his own
rooms on Sunday afternoons from three to seven.
He had no desire to found a sect, and no desire
to interfere with the regular work of the
Church.
He was acting, he said, in strict accordance
with ecclesiastical law; and he justified his
bold conduct by appealing to a clause in Luther's
Smallkald Articles. 10 He
contended that there provision was made for the
kind of meeting that he was conducting; and,
therefore, he invited men of all classes to meet
him on Sunday afternoons, read a passage of
Scripture together, and talk in a free-and-easy
fashion on spiritual topics. He became known as
rather a curiosity; and Valentine Loscher, the
popular Lutheran preacher, mentioned him by name
in his sermons, and held him up before the people
as an example they would all do well to follow.
But Zinzendorf had not yet reached his goal.
He was not content with the work accomplished by
Spener, Franke, and other leading Pietists. He
was not content with drawing-room meetings for
people of rank and money. If fellowship, said he,
was good for lords, it must also be good for
peasants. He wished to apply the ideas of Spener
to folk in humbler life. For this purpose he now
bought from his grandmother the little
April, estate of Berthelsdorf, which lay about
(1722) three miles from Hennersdorf; installed
his friend, John Andrew Rothe, as pastor of the
village church; and resolved that he and the
pastor together would endeavour to convert the
village into a pleasant garden of God. " I
bought this estate," he said, " because
I wanted to spend my life among peasants, and win
their souls for Christ."
"Go, Rothe," he said, " to the
vineyard of the Lord. You will find in me a
brother and helper rather than a
patron."
And here let us note precisely the aim this
pious Count had in view. He was a loyal and
devoted member of the national Lutheran Church;
he was well versed in Luther's theology and in
Luther's practical schemes; and now at preaching
of the Word, second, through Baptism, third,
through the Holy Communion, fourth through the
power of the keys, and, lastly, through brotherly
discussion and mutual encouragement, according to
Matthew xviii., 'Where two or three are gathered
together.'" The Count, of course, appealed
to the last of these methods. For some reason,
however, unknown to me, this particular clause in
the Articles was always printed in Latin, and
was, therefore, unknown to the general
public.
Berthelsdorf he was making an effort to carry
into practical effect the fondest dreams of
Luther himself. For this, the fellowship of true
believers, the great Reformer had sighed in vain
; 11 and to this great purpose
the Count would now devote his money and his
life.
He introduced the new pastor to the people;
the induction sermon was preached by Schafer, the
Pietist pastor at Gorlitz; and the preacher used
the prophetic words, "God will light a
candle on these hills which will illuminate the
whole land."
We have now to see how far these
words came true. We have now to see how the
Lutheran Count applied his ideas to the needs of
exiles from a foreign land, and learned to take a
vital interest in a Church of which as yet he had
never heard.
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FOOTNOTES
1. It is stated in most
biographies of Zinzendorf that Spener stood
sponsor at his baptism; but Gerhard Wauer, in
his recent work, Beginnings of the Moravian
Church in England, says that Spener's name is
not to be found in the baptismal
register.
2. Hymn No. 851 in the
present German Hymn Book
3. Collegia
pietatis.
4. Ecclesiolae in
ecclesia.
5. Ante is to be construed
as an adverb.
6. In his classic
Geschichte des Pietismus (Vol. III. p. 203)
Albrecht Ritschl says that Zinzendorf's
unwillingness to be a missionary was due to
his pride of rank. The statement has not a
shadow of foundation. In fact, it is
contradicted by Zinzendorf himself who says:
" ihre Idee war eirentlich nicht, dieses
und dergleichen selbst zu bewerkstelligen,
clean sie waren beide von den Ihrigen in die
grosse Welt destiniert und wussten von nichts
als gehorsam sein." I should like here
to warn the student against paying much
attention to what Ritschl says about
Zinzendorf's theology and ecclesiastical
policy. His statements are based on ignorance
and theological prejudice; and his blunders
have been amply corrected, first by Bernhard
Becker in his Zinendorf und sein Christentum
im Verhaltnis zum kirchlichen und religiosen
Leben seiner Zeit, and secondly by Joseph
Muller in his Zinzendorf als Erneuerer der
alten Bruderkirche (1900).
7. For further details of
Zinzendorf's stay at Wittenberg I must refer
to his interesting Diary, which is now in
course of publication in the Zeitschrif t f
ur Brud ergesehichte. It is written in an
alarming mixture of Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
German, and French but the editors have
kindly added full explanatory notes, and all
the student requires to understand it is a
working knowledge of German.
8. This picture is now in
the Pinakothek at Munich. It is wonderful how
this well known incident has been
misrepresented and misapplied. It is
constantly referred to now in tracts,
sermons, and popular religious magazines as
if it was the means of Zinzendorf's "
conversion "; and even a scholar like
the late Canon Liddon tells us how this
German nobleman was now " converted from
a life of careless indifference." (Vice
Passiontide Sermons, No. VII., pp. 117 118.)
But all that the picture really accomplished
was to strengthen convictions already held
and plans already formed. It is absurd to
talk about the "conversion " of a
youth who had loved and followed Christ for
years.
9.The phrase inscribed
upon her tombstone at Herrnhut.
10. The Smalkald Articles
were drawn up in 1537; and the clause to
which Zinzendorf appealed runs as follows:
" In many ways the Gospel offers counsel
and help to the sinner; first through the
11. In his treatise,
"The German Mass," published in
1526 (see Kostlin's "Life of
Luther," p. 295; Longmans' Silver
Library).
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