from its divine origin. It now stands before the world as a tried system, capable of meeting the great exigences of the times, in church and state, to a much greater extent than the other and rival systems that are in the field with it.

DIVISION VII.

MINOR DENOMINATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNITED BRETHREN OR MORAVIANS AND QUAKERS.

1. The United Brethren.

THE United Brethren had their origin in the colony of Herrnhut, in Lusatia, Saxony, under the patronage of Count Zinzendorf, a pious and wealthy nobleman of that country, in A. D. 1727. They are called Moravians, because, in the original organization of the church, the religious views and usages of the more ancient Moravian Christians were extensively adopted. For the same reason this order has generally been considered as a modification of the more ancient order of the Bohemian brethren, which owed its origin to John Huss, in a. D. 1413.

Count Zinzendorf established his colony as an asylum for the persecuted Protestants of Moravia and Bohemia. After considerable numbers had been attracted to his settlement, he constituted them into a religious community, under the title of the United Brethren; and designed his organization to be a kind of union church, in which the Bohemian and Moravian Episcopalians, German Reformed Presbyterians, and the Lutherans, might all unite. Hence its name United Brethren; implying a

union of the friends of different systems of church polity. They at first adopted the common-stock principle in respect to property; but, not finding it to work according to their expectations, they have generally abandoned it. They adopt no specific articles of faith, and require no subscriptions to such articles by their ministry or membership; but concur in the general confessions adopted by the leading denominations of Protestant Christendom, and especially in that of the Lutherans, adopted at Augsburg. The actual faith of the United Brethren is nearly the same as that of the Methodists.

The United Brethren have four orders of church officers: 1, Bishops; 2, Elders; 3, Deacons; 4, Lay Elders.

1. The bishops derive their ordination and authority from the Protestant bishops of the Bohemian brethren, and the first of this succession was ordained by a Waldensian bishop. The bishops have exclusive authority to administer ordination, but have no direct government of the church. 2. The elders are the stated ministers of single communities. 3. The deacons are the lowest order of ministers, but have full authority to preach and administer the sacraments. Candidates for higher orders are first made deacons, as among the Episcopalians and Methodists. 4. Lay elders have the charge of divisions and portions of single churches, and are the assistants of the preaching elders in the pastoral charge.

The United Brethren have a general board of directors at Herrnhut, in Saxony, which has the supreme government and superintendence of the order. They also have national boards in England and the United States, subordinate to the general one, which manage the concerns of the order in those countries, subject to the authority of the general board.

The supreme church court is a synod, which meets once in a series of years, and appoints the general board of direction. The synods consist of one or more delegates from all the churches in the connection, together with the bishops, elders who have pastoral charges, lay elders and such other ministers

as may have been designated by the call. The synod is called by the board of directors, holding its appointment from the previous synod. The board of directors is denominated the elders' conference, and has the supreme direction of affairs in the intervals of the synods.

The government of single churches is administered by the elders' conference of the congregation, which is a local church court, consisting of the following persons. 1, The minister, as moderator; 2, The congregation-helper, where that officer exists, as in the larger churches; 3, The warden; 4, The married assistants, having care of the married people; 5, Female elders.

The missionary operations of the United Brethren have been prosecuted with great vigor and success. They have several excellent academic schools, and a few institutions of higher learning. This body is characterized by great charity, liberality, and missionary zeal, and has been one of the great lights of modern times. Its missionaries are found in almost every country and clime, from the bleak, inhospitable shores of Greenland and Labrador, to the West India islands, the coasts of Africa, and southern Asia. Their name is identified with the progress of civilization in the most desolate and uninviting portions of the world, and among the most oppressed and degraded conditions of humanity.

Several considerable branches of Christendom have been formed from the Methodists, both in England and America, who adopt the essential principles of Congregationalism; among which the Protestant Methodists hold a distinguished place.

2. The Quakers.

The Quakers are small among the thousands and ten thousands of Israel; but they have done good service in their day, both in the cause of religion, properly so called, and of a pure and elevated Christian morality. This body arose in England in 1647, during the time of the Westminster Assembly, and of the Commonwealth, and recognizes as its founder the celebrated

George Fox. Fox was a genuine Christian and philanthropist, but drank somewhat deeply into the enthusiasm and superstition of those times. He was the great minister of the inner light, the light of God in the soul; and insisted, with great earnestness and force, on the dispensation of the Holy Spirit as the great distinctive power and glory of Christianity. He inculcated, with great force, the doctrines of love and mutual good will; and so prominent did he make this feature of his religious and moral system, that his society was distinguished by the honorable name. of Friends. He was joined by William Penn and others, and his opinions attracted general attention in England and America. He discarded nearly all forms and ceremonies, and insisted mainly on the spirit and power of religion in the soul. This he proposed to secure by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and by direct communion with God in religious contemplation and silent worship, joined with an attendance on public preaching and prayer.

Like other religious innovators, the Quakers were persecuted as troublers of the state, and disturbers of the public peace; and subjected to frequent imprisonments and other penalties. They endured their persecutions with unprecedented patience and cheerfulness, and gradually disarmed their persecutors. In carrying out the doctrine of love and mutual good will, they committed the natural and amiable mistake of pressing the scriptural injunctions against revenge and retaliation to an extreme, and adopted the non-resistance principle in respect to war and all personal violence. They also carried out the same literal interpretation in respect to the scripture prohibition of oaths, and regarded all swearing as forbidden by the word of God.

The society was organized as a radical democracy, and has been a powerful champion of the cause of civil and religious liberty. It was brought to America by William Penn, and planted in Philadelphia, at the founding of that city, in 1682. Its kind and Christian maxims, and its honesty, industry and humility, gave its subjects great advantages in their early settlement in the

country, and secured to them a high degree of peace and prosperity. The Quakers performed great services in the cause of the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in England; and this church has taken the lead of all others in the United States, in opposing the enormous wickedness of slavery, and prohibiting slaveholding to its membership. The order was divided, some years since, by Unitarianism, and resolved into two branches, the Orthodox and Unitarian.

One of its peculiarities has been an opposition to all gaudy and superfluous ornament in dress, and the adoption, to some extent, of a Christian uniform. It has also thought little of the fine arts, and borne a strong and decided testimony against the vanities of the world. In its opposition to these, it has, in some cases, gone to the opposite extreme of rejecting some things that are better retained.

Without a professional ministry, and with several things in its doctrines and policy pushed to the extreme of manifest error and absurdity, this denomination has, for some years, been on the decline. It deserves, however, well of the world, and well of this country; and will be remembered, in future times, as one of the great instruments of Providence, for the time, for the restoration of religion to its primeval purity and power, and the regeneration of society. It has about one hundred and fifty thousand communicants, mostly in Great Britain and the United States.