Judging from the records, the year 1738 was a most
eventful one in the life of the Mystics of Ephrata. The organization of the
Brotherhood of Zion and ' the influence of the Eckerling brothers built up in
the infant community a force which for a time threatened to overturn the whole
policy of the settlement, and to successfully oppose which took all the power
of Beissel, Wohlfarth, Miller and such others as represented the conservative
element.
That Beissel was not always far-sighted enough for his
shrewd rivals will appear from various incidents occurring during the next five
years, the end of which period marked the time of their final overthrow.
The first radical innovation was a proposition to have
one's self baptized for the dead. This scheme originated in the fertile brain
of Emanuel Eckerling, who managed to convince Alexander Mack that his father,
the patriarch, had never been properly baptized. This effected, the two men
went to Beissel and requested him to baptize them for their deceased relatives.
Beissel, after some hesitation, acquiesced, having been
won over by Elimelech's subtle arguments. This decision of the superintendent
quickly spread throughout the settlement.
Spiritual Virgins and the secular congregation. No
efforts were spared by the Zionitic Brotherhood to make the ceremony an
impressive one. Upon the day set a procession was formed of the Zionitic
Brotherhood, the They wended their way down the hill past the various
buildings, across the meadow, to a pool in the Cocalico, about oppo- site to
where the Brother House now stands. Special hymns were sung and fervent
invocations ascended when the banks of the stream were reached.
Beissel was the administrator, and the first subject,
Emanuel Eckerling, who presented himself to be immersed for his deceased
mother. He was followed by Alexander Mack, the younger, who was baptized for
his deceased father, the sainted patriarch of the Dunker Church. Both of these
parents had been baptized in Germany. An at- tempt was made to justify this
questionable proceeding by the supposition, deduced from the words of Paul,
that the first Christians did the same.
The idea of thus securing immunity for deceased or absent
kinsfolk and friends struck the popular fancy, and notwithstanding the
contention of so clear headed a theologian as Peter Miller, the custom obtained
a firm foothold and was practiced for many years. This movement was not
confined to the Ephrata Community, as there were many cases where even members
of other faiths had themselves baptised by proxy for relatives and friends.
Indeed, this peculiar custom actually outlived the Community, and there are
traditions of children having become substitutes in baptism for parents, or
vice versa, as late as the fourth decade of the present century. (Julius
Friedrich Sachse, The
German Sectarian of Pennsylvania, 1708-1742: A Critical and Legendary History
of the Ephrata Cloister and the Dunkers, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: 1899],
1:365-66)
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