ELLERIANS
167
ELLIS
her first marriage, believed this announcement, and the unfortunate woman was consequently subjected to the utmost indignities and tribulations for about six months, when death put an end to her sufferings. Al- most immediately after her burial EUer married Anna von Buchel. His society was now deemed sufficiently strong to appear in public. Eller maintained, in union with the prophecies of Professor Horch in Marburg, that in accordance with Rev. iii, 1, 7, the Church of Sardis would cease in 1729, and the Church of Phila- delphia begin in 1730. The revelations and visions of his wife increased rapidly. What she announced as a new revelation was laid down in a writing, which was subsequentljr communicated to the initiated under the name of the " //f/VewtoscAe" ("The Shepherd's Bag"). The chief points of the new doctrines were. The Bible is the Word of God, but a new revelation has become necessary, and this is laid down in the Hirtentasche. Not onl}' the ancient saints, but the Saviour himself, will reappear upon earth. The per- son of the Father dwelt in Abraham, the person of the Son in Isaac, the person of the Holy Ghost in Sa- rah, but the fullness of the Deity in Eller. Moses, Elias, David, and Solomon were protot^'pes both of Christ and of Eller. The children of Anna were not the natural children of Eller, but begotten by God himself. The faithful, whose number had largely in- creased, were divided into three classes. To the first class belonged those who expressed belief, but were not j'et made acquainted with all doctrines and secrets ; to the second those who, being initiated, were called in the congregations "Persons of Kank" (" Standesper- sonen") ; to the third, the most trustworthj' among the initiated, who had reached the temple, and were called " gifts" (Geschenke). The society believed that from Anna the Saviour would be born a second time, and there was therefore some dissatisfaction when her first child was a daughter. Her second child, born 1733, was a son, Benjamin, and he was believed hy the sect to bo the Saviour, manifested a second time in the flesh, but he died wlien only a j'ear old. Eller, in the mean while, had sent out missionaries throughout Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, but the investigations which in 1735 were made in Elberfeld concerning the meetings held by him induced him to depart in 1737, with his familj', for Ronsdorf, his native place. Many of his adherents followed him immediately, and fifty new houses arose in Ronsdorf in a short time. The missionaries sent out by Eller collected large amounts of money for the new church to be built in Ronsdorf, and in 1741 Schleiermacher was called as pastor. Eller himself was elected burgomaster, and soon established a theocratic despotism. His wife Anna died in 1744, in a mj'sterious manner, and Eller proclaimed that all the supernatural gifts which had been possessed by Anna had been transfeiTed to him. But now Schleier- macher began to lose his faith and even to oppose Eller, who, however, to neutralize the sermons of Schleiermacher, caused one of his most fanatical ad- herents, Pastor Wlilifing, of Solingen, to be called as second pastor. In 1749 Eller married the widow of a rich merchant at Ronsdorf, Bosselmann, who had died under suspicious circumstances ; and in the same year he procured the removal of Schleiermacher from his position of first pastor, and the election of Pastor Rudenhaus, of Rattingcn, who, since 1738, had been a fanatical adherent of the sect, as his successor. Schleiermacher was, even after his departure from Ronsdorf, persecuted by Eller, who lodged with the government a formal charge of sorcer}' against him ; and so great was still Eller's influence, that Schleier- macher deemed it best to flee to Holland. Eller died on May IG, 1750, and soon after him died also Wiilffing. After the deatli of these two men the sect seems to have soon become extinct. Schleier- macher's innocence was, chiefly owing to the efforts of his friend J. W.Knevel, fully established by the
declarations of the theological faculties of Marburg and Herborn, and the Synod of Berg. This fanaticism singularly resembles that of the Buchanites (q. v.). See Herzog, Reul-EncyMop. xx, G06 ; Knevel, Grduel d. VeTwiXstung an hell. Stdtte od. d. Geheimniss*i der Bos- heit d. Eoiisdorfer Sekte (Frankf. 1750) ; Wiilffing, Rmisdorffischer Catechismus (Diisseldorf, 175G) ; Joli. Bolckhaus (step -son of Eller), Ronsdorf 's gerechte Sache (Diisseldorf, 1757) ; Das juhelirende Ronsdorf (compiled by Wiilfting, but edited by Bolckhaus, Miihl- heim, 17G1); Wlilifing, Ronsdorf s silberne Tronipele (Miihlheim, 1761) ; Engels, Versuch einer Gesch. d. rdig. Schwdrmerei im ehemal. Herzogthum Berg (Schwelm, 1826) ; Hase, Ch. Hist. § 421. The Ilirtejitasche may be found in the Ilistoire des Sectes Religieuses. (A. J. S.)
Ellerians. See Eller.
Elliott, Arthur W., a Methodist Episcopal min- ister, was born in Maryland in 1784 ; emigrated to Butler Co., Ohio, in 1805, and was converted in 1806. In 1818 he entered the itinerancj', and rapidly rose to eminence and usefulness. He filled many imjiortant charges in his Conference until his health failed. He was supernumerary eight years, and superannuated seventeen during his ministry. In 1854 he removed to Paris, 111., where he died in January, 1858. Mr. Elliott had a "wonderful power over the multitude, and thousands of souls will call him blessed in eterni- ty."— Minutes of Conferences, 1858, p. 296.