91 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
United States Unity of the Brethren
and other denominational authorities for 1911, and from the United States Census Report on Religtous Bodies, 1906. It will be noted that no figures are given for members of Jewish congregations. The Census Report gave 101,457 heads of families, but that represented less than two-thirds of the synagogues, 35 per cent of the 1,769 organizations failing to give any such figures at all; and there is no substantial basis even for an estimate. For the membership of the Roman Catholic Church, the figures for population given in the Official Directory were taken and 15 per cent deducted to allow for children under nine years of age according to an agreement between the United States Census Bureau and the Church authorities.
It should be remembered that the total of membership represents solely the registered membership of the various religious organizations. It makes no account of Protestant children under about fifteen years of age, of Mormon children under eight years of age, of Roman Catholic children under nine years of age. It is exclusive of the entire Jewish
population and of the great number of persons identified with Protestant churches, as attendants on their services and contributing to their support, but who are not enrolled in their membership.
BrsuiocrapHy: The articles in this work on the various denominations and religious agencies, and the literature under them; The American Church History Series, 13 vols., New York, 1893-97, especially vols. i. and xiii.; The Stories of the Churches, ib. 1904 sqq.; United States Cen-~ sus: Special Reports, Religious Bodies, 2 vols., Washington, D. C., 1910; R. Baird, Religion in the United States of America, Glasgow, 1844; L. F. Bittinger, German Religtous Life in Colonial Times, Philadelphia, 1907; N. U. Wallington, Historic Churches of America, New York, 1907; M. I. J. Griffin, Catholics and the American Revolution, vol. i., Ridley Park, Pa., 1907; W. H. Allison, Inventory of Unpublished Material for American Religious History in Protestant Church Archives and Other Repositories, Washington, D. C., 1910; F. J. Zwierlein, Religion in New Netherland . . . 1623-1664, New York, 1910; Susan A. Ranlett, Some Memory Days of the Church in America, Milwaukee, 1911.
UNITED ZION’S CHILDREN. See River BREtTH- REN.
UNITY OF THE BRETHREN (UNITAS FRATRUM),.
I. History. Antecedents (§ 1). Beginnings at Herrnhut (§ 2).
Organization under Zinzendorf Usages. (§ 3).
IV. Doctrine.
‘Unity of the Brethren ”’ (Unitas fratrum) is the proper designation of what is generally called the Moravian Church.
I. History: This church, which must not be confounded with the United Brethren in Christ (q.v.), is a resuscitation, in a new form, of the Bohemian Brethren (q.v.). At the beginning of Luther’s Ref-
ormation, the Brethren numbered 1. Ante- about 400 parishes and 200,000 memcedents. bers, were using their own hymnal and
catechism, and employing two printing-presses for the spread of Evangelical literature. In spite of frequent persecutions on the part of the Roman Catholics: and Utraquists, they increased in number and grew in influence, until they obtained legal recognition (1609). One of the ends for which they labored was a closer fellowship among Protestants. They succeeded in effecting an alliance, based on the Consensus Sendomiriensis, among those of Poland (1570). This alliance, however, bore no abiding fruits. The Counter-Reformation, inaugurated by Ferdinand II., overthrew the Brethren as a Visible organization in Bohemia and Moravia (1627); but they continued in Poland and Hungary to the end of the seventeenth century. At the same time there was preserved in their original seats a “hidden seed,” which kept up, as far as possible, the tenets and usages of the fathers, held religious services in secret, and prayed for a resuscitation of the church. Such prayers were heard.
In 1722 two families named Neisser, led by Christian David, ‘‘ the servant of the Lord,” fled from Moravia, and, by invitation of Count Zinzendorf (q.v.), settled on his domain of Berthelsdorf in Saxony. About 300 Brethren, in the course of the next seven years, emigrated from Moravia and Bo-
Development Elsewhere (§ 4). II. German Moravian Towns. III. Constitution, Ministry, Ritual, and
Y. Enterprises of the Church. Schools (§ 1). Missions (§ 2). Other Agencies (§ 3).
VI. Statistics.
hemia to the same place. They built a town called Herrnhut (q.v.), and were joined by a number of other Protestants from various parts of
2. Begin- Germany. This settlement became the nings at center of the renewed Brethren’s Herrnhut. church. In addition to the fact that
its nucleus consisted of decendants of the Bohemian Brethren, such a renewal was brought about by the adoption of the leading features of their constitution; by the introduction of their discipline, as set forth in the Ratio Discipline of Amos Comenius, and of much of their liturgy as found in their German hymnals; by appropriating their doctrinal tendency in so far as to hold fast to essentials, but not to bind the conscience with regard to non-essentials; and, finally, by the transfer of their episcopate, which had been carefully continued in the hope of a resuscitation. On Mar. 13, 1735, David Nitschmann was consecrated the first bishop of the Moravian Church by Bishop Daniel Ernst Jablonsky, with the concurrence of Christian Sitkovius, these two being the survivors of the old succession. The resuscitation of the Brethren’s Church was, however, not accomplished in accordance with a prearranged plan; nor was Herrnhut built with such an end in view. The renewal was the work of God, who gradually led both the Moravian refugees and Zinzendorf to recognize his divine will. When Zinzendorf permitted the Brethren to settle on his estate, he knew little or nothing of the church of their fathers; and the projects which he had formed for the extension of God’s kingdom looked in a different direction. It was only after these projects had failed, that he was made to see that Herrnhut, to use his own words, constituted “ the parish to which he had from all eternity been
Unity of the Brethren