18 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



own salvation. Therefore humility, temperance, and 

 Christian virtues generally, are the chief topics of 

 their discourse. They believe and assert that a man 

 may gain more of beatifical merit than he is in need of 

 on his own account, and that accordingly the over- 

 plus of his good works may help another to win sal- 

 vation. They keep the sacraments of communion and 

 baptism ; with them, grown persons only are baptized, 

 and by immersion. They deny the inheritance of sin, 

 and teach the freedom of the will. To them all force 

 is sin ; even self-defence against danger and legal proc- 

 ess, no matter if occasion arises through falsehoods 

 or the taking-away of their property by force. They 

 celebrate the Jewish Sabbath ; in their worship make 

 use of no forms, but pray and preach from immediate 

 impulse. They believe that the Savior preaches the 

 Gospel even to the dead, and that since his resurrec- 

 tion, the souls of the just are occupied in imparting his 

 teachings to such as have died without a knowledge of 

 them. They reject the eternity of the punishment of 

 Hell, and believe that the Jewish Sabbath, sabbatical 

 year, and jubilee-year are prefigurements of certain 

 periods which are to come after the great Day of Judg- 

 ment, and these passed, the souls of those who have 

 not entered at once into beatitude, gradually purified 

 and made free of their corruption, may be sooner or 

 later prepared to enter into eternal bliss. 



Besides the large dwelling-houses mentioned, one 

 sees at Ephrata a good many smaller buildings, meant 

 chieflv for manufactures. For however monastical 

 their system and a few of their principles may seem to 

 be, they have no wish only to pray, and live fatly and 

 indolently, but it is their purpose to pray and work. 



