Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1876-09-21

simply pore with IN the spirit
Of love and patience"
All of which at length led rs a.
gain to the "little church around
the corner" A singular calm
and peace somehow seemed to
to fall on the visitor the mo-
ment be entered the rude and
bare little sanctuary. A more
vivid contrast between it and
the noisy camp-meeting we had
just left, can scarcely be imag-
ined, much less described.
None Of the worshipers in the
bare little CHURCH appeared to
be on familiar conversational
terms with the Almighty. No
one arose from his seat and be-
gan: "The Lord and me had a
talk together this morning, and
the Lord says to me, says he, "
&c. There was nothing Of that.
The simple, quiet, deeply rev.
ercntal manner of the worship
ers here seemed to fill the very
air with a holy calmness.
Intense religious excitements
arc"considered not advisable"in
the Dunker Church ruleS. owe
think" said Elder Haller, ''that
in entering on Il religious life, a
man should count the cost of a
building before the building is
put up. We believe that God
is God of order, and that vio-
lent emotional exhortations
for the purpose Of exciting peo-
pie and bringing them to mourn
ing benches, is getting things
out of order" Accordingly in
their rules it is considered"
that it is advisable sat all times
to keep good order in accor-
dance with the doctrine and ex-
ample of the Apostles" and
that it is not "to the edification
of the Church of God to hold
protracted meetings and to IN
troduce mourning benches"
The congregation was small
small even for the little box of q
church. The Dunkers are not
given 10 proselyting There are
more of them in the United States
than anywhere else, chiefly settled
in Pennsylvania. There are a
few Of them in Germany still,
and few in Denmark, scarcely
any elsewhere. Their sect is in.
creasing, though they say, albeit
very slowly, for their children fall
away from the faith. Their
churches aud church services are
SO utterly bald, bare and unat-
tractiye that one cannot blame
the children. But for this one
draw back it does appear to me
that the whole religious world
would be inclined to turn bunker,
so pure is the faith of these peo
pie, SO entirely happy, peaceful
and beautiful their lives. There
is no impiety in either beauty or
music, else the good God would
never have created either beauty
or singing birds.
The men Of the church part
their hair in the middle, wear
both hair and beard quite long,
and look like pictures of the old
Bible patriarchs. They wear
long hair and beard because the
patriarchs and 'postles did, and
are forbidden to crop their hair
short or to shave their beard off.
The religious ceremonies which
particularly distinguish this from
other Christian churches, are
kissing, feet-washing and soup
eating In various places in the
New Testament the 'holy kiss"
and the "kiss of charity" are
mentioned; therefore, when these
brethren and sisters meet at
,,hu -rch they shake hands and kiss.
when u hro;;her comes into church
he shakes hanI,,s, With and kisses
all the brethren, q sisttcr ditto the
sister. confess it nearly @r2set
my dignity to see the graybearded
old fellows come in and kiss one
another, with sounding smack,
all around. | dare say one could
get used to it though. The breth-
rem kiss the brethren and the SIS
ters kiss the sisters.
But they never KISS across.
In the matter of greeting the
colored brethren with the holy
kiss, the Church rules say that
inasmuch as some white MEM
bers have a weakness against
kissing colored folks, it is soon
sidered advisable" that the col
ored brethren put up with that
weakness for the present and
excuse the holy kiss, until such
time as the white brethren be-
come stronger in the faith.
The German Baptists take
their children to church, babies
~r.I,