The Hymn Writers Of Early Pennsylvania

William Penn's promise of religious freedom brought many diverse religious groups to Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Each brought pre-existing hymns and hymn tunes, but many also wrote original texts and music. This book examines the hymns of the 1694 Wissahickon settlement under Johannes Kelpius, the 18th century Ephrata Cloister of Conrad Beissel, and the hymn life of the Bethlehem Moravian Unitas Fratrum. Among the later writers of hymn text or music selected for this study are William Kirkpatrick, John Wyeth, William Gustavus Fischer, Francis Hopkinson, Eleanor C. Donnelly, and many more. Sample texts are included for many hymns, and six musical scores are reproduced. Of special interest are the earliest texts and music from the Wissahickon and Ephrata communities. Pennsylvania's hymn background is unique and compelling. The stories of the writers and their hymns should appeal to anyone interested in hymns, theology, music, or American history. Dr. Lucy E. Carroll is currently organist and choir director at the Carmelite Monastery in Philadelphia, and Adjunct Associate Professor at Westminster Choir College in Princeton NJ. She was appointed Scholar in Residence by the PHMC for the Ephrata Cloister site, and she has served as a PHC Commonwealth Speaker. She is Research Chair for the Kelpius Society of Philadelphia. Her articles on music have appeared in many journals and periodicals, and her Churchmouse Squeaks cartoons appear monthly in the Adoremus Bulletin. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Dr. Carroll has served as organist, conductor, theatre director, educator, music coordinator, clinician and guest speaker. She chaired the music segment of the 1992 International Conference on Arts and Communication at St. John's College, Cambridge, England and was awarded the International Order of Merit.

American Aurora explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1604 to 1707, Timothy Grieve-Carlson explores the Hermetic and alchemical dimensions of Kelpius's Christianity before turning to his legacy in American religion and literature. This engaging analysis showcases Kelpius's forgotten theological intricacies, spiritual revelations, and cosmic observations, illuminating the complexity and foresight of an important colonial mystic. As radical Protestants during Kelpius's lifetime struggled to understand their changing climate and a seemingly eschatological cosmos, esoteric texts became crucial sources of meaning. Grieve-Carlson presents original translations of Kelpius's university writings, which have never been published in English, along with analyses and translations of other important sources from the period in German and Latin. Ultimately, American Aurora points toward a time and place when climate change caused an eruption of esoteric thought and practice-and how this moment has been largely forgotten.

A Companion to German Pietism offers an introduction to recent Pietism scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic, in German, Dutch, and English. The focus is upon early modern German Pietism, a movement that arose in the late 17th century German Empire within both Reformed and Lutheran traditions. It introduced a new paradigm to German Protestantism that included personal renewal, new birth, women-dominated conventicles, and millennialism. The “Introduction” offers a concise overview of modern research into German Pietism. The Companion is then organized according to the different worlds of Pietist existence—intellectual, devotional, literary-cultural, and social-political.

E. G. Alderfer has chosen a dramatic story to tell—the founding and subsequent history of Ephrata, a mystical religious community that flourished in eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. The history of the commune is inseparable from that of its leader, Conrad Beissel, a German Pietist who came to America in 1720 seeking spiritual peace and solitude. When he settled in the virgin forest of Lancaster County, his talents and charisma attraced other German settlers who shared his vision of a community built in the image of apostolic Christianity.In its heyday, from about 1735 to 1765, the community at Ephrata numbered some two hundred people, the celibate members living in simple wooden buildings noted for the harmony and serenity of their architecture.The cultural achievements of the group were exceptional. They produced an extensive body of mystical literature and constructed the most complete printing establishment in the colonies at that time. They were also adept at the art of Fraktur, and many exquisitely decorated manuscripts survive. Music was a particular interest of Beissel's, and the choral music performed at Ephrata was well known and much admired.Mr. Alderfer, who has written widely on colonial Pennsylvania, shows the relationship of the Ephrata commune to other experiments at withdrawal from the world and in particular to the many strands of Old World mysticism and the German Pietist movement. He also discusses American religious and communal movements of later times in the light of the Ephrata experience. His is the first history of the community to provide extensive documentation, including analysis of many surviving manuscripts and books written at Ephrata.Although the commune died out in the nineteenth century, the site and many of the buildingts survived. Today the Ephrata Cloisters Park is operated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

The brilliance of a master historian shines through this “elegant and engaging memoir” of a lifetime’s work (Richard Aldous, Wall Street Journal). Over a remarkable career Bernard Bailyn has reshaped our understanding of the early American past. Inscribing his superb scholarship with passion and imagination honed by a commitment to rigor, Bailyn captures the particularity of the past and its broad significance in precise, elegant prose. His transformative work has ranged from a new reckoning with the ideology that powered the opposition to British authority in the American Revolution, to a sweeping account of the peopling of America, and the critical nurturing of a new field, the history of the Atlantic world. Illuminating History is the most personal of Bailyn’s works. It is in part an intellectual memoir of the significant turns in an immensely productive and influential scholarly career. It is also alive with people whose actions touched the long arc of history. Among the dramatic human stories that command our attention: a struggling Boston merchant tormented by the tensions between capitalist avarice and a constrictive Puritan piety; an ordinary shopkeeper who in a unique way feverishly condemned British authority as corrupt and unworthy of public confidence; a charismatic German Pietist who founded a cloister in the Pennsylvania wilderness famous for its strange theosophy, its spartan lifestyle, and its rich musical and artistic achievement. And the good townspeople of Petersham, whose response in 1780 to a draft Massachusetts constitution speaks directly to us through a moving insistence on individual freedoms in the face of an imposing central authority. Here is vivid history and an illuminating self-portrait from one of the most eminent historians of our time.

Tells of the founding and subsequent history of Ephrata, a mystical religious community that flourished in eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. Its leader, Conrad Beissel, a German Pietist who came to America in 1720 seeking spiritual peace and solitude. Settled in Lancaster County, his talents and charisma attracted other German settlers who shared his vision of a community built in the image of apostolic Christianity.