Single Brethrens' Diary - July 29-30, 1764
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[Sunday], July 29, 1764
Timothy Horsfield brought the Poor Box around.
Joh. Michael Odenwald, Master Potter here and [a member of] the Worker’s
Classe, who has already been reminded and admonished several times
over some years because of his shallow heart and careless sensibility,
and who has given himself over to drink, from which nothing good can arise,
and who has not been straight and honest with his [Choir] Workers, has
finally arrived in such circumstances regarding women that tonight, after
his affair became open and known, he received the Consilium Abeundi,
and [...]
[Monday] July 30, 1764
[...] went away from here early. On his request that he might to go Europe,
it was advised him to go directly over New York and London to Herrnhut,
and if he would turn himself around, and lay his whole heart before Br.
Johannes, perhaps he would receive permission to remain somewhere in a
Gemeine, since he could not be here any longer because he had made
no good name for us among the neighbors, and was too well known. On this
occasion, Br. Fromelt held, in the evening, an earnest and heartfelt sermon
for the Choir, and warned them to let themselves be protected by the Savior
from similar things, and to listen to the Mother, to whom Odenwald had
already, for many years, not been true; and that the spirit of openness
had been lacking in him, and he had been hidden from his [Choir] Workers,
and thus it went ever further with him, from one sin to another. Drink
was a chief matter here, because from this, according to the teaching
of Paul, comes a disorderly life; he had often been reprimanded, but it
had not helped, and in the end it went to where it is today.
Then the Brethren were urged to refrain from interaction with the
Married Brethren, where they do not have business on account of duty and
work, and particularly to have neither washing nor linen-making done,
which the Choir Servant would care for in the appropriate place.
They were reproached for frequent visits in the Tavern over the Lehigh,
from which nothing good can come.
Further, it was recommended to them not to ride to Christiansbrunn
and Hall so often, because it was offensive to the Brethren there who
could not do it. There was nothing against the visiting of the Brethren,
and it would also be no shame to go on foot, although one did not want
to forbid riding thereby.
Transcription and translation by Katherine
Carté Engel
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