The history of the Moravian Church is a history of the grand triumph of an earnest brotherhood over the effects of persecution, banishment, and many other difficulties. It tells how a little company of Christians fought, not only to keep their own particular Church and creed unspotted from the world, but how when numbering only six hundred unhappy exiles, they commenced a series of missionary efforts which have been abundantly blessed of God⁠—missions which have been so energetically carried out that they now number over seventy-six thousand converts, and which for the zeal and courage shown by the workers have won the respect of all the civilized world. The early history of the United Brethren⁠—as the Moravians were first called⁠—is one of peculiar interest, showing as it does, from what small beginnings God can produce the mightiest results. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there existed a religious community to the number of, perhaps, two hundred thousand, called the “Bohemian Brethren.” They were scattered throughout Bohemia and certain parts of Poland, and were remarkable for the zeal and general purity of their lives. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, they were scattered, and to all appearances ceased to exist. Yet there still existed a “hidden seed” which kept alive the tenets and usages of former years. This remnant used to hold their services with as much zeal and more prudence than ever, and in secret crypts and private houses, prayed for a reawakening of their ancient Church. This was eventually granted; and the manner in which it was brought about leads us up to the actual commencement of the so-called Moravian Church. Let us glance at the early history of the man who was so instrumental in bringing this about. Count Zinzendorf was the son of parents who were eminently distinguished for their piety and Christian example, and he himself as a child exhibited signs of a precocious piety which has rarely been equalled in one so young. Not only was the Saviour ever present in the events of his daily life, but the young Count even “wrote letters to Him, in which he poured out his religious feelings,” and threw these letters out of the window, “confident that the Lord would receive and read them.” This religious fervour manifested itself still further in his school-life. At his first school we find him at the head of a society which he founded for the purpose of spreading the Gospel and cultivating personal piety amongst his schoolfellows. It was called “The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed,” and through its means an excellent moral tone was spread throughout the school. On leaving school the Count entered the University of Wittenberg, and since his pious inclinations led him to prefer the Church as his lifework, he began to study theology. Here, however, he met with opposition from an unexpected quarter. His relatives and many of his most intimate friends strenuously opposed such a course; they would not for a moment entertain the idea of a German Count in their family becoming a preacher; it could not be. So strong, indeed, was the feeling against it, that the Count gave up the idea of becoming that for which he was obviously most fitted, and began to study law. His course at the university ended, he started on a course of travels through Europe, which was considered part of every young nobleman’s education. Study of the law had by no means quenched the fire of religious zeal within his heart; so we find that an occurrence of no unusual magnitude was sufficient to fan it into a flame again. In a picture gallery in Düsseldorf, on the Rhine, he came across a picture that was destined to lead him again into that path whence he had allowed himself so easily to be turned aside. It was an “Ecce Homo,” with the words underneath: “Hoc feci pro te; quid facis pro me?” “This I did for thee. What hast thou done for Me?” This picture had such an effect on him that he stood before it for hours, wrapt in oblivion of all else around him. It reawakened in him all his old zeal and fervour in the cause he loved so well; and from that moment he never lost an opportunity to boldly confess his Saviour. Soon after, in the year 1722, he married, and it is at this point we find bim so wonderfully brought into contact with the persecuted remnants of the “Bohemian Church.” Just when these were almost despairing of infusing, in any successful degree, new life and vigour into their old Church, or of giving to it a public existence again, we find them mysteriously brought into contact with the man who above all others seemed best fitted to carry out and embody such a resuscitation.