ABSTRACT
German pietist sects were a striking feature of the diverse religious landscape of Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. The disciplined pursuit of an inner spirituality, stressing the feelings of the heart and the experience of God's love, with a concomitant disregard for churchly forms were characteristics of such sects. Some pietists, loyal to charismatic leaders, were more withdrawn from the world than others. The community of Ephrata in Lancaster County under the direction of Conrad Beissel (1690-1768) was for a time a controversial example with several hundred members. Men and women were required to live separately even if they had been married in the outside world and to work a form of monastic economy while reanimating early Christian rites drawn from scrutiny of the Bible. Beissel's letter to the Moravian leader, Zizendorf, exhibits his search for a subjective spirituality.
