A Village Hampden Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from An Indiana Village: New Harmony In 1757 there was born to a small farmer of Iptingen in Wiirttemberg a son, who was called George Rapp. He received a common school education, worked with his father on the farm and in the winter was a weaver. At twenty - six he married. His life was like that of his class, but the man was no ordinary peasant. He was fond of reading and of thought. Religious feeling was much ex cited in the country during his early manhood, and Rapp, a devout believer, studied his Bible with the zeal charac teristic of his race. He found in it a very different scheme of life from that in which he was placed. He was a literalist, and reached and surpassed the conclusions that literalists hold to-day. The lethargy of the estab lished church was in sharp contrast with the activity of the Apostles. Christ might come at any moment, yet men were living as if there were no Christ. He longed for a return to the former things, for the close union of Christian fellowship intent only upon the eternal veri ties. He talked to others and found believers. At thirty he began to preach in his own house. His congregation, when it attracted notice, was denounced as separatists and persecuted by the clergy with the usual result. Yet there was nothing dangerous in their creed. Submission to the authorities was a principal tenet; all they asked was the right of private judgment and freedom to wor ship as they chose. Within six years three hundred fami lies had become adherents of Rapp, and, after ten years of waiting, seeing no prospect of peace or toleration, they determined to go to America. In 1803 George Rapp, his son John and two others, having left the church in charge of Frederick Rapp, an adopted son, landed at Baltimore. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.