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was devoted during his whole subsequent life, by assuming the care of the Cabinet of Natural Sciences then kept at Barby."

His term of service as teacher lasted seven years and closed with the warmest testimony from all around him. At this time he was called to the position of assistant preacher in Dublin, Ireland, and on his journey through England he was ordained a Deacon by Bishop Traneker.

During Brother Hüffel's six and a half years' residence in Ireland he had favorable opportunities of cultivating a large acquaintance and gaining a choice circle of friends, many of whom he found during his pastoral visits to the West of Ireland, in the County of Clare, where the Brethren had formed a Society.

After his labors in Ireland had ended he was chosen

Secretary to the Unity's Elders' Conference. His departure from Ireland, however, nearly proved fatally disastrous, for, in making a misstep from the vessel in the harbor, he plunged into the sea, but he was enabled by his own exertions to keep above water long enough to receive timely aid.

March 31, 1798, he arrived in Herrnhut, and after having been married to Sarah Elizabeth Hunzigker, in Gnadenfeld, he took up his quarters in Berthelsdorf, and assumed his duties as Secretary, or writer, for the œconomic department of the Conferential Board.

At that period strenuous efforts were made by the leading educators of the Church to divert the attention of students from fruitless metaphysical speculation to the study of Natural Sciences, under the conviction that this would not only yield more tangible profit and pleasure but would harmonize more fully with the teaching and practice of "simplicity in Christ." With that interesting and critical period in the history of the College and Theological Seminary of the Moravian Church are associated, on the one hand, the names of men like the great Schleiermacher and Fries, who forsook the communion of the Church and, on the other hand, those of Bossart. Scholler and von Albertini who remained in it, less widely known but no less great in ability, character and attainments.—COMMITTEE,

In 1801, he was ordained Presbyter by Bishop Christian Gregor.

In the following year, he received a call as preacher and Principal of the Theological Seminary and Children's School at Niesky, and here devoted two hours daily to giving lectures in the Seminary. In 1805, he was summoned to Barby as preacher, and soon after the office of Principal of the Pædagogium was assigned him.

He was chosen a member of the Unity's Elders' Conference in 1809, and removed to Berthelsdorf August 29 of that year. His consecration as Bishop of the Brethren's Church, by Bishop Cunow, took place August 14, 1814. Not receiving a re-election to the Unity's Elders' Conference in 1818, he was appointed President of the Provincial Board in America, and in consequence of this appointment embarked with his family for this country, and arrived at Bethlehem December 11 of that year. His stay in America was of eight years' duration, and he engaged in useful labors in visiting most of the congregations. Sister Hüffel died December 29, 1824, and he remained a widower until 1827.

He had been once more chosen member of the Unity's Elders' Conference at Berthelsdorf, and in this capacity as a representative of the Mission Department of that Board, he was authorizd to visit the West India Missionstations, and entered on the laborious work by embarking on the ocean in March, 1827, and making the usual rounds of the Danish Islands, as well as St. Kitts, Antigua and Barbadoes. He returned from his West Indian travels through England, and arrived November 7, in Berthelsdorf. On the 18th of that month he was married to Sister Maria Wilhelmina Bechler, of Herrnhut. In this second term of service as a member of the Unity's Board, he labored faithfully for nine years. At the Synod of 1836, Bro, Hüffel resigned, as active laborer

in the Brethren's service, and he looked forward to a season of quiet rest in the calm abode at Herrnhut. Here, in the decline of life, he could pass in review the many years of an eventful and varied career, fifty-two years of which had been spent in the active service of the Brethren's Church.

His dissolution took place here in this last retreat, June 7, 1842, at the advanced age of 79 years, 8 months and 25 days.

As a subject of biography, Bishop Hüffel is worthy to occupy one of the niches appropriated to the most noted men among the Brethren, as well on account of his intellectual and personal merits, as by reason of his long and arduous services in the Church. He was gifted with rare musical abilities, and during the years which he spent in Europe, added many valuable arrangements to the repertoire of church-music. He discoursed his beautiful thoughts on the organ, piano and violoncello, and is said to have particularly excelled on the last named instrument. At the time of his residence in Bethlehem, a good tone of musical culture, and consequently a proper appreciation of the old masters, prevailed there. Bro. Hüffel's aid in performing on the various instruments, in the use of which he was a virtuoso, received merited recognition. His appearance in the musical group among men of more showy presence and portly manners, was certainly unfavorable to his debut, for his figure was homely in the extreme and might have repulsed many who judge men only by exterior beauty and a prepossessing form. His voice was somewhat harsh and devoid of melody, and it would have been difficult to determine, at first, where the intellectual gold of such a man lay concealed. In addition to his great philological acquirements, for he is supposed to have been versed in the three great oriental languages,

Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac, he appeared among us with a thorough knowledge of the Natural Sciences, of which Botany seems to have been his favorite branch; and he delighted to stroll amid the woods and thickets in the environs of Nazareth and Bethlehem, gathering wild flowers and determining their names.

In these pursuits of Flora, Lewis D. von Schweinitz was his congenial associate, and two such ardent scientists could not fail to find Nature a realm of perpetual fascination.

His exclamations when strolling about the precincts of Nazareth which my memory enables me to recall, were those of an enthusiast. He was engaging in conversation, and fond of describing, in an animated way, the scenes of Irish life with which he had become familiar, of service in that land. during his years

Viewing him as a whole and taking into account his great moral and intellectual worth as well as the labors he performed during his fifty-two years of service, of which a sketch has just been presented, we may regard Christian Gottlieb Hüffel as an eminent type of that elder race of Moravian Brethren of whom our Church has reason to be proud.

FRAGMENTS

FROM THE

Papers of Bishop John Ettwein.

(EDITED BY THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.)

FIRST COLLECTION.

MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE AND SCRAPS OF HISTORY.

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