David Zeisberger Centennial. 175
A SCENE AT ZEISBERGER'S GRAVE.
C. L. MARTZOLFF.
From The Ohio Teacher, January,
1908.
A beautiful November day it is. One of
those rare last days of
the autumn time whose minutes pass too
lightly, for you want to keep
them by you. One of those days when you
are watching the sun and
calculate mentally how much of it you
have yet to enjoy. You know
that you cannot have many more such
glorious days, and you want every
bit of this one.
This is the 20th of November, in the
year of our Lord 1908. The
records tell us that it was just such a
day as this, a hundred years ago,
that a little band of Moravians--white
and red-moved slowly from
yonder site where stood the mission
house to this spot and reverently
interred the body of their teacher in
the virgin soil of the Tuscarawas
valley.
I like that word "teacher." It
is Anglo-Saxon. It has in it the
strength of the English oak. It is
cosmopolitan. It means the minister,
the educator, the leader. So they laid
to rest their teacher. Over the
open grave of David Zeisberger his
"brown brethren," as he loved to call
them, chanted the Moravian litany in the
hope of the Resurrection. Many
of his "brown brethren" had
gone on before and had received Christian
burial. The remaining followers digged
his grave that he might rest
beside those whom he loved, for whom he
lived, for whom he labored
and for whom he sacrificed.
Now a century has gone by. The broad
valley of the Tuscarawas,
dotted with homes, churches and schools,
lay basking in the sunshine.
In the small iron enclosure a little
company waited until a party of chil-
dren from a neighboring school could be
present. In each child's hand
was a sprig of evergreen. These were
laid on the grave. Then with
bared heads the men and women joined in
reading the Easter morning
litany of the Moravian Church. The
minister who conducted the cere-
monies was a great-grandson of John
Heckewelder, a fellow laborer of
Zeisberger. It was a beautiful service.
But why stand by this simple slab in a
country graveyard?
DAVID ZEISBERGER
Born April 11, 1721, in Moravia.
Departed this life November 17, 1808.
Aged 87 years, 7 months, 6 days.
This faithful servant of the Lord
labored
among the American Indians as mission-
ary during the last sixty years of his
life.