yes, Jane - you are basically right - and minister Thomas Miller, from the Four Mile (and the Ladoga Churches) was one! What I meant by that statement was that to be in the Brethren Church Denomination, at the time of the Civil War, was to accepted the Annual Meeting and its decisions, and Annual Meeting had taken a stand against much of the Pietist belief. Now this also depends on what was Pietism - in its practical, everyday application - and that we do not know much about. [I meant what I said about translating the Berleberg Bible - it has to be mostly Pietist Commentary.] I have been trying to find out what Pietism really meant, and what I am finding is that it was somewhat different than what the Brethren had become. I still have to go back to Dr Mallott's statement in class, "What happened to the Brethren, during the Revolution? They changed!" He did not give an answer. I think I have found an answer in these couple church conflicts of 1790s (Carolina) and 1820s (Kentucky) and their results - Annual Meeting kicked them out! I have to bring up one other aspect of the times - back then, the Brethren believed in what they called "Unanimity". This was a form of practice in the guidance.of the Holy Spirit. When a matter was brought to discussion of the Council (Annual Meeting, or local church), a vote could only be accepted if it was Unaniimous. The Holy Spirit would not give different answers to two different people. So a procedure evolved: After prayer and discussion, a vote was taken. If it was not unanimous, the body would go back to prayer, because someone, or more, did not have the guidance of the Holy Spirit (no discussion - except after experiencing Bro INH Beam, at Annual Meeting - I can understand some statements, that the prayer itself became a discussion or argument! "Lord, You Know that - "). The matter then would be voted on a second time. If a unanimous decision was not yet reached. the matter was sent back to the next council, with everyone encouraged to pray for the Lord's Guidance on the matter. In some cases, from church minutes (or even Annual Meeting), the unanimous decision was not reached for several years. In some cases, one vote was on the one side, and everyone else was on the other, but after several years, the unanimous decision was in favor of the original one vote. In other cases, the matter would drag on for several years, then it would no longer be brought up. One such, was the use of musical instruments in the church. It must have become so well accepted in most churches, that it was no longer brought for discussion. Sometimes, the answer was for each church to determine its own answer. In those early times, the Frontier Brethren were not abiding by the Unanimous Decision of Annual Meeting, and when they brought up opposition, it was too late (even though they were not present at the time of the discussion -being far away -down south, or out west), Annual Meeting had already made its Unanimous Decision. I do enjoy the "boy preacher" of the Lost River Church in Orange County Indiana (Joseph Hostetler). In 1821, he brought up to Annual Meeting (in Ohio), that those being baptized by single immersion were going to heaven, just as truly as those baptized by the Brethren "trine immersion". His point was that these were Christians, and could be Brethren Church members. Annual Meeting did agree, although they stipulated that the Brethren method was trine immersion. In 1826, the Elders (the Elders Body) brought a reversal to this decision at Annual Meeting. Membership could only be by trine immersion. This latter is about the time that the Elders acted against Elder Adam Hostetler (uncle of Joseph, living then at the Beech Creek Church, Shelby Co KY), and he was put on the Ban (with Elder Peter Han of the Hinkston Creek Church, Nicholas Co KY), essentially over the Revival in Kentucky. All the churches of the Kentucky/Indiana area were lost to the Brethren. After the ban, Elder Adam Hostetler moved up to Clark Co IN (maybe a dozen miles from Lost River) and is buried at the Olive Branch Cemetery (a Brethren Church that about this time went Disciples of Christ). No, we don't know much about the Pietists - except for their early history in Germany. And I have to observe, today the Methodists are more nearly the Pietism I think I have found in Kentucky, than are the Brethren. (As William Thomas points out - John Wesley spent a year at Herrnhut in Germany, among the Moravians and Count Zinzendorf, their leader, and went back to England with a "Method of Christianity" - Methodism.) Merle > > What I have found regarding the Brethren in Missouri during this period differs from your statement that all the Brethren of the Civil War period were Annual Meeting Brethren. The majority of the early Brethren in Missouri prior to 1865 were tied to the Far Western Brethren under the leadership of George Wolfe and the Mill Creek Brethren near Liberty, Adams County, Illinois. > > It is also true that there were Brethren in Missouri at this time from mostly the southern states of Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Other Brethren had arrived here from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Thus, the Missouri Brethren were representative of many of the existing Brethren groups prior to the Civil War. > > The upheaval of war on the Western Front early in 1861 created a battleground involving all residents of Missouri whether they were Brethren or not. A number of Brethren left Missouri before the end of 1861 either because of death threats or loss of family members. Jane Davis. >