But these are only a few. In Lancaster County alone the number
has at different times been estimated at from twenty to thirty.
It would probably be impossible to make a complete list; some of
them, indeed, existed for only a few years. Their own writers
describe them as countless and bewildering. Many of them were
characterized by the strangest sort of German mysticism, and some
of them were inclined to monastic and hermit life and their
devotees often lived in caves or solitary huts in the woods.
It would hardly be accurate to call all the German sects Quakers,
since a great deal of their mysticism would have been anything
but congenial to the followers of Fox and Penn. Resemblances to
Quaker doctrine can, however, be found among many of them; and
there was one large sect, the Mennonites, who were often spoken
of as German Quakers. The two divisions fraternized and preached
in each other's meetings. The Mennonites were well educated as a
class and Pastorius, their leader, was a ponderously learned
German. Most of the German sects left the Quakers in undisturbed
possession of Philadelphia, and spread out into the surrounding
region, which was then a wilderness.
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