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Moravian Church Archives, Gracehill (Co. Antrim) — ref. 1/3/444
[manuscript annotation: “Mary Vogelsang 1719–1787”]
SISTER MARY C. VOGELSANG DEPARTED 17th DECEMBER 1787.
Mary Catherine Vogelsang, born May 15th 1719 at Lidon in the island of Rugen. My parents were John and Margaret Catherine Vogelsng. We were 5 children. My parents were very careful to preserve us from all seductions of the world, and to educate us in the fear of God.
In my 9th year I got a great inclination to read religious books, and the description of our Saviour’s sufferings and death made a deep impression on my heart. My father died when I was in my 9th year. At this time my grandfather took me into his house, but as I was allowed too much liberty I was brought into various dangerous circumstances. In my 12th year my two youngest sisters went home by means of the measles, in consequence of which my mother took me again to live with her. In the meantime her widowhood brought her still more into a legal course of piety so that I found it difficult to live with her. In this lonesome situation I resolved to go to service, but my mother insisted that I should rather learn a trade. According to her wish she was enabled to put me to good pious people to learn to weave. I stayed four years and upwards with them, and was treated by them with parental faithfulness.
In my 16th year I was confirmed and I received a particular impression in my heart and mind, while that verse was sung: “He who with grace’s hammer, Oft knocks at thy heart’s chamber” &c I felt a certain uneasiness which brought me upon the thought, that I must now lay aside my former liberty and inclination to the world; but I did not know how to get loose from it.
In the meantime I began to weave at my mother’s house, as she had resolved not to marry again. I likewise became acquainted with the Brethren from Hermhut, namely the Brn. Grasman and Paul Shneider, who called at our house on their journey. I felt a degree of love for them, and believed them to be good people. But my great inclination to the world did not suffer me to think further about it, but I rather sought to get rid of these thoughts, that I might conform to the world, and had no other concerns on my mind rather than the fear of death.
Soon after, two other Brethren were sent by the congregation to our neighbourhood, but the so called awakened souls received them with great coolness. This caused me to feel rather compassion than love for them. I felt a great inclination to hear them speak, it it only did not concern me personally, and tho’ I had a degree of fear of having fellowship with them, yet at times I had no rest. Sometimes I went to the meetings tht were kept, at which my heart was always moved in an especial manner. But my desire after other things, and the innate depravity of my heart brought on a certain enmity and contempt towards the Brethren, which occasioned condemnation in my heart. I resolved that I would have nothing more to do with them.
When I went to Church, just that was explained in which the angel comes to Hagar who had fled from her mistress Sarah, and exhorts her to return. Here the Holy Ghost in that moment caused a deep impression on my sinful heart. My disobedience, highmindedness and pride were disclosed to me – unbelief and reasoning beset me, so that I got into a state of deep despair, and spent a long time in a heavy situation of mind. The Brn. took much pains to recommend our Saviour to me as the friend of Sinners. The uneasiness and anxiety of my conscience was such that I spent many a night in the woods with praying. Our Saviour manifested himself to my heart in a comfortable manner, but I thought that Satan was seeking to mislead me into a false rest, and prayed our Saviour as well as I could, that he would take me under his protection, and to let me see my election in his wounds. Then these words: “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness” – were at once spoken into my heart and ears with peculiar emphasis. My heart became light and cheerful, and was filled with shame and bowedness before my crucified Saviour.
But I did not remain long in this still disposition of heart, but thought that I must now recommend this happiness to others, which brought me into divers confusions with various kinds of people, and I lost much real blessing for my own heart because I was in general wanting in self-knowledge.
The Brethren advised me to make a visit to the congregation, to which I had no mind before, owing to unnecessary doubts how I should find it there. Besides this I conferred with flesh and blood concerning what the awakeded souls here said either to dissuade me from, or to persuade me to, such a step, and by degrees my mind was filled with prejudices against the congregtion. But notwithstanding all this my conscience was never easy, and tho’ the world fought to ensnare me in various ways, our Saviour always hedged in all by-ways with thorns, so that I could never come to the resolution to change my situation in life, though such an alteration was several times very near. For each time I felt that my views had not the approbation of our Saviour. By these circumstances I was again convinced of my election of grace, and that our Saviour had destined me for the congregation.
Hereupon I went on a visit to Pilgerruh, but the congregtion had just left that place, and only three married couples remained. However my visit of three weeks proved a real blessing to me. I felt the hearts of the Brn. and Srs. and got confidence towards them, and lost my wrong ideas with which I had unnecessarily tormented myself. I perceived the unwearied gracious labour of the Holy Ghost in my heart, who continually pressed home to me my call to the congregation. I besought our Saviour to guide me child-likely, that He would only grant me to find rest in his wounds, for then I should have all that I wished. But all did not avail to pacify my heart, till our Saviour gave me the grace that I was enabled to say with a simple and childlike heart: “There has thou me, O most beloved Lamb, I will from this moment be thine without exception, and choose nothing for myself”. O what a stream of tears was occasioned by this hearts conversation with my only near and faithful Friend. In this happy disposition I spent my time cheefully in communion with our Saviour, till He Himself brought about ways and means to bring me to his people.
Sept. 2. 1742 I went accompanied by Br. Shickh, who was recalled to the congregation, to Hermhaag, where I arrived the 25th of the same month. I was received with much love and heartiness by the S. Srs. which bowed me with sinner-shame before our Saviour for all the love and faithfulness he had shewn to me his poor creature. I had the pleasure to move directly to the S.Srs. who then lived still in the Professed House, because the Choir House was not yet buit. Here quite a new period of grace begun with me. The Holy Ghost discovered to me my hidden corruption. Then I began to be shy towards my sister and Labourers. For I thought that none of them had ever felt themselves so corrupted and depraved as I did. I often wished that our Saviour would cause the Labourers to feel what made me so perplexed, and quite unexpected Sr. Gunter, who was then choir helper of the S.Srs. sent for me and asked me whether I had something to tell her, adding that she had got such a feeling of me. I was so frightened at hearing this, that I could have dropped down, and believed most certainly that our Saviour would let her know all my thoughts, or that every one of the Brn. and Srs. could look into my heart. But her love and childlike spirit made me so confident, that I could unbosom my whole mind to her with simplicity. From this time my conscience was eased of a burden, and I could be more familiar with the Sisters, so that I was thankful for my lot to be among our Saviour’s people.
January the 5th 1743 I had the favour to be received into the congregation. At that time I made a new Covenant with the Friend of my soul, to live to the joy and pleasure of His heart. In May the same year a proposal was made to me to marry and go to Pennsylvania. At first I did not maturely weigh this proposal, but thought that from a principle of obedience one ought in the congregation to acquiesce in everything. But when I was further spoken with on this head, I had no freedom in my heart to assent to it. This brought me into a peculiar school, but all things wrought together for a blessing to my heart. Our dear Saviour shewed to me daily my poverty and necessity, and granted me true confidence to cleave closely to His bloody merit and passion; and from this time it was first right weighty to me to be a Single sister, and to enjoy my Choir-grace.
In the same year I came into the wash kitchen of the Orphan house, and had the pleasure to become acquainted with the late Countess de Zinzendorf, which proved a real and abiding blessing to my heart.
October the 27th our Saviour gave me leave to partake of His body and blood at the Lord’s Supper. My senses were shut to – and thought: “Lamb, only Thou! Thou’rt indeed my highest good, where my heart finds rest and food! To Thee I will be cleaving, and to Thy faithful heart; And when this life I’m leaving, In Thee I shall depart”.
In the year 1744 I received the assurance that I should remain a true single sister, and be uninterruptedly happy in my Choir. To this the inexpressibly happy and blessed Choir-Communion contributed very much. I am not able to describe with the pen what I enjoyed at them; these were blessed days of the Son of man for my heart, so that I cannot guess at anything more complete in the Consummation-hall.
In general this period in the Congregation was particularly blessed to me, and I felt so extremely thenkful and blessed in the Mother’s lap, that I wished for nothing else but to die in the nest where I would daily keep Sabbath, and I had to converse with no one, except with my faithful Friend. The 6 years which I spent in the wash-kitchen were a season which I could always recollect with delight.
In October 1748 I went to Holland and lived in the Pilgrim-house. Here I was taken among the intercessors. In December I went with several others to England, where we arrived January 13th 1749. Those 18 months which I spent in the Count’s house were quite a peculiar time for my heart. I learned to know myself fundamentally as a poor sinner. The feeling of my misery occasioned many thorough hearts-conversations with my bleeding Bridegroom, whose thro’-pierced feet I often wetted with sinner tears in the room for ironing the linen at Bloomsbury-Square. Here I felt so inly happy, when alone with my faithful Friend, as if I heard him in person about me, and my heart was quite enamoured with his suffering beauty.
The meetings which the dear Ordinary kept were very important and sweet to my heart, for that I am not able to thank our Saviour enough for his faithfulness to me his poor child. But I could not promise anything to Him, or even to the dearly beloved Count and Countess as a due return of thankfulness, except my poor heart full of faults and wants. Among many other blessings which I enjoyed here, I had the favour to be accepted as an acolouth.
In the year 1750 the Count and Countess went to Germany. The remaining Brn. and Srs. were ordered to different places till they should return, and I was sent to Yorkshire to be Sr. Anna Mary Archer’s assistant among the Single Sisters. There was a new school commenced with me, and our Saviour’s thro’-pierced feet were often wetted with my sinner-tears in those years. In 1751 I was recalled to the Disciple-house, and entered upon my former employ with great pleasure. At the end of the year it came so far that I had to go again to Yorkshire, as the interim-labourer of the S.Srs. Choir there. Upon this occasion I felt a certain fear, and in considering the affair I wished rather that our Saviour would take me into his eternal safety. After a thorough hearts-conversation with my chief Friend I ventured in the greatest poverty of spirit to do what He had commanded me.
January 3rd 1752 I arrived again in Yorkshire. I could do nothing but pray, weep and think – and wait his dear eyes’-wink. Now I saw and felt myself as weak as an infant that is taken away from its mother and quite forlorn. But as hopes were given me that I was to go thither only for a short time, I comforted myself from one month to the other with the expectation of getting a successor. In the meantime my heart became inclined to the Sisters. Our Saviour pacified me with his nearness, so that I could patiently await the time of my expected release.
In the year the new Choir-house at Gracehall was finished, into which the Sisters moved on the 15th of December. The beginning was made with 60 Sisters, and our Saviour owned this Choir House in a peculiar manner and let us feel His nearness. This helped me thro’ from time to time, tho’ in hopes every day to be called away, and that some person would succeed me, endowed with more grace, gifts, talents and experience than I poor creature ever had, or ever should have. But my only chief Friend had other thoughts than I had. It was intended as a benefit and blessing for my own heart. He has often take me aside, and we had thorough band-like conversations together. And hereby the happy sinner-point became daily more weighty to me, so that I could lean upon my Friend in weal and woe, and to serve my Sisters was a peculiar pleasure to me, and to be beloved by them I acknowledged now an unmerited favour.
In the year 1756 Sr. Vogelsang received a call to attend the Synod at Hermhut, in cogniscence of which she set out in company with Br. and Sr. Charlesworth for that place May the 7th. At the close thereof she was blessed a Deaconess and returned to Fulneck the same year.
In May 1765 I received a call to the North of Ireland, and tho’ I had a constant impression during the two last years in Yorkshire, as if my time there was not at an end; yet it cost me very much to leave my Choir, with whom I had been so tenderly united in joy and smart. This change made me draw still nearer to our Saviour, and I sought and found several things in my heart, in which I had not always acted, spoken or thought according to His mind, which caused many sinner-tears to flow from my eyes. But yet my bleeding Bridegroom gave me quite a new feeling of his love. As yes! He has always borne me with patience, and comforted me with his meritorious sufferings, and covered my depravity and sinfulness with his righteousness. And tho’ I am one of the poorest of his children, yet His mercy is my help.
So far our late Sister’s own account.
She arrived at Gloonen November 15th 1765 to be Choir Helper of the Single Sisters at Gracehill, for whom a Choir House was then building there and which she entered into with 49 Single Sisters December 26th the same year. The opportunity she had had in former years of being so much about the late Disciple not only proved an extraordinary blessing to her own heart, but a school in which she profited greatly in imbibing those principles our Saviour had given him relating to the congregtion and her choirs, and the leading the same that they became like a second nature to her, and by these she abode steadily to her happy end, labouring faithfully and unweariedly conformable to them, with a true mother’s heart which shared in joy and grief with the Sisters entrusted to her care, to whom she was approved as a genuine Handmaid of Jesus, who did not seek her own, but solely the real happiness and prosperity of her Sisters, and as such a faithful Handmaid of Jesus was known to the whole Congregation, by whom she was universally greatly beloved and highly esteemed, and in consequence of the grace she professed, and experience she had acquired, was a very useful member of the Elders Conference, so that not only her dear Choir but also the whole congregation and especially the members of the Elders Conference have sustained a great loss in her being taken from amongst us, but this being according to the good pleasure of our dear Saviour we submit to His divine will in child-like confidence that He, our Head and Lord, will give the needful grace and unction to the Sister appointed by them to fill her office, and that our dear Single sisters’ choir will be endued with what is needful to proceed in their Choir Course happily in those principles which have now for many years been so constantly and faithfully inculcated among them.
She laboured under a weakly habit of body for upwards of two years, but continued active in her labour beyond her ability till December 12th this year (1787) when she took entirely to her room, and it was evident that her dissolution was drawing near. In these days her Sisters were constantly with her by day and night, and often entertained her with sweet liturgic verses sung with hearts emotion and tender affection, which continued till the 17th when the Blessing of the Congregation and her Choir was imparted to her with a feeling of heart which will remain long imprinted in our hearts, and then she departed safely and happily to her beloved Bridegroom about half hour past 8 in the evening, aged 68 years 7 months and 2 days, and now rests in peace from all her labours.
(Transcribed J. & E. Cooper June 1998 from a Memoir in Gracehill archives).