Johann Conrad Beissel (1690-1768), German-American pietist, was the founder of the Community of Seventh-Day Baptists at Ephrata, Pennsylvania. He was also a prolific hymn writer.

Johann Beissel was born in April 1690 in Eberbach, Germany. His father was an alcoholic baker who died 2 months before his son was born; his mother died when Johann was 8. As a boy, he was apprenticed to a baker who also played the fiddle; from him Beissel received his musical education. Beissel was a diminutive person who may have felt all the more inferior in that he grew up in sordid circumstances without education. He showed genuine musical ability and early displayed compelling religious fervor. A conversion experience at the age of 27 convinced him that celibacy was a prerequisite to holiness. Later in life he thanked God for preserving him from female allurements.

After being expelled from the district where he worked as a...