Certain great festivals of the Christian Church which were ignored by the Puritans and Quakers have always continued in high repute among the Pennsylvania Germans.  Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and Ascension Day are celebrated not only in the Lutheran, the Reformed or Calvinistic and the Moravian churches, but among the descendants of those Swiss Anabaptists who, being driven from their homes by religious persecution, finally took shelter in that part of the land of Penn now called Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians being known among us by the names of Mennists and Amish (pronounced Menneests and Ommish).

The movable feast of Whitsunday or Pentecost, which occurs on the seventh Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion in the Mennonite meetings, for at this time is held one of the great semi-annual observances of bread-breaking and feet-washing.  The ensuing day, Whitmonday, is a great secular festival.  All the spring bonnets are then in readiness for the “Dutch” girls.  The young farmer of eighteen or more, whose father has granted his heart’s desire in the form of a buggy, or who has otherwise attained to that summit of rural felicity, harnesses and attaches to it one of the horses with which the farm is so well supplied, and takes his girl into the county-town.  Here they walk the streets, partake of simple refreshments, meet their acquaintances or talk with them in the tavern parlor.  Sometimes they visit a circus or menagerie whose managers have made a timely visit to our inland city.

On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while the Dutch boys are working the corn, you may perchance hear their father’s voice raised to a higher pitch than usual, which circumstance he explains when he comes in sight, thus:  “The boys is sleepy to-day.  Yesterday was Whissuntide, you know.  They got home late.”  For custom forbids their leaving the girl of their choice before the small hours, and allows them, nevertheless, no remission from labor on the succeeding day.

The people, however, whose religious services I am about to describe impose upon their members a stricter rule of earlier hours, etc.  They are called New (or Reformed) Mennists.

It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, that I paid a visit to one of our New Mennist meeting-houses, and found before nine o’clock in the morning that the services had already begun.  The first apartment we entered was a sort of tiring-room, where along the walls hung the shawls and black sun-bonnets of the sisters.  Here were also traveling-bags, and a cradle stood ready to receive one or more of the babies that were in attendance.  In the adjoining room were heard the familiar notes of “Old Hundred,” and “Du bist der Weg” was sung pleasantly without any instrumental accompaniment.

When we entered the whitewashed apartment in which the meeting had assembled I saw upon a small platform at the farther end five men, who were apparently preachers or elders.  At the same end of the room were seated the soberly clad members of the sect—­the men on one side of the apartment, with their broad-brimmed hats removed; on the other side the sisters, with their extremely plain book-muslin caps and otherwise sober attire.