vania, made the following reference to the results which the Schwenkfelders have accomplished in the transcribing of their own literature: "I want to call your attention to another sect, the Schwenkfelders who came to Pennsylvania. They were the followers of Caspar Schwenkfeld and the doctrines taught by him were almost identical with those taught by the Quakers. They came in 1734. Their literature was extensive and interesting. It is reproduced for the most part in huge folios written upon paper made at the Rittenhouse paper-mill on the Wissahickon, the earliest in America. These volumes sometimes contained a thousand pages, bound in stamped leather with brass corners and brass mounting. Among the notable facts connected with their history is the fact that they prepared a written description of all the writings of Schwenkfeld and their other authors and it is as far as I know the first attempt at a bibliography in this country."
The early history of the Schwenkfelders furnishes the explanation of this extraordinary activity in the copying of both their printed works as well as unpublished manuscripts. Repeatedly, the literature of the sect was proscribed and the use of the press forbidden them, so that for the preservation of the works of their various writers they were dependent upon their transcribers. Of this activity, the collecting and copying of hymns has always been a considerable part, and in our next chapter we list bibliographically the numerous larger collections of hymns which are still extant in manuscript and are products of the patient toil of Schwenkfelder transcribers. Furthermore, we shall see that some of the hymn-writers themselves served the sect as copyists. Thus Adam Reissner and Daniel Sudermann compiled large folios of hymns written by their own hands. A century later Caspar Weiss produced a compilation of hymns in two volumes in manuscript, in which he has perpetuated hymns written by Adam Reissner, Daniel Sudermann, Raimund Weckher, Valentin Triller, Antonius Oelsner, George Heydrich, Martin John, Jr., and other Schwenkfelder hymn-writers. Again, George Weiss
