Often times we can learn a lot about an individual from something they have written or spoken.
Soon after coming to America Christopher Sauer, Sr. wrote to his friends in Schwarzenau about life in the new world. To those who desired to undertake the long voyage to America he had some words of advise.
If, as it seems, some of you plan to migrate here, it is hard for me to advise you. The country is very good, to be sure, but if a person is discontented he is badly off no matter where he is. Whenever one communes within himself, and seeks heaven in himself, he has made the right move. On the other hand, when he retains the world within himself and seeks still more outside himself, he loses God and Christ, heaven and salvation. If I had known the goodness and love of God before, and about the world, myself, and what all lives within me and is capable of living there, I would not have moved one step away in order to have a better life, until I was persecuted. I do not regret, nevertheless, that I migrated here, now that I am here. (Durnbaugh, European Origins of the Brethren, pp. 35-36)
Source: A Self-Instruction Guide Through Brethren History, Donald E. Miller
