ZINZENDORF'S RELATIONS WITH SILESIA AND SALZBURG

Zinzendorf's attitude towards the revivals in Silesia and Salzburg was as ambivalent as his attitudes towards most other things. Himself the grandson of an Austrian Protestant émigré, he could not fail to cherish the cause of Protestant survival in the Habsburg lands, even if the peopling of the estate he bought at Berthelsdorf in Upper Lusatia had not depended on it. He was closely connected with the Pietist nobility of Silesia, and also for many years with Steinmetz, the apostle of Teschen. He defended hard-pressed Pietist pastors in Silesia, took up the cause of the Schwenckfelders with the Imperial government, and in 1727 found them a temporary asylum in Herrnhut. But he had a difficult tightrope to walk. He was exposed to plausible charges that he made Silesians (and Upper Lusatians) discontented with their pastors, and, in attacking Steinmetz and his colleagues, the Jesuits made the best of the accusation that he, Scheffer and Schwedler were introducing a new religion into Silesia, not entitled to toleration under the Westphalia settlement. Nor were Zinzendorf's relations with the church and government of Saxony such as to make him desire the hostile attention of that government's patron, the Emperor. The troubles in Moravia which coincided with the great exodus from Salzburg brought on him fresh rebukes from the Emperor, and for years Zinzendorf instructed his sympathisers in Silesia to live quietly and obediently under the authorities.