Andrew Zeller was the fifth

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

of the

Church of the United Brethren in Christ The Church of the United Brethren in Christ is an evangelical Christian denomination with churches in 17 countries. It is Protestant, with an episcopal structure and Arminian theology, with roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communiti ...

. He was elected to this high office in 1817. He was an important figure in the early history of his denomination and a

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...

in the history of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and the United States.

Birth and early years

Andrew was born in Pennsylvania in 1755. We know very little of his early life. He resided in

Berks County Berks County ( Pennsylvania German: ''Barricks Kaundi'') is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading. The Schuylkill River, a tributary of the Delaware River ...

, in Eastern

. He was raised on a farm, and would have been familiar with the duties and trials of a farmer's life, which in that day were not few. His education would have been very limited, comprising a knowledge of but the simplest branches. Zeller was known to often repeat the following story from his early boyhood: :There were six boys in his father's family. They lived in a new country, which had to be prepared for the plow before it could yield an abundant harvest. It is altogether probable that, with so large a family to look after, the members of it had only the plainest of food. They resided near the banks of a little stream called the Swatara, which the boys called the ''Sweet Arrow.'' These boys would at times gather around a large dish of soup, which was the only article of diet for that meal, and with no other utensils for eating but iron spoons. With these each did his best to satisfy the demands of a strong appetite. They had already learned the art of comparing their dish with the stream near them, and, as they were rapidly emptying their dish, they would occasionally measure its depth with their spoons, and say, "The Sweet Arrow is so deep," conscious of the fact that, as the depth diminished, their pleasure was lessened.

References

*Koontz, Paul Rodes, and Roush, Walter Edwin, The Bishops: Church of the United Brethren in Christ,

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...

: The Otterbein Press, 1950. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zeller, Andrew Bishops of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ American bishops Ministers of the Evangelical United Brethren Church

Birth and early years

See also

References