Alexander Mack

Alexander Mack was born in Germany in 1712 the son of Alexander Mack 1679-1735, the founder of the Church of the Brethren in Schwarzenau, Wittgenstein. Due to religious persecution, his early life was spent in West Friesland in the Netherlands. His family came to the United States when he was 17 and settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania. After his father died, Mack, in 1737 joined with Stephen Koch, a member of the church, in retreat for a time of meditation and prayer in a house along the Wissahckon. Mack later joined the Ephrata Society, but left Ephrata around 1746 and returned to the Church of the Brethren and served as minister, elder, and bishop. He wrote hymns as well as prose and also letters to a large number of people.

Dianne Shapiro from The Religious Poetry of Alexander Mack, Jr. by Samuel B. Heckman (Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, 1912)