THE MORNING STAR

Lucille Wallower, who has tapped the vein of Pennsylvania folklore earlier with Old Satan and The Hippety Hopper unfolds some interesting material here on the community established by the Moravian Brothers and Sisters who left Germany to convert Indians to Christianity. They called their settlement, established in 1741, Bethlehem, in honor of the Christ Child. The leader who had sponsored the Moravians in Germany, Count Zinzendorf, and Bishop Spangenberg furthered the amicable relationship engendered by William Penn in his province. But unscrupulous whites had soured that harmony by 1755, partially through their exploitation of the naive ""Walking Purchase"" agreement between Penn and earlier Indians. Later acquisitive settlers extended their property by sending the fastest runner of the community to fix boundaries encompassed by a loosely worded walk of a certain number of days. Here too is the strange story of an incipient Indian attack averted by a Christmas carol. Neither the telling nor the sketches by the author are distinguished, so the regional appeal will be far stronger than national interest.