Page 45 - Pilgrims in Georgia
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R The Covenant of Salt
The Salzburgers lived in the Archbishopric of Salzburg, a Catholic state in Germany on the current border of Bavaria
and Austria. Rulers of Germany, in areas of Catholic control, persecuted the Lutherans after the Reformation.
During a period of intense persecution, they felt more than ever the necessity of a close and firm bond for life and
death. So on August 5th, 1731, in the early morning twilight, more than a hundred men, from every mountain
steep, found their way over the rocky paths and down to a market-village in their jurisdiction and in the inn of that
place seated themselves around a table on which was placed a salt-cellar. Each man, with earnest prayer, dipped
the wetted fingers of his right hand into the salt, and lifted them toward heaven for a holy oath. To the true, triune
God they swore never to desert the evangelical faith, and then swallowed the salt as if it had been a sacrament.
Since it is recorded in 2 Chronicles, 13: 5, that Jehovah made with David and his seed a covenant of salt, that is, a
covenant of friendship never to be broken, they called their sacred compact, from that time, the covenant of salt.
