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These form an evangelical church which flourished in Bohemia before the Reformation, was stamped out about 1627 and revived during the first half of the eighteenth century. They first settled in Georgia in 1735, but soon moved to Pennsylvania. They instituted a communism of labor; the lands were owned by the church, and its members worked them, receiving in return the necessities of life. This plan existed till 1762, and greatly aided the church in sending out its itinerant ministers and missionaries. They also for a long time excluded from their communities all outsiders, but this system gradually died out and has now altogether disappeared. The American church still maintains its connection with the parent churches in Europe and is growing rapidly, owing largely to its active missionary spirit. Number of members in 1890, 12,000.