LIBRARY 
 
 ^fi]3(!)a»(i)Q[is(iii saEana^i^^, 
 
 PRIJ^CETOIV, N. J. 
 
 DONATION OF 
 
 S A M II K 1 . A O NEW, 
 
 I L A ii K L P H I A . PA, 
 
 Letter 
 
 No. 
 
 /v ^ Jh^a^ ^^ i^.. '«2^. 
 
 
 Book, 
 
 •■-SSB^*' 
 

EARLY HISTORY 
 
 txm\ (K|m"t| in l^nierica, 
 
 FR05I THE 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE, TO 
 THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 C. W.'^CHAEFFEE, 
 
 PASTOR OF ST. JIICUAEL'S CHURCH, GERMANTOWX, PA. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 LUTHERAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 No. 25 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. 
 
 1857. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 
 
 C. W. SCHAEFFEK, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern 
 District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPKD BY L. JOIIXSON AND CO. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 C. SHERMAN k SON, PRTNTEES. 
 
■^ y. r^ ^- 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The preparation of this book was first suggested by 
 tbe Board of Publication. According to the original 
 plan, it should have furnished a hasty view of the 
 whole history of the Church down to the present 
 time, in the form of a tract. The importance of the 
 subject, however, and the abundance of its materials, 
 were such as to occasion an early departure from this 
 original plan. The investigation has been confined 
 to a limited period of our history, and we have sur- 
 veyed that period with a considerable degree of 
 deliberation. 
 
 Thus we have succeeded, at least partly, in carry- 
 ing out the intentions of the Board, by the prepara- 
 tion of a small volume. AYe have also endeavored 
 to present such a variety of facts, and to show their 
 connection in such a manner, as might possibly make 
 the volume somewhat instructive. 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 Our flicilities for the collection of materials, in the 
 several public libraries of Philadelphia and elsewhere, 
 have been such, that a regard to brevity has often 
 compelled us to restrain ourselves from the discussion 
 of matters which would certainly be appropriate to a 
 more extended and elaborate history. We have been 
 the more willing to pursue this course, because we 
 felt that what we did present had much of the 
 charm of novelty, and that we were acting only 
 as pioneers in an enterprise which will surely be 
 undertaken yet, as it deserves to be, with a more 
 comprehensive grasj), and achieved with greater 
 thoroughness. 
 
 The Hallische Nachrkhten is invaluable as a trea- 
 sury of historical information for the period over 
 which it extends. A^^ritten by the fathers of the 
 Church themselves, its exhibitions are fresh and 
 authentic ; and it is to be hoped that the day is not 
 far distant when at least the substance of it will be 
 presented to the public in an English dress. In our 
 references to this work, we have given what we sup- 
 posed would be its English title, and called it 
 Halle Reports. 
 
 The remembrance of recent agitations in the 
 Church that are now quieted, never again, we trust, 
 to be aroused, suggests the pro]:)riety of our making 
 some reference to the exhibition we have given of the 
 doctrinal stand-point of the fathers. 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 We have "written not at all in the spirit of contro- 
 versy, but with a sincere regard to historic truth. If 
 any apprehensions ever arose that we might possibly 
 be charged with partialities or prejudices upon the 
 subject of Symbolism, or that our allusions to the 
 matter might possibly j)revent our securing the con- 
 fidence of any, those apprehensions have been quieted 
 by the consideration that we have attempted no argu- 
 ment either on the one side or on the other. Wo 
 have supposed that we could see in the fathers of the 
 Church, with all their fidelity to our Confession, a 
 fervor and liberality of spirit, an intelligent zeal, a 
 depth of devotion, that was altogether commendable ; 
 and we have simply endeavored to exhibit what we 
 have seen. Indeed, we flatter ourselves that our ex- 
 hibition will tend largely to allay all controversy 
 upon the subject, and will help to establish and con- 
 firm the peace of the Church ; for it may be seen and 
 felt to prove what, we are persuaded, men on both 
 sides are willing to be convinced of: — that fidelity to 
 the Lutheran Confession may harmonize with the 
 highest and clearest tone of Christian devotion. We 
 should therefore be sorry if either the author or the 
 Board should be held, by the statements of this 
 volume, as being committed upon the subject of 
 Symbohsm. In good faith, and with the best of 
 feelings towards the whole Chui*ch, we disclaim such 
 
 committal. 
 
 1* 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 So this book, making no particular pretensions, 
 is sent forth, with the prayer that, by the divine 
 blessing, it may be the means of doing some 
 good. 
 
 c. w. s. 
 
 Qermantown, February 23, 1857. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SWEDES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Settlements in the New "World — Enterprise of Gustavus 
 Adolphus — Swedes on the Delaware — Gov. John Printz — 
 Rev. John Campanius — Luther's Small Catechism — John 
 Thelin — Benevolent zeal of the King of Sweden — Rev. 
 Messrs. Biork and Rudman — The City of Philadelphia — 
 William Penn — Church Erection — Wicaco — Rev. Charles 
 Magnus Wrangel — Unity of Swedes and Germans — Con- 
 ferences — Bryzelius -. 9 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF THE SWEDES. 
 
 The Enterprise in erecting Churches — Zeal of Campanius — 
 Of Messrs. Biork and Rudman — Wrangel — Revivals among 
 the Swedes — Separation of Swedes from the Fellowship of 
 Lutherans — Increase of Demand for English Preaching 42 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE DLTCII. 
 
 Commercial Objects — Lutherans worship in Private Dwellings 
 — Persecution — Ptev. John E. Goctwatcr — Rev. Justus Falk- 
 
 ncr— English Language 61 
 
 7 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE GERMANS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Record of German Immigration — Benevolence of Queen Anne 
 — New York — Schohai'ie — The Susquehanna — Arrival of 
 Pastors — Lutherans in Philadelphia — Providence — New Ha- 
 nover — Rev. Henry M. Muhlenberg — Ai'rives in Charleston 
 * — Salzburgers — Arrives in Philadelphia 70 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 CONGREGATIONS ORGANIZED. 
 
 Churches in Philadelphia and its Vicinity — Muhlenberg's Ac- 
 tivity — Increased Demand for Pastors — Handschuh — Kurtz 
 — Schaum — Lancaster 95 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 STATE OF GERMAN CHURCHES. 
 
 German Preformed — Lutheran Population — Church Discipline 
 — Purity of Doctrine — Youthful Piety — Catechetical Instruc- 
 tion — Synod of Pennsylvania organized — Learning of the 
 Clergy — Straitened Circumstances of many Germans — Re- 
 dcmptioners — Neulaender — Impostors — Germans Reserved 
 — Too tenacious of the Mother-Tongue — Consequent Losses 
 of the Church, &c. &c 115 
 
EARLY HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 i'ut|cnra (i[|iircj) iit l^mcrka. 
 
 1^- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SWEDES. 
 
 It is proposed to furnisli a short history of the 
 Evano-elical Lutheran Church in America. The 
 field of observation thus opened is, in itself, so 
 extensive and so full of materials, that the chief 
 difficulty will be in making the history a short 
 one. 
 
 After the agitations of Europe consequent upon 
 the Reformation had begun to subside, various 
 causes combined to arrest and fix upon the newly- 
 discovered Continent of the AVest the practical 
 attention of the nations of the Old World. To 
 some, it appeared as an admirable field for the 
 exercise of a bold and adventurous spirit. Others 
 appreciated it because it promised to reward the 
 enterprise of commerce with the richest gains. 
 
10 EARLY IIISTOEY OF THE 
 
 And yet another class longed for it, and sought it 
 under the noble conviction that it would be an 
 asylum for the oppressed, a refuge from civil and 
 religious persecution, affording to their devout 
 and believing hearts what their native land had 
 denied them, — "freedom to worship God." 
 
 So a company of English adventurers effected 
 the first permanent settlement upon this conti- 
 nent, in Virginia, in the year 1607. The Dutch, 
 impelled by the spirit of mercantile enterprise, 
 established a second colony along the Hudson in 
 1614; and the Puritans, supported through many 
 trials by their faith in God, and enthusiastic for 
 the advancement of his kingdom upon earth, 
 planted the third in I^ew England in 1620. 
 
 Influenced by the progress of these events, 
 many families from the several countries of Eu- 
 rope which had adopted the Augsburg Confession, 
 set out to seek a home and a place to worship 
 God, in the attractive regions of the West. First, 
 and, until the end of his days, most prominent in 
 encouraging this movement, stood that illustrious 
 hero of our faith, Gustavus Adolphus, King of 
 Sweden. The statements of the climate and the 
 soil and the population of America that had 
 reached him were such, that, in his sagacity and 
 the comprehensiveness of his spirit, he rapidly 
 developed a plan for the establishment of colonies 
 in foreign parts, to which emigrants from all Eu- 
 rope were to be invited. The motives that mainly 
 influenced him were these: — the planting of the 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 11 
 
 Christian religion amongst the heathen, the honor 
 of his own kingdom, and the commercial interests 
 of his subjects. 
 
 His own subjects were especially interested. 
 Cheered by the encouraging accounts they had 
 received from the 'New World, many of the inha- 
 bitants of Sweden and Finland turned their long- 
 ing eyes towards what seemed to them to be an 
 earthly paradise. Their piety, their enterprise, 
 were alike engaged and ready to forsake tlieir kin- 
 dred and their homes to brave the dangers of the 
 deep, and so, with the Divine blessing, to carry 
 the intelligent plans of their sovereign into suc- 
 cessful operation. Startling events, however, soon 
 attracted their attention to another quarter, and 
 for a time their peaceful purposes were utterly con- 
 fused by the stern and relentless demands of war. 
 The Protestant princes of Germany, having been 
 compelled to take up arms in defense of their reli- 
 gious rights, placed Gustavus Adolphus at the 
 head of their allied forces. His attention was, of 
 course, at once diverted from the immediate exe- 
 cution of his plan for colonization. Yet he had 
 not forgotten it. Only a few days before that glo- 
 rious victory upon the field of Llitzen, in the blaze 
 of which he lost his life, he recommended to the 
 people of Germany the colonial project, which he 
 still regarded as "the jewel of his kingdom." The 
 enterprise thus so fondly contemplated by the 
 king, was designed to open a safe retreat for the 
 good and defenseless of every land, to be a bless- 
 
12 EAELY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 ing to the common man, and at the same time, 
 without national distinction, to ofier its advantages 
 to the whole Protestant world. 
 
 After the death of Gustavus, the chief control 
 of the undertaking was assumed by Oxenstiern, 
 Prime Minister of Sweden. This distinguished 
 statesman, eminently fitted for the post by his 
 qualities both of mind and heart, urged on the 
 work at once with the intelligence of a patriot 
 and the zeal of a Christian. 
 
 Accordingly, in 1637, two ship-loads of emi- 
 grants from Sweden sail up Delaware Bay. They 
 are richly furnished with provisions for themselves, 
 with merchandize for traffic with the Indians, and 
 with the means of instruction and edification in 
 the holy faith they professed. In all this we can 
 readily discover the industry of their habits, the 
 integrity of their purposes, and the purity of their 
 character. 
 
 The Dutch having already settled upon the east, 
 the Swedes on their arrival purchased and occu- 
 pied the lands on the west of the Delaware, 
 from its mouth far up to the vicinity of Trenton. 
 Tidings of their safety and their pleasant prospects 
 reached their brethren at home. Bands of emi- 
 grants from the Fatherland soon followed, and ere 
 long "the eye of the stranger could begin to gaze 
 with interest upon the signs of public improve- 
 ment, ever regularly advancing from the region 
 of Wilmington to that of Philadelphia." 
 
 The power of Sweden over this territory ceased 
 
LUTHERAN CIIURCn IN AMERICA. 13 
 
 after the lapse of seventeen years. The Swedish 
 colonists, whose numbers perhaps never far ex- 
 ceeded one thousand, were forced to submit to 
 their more powerful neighbors, the Dutch of the 
 JSTew I^etherlands. So, the results which other- 
 wise would naturally have followed from this early 
 establishment of the Lutheran Church in America, 
 were of course greatly interfered with by the civil 
 and political disturbances that so soon elFected the 
 overthrow of Swedish power. 
 
 These events, however, cannot be overlooked 
 in any history of the Lutheran Church in America. 
 The class of Lutherans of the present day that 
 traces its descent from these ancient Swedes, 
 though retaining the name of Lutheran, harmo- 
 nizes in doctrine and in polity with a church that 
 knows not the Augsburg Confession. Their rec- 
 tors and teachers can make it plain enough that 
 they inherit the names and the blood of the early 
 colonists ; but their total separation from the fel- 
 lowship of Lutherans, and the' sportiveness with 
 which they can regard some of the solemn usages 
 of their fathers,* may indicate that, content with 
 
 * Tlie autlior of the " Annals of the Swedes," for example, in 
 giving an account of an ordination of a pastor by three Swedish 
 ministers, not one of whom was a bishop, sees how utterly at va- 
 riance this was with all the views and usages of his own Episcopal 
 Church. As the pastor ordained was to be sent to the Lutheran 
 Church in New York, Mr. Clay gets over the difficulty by facetiously 
 observing, that "perhaps they thought such orders would do for 
 the Dutch." 
 
 2 
 
14 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 the name of the Swedish Church, they have en- 
 tirely relinquished the inheritance of its Lutheran 
 spirit. 
 
 To the Lutheran Church in America that inhe- 
 ritance belongs ; and she has never been backward 
 in the assertion of her claim. Those Swedish co- 
 lonists were Lutherans. They were of the same 
 blood and faith as the noble heroes who a few 
 years before had followed their great prince in the 
 defense of Christian liberty through the battle- 
 fields of Europe, and who, like him, at last lay 
 down in victorious peace upon the plains of Llit- 
 zen. They were Lutherans, bringing the Bible 
 with its Sacraments, the Church with its ministry, 
 the Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism, 
 along with them. Not only was it intended by 
 the originators of the colony that its religious 
 element should be a prominent one; but, as we 
 learn from its records for upwards of a whole cen- 
 tury, a commendable zeal was displayed, both 
 along the Delaware and in the fatherland, to keep 
 that religious element true to its Lutheran type. 
 To plant the Christian religion amongst the 
 
 / heathen, was the first object contemplated by the 
 great Gustavus ; and so the first establishment of 
 Lutheranism in America deserves to be regarded 
 
 ' as that of a missionary Church. The specific form 
 of doctrine, how^ever, to which the colonists were 
 bound both by their own convictions and by the 
 instructions of the government at home, was the 
 form expressed in the familiar words, — "upon the 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 15 
 
 foundation of the apostles and prophets, according 
 to the unaltered Augsburg Confession." 
 
 In the royal instructions sent from Sweden in 
 1642, by John Printz, governor of the colony, 
 whilst the relations he should maintain to all his 
 neighbors, and the efforts he should make for the 
 civil and economical improvement of the people, 
 are minutely specified, the religious, the Lutheran 
 element of the colony is commended to his atten- 
 tion, by a prominence that he could scarcely have 
 overlooked. "Before all," says this letter of in- 
 structions, "the governor must labor and watch 
 that he renders in all things to Almighty God the 
 true worship which is his due, the glory, the praise, 
 and the homage that belongs to him, and take 
 good measures that the Divine Service is performed 
 according to the true Confession of Augsburg, 
 the Council of Upsal, and the ceremonies of the 
 Swedish Church, having care that all men, and 
 especially the youth, be instructed in all the parts 
 of Christianity, and that a good ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline be observed and maintained."* 
 
 We have much reason to believe that these in- 
 structions were faithfully executed In company 
 with Governor Trintz, upon his arrival in 1642, 
 came also the Rev. John Campanius, as chaplain 
 of the colony. We may readily infer, from his 
 enlightened zeal on behalf of the Indians, that he 
 was diligent and devoted as the spiritual guide of 
 
 * Hazard's Aunals of Pennsylvania. 
 
16 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 his own countrymen. His intimacy with the 
 neighboring tribes and their several chiefs was 
 promoted by the successive governors of the co- 
 lony; and with the simplicity and tenderness of 
 one who is dealing with babes, he unfolded before 
 them the great mystery of the gospel, God mani- 
 fest in Christ, reconciling the world unto him- 
 self.* 
 
 Encouraged by the interest they manifested in 
 his instructions, he addressed himself diligently 
 to the study of their language, that he might the 
 more readily proclaim to them in their own tongue 
 the wonderful works of God. The early appear- 
 ance of Luther's Small Catechism, which, like the 
 ^ Augsburg Confession, is one of the symbols of 
 the Church, translated into the language of the 
 Indians, afforded an evidence of his zeal and his 
 success. It could hardly be supposed that we 
 should be indifferent to the circumstances so 
 plainly indicated by these fa^ts, that "Lutherans 
 were the first missionaries of the Cross, at least in 
 O^ji Pennsylvania, and that perhaps the very first work 
 ever translated into the language of the Indians 
 in America was Luther's Small Catechism. "f 
 
 It was not unusual for the Swedish pastors to 
 DC recalled after a few years' residence in the 
 colony, and to be appointed to some valuable 
 and honorable post at home. The result of 
 this w^as many changes in the pastoral relations, 
 
 * Clay's Annals, p. 27. f I^- P- 28. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 17 
 
 and the churches at times were wholly forsaken, 
 like sheep without a shepherd. After the con- 
 quest of the colony hy the Dutch in 1655, many 
 of the principal men and families were violently 
 removed, intercourse with Sweden was almost 
 entirely abandoned, and the congregations, unable 
 to supply their pulpits as they became vacant, 
 were compelled to rely for the conduct of public 
 worship upon the zeal and devotion of laymen 
 themselves. 
 
 Under these circumstances, so unfavorable to 
 the growth and even to the continuance of the 
 Church, we might suppose that their religious zeal 
 would have become deeply chilled, or at least that 
 their affections would have been somewhat re- 
 moved from the fair form of their Lutheran faith. 
 But their Christian zeal and their Lutheran affec- 
 tions nobly survived forty years of trial. After 
 the lapse of that time subsequent to 1655, during 
 which they sometimes had two pastors, sometimes 
 but one, sometimes none at all, they express their 
 hun2:erino;s for the word of the Lord, the preach- 
 ing of the gospel, with a touching importunity ; 
 and their declarations of attachment to the true 
 Lutheran faith rise to the high level of Christian 
 heroism. 
 
 After a long and painful interruption of their 
 intercourse with Sweden, a friend and an advocate 
 was furnished for ihem in the person of John 
 Thelin, a pious man of Gottenburg. Interested 
 himself in their spiritual welfare by the informa- 
 
 2* 
 
18 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 tion he had providentially received, he was able 
 to interest the court of Sweden also on their 
 behalf. In 1692 he addressed them in a letter as- 
 suring them of his Christian sympathy, of the 
 willingness of the King of Sweden to befriend 
 them, and asking to be more particularly informed 
 of their spiritual necessities. Their answer was 
 dated May 31, 1693. Among other things, they 
 state in reply, ''We heartily desire, since it hath 
 pleased his majesty graciously to regard our wants, 
 that there may be sent unto us two Swedish mi- 
 nisters, who are well learned in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and who may be able to defend them and 
 us against all Mse opposers, so that we may pre- 
 serve our true Lutheran faith, which, if called to 
 suffer for our faith, we are ready to seal with our 
 blood. We also request that those ministers may 
 be men of good moral lives and character, so that 
 they may instruct our youth by their example, and 
 lead them into a pious and virtuous way of life.'* 
 In the same letter they request that books of de- 
 votion. Bibles, hymn-books, catechisms, might be 
 purchased in Sweden and forwarded to them, pro- 
 mising at the same a proper maintenance to the 
 ministers after they should arrive. 
 
 Of this letter many copies were taken : it was 
 circulated from hand to hand in Sweden : it drew 
 tears from many eyes.* The king himself took 
 prompt and active measures to answer and even 
 
 * Clay's Annals, pp. 46-47. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 19 
 
 to exceed their prayer. The pious zeal of the 
 Swedes ou the Delaware to preserve among them- 
 selves and their children the pure evangelical reli- 
 gion was highly pleasing to the monarch. Instead 
 of two ministers, as they had modestly asked, he 
 sent them three, — the Rev. Messrs. Kudman, Biork, 
 and Auren. Instead of the few hooks they had 
 requested as a purchase, he sent them hundreds, as 
 a gift. He provided a vessel for the passage of the 
 ministers ; he furnished them with large funds to 
 meet their expenses ; he dismissed them in the 
 name of the Lord ; he invoked the divine hless- 
 ing upon them ; he promised never to forget 
 them.* 
 
 The final departure of these ministers from Swe- 
 den was delayed, for a short time, by a circum- 
 stance that recalls an interesting fact mentioned 
 in the foregoing narrative. They had already 
 taken leave of their friends. They were about to 
 set sail ; but the failure of the printer to furnish 
 them with the Indian catechisms forbade the 
 movement, and they went not, until five hundred 
 copies of Luther's Small Catechism were placed 
 on board. t This book had been translated by 
 Campanius, one of their first ministers, about 
 fifty years before ; and the liberal supply granted 
 to them on this occasion shows at once how anx- 
 ious the Church in Sweden was, that they should 
 be diligent as missionaries of the Cross amongst 
 
 * Cl:iy'3 Annals, p. 5G. f lb. p. 54. 
 
20 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 the heathen, and, in all their instructions, faithful 
 to 'the Symbols of the Lutheran Church.* 
 
 During all this time, and subsequently, the en- 
 terprise and the benevolence of the Swedes was 
 , exercised, to a commendable degree, in the erection 
 1 of churches at suitable points. Fort Christina, on 
 j Christina Creek, where their first settlement was 
 j made in 1638, f Tinicum,J selected as the residence 
 I of Governor Printz in 1646, and Philadelphia, 
 / which Mr. Biork considered, in 1697, as a "clever 
 little town," were the chief places of their solemn 
 assemblies. It will accord best with the brevity 
 to which we are bound, and be quite sufficient for 
 our purpose, if we confine ourselves more parti- 
 cularly to a notice of the place last specified. 
 
 The city of Philadelphia was founded by Wil- 
 liam Penn in 1683. The movements of William 
 Penn in locating his city were opposed by the 
 Swedes, who were the owners of the soil. But 
 
 * A copy of this book is to be seen in the Philadelphia Library. 
 It is ia Indian and Swedish, — the languages alternating. It con- 
 tains every thing usually found in the old German editions, — the five 
 principal parts, the doctrine of confession, tables of duties, and the 
 very prayers. Appended to it is a vocabulary of Indian words and 
 phrases, which, with the catechism, makes a volume of one hundred 
 and sixty pages, duodecimo. The Swedish portion is printed in 
 German and the Indian in Roman characters. It is dated 1696, and 
 both for paper and for type seems to have been put forth in liberal 
 style. The pages of the Catechism itself number one hundred and 
 thirty-five. 
 
 f Now the city of Wilmington, Delaware. 
 
 X Now the Lazaretto, twelve miles below Philadelphia. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 21 
 
 his conciliatory manner, his kind promises, per- 
 haps enforced by a reference to the weight of 
 royal authority which he might call to his aid, 
 and, above all, the liberal exchanges of land which 
 he proposed, disarmed their opposition, and they 
 acquiesced in the plans of the great founder of 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 The stream of intercourse between the Swedes 
 and William Penn ran smoothly. If we refer to 
 the fact that an occasional obstruction disturbed 
 the peaceful current, it may serve to show more 
 clearly what strong claims each part}^ had to the 
 respect and consideration of the other. Their 
 character and bearing were such as to draw from 
 him, on several occasions, a manly testimony in 
 their favor. They received him kindly, a-s they 
 always had, the few English who preceded him. 
 Their respect to authority, and their kind behavior 
 to his own countrymen, he had to commend. He 
 had seen few young men more sober and indus- 
 trious than they could show. He had met with 
 few families more interesting than those of Swedish 
 name. 
 
 Penn's dealings with the Indians have obtained 
 such a record in history as to command the praise 
 of Christians in every land. Under the shade of 
 the large elm-tree in Shakamaxon, the chiefs of 
 the Algonquin race were captivated by the sim- 
 plicity and sincerity of his manners, and by the 
 language of pure aftection in which he addressed 
 them. "We will live," said they, "in love with 
 
22 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 William Penii and liis children, and with his chil- 
 dren's children, as long as the moon and sun en- 
 dure."* It should be remembered, however, that 
 Penn's intercourse with the Indians had been pre- 
 ceded by the Christian labors of pious Lutherans, 
 and that, for forty years, these sons of the forest 
 had been accustomed to hear the truths and to dis- 
 cern the principles of the gospel, proceeding from 
 the lips and exemplified in the lives of Europeans. 
 Along with all the civil intercourse between the 
 Indians and the Swedes, there ran a line of spirit- 
 ual sympathy, which, having begun in the time of 
 Campanius, was afterwards greatly strengthened 
 in the days of Biork and Rudman. It was by 
 such influences, long and steadily operating to 
 subdue the passions and to conciliate the feelings 
 of savage men, that the way was made straight for 
 the successful application of the plans of the great 
 philanthropist. 
 
 Half a mile below the southern limits of the 
 city of Penn, stood the Swedish Church of Wicaco. 
 Having been built in 1669, it had been the scene 
 of gospel ceremonies and of Christian devotion 
 for several years before the arrival of the English 
 colonists. It was, indeed, originally erected by the 
 command of the Government, as a block-house, or 
 place of defense against the Indians ; but the 
 Lutherans, as though they relied more upon the 
 weapons of a spiritual than upon those of a carnal 
 
 * Baircl's Religion in America, p. 70, 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 23 
 
 warfare, converted the fort into a church, and in 
 IGTT called the Rev. Jacob Fabritius as its pastor.* 
 
 Thus, for five years before the arrival of William 
 Penn, the gospel had been preached, its solemn 
 ordinances had been administered, and the voice 
 of rejoicing and salvation had been heard proceed- 
 ing from the tabernacles of Zion, frequented by 
 zealous Lutherans, in the immediate vicinity of 
 what was afterwards the scene of his celebrated 
 treaty. "With the Indians, the Swedes were wont to 
 live in much greater friendship than with the Eng- 
 lish themselves. t There is every reason to believe, 
 that they never forgot their obligations to endeavor 
 to bring them into the marvellous light of the 
 truth; and the efiect of all these circumstances, 
 in calming and controlling the feelings of the In- 
 dians in their intercourse with white men, it were 
 vain to question. Though we would not detract, 
 in the least, from the merited praise of William 
 Penn, yet we may honestly claim that to the 
 Lutheran Church belonged the part of pioneer in 
 the management of a treaty which, for its purity 
 and integrity, has, above all others, a world-wide, 
 an everlasting fame. 
 
 It was at an early period of their ministry that 
 Biork and Rudman began to agitate the subject 
 of church-erection. With little money and with 
 strong faith, a substantial building was commenced 
 
 * Clay's Annals, p. 37. 
 
 f Mr. Biork's Letter in 1G97 ; Clay's Annals, p. G7. 
 
24 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 J at Christina in 1698 ; and on Trinity Sunday, 1699, 
 the church was consecrated to the service of Al- 
 ^ mighty God. When the work began at Christina, 
 there was a similar eflbrt at "Wicaco ; but, in con- 
 sequence of a difference of sentiment as to the 
 proper location of the church, no progress was 
 made for upwards of a year. The difficulty, how- 
 ever, having been removed, the erection of the 
 new church was commenced, on the site of the 
 old church or block-house of 1669. On the first 
 Sunday after Trinity, in the year 1700, in the pre- 
 sence of a large, promiscuous assembly, and by so- 
 lemn acts of devotion, this church was consecrated 
 to the service of God and the preaching of his 
 I word. By their zeal and enterprise, as displayed 
 [ in the erection of these two churches, the Lu- 
 therans had distinguished themselves and com- 
 manded the admiration of their wealthier English 
 neighbors. Their dimensions, the convenience of 
 their internal arrangements, the tasteful simplicity 
 of their adornments, elicited, in that early day, the 
 meed of praise which is now lavished only upon the 
 sacred temple where the costly perfections of art 
 and skill combine to excite all the feelings of awe 
 and veneration. The English inhabitants, having 
 been interested in the progress of the churches at 
 "Wicaco and Christina, continued, long after their 
 consecration, to gaze upon them with wonder. 
 The fame of them was noised abroad to neighbor- 
 ing provinces. Strangers, visiting the region of 
 the Delaware, walked round about these walls of 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 25 
 
 Zlon, and, with respectful mien, wove pleased to 
 enter lier sacred courts. Even the Governors of 
 Maryland and Virginia, — Mcholson and Black- 
 stone, — attended by their respective suites, were 
 gratified on the occasion of seeing with their own 
 eyes these noble monuments of Christian zeal and 
 of Lutheran enterprise.* 
 
 It was through this church at Wicaco, that the 
 principal stream of communication ran between 
 the Swedes and the other adherents of the Lu- 
 theran faith in America. 
 
 The close of the seventeenth and the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century brought large additions 
 to the number of Lutherans. The emis^ration was 
 especially strong between the years 1708 and 1720. 
 Persecuted inhabitants of the Palatinate, rejoicing 
 in the favor and sympathy of Queen Anne, flocked 
 together by thousands upon the shores of Eng- 
 land. They were fed there and clothed by the 
 royal bounty. They were edified by the spiritual 
 attentions of preachers of the court; and when the 
 day of their departure arrived, four thousand Ger- 
 mans at once found accommodations upon ten 
 ships prepared for a voyage to the Western World.f 
 The immediate history of these emigrants, who 
 landed in N'ew York, June 13, 1710, belongs to 
 another branch of our subject. Though the main 
 body attempted to settle in the interior of ^ew 
 York, the proportion that came at once to the 
 
 V 
 
 Clay's Annals, p. 83. f Ilalle Reports, p. 473. 
 
f/J 
 
 26 EABLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 province of Pennsylvania was not a small one. 
 These emigrants, 'tis true, contributed nothing of 
 any direct value in the establishment of the Church. 
 Without religious teachers to instruct and build 
 them up in the faith of the gospel, surrounded by 
 sects which, though small, were contentious, and 
 too much engrossed by the cares of this life, they 
 served, at best, only as pioneers to prepare the 
 way for their brethren who were soon to follow.* 
 
 This service they eflectually rendered. The 
 Bible, the hymn-book, and Arndt's True Chris- 
 tianity, with which they had been generously fur- 
 nished by the munificence of friends in England, 
 enlivening the hours of their rest and their devo- 
 tion, still bound them to the faith of their fathers ; 
 and when the tide of emigration began again to 
 flow, it was towards the province chosen by these 
 earlier emigrants that its current was directed. 
 
 The Lutheran families that arrived during this 
 next period of emigration between 1720 and 1740 
 were both numerous and hearty in their attach- 
 ment to the Church. From the Palatinate, from 
 Wurtemberg, from Darmstadt, from other portions 
 of Germany, they came, having one Lord, one 
 faith, one baptism. Many of them sought and 
 found a home in Philadelphia and its vicinity, and, 
 although unable in their poverty either to build 
 church or school-house, or even to secure the 
 ground for such an object, they nevertheless main- 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. GG6. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 27 
 
 tained the unity of the faith, and hopefully awaited 
 a more prosperous day. 
 
 Upon the arrival of Henry Melchior Muhlenherg 
 in 1742, he found the Lutheran Church of the I 
 Germans in Philadelphia in the hahit of holding ) 
 public worship in a small house that had been / 
 rented for tho purpose. The interest awakened 
 by his appeariince amongst them was such, that in 
 a short time this house was altogether too small 
 to accommodate the growing crowds. The Lu- 
 theran Church of the Swedes was generously of- 
 fered for the use of the Germans ; and so it hap- 
 pened, that the consecrated walls within which 
 the father of the Lutheran Church in America \/ 
 first proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ 
 were those of the Swedes at Wicaco.* Upon a 
 set day in this church there was a novel and at- 
 tractive ceremony, refreshing doubtless to many a 
 w^eary heart, and sanctioned by the holy offices of 
 religion. The Swedes and the Germans were ga- 
 thered together. Muhlenberg presented his testi- 
 monials and letters of recommendation. The 
 senior pastor of the Swedes opened and read them in 
 the hearing of al! the people ; and there, in the midst 
 of songs of praise and fervent prayer, Muhlenberg / 
 was solemnly installed as regular pastor of the 
 German Lutherans in and around Philadelphia.f 
 
 A union of hands between the poorer Germans 
 and the more prosperous Swedes, apparently so 
 
 * HaUe Reports, p. 717. f lb. p. G7L 
 
28 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 earnest and sincere as tins, might well suggest the 
 thought that there must also have been a unity 
 of heart, all the goodly, pleasant fellowship of 
 brethren. Such in truth there was; and it is this 
 and the long continuance of it that justifies us in 
 the belief, that the early progress of the Swedish con- 
 gregations, now separated though they be, belongs 
 to the history of the Lutheran Church in America. 
 
 With such a beginning, we might expect to find 
 Muhlenberg, though the pastor of the Germans, 
 moving freely and figuring largely among the 
 Swedes. And when we find them, in their pros- 
 perous settlements along the Schuylkill, clustering 
 around him and begging him, with tears in their 
 eyes, to visit them and preach to them upon the 
 Lord's day, — when we see him administer the holy 
 Sacraments in their devout assemblies, — when w^e 
 hear them testify, with joyful hearts, that these im- 
 pressive scenes reminded them of apostolic times,* 
 — ^^ve have no difiiculty in concluding, that the 
 Swedes and the Germans of this earlier period 
 w^ere one united family in all the completeness of 
 Christian fellowship. 
 
 The fruits of Muhlenberg's pastoral fidelity, and 
 of the adherence of the Swedes to the doctrine 
 and order of the Lutheran Church, began in due 
 time to ripen. In the year 1759,. there arrived 
 from Sweden a young man duly accredited as 
 provost or chief pastor of the Swedish churches. 
 
 * Ilalle Reports, pp. 2G7-278. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 29 
 
 This was Charles Magnus Wrangel, of whom wo ^ 
 may say, in relation to the other Swedish pastors, 
 that in gifts, in labors, and in success, he was not 
 a whit behind them. He preached the word of 
 the Lord, and the dry bones lived. He attracted 
 the young; he aroused and quickened the old. 
 Crowds, drawn by his captivating eloquence, 
 thronged around him in the open air. He was 
 wholly given to the work. He seemed as one re- 
 solved to make full proof of his ministry ; and his 
 brethren, for whom Muhlenberg himself testifies, 
 thought that a special blessing rested upon his 
 labors and a special providence protected his life.* 
 They persuaded themselves, indeed, that they 
 could trace in him certain features of resemblance 
 to the Great Apostle ; for at times he also had a 
 thorn in the flesh, lest he might be exalted above 
 measure; and again, when persecutions abounded 
 and the cross had grown heavy, some new triumpli 
 was granted to him, lest he might be swallowed 
 up with sorrow.* His personal demeanor Avas 
 marked by the graces of simplicity and gentleness, 
 and his conversation was richly instructive to all 
 who might be interested in the things of the king- 
 dom of God.f 
 
 The intercourse between Muhlenberg and 
 "Wrangel, frequent and cordial as it was, was at 
 the same time both the cause and the eftect of a 
 corresponding fellowship between the German and 
 
 * Ilalle Reports, p. 852. f lb. p. Sol. 
 
30 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 the Swedish Churches. As being parts of one 
 and the same Evangelical Lutheran Church, what 
 could have separated them ? The diiference of 
 their languages was no stronger element of dis- 
 union then, than has been the difference between 
 the German and the English of later generations; 
 and, with these two languages prevailing in her 
 borders until the present day, no sound head has 
 ever contemplated the project of a division of the 
 Lutheran Church upon the principle of speech. 
 Her glory might be, that even unto this day she 
 possesses and exercises the gift of tongues, through- 
 out the Union and the adjacent colonies. She holds 
 on to the stirring Saxon of the great Eeformer: 
 when occasion requires, she preaches the gospel 
 and administers its sacraments in the languages of 
 Holland and of France ; whilst the English, the 
 Swedish, and the ISTorwegian are the ordinary forms 
 in which she declares the w^hole counsel of God. 
 Thus diverse in her gifts, she yet continues one in 
 the integrity of her faith and the activity of her 
 benevolence. On the ground of language, then, 
 there could have been no separation between the 
 Germans and the Swedes in the days of "Wrangel 
 and of Muhlenberg. 
 
 Nor could they have been separated upon the 
 principle of any fundamental distinction in eccle- 
 siastical polity. The Church in Sw^eden, 'tis true, 
 has somewhat of an Episcopal Constitution; but 
 this episcopacy is maintained upon the ground of 
 convenience, of political expediency, and not, as is 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 31 
 
 the Episcopacy of England, upon the assumed 
 principle of apostolic succession. 
 
 As though they regarded episcopacy as a mere 
 matter of expediency, belonging only to an esta- 
 blished Church and to a monarchical government, 
 the Swedish pastors and churches in America seem 
 to have been ready to ignore it from the beginning. 
 In the year 1691, apprehending, from the infirmi- 
 ties of his old age, that their venerable pastor Fa- 
 britius might soon be removed from his labors, 
 they addressed an earnest appeal to the Lutheran 
 Consistory in Amsterdam, supplicating them, in 
 consideration of their "happy fellowship in the 
 Lutheran communion," to ordain and send to them 
 some faithful Swedish student, qualified to minis- 
 ter in holy things. The ordination thus solicited 
 Tvas that of the Lutheran Church, disclaiming the 
 lofty pretensions of apostolic succession, concern- 
 ing which they do not seem to have entertained a 
 thought.* 
 
 Shortly after the beginning of the last centurj^, 
 three of their most eminent pastors — E,ev. Messrs. 
 Eudman, Biork, and Sandel — ordained 3 \x^i\\^ Falk- 
 ner, in the church at Wicaco ;t and in the month 
 of August, 1748, the Swedish pastors Sandin and 
 IS'"esman united with the Germans, Muhlenberg, 
 Hartwich, Brunnholtz, and Handschuh, at a meet- 
 ing of synod in St. Michael's Church, Philadelphia, 
 in the ordination of Kurtz to the gospel ministry, 
 
 * Clay's Annals, pp. 38, 137 f lb. p. 8G. 
 
32 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 by tlie laying on of bands.* In a word, tbeir 
 uniform doctrine upon tbis subject seems to bave 
 barmonized fully witb tbe representations wbicb 
 Dr. Collin was wont to give to tbe Lutberans of 
 Pbiladelpbia, in bis day. Tbe amount of bis tes- 
 timony was, tbat wbilst tbe people of Sweden 
 would no doubt prefer to bave bisbops placed over 
 tbe Cburcb as a matter of convenience or expe- 
 diency, yet no one would ever tbink of putting 
 fortb in tbeir bebalf tbe claim of divine rigbt or 
 apostolic succession.f 
 
 Tbe Swedes and tbe Germans, tben, were truly 
 one Lutberan Cburcb, — bolding tbe unity of tbe 
 Spirit in tbe bonds of peace. Wben we study tbe 
 Cbristian fellowsbip tbat subsisted between Mub- 
 lenberg and Wrangel, we discover tbat, tbougb 
 somewbat more intense, it was nevertbeless only 
 upon a smaller scale tban tbe fellowsbip between 
 tbe cburcbes tbemselves. Tbese men were botb 
 learned, laborious, and devout. Tbeir zeal was 
 intelligent and aggressive ; and tbe effect of tbeir 
 intimate association was to encourage Ibemselves 
 and tbeir people to faitb and good works. 
 
 Tbe bistory of a few days will answer as a sketcb 
 of tbeir intercourse for years. On tbe Lord's 
 day, July 26, 1761, in tbe afternoon, Mublenberg 
 
 * Hallo Reports, p. 111. 
 
 I My authority for this is a venerable . pastor of the Lutheran 
 Church in Philadelphia, who, after a ministry in that city of fifty 
 years, still retains in a remarkable way the laborious zeal and the 
 intellectual vigor of his early days. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 33 
 
 preaches English in one of the Swedish congrega- 
 tions, and returns through a heavy rain to AVicaco. 
 Late at night Wrangel comes hack to Wicaco, wet 
 and sick, from Jersey. The next day they ride to 
 the residence of Pastor Handschuh, and, accom- 
 panied hy elders and members of the church, and 
 the children and teachers of the congregational 
 school, they walk in procession to the new school- 
 house of the Germans, and solemnly consecrate 
 it. In the afternoon, Muhlenberg, Wrangel, and 
 Handschuh, edify themselves in the residence of 
 the latter with the word of God and with prayer. 
 On Tuesday, Muhlenberg and Wrangel visit some 
 Christian friends together, and are much refreshed 
 in spirit by their godly conversation. At night 
 they arrive at Wicaco, and there remain. The 
 next day they set out to pay pastoral visits in the 
 Swedish congregations, and, after a day of physical 
 toil but of spiritual joy, they arrive at the resi- 
 dence of Mr. John Tailor, one of the proprietors 
 of Tinicum. This man had been a Quaker or 
 Friend ; but, having been instructed by Wrangel 
 in the doctrines and sacraments of the gospel, he 
 had been baptized. The Lord had opened his 
 heart, and, in the spirit of Lydia, he opened his 
 liouse to the man of God who had shown him 
 the way of salvation. With Tailor and his believ- 
 ing wife they remain ; and thc}^ edify themselves 
 with Christian converse and with prayer until the 
 hour of retiring. On Thursday they visit the old 
 graveyard at Tinicum, and gaze thoughtfully upon 
 
34 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 the memorials of the ancient Swedes, and upon the 
 ruins of the first Christian church erected in these 
 Western wilds. At noon Muhlenberg preaches to 
 an attentive congregation; and in the afternoon 
 they take part in a meeting called for the purpose 
 of devising measures to erect a new church. At 
 this meeting Muhlenberg and Wrangel are chosen 
 as trustees. In the evening they return to Wran- 
 gel's residence at AYicaco.* We can scarcely re- 
 frain from continuing this interesting record, 
 revealing as it does the pastoral fidelity, the per- 
 sonal piety, the fraternal harmony of these noble 
 men. We follow it up a little further, and we find 
 them meeting on the next Sunday evening again 
 at Wicaco, both exhausted by the labors of the 
 day, and both seeking to refresh their spirits at the 
 fountain of mercy. We look again, and we see 
 how, after the arduous duties of the following 
 Tuesday morning, Wrangel is pleased to accom- 
 pany Muhlenberg from house to house in the after- 
 noon, for the purpose of conversing and praying 
 with awakened and inquiring souls. f 
 
 In this fraternal union the other pastors and the 
 congregations of the Swedes and Germans largely 
 shared. Being of one mind in regard to the 
 Symbols of the Lutheran faith, and bound by those 
 symbols only to the doctrines of the word of God, 
 they required no foreign influences to unite and 
 cement them together. But the authorities of the 
 
 * Ilalle Reports, p. 8G7. f lb. p. 869. 
 
LUTHERAN CnURCH IN AMERICA. 35 
 
 Church in Sweden, hearing of this fellowship, felt 
 themselves called upon to applaud and encourage 
 it. On Monday, Scptemher 15, 1760, the Provost 
 Wrangel opened a regular Conference of Swedish 
 pastors in the church at Wicaco. Muhlenberg, 
 having been personally invited by Dr. Wrangel, 
 was also present. The first matter laid before the 
 Conference was the letter of instructions from the 
 Archbishop of Upsal, the highest dignitary of the 
 Church in Sweden. In this letter, among other 
 things, it was ordained that the Swedish pastors 
 should to the fullest extent co-operate with the 
 German Lutheran Ministerium in brotherly love 
 and Christian harmony ; that the Swedes should 
 attend the synodical meetings of the Germans, and 
 invite the Germans to participate in their solemn 
 conventions, in order that the welfare of the whole 
 Church might be thus promoted. Observing the 
 hearty acquiescence of the Swedes in this arrange- 
 ment, Muhlenberg arose, and on behalf of the 
 German Ministerium returned thanks for the inte- 
 rest that the archbishop had been pleased to ex- 
 press in the welfare of the Church in America; 
 announcing at the same time his joyful hope that 
 by such a union its prosperity, under the divine 
 blessing, might be secured.* 
 
 Among the transactions of the same Conference, 
 great prominence was given, and as a matter of 
 history is still due, to another measure, that was 
 
 ^ Halle Reports, p. 852. 
 
36 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 intended to protect the Swedish pastors and their 
 congregations against a certain catastrophe, in 
 which by the force of circumstances they became 
 after a few years involved. 
 
 Here and there, in the vicinity of the Swedes, 
 might be found some congregations, larger or 
 smaller, composed of members of the Episcopal 
 Church of England, more or less organized. The 
 nominal Episcopacy of the Lutheran Church in 
 Sweden appeared to these High-Church Episco- 
 palians a sufficient reason for acknowledging the 
 validity of the acts of the Swedish pastors, in the 
 absence of rectors of their own order. In their 
 desire for the ministry of the word, they held out 
 honorable inducements to the Swedish pastors to 
 minister at their altars ; and the willingness of the 
 Swedes to preach the gospel to every creature in- 
 clined them, at times, to give ear to these solicita- 
 tions. The whole subject was brought to the 
 attention of the Conference, and a rule was esta- 
 blished that the Swedish pastors should not be 
 moved by pecuniary considerations to take charge 
 of any Episcopal church, since a faithful ministry 
 amongst their own people would occupy all their 
 time. Could they, however, by a diligent use 
 of their time, occasionally visit these English 
 churches and serve them with the means of 
 grace, according to the doctrine and order of the 
 Lutheran Church, it would then be proper, upon 
 the principle of Christian love, that they should 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 37 
 
 pay some attention to certain specified Episcopal 
 parishes.* 
 
 Strangely enough, history has to record the sub- 
 sequent marshalling of all these Swedish churches 
 under the banner of English Episcopacy ; but it 
 is due to them to observe, that this swerving from 
 the faith and order of the Lutheran Church was a 
 movement against which they seem to have been 
 anxious to protect themselves, by deliberate and 
 solemn enactments. They were bound only to 
 the Brethren of the Augsburg Confession ; and 
 when occasionally ministering amongst their Epis- 
 copal neighbors, they acknowledged their obli- 
 gations to contend for the faith only under the 
 Symbols of Lutheranism. 
 
 At the conclusion of this Conference, it was 
 advised that a meeting of the German pastors 
 should be convened at an early day, in order that 
 the existing condition of the wdiole Church might 
 be ascertained. As to the time, the month of 
 October was agreed upon ; and Providence, now 
 called "The Trappe," in Montgomery county, the 
 residence of Muhlenberg, was fixed as the place. f 
 
 Accordingly, on the 18th of October, 1760, the 
 Conference met. There were, amongst others, 
 Muhlenberg and Wrangel, Gerock, of Lancaster, 
 and Ilausile, of Reading, the two Kurtzes, Schaum, 
 and Ilandschuh. The next day was the Lord's 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 853. f Ibid. 
 
 4 
 
38 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 day. Germans and Swedes alike thronged to- 
 gether from a region many miles around, to par- 
 take in the rare privileges of the occasion. The 
 Lord blessed the provision of his house, and filled 
 his poor with bread. 
 
 Upon the conclusion of the morning and after- 
 noon services, the assembled pastors retired to the 
 parsonage, and united in converse touching holy 
 things. They discussed the elements of a broken 
 and truly contrite heart, of faith, and of righteous- 
 ness. They drew near to each other, interchanging 
 the results of self-examination and personal expe- 
 rience of the grace of God, until their very hearts 
 throbbed with holy joj. In the evening, and in 
 the same place, they lifted up the voice of praise, 
 they sang their favorite hymns, they accompanied 
 themselves with an instrument of music, they con- 
 versed about the internal affairs of their congrega- 
 tions, they prolonged and varied the soul-stirring 
 melodies, they noticed not the passage of the swift- 
 winged hours, and the clock struck three at night 
 before they thought of resigning nature to its 
 repose.* 
 
 One of the most active members of this Con- 
 ference was the Swedish provost, "Wrangel ; and 
 the first business brought before it was a matter 
 in which Wrangel had taken a very prominent 
 part. A certain Paul Bryzelius, a 3'Oung man, a 
 native of Sweden, well educated, of good parts, 
 
 ""■ Halle Repoi-ts, p. 855. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 39 
 
 and of upright character, having been brought 
 under the influence of some who were not friendly 
 to the Lutheran Church, appeared to be acting as 
 their instrument in an attempt to draw ofl" the 
 Swedish church at Racoon, in N'ew Jersey, from 
 the Lutheran communion to that of his patrons. 
 Wrangel had approached him in the name and 
 with the word of the Lord. Bryzelius saw his 
 error, was convinced, repented of it, and, under the 
 advice of Wrangel, appeared before the Conference 
 with a prayer for admission into the fellowship of 
 the Lutheran Church. After a thorough examina- 
 tion of the case before the Ministerium, Brj'zelius 
 declared, in writing, that, having been thoroughly 
 convinced of his error and having heartily aban- 
 doned it, he solemnly bound himself, upon his 
 admission into the Ministerium of the Swedes 
 and German Lutherans of Pennsylvania, to teach 
 nothing but what is based upon the word of God, 
 to conform, in all his ministrations, to our Sym- 
 bolical Books, and to comply with the order of 
 the said Ministerium. This document w^as signed, 
 in the presence of the Ministerium, by Bryzelius 
 himself, and by Muhlenberg, Wrangel, and Ge- 
 rock, as witnesses. The whole ceremony was 
 appropriately terminated w^ith prayer that the 
 brother thus restored to the Church might, by the 
 grace of God, be an instrument for bringing many 
 souls to the Saviour of the world.* 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 85G. 
 
40 EAIILY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 From the result, it might be argued that the 
 divine blessing rested upon these measures. Bry- 
 zelius went to the church in 'New Germantown, 
 J^ew Jersey, labored with much acceptance amongst 
 his people, and was held in honor, both by his 
 Swedish and German brethren, for his faithfulness. 
 
 This case, though it is the personal history of an 
 individual, shows conclusively what was the spirit 
 of the Lutherans in 1760. A Swedish minister 
 reclaimed by the prayerful eiibrts of the Swedish 
 provost is brought to the Synod of the Swedes 
 and Germans, and, being pledged to preach the 
 word of God according to the doctrine and order 
 of the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church, 
 is sent to take charge of a German Lutheran con- 
 gregation. The union, the harmony of spirit, 
 between the Swedes and Germans was most com- 
 plete. There was but one Lutheran Church, to 
 which they all belonged ; and, whatever courtesy 
 they were wont to display towards other Churches, 
 among themselves they cultivated, in a peculiar 
 degree, the sentiments of brethren. 
 
 It is of considerable importance to observe, that 
 the course thus adopted and pursued by "Wrangel 
 and his Swedish brethren met with the approba- 
 tion of the Church and Government that had sent 
 them hither. After the labors of about nine years 
 in preaching the gospel of Christ and promoting 
 unity of spirit and action amongst all the adhe- 
 rents of the Lutheran faith in America, he was 
 recalled to his native land, and rewarded with one 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 41 
 
 of tiie most prominent appointments that the Go- 
 vernment 1 )f Sweden had to bestow. The departure 
 of the distinguished provost called forth many ex- 
 pressions of regret from the whole Church. Muh- 
 lenberg especially has recorded the sorrow with 
 which he received the intelli2:ence of "Wrano-crs 
 removal. Yet time and space could not destroy 
 the fellowship of those congenial spirits. They had 
 long labored together in joy and in sorrow. They 
 had stood side by side at the altar in Wicaco and in 
 Providence. In journeyings oft, they had nobly 
 shared in the burden that came upon them both, — 
 the care of all the churches. With their large 
 experience, they had legislated together in synodi- 
 cal session ; with childlike simplicity, they had read 
 the word of God and bowed before the throne of 
 grace in company; and they still continued to 
 take sweet counsel together, and to co-operate for 
 the advancement of the Lutheran Church in 
 America, though an ocean rolled between them. 
 
 4* 
 
48 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF THE SWEDES. 
 
 In pursuing the history of the Church, the heart 
 of the Christian is ever on the alert to discover in 
 each particular period the condition of that divine 
 kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost. It is indeed a matter of in- 
 terest to know where congregations were organ- 
 ized, where churches were built, what doctrines 
 were professed, what efforts were made for the dif- 
 fusion of gospel light upon the earth, and what 
 were their general results. The external history 
 of the Church, aflbrding, as it does, most attractive 
 instances of the plans of genius, the fearlessness 
 of heroism, the sacrifices and conflicts of benevo- 
 lence, with its subsequent triumphs, might well 
 eugage and absorb the attention of minds that 
 are prone to seek excitement amid the agitated 
 scenes of human passions, or addicted to indulge 
 even in the intoxications of romance. 
 
 But, in the estimation of the Christian, the 
 King's daughter is all glorious within. He enters 
 the sanctuary of Zion, that he may see the goings 
 of the Lord, the Holy One, and he feels lonely and 
 comfortless, amid all the splendor of her courts, 
 unless he realizes the divine presence there. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 43 
 
 What was the spirit of the Swedish churches ? 
 Were they bound up in cold formalism and in 
 rigid orthodoxy ? Were they animated by a fer- 
 vent and intelligent zeal for the gospel of Christ 
 and the conversion of souls ? Did they labor, with 
 faithfulness and success, to bring men from the 
 power of Satan to God? Did they insist with 
 becoming earnestness upon the renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost, and train their people to the exercise 
 of that faith that worketh by love ? These are 
 questions of importance ; and it is with no small 
 degree of interest that we advance to consider 
 them. 
 
 Their enterprise in the erection of churches, 
 their anxious care to have them supplied with an 
 able and faithful ministry, that might defend the 
 truth against all opposers and train their children 
 in the way of life, afford strong presumptive evi- 
 dence that their piety was active, experimental, 
 and sincere. With no further indications of their 
 Christian character than these circumstances afford, 
 we might dispose of them under the conviction 
 that everywhere their memory would be held in 
 honor, even by those who are accustomed to the 
 special and active measures of the present day. 
 But we are able to look more deeply into the rela- 
 tions of their inner life. Their historians and an- 
 nalists, 'tis true, have not in general appeared much 
 inclined to turn their investigations into this chan- 
 nel. Their attention vras mainly occupied with 
 the civil polity of the Swedes, and the external 
 
44 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 history of their churches; but in the midst of all 
 this they furnish us with occasional facts of great 
 value in their spiritual bearing, — occasional, yet fre- 
 quent enough to convince us that it is the fault of 
 the annalists themselves that such statements are 
 so rare. After the German churches under Muh- 
 lenberg and his bretliren had been well established, 
 and Swedes and Germans had been confirmed in 
 the unity of the faith, it was natural that the cir- 
 cumstantial reports of the German congregations 
 should at the same time present the spiritual con- 
 dition of their Swedish brethren. So, when w^e 
 attempt to describe the religious standing of the 
 latter, our principal source of information will be 
 found in the Halle Reports, devoted though they 
 are to the cause and interests of the former. If 
 any portions of the History of 'Ne\Y Sweden, by 
 Acrelius, have a bearing upon this subject, they 
 are still locked up in the original Swedish tongue, 
 and will probably remain so until some zealous 
 inheritor of the blood of the early Swedes shall 
 bring forth the record in some other speech more 
 prevalent in our land.* 
 
 The efforts of Campanius, forty years before the 
 arrival of William Penn, to convert the Indians to 
 the faith of the gospel, have not only the appear- 
 ance of zeal ; they have also the indisputable merit 
 of intelligent Christian perseverance. By his pa- 
 tient teaching he succeeded in making them under- 
 
 Yct a translation of tliis work is reported. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 45 
 
 stand many of the cardinal truths of the gospeL 
 They took so much interest in his instructions, and 
 seemed so well prepared for further advancement 
 in the knowledge of Christ, that he studied their 
 language in order that he might make full proof 
 of his ministry amongst them.* As he did not 
 faint, we have the assurance of the divine word 
 that in due season he was able to reap. So it is 
 no slight commendation of the character of the 
 Swedish Churches that impresses us, when, as we 
 discover in the earty times the distinguished Puri- 
 tan, Eliot, toiling for the edifying of Christians and 
 the conversion of Indians in Massachusetts, we can 
 turn straightway towards the South and find the 
 equalh'-faithful Lutheran, Campanius, accomplish- 
 incr the same thino; alone; the Delaware. 
 
 About the close of the seventeenth century, the 
 Kev. Messrs. Biork and Rudman, upon their ar- 
 rival from Sweden, were sadly grieved at the dis- 
 covery of the state of the Church, the irregularity 
 of the congregations, their neglect of the ordi- 
 nances of the gospel, and especially their forget- 
 fulness of the proper training of the youth. Like 
 reasonable men, however, they accounted for it by 
 the fact, that the churches had long suffered for 
 the want of the requisite pastoral attention. Like 
 hopeful Christians, too, they promised themselves 
 and their congregations that these things should 
 be mended, if God would grant them life.f The 
 
 * Clay's Annals, p. 27. f lb. p. GG. 
 
46 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 road before them was rough, but they would not 
 spare themselves. They would labor diligently in 
 word and doctrine, so that with God's blessing the 
 crooked might become straight and the rough 
 places smooth. 
 
 Trained in the same school as Campanius had 
 been fifty years before, they trod faithfully in his 
 footsteps, and were worthy to be the successors of 
 this co-laborer of Eliot among the Indians. They 
 had been largely supplied with Luther's Cate- 
 chism, in the Indian tongue. They found ready 
 access to the neighboring tribes. They were 
 surprised and encouraged by the aptness of the 
 Indians to learn from the lay teacher, Charles 
 Springer, to whom they had intrusted this minis- 
 tr}^ They hoped for great results. They said, 
 "Who knows what God has yet in store for these 
 Indians, if our lives should be spared, when we 
 shall have acquired their language? "We shall 
 spare no labor to attain that object."-'' 
 
 The labors of these two pastors seem to have 
 resulted in a genuine revival of religion through- 
 out the whole Lutheran community. It was not, 
 indeed, attended by those forms of excitement — 
 those public indications of religious awakening — 
 that have marked the extensive revivals of later 
 years; but it had in it all the elements that could 
 be expected from a genuine work of grace amongst 
 a people of mild and amiable character, of gentle 
 
 ^^ Clay's Annals, p. 68. 
 
LUTHEKAX CHURCH IN AMERICA. 47 
 
 and retiring Jiabits. Of the large number of 
 Bibles, li^-nin-books, prayer-books, and other 
 books of devotion sent from Sweden, not one was 
 unemployed.* They were read. They were car- 
 ried from house to house. They were passed from 
 hand to hand. They were devoured. They en- 
 countered the treatment, and the}^ produced the 
 results, which, colporteurs tell us, belong to the 
 history of some stray copies of Baxter's Saints' 
 Rest, or of Doddridge's Rise and Progress, which, 
 working their lonely way through the few house- 
 holds of some dreary regions, are silent, though 
 mighty, in opening the eyes of the blind and 
 bringing mourning sinners to the Saviour. The 
 Swedish churches arose at once, and shook them- 
 selves from the dust: they put on garments of 
 beautv. Reliscion flourished in the household, the 
 
 I/O ' 
 
 children were carefully instructed in the doctrines 
 of the gospel, and parents and children, walking 
 in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the 
 Holy Ghost, were edified. f 
 
 The period of Wrangel's labors among the 
 Swedes began in 1759 and ended in 1768. During 
 all this time the intimacy between the Swedish 
 and German churches was particularly cordial ; 
 and it is mainly in consequence of this intimacy 
 that we are furnished with the information that 
 will enable us to form a correct estimate of the 
 character and spirit of the Swedish congregations. 
 
 * Clay's Annals, p. G8. J lb. pp. 71. 83. 
 
48 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 In those days a religious party of the English, 
 and several sects of the Germans, were loud, if 
 not eloquent, in the maintenance of a certain 
 negative position, against which it has always 
 been the glory of the Lutheran Church to present 
 a positive princi]3le. These parties derided Lu- 
 ther's Catechism. They opposed the use of what 
 they called the letter of the divine word in the 
 instruction of the young. In their social inter- 
 course, and when the Spirit was thought to move 
 them in their meetings, they testified that it was 
 wrong, it was sinful, to attempt to influence the 
 minds of children by the use either of the one or 
 of the other. "Let the youth," said they, "be 
 unprejudiced, uncommitted, until they shall re- 
 ceive the baptism by fire and the inspiration of 
 the Holy Ghost, which shall all be given in his 
 own good place and time."* But the Lutherans, 
 always apprehensive that tares were sure to grow 
 where no good seed was sown, — that where the 
 light was not made to shine there gross darkness 
 must prevail, — steadily persisted in their eftbrts to 
 train their children under the influence of the 
 Bible and the catechism. The cultivation of re- 
 ligion in the household, the treatment of the chil- 
 dren, both by parents and pastors, as though they 
 already stood in covenant-relations with God by 
 virtue of their baptism, and required the most 
 prayerful attention that they might be rendered 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 1199. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. 49 
 
 steadfast and adorn their profession, — these are 
 principles in the illustration of which the Lu- 
 theran Church, during all the periods of its pros- 
 perity, must be acknowledged to abound. 
 
 It was so among the Swedes in the days of 
 "Wrangel. In the Conference of Lutheran minis- 
 ters at Wicaco, and afterwards at the Trappe, his 
 high character and the weighty influence he was 
 exerting amongst his people are indicated by his 
 tender regard for the divine command, "Feed my 
 sheep; feed my lambs." The care and labor he 
 devoted to his congregations, that they might live 
 and flourish in the spirit of the gospel, seemed to 
 his brethren to be truly astonishing. When they 
 speak of his preaching, our impression is that his 
 strength belonged to the pulpit, so lucid were his 
 exhibitions of gospel truth, so effective his instruc- 
 tions, so close his applications, so stirring his ap- 
 peals in the sacred desk. When we follow him 
 in his pastoral walks, our impression may be quite 
 as positive, that his strength lay in the fidelity 
 with which he preached the gospel from house to 
 house, and the interest with which he invested 
 the catechetical instruction of the young. 
 
 The recommendations which he eloquently 
 urged upon the attention of his Lutheran brethren 
 in the Conference at the Trappe, in 1760, may be 
 regarded as descriptive of the usages of the Swedish 
 churches ; they certainly were of those of the 
 Germans in the times of Muhlenberg. The same 
 catechism (Luther's Small Catechism) was studied 
 
50 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 in all the churclies. The pastor visited the con- 
 gregational schools and the families of his people, 
 and sought, by the use of the catechism, to pre- 
 sent the doctrines of the gospel in a plain, simple, 
 attractive form, so that the children themselves 
 would desire it as the sincere milk of the word. 
 Care was taken that the memory should not be 
 burdened with ojDpressive tasks; yet every doc- 
 trine was to be proven and established by some 
 apt passage of the Scripture. It was the duty of 
 the parents and the pastor to see that whatever 
 was committed to memory was thoroughly under- 
 stood, so that not only the memory, but also all 
 the affections of the soul, might be occupied with 
 the good word of God.* 
 
 There had been times in which the Swedes 
 were remiss in that devout observance of the 
 sacraments of the gospel that is characteristic of a 
 faith that worketh by love. They neglected espe- 
 cially the table of the Lord. Guilty fears and a 
 legal spirit drove them from it, until old age had 
 settled upon them, or until Providence had laid 
 them upon the bed of death. But the tears and 
 eloquent appeals of Wrangel, the devout spirit, 
 the steady perseverance of Borrel, the hearty co- 
 operation of Bryzelius and Wicksel, through the 
 blessing oT God, effected a thorough, a happy 
 change ; and, from the weeping and the praying with 
 which both old and young surrounded the table 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 853. 
 
LUTnERAN CIIURCn IN AMERICA. 51 
 
 of the Lord upon their solemn festivals, it might he 
 argued that a blessing had indeed been bestowed 
 upon them, and that God had visited his people.* 
 
 By their varied and untiring efforts, the Church 
 prospered; Zion seemed to break forth on the 
 right hand and on the left. From time to time 
 there were souls added to the number of the faith- 
 ful, with whom the Swedes had had no nearer 
 connection than the common ties of humanity. 
 At one time Roman Catholics were brought to 
 the knowledge of the truth of the gospel ; at 
 another, Quakers were baptized in the name of 
 the Holy Trinity ; and again, negroes, the chil- 
 dren of Ethiopia, were admitted to the household 
 of faith and the table of the Lord.f Their pastors, 
 with Wraugel at their head, "worked themselves 
 almost to death" in building up the kingdom of 
 Christ; and in their seasons of retirement they 
 could but Aveep over the desolations they saw 
 around them. In this laboring in public and 
 weeping in private, this ceaseless remembrance 
 of Zion, we discover the solution of Muhlenberg's 
 testimony in 1761 : — "There seems to be a special 
 revival and a peculiar blessing abiding upon the 
 Swedish churches. "J 
 
 A revival in the sense of Muhlenberg was un- 
 questionably a work of the Holy Spirit. Such 
 works it w^as his privilege often to behold ; and 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 8G0. f Ibid. pp. 957, 058. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 918. 
 
52 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 lie was well qualified to judge of tlie spiritual 
 condition of the Church around him. In a word, 
 we may say that in the Swedish congregations the 
 cardinal doctrines of the gospel were preached in 
 the pulpit and from house to house. They were 
 insisted upon as the suhjects of a living, saving 
 faith ; they were believed by the people and exem- 
 plified in their lives. They served to guide and 
 instruct the young ; they were for the comfort 
 and consolation of the old. Their prevalence 
 secured to the faithful pastors many souls as seals 
 to their ministry ; and under their influence the 
 churches were increased and edified. 
 
 After the intimate fellowship that subsisted for 
 so long a time between the Germans and the 
 Swedes in the bosom of the Lutheran Church, a 
 day of separation came. The Germans continued 
 faithful to the doctrine and order of their Church. 
 The Swedes broke loose from their historical con- 
 nections ; they turned aside from their venerable 
 Lutheran antecedents; they essayed to swim 
 alone, and were soon swallowed up in the stream 
 of High- Church Episcopacy. 
 
 This event does not appear to have been the 
 result of any angry controversy upon the sub- 
 ject either of doctrine or of polity. It was not 
 brought about by any acknowledged or existing 
 incongruity between the German and Swedish ele- 
 ments. Both agreed in testifying to all men repent- 
 ance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. They taught everywhere that nothing 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 53 
 
 would avail in Christ Jesus but a new creature. 
 In their cl lurches and families they were all alike 
 in the use of Luther's Small Catechism and the 
 Augsburg Confession. In their synodical conven- 
 tions they stood side by side in their respectful 
 deference to " our Symbolical Books." We will not 
 say that thc}^ regarded the Bible as the only inftd- 
 lible rule of faith and practice ; for, as Lutherans, 
 it does not appear that they could have done other- 
 wise. The Augsburg Confession itself protests 
 against " entailing upon our children any other doc- 
 trine than that of the pure divine word and Chris- 
 tian truth." We will not say that they did not 
 desire the Augsburg Confession to supersede the 
 word of God; for we might then be asked, Where 
 is the Lutheran who has ever been conscious of 
 such a desire ? In a word, they agreed in every 
 thing. As members of the same Lutheran family, 
 they were not conscious of any diversity of sen- 
 timent, even upon the subject of ecclesiastical 
 polity. The Swede would as soon have pretended 
 to trace his descent from a nobler race than the 
 family of man, as presume to claim for his minis- 
 try, a higher authority or a greater value than 
 belonged to the ministry of his German brother. 
 They were all brethren ; and amongst themselves 
 there could be no cause for separation, for there 
 was no strife between them. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the Swedish brethren 
 withdrew from the fellowship of the Lutheran 
 Church in America; and whoever undertakes to 
 
 6* 
 
54 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 follow up their history as developed in later years, 
 will find them moving along smoothly and noise- 
 lessly amidst the forms and traditions of English 
 Episcopalianism. 
 
 In view of the lofty pretensions put forth by 
 High-Church Episcopalians of the present day, it 
 seems to us unaccountable that any respectable 
 portion of the Lutheran Church should be willing 
 to abandon its own venerable historical connec- 
 tions, and humbly receive, in return, the vaunted 
 benefits of what is called the apostolical succes- 
 sion. Indeed, if the Swedish Churches had con- 
 tinued faithful to their Lutheran profession until 
 the present generation, there is no reason to sup- 
 pose that they would regard the exclusive claims 
 of English Episcopacy with any more favor than 
 is felt by the existing membership of the Lutheran 
 Church in America. Of the Swedish immigrants 
 settling in our "Western States within the last few 
 years, several large and flourishing congregations 
 have been formed. Their attachments are not to 
 the Episcopal but the Lutheran Church ; and in 
 the language of the Archbishop of Sweden, in a 
 letter to certain Swedes in this country, in the 
 year 1850, they speak of a departure from the 
 Lutheran to the Episcopal Church as being, " if , 
 not an apostasy, at least a downfall."* 
 
 But the condition of the Lutheran Church, that 
 of the Episcopalians, and the relations between 
 
 * Rev. L. P. Esbjorn. 
 
LUTHERAN CIIUllCIl IN AMERICA. 55 
 
 them, were, towards the close of the last century, 
 vastly different from what they are at present. So 
 the transition of the Swedes from the one to the 
 other, which at this time would be at least a down- 
 fall, may have been effected, in the day of its occur- 
 rence, by most honorable motives and by the 
 plainest force of circumstances. It was done, in- 
 deed, without any dissatisfaction with the Lutheran 
 Church, — without any special preference for the 
 forms, without any peculiar approbation of the 
 claims, of Episcopalians. 
 
 Indeed, so fraternal, so cordial, w\as the inter- 
 course between the Lutheran and Episcopal 
 clergy of these earlier years, that it deserves to be 
 spoken of as an honor to both. That they invited 
 Muhlenberg to visit the annual Convention of 
 Episcopal' ministers, and treated him with the 
 utmost deference when he took his seat amongst 
 them ; that they requested him to preach in the 
 Episcopal church in Philadelphia ; that they main- 
 tained towards him and the Lutheran ministry in 
 general the attitude of Christian brethren in the 
 pastoral office, — all this was as honorable to the 
 Episcopalians as to the Lutherans themselves. 
 It would be unfair, too, to suppose that these 
 Episcopalians adopted this course under the im- 
 pression that the Lutherans might gradually be 
 led, by a certain patronizing air, to abandon their 
 own foundation, and adopt Episcopal rule, — apos- 
 tolical succession and all. They were too w^ell 
 informed not to know the hearty attachment of 
 
56 EARLY HISTORY OF TUB 
 
 the Lutherans to their Symbolical Books and their 
 ecclesiastical immunities. It is true that they 
 contemplated establishing a closer union between 
 the Churches ; but in this contemplation the Epis- 
 copalian never allowed himself rudely to question 
 the clerical character of the Lutheran ministry, nor 
 arrogantly to insinuate that Episcopalians ^vere 
 the Church and Lutherans were schismatics. 
 I » Li short, strong sentiments of mutual regard 
 and good faith bound Lutherans and Episco- 
 palians together. Had both then been united so 
 as to constitute one Church, it would have been 
 the union of two Churches each of which had 
 previously recognized the Christian character and 
 polity of the other. So, when the Swedes began 
 to approach towards the Episcopal Church, the 
 movement implied, on their part, no disavowal 
 whatever of the doctrine and polity of Lu- 
 theranism, no acknowledgment at all of the ex- 
 clusive claims with which the Episcopacy of more 
 recent times has attempted to fill our ears. 
 
 The circumstances that led them to make this 
 movement were wdiolly of an external character. 
 Although the Swedish language had been pre- 
 V /' served in their churches, for many years, in its 
 purity, yet, about the middle of the last century, 
 it began to yield to the greater prevalence of the 
 English. 
 
 Wisely endeavoring to accommodate themselves 
 to the advancing change, they petitioned the au- 
 thorities of the Church in Sweden to extend to 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 57 
 
 their pastors permission to preach in the English 
 language. This petition was addressed to the 
 Archhishop and Consistory of Upsal, in the year 
 1758, shortly after the decease of the Eev. Mr. 
 Parlin.* In the year 1759 the eventful ministry 
 of Wrangel hegan ; and it was not the least of 
 his distinctions that he was dilis^ent in lahorins* 
 amongst the Swedes through the medium of the 
 English language, — perhaps in cherishing their 
 fondness for it. He preached in English, he trans- 
 lated Luther's Small Catechism into English, he 
 taught the children in English ; and it is altogether 
 reasonable to suppose that the use of the English 
 language, which had been a mere matter of desire 
 among the Swedes in 1758, before Wrangel came, 
 should have become indispensable in 1768, after 
 his departure. 
 
 This growing necessity for services in the Eng- 
 lish language increased the demand for men who 
 might be able to preach in English with ease and 
 with acceptance. The venerable Swedish pastors, 
 who still served to keep up the ancient connection 
 with the Church in Sweden, were held as worthy 
 of all honor ; but the congregations began to feel, 
 and soon expressed the necessity, of having pas- 
 tors who had been educated in this country ; for 
 the Swedish language was about becoming ex- 
 tinct, and the English was completely occupying 
 its place. 
 
 * Clay's Annals, p. 124. 
 
58 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 But, in those days, the ministry of the Lutheran 
 Church seems to have been trained and educated 
 abroad. ISTeither the Germans nor the Swedes 
 could furnish the men, of requisite qualifications 
 and of a Lutheran spirit, to occupy the Swedish 
 pulpits and labor in the Swedish congregations in 
 the English language. The Episcopal Church of 
 England having long cultivated friendly relations 
 with the Lutheran Church, it was to the Episco- 
 palians that the Swedes at once resorted. Their 
 demand was promptly supplied, and for many 
 years before the close of the last century we find 
 Episcopal clergymen diligently ofiiciating, as as- 
 sistants and rectors, in the Swedish churches. 
 The introduction of this element, of course, pre- 
 pared the way for the adoption of other and 
 stronger elements of Episcopacy, as they might be 
 developed in the lapse of time. Li the year 1787, 
 an amendment of the charter legalized the elec- 
 tion of Episcopal as well as of Lutheran clergy- 
 men as pastors of the churches ; and in a short 
 time their transition from the Lutheran to the 
 Episcopal fellowship was completed. 
 
 Bej^ond this point it is not worth our while 
 at present to prosecute their history. "Whether 
 the change was so gradual as to have produced 
 no perceptible impression upon themselves, or 
 whether they woke up suddenl}^ and found, to 
 their surprise, that they were Episcopalians instead 
 of Lutherans, are questions of little moment here. 
 TUe change was in every respect contrary to the 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. 59 
 
 spirit of the Swedish Church, and was completed 
 only after their connection with the Church in 
 Sweden had been virtually dissolved. 
 
 Of all the nations that adhere to the Lutheran 
 Church, the Swedes have ever been the most 
 faithful in their support and defence of her Sym- 
 bols ; and the prominent position which Luther's 
 Catechism and the Augsburg Confession held 
 among the Swedes in America for upwards of one 
 hundred and forty years, is a sufficient indication 
 that their attachment to the Lutheran Church 
 was hearty and sincere. 
 
 Li view of the circumstances under which their 
 connection with the Church in Sweden was dis- 
 solved, the thought might occur, that it could be 
 fairly regarded as an attempt to set up an Ame- 
 rican Lutheran Church, although it was not so 
 avowed. An American Lutheran Church might 
 be defined to be a Church in America, which, 
 whilst it retains the name of Lutheran, disclaims 
 connection with the Lutheran Church in Europe, 
 and is at liberty to adopt or to reject any feature 
 of polity or of doctrine it may think proper, with- 
 out respect to the ancient Symbols of Lutheranism. 
 Such, practically, was the course pursued by the 
 Swedes ; and the fate that so soon overwhelmed 
 them is full of warning that might be regarded 
 with profit at the present day. Breaking off from 
 ecclesiastical connections that had been rendered 
 venerable and glorious by the sufferings, the vic- 
 tories, the spiritual heroism of successive genera- 
 
60 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 I tions, they became American Lutherans. Do we 
 I look for something noble, some striking token of 
 Igoocl, as the lirst-fruits of this unusual movement? 
 I We hear nothing but the rustling of the robes of 
 ■ Episcopacy ; and these American Lutherans fade 
 wholly from our sight amid the flowing vestments 
 ; of the apostolic succession. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 61 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE DUTCH. 
 
 However, as the Lutheran Church at present 
 exists in America, the seed by which it was origi- 
 nally sown was German. Among the early colo- 
 nists that Holland furnished for the settlement of 
 the IS'ew Netherlands, as I^ew York was then 
 called, there was a small proportion of Lutherans. 
 The Dutch do not appear in the beginning to 
 have been strongly characterized by intelligent 
 Christian zeal. They concerned themselves very 
 little, if at all, about the conversion of the Indians. 
 The chief object of the Government at home, and 
 of the colonists themselves, seems to have been to 
 raise the I^ew Netherlands to the highest degree 
 of commercial prosperity. If years, if many years, 
 elapsed then before the Lutherans from Holland 
 made any combined effort on behalf of the Church, 
 this is to be accounted for by the prevalence of the 
 worlcTly aims that generally ruled amongst the 
 Dutch. 
 
 After a while, however, their religious sentiment 
 began to awaken and extend. Yet almost every 
 step of their progress was taken in the face of an 
 opposition that rose at times even to persecution 
 
62 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 itself. The Lutherans in Holland never sympa- 
 thized in the doctrinal system of the Arminians ; 
 but in popular opinion thc}^ were confounded with 
 that condemned party, and exposed to a share in 
 its persecutions. Those of them who had emi- 
 grated to the New Netherlands were in the habit, 
 as early as the year 1644, of meeting in private 
 houses for purposes of social devotion. Well 
 disjDOsed towards their Dutch Reformed brethren, 
 they were pleased to meet with them in their sea- 
 sons of public worship, and, having no pastors of 
 their own, they were anxious to have their children 
 baptized by the ministers of that denomination. 
 In such cases, however, they were required to pro- 
 fess their belief in the truth of the doctrines pro- 
 mulgated by the Synod of Dort, and to promise to 
 train up their children in the same. This would 
 have made them and their families rigid Calvinists 
 at once. It would have been a step which multi- 
 tudes of German Reformed Churches on the con- 
 tinent of Europe — in Brandenburg, in Hesse, and 
 at Bremen — were themselves unwilling to take.* 
 Of course, no conscientious Lutheran could agree 
 to the prescribed terms. Their refusal drew down 
 upon them the violence of the Established Church. 
 The two ministers of the Dutch Reformed, Mega- 
 polensis and Drisius, in the ardor of mistaken zeal, 
 demanded that all Lutheran parents should attend 
 church with their children, and have them publicly 
 
 * Goericke, Part TIL p. 566. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 63 
 
 baptized according to the formulary of the Synod 
 of Dort. Several Lutherans refusing to comply 
 with this extravagant demand were arrested, fined, 
 and in default of payment thrown into prison. 
 
 ^Notwithstanding these difficulties, the congrega- 
 tion of Lutherans continued to grow both in num- 
 bers and in zeal. About the year W53i, both the 
 Dutch and the German Lutherans of the 'New 
 Netherlands united in a petition addressed to the 
 civil authorities in Holland, asking the privilege 
 of electing their own pastor and holding public 
 worship according to the tenets of the Lutheran 
 faith. This petition, so reasonable in itself, was 
 zealously urged by the Lutheran Consistory of 
 Amsterdam, and every relation and bearing of the 
 subject held forth the hope of a favorable answer. 
 Megapolensis and Drisius, however, lifted up the 
 voice of remonstrance against it : they bewailed, 
 they said, the spread of sectarianism, and spoke of 
 the dangerous consequences of extending such 
 privileges to the Lutherans. The Anabaptists, 
 the Mennonists, the Quakers, and the English In- 
 dependents, they said, abounded in the province ; 
 and, if the Lutherans were indulged, all the others 
 would demand the same thing for themselves. In- 
 jluenced by these representations, the Chassis of 
 Amsterdam and the Directors of the West India 
 Company refused the petition of the Lutherans, 
 and instructed Stuyvesant, the Governor of the 
 Xew Netherlands, to employ all moderate means 
 for the purpose of luring the Lutherans iuto the 
 
>/ 
 
 64 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 Dutcli Eeformed Churcli and matriculating tliera 
 in that religion. 
 
 Stnyvesant gladly received these instructions. 
 They ran at least in the direction that was most 
 pleasing to himself and his spiritual colleagues 
 Megapolensis and Drisius. But they did not go 
 far enough. So, rejecting the moderate policy 
 that his superiors had recommended, he avowed 
 himself as ready to go greater lengths than ever 
 in the spirit of religious persecution. 
 
 The Lutherans had long been accustomed to 
 y meet in their own dw^ellings for purposes of 
 social devotion. Against these meetings, called 
 "conventicles" in contempt, Stu3'Vesant published 
 a fiery proclamation, showed that the Lutherans 
 could expect no indulgence from him, encouraged 
 the Dutch Reformed clergy in enforcing their bap- 
 tismal formulary, so obnoxious to the Lutherans, 
 and continued to punish by fines and imprison- 
 ments those who refused submission. 
 
 This cruel intolerance, being reported to the 
 Directors of the West India Company, drew forth 
 from them such a rebuke as for a season cheered 
 the hearts and revived the hopes of the Lutherans. 
 They renewed their appeals to the civil and eccle- 
 siastical authorities in Holland for permission to 
 organize their own church and to call their own 
 pastor. They obtained a promise of toleration, 
 and avowed the hope that a person would, before 
 long, arrive from the fatherland, properly qualified 
 to instruct them and watch over their souls. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 65 
 
 The first practical result of their efforts to 
 establish the Lutheran Church is seen in the 
 arrival of the Rev. John Ernest Goetwater, in 
 the month of June^ 1657. He came commissioned 
 bj the Lutheran Consistory of Amsterdam to act 
 as pastor of the Lutheran congregation ^' at the 
 Manhattens." The determined opposition, not to 
 himself, but to the Lutheran Church, led oiF by 
 the Dutch clerg}^ and acquiesced in by the civil 
 authorities of the province, prevented him, how- 
 ever, from even entering upon his labors. He 
 was cited to appear before the civil tribunal, and 
 forbidden to preach, or to hold any Lutheran " con- 
 venticles:" in short, he was forthwith banished 
 from l^ew Amsterdam ; and, having spent some 
 few weeks in sickness in the suburbs of the city, 
 he embarked in the month of October, and re- 
 turned to Holland. 
 
 L^pon the surrender of the Xew ^N'etherlands to 
 the crown of Great Britain in 1664, the Lutherans 
 readily obtained from the English authorities what 
 the Dutch had always denied them, — the privilege 
 of holding their worship publicly in the city of 
 I^ew York. This privilege was continued to them 
 by the successive governors of the province. The 
 Church, thus released from its bonds, began to 
 devise ways and means for the discharge of its 
 high and holy duties to the gospel and to the 
 world. Their efforts to obtain a pastor for them- 
 selves were so far successful; and in 1669 the 
 Eev. Jacob Fabritius commenced his ministry 
 
 6- 
 
66 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 amongst them. His talents were of a high order, 
 his learning solid and extensive, his gifts and 
 bearing such as belong to the eloquent and at- 
 tractive speaker; but his spirit was haughty, self- 
 ish, and overbearing, whilst his morals were such 
 as to have destroyed his personal influence for 
 good, and exposed him even to public reproach. 
 Indulging his appetite for strong drink, he fur- 
 nished another of the many sad evidences the 
 world has seen of the power of intemperance to 
 make havoc in the Church. During eight years 
 he labored in New York, and, at the expiration 
 of that time, received and accepted a call from the 
 Swedish Church of Wicaco on the Delaware. 
 
 Of the condition of the church from this time 
 until the close of the century very little has been 
 recorded. The successor of Mr. Fabritius was 
 Kev. Bernard Arint; but of the period of his 
 connection Avith the church as pastor no specific 
 notice has been taken. 
 
 In the year 1701 the Rev. Mr. Eudman, intend- 
 ing to return to his native land, resigned the 
 charge of the Swedish Church in Philadelphia. 
 As the Lutherans in 'New York, however, had 
 been for a long time without a pastor, he yielded 
 to their urgent solicitation and settled in that city. 
 The climate proved to be too severe for his con- 
 stitution. He therefore withdrew; and, having 
 abandoned the purpose of returning to Sweden, 
 upon retiring from Kew York he became a pastor 
 once more in the vicinity of Philadelphia. His 
 
LUTHERAN CnURCH IN AMERICA. 67 
 
 concern for the church in Xew York, which he 
 was about to leave, and his fear lest, if neglected, 
 it might fall away from the pure faith of the gos- 
 pel, made him exceedingly anxious to secure some 
 worthy pastor to occupy the place. Ilis wishes 
 were accomplished. He obtained the consent of 
 Justus Falkner to accept of the call which the 
 Lutheran Church in the city of Kew York might 
 extend to him. 
 
 Justus Falkner, of Saxony, arrived in this coun- 
 try a student of divinity. He was afterwards or- 
 dained by three Swedish pastors in the church at 
 "Wicaco. Shortly after his ordination he became 
 pastor of the church in Xew York, in the year 
 jL703. It was in this, the first year of his ministr3V 
 that the Holland Lutherans erected a church at 
 the southwest corner of Broadway and Rector 
 Streets, where, together with many German Lu- 
 therans, they w^orshipped for a long time exclu- 
 sively in the Holland and English languages, but 
 adhering to the discipline, doctrine, and faith of 
 the Lutheran Church. 
 
 From this time until the year 1750 there were 
 but three pastors in charge of this church. These 
 were Justus Falkner, Christopher William Berck- 
 enmeyer, and Christian Knoll. Under the minis- 
 try of the former two, the church was large and 
 flourishing, both spiritually and in its worldly cir- 
 .cumstances. Afterwards, however, serious conflicts 
 arose ; old members became weary of strife and 
 withdrew ; the children as they grew up threw in 
 
V 
 
 68 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 their lot with other churches ; and the congrega- 
 tion which in times of oppression had contended 
 so earnestly for the faith — which had hegiin the 
 century under such favorable circumstances — was 
 so completely reduced by a few years of conten- 
 tion, that, in the j^ear 1750, Muhlenberg, already 
 sick at heart by what he had heard, when duty 
 called him beyond the city of I^ew York, sought 
 earnestly, but all in vain, for some excuse to avoid 
 the necessity of even looking in upon them.* 
 
 During the ministry of the three pastors above 
 named, the congregation stood in connection with 
 the Mother-Church in Holland. To the Lutheran 
 Consistory in Amsterdam they regularly reported 
 the condition and progress of the congregation, 
 and the pastors held their ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
 subordinate to that body. 
 
 Although many German Lutherans were con- 
 nected with this church, yet it seems that for 
 nearl}^ fifty years the exercises of pubhc worship 
 were conducted only in the languages of Holland 
 and England. During the last year of the ministry 
 of Mr. Knoll as pastor of Trinity Church, the 
 German language was, for the first time, allowed 
 to be occasionallj^ used. This measure was adopted 
 mainly in consequence of a kind consideration for 
 the necessities of the many German brethren who 
 had arrived and settled in ^N'ew York in that very 
 year. Tlie Germans, however, had been gathering 
 
 * Bill in Chancery, 1840; Halle Reports, p. 363. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. 69 
 
 into J^ew York for many j-ears already; and in 
 studying the history of this church, we cannot 
 refrain from expressing our wonder at the early 
 use of the English and the long omission of the 
 German language in the exercises of public wor- 
 ship. But the language of Holland, which always 
 preponderated, was the native speech of the 
 founders of the church. With this language the 
 early German immigrants generally seem to have 
 been somewhat familiar; whilst the English, being 
 the language of the Government, increasing in the 
 walks of business and of social life, and doubtless 
 preferred by the 3'ounger portion of the church, 
 presented claims which from the first were re- 
 garded with respectful consideration. 
 
 jSTot many years elapsed, however, before the 
 Germans began to urge their own claims and that 
 of their language. Contention, disorder, and divi- 
 sions ensued. But we turn for the present from 
 the contemplation of this one scene of confusion 
 towards the long series of happy consequences 
 that resulted from the immigration of the Ger- 
 mans. 
 
70 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE GERMANS. 
 
 The immigration of the Germans, wlio contri- 
 buted to the planting of our Church, extended over 
 a period of many years, varied in its numbers, 
 was influenced by a diversity of circumstances, 
 and yet continued from beginning to end, with 
 perhaps but two exceptions, unchanged in its 
 external poverty and in its lack of efficient pa- 
 tronage. 
 
 ' The earliest authentic record that we have of 
 this immigration was drawn up by Muhlenberg, 
 Handschuh, and Heintzelman, in the year 1754, at 
 
 I the instance of the Synod of Pennsylvania. Be- 
 ginning with the year 1680, and coming down 
 to their own time, they specify five periods as dis- 
 tinguished amongst themselves by their length or 
 by the number and spirit of the German Luther- 
 
 Ians they transferred to our shores. From 1680 
 to 1708, the number of Germans who ventured to 
 cross the ocean was very small, and is noticed sim- 
 ply upon the principle that they were the pioneers 
 of the masses that soon rolled in after them. The 
 troubles that were agitating Europe during this 
 period, and the liberal religious principles advo- 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 71 
 
 cated by William Penn, were the main causes of 
 their movement to the West. Thankful, no doubt, 
 to the kind Providence that gave them a new and 
 peaceful home, they seem not to have been much 
 concerned about the form of doctrine that had 
 been dear to their fathers, and, with a capacity for 
 easy adaptation to the new circumstances by which 
 they were surrounded, many of them assumed the 
 garb, the manner, and at length even the faith, of 
 the Quaker. 
 
 The second period extended from 1708 to 1720, 
 and was distinguished as the time of the"great 
 emigration from the Palatinate, under the patronage 
 of Queen Anne. The wars and the persecutions 
 that had arisen because of the word were such as 
 to favor the plans of the queen. Knowing the 
 peaceable character of the Germans, and anxious 
 to increase the population of her American colo- 
 nies, she held out strong inducements to them to 
 become British subjects. The generous offers of 
 transport, subsidence, and land in the ISTew World, 
 w^ere cheerfully accepted by the Germans; and 
 thousands flocked to England, that they might 
 take advantage of the rising tide of royal favor. 
 About four thousand of these landed in the city 
 of New York in the month of June, 1710. Many 
 of them remained in the city, and ^Sbrded evi- 
 dence of their devotion to the true faith of the 
 gospel, by promptly seeking the privileges of 
 Christian fellowship in the congregation of Hol- 
 land Lutherans that had recently been oro-anizcd. 
 
Ii EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 The benevolence of Queen Anne had truly been 
 expanded in their favor upon a scale of royal 
 munificence. In the province of 'New York, that 
 tract of land on which the towns of ITewburg and 
 New "Windsor have been built w^as allotted to 
 them; and the patent expressly stipulates that it 
 was granted for the support of Lutheran parish 
 schools, and ministers for the Germans who might 
 be settled in the neighborhood of the river Hud- 
 son.* 
 
 We know not which most to wonder at, — the 
 favors attempted to be heaped upon the German 
 Lutherans by the occupant of the British throne, 
 or the apparent indifference of these Germans 
 themselves to the possession of such princely 
 domains. Perhaps they had not been correctly 
 instructed, and did not clearly understand the in- 
 tentions of the queen, or perhaps they had learned, 
 from sad experience, to put no trust in princes. 
 Certainly their first care had to be to provide sub- , 
 sistence, to keep off" hunger andHiakedness from 
 their families. In the mean time, shrewd specu- 
 lators seized upon the royal grant, and were too 
 successful in diverting it from those for whose 
 benefit it had been intended. 
 
 As the fall of the year approached, the great 
 mass of these immigrants set their faces towards 
 the interior, and, having advanced about one hun- 
 dred miles north of the city of New York, they 
 
 *■ Hazelius's History, p. 25. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 73 
 
 occupied the homes allotted to them on Living- 
 ston's manor. It was not through lack of indus- 
 try or perseverance that they failed to prosper. 
 The authorities of the colony exacted too large a 
 portion of their labor as payment for their pas- 
 sage across the water in Government transports. 
 Two or three years w^ere enough to convince them 
 that the interests of the whole required that this, 
 their first settlement, should be at least partially 
 abandoned. Accordingly, one hundred and fifty 
 families resolved to advance farther into the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 They sent a committee of trusty men to a neigh- 
 boring tribe of Indians, and obtained from them 
 the possession and the good-will of a large and 
 fertile region in Schoharie. Here, for a few ^^ears, 
 though often exhausted by hunger and worn down 
 by toil, they lived in peace and prospered. Their 
 ignorance of the ways of the world, however, their 
 imperturbable confidence in what they supposed 
 were the engagements and promises of Queen 
 Anne, soon exposed them to a series of annoyances 
 and troubles which dismembered this their second 
 settlement, and sent many of them adrift again to 
 be lodged in some new home of the more distant 
 wilderness. 
 
 Supposing that the Indians had been the sole 
 possessors of the soil, they were satisfied with the 
 conveyance that was executed by the tribe. It 
 never occurred to them that it was necessary to 
 obtain patents or title-deeds from the royal gover- 
 
 ./ 
 
J 
 
 74 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 nor of New York. They lived without a preacher, 
 without a civil ruler ; every one did what w\as right 
 in his own eyes; they hunted with the Indians, 
 they attempted too to teach their wild neighbors 
 the arts of peace ; the forest fell and yielded its 
 place to the waving grain ; the busy streams were 
 employed in advancing the useful operations of 
 the mill; seven villages, small but thrifty, rose 
 beneath their industry and ministered to their 
 social enjoyment, whilst the long seasons of labor 
 were occasionally relieved by manly sports, by in- 
 nocent and temperate amusements.* 
 
 They felt secure, too secure, in the possession of 
 their ground. The law of nature, the law of na- 
 tions, they said, would protect them in the enjoy- 
 ment of the territory they had redeemed from the 
 wilderness and improved at the cost of their own 
 sweat and blood. But the absence of a legal title 
 under the royal Government proved to be fatal to 
 their security and their hopes, and, without any 
 intimation of the crafty designs of the rapacious 
 speculators who dispossessed them, the ver}^ soil 
 was sold beneath their feet. In their distress they 
 sent a delegation to England to obtain relief. 
 Disasters by sea and by land obstructed their pro- 
 gress. They had been anticipated and forestalled 
 by the seven purchasers, and they returned to their 
 homes with the sorrow for their loss deepened by 
 the mortification of their defeat. The colou}^ was 
 
 * Simm's History of Schoharie. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 75 
 
 divided. Some families bowed to the force of cir- 
 cumstances, and, taking a lease of their farms as 
 otfered by the Proprietors, remained at Schoharie. 
 A large portion set out in 1T23, in company, to- 
 wards the West. They soon struck the Susque- 
 hanna, and, following its course, entered within the 
 borders of Pennsylvania. A few days of irregular 
 wandering brought them to the region of the Tul- 
 pehocken and the Swatara; and there, still among 
 the Indians, they sought to establish themselves 
 at a distance of some seventy or ninety miles north- 
 west of Philadelphia.* 
 
 Of the four thousand immigrants who arrived 
 in 1710, a considerable portion seem to have 
 turned themselves at once towards the South and 
 taken up their abode in and around the City of 
 Penn. This v/as a Paradise of the Quakers. The 
 plain garb, the plain speech of the Friend were to 
 be seen and heard everywhere. The benevolence 
 and easy familiarity of his manner, the signs of 
 worldly thrift that attended him, both in town and 
 in country, the talent for shrewd and close calcu- 
 lation that seemed to be natural to him, — these 
 things were not without effect in attracting the 
 attention of the Germans to the Society, and ulti- . 
 mately drawing some even of the Lutherans into 
 the fellowship of the Meeting. Others, however, 
 more firmly established in their faith, though with- 
 out any of the ordinary privileges of religion, con- 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 97o, el seq. 
 
76 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 tinued in prayer and meditation to possess their 
 souls in patience until the dawn of a better day. 
 
 So, by a variety of circumstances, personal pre- 
 ferences, disappointments, disasters, providential 
 dealings, it happened that these four thousand 
 Germans, with their natural increase, were scat- 
 tered broadcast throughout the land. After fif- 
 teen years of agitation and uncertaint3^ they are 
 all disposed of. They grow with the growth of 
 New York and Philadelphia; they cultivate the 
 soil upon the flats of the Hudson ; they are faitliful 
 to their engagements as tenants in Schoharie ; they 
 subdue and enliven the wilderness of Pennsyl- 
 vania along the Tulpehocken and Swatara. 
 
 Of the religious character of this immigration, 
 as far as it was Lutheran, we might say much if 
 our object were to illustrate personal experience. 
 We could show the young man, who, though active, 
 bold, and enterprising, yet bears the cross in his 
 youth and seeks to refresh himself beneath his 
 burden by the faithful use of the word of God 
 and prayer. We could speak of the old man, who, 
 pressing on towards fourscore years and ten, and 
 being faithful unto death, grows eloquent until 
 the hearts of believers melt under his testimony 
 of the grace of God in Christ upon his soul.* 
 But our duty at present is rather to speak of the 
 religious character of their community at large. 
 
 The Lutherans among them were, for the most 
 
 * Halle Reports, pp. 975, 162. 
 
LUTHERAN CHUKCH IN AMERICA. 77 
 
 part, sound in their adherence to the Lutheran 
 faith, and at heart desirous of transmitting it, 
 pure and genuine, to their children. But the 
 depth of their poverty, the necessity of immediate 
 attention to their daily wants, the uncertainty of 
 their several positions and movements, the ah- 
 sence of religious teachers and pastors, and the 
 lack of foreign patronage, all combined to delay 
 and prevent the construction of congregations, 
 and the erection of houses suitable for the pur- 
 poses of public worship. The party that remained 
 from the beginning in the city of Few York, in 
 seeking the fellowship of the Church, and in all 
 their active efforts to advance the Lutheran faith, 
 indicated what their brethren would have done in 
 the interior, had their circumstances been at all 
 favorable to a general movement on behalf of the 
 Church. There was a will, but there was no way; 
 and this second period of immigration is lost in 
 the third before these beneficiaries of Queen Anne 
 are permitted to welcome a pastor amongst them, 
 or to unite in public worship within any enclosure 
 more dignified than a barn or a hovel of frame- 
 work. 
 
 During the third period, extending from 172S1 
 to 17BQ, the immigration of German Lutherans; 
 brought large additions to the materials about to i 
 be used in the establishment of the Church in 
 America. The arrival of several companies with 
 pastors of established character, having the over- 
 sight of the flock, led several of the earlier settle- 
 
T8 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 raents to take a step or two in advance of all their 
 former progress. Those in ITewYork and those 
 in ISTew Jersey sent imjDloring letters to Holland 
 and to Hamburg, in answer to which they re- 
 ceived from abroad now an acceptable pastor, 
 then books of devotion, and then, again, pecu- 
 niar}^ contributions for the erection and support 
 both of the school and of the Church. 
 
 Indeed, during the whole of this period there 
 was much agitation of a kind peculiarly calcu- 
 lated to animate pious Lutherans with earnest 
 longings for religious privileges, and for the order 
 and fellowship of their own Church. With the 
 increase of population from abroad there came 
 also an increase in the variety of sects and doc- 
 trines and opinions. The number of those who 
 forsook the word of the Lord and turned aside 
 from the form of the Lutheran faith appeared 
 to grow from year to year. The fathers of 
 strange sects, the heads of new parties, religious 
 adventurers, scheming fanatics, who knew well 
 how to pervert the language of Scripture to gain 
 their own ends, who could clothe error with such 
 a garb of sanctimoniousness as to mislead and 
 seduce many, came on, thronging the settlements 
 of the Germans. They derided the Lutheran 
 Church ; they sought, by persecution or by blan- 
 dishments, to move her children from their stead- 
 fastness; and their success was often such as to 
 cause great grief in the hearts of those who had 
 been taught by our Confession to believe only in 
 
LITTIIEllAN CIIURCU IN AMERICA. 79 
 
 God and in the word of his grace. Then the 
 word of the Lord was precious in the land : there 
 was no open vision. The soul, afflicted in the 
 dreary night, sighs for the morning ; and the Lu- 
 therans, who loved the Church and had ever de- 
 lighted in her sweet communion, grieved by the 
 devastation they saw around them, sighed and 
 prayed for pastors who might go in and out 
 amongst them, who might instruct their children 
 in the faith, and who, as true and holy men, 
 might, with the divine blessing, defend them and 
 their Church against all opposers. 
 
 And the Lord had respect to the desires of them 
 that loved Zion. The holy office was sometimes 
 assumed by worthless men who had been de- 
 graded in Germany, or by ignorant schoolmasters, 
 who had a tact for winning confidence, and an 
 ambition to lord it over the Church. But even 
 in the midst of this destitution and danger, there 
 were still some pastors and teachers raised up for 
 the work of the ministry for the edifying of the 
 body of Christ. The pastors Hinkle, Falkner, and 
 Stoever, belong to this period, — Knochendahler, 
 Berckenmeyer, Knoll, Wolf, and Hartwich. They 
 labored not wholly in vain ; but the lives of some 
 of them were cut short, and the success of others 
 was limited by the unprofitable agitations and 
 conflicts in the midst of which they lived. 
 
 The fourth period of immigration extended from 
 1730 to 1742. The desires that had been felt in 
 many places for the regular ordinances of the 
 
80 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 Clmrcb, and previously expressed in urgent let- 
 ters to tlie fatherland, began now to .ripen into 
 / healthy, vigorous action. The Lutherans in Phila- 
 j delphia had united in the organization of a church. 
 1 Those who had settled thirty or forty miles north- 
 I west of the city — in Providence and ]^ew Hano- 
 ver — had taken the same measures. I^ot willing 
 to countenance the pretensions of the worthless 
 schoolmasters who were prowling around making 
 havoc of the flock, they applied to the Swedish 
 Ministerium, and obtained from them such services 
 as were necessary for the instruction and confirma- 
 tion of the young, and such as a communion-sea- 
 son might require. But the Swedes were over- 
 burdened with the i^are of their own flocks; and 
 this, added to the difliculty they found in attempt- 
 ^ ing to minister in the German tongue, showed, 
 from the first, that this arrangement could not be 
 long continued. Meanwhile, the children were 
 growing up in ignorance, save in those few cases 
 in which the piety and intelligence of the parents 
 could train them to an experimental knowledge of 
 God and of divine things. The Lutheran faith was 
 exposed to reproach by the infamy of those who 
 had forced themselves, uncalled and unqualified, 
 into the pastoral oflice; and reflecting minds and 
 believing hearts both saw and felt that what ought 
 . to be done must needs be done quickly. 
 I Accordingly, in the year 1733, the congregations 
 \ in Philadelphia, Providence, and Kcw Hanover, sent 
 a delegation of their brethren to Europe to repre- 
 
LUTHERAN CIIUKCH IxY AMERICA. 81 
 
 sent their spiritual necessities, both in England 
 and in Germany, to collect funds for the building 
 of churches and school-houses, and especiall}' to 
 enlist, for the service of the Church in America, 
 such G:ood and faithful men as mis-ht be willins; 
 and competent to bear the pastoral office amongst 
 them.* The principal member of this delegation 
 was Daniel Weissiger, of Philadelphia, whose name 
 deserves to be held in remembrance for his intelli- 
 gent devotion to the interests of the Church, and 
 for his laborious enterprise on her behalf 
 
 Passing through England, they waited upon 
 Rev. Dr. Ziegenhagen, Court-preacher in Lon- 
 don, and were greatly encouraged by his prompt 
 and generous co-operation. He furnished them 
 with letters of commendation to his friends and 
 brethren in Germany; he appealed to them on 
 behalf of the poor famishing lambs and flocks of 
 Jesus Christ in America ; he plead hard that some 
 refreshment at least might be sent before they 
 would utterly perish ; he made a personal applica- 
 tion to the Rev. Dr. and Professor Francke, in 
 Halle; he enforced these appeals by raising funds 
 and procuring the books most necessary for spirit- 
 ual instruction, to be at once distributed amongst 
 the German Lutherans in America. 
 
 Upon their arrival in Germany the delegation 
 were kindly received. In addition to their per- 
 sonal labors, they used the agency of the press in 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 4. 
 
bZ EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 spreading their wants before their brethren. En- 
 couraged b}^ the patronage and approbation of the 
 Eev. Drs. Pfeitfer in Leipsic, and Franeke in Halle, 
 Pastor Maier and Senior Urlsperger in Augs- 
 burg, they met with warm hearts and fervent 
 prayers and material aid everywhere. The funds, 
 however, were not large; and, as though their main 
 object had been to secure pastors for the flock, Weis- 
 siger and his colleagues made this the subject of 
 their last appeal, previous to their journey home : — 
 ^' Send us pastors who will teach us and our children 
 in the word of God, Avho will administer the holy 
 sacraments in our congregations, and under their 
 direction we have reason to believe that every thing 
 can be established and ordered in a Christian way."* 
 
 Yet, after all, years elapsed and no pastor arrived. 
 Letter after letter was forwarded, both to Eng- 
 land and to Germany, from the three associated 
 congregations. The unwillingness of the brethren 
 in Germany to send any but a faithful, competent 
 man, the difficulty they met w^ith in their efforts to 
 obtain the consent of such men to cross the ocean 
 for the West, — these were amongst the principal 
 reasons of the long delay. At length, in 1741, 
 Providence opened the way for the calling of the 
 Eev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, as pastor of the 
 churches in and around Philadelphia, and for his 
 acceptance of the post. 
 
 Muhlenberg, having left the scene of his earlier 
 
 ■" Ilalle llcports 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 83 
 
 labors in Lusatia, aiTived in England April 17, 
 1742. After a sojourn of about nine weeks, ga- 
 thering refreshment of spirit and strength for his 
 work from his frequent intercourse with Dr. Zie- 
 genhagen, chaplain of George II., he embarked 
 in a vessel bound for Charleston, South Carolina, 
 and landed in that city September 21. Though 
 his destination was Philadelphia, there were never- 
 theless sufficient reasons for bending his course 
 towards this Southern port. 
 
 In the year 1734, and subsequently^ matters of 
 great importance in the history of the Lutheran 
 Church were transpiring in this portion of the 
 colonies. A violent and relentless persecution — a 
 persecution even unto death — had been started and 
 kept up from year to year, by the Popish authori- 
 ties and their people, against the Protestants of 
 Salzburg, then the most eastern district of Bavaria. 
 The sympathies of Christians, not only on the 
 continent but even in England, were aroused on 
 their behalf. The original object of the chartered 
 company of "Trustees for Establishing the Colony 
 of Georgia" was to provide a home and the means 
 of subsistence for the indio'ent inhabitants of Great 
 Britain. The distresses of the Lutherans of Salz- 
 burg induced the Trustees to extend the wing of 
 their protection over them ; and so they avowed 
 the additional object of "furnishing a refuge for 
 the distressed Salzburgers and other Protestants."* 
 
 * Strobel's History of Siilzburgers, p. 45. 
 
84 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 The benevolence of this company provoked the 
 "Society for the Propagation of Christian Know- 
 ledge" to good Avorks. This society had already 
 been actively engaged in building churches, and 
 providing pastors and supporting them, for the 
 members of the Church of England in the colo- 
 nies. Learning the action of the "Trustees" on 
 behalf of the Salzburgers, it began to interest 
 itself for their removal to Georgia. A liberal grant 
 of money to the colony in Georgia, made by the 
 British Parliament, together with several thousand 
 pounds raised by private contributions, enabled 
 the "Trustees" to carry out their designs in regard 
 to the Salzburgers. They invited fifty families to 
 remove to Georgia, promising them liberal grants 
 of land, and provision until their lands could be 
 made available for their own support. 
 
 The first company of emigrants consisted of 
 forty-two men, wdth their families, — numbering in 
 all seventy-eight souls. In the city of Augsburg, 
 where they halted to refresh themselves, they were 
 cheered by the affectionate kindness of the Lu- 
 theran pastors and their flocks. Here they had an 
 opportunity of personal intercourse with the Rev. 
 Senior Urlsperger, so long the benevolent and the 
 active friend of the Lutheran Church in America. 
 Li the city of Rotterdam they first met those two 
 devoted men, John Martin Bolzius and Israel 
 Christian Gronau, who at that time took their 
 post as the pastors of the exiles, afterwards shared 
 with them all the vicissitudes of their wanderings 
 
LUTHERAN CIIURCII IN AMERICA. 00 
 
 by sea and by land, and, like Moses and Aaron, 
 were great in counsel and faithful in labor, even 
 unto death. 
 
 After a short sojourn in England, they embarked 
 for America, and reached the city of Charleston, 
 South Carolina, in the month of March, 1734. 
 There they were at once welcomed by the benevo- 
 lence and aided by the judicious counsel of the 
 good General Oglethorpe, who had led over the 
 first colony of English settlers, early in the year 
 1733. Having refreshed themselves by a few 
 days' repose in Charleston, they passed on to the 
 city of Savannah, and encamped in its vicinity 
 until arrangements were made for their permanent 
 location. This duty was undertaken by a "corps 
 of observation," who selected a district some thirty 
 miles in the interior, in what is now called Effing- 
 ham county, Georgia. The exiles themselves ap- 
 proved of the choice. Arriving upon the ground 
 with their wives and their little ones, they set up 
 a rock; they broke the silence of the wilderness as 
 they sang a hymn of praise; they sought the bless- 
 ing of the Lord with the earnest voice of prayer ; 
 they said, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us;" 
 and so, in the language of their excellent historian, 
 "was the foundation laid for the Colony of the 
 Salzburgers."* 
 
 Upon this the superstructure gradually arose; 
 
 * Strobcl's History of Salzburgers, chap. iii. 
 
86 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 and the additions made from time to time served 
 not only to enlarge the external circumstances, 
 but also to improve the spiritual condition, of the 
 colony. Early in the year 1735, there arrived a 
 second company of Salzburgers, numbering fifty- 
 seven persons; and towards the close of the same 
 year occurred what they called "the Great Em- 
 barkation." Upon a visit of their friend General 
 Oglethorpe to England, he was able to make such 
 representations to the "Trustees" as inclined them 
 to be even more active and enterprising than they 
 had ever been, in building up and confirming the 
 colony at Ebenezer, as their plac^ was called. 
 The operations of the "Trustees" in the settle- 
 ments of Georgia were no longer an experiment. 
 Their announcement that they w^ould provide for 
 the transportation of a given number of persons 
 of approved character was answ^ered by the appli- 
 cation of above twelve hundred persons to be sent 
 to Georgia. With a commendable solicitude for 
 the welfare of their infant colonies, they resolved 
 to encourage none but the worthy, and those 
 whose characters and habits might be of advantage 
 to the settlement. Accordingly, at this time they 
 extended their benevolence chiefly to Highlanders 
 from Scotland and persecuted Salzburgers from 
 Germany. 
 
 In the month of October, 1735, two ships set 
 sail from Gravesend, bound for Georgia, with a 
 company of emigrants amounting to two hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven persons. Of these there 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 87 
 
 were about eighty Salzburgers. The whole cha- 
 racter of the company thus thrown together, for 
 the first time, upon the eve of a perilous voyage, 
 its whole character in all its variations, was such 
 as to entitle it to special notice. 
 
 There were the Highlanders and the Salzburgers 
 and a few^ Moravians, peasants, or laborers, or me- 
 chanics, having nothing of this world's goods, but 
 rich in the treasures that come from above. 
 "Whether the ocean was calm or convulsed, these 
 poor Germans — the men, the women, the very 
 children— had the happy faculty of always dis- 
 cerning the divine presence at their side : whether 
 they were wafted on by breeze or gale, or fiercely 
 tossed by storms, they felt that the eternal God 
 was their refuge, and that always underneath them 
 were the everlasting arms. Trouble might melt 
 the souls of their companions, as on the raging 
 billows they mounted up to heaven and went 
 down again to the depths; but no trouble was 
 able to disturb their serenity : the Lord keepeth 
 them in perfect peace whose faith is stayed on 
 him. Associated with them in this voyage was 
 Oglethorpe, himself the friend and patron of the 
 Salzburgers already in Georgia. Of him the 
 pastors in Ebenezer testified, "He bears great 
 love to the servants and children of God." He 
 was the constant benefactor of the Lutherans. 
 His heart throbbed w^armly for all around him ; 
 he loved to relieve the indigent, to soothe the 
 mourner ; and his name became known as another 
 
88 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 expression for ''vast benevolence of sonl."'*' In 
 the same company were John and Charles Wes- 
 ley, the latter the secretary of Oglethorpe, and the 
 former going, as a preacher of the gospel, upon a 
 mission to the Indians. The interest of the Wes- 
 leys in divine truth was such as to render them 
 susceptible of any impressions of the Holy Spirit 
 that might reach them ; and their religious expe- 
 rience had been so confined, that much enlarge- 
 ment was needed as a preparation for the im- 
 portant duties that were before them. 
 
 To them these persecuted Lutherans preached 
 the gospel, not in word, but in deed and in power. 
 V Having heard how calmly and peacefully the Salz- 
 burgers could sing the praise of God when every 
 heart was quaking and some were almost dead 
 with terror in the storm, Mr. Wesley himself felt 
 that the religion of his own experience was en- 
 tirely destitute of that calm, attractive, confiding, 
 and heroic spirit which these Germans had exem- 
 plified in the time of trial. He approached one 
 of these believing men : — "Were you not afraid ?" 
 The German replied, "I thank God, no!" "But 
 were not your women and children afraid?" 
 "No ! Our women and children are not afraid to 
 die." Strange feelings were aroused in the heart 
 of the great founder of Methodism. Conviction 
 seized upon him. lie felt that he was himself yet 
 unconverted, — that. his heart was not right in the 
 
 * Bancroft's United States, vol. iii. chap. 24. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. b\) 
 
 sight of God. Ill the spirit of meekness he 
 humbled himself under the mighty hand, he took 
 counsel with them who knew the Lord, and at 
 length, after the lapse of two years, and subse- 
 quent to his return to England, he found peace in 
 believing. This occurred at a Moravian prayer- 
 meeting, during the reading of Luther's Preface 
 to the Epistle to the Romans.* 
 
 The majority of the Salzburgers in this com- 
 pany were speedily added to the colony of their 
 brethren in Ebenezer. Erom the character of the 
 materials thus far described, and the workmen by 
 whose skill they were to be moulded, it might be 
 expected that the settlement of the Salzburgers 
 would occupy altogether a prominent position in 
 Georgia, and exert a lasting influence for good. 
 As a whole, there seems to have been a more pre- 
 valent piety amongst them — a more general and 
 harmonious obedience to the dictates of elevated 
 Christian principle — than was usually displayed 
 by the German colonists of the I^orth. jSTo sooner 
 do they take possession of the wilderness than a 
 tabernacle is set up for the Lord. This is speedily 
 followed by provision for the education of the 
 children : then an asylum for the lonely orphan 
 succeeds. So, whilst their brethren in the faith in 
 Pennsylvania and adjacent States were clamoring 
 for help from abroad, or flying like sheep in the 
 midst of wolves, the Lutherans of Ebenezer 
 
 * Strobel's History of Salzburgers. 
 
 6-^ 
 
90 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 steadily cherish and exercise the grace of God 
 in their own souls, and harmoniously co-operate 
 in building up his kingdom amongst men. 
 
 It was greatly to their advantage that, from the 
 time of their first arrival, they enjoyed the over- 
 sight of those two faithful pastors, Bolzius and 
 Gronau. It was of immense service that Url- 
 sperger and Francke in Germany, and Ziegen- 
 hagen in England, — those venerable and eminent 
 fathers in the Lutheran Church, — were so deeply 
 interested on their behalf. Without this patron- 
 age, and the unity of spirit and action that it pro- 
 moted, they might have lived in almost utter des- 
 titution and forgetfulness of religious privileges, 
 like the early colonists of Schoharie ; they might 
 have been distracted by the impositions of igno- 
 rant and crafty pretenders to the pastoral office, 
 like the unsuspecting farmers of New Hanover.* 
 From the beginning, Urlsperger, Francke, and 
 Ziegenhagen were particularly prominent in 
 making the arrangements for their emigration 
 and settlement. The high character of these 
 Lutheran divines is a sufficient evidence that the 
 persons whom they agreed to recommend as the 
 guides and spiritual teachers of the Salzburgers 
 were no ordinary men. 
 
 Bolzius and Gronau then had had a deep per- 
 sonal experience in the ways of the Lord. As 
 Lutherans, they had been taught by the Confes- 
 
 * Stoever's Memoir of Muhlenberg, p. 53. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 91 
 
 sion of the Church to build their faith upon no- 
 thing but the inspired word, and to esteem it 
 abov-e all earthly price. Their administrative 
 qualities were discreet and energetic, patient and 
 commanding. They understood well the responsi- 
 bilities of the post they occupied, and took the 
 oversight of the flock not for filthy lucre's sake, 
 but of a ready mind. Their piety, as manifested 
 by their works, excited the admiration of AYhite- 
 field, for it appeared to him to be of that high 
 order that is very rarely seen.* The fruits of 
 their labor, as they grew and ripened at Ebenezer 
 in peace and industry, in moral purity and Chris- 
 tian love, presented to the eyes of strangers and 
 visitors all the appearance of a field which the 
 Lord hath blessed. 
 
 From the time of its foundation until the year 
 1741, over twelve hundred German Protestants 
 had arrived in the colony. By the blessing of the 
 Lord upon the faithful labors of their pastors, 
 their town was marked b}^ neatness and pleasant- 
 ness. ]^o drunken, no idle, no profligate people 
 were amongst them ; industry and harmony pre- 
 vailed, souls were converted by the word of God, 
 and believers were edified. 
 
 All these circumstances, and many more of an 
 interesting character, were well known by those 
 Lutheran pastors in England and in Germany 
 who had been so active as the friends and patrons 
 
 * Strobcl's History, p. 110. 
 
92 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 of the colony. Iso less coucerned about the la- 
 bors of Muhlenberg in the North, than they had 
 ever been about those of Bolzius and Gronau in 
 the South, they wished him to enjoy from the 
 beginning all the benefits that might be derived 
 from the experience of the pastors at Ebenezer. 
 
 As they dismissed him for the field allotted to 
 him in Pennsylvania, "Go," said they, "go first 
 of all to our brethren in Georgia ; seek the acquaint- 
 ance of Bolzius and Gronau, the experienced pas- 
 tors of the Salzburgers ; confer with them about 
 the duties that are before you ; learn from them 
 the peculiarities of the country and the best plans 
 I of operating amongst its people : you may expect 
 I that if it is possible Bolzius himself will accom- 
 pany you to Pennsylvania, and so effect for you 
 an easy entrance into the field of your future 
 J labors." 
 
 / It was in pursuance of these directions that 
 / Muhlenberg landed in Charleston. Having en- 
 ' joyed two days' repose in this city, he went to Sa- 
 vannah. Here he first met Pastor Gronau, and in 
 company with him rode to Ebenezer. His voyage 
 had been one of great peril and exhaustion. He 
 n/ required time to refresh himself. Eight days — the 
 whole period of his stay at Ebenezer — were taken 
 for this purpose; but the spirituality of his own 
 character, as well as of the pastors of Ebenezer, is 
 shown in the fact, that all three united many times 
 during those eight days in seeking strength and 
 refreshment from the word of God. With his 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 93 
 
 diligent attention to tlic duties that had drawn 
 him thither, the time was long enough to make 
 him feel anxious to begin his own appropriate 
 work. With these brethren he might well have 
 felt at home, so sweet was their fellowship, so 
 attractive were their external circumstances, and, 
 in spiritual things, so promising was the future. 
 Upoa the eve of bidding them farewell, he wrote 
 in his diary, "So I must leave Ebenezer. The 
 worthy patrons and benefactors in Europe have 
 not exercised their benevolence in vain, for I have 
 here seen the reality of the reports that have been 
 published in Germany. In many respects, things 
 are even in a much better condition than I had 
 been led to anticipate. I am astonished at the 
 signs of external prosperity; and, in regard to the 
 spirit, the prospects of the harvest are bright and 
 glorious." The Christian affection he felt for 
 these brethren was fully reciprocated, and an 
 earnest of it was afforded by the fact that Bolzius, 
 notwithstanding many serious difficulties, resolved 
 to accompany him to Pennsylvania. 
 
 They set out for Charleston October 12, 1742. 
 Upon their arrival here, they learn that no vessel 
 would be likely to sail for Philadelphia before the 
 following spring, and that the journey by land 
 was altogether out of the question. Thus arrested 
 almost at the very threshold, they submit. Bol- 
 zius returns to his post at Ebenezer, and Muhlen- 
 berg collects and instructs the German children 
 of Charleston, and, like Paul in Rome, expounds 
 
94 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 and testifies the kingdom of God to all who 
 would come to him upon the Lord's day. 
 
 The passage of Muhlenberg from Charleston to 
 Philadelphia is indicative at once of his heroic 
 and confiding spirit. On the 1st of November, a 
 sloop — a crazy sloop — arrived from Philadelphia, 
 with the intention of speedily returning to that 
 port. In this vessel he resolved to set sail. All 
 his friends united to dissuade him : the captain of 
 the sloop himself said the vessel was too small ; it 
 had no accommodations for passengers ; it was the 
 winter-season, and then the voyage was a very dan- 
 gerous one. In defiance of these cautious argu- 
 ments, he responded only to the calls of duty. 
 He had seen in the public prints such representa- 
 tions of the aflairs of the Church in the ]N"orth as 
 increased his anxiety to be there. So, on the 12th 
 of November, he betook himself on board the 
 sloop, and on the same day, in the name of the 
 Lord, set sail for Philadelphia. On this vessel he 
 passed two weeks of severe trial, drenched with 
 rain, chilled with frost, sick and exhausted ; yet he 
 arrived safely at the desired port at last.* 
 
 * Halle Reports. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 95 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF GERMAN CHURCHES. 
 
 The judicious and persevering efforts of the con- 
 gregations in and around Philadelphia, to secure 
 the ministry of ahle and faithful pastors, may be 
 regarded as the indications of a certain prominence 
 belono:iuo; to them in the Lutheran Church in 
 America. There was something in the province 
 of Pennsylvania (shall we say it was the fertility 
 of the soil, it was the salubrity of its climate?) that 
 rendered it especially interesting and attractive to 
 the Germans. Muhlenberg, in giving his first 
 impressions, which he never saw reason to alter, 
 described it as a land flowing with milk and 
 honey, — as the best of all the regions of the con- 
 tinent for his countrymen. Such was the prevail- 
 ing sentiment. There were Germans in Georgia, 
 at Ebenezer and Savannah ; there were Germans 
 in the province of Maine, at Waldoboro, near the 
 head of Muscongus Bay; there were Germans at 
 New York, and along the Hudson, and west of 
 Albany. In the course of time the population of 
 these several settlements was increased by various 
 additions from abroad. But towards Philadelphia 
 and the inland regions of Pennsylvania the tide 
 of immigration was especially steady and strong. 
 
Pd early history of the 
 
 In the autumn of 1750, twenty vessels arrived 
 at Philadelphia with twelve thousand Germans on 
 board. Each of the two years immediately follow- 
 ing brought almost as large a number. Through 
 all these multitudes there ran a strong current of 
 generous sympathy. They were fellow-country- 
 men; they had become companions in trial and 
 adventure. The movements of any considerable 
 portion w^ould be apt to excite the interest of all 
 the rest; and whether they remained in Philadel- 
 phia, or spread themselves over the regions that 
 now belong to the counties of Bucks, Lehigh, 
 ISTorthampton, Berks, Lancaster, Dauphin, and 
 Cumberland, in Pennsylvania, the developments 
 of any particular part might be regarded by us as 
 a fair specimen of the spirit of the whole. 
 
 This is especially true of those who, whether in 
 city or in the inland regions, were united in the 
 fellowship of the faith. The Lutherans of Phila- 
 delphia and its vicinity, therefore, may be regarded 
 as fair representatives of the Lutheran Church; 
 and a history of their progress, though it would 
 contain many local facts, might nevertheless be, in 
 its spirit, a correct history of many years of the 
 Church in America. 
 
 So Muhlenberg arrived in Philadelphia, and 
 there lay the labors of a Hercules before him. 
 He had not only had no one to prepare the way, 
 but, on the contrary, there were many circum- 
 , stances and various personages that combined to 
 block up the way and impede his progress. He 
 
LUTHERAX CHURCH IN AMERICA. 97 
 
 compared the condition of the Lutherans with that 
 of the members of other Churches in Phihadel- 
 phia; he compared it with that of the Lutherans 
 in the fatherland; and he felt that it was deplora- 
 ble enough to draw forth tears of blood. Scat- 
 tered by hundreds, yea, thousands, through the 
 land, were people who, according to their baptism, 
 their education and confirmation, ought to have 
 been active members of the Lutheran Church. 
 Yet they lived w^ithout the enjoyment of religious 
 privileges, many of them without even the desire 
 for that enjoyment. The children were growing 
 up without baptism, without religious instruction; 
 they were verging fast on to heathenism, or start- 
 ing off, on this side and on that, towards some one 
 or other of the many sects and parties with which 
 the land was filled. Unbelievers of various names 
 and shades and nations were not unfrequently 
 encountered ; and the condition of the Lutheran 
 Church, in a word, was altogether such as might 
 be expected to result from thirty years of con- 
 fusion, disorder, and neglect. 
 
 The little flock that still pretended to keep up 
 the form and to cherish the spirit of our faith, 
 both in Philadelphia and its vicinity, had been 
 distracted and laid waste by crafty intruders into 
 the pastoral ofiice. Men who, for good reasons, 
 had been deposed from the Lutheran ministry in 
 Europe, and men w^ho, for good reasons, might 
 claim pre-eminence in other churches, had un- 
 dertaken to pass themselves oil' as Lutlierau 
 
98 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 clergymen. For a while they succeeded in their 
 schemes. They ohtained a position ; they ma- 
 naged affairs ; they had things all their own way ; 
 and, as the last of the long series of calamities 
 with which the Church was afflicted, they en- 
 tered in where disorder and confusion already 
 existed, and so made that disorder and confusion 
 at once absolute and complete. 
 
 "We unite heartily with the Christian world in 
 extendins: to the Moravian brethren of Herruhut 
 and their zealous descendants the high praise to 
 which they are entitled for the sincerity of their 
 devotion, the boldness of their missionary enter- 
 prise, and their happy illustration of the gentle 
 graces of the gospel. But in perusing the re- 
 cords of history we cannot omit to notice the fact 
 that, at the period of which we are now speaking. 
 Count Zinzendorf, the patriarch of the Moravians, 
 had placed and sought to maintain himself in a 
 position grossly offensive to Muhlenberg and to 
 the eminent and holy men who had sent him 
 hither. The count had come to Philadelphia ; he 
 had assumed the name of Von Thurnstein. He 
 presented himself as a Lutheran preacher and 
 inspector of all the Lutheran churches in Penn- 
 sylvania. He took possession of the books of 
 the Lutheran congregation in Philadelphia. He 
 insisted upon Muhlenberg's bowing to his author- 
 ity. He sought to prevent his preaching in the 
 Swedish Church at Wicaco, and endeavored, in 
 various ways, to excite such suspicions and pre- 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 99 
 
 judices against him as might entirely prevent his 
 exercising the pastoral office in the Lutheran 
 Church.* 
 
 Upon learning the state of affairs both in the 
 Church and around it, the brethren in Europe 
 were perfectly astonished, as they well might 
 have been, at the resolution and the courage 
 with which Muhlenberg, alone, unattended, with- ^ 
 out a colleague, without a friend, faced and bore 
 down upon all these multiplied obstacles. In 
 his previous history he had worn dignities with 
 grace ; he had occupied high and responsible offi- 
 cial positions with ability; and now, by virtue of 
 that apostolic talent that enabled him to be made 
 all things to all men as his duty dictated, he 
 minded not high things, but accommodated him- 
 self to men of low estate. His papers, his cre- 
 dentials, were so clear and satisfiictory, — besides, 
 the}' were so highly corroborated b}' his own per- 
 sonal appearance, his address, his talent and spirit, 
 — that it was not long before all opposers and 
 gainsayers were dismissed or took their departure; 
 and the Lutherans, revived and reassured, began 
 to unite and cluster around him. 
 
 At that time there were seven churches in 
 Philadelphia, — the Episcopalians, the Presby- 
 terians, the Roman Catholics, the Baptists, the 
 Quakers, the Moravians, and the Swedes, having 
 each one place of worship. The religious exer- 
 
 * Ilalle Reports, p. 14. 
 
100 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 cises of the German Lutherans had been held in 
 a private dwelling. Upon the arrival of Muhlen- 
 berg, however, they obtained from the Swedish 
 brethren, and continued to enjoy for a short time, 
 the use of the church at "VYicaco. 
 
 'No sooner had Muhlenberg entered upon his 
 labors, than he began to till and cultivate every 
 portion of the extensive field to which he had 
 been called. Philadelphia, Providence or the 
 Trappe, New Hanover or the Swamp, — the latter 
 two places about thirty-five or forty miles north- 
 west of the former, — were the principal scenes of 
 his first solitary operations. About seven miles 
 north of Philadelphia was Germantown. Here, 
 too, the Lutherans had organized a congregation, 
 which, in accordance with their earnest entreaties, 
 after a few w^eeks, he also added to his bishopric. 
 Early in the year 1743, he began to bear the heat 
 and burden of the day in these localities, so^ 
 dividine: his time that he mi^ht devote one week 
 to each congregation, excepting the one in Ger- 
 mantown, which he treated as an appendage of 
 the church in Philadelphia. He kept school all 
 '^' the week, and he preached the gospel every Lord's 
 day. [ In his three schools, however, he collected 
 not the little children, but the young people from 
 eighteen to twenty years of age and upwards, — 
 sometimes parents even, with their adult sons and 
 daughters. He began with the principles of the 
 doctrine of Christ ; he accommodated his instruc- 
 tions to their several capacities ; he exhorted them 
 
J 
 
 LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 101 
 
 with many words ; he was gentle among them as 
 a nurse cherisheth her children ; he travailed until 
 Christ was formed within them ; and, as the result (2^t[ 
 of his labors, the churches were found to rejoice 
 in seasons of refreshing from the presence of the; 
 Lord. 
 
 During the course of the spring and summer 
 of 1743, he was engaged in gathering in the first- 
 fruits of his labors ; and whoever reads the simple 
 and touching accounts he has himself furnished 
 of this, his first spiritual harvest, will see that he 
 who sows in tears may reap in joj^ 
 
 On Whitsunday, 1743, he administered the '{ 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper in I^ew Hanover. / 
 Here he had previously confirmed twenty-six 
 catechumens. In this number there was a young 
 woman of twent3'-two years of age, who, in her 
 seventh year, had been put out to service by her 
 widowed mother. Having lived for fifteen years 
 in an English family, without spiritual care, she 
 had forgotten many of the lessons and utterly lost 
 the language of her youth. The good pastor led 
 her to the knowledge of Christ through the me- 
 dium of our English speech ; and when this Ger- 
 man congregation heard her publicly testify her 
 faith in Christ in the language to which she had 
 been used, they listened with profound interest, 
 and were affected even to tears. On this occasion 
 of the communion, the crowd was so great that the 
 people trod one upon another. In Providence 
 Bimilar scenes transpired on Whit-Monday. They 
 
 9* 
 
102 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 were repeated in other portions of his charge 
 during the year. Late in the fall, he baptized, in 
 the chnrch at Germantown, a mother with her five 
 adult children. They were so deeply affected that 
 he "might almost have baptized them with their 
 tears." He continued to watch for their souls, 
 and " their growth in grace and their promise of 
 frnitfuhiess was most refreshing to behold." 
 
 So it was. As we pass by the field where 
 springeth up first the blade, then the ear, and, 
 after that, the full corn in the ear, we are satis- 
 fied, though we may not have seen it, that upon 
 that field the hands and the feet of industry have 
 toiled for weary hours, and hope and patience 
 watched and waited — perhaps prayed — for the 
 blessing from above. And as we look through 
 this first ingathering of the few churches in Penn- 
 sylvania, whilst we behold the laborious faithful- 
 ness of the pastor, we may also discern the 
 anxious, hopeful, prayerful spirit of the people. 
 In Philadelphia, in Germantown, in Providence, 
 and in 'New Hanover, had the prayer long gone 
 up from many a heart, from many a house that 
 mourned for the desolations of Zion: — "Turn us 
 again, Lord God of hosts; cause thy face to 
 shine, and we shall be saved." 
 
 The effect of this little reviving was soon ap- 
 parent in the external activity of the churches. 
 They began to encourage each other in the erec- 
 tion of houses for public worship. In prayer they 
 spread the matter before the Lord. They entered 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 103 
 
 upon it in his name. In the depth of their po- 
 verty their liberality abounded. They sought and 
 obtained aid from the fatherland; they enjoyed the 
 flivor of the Lord, and the work went bravely on. 
 The congregation in Philadelphia, which was al- 
 ready large, having purchased an admirable lot of 
 ground in the centre of the city, were cheered as 
 they witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of 
 St. Michael's Church, with appropriate ceremonies, 
 April 7, 1743. On the 20th of October following, 
 though as yet not completely finished, it was so- 
 lemnly consecrated to the worship of God. The 
 corner-stone of the church in Providence was laid 
 May 2d of the same year. The attentive crowds 
 that witnessed the ceremony were composed of 
 English as well as Germans ; and the pastor, 
 having preached first in his native tongue, took 
 advantage of the occasion to proclaim the wdrd 
 also to his English friends in their own language. 
 On the 12th of the following September this 
 church was so far finished that the congregation 
 were able to leave the barn in which they had 
 previously met, and, for the first time, worship 
 God witliin the walls they had reared for his 
 praise. Meanwhile, the congregation at ^ew 
 Hanover, having previously had a church, were 
 engaged in the erection of a school-house for the 
 benefit of their children. 
 
 These undertakings not only increased the cares 
 of the pastor ; they also convinced both him and 
 the people that the next olTJect claiming their at- 
 
A, 
 
 104 EArxLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 tention was an increase of laborers in tlie harvest. 
 yjf Their cry went out to Germany, — " Come over and 
 / help us!" It was an earnest cry; it was meant to 
 be heard. Every ship that arrived at Philadelphia 
 was hailed, first of all, with the inquiry, "Are 
 there any Lutheran ministers on board?" At last 
 they came. 
 
 The Rev. Peter Brunnholtz, a native of Schles- 
 wig, having first been proven and found faithful 
 in the care of souls, was ordained April 12, 1744, 
 and forthwith took his departure, duly commis- 
 sioned as pastor of the churches in and around 
 Philadelphia. In company with him came also 
 the Messrs. Schaum and Kurtz, students of theo- 
 logy, who had been well reported of for good 
 works, and whose object was, first of all, to act as 
 catechists or assistants of the two pastors in their 
 new home. 
 
 Having been subjected to many delays in 
 England, and tossed by contrary winds upon 
 their voyage, these three brethren at length 
 reached Philadelphia, January 26, 1745. They 
 landed; and, as they were approaching the city, 
 they met a German coming out of the forest, who, 
 as he saw that they had arrived in the vessel lying 
 in the harbor, first accosted them with the usual 
 question: — "Are there any Lutheran ministers on 
 board?" Upon learning their character he leaped 
 for joy: he took them to the house of a German 
 merchant, known for his hospitality. The elders, 
 the deacons, many members of the Church, soon 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 105 
 
 gathered around tliem ; an express was sent off to 
 Providence to convey the intelligence to Muhlen- 
 berg ; and upon that day they all united to thank 
 God and to take courage. There was very little 
 delay about the commencement of their opera- 
 tions. Before two weeks, Brunnholtz had visited 
 all the churches and been acknowledged as co- 
 pastor with Muhlenberg. Schaum opened his 
 school in Philadelphia, and Kurtz did the same at 
 New Hanover. 
 
 Immediately after this increase of clerical force, 
 the demand for pastoral services became louder 
 and more extensive than ever. The four asso- 
 ciated churches, 'tis true, were satisfied, as they had 
 reason to be. They devoutly returned thanks to 
 God, and sent back their grateful acknowledg- 
 ments to the fathers and brethren in Europe, for 
 the Christian kindness that had been experienced 
 at their hands. They would ask nothing farther 
 for the present than the sympathy of prayer, the 
 encouragement of friendly counsel, and some 
 timely aid in liquidating the debts incurred hj the 
 building of the churches, for which Muhlenberg 
 and a few of the elders, poor as they were, were 
 themselves personally responsible. 
 
 Ere long, however, news reached them from all 
 the regions round about, that their brethren in the 
 faith, less favored than they, were waking up to 
 the things concerning the kingdom of God, were 
 famishing for the word of life, were organizing 
 congregations, were longing for some faithful 
 
106 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 pastor to instruct them in the truth and to admi- 
 nister the sacraments amongst them. From Oley, 
 and Schwartzwald, and Tulpehocken, above the 
 Trappe; from Chester, below Philadelphia; from 
 Cohanzy, in ]^ew Jersey, where a church already 
 existed; even from the distant settlement in Scho- 
 harie, the most urgent entreaties for spiritual atten- 
 tions were addressed to them. And what were 
 they among so many? Yet they were the men 
 for the emergency. The two assistants, Schaum 
 and Kurtz, whether engaged in the operations of 
 their schools, or preparing the young people for 
 confirmation, or occupying the pulpit upon the 
 Lord's day, showed themselves apt to teach, for 
 their hearts were in the work. They were pre- 
 pared for any service the pastors might demand 
 of them, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, — to go to 
 any point, at any time, wdiither the interests of 
 souls required. Had they done less, they might 
 have blushed in view of the laborious and unwea- 
 ried zeal of Muhlenberg and Brunnholtz. When 
 the pastors were accustomed to recapitulate their 
 sermons with their congregations, in the form of 
 question and answer, — wdien they would go about 
 from house to house, that they might apply the 
 truth to the hearts of individuals, — when they 
 sought, wath affectionate concern, to ascertain the 
 spiritual condition of every soul committed to their 
 charge, — when they might be met, any day, labor- 
 ing with equal earnestness near at hand or afar 
 off among the destitute families of the wilderness, 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 107 
 
 — it would not have become the two assistants to 
 hang far behind in pastoral duty. 
 
 The demand for pastors, however, was sent in 
 from more remote congregations, with such touch- 
 ing importunity, that both Schaum and Kurtz 
 were promoted, at an early day, to posts of much 
 greater prominence and responsibility. The former 
 went to York in Pennsylvania, the latter to Tul- ^ 
 pehocken; and there they labored faithfully and 
 long. The Lord was not unmindful of their work 
 and labor of love. Their churches were increased 
 in numbers, and edified greatl}^ ; and the memory 
 of their self-denial, their heroism and devotion, 
 lingers about these scenes of their early toils even 
 to the present day. 
 
 The name of York, Pennsylvania, occurring at 
 this period of our history, is an evidence that it 
 was one of the characteristics of the Germans, in 
 -that early day, to spread themselves over all the 
 land. The pastors from Philadelphia, who, from 
 time to time, undertook a visitation of the Church, 
 having reached their brethren at York, would 
 press on as far as Maryland, and urge their way 
 even into Virginia. Everywhere they met their 
 fellow-countrymen, the children of the Augsburg 
 Confession. Whither could they have gone along 
 the seaboard without being reminded of their faith 
 and their fatherland? Beginning with Maine, 
 and continuing on to Georgia, the frequent and 
 flourishing settlements of their brethren in the 
 fixith might easily have impressed them with the 
 
108 EARLY IIISTOllY OF THE 
 
 idea that tlie German nation and the Lutheran 
 Church were ubiquitous. The comparative nu- 
 merical strength of the Church, the purity of its 
 spirit, and the fideUt}^ of its discipline, held out a 
 most promising future. It may not he useless for 
 us to consider these facts, and, at the same time, 
 to weigh the circumstances by which the liopes 
 that they justified have, to so great an extent, 
 been disappointed. 
 
 The appeals of the pastors and congregations to 
 the brethren in Germany were often renewed and 
 insisted upon. Their tardy responses were not 
 occasioned by any lack of interest in the welfare 
 of the Church in America, but by the scrupulous 
 caution wdth which the}^ sought to commission and 
 send out such pastors only as, being men of God, 
 might make full proof of their office. In the year 
 1746, Dr. Francke, of Halle, communicated a call 
 from the churches in Pennsylvania to the Rev. 
 John F. Ilandschuh, who for several years had 
 been actively engaged in the labors of a successful 
 ministry. The learning, the diligence and fixith- 
 fulness of Handschuh eminently qualified him for 
 the post, whilst his views of duty were such as to 
 induce him to throw himself body and soul into 
 the work. The Lord, he said, had already pre- 
 pared him for such an undertaking, — had lifted 
 him up above many of the restraints of earth ; and, 
 since the great change of his heart, he wished only 
 to yield himself up entirely to the disposal of his 
 Lord and Master, to whom he owed so much. He 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 109 
 
 would go whithersoever the Lord might direct 
 him, and offer up all that he had, that he might 
 glorify the name of the Redeemer amongst men. 
 He felt, for a season, a certain misgiving, occa- 
 sioned by a sense of his bodily weakness; but he 
 betook himself to prayer, and was then able to 
 quiet his heart, as he inquired of it, " What objec- 
 tion wilt thou urge if the Lord himse]f will have 
 thee there ?" It seemed to him that the Lord had 
 often taken the weak to confound the mighty ; and 
 so he felt satisfied, that if God wished to have him 
 in America, to labor in his kingdom there, he 
 would surely give him, weak though he was, both 
 grace and strength enough for every time of need. 
 Vigorous efforts were made to seek out two as- 
 sistants, who, associated with him as Kurtz and 
 Schaum had been associated with Brunnholtz, 
 might make his arrival even more joyful to the 
 churches in Pennsylvania. These efforts, however, 
 failed, and it was resolved that Handschuh should 
 depart alone. Li the month of June, 1747, he 
 left his native land, and, directing his course 
 through England, he arrived in London July 4. 
 Here he tarried about six weeks. Li the following 
 September he embafked at Gravesend, and on 
 April 5, 1748, he arrived in Philadelphia. On the 
 26th of May following, he preached his introductory 
 sermon as pastor of the church in the city of Lan- 
 caster. This city contained at that time about 
 four hundred houses. The Germans formed by 
 far the larger part of the population, and, by a 
 
 ]0 
 
110 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 commendable spirit of enterprise, rendered it a 
 prominent centre of attraction. The good living 
 for which it had already become famous secured 
 the addition of many to the number of its perma- 
 nent inhabitants, and Handschuh foresaw that it 
 would soon become and continue to be a great 
 and populous city. 
 
 There are peculiarities enough in the early his- 
 tory and continued progress of the church in Lan- 
 caster, to entitle it to some specific notice. It was 
 large. It was in all respects German. Yet it con- 
 tained a small, quite a small, proportion of Swedes, 
 who, as Lutherans, of course stood in intimate 
 fellowship with their German brethren. It w^as 
 owing to this circumstance, that in their desire to 
 obtain a pastor for their congregation, some time 
 previous to the year 1745, they addressed them- 
 selves to the Archbishop of Sweden. In Sweden, 
 German students of theology were to be met with, 
 and the expectation was that such a man, in addi- 
 tion to his regular ministry in the German lan- 
 guage, would be the more able to labor for the 
 edifying of the Swedes also, who, from time to 
 time, might come and settle amongst them. In 
 their appeal to the archbi^op they specify that 
 they wish a teacher of the Holy Scriptures, who 
 shall be true to the Augsburg Confession and the 
 other Symbolical Books of the Church. 
 
 The person by whose mission from Sweden this 
 appeal was answered was a man by the name of 
 ISTyberg. Upon his arrival in Lancaster, he was 
 
LUTHERAN CnURCH IX AMERICA. Ill 
 
 received by the congregation as an angel from 
 heaven, and duly acknowledged as pastor of the 
 church, with the reiterated understanding that he 
 should be faithful to tlie pure Lutheran doctrine. 
 His prospects were most encouraging : he possessed 
 the unbounded confidence of the people, and the 
 promise of a glorious harvest seemed to rise fair 
 and bright before him. But he proved himself to 
 be unworthy of it all. The period of his connec- 
 tion with the church was one of great uneasiness 
 and turmoil to the brethren, of scandal in the 
 eyes of the world, whilst it resulted at last in his 
 ow^n complete confusion. 
 
 He was a man of keen susceptibility, of strong 
 passions; and, had his training been thorough, his 
 understanding enlightened and solid in propor- 
 tion, he might have become long and eminently 
 useful. But his zeal was without knowledge, his 
 will was obstinacy, and his antecedents were alto- 
 gether such as to unfit him for the responsible post 
 of a Lutheran pastor. 
 
 He had commenced his preparation for the 
 active duties of life with the study of civil- 
 engineering. Subsequently, however, he turned 
 his attention to theology. The consequence of 
 this late beginning of his theological course w^as 
 a superficial, a very defective training, the un- 
 happy influence of wdiich might be seen at almost 
 any point of his career. After the expiration of 
 his academical course, he acted as private tutor in 
 tlio family of a Swedish nobleman; and it was 
 
112 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 through the influence of this man that he ob- 
 tained, from the Consistory in Sweden, the appoint- 
 ment called for by the appeal of the church in 
 Lancaster. 
 
 There is abundant evidence that even before he 
 left Sweden, though professing to be a Lutheran, 
 he had given his heart to the Moravians; and 
 that, though he formally bound himself, by the 
 Symbolical Books, only to the w^ord of God, 
 he devoted himself in spirit to the plans of 
 Zinzendorf. 
 
 The Lutherans of Lancaster — and, indeed, the 
 Lutherans of any place — could have no reason- 
 able objection against the labors of Moravian 
 clergymen amongst their own people or amongst 
 the people of the world at large. On the other 
 hand, they have often admired their zeal, and 
 rejoiced with great joy in their remarkable suc- 
 cess. But when the pastor at Lancaster began to 
 seek to pervert the church from its Lutheran fel- 
 lowship, — to deride and misrepresent the evan- 
 gelical Lutheran doctrine, — to decry Muhlenberg 
 himself, and the faithful officers of the congrega- 
 tion even, as most dangerous men, — it would have 
 been strange indeed if the Lutherans, both in 
 Lancaster and elsewhere, had not met such move- 
 ments with an earnest and a firm protest. Such 
 a protest w^as made. It excited ^N'yberg to take up 
 a position more hostile to the Lutheran interest, 
 more openly favorable to the Moravians. His 
 epistolary correspondence with them became frank 
 
LUTHERAN CIIURCH IN AMERICA. 113 
 
 and frequent; lie appeared as an active partici- 
 pator ill I he meetings of their Conferences; he 
 was the chief agent in gathering a Moravian Con- 
 ference in Lancaster in 1745, and in making 
 arrangements for its accommodation. And so, by 
 a course which would have been altogether praise- 
 worthy in an honest Moravian pastor, but which, 
 under the circumstances, was especially unbe- 
 coming a Lutheran, he forfeited the confidence 
 of his congregation, and plunged them into a long 
 and trying series of troubles. 
 
 During the progress of the conflict, the church 
 was violently closed and guarded ; it was opened 
 by force ; an appeal was had to the governor, who 
 ordered it closed a second time; counter-repre- 
 sentations were made, and the governor opened 
 the doors. The church was then violently closed 
 again, and a suit was entered before the civil tri- 
 bunal. It terminated in favor of the Lutherans 
 and in the defeat of the friends of Xyberg. The 
 confusion still continued. Conrad Weiser, the 
 father-in-law of Muhlenberg, — a man of high 
 standing and of extensive influence, — exhausted 
 his skill in attempts to eftect a compromise ; and 
 Muhlenberg, when appealed to, in the summer of 
 1746, to allay the disturbance by testifying what 
 the Lutheran doctrine was, went to Lancaster 
 with a heavy heart and with very feeble hopes of 
 success. After this, however, the storm ceased 
 to rage. Nyberg and his adherents passed along 
 
 10- 
 
114 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 to the building of a new clinrch, upon Moravian 
 principles, and the Lutherans had peace.* 
 
 Of course, the sad eflects of this conflict con- 
 tinued to be seen long after its violence had 
 passed away. For many months they were felt 
 and lamented. Gradually, however, the congre- 
 gation revived. An occasional visit from the pas- 
 tors in Philadelphia, whether German or Swedish, 
 began to restore the church to a consciousness of 
 its duty and its strength. Then the more regular 
 labors of Kurtz, from Tulpehocken, one Sunday in 
 every month, quickened it still more, until, with 
 the arrival of Handschuh, in 1748, we discern 
 rising upon it the dawn of its better days. Hand- 
 schuh entered upon his duties there with his cha- 
 racteristic faith and prayerfulness. His connec- 
 tion with the church in Lancaster, however, was 
 from the first regarded only as temporaiy ; and, 
 after the indefatigable and successful labors of 
 three years, he withdrew from Lancaster and 
 took charge of the church in Germantown. 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 69, et seq. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 115 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STATE OF THE GERMAN CHURCHES. 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 the Eev. Mr. Schlatter occupied a most prominent 
 position and exerted a most salutary influence 
 amongst the German Reformed of America. His 
 intelligent zeal secured for them much material 
 aid both in Holland and in England, and the suc- 
 cess of his efforts seems to have been considerably 
 promoted by the formidable array of his statistics. 
 He represented the German Reformed in Penn- ' 
 sylvania as amounting to thirty thousand, consti- 
 tuting forty-six congregations and forming sixteen 
 pastoral districts. His appeals not only drew forth 
 streams of benevolence from Holland, from Ger- 
 many, and from Switzerland, but even instigated 
 the nobility and royal family of Great Britain to 
 emulate the Christians of the continent in be- 
 friending the Germans of America. In England, 
 twenty thousand pounds sterling were placed in 
 the hands of the trustees of the "Society for Pro- 
 pagating the Knowledge of God among the Ger- 
 mans," and the interest of it was employed in 
 founding and sustaining schools under the inspec- 
 tion of Mr. Schlatter. The Lutherans, having no 
 such munificent patronage, found their only com- 
 
116 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 fort in the reflection that they needed it twice as 
 much. It was a moderate estimate, allowed by 
 Schlatter himself, that the Lutherans were twice 
 as numerous as the Keformed ; and so, about the 
 year 1750, we find sixty thousand Lutherans in the 
 province of Pennsylvania. This number repre- 
 sents of course the w^hole population of the Lu- 
 theran Church, and not simply its membership. It 
 was the amount of material upon which able w^ork- 
 men, had they been present in the proportion in 
 which pastors were required, might have operated 
 successfully, at that early day, in rearing and beau- 
 tifying the walls of our Lutheran Zion. 
 
 With these Lutherans in Pennsylvania, there 
 stood in as close sympathy as the state of the 
 country would allow^, many brethren in the faith 
 in Kew York, in ISTew Jersey, in Maryland, in Vir- 
 ginia, and as far south as Ebenezer in Georgia. 
 As to the advantages of spiritual care, they w^ere 
 to be found in all possible varieties of condition, — 
 from the regularly-organized congregation, edified 
 by the ministrj^ of a faithful pastor, to the remote 
 and neglected settlement, over which the heart 
 might sigh as over lost sheep without a shep- 
 herd. 
 
 If, however, it is any advantage to a Church, 
 upon its first introduction to any territory, to have 
 a wide door and effectual opened to it, to find 
 ready access to many families, to meet with a large 
 portion of the population already inclined by habit 
 and by education to accept its ministry and to 
 
LUTHERAN CnURCH IN AMERICA. 117 
 
 worship at its altars, that advantage was largely 
 enjoyed by the Lutheran Church. ^ 
 
 At this time there were in all the colonies, j 
 ]^ova Scotia excepted, about forty organized con- ; 
 gregations and sixteen regular pastors. Twenty- j 
 three of these congregations were in connection 
 with the Synod of Pennsylvania, — the others being 
 too remote to be able to co-operate directly with 
 it.* The lack of regular instruction of faithful 
 pastors of course retarded the introduction and 
 administration of Christian discipline. Upon the 
 adoption of such a discipline by the church in 
 Philadelphia, however, we learn that it had been 
 for years the subject of anxious ^ thought and of 
 fervent prayer on the part both of the ministers 
 and the people.! In the absence of any com- 
 plete system, the pastors were careful to supply the 
 deficiency by a scrupulous application of Christian 
 principles upon all occasions of sacramental com- 
 munion. Their mode of proceeding is important 
 and interesting enough to justify us in illustrating 
 it by the exhibition of one or two examples. 
 
 In the month of [N'ovember, 1746, Muhlenberg 
 administered the Lord's Supper to the congrega- 
 tion at Tulpehocken. In his report of the pro- 
 ceeding he remarks, "It is indeed a serious under- 
 taking to celebrate the Holy Supper in a church 
 the members of which are not under our special 
 care, and the spiritual condition of whom we have 
 
 * Hazelius's History, p. 77. f HaUe Reports, p. 831 
 
118 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 no direct means to ascertain. Yet, nnder existinGr 
 circumstances, we have to do it. So we examine 
 the communicants with great rigor, we press home 
 upon them both law and gospel, we preach repent- 
 ance, faith, and the fruits of righteousness, we 
 point out to them the benefits that faith may ex- 
 pect to find in the sacraments, and, with the help 
 of God, seek to keep our conscience clear. "We 
 dig about the old trees ; we plant and water, and 
 pray God to send the increase. At the meeting 
 preparatory to the communion in Tulpehocken, I 
 had a text on the subject of repentance, according 
 to which the hearers were exhorted to examine 
 their own selves. After this I recorded the names 
 of those who wished to commune. I then pub- 
 lished all the names, and inquired of the elders 
 and deacons, upon their conscience, whether they 
 knew any perverse and wilful ofienders amongst 
 these communicants. They wept, and replied 
 that this responsibility was too heavy for them : 
 they had enough to do to judge their own hearts; 
 every one should answer for himself I was satis- 
 fied with this reply, and added that each one should 
 the more faithfully examine himself in the sight 
 of God. I had been previously informed that two 
 persons, whose names I recorded, had been ad- 
 dicted to intemperance. I called first upon one of 
 them, to state before the congregation how it was 
 at this time. Deep agitation prevented a direct 
 answer from the individual, but certain members 
 of the family replied that a reformation had been 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 119 
 
 ill progress for some considerable time already, 
 and that, by tlic grace of God, tliey hoped for a 
 complete recovery. The other one, whom I had 
 myself seen under the influence of strong drink, 
 was then called up and exhorted to repent. He 
 replied that he had already refrained from intem- 
 perate drinking for the space of six months. I 
 then told him that such an ofi:ence was an evi- 
 dence that his heart was yet unconverted, and 
 pointed out to him how he might, through grace, 
 obtain the forgiveness of all his sins, and adop- 
 tion into the family of God. This, however, en- 
 raged him, and, replying in offensive terms, he 
 went off. I then exhorted the congregation with 
 much warmth, telling them that they should by 
 no means think that a freedom from gross sin con- 
 stituted a worthy communicant ; because a heart 
 truly penitent, and hungering and thirsting after 
 righteousness, was here the one thing needful. I 
 taught them, too, how such a heart should be ob- 
 tained. After this examination, we confessed 
 our sins upon bended knees, implored pardon 
 through Jesus Christ, and pledged ourselves to 
 follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then I 
 announced to them the assurance of the divine 
 forgiveness. On the Lord's day I preached 
 upon the proper use and the benefits of the 
 Holy Supper, and administered the communion to 
 two hundred members. There was the best of 
 order, profound reverence and deep feeling, in 
 
120 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 all the coDgregation. The Lord knoweth the 
 heart. "'-^ 
 
 In connection with a report of the congrega- 
 tions of Providence and New Hanover, the dis- 
 ciplinary operations of the Church are recorded as 
 follows : — 
 
 "During the week preceding the communion, 
 every one who wishes to partake of it is expected 
 to visit the pastor, either in the parsonage or in 
 the school-house. The pastor then speaks with 
 him faithfully and tenderly ahout the state of his 
 heart and the character of his life; he inquires 
 about his growth in grace, and gives him the ne- 
 cessary admonition, instruction, and consolation 
 according to circumstances. By these personal 
 conferences the pastor learns the spiritual condi- 
 tion of the souls committed to his charge. 
 
 "On the day before the communion, those whose 
 names have been recorded attend the preparatory 
 exercises in the church. After the conclusion of 
 the sermon, they all come forward, and stand 
 around the altar; and if there be any amongst 
 them who have been guilty of gross oftences, these 
 are then personally called to account. The pastor 
 reminds them of the evil they have done, and 
 questions them about their repentance, their faith, 
 and their promise of reformation. If their answ^ers 
 have been satisfactory, the pastor then asks the 
 other communicants if they will forgive their of- 
 
 Ilalle Reports, p. 170. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 121 
 
 fending brethren and unite with him in imploring 
 God's forgiveness for Christ's sake. Often have 
 these questions been asked, and as often have the 
 brethren testified by tears their willingness to for- 
 give the wanderers and to remember them in prayer. 
 Hereupon the pastor addresses a short exhortation 
 to all, reminding them that it is through the grace 
 of God in Christ alone that they can be delivered 
 from sin. Then all kneel together before God, 
 and the pastor prays in the midst of them. A few 
 more questions follow, and the pastor repeats the 
 promise of pardon to them that believe. In con- 
 clusion, they are asked if any one has yet any 
 cause of complaint against another. If this hap- 
 pens to be the case, they then retire to the parson- 
 age, confer with each other, and are reconciled."* 
 This was administering Christian discipline with 
 a strong hand. It was taking the oversight of the 
 flock in the spirit of the divine word ; and we may 
 add, too, in the spirit of our own Confession. The 
 pastors, as they scrutinized the several congrega- 
 tions throughout the land, saw that they verified 
 the comparison of a net having fishes of all kinds, 
 both bad and good ; or of a field in which wheat 
 and tares grow^ together. They could not rashly 
 fall upon the field to gather up the tares, lest they 
 might root up the w^heat also. They could not 
 allow the tares to grow wholly undisturbed, 
 lest the precious seed might be choked and be- 
 
 Halle Reports, p. 18.- 
 11 
 
122 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 come altogether unfruitml. So, like faitliful labor- 
 ers, they endeavored to make fall proof of their 
 ministry ; and, as workers together with God, they 
 administered the word and the sacraments in his 
 name, hoping and believing that the Lord would 
 prosper the work of their hands. 
 
 In doctrine they aimed to show uncorruptness, 
 gravity, sincerity. In public and in private they 
 insisted upon it, that out of the heart proceedeth 
 every thing that deiileth the man, and that no- 
 thin o- would avail in Christ Jesus but a new crea- 
 ture. The variety of means they employed with 
 a view of converting souls and confirming tlie 
 faith of the disciples was everyway worthy of 
 admiration. By the simplicity of their preaching 
 the pastors accommodated themselves to the ca- 
 pacity of their hearers. Sometimes they would 
 recapitulate their sermons with the congregation 
 in the form of questions and answers. Some- 
 times at the conclusion of the discourse they 
 would read an appropriate hymn, and accompany 
 it with suitable remarks. This they were en- 
 couraged often to do by observing that it arrested 
 attention, produced deep impressions, and resulted 
 in winning men for Christ. Ko small portion of 
 their time was occupied in visiting from house to 
 house; and the object steadily kept in view was 
 to bring the truth directly home to the hearts of 
 tlie hearers, and to encourage them personally to 
 seek salvation through repentance towards God 
 and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH TN AMERICA. 123 
 
 The pastors with the Church were symbolical ; 
 by no means, however, in the odious sense in 
 which, alone, some of the present age are willing 
 to employ that term. They w^ere not symbolical 
 in contradistinction from being Biblical. They 
 were eminently Biblical, — scriptural in the high- 
 est sense, but, as Lutherans, symbolical ; that is, 
 they found the doctrines of the Holy Scripture — 
 which they loved, w^hich had prevailed to the re- 
 newing of their own hearts, and upon which they 
 relied for success in leading others to Christ — 
 aptly expressed, in a confessional form, in the un- 
 altered Augsburg Confession and the other Sym- 
 bolical Books of the Lutheran Church. Upon 
 these principles they laid the foundations of the 
 Church in America; and their hope and prayer 
 was that their descendants, until the latest genera- 
 tion, might continue in the pure doctrines of the 
 Cross, according to the word of God and our 
 S}Tnbolical Books. They were persuaded that 
 the doctrines of the gospel, thus expressed, would 
 not train the Church to dry orthodoxy nor in 
 mere formalism ; but must be mighty through 
 God in begetting a living faith and thoroughly 
 renewing the hearts of the children of men. They 
 endeavored to show that the Lutheran doctrine in 
 no respect countenanced a life without God, but, 
 by all means, insisted upon a renewing of the 
 hearts and lives of those who embraced it. They 
 ventured to hope that the doctrines of the Lu- 
 theran Church would abound in such works of 
 
124 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 faitli and fruits of righteousness as would toncli 
 and subdue the hearts even of the Indians them- 
 selves. These savages, the}^ found, had been re- 
 pelled and rendered suspicious by the inconsistent 
 conduct of mere nominal Christians ; but they ex- 
 pected that, by exemplifying the doctrines of the 
 Lutheran Church, they would attract the atten- 
 tion of the sons of the forest to Christianity, and 
 prepare the way for the Lord himself to appear 
 and claim them as his own.* 
 
 In the times of which we are writing, the Lu- 
 therans do not appear to have sought toleration 
 or popularity upon the ground of the conformity 
 of their doctrines and usages to those of any 
 other denomination in the land. They were con- 
 vinced that the Church was truly evangelical in 
 every sense ; and upon the strength of this they 
 went forward, boldly preaching its doctrines in 
 the name of the Lord, whether men would hear 
 or whether they would forbear. On a certain 
 occasion, Muhlenberg was requested to preach a 
 sermon on the death of a Lutheran whose body 
 was interred in a Mennonist burying-ground. A 
 very large mass of people of all denominations was 
 present, and amongst them were three Mennonist 
 preachers. His purpose was to address the con- 
 gregation in the open air; "but the three ministers 
 requested me to go into their large meeting-house, 
 which, they said, had ample accommodations for 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 148. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 125 
 
 all. After some hesitation, I consented. Upon 
 passing through the door, the oldest of the minis- 
 ters whispered cautiously in mj ear, 'I hope, at 
 least, you will not he making use of any strange 
 ceremonies here.' To which I replied, '^No cere- 
 monies will answ^er my purpose hut those of the 
 Evangelical Lutheran Church.' After the con- 
 clusion of the services he excused himself, saying 
 that he did not know what ceremonies we w^ere in 
 the hahit of using. Then all three came to me, 
 and, with tears in their eyes, thanked me because 
 I had blown the trumpet of repentance, as they 
 called it, so loudly in their meeting-house. After 
 this I preached four times in the same place. 
 These ministers were always present; and were 
 pleased to state, in a most friendly way, that their 
 hearts were awakened and blessed. In these 
 sermons I avoid all matters of controversy, and 
 speak of repentance, faith, and godliness, — sub- 
 jects that are most useful for us all."* 
 
 We may, perhaps, be allowed to take a similar 
 illustration from a period several 3'ears later in 
 the times of Muhlenberg. Upon the occasion of 
 a protracted visit to 'New York, " I was called 
 upon by an English merchant, a Presbyterian, 
 with the earnest request that I should bring my 
 whole family, and make that city the scene of my 
 future labors. He, with fifteen others, his breth- 
 ren, had been regularly attending my Sunday 
 
 * Il.'ille Reports, p. 158. 
 11* 
 
126 EAULY HISTOKY OF THE 
 
 evening services, he said, and had a prayer-meet- 
 ins: for mutual edification in his own house. In 
 the Lutheran Cliurch they found nourishment for 
 their souls. They could hear in my sermons that 
 I was a Lutheran ; but they felt that our exposi- 
 tion of the law and the gospel was in the spirit of 
 the Saviour, and, if I should continue to preach 
 here in the English language, the prospects for 
 gathering a large congregation were most en- 
 couraging, for there were many of the English 
 and the Dutch inhabitants whose souls were 
 hungering and thirsting after righteousness."* 
 
 The Church was symboHcal, — in doctrine show- 
 ing uiicorruptness, gravity, sincerity. Its symbol- 
 ism w^as strict; and it is refreshing to see that 
 symbolism may be taken also in a noble, glorious 
 sense, — that it maybe most deeply and thoroughly 
 evangelical. What examples of piety did it call 
 forth and nourish amongst the young ! To what 
 devotion and fervor of spirit in the service of the 
 Lord did it encourage and stimulate the old ! 
 
 Abundantly as the memoirs of pious youth 
 issue from the press at the present day, our in- 
 terest and our gratification would not falter upon 
 turning to peruse the extended records furnished 
 by the pen of Muhlenberg. He knew a boy in 
 Providence, — a lovely child, — WTiting of w^hom as 
 a boy of twelve years of age, he says, " The grace 
 of holy baptism may easily be seen in the charac- 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. 503. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 127 
 
 ter of this child. His memory is richly stored 
 with proof-passages of Scripture and with edifying 
 hymns. He is perfectly familiar with the five 
 principal parts of the catechism, and is often most 
 happy in his applications of divine truth to pecu- 
 liar circumstances. IN^ot long ago, as his mother 
 was walking with him in the fields, she spoke of 
 the grain, which appeared to he very thin, and 
 expressed her fears that the harvest might utterly 
 fail. He replied, 'Dear mother, let not this 
 trouhle you. " Behold the fowls of the air : for 
 they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
 into barns ; 3'et 3'our heavenl}^ Father feedeth 
 them. Are ye not much better than they?" Re- 
 member, too, how the Lord Jesus fed the thou- 
 sands who were with him in the wilderness.' So, 
 in his ordinary conversation, he shows remarkable 
 readiness in the perception and application of re- 
 ligious truth." 
 
 In a word, so many were the cases of youthful 
 piety attracting his attention, that Muhlenberg 
 hardly hesitates to speak of it as one of the pecu- 
 liar characteristics of the land, that the children 
 of believiug parents so often show, and at such 
 an early age, an enlarged personal experience of 
 divine grace.* 
 
 These features of Christian character were often 
 more fully developed in persons of maturer years. 
 Upon the occasions of public worship, the mcm- 
 
 * Halle Report^, p. 1G4. 
 
128 EARLY IIISTUllY OF THE 
 
 bers of the Cliurcb did not neglect the assembhng 
 of themselves together. They came from far and 
 near, in the snmmer's heat, in the winter's cold. 
 They received the word with deep attention, many 
 of them even with tears. Thongh the pastors 
 saw that some of the seed fell upon the wayside, 
 or among thorns, or upon stony ground, yet they 
 discovered that much of it fell upon good ground 
 and was bringing forth fruit unto perfection. In 
 their intercourse with families, with widows and 
 orphans in their affliction, with the sick and the 
 dying, they were often surprised to learn to Avhat 
 a degree persons of retiring habits and of low 
 estate had profited by the simple preaching of the 
 word.* 
 
 This- was all the more wonderful because of the 
 many circumstances that seem to have set them- 
 selves in array against the interests of the Church. 
 There were fiilse brethren who cruelly abused the 
 confidence that had been extended to them, oppo- 
 sing sects that were not ashamed for their own 
 advantage to misrepresent the Church and her mi- 
 nistry; there were infidels who spake loftily, and 
 scoffers who set their mouths ao-ainst the heavens. 
 Thus exposed on the right hand and on the left, 
 tried within and without, the long records she has 
 left of the deep personal experience of her chil- 
 dren are enough to commend to the admiration 
 of future ages the early history of the Lutheran 
 
 * Ilallc Reports, p. 185. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 129 
 
 Church in America. Truth requires us to observe, 
 too, that all this was at a time when as a Church 
 she was distinguished by exemplary fidelity to her 
 Confession. Her pastors were firmly bound by 
 the Symbolical Books to the word of God alone, 
 and her people were all trained, by faithful cate- 
 chetical instruction, to esteem the w^ord and sa- 
 craments above all earthly price. 
 /^ Their system of catechetical instruction should 
 not be overlooked. It began with the children in 
 the family: it brought them together, as the chil- 
 dren of the Church, under the care of the pastor 
 upon the Lord's day; and, still more thorough and 
 practical in its application, it prepared the youth 
 and others of maturer years for a worth}^ introduc- 
 tion to the communion of the Church. The ma- 
 nual universally commended aijd in general use 
 was Luther's Small Catechism. ) The relations of 
 this volume in the times of which we are vrriting, 
 as well as on many other occasions, show^ that it 
 possesses no ordinary character. Contending 
 sects, unable alike to penetrate its depths and to 
 appreciate its simplicity, assailed it with violent 
 opposition and spoke of it in contemptuous terms. 
 But men of God, who had been qualified, by their 
 own profound experience, to estimate its worth, 
 relied upon it and used it faithfully, as a most effi- 
 cient instrument for enliorhtcninsr the darkened 
 understanding, for arousing the sleeping con- 
 science, for leading the inquiring soul to God. 
 Wrangel, the provost of the Swedish churches 
 
^ 
 
 130 EATILY IIISTOIIY OF THE 
 
 at a period somewhat later, translated the cate- 
 chism into the English language; and the united 
 Synod of Swedes and Germans approved of it, 
 and strongly recommended its use in the English 
 churches. Ahout the year 1749, a German edi- 
 tion was published by Benjamin Franklin ; and, 
 large as it was, it was rapidly disposed of. When 
 the duties of the pastors upon the Lord's day per- 
 mitted it, they occupied the afternoon in the in- 
 struction of the- children. Then the churches 
 were nearly as well filled as for the morning ser- 
 vice. The 3^oung men, the young women, the 
 parents, as well as the children, came, many of them 
 furnished with the Bible in addition to the cate- 
 chism, searching out and repeating the difi:erent 
 proof-passages, and with such an earnestness of 
 attention, that the pastors believed that they some- 
 times did more good by this exercise than by their 
 ordinary preaching. Whilst they required the 
 catechism to be committed to memory, they were 
 careful not to overburden the memory, aiming 
 mainly at a clear exhibition of the truth to the 
 understanding and a direct application of it to the 
 heart.* 
 
 Under the impression that in union there was 
 strength, and that the interests of the whole Church 
 might be best promoted by a harmonious co-opera- 
 tion of all its parts, they organized a General Synod 
 in the year 1748, in the city of Philadelphia. 
 
 ■"- Halle Reports, pp. 305, 857. 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. 131 
 
 There were present, at this meeting, Sandin, pro- 
 vost of the Swedes, and ISTaesmann, also of the 
 Swedish Church ; Muhlenberg and Brunnholtz, of 
 Philadelphia, Handschuh, of Lancaster, and Kurtz, 
 of Tulpehocken. There were also lay delegates 
 from the congregations in Philadelphia, German- 
 town, Providence, 'New Hanover, Upper Milford, 
 and Saccum. The town of York, in Pennsyl- 
 vania, was at that time so far distant from Philadel- 
 phia, that a journey thither was felt to be a very 
 serious undertaking; and, accordingly, Schaum, 
 who was then laboring in York, was not able to 
 attend the meeting. The transactions at this Con- 
 vention were only preparatory, and had reference 
 mainly to the external organization of the body. 
 The Synod thus organized has, from that day to 
 this, richly shared in the divine blessing. Though 
 subject to the changes incidental to all human 
 altairs, it still continues until this day known and 
 deservedly respected throughout the Church as the 
 German Lutheran Synod of Pennsylvania and 
 adjacent States. Li two of its features is it espe- 
 cially true to its early origin : one is the predomi- 
 nance of the German element; the other is its 
 noble maintenance of the doctrinal position of the 
 godly men who organized it. The distinction is 
 very great between the German character as, met 
 with at present in our German churches, and that 
 supposed refinement or improvement of the Ger- 
 man character that is developed in churches al- 
 ready Americanized. The former is marked by a 
 
132 EARLY HISTORY OE TUB 
 
 piety at once deep and unobtrusive, a faitli that is 
 earnest and fearless, yet modest and retiring. The 
 latter, in the development of its spirituality, seeks 
 rather to extend itself, to attract the attention of 
 the world, to acquire power and to wield influence 
 'amongst men : in a word, it diligently consults, 
 and faithfully obeys, that law of progress of their 
 subjection to which, in political and civil affairs, 
 the inhabitants of this land are wont to make their 
 boast. The Synod of Pennsylvania, when viewed 
 in the light of this progressive spirit, might ap- 
 pear to be wanting in that devotion to the interests 
 of the Church which its numerical strength and its 
 abundant resources would seem to require. But 
 as the representative of the German Church, as an 
 agent of the German spirit in deep love for the 
 pure unadulterated doctrines of the word, and in 
 uniform, judicious, persevering efforts for the pro- 
 motion of the kingdom of God at home and abroad, 
 its position is as prominent and as honorable in 
 the Lutheran Church of America, at this day, as is 
 that of any other Synod within her borders. 
 
 The reputation of the Church at that day, 
 amongst the intelligent Christians of the land, 
 was at once lofty and extended. Her ministry 
 was distinguished for learning and piety, whilst 
 the earnest zeal, the gentle virtues of her mem- 
 bership commanded general respect. 
 
 So, with the abundance of her materials, her 
 evangelical discipline, her fidelity to the pure un- 
 adulterated doctrines of the word, her efforts to 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 133 
 
 combine her various forces, and lier general good 
 repute, the Lutheran Church was surrounded at 
 this early day by circumstances that seem to have 
 held out the prospect of eminent distinction and 
 of extensive usefulness among the churches and 
 the general population of the land. 
 
 Her subsequent history has not corresponded 
 with these early indications. Encouraging as her 
 circumstances are at present, yet whoever studies 
 her history during the interval will have reason to 
 lament her disasters more frequently than to glory 
 in her triumphs ; and many a time when he would 
 fain boast of her progress, he will be able only to 
 deplore the hinderances that arrested her onward 
 march. 
 
 To examine this latter history, however, is not 
 our purpose at present. Still, restricting our in- 
 quiries to her earlier days, we shall consider the 
 circumstances that seem to have darkened the fair 
 hopes begotten in the brightnes of her early dawn. 
 
 It might have been no small advantage to the 
 Church if a reasonable proportion of this w^orld's 
 goods had been subject to the control of her piety. 
 The number of her ministry, and the amount of 
 accommodations for public worship and for schools, 
 would have been more likely to keep pace with 
 her increasing wants. Her youth, however, was 
 cadly straitened and cramped by the burden of 
 poverty. Large masses of the Germans, upon 
 their arrival in this country, were in such a state 
 of absolute destitution that the first years of their 
 
134 EARLY HISTORY OP THE 
 
 abode in America had to be spent in actual servi- 
 tude for the purpose of defraying tbe expenses of 
 their vo3^age across the ocean. 
 
 A system of outrageous imposition and decep- 
 tion practised upon the Germans of the Palatinate 
 and of Wurtemberg, for many years, by selfish and 
 designing men, whilst it increased the quantity of 
 the material of the Church, failed to produce a 
 corresponding effect upon its quality. To these 
 impositions the attention of Muhlenberg was often 
 directed, and he has not neglected to give us a 
 graphic description of them. 
 
 In the fall of the year 1749 there arrived in Phi- 
 ladelphia twenty-five ship-loads of Germans, com- 
 prising altogether seven thousand and forty-nine 
 souls. Many of the people thus arriving from 
 time to time were objects worthy of the deepest 
 commiseration. TJiey had become the prey of the 
 Neiilaender ; and nothing but a weary servitude 
 now could release them from their snares. 
 
 These Neulaender, as the Germans called them, 
 (we presume, because they preached up emigration 
 to the New Land or Neiv World, as a panacea for all 
 the ills under which the Germans groaned,) these 
 Nculaender drove a thriving business in lading the 
 ships of Holland merchants with German emi- 
 grants and transporting their live freight to the 
 shores of the Delaware. The merchants of Hol- 
 land, thus deeply interested in the increase of emi- 
 gration, had contracts with the Neulacndcr, en- 
 gaging to give them a free passage for themselves 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 135 
 
 and their wares, together with a certain percentage 
 for every emigrant whom they might entice on 
 board their ships. 
 
 Accordingly the JSeulaender overran Germany, 
 determined to make the best of it. So successful 
 were they, even at an early day, that when, in 1749, 
 Muhlenberg saw how the thousands of poor re- 
 demptioners came pouring in, even with all his 
 zeal for the Church and his hearty love for all her 
 members, he seems to have deplored and depre- 
 cated these large a-dditions, because they would be 
 calculated by their very dependence and helpless- 
 ness to divide the attentions of the pastors, already 
 overburdened with labors, and to cramp the ener- 
 gies of congregations already established.* 
 
 The Keidaender were men by no means destitute 
 of talents. Their talents, such as they were, were 
 strongly marked ; but they were of that descrip- 
 tion that is always more or less fitted for mischief. 
 They were artful, cunning, loquacious, and voluble. 
 In their manners they aftected the gentleman of 
 rank, in their attire and adornments the man of 
 wealth ; and so they sought by the very exhibition 
 of their persons to prepossess the poor Germans 
 in favor of a land of which they showed themselves 
 as representatives. All this they promptly fol- 
 lowed up with sympathizing and pathetic allusions 
 to the burdens, the poverty, the social degradation, 
 the taxes, under which the Germans groaned, and 
 
 * Ilalle Reports, p. 125. 
 
136 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 Avith eloquent descriptions of the immense advan- 
 tages which the "]N'ewLand" held out to them. 
 There were the true Elysian Fields ; there the grain 
 was sown and the harvests were gathered without 
 the application of human labor. There silver and 
 gold were dug out of the hills, and all the streams 
 flowed with milk and honey. Whoever had been 
 a servant in Germany would in that new land 
 be advanced to the dignity of a master, whilst the 
 maid-servant should find herself surrounded by 
 all the ease and adorned with all the graces of a 
 lady. The ploughman might confidently expect 
 to be a nobleman, and the mechanic a baron. 
 
 Whether the Germans literally believed all this, 
 or not, is a matter of comparatively little conse- 
 quence. It was natural that poor men and de- 
 pendent families, anxious to improve their condi- 
 tion, should, even after making certain allowances 
 for exaggeration, have sufiicient confidence in the 
 representations of these deceivers to induce them 
 to try their fortunes in the New World. Accord- 
 ingly, they dispose of all they have, sail down the 
 Rhine, gather together in anxious crowds in the 
 ports of Holland, and make arrangements for their 
 voyage to Philadelphia. Their scanty funds sadly 
 reduced by the expenses of delay before setting 
 sail, they are prevailed upon by the deceitful Neu- 
 kiendcr to sign a certain contract in the English 
 language, the purport of which they do not under- 
 stand. Arriving in the 'New World, they discover 
 to their utter dismay, when the contract is pro- 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 137 
 
 cliiced, that they have bound themselves to submit 
 to the dio;)osal of the captaiu of the vessel, to be 
 sold into servitude for the purpose of defraying 
 the expenses of their passage. The papers then 
 teem with advertisements of the sale of German 
 emigrants. Purchasers from town and country 
 present themselves. Every man makes his own 
 selection, and, taking his newly-acquired servant 
 before a magistrate, holds him fast by legal forms 
 for long and weary years of bondage. 
 
 Many, very many Germans began the develop- 
 ment of their American history in this depressed 
 condition. All of them, as being Germans, but 
 especially those that were Lutherans, were the oc- 
 casion of much anxious solicitude to the few and 
 already overburdened pastors of the Church. They 
 could not be neglected : the labor of hunting them 
 up and visiting them, scattered as they were 
 through town and country, was so much deducted 
 from the attentions required by the organized 
 churches, or by flourishing settlements where large 
 congregations might be organized. The spiritual 
 cure of these isolated redemptioners might have 
 a rich rew^ard in the personal edification of many 
 of them, comforting them during the tedious years 
 of their servitude, and perhaps preparing some of 
 them for usefulness and prominence in the Church, 
 w^hen the time of their enlargement came. But 
 it could not be expected to tell favorably upon the 
 external condition of the Church at the time ; and 
 
 12- 
 
138 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 it did not. In view, then, of the condition of these 
 redemptioners, and of the temporal and spiritual 
 attentions extended to them by the Church and its 
 pastors, we may see how it came to pass that the 
 progress of the Church was retarded by the very 
 abundance of its material, and that the fruits of 
 pastoral labor were not well proportioned to its 
 amount. 
 
 Large numbers of these poor German Luther- 
 ans found their earliest homes amongst different 
 classes of errorists, whose unhappy influence not 
 unfrequently led them either into the turbulence 
 of fanaticism or into utter forgetfulness of God. 
 And so began, at this early day, that practical 
 evil which has ever been so calamitous to the Lu- 
 theran Church, — the readiness of her children to 
 turn aside from the faith of the fathers, and seek 
 a home in some one or other of the various com- 
 munions by which they are surrounded. 
 
 Among the colonists brought over by the Neu- 
 laender there turned up from time to time sundry 
 notorious characters, who were passed around 
 among the worldly-minded and unbelieving as 
 preachers of the gospel. Some, having once 
 occupied the pastoral office in Germany, had 
 been degraded for misconduct; others, who had 
 been known only as wild and reckless students, 
 had been expatriated by their own lawlessness. 
 Distinguished among the masses by a somewhat 
 higher cultivation in their manners, if not in 
 their nppearance, they found no difficulty in com- 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 130 
 
 mendino; themselves to the confidence of the un- 
 suspecting, and especially of those unworthy Lu- 
 therans who would not endure sound doctrine, 
 and who withstood the faithful pastors of the 
 Church in an opposition which, though not organ- 
 ized, was nevertheless most annoying. 
 
 These adventurers, purchased from shiphoard 
 by men who, boasting the name, were hostile to 
 the spirit, of the Lutheran Church, then affected 
 the style and dignity of evangelical Lutheran 
 clergymen. They first served their purchasers 
 and paid for their passage by preaching. They 
 then careered through the land, haranguing the 
 Germans wherever they could find a hearing. 
 They talked loudly about organizing congrega- 
 tions ; they traduced and attempted to unchurch 
 the members and pastors of those already organ- 
 ized. Their effrontery soon corrected itself: 
 their own rottenness became apparent. Discord 
 broke out among their friends, their personal in- 
 fiuence was lost, and they closed their round by 
 taking their exit, to try the same unhappy game 
 in some other quarter.* 
 
 The influence of such movements upon the 
 Church could not be otherwise than deleterious. 
 It would not only discourage the hearts of well- 
 disposed Lutherans themselves; it might, to a 
 great extent, destroy the public confidence in the 
 integrity of the pastoral character, and expose the 
 
 * Halle Reports, p. C82. 
 
140 EAKLY niSTOllY OF THE 
 
 ■whole Church itself to an odium which only the 
 lapse of many years would be able to remove. 
 
 The intercourse of the Germans with the other 
 inhabitants of the land was confined within very 
 narrow limits. Indulging a natural disposition 
 to quietude and retirement, simple in their wants, 
 and ever diligent in the employment of their 
 time, they became reserved and distant, not to 
 say clannish and selfish. Their resolute adherence 
 to their own language was at once the cause and 
 the effect of this. Muhlenberg, in his readiness 
 to preach the gospel in English as well as in Ger- 
 man, afforded a noble example, which it would 
 have been well for the Church to have followed. 
 In his own personal history we see an illustration 
 of the good effects such a course might have had 
 upon the Church at large. His fellowship nvith 
 enlightened men of the land, and with Christians 
 of other name, was at once free and frequent, 
 pleasant and profitable. It not only enlarged his 
 own ideas as to what the Church required, but it 
 impressed the minds of others with ideas concern- 
 ing the Lutheran Church altogether favorable to 
 its position and its character. 
 
 Upon this intelligent and spirited course, how- 
 ever, the German Lutherans, as a whole, refused 
 to follow. The}^ spoke the German language, and 
 they wanted no other. In matters of trade and 
 business they could be bold enough, when neces- 
 sity required, to attempt the English; but upon 
 the subject of religion their thoughts were all 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IX AMERICA. 141 
 
 German, and German only. The doctrines of 
 the Cross, to obtain any notice at their hands, 
 must needs be presented to them in the imposing 
 attire of their own native speech. 
 
 Under these circumstances there could exist, 
 between the Lutheran Church and the other evan- 
 gelical Churches of the land, only a very feeble 
 sympathy. There might be sentiments of mutual 
 respect; but there could be no cordial, extensive, 
 permanent co-operation. The English churches, 
 wisely taking advantage of the necessities of the 
 times, showed themselves servants of all men, and 
 so prospered and gained the more. The Luther- 
 ans, confining their ministry to the Germans alone, 
 could accomplish no higher results than what 
 might be produced upon one solitary class, which, 
 with all its virtues, was slow in its movements, 
 deficient in enterprise, shut up within itself, and, 
 in addition to all, small in its minority. 
 
 Quite as disastrous as this, if not more so, was 
 the effect produced upon the children of the 
 Lutherans themselves. Brought into contact, 
 more or less frequently, with other classes and the 
 members of other Churches, the children of the 
 Lutherans rapidly acquired the English language, 
 then preferred it, then sought to conform them- 
 selves to the manners and customs of their more 
 progressive neighbors, and, finally, did not object 
 to go far beyond their fathers in sympathy with 
 other Churches, whose external aspects they per- 
 haps thought more attractive, and the worship of 
 
142 EARLY HISTORY OF THE 
 
 which was conducted in the common speech of 
 the country. 
 
 So the Lutheran Church, instead of advancing 
 in members and strengthening itself by the train- 
 ing of its successive generations, lost incalculably 
 much by the exodus of each successive generation 
 from its borders, and for many years had to fall 
 back again upon the material furnished by new 
 arrivals from abroad. It was always beginning 
 and always behind. 
 
 We cannot impeach the character nor the motives 
 of the good men by whom this policy was resolutely 
 maintained. They supposed that the spiritual in- 
 terests of the Germans depended upon them, that 
 the Germans could be approached only through 
 the medium of their own language, that the in- 
 troduction of the English tongue would open the 
 way for ultimately dispossessing the Germans, and 
 that those who might prefer to worship in the 
 English language need themselves sufter no loss, 
 for they could be accommodated elsewhere. Yet 
 it was a mistaken policy. It was the occasion of 
 immense loss to the Lutheran Church ; and it has 
 prevented her, for many years, from producing that 
 impression upon the general religious character of 
 the land, the expectation of which arose so strongly 
 out of the devotion and vigor of her early com- 
 mencement. 
 
 Here it is proposed to stop for the present. 
 Materials for the continuation of this history are 
 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 143 
 
 abundant, and the long and eventful years of an- 
 other century await investigation. If* the labor 
 that has been employed in the preparation of this 
 volume should be found to be acceptable to the 
 Lutherans of our land, it will be a pleasing work 
 to the author to bring down the accounts nearer to 
 our own times, with the divine permission. 
 
 Whatever reflections may be natural by way of 
 application to this division of the history might be 
 more appropriately made by the reader than sug- 
 gested by the author. So here he withdraws, 
 though he feels that in doing so he may appear to 
 be abrupt. 
 
 The author is happy in being able to correct an 
 omission which was the result of inadvertence. 
 Several important facts in the foregoing history 
 are quoted upon the authority of O'Callaghan's 
 History of the ISTew ^N'etherlands and of the his- 
 torical works of Eev. W. M. Reynolds, D.D., whose 
 investigations are believed to be particularly tho- 
 rough and reliable. 
 
 \ 
 
 THE END. 
 

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