DUTCH CHURCH, FRIENDS, PRESBYTERIANS.

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Richmond, Queens and Westchester were compelled by law to support the Episcopal Church. The growth of the Dutch Church was therefore much retarded; but immigration favored the Church, and from 1664 to 1737 about fifty churches were added to the denomination. This Church being dependent on the Church of Holland for ministers, and in all ecclesiastical matters subject to the Classis of Amsterdam, existed at a great disadvantage, agitated by many internal troubles, until, through the influence of Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston, an independent organization was effected in 1771. In 1775 it numbered in New York and New Jersey 25 churches and 60 ministers.

The Friends first appeared in New England about the middle of the seventeenth century, where they suffered severe persecution in all the colonies except Rhode Island. As early as 1672 George Fox found an established settlement of Friends, in Perquimans County, North Carolina. In 1674 another colony was founded in New Jersey, and in 1682 the famous William Penn Colony settled in Pennsylvania. They rapidly increased, and at the time of the Revolution exerted a large influence in some of the Middle States. Yearly meetings, which are in a limited sense diocesan, having each a defined territorial jurisdiction and independent of each other in govern. ing and legislative powers, were established in New England in 1661, in Philadelphia in 1683, in New York in 1695, in North Carolina in 1708.

The Presbyterians were of Scotch and Irish origin, the first coming to this country to escape persecution. The Huguenot exiles from France were of the same religious faith. The earliest Presbyterians settled in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Eastern Maryland and Central Virginia. In 1688 they existed in considerable numbers in Pennsylvania. The first Presbyterian churches in America of which we have record were founded on the eastern shore of Maryland, at Snow Hill, Rehoboth, Monokin, etc., about 1684; at Freehold, N. J., in 1692; at Philadelphia, in 1698; in New York City in 1716, after ten years of occasional services. Rev. Francis Makensie was the first pioneer of this denomination in the New World. The first Presbytery was constituted in 1706, consisting of seven ministers, and was called the Presbytery of Philadelphia. Ten years later it became a Synod. The first Presbyterian church in New York was erected in 1719. Others followed in the New York Colony and in

* History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. By Rev. E. H. Gillett, D.D., Vol. I, pp. 3, 4.

New Jersey, and the Synod was called the Synod of New York and Philadelphia. From 1713-1719 large emigrations from the North of Ireland and Scotland came to New England and the Middle States. Irish Presbyterians settled in Boston, Worcester, Pelham and Newburyport, in Massachusetts; at Casco Bay, Macosquin, Boothbay, etc., in Maine; and in Pembroke, Peterborough and Londonderry, N. H. The first Presbytery in New England was constituted at Londonderry, N. H., April 16, 1745.

A new phase of Presbyterianism developed. The old Scotch and Irish Presbyterians mingled largely with Presbyterians from England, Wales and New England. The latter had more liberal views in regard to some practical matters than the old stanch men of Scotland and Ireland. The opinions began to differ until, in 1741, there was a complete division into the two synods of New York and Philadelphia. The old side, representing the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, made a great deal of what they called "literature;" the new side, representing the revival element, made a great deal of personal piety. Out of this division, under the new side, came the College of New Jersey, first at Elizabeth, then at Newark, and finally at Princeton. In 1758 these two bodies came together again. In 1773 the Presbyterian Church in the United States numbered 2 Synods, 10 Presbyteries and 104 ministers.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church is composed of descendants of the persecuted Presbyterians in Scotland, who refused to accede to the Erastian "Settlement of Religion" at the Revolution of 1688, and who in that country still maintain dissent from the union of Church and State. As early as 1752 some Reformed Presbyterian congregations had been formed in North America, but owing to various difficulties they did not unite in a regular organization until the year 1798, when "The Reformed Presbytery of the United States of North America" was constituted in Philadelphia.

The Associate Reformed Church in this country originated in a union formed June 13, 1782, between the Reformed Presbyterian and a portion of the Associate Church. The Associate body in Scotland commenced its existence in 1747, on the basis of opposition to the Burgess oath, by means of which the seceders were divided into the Burgher and Anti-Burgher Synods, the latter assuming the name of "Associate." Companies sympathizing with both of these parties emigrated and settled in Pennsylvania, and petitioned the mother churches for pastors, which resulted in the organization of the Associate Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1754 and the Reformed (Covenanter) in 1765.

THE GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH.

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In 1734 a colony of Schwenkfelders emigrated from Silesia to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania, where their descendants have chiefly resided in the counties of Montgomery, Bucks, Berks and Lehigh.

The first German Reformed pioneer in the United States was Peter Minuit, a deacon of the Reformed Church in the city of Wesel, who led a colony of Germans to the banks of the Delaware. Of Minuit and his colony no permanent record exists. Revs. John Philip Boem and George Michael Weiss were the earliest German Reformed ministers in this country, and laid the foundations of that Church in Pennsylvania. Mr. Boem commenced preaching at Falkner Swamp, Skippack and Whitemarsh, as early as 1720, and within ten years of that date nearly a dozen churches were founded, though 1727 has been generally, but, as now thought, erroneously, regarded as the carliest date. These people, re-enforced by emigrants, spread into New Jersey, New York, Virginia, North and South Carolina. In 1746 Rev. Michael Schlatter arrived from Germany, authorized to collect and organize the scattered and confused congregations. The preliminary steps for the formation of a Coetus, or Synod, were taken in 1746, and the first annual meeting was held in Philadelphia, September 29, 1747. Thirty-one persons were present, 5 ministers and 26 elders. The meetings were regularly held each year, except during the Revolutionary War, and the proceedings were reported to the Synods of Holland, no action being final without their approval.

In the colony of New York there were many early German Reformed churches. The church on Nassau Street, New York City, numbered among its pastors such men as John Michael Kern, Dr. J. Daniel Gross and Dr. Philip Milledoler, who were famous in their day. There were churches at Claverack, Montgomery, Schoharie, and in the Mohawk Valley, some of which passed over to the Dutch Reformed Church.

The Lutheran Church, though early represented in America, was slow in gaining an organized existence. Lutherans appeared on Manhattan Island as early as 1621, but they came without a shepherd. The Swedish Lutheran settlers, who came to the banks of the Delaware in 1638, brought with them a minister, but no Church organization long existed. Other Lutherans came to New York in 1644, but were dependent on lay instruction. In 1653 they had so increased as to seek the services of a preacher, but vainly presented their petition to the Dutch Directory. In 1664 the English authorities granted the Latherans religious liberty, and in 1669, Rev. Jacob

Fabricius, their first pastor, reached this country. Two years later the first house of worship was erected. The Lutherans received large accessions in 1710 to 1717, when 4,000 Germans, victims of oppression, took refuge in New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. In 1734 a colony of German Lutherans, accompanied with pastors, settled in Georgia. As early as 1739 Waldoborough, Maine, was settled by Lutherans. The towns of Frankfort and Kennebec, in Maine, and Leyden, in Massachusetts, were also settled by German Lutherans. With the year 1742 opens a new epoch in the history of the Lutheran Church in America, when it assumed an organic form under the leadership of that eminent man Rev. H. M. Mühlenberg, D.D. In 1748 a Synod was formed, and in 1765 a private theological seminary was started.

The German Seventh-Day Baptist Church was introduced into this country by a company of German emigrants, who settled in Germantown, Pa., in 1723.

The "Dunkers," "German Baptists," or "Brethren," as they have been variously called, came in considerable numbers from 1719 to 1730, and settled in Pennsylvania.

The Mennonites first came from Germany to Pennsylvania in 1683. Others followed in 1698, settling near Germantown, where they erected their first school and meeting-house in 1708. Others followed in 1711, 1717 and 1727. In 1735 they numbered five hundred families in the county of Lancaster alone.

The first colony of Moravians came in 1734. Count Zinzendorf visited the United States in 1741, and churches had been constituted in Bethlehem, Emmaus, Philadelphia and Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, and in New York City, before 1750.

Methodism commenced its career in this country twenty-seven years after its origin in England. Followers of Rev. John Wesley had settled in different localities, not as colonies, or by any concerted action, but as individuals and families. Their first religious services, held in New York City in 1766, were the result of spontaneous religious convictions; but the first societies were organized under the ecclesiastical supervision of Mr. Wesley, who sent some of his preachers as missionaries to America. The first church edifice was erected in 1768. Francis Asbury came to America in 1771. The first Conference was held in Philadelphia, in 1773, consisting of ten preachers, whose fields of labor, as indicated in the Minutes of that year, were in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia; 1,160 communicants were reported. In 1776 their number had increased to 24 preachers

FIRST SYNagogue erRECTED.

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and 4,921 communicants, and they had extended their labors as far south as North Carolina. Paul and Barbara Heck, Philip Embury, Capt. Webb, a local preacher, who preached the first serinon, and Robert Strawbridge,* were the earliest Methodist names in America, if we except the transient visits of John and Charles Wesley thirty years before, and of George Whitefield, who, at the time of his first tour through the colonies, had not broken away from Rev. John Wesley.

The Jews first came to America for the same reason that the Puritans, Huguenots and others did-to escape persecution. Manhattan Island was their first refuge, whither Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent fled to escape the Inquisition. The name of Assur Levy, a Jew, appears on the New York City Records for 1660. Peter Stuyvesant opposed giving them protection, and it was not till the end of the century that they obtained freedom of worship. In 1728 their first synagogue was erected, and the following year their first cemetery was dedicated. Noe Willey, of London, gave the land to his three sons, who were New York merchants, as a lasting heritage for the Hebrews. Subsequently the terms of the gift were violated by the Tradesman's Bank, and later still by the New Bowery. A Jewish synagogue was built at Newport, R. I., in 1658; at Savannah, Ga., in 1733; in Charleston, S. C., in 1750; in Richmond, Va., in 1719.

* Strawbridge is now claimed by some as being the first to actively and formally promote Methodism in America. See History of Methodism, by Bishop H. N. McTyeire, D.D., p. 253.