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A SKETCH

OF THE

MORAVIAN ACTIVITY IN NEW SWEDEN

AND ITS VICINITY.

BY J. TÅYLOR HAMILTON.

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A SKETCH OF THE MORAVIAN ACTIVITY IN

NEW SWEDEN AND ITS VICINITY.

WERE it possible, at this late date, to ascertain with a measurable degree of certainty just when Count Zinzendorf's thoughts were first turned to the region of the Delaware, as affording a fitting scope for evangelistic efforts of the most liberal kind, the inquiry would doubtless be attended with interest. Certain it is that George Boehnisch was dispatched to investigate the religious needs of the German emigrants in 1734, and Spangenberg after him in 1735. And certain it is that the latter, in his memorabie report to the Pilger Gemeine at the close of the year 1739, forged the links riveted at the Synod at Gotha, which were to for ever connect the Unitas Fratrum with the religious development of the American Colonies.

Whether, as some have surmised, the young Count's philanthropic interest in those emigrant compatriots of his who had penetrated the primeval forests of the West, dated from boyhood's days, when as a pupil in Francke's pædagogium he became aware of urgent requests dispatched to Halle for pastors and teachers on behalf of these adherents of the Augsburg Confession in the New World, the records do certify us that a considerable portion of the fifth to the fifteenth sessions, i. e., June 14 to 19, of the Synod of the Brethren held in 1740, in the grand salon of the Hotel Zum Mohren, at Gotha, a gathering graced by the presence of the prince of Ger

man poets as an interested visitor, was devoted to a discussion of prospective activity in America, to be undertaken by Bishop David Nitschmann and by Zinzendorf himself, with the assistance of a corps of coadjutors then selected.

There intervened journeyings hither and thither, to be sure, important deliberations, such as those of the Lehr Synode at Marienborn, December 5 to 31, 1740, and a temporary period of activity at Geneva, not to mention the memorable experiences at the Synodical Conference in London in September following. Nevertheless a longing for the privilege of personally advancing the cause of Christ and of promoting true unity amongst believers in the Colonies, seems to have become an uppermost yearning of Zinzendorf's. Led by it, he arrives in Philadelphia during the month of December, 1741, in the most opportune time. Antes has issued a call for evangelical union amongst the Germans of Pennsylvania, which indicates where he may join his endeavors with those of a kindred soul. Into the budding project the exiled Saxon nobleman casts himself with all the ardor of his enthusiastic nature. He is scarcely back from naming the new Moravian settlement in the Forks of the Delaware, on Christmas Eve, when on New Year's Eve he preaches in the Reformed Church at Germantown on 1 Tim. 3: 16, and during the next three days is a leader at the first of the Pennsylvania Synods--that splendidly, even if prematurely, conceived evangelical alliance of German speaking Christians in Pennsylvania. A mastermind in the successive meetings of this body at Falkner's Swamp, on January 13; at Oley, February 10; at Germantown, March 10, April 7 and May 5, and at Philadelphia, June 2, each session lasting three days, Zinzendorf also addresses open letters to adherents of various creeds and shades of opinion, urging union. After Easter

comes his formal call as pastor of the Lutherans of Philadelphia, a call which he accepts on May 30 in virtue of his admission to the Lutheran ministry by the Faculty of Tübingen years before. In accordance with his utterly unsectarian spirit he agrees to serve without pay, after formally renouncing his rank and title in the house of the Governor and in the presence of leading officials of the Colony. And in the same spirit he erects on Race Street a church at his own expense, and seeks to supply neighborhoods destitute of Gospel privileges with evangelists who shall serve free of charge. In this the Moravians are ready to heartily co-operate, and with a purpose as far as possible removed from a desire for sectarian aggrandizement. Their number has been materially increased by the arrival of a company of fifty-six persons who reached Philadelphia via New York, on June 7, 1742. This body of emigrants, and several like it in succeeding years, is known as a "sea congregation," from the fact that these several companies of colonists. were regularly organized as congregations and maintained discipline and worship so as to form a floating church during the long and tedious westward voyage.

It was one of this First Sea Congregation, Paul Daniel Bryzelius,' who inaugurated the work of the Brethren's Church in New Jersey, not to gain adherents for the denomination, but purely to lead souls to Christ, though in this very respect misunderstandings on the part of others gave occasion for much maligning and bitter opposition.

Born in 1713, at Häradshammer, in the diocese of Linköping, in Sweden, he had studied at the University of Upsala. Just when and where he had become identified with the Moravians, does not clearly appear. On January 4, 1743, as one of his last transactions before

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In 1760 he left the Brethren and joined the Lutherans. Died, 1771.

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