[Transcriber's note: A very few German names appeared in the original
with umlauts. These have been transcribed as an "e". A few spelling
errors in the original are indicated with a "[sic]". The original uses
italics to indicate most of the German and Latin in the text, and all of
the authors' names in the bibliography. Italics are transcribed with the
underscore character at the beginning and end. Footnotes in the original
are transcribed here in a paragraph immediately below the paragraph to
which the footnote is connected. The appendix contains a table that is
102 characters wide.]
The Lutherans
of
New York
Their Story and Their Problems
BY
GEORGE U. WENNER, D.D., L.H.D.
Pastor of Christ Church
New York
THE PETERSFIELD PRESS
819 East Nineteenth Street
1918
Copyright, 1918
By GEORGE U. WENNER
TO
THE LUTHERANS OF NEW YORK
IN
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
_May you bring forth fruit and may your fruit remain_
Contents
Apology
Introduction
Their Story
In the Seventeenth Century--1648-1700
In the Eighteenth Century--1701-1750
In the Eighteenth Century--1751-1800
In the Nineteenth Century--1801-1838
In the Nineteenth Century--1839-1865
In the Nineteenth Century--1866-1900
In the Twentieth Century--1900-1918
Their Problems
The Problem of Synods
The Problem of Language
The Problem of Membership
The Problem of Religious Education
The Problem of Lapsed Lutherans
The Problem of Statistics
Epilogue
Appendix--The Churches; Deaconesses; Former Pastors; Sons of the
Churches; Institutions and Societies; Other Associations; Periodicals;
Book-stores; Bibliography; Index.
Illustrations
Frontispiece [Transcriber's note: a portrait of the author]
When New York Was Young
A Corner of Broad Street
New Amsterdam in 1640
In the Eighteenth Century
Trinity Church
Henry Melchior Muehlenberg
The Old Swamp Church
Frederick Muehlenberg
John Christopher Kunze
Kunze's Gravestone
Carl F. E. Stohlmann, D.D.
Pastor Wilhelm Heinrich Berkemeier
The Wartburg
G. F. Krotel, D.D., LL.D.
Augustus Charles Wedekind, D.D.
Pastor J. H. Sieker
Charles E. Weltner, D.D.
Apology
Lutherans are not foreigners in New York. Most of us it is true are new
comers. But with a single exception, that of the Dutch Reformed Church,
Lutherans were the first to plant the standard of the cross on Manhattan
Island.
The story of our church runs parallel with that of the city. Our
problems are bound up with those of New York. Our neighbors ought to be
better acquainted with us. We ought to be better acquainted with them.
We have common tasks, and it would be well if we knew more of each
other's ways and aims.
New York is a cosmopolitan city. It is the gateway through which the
nations are sending their children into the new world.
Lutherans are a cosmopolitan church. Our pastors minister to their
flocks in fifteen languages. No church has a greater obligation to "seek
the peace of the city" than the Lutherans of New York. No church has a
deeper interest in the problems that come to us with the growth and ever
changing conditions of the metropolis.
In their earlier history our churches had a checkered career. In recent
years they have made remarkable progress. In Greater New York we enroll
this year 160 churches. The Metropolitan District numbers 260
congregations holding the Lutheran confession. But the extraordinary
conditions of a rapidly expanding metropolis, with its nomadic
population, together with our special drawback of congregations divided
among various races and languages as well as conflicting schools of
theological definition, make our tasks heavy and confront us with
problems of grave difficulty.
On the background of a historical sketch a study of some of these
problems is attempted by the author. After spending what seemed but a
span of years in the pastorate on the East Side, he awoke one day to
find that half a century had been charged to his account. While it is a
distinction, there is no special merit in being the senior pastor of New
York. As Edward Judson once said to him: "All that you have had to do
was to outlive your contemporaries."
These fifty years have been eventful ones in the history of our church
in New York. All of this period the author "has seen and part of it he
was." But having also known, with four exceptions all the Lutheran
pastors of the preceding fifty years, he has come into an almost
personal touch with the events of a century of Lutheran history on this
island. He has breathed its spirit and sympathized with its aspirations.
This unique experience served as a pretext for putting into print some
reflections that seemed fitting at a time when our churches were
celebrating the quadricentennial of the Reformation and were inquiring
as to the place which they might take in the new century upon which they
were entering. The manuscript was begun during the celebration, but
parochial duties intervened and frequent interruptions delayed the
completion of the book.
Lutherans have their place in Church History. Our doctrinal principles
differ in certain respects from those of other churches. We believe that
these principles are an expression of historical, evangelical
Christianity, worthy of being promulgated, not in a spirit of arrogant
denominationalism, but in a spirit of toleration and catholicity. Yet
few in this city, outside of our own kith and kin, understand the
meaning of our system. We have made but little progress in commending it
to others or in extending our denominational lines.
We do not even hold the ground that belongs to us. The descendants of
the Lutherans of the first two centuries are not enrolled in our church
books. Although of late years we have increased a hundredfold (literally
a hundredfold within the memory of men still living), we are far from
caring effectively for our flocks. The number of lapsed Lutherans is
larger than that of the enrolled members of our churches. In the
language of our Palatine forefathers: _Doh is ebbes letz_.
While therefore recent progress affords ground for encouragement, it is
not a time for boastfulness. It is rather a time for self-examination,
for an inquiry into our preparedness for new tasks and impending
opportunities.
We are living in an imperial city. What we plan and what we do here in
New York projects itself far beyond the walls of our city. Nowhere are
the questions of the community more complicated and the needs of the
time more urgent than here. We should therefore ask ourselves whether
the disjointed sections of our church, arrayed during the
Quadricentennial as one, for the purposes of a spectacular celebration,
but each exalting some particularism of secondary value, adequately
represent the religious ideas which four centuries ago gave a new
impulse to the life of the world. If not, where does the trouble lie?
Is it a question of doctrine, of language, of organization or of spirit?
The emphasis we place upon doctrine has given us a reputation for
exclusiveness. The author believes that the spirit of Lutheranism is
that of catholicity. He holds that, in our relations with the people of
this city and with other churches we ought to emphasize the essential
and outstanding features of the Lutheran Church rather than the minute
distinctions which only the trained dogmatician can comprehend. He is in
sympathy with the well known plea of Rupertus Meldenius, an otherwise
unknown Lutheran theologian of the seventeenth century (about 1623), to
observe "in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things
charity."
Introduction
For the sake of non-Lutheran readers it may be well, in a sketch of the
story and problems of our churches, to present a short statement of
their principles and to indicate in what respect these differ from the
general attitude and beliefs of other churches. In doing so however the
author does not presume to encroach upon the field belonging to the
scholars of the church. He is not an expert theologian. What he has to
say upon this subject can only be taken as the opinion of a workaday
pastor who, in practical experience, has obtained an acquaintance with
the teachings of the church which it is his privilege to serve. For a
clearer understanding of disputed points the reader is referred to the
books of reference named in the Bibliography.
Many otherwise well-read people, while admitting that Lutherans are
Protestants, suspect that their system is still imbued with the leaven
of Romanism. In their classification of churches they are disposed to
place us among Ritualists, Sacerdotalists and Crypto-Romanists.
We do not expect to reverse at once the preference of most American
Protestants in favor of the Reformed system. But since we have had no
inconsiderable share in the shaping of modern history, we are confident
that our principles will in due time receive the consideration to which
any historical development is entitled. We would like to be understood,
or at least not to be misunderstood, by our fellow Christians.
But our chief desire is to inspire our own young people with an
intelligent devotion to the faith of their fathers and to persuade them
of its conformity with historical, believing Christianity.
What is Lutheranism? How does it differ from Catholicism? How does it
differ from other forms of Protestantism?
The origin of Lutheranism we are accustomed to assign to the sixteenth
century. We associate it with the nailing of the 95 theses to the church
door at Wittenberg, or with Luther's defence at the Diet of Worms, or
with the Confession of the Evangelicals at Augsburg in 1530.
These events were indeed dramatic indications of a great change, but
they were only the culmination of a process that had been going on for
ages. It was a re-formation of the ancient Catholic Church and a return
to the original principles of the Gospel.
"The Church had become an enormous labyrinthine structure which included
all sorts of heterogeneous matters, the Gospel and holy water, the
universal priesthood and the pope on his throne, the Redeemer and Saint
Anna, and called it religion. Over against this vast accumulation of the
ages, against which many times ineffective protest had been made, the
Lutheran Reformation insisted on reducing religion to its simplest
terms, faith and the word of God."*
*Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums.
The traditional conception of the Church with all its apparatus and
claims of authority it repudiated, and in the few and simple statements
of the seventh article of the Augustana, it set forth its doctrine of
the Church:
"Also they teach, that One holy Church is to continue forever. The
Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly
taught and the Sacraments rightly administered. And to the true unity of
the Church, it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel
and the administration of the Sacraments."
This was the Lutheran position as against Rome.
But properly to understand our history we must also take account of
another movement with which our churches had to contend at the same time
that they were making their protest against Rome. This was a more
radical form of Protestantism which found its expression among what are
known as the Reformed Churches. It had its home in Switzerland, and made
its way along the Rhine to Germany, France and Holland. Through John
Knox it came to Scotland, and subsequently superseded Lutheranism in
Holland and in England. It was from these countries that the earliest
colonists came to America, and thus American Christianity early received
the impress of the Reformed system. The few and scattered Lutheran
churches which were established here in the early history of our country
were brought into contact with a form of Protestantism at variance with
their own theological principles. The history of our Church in America
must be studied with this fact in mind, otherwise many of its
developments will not be understood.
It would lead too far to explain the historical and philosophical
differences between these two forms of Protestantism. A phrase first
used by Julius Stahl aptly describes the difference. The Lutheran
Reformation was the "Conservative Reformation." Its general principle
was to maintain the historical continuity of the Church, rejecting only
that which was contrary to the word of God. The irenic character of the
Augsburg Confession was owing to this principle. The Reformed Churches,
on the other hand, made a _tabula rasa_ of history, and, ignoring even
the legitimate contributions of the Christian centuries, professed to
return to apostolical simplicity, and to accept for their church-life
only that which was explicitly prescribed by the Holy Scriptures.
Thus the Lutherans retained the churches as they were, with their altars
and their pictures, the Liturgy and other products of art and of
history, provided they were not contrary to the word of God. The
Reformed, on the other hand, would have none of these things because
they were not prescribed in the Bible. They worshipped in churches with
bare walls, and dispensed with organs and music, in the interest of a
return to Scriptural simplicity.
There were other differences, but these indicate the general character
of the two movements.
History thus placed our Church between two fires, and the training she
received explains in part the polemical character for which she has been
distinguished. Sharp theological distinctions had to be made. The
emphasis which she was compelled to place upon distinctive doctrine as a
bond of fellowship accounts for the maintenance of standards which were
not required in the early history of our Church when the seventh article
of the Augustana was presented.
Those were famous battles which were fought in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries in defence of the Lutheran position. Our Church
had to contend with two vigorous foes in the statement of her doctrines,
Rome and Reform. The antinomian and synergistic controversies, Osiander,
Major and Flacius, the Philippists and the Crypto-Calvinists are names
that still remind us of the theological carnage of the sixteenth
century.
In the seventeenth century came the reign of the dogmaticians. The
eighteenth century was the age of Pietism and this was followed by
Rationalism. The scope of this Introduction does not require us to
explain the significance of these movements. Students of Church History
are familiar with them.
The revival of spiritual life at the beginning of the nineteenth century
brought with it also a revival of church consciousness and a restoration
of the confession of the church. Both in Europe and in America the
attempt has been made to secure the unity of the church on the basis of
subscription to the various Symbols included in the Book of Concord.
These Symbols, besides the Ecumenical Creeds and the Augsburg
Confession, are Melanchthon's Apology, that is Defence of the Augsburg
Confession, Luther's two Catechisms, the Smalcald Articles and the
Formula of Concord. The later Confessions supplement and explain the
statements of the Augsburg Confession. As such they are valuable
exponents of Lutheran teaching. Many of our churches in Europe as well
as in America require of their ministers subscription to these
Confessions. At the same time it is also true that many churches, whose
Lutheranism cannot be impugned, find in the Augsburg Confession an
adequate expression of their doctrinal position.
According to the Confessors of Augsburg: "For the true unity of the
church it is sufficient to agree concerning the doctrines of the
Gospel."
It would seem, therefore, to be in harmony with the spirit of
Lutheranism to make "the confession of the churches" rather than "the
Confessions of the Church" the bond of union. Underneath the Confessions
there are distinctive principles differentiating us from the sacerdotal
churches on the one hand and from the Reformed churches on the other
hand.
The soul of the Confessions is the confession, and this soul we may
recognize amid all the changes that take place in the course of time
and the progress of thought. It reveals itself in innumerable forms, in
sermons and in sacred song, and above all in the sanctified lives of
those who confess the faith.
In conversation with an eminent teacher in one of our most conservative
schools, the author not long ago requested a definition of Lutheranism
from the standpoint of the school which the Professor represented. Of
course, it was suggested, the acceptance of the Symbolical books must be
presumed, _sine qua non_.
The reply was: "The Symbolical Books are valuable, but their obligatory
acceptance is not essential: The same is true even of the Augsburg
Confession. Any one who accepts the teachings of Luther's Small
Catechism is a Lutheran. The heart of the Lutheran faith may be
expressed in the following words: "Man is a sinner who can be saved by
grace alone."
In view of this statement it would seem to be a legitimate inference
that even in the straitest sect of Lutherans in America the ultimate
doctrine of Lutheranism, reduced to a single word, is GRACE.
Churches, however, have their distinguishing marks. In the Lutheran
Church these are more difficult to find because of her catholic origin
and spirit. While forms and ceremonies are retained, they play only a
minor part in the expression of her churchliness. Bishops and
presbyters, robes and chasubles, liturgies and orders, "helps,
governments and divers kinds of tongues," in the providence of God all
of these things have been "set in the church." Lutherans in many lands
make use of them. An inexperienced observer, taking note only of
crucifixes and candles sometimes fails to distinguish between Lutherans
and Catholics. Yet none of these heirlooms of our ancient family belong
to the essential marks of the church. Their observance or non-observance
has nothing to do with the substance of Lutheranism.
Lutheranism aimed at reformation and not at revolution. Its initial
purpose was to bring back the Church to the common faith of Christendom.
Hence the Lutheran Confession is in its large outlines that of universal
Christendom. Nevertheless, it received a distinctive trend from the
problems of soteriology. The ancient Church had developed the doctrines
of God and of Christ. A beginning, too, had been made in the doctrines
of sin and grace and the way of salvation. But the development had been
hindered by hierarchical traditionalism and by the spirit of legalism.
These were the obstacles that stood in the way. The cry that went up to
God from the hearts of the people in the days of the Reformation was
"What must I do to be saved?" This cry found a voice in the experience
of Luther himself. This is what drove him into the monastery, and this
was the underlying quest of his life as a monk and as a teacher in the
university, through monasticism to get to heaven. It was only when he
had found Christ, and realized that his sins had been taken away through
the atoning work of the Son of God, that he found peace. It is His
person and work upon which the doctrine of our Church primarily rests.*
*"Luther, when he said that justification by faith was the article
of a standing or falling Church, stated the exact truth. He meant to
say, in the terms of the New Testament, especially of Paul, that God in
Christ is the sole and sufficient Saviour. He affirmed what was in him
no abstract doctrine, but the most concrete of all realities, Incarnated
in the person and passion of Jesus Christ, drawing from Him its eternal
and universal significance."--Fairbairn, "The Place of Christ in Modern
Theology," page 159.
In the words of the Small Catechism, Luther still teaches our children
this foundation doctrine of our Church:
"I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from
eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who
has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, secured and delivered me
from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil; not with
silver and gold, but with His holy and precious blood, and with His
innocent sufferings and death, in order that I might be His, live under
Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness,
innocence and blessedness."
But while we thus find in the Son of God and in His atoning work the
foundation of the faith of our Church, many obstacles had been placed in
the way of securing this redemption. Legalistic conditions made it
impossible for the sinner to know that his sins had been taken away. It
was here that the Lutheran Reformation pointed the way to a return to
the simplicity of the Gospel by its Scriptural definition of
justification. _Sola fide_, by faith alone, was the keynote of the
Reformation. Be sure that you bring back _sola_ was Luther's admonition
to his friends, who went to Augsburg while he himself remained at
Coburg.
Thus justification by faith became the material principle of
Protestantism and a second foundation stone of Lutheranism. It is true
that Calvin and the Reformed churches also accepted this principle, but
they did not begin with it. Their system was based on the idea of the
absoluteness of God. The Lutheran system emphasizes the love of God to
all men; the Reformed system emphasizes predestination; which, by
selecting some, excludes the others. As the theologians describe it,
Lutheranism is Christocentric, Reform is theocentric.*
*Calvin, like Luther, read theology through Augustine and without
his ecclesiology, but from an altogether opposite point of view. Luther
started with the anthropology and advanced from below upwards; Calvin
started with the theology and moved from above downwards. Hence his
determinative idea was not justification by faith, but God and His
sovereignty, or the sole and all-efficiency of His gracious will.-Ibid.,
page 162.
A third principle relates to the means of grace. Here we have less
difficulty in discerning the line of cleavage which separates us from
Rome on the one hand and from the rest of Protestantism on the other
hand.
The Lutheran Confession regards the word of God as the means of grace.
The Sacraments also are means of grace, not _ex opere operato_, but
because of the word. They are the visible word, or the individualized
Gospel. Hence, it is correct to say that the word, in the Lutheran
system, is the means of grace. This is doubtless news to many of our
brethren of other faiths, who think of us only as extreme
sacramentarians, and have looked upon us for centuries as
Crypto-Romanists. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was only
by an accident that the emphasis of polemical discussion in the
sixteenth century was laid upon the sacramental question, where it never
belonged.
In her doctrine of the means of grace, the Lutheran Church differs _toto
coelo_ from Rome. It is not the Church which, through its authority and
its institutions, makes the means of grace effective; but it is through
the means of grace that the Church is created and made both a product
and an instrument of the Holy Ghost.
On this doctrine our church differs not only in theory but also in
practice from many of our Protestant brethren. In some of their original
confessional statements the Reformed churches declared that the Spirit
of God required no means of grace, since He worked immediately and
directly. They claimed that the corporeal could not carry the spiritual,
and that the finite could not be made the bearer of the infinite. Over
against these hyperspiritual views our Church believes that through the
word and the sacraments the Holy Ghost effectively offers to the sinner
the gifts of salvation.
There are other marks of our Church, but these are its main
characteristics, and they suffice to indicate our general position in
relation to Christian thought.
If, now, we should be called upon to define in a single sentence the
distinctive features of Lutheranism, it might be done in these words of
an unknown writer:
"Lutheranism is that form of Protestant Christianity which makes Christ
the only foundation, faith the only condition, and the word of God the
only means of salvation."
THEIR STORY
In the Seventeenth Century
1648-1700
Under the administration of the Dutch West India Company the Reformed
Church was established in New Amsterdam in 1628. The policy of the
Company was to maintain the Reformed religion to the exclusion of all
other churches. But the cosmopolitan character of the future metropolis
was evident even in its earliest history. In 1643 the Jesuit missionary
Jogues reports that besides the Calvinists, Lutherans and Anabaptists
were to be found in the colony. In 1644 eighteen languages were spoken
by its inhabitants.
In 1648 the Lutheran community in the New Netherlands appealed to the
Consistory of Amsterdam for a minister, but nothing was done for them.
In 1653 the request was renewed. When the Reformed ministers heard of
it, they strenuously objected to the admission of a Lutheran minister;
they said this would open the door for all manner of sects and would
disturb the province in the enjoyment of its religion. Their attitude
was supported by Governor Stuyvesant, who indeed went to great lengths
in the enforcement of these views? [sic] Even the reading services,
which the Lutherans held among themselves in anticipation of the coming
of a minister, were forbidden, and fines and imprisonment were inflicted
upon those who disobeyed.
Candor compels us to admit that this was the spirit of the age. The
Thirty Years' War was going on at this time, and in a time of war
ruthless methods are the vogue.
In 1657, to the joy of the Lutherans and the consternation of the
Reformed, Joannes Ernestus Gutwasser (or Goetwater, as his name is often
printed) arrived from Amsterdam to minister to the waiting congregation.
But Governor Stuyvesant had no use for a Lutheran minister and Gutwasser
was ordered to return forthwith to the place from which he had come.
However, he succeeded in delaying his departure for nearly two years.
The congregation, unmindful of Stuyvesant's fulminations against all
who taught contrary to the Acts of the Synod of Dort, secured as their
minister in 1662 a student by the name of Abelius Zetskoorn, whom the
authorities soon transported to a charge on the Delaware, without the
violence, however, shown in the case of Gutwasser.
In 1664 the island was captured by the English and the Lutherans
succeeded in obtaining a charter with permission to call a minister and
conduct services in accordance with the teachings of the Augsburg
Confession. But prior to 1664 or even 1648 there were individual
Lutherans here, "their charter of salvation one Lord, one faith, one
birth." In spite of persecution, even to imprisonment, they sang "The
Lord's song in a strange land," and in simplicity of faith sowed the
seed from which future harvests were to spring.
[illustration: "When New York Was Young"]
The little trading station at the mouth of the North River now numbered
about 1,500 people. The church of "The Augustane Confession" was still
without a pastor. For a generation they had striven under great
difficulties to maintain their Lutheran faith. They were plain, simple
people, but they had refused to be cajoled or driven to a denial of
their convictions. Over against Stuyvesant, the most dominant
personality of the new world, they waited patiently for the time when
they might have their own pastor and might worship God according to the
dictates of their own consciences.
At last, in 1669, they obtained a minister in the person of Magister
Jacobus Fabritius who served the congregation in New York and also one
in Albany. The new pastor sorely tried the patience of a longsuffering
people. In church he manifested a dictatorial and irascible temper. At
home he was constantly quarreling with his wife. These eccentricities
interfered somewhat with his usefulness as a pastor. With increasing
difficulty he administered his office until 1671 when he accepted a call
to congregations on the Delaware. Here he seems to have repented of his
ways, for he left an honorable record as a devoted pastor, and the
historian is glad to forget the infelicities of his career on the North
River.
His successor was Bernhardus Arensius, who came with a letter of
recommendation from the Consistory of Amsterdam. He is described as "a
gentle personage and of a very agreeable behavior."
Those were troublous times in which he conducted his ministry. The war
between the Dutch and the English caused a repeated change of
government, but for twenty years he quietly and successfully carried on
his pastoral work in New York and in Albany. He died in 1691 and the
Lutheran flock was again without a shepherd. For the rest of the century
appeals to Amsterdam for a pastor were all in vain.
[illustrations: "A Corner of Broad Street" and "New Amsterdam in 1640"]
In the Eighteenth Century
1701-1750
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the population of Manhattan
Island had increased to 5,000 souls, chiefly Dutch and English. These
figures include about 800 negro slaves. The slave trade and piracy were
at this time perfectly legitimate lines of business.
For ten years the Lutherans had been without a minister. In 1701 they
invited Andrew Rudmann to become their pastor. He had been sent by the
Archbishop of Upsala as a missionary to the Swedish settlements on the
Delaware. Rudmann accepted the call, but after a severe illness, as the
climate did not agree with him, he returned to Pennsylvania, where in
1703 he ordained Justus Falckner to be his successor in New York.
Falckner was a graduate of Halle. It was a kind Providence that made him
pastor of the Lutherans in New York at this time. Events had happened
and were still happening in Europe that were destined to make history in
America.
Germany, paralyzed by the results of the Thirty Years' War, and
hopelessly divided into a multitude of political fragments, had become
the helpless prey of the spoiler. The valley of the Rhine was ravaged
from Heidelberg to the Black Forest. To this day, after more than two
centuries, the ruins may still be traced. Upon the accession of the
Catholic House of Neuburg to the throne of the Palatinate the
Protestants were subjected to intolerable persecution. Their churches
and schools were taken from them. Frequent raids were made upon the
helpless border lands by the armies of Louis the Fourteenth. In a time
of peace the Lutheran house of worship in Strassburg was wrested from
its owners and transformed into a Catholic cathedral.
This devastation of the Rhine Valley caused an extensive emigration by
way of London to New York. In the winter of 1708 Pastor Kocherthal
arrived with the first company of Palatine exiles. In succeeding years
many others followed, most of them settling on the upper Hudson and in
the Mohawk Valley, but some of them remaining in New York.
The inhuman treatment which they received during the voyage, followed by
hunger and disease, decimated their ranks. Of the 3,086 persons who set
sail from London only 2,227 reached New York. Here they were not
permitted to land, but were detained in tents on Governor's Island,
where 250 more died soon after their arrival.
One of the men thus detained was destined to take a prominent place in
the subsequent history of his countrymen, Johann Conrad Weiser. His
descendants down to our own day have been filling high places in the
history of their country as ministers, teachers, soldiers and statesmen.
His great-grandson was the Speaker of the first House of Representatives
of the United States. Another great-grandson, General Peter Muehlenberg,
was for a time an assistant minister in Zion Church at New Germantown,
N. J. He accepted a call to Woodstock, Virginia, where at the outbreak
of the Revolution he startled his congregation one Sunday by declaring
that the time to preach was past and the time to fight had come.
Throwing off his ministerial robe and standing before them in the
uniform of an American officer, he appealed to them to follow him in the
defence of the liberties of his country. He became a distinguished
officer in the army and subsequently rendered good service in the civil
administration of the new republic.
[illustration: "In the Eighteenth Century"]
A later descendant was Dr. William A. Muhlenberg, born in Philadelphia,
September 16th, 1796, the venerated founder of St. Luke's Hospital in
this city.*
*Dr. Muhlenberg was the rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church
of the Holy Communion. He was one of the best beloved ministers in New
York. He died in 1877. I visited him during his last illness in St.
Luke's Hospital. As I took my leave he threw his arms about me and
assured me that he had always been a Lutheran. He evidently conceived of
Lutheranism in broader terms than merely denominational distinctions.
Among the Palatine immigrants stranded on Governor's Island, unable to
follow their sturdier companions to the upper part of the Hudson Valley,
were widows, elderly men and 80 orphans. One of these orphans was Peter
Zenger, who was apprenticed to William Bradford, at that time the only
printer in the colony. When he grew up, he became the editor of The
Weekly Journal, which made its first appearance on November 5th, 1733.
Washington at this time was not yet two years old. Zenger was one of the
earliest champions of American liberty. His arrest and imprisonment, his
heroic defence and final acquittal, are among the milestones of American
history and are a contribution to the story of New York of which
Americans of German descent may well be proud.
It was a large parish to which Falckner ministered. There were no Home
Mission Boards in those days. The New York pastor had therefore to care
for many outlying stations. His diocese included Hackensack, Raritan,
Ramapo and Constable Hook in the south, and Albany, Loonenburg and West
Camp in the north. After the death of Kocherthal he visited regularly,
not only the Dutch congregations of Claverack, Coxackie and Kinderhook,
but also such German settlements as East Camp, Rhinebeck, and Schoharie.
New York itself was not neglected during these missionary journeys.
Readers (Vorleezers) conducted the service while he was away. Such
notices as "There will be no church today, the minister is out of town,"
did not appear on his bulletin board.
The care of a parish 150 miles in length left but little time for
literary work, but in order that his people might be informed on the
subject of their church's faith as distinguished from that of their
Calvinistic neighbors, he wrote a book on the essential doctrines of
the Lutheran confession. It was published by William Bradford, New York,
1708.
He also wrote a hymn: _"Auf, ihr Christen, Christi Glieder,"_ which
after two centuries holds a place in German hymnals, and the translation
is to be found in some of the best collections of the English language.
To this day, therefore, the churches of London and Berlin alike respond
to Falckner's rallying call: "Rise, ye children of salvation."
[illustration: "Trinity Church, Broadway and Rector Street, (Southwest
Corner)"]
He must have been a pious man and a winning personality. The entries in
the book recording baptisms and other ministerial acts abound in
accompanying prayers for the spiritual welfare of those to whom he had
ministered.
For twenty years he served the churches of New York and the Hudson
Valley. When and where he died we know not. Early in 1723 he was in New
York and in Hackensack. In September of the same year there is a record
of a baptism at Phillipsburg (near Yonkers). And then no more. "He was
not, for God took him."
Falckner's successor, Berkenmeyer, a native of Lueneburg, arrived in
1725. He brought with him books for a church library and also funds for
a new building, contributed by friends in Germany, Denmark, and London.
The "old cattle shed" on the southwest corner of Broadway and Rector
Street was torn down and a stone building erected which was dedicated in
1729 and named Trinity church.
The parish which Berkenmeyer inherited from Falckner, extending from New
York to Albany, and including many Dutch and German settlements on both
sides of the river, proved to be a larger field than he could cultivate.
He therefore sent to Germany for another minister, and resigning at New
York, took charge of the northern and more promising part of the field,
making his home at Loonenburg (Athens), on the Hudson. For nineteen
years he labored in this field. He died in 1751.
Berkenmeyer was a scholarly man, a faithful minister, and an impressive
personality. He belonged to a different school from that of his great
contemporary, Muehlenberg, and the rest of the Halle missionaries, and
his correspondence with them frequently savored of theological
controversy.
His successor in New York was Knoll, a native of Holstein, who spent
eighteen years of faithful work in Trinity church under trying
circumstances. He had to preach in Dutch to a congregation that had
become prevailingly German. There was a growing dissatisfaction among
the people. During the first half of the century Dutch influence
gradually declined and German grew stronger. The ministers were all of
them German, although they preached chiefly in Dutch, with occasional
ministrations in German. At last the Germans, feeling the need of ampler
service in their own language, took advantage in 1750 of the presence of
a peripatetic preacher and instituted the first "split" in the Lutheran
church of this city by organizing Christ Church. Knoll resigned soon
after and removed to Loonenburg, where he again became the successor of
Berkenmeyer.
[illustration: "Henry Melchior Muehlenberg (Otto Schweizer's Heroic
Stone Figure)"]
In the Eighteenth Century
1751-1800
The resignation of Knoll and the difficulties of the mother congregation
were the occasion of calling to New York the most distinguished minister
the American Church has ever had.
Henry Melchior Muehlenberg came to America from Halle in 1742 to
minister to the congregations in and near Philadelphia. The disordered
condition of the American churches opened a wide field for his
administrative ability, and for the rest of his life, in addition to his
pastoral activity, he accomplished a great task in the planting and
organization of churches. He is rightly called the Patriarch of the
Lutheran Church in America.
In response to an urgent appeal, Muehlenberg came over from Pennsylvania
in 1751 and assumed the pastorate of Trinity church. Although he spent
but a short time in 1751 and again in 1752 on the ground, he was for two
years pastor of the mother church. His was a fruitful ministry. He
succeeded to a considerable extent in reconciling the warring elements
in the congregation, not only by his gifts as a preacher and spiritual
leader, but also by his ability to preach in Dutch and in English as
well as in German.
The Episcopalians, who worshipped in the Trinity Church on the opposite
corner, complained of the stentorian tones in which he delivered his
sermons.
Upon Muehlenberg's recommendation, Mr. Weygand of Raritan, was chosen
pastor of Trinity Church in 1753. In the furtherance of his ministry,
Weygand performed some literary work. He prepared an English translation
of the Augsburg Confession, which was printed as a supplement to a
quarto volume of 414 pages published by one of the elders of his church,
entitled "The Articles of Faith of the Holy Evangelical Church According
to the Word of God and the Augsburg Confession. A Translation from the
Danish. New York, MDCCLIV."
The congregation continued to be Dutch, although Weygand preached also
in German and in English as occasion required. For the use of his
English congregations he published in 1756 a translation of German
hymns that had appeared in England under the title, "Psalmodia
Germanica."
From 1750 to the time of the American Revolution we had two Lutheran
churches in New York, the German Christ church, popularly known as "The
Old Swamp Church," on Frankfort Street, and the Dutch Trinity church on
Broadway and Rector Street.
In the Swamp church the first preacher, Ries, remained for a year. He
was followed in quick succession by Rapp, Wiessner, Schaeffer, Kurz,
Bager and Gerock. Only the last named served long enough to identify
himself with local history. He was followed by Frederick Muehlenberg,
a son of Henry Melchior, an ardent patriot, who had expressed himself so
freely in regard to English rule that when the British army marched into
New York in 1776 he found it expedient to retire as quickly as possible
to Pennsylvania. Here he labored in several congregations; as supply or
as pastor, until 1779, when the exigencies of the times compelled him to
take an active part in the political affairs of the country.
[illustration: "The Old Swamp Church"]
The partial reconciliation that had been brought about by Muehlenberg
between the Dutch and the German congregations was occasionally
disturbed by a pamphletary warfare conducted by their respective
pastors, Weygand and Gerock.
Weygand died in 1770. He was succeeded by Hausihl (or Houseal, as he
spelled his name in later years), a native of Heilbronn, who had served
congregations in Maryland and in eastern Pennsylvania. Tradition reports
that he was a brilliant preacher of distinguished appearance and of
courtly manners. He succeeded in maintaining a large congregation.
But a serious change was going on in the church in the matter of
language. In spite of the secession in 1750 other Germans kept coming
into the Broadway church to such an extent that they outnumbered the
Dutch eight to one, and finally the use of the Dutch language in the
Lutheran Church of New York came to an end. Houseal had the distinction
of conducting the obsequies at the preparatory service on Saturday,
November 30, 1771, and at the administration of the Lord's Supper on
the following day.
But the death of the Dutch language by no means put an end to the
language difficulties of our Lutheran ancestors. In the midst of the
original contestants a new set of combatants had sprung up in the
persons of the children of both parties. These spoke neither Dutch nor
German. They understood English only and demanded larger consideration
of their needs.
Events, however, were impending which soon gave the people something
else to think about and caused a postponement of actual hostilities for
another generation.
The church on Broadway was destroyed by fire in 1776, and was never
rebuilt. The congregation worshipped for a time in the Scotch
Presbyterian Church on Cedar Street.
The American Revolution broke out. On political questions our ancestors
differed almost as widely as do their successors on synodical questions.
Some of them were for George the Third, others were for George
Washington. In this respect, however, they were not unlike other
inhabitants of New York.
Frederick Muehlenberg, the pastor of the Swamp Church, was an ardent
patriot. At the beginning of the war, as we have seen, he fled to
Pennsylvania.
During the war the services were conducted by the chaplains of the
Hessian troops. The Hessians were good church-goers and also generous
contributors, so that the financial condition of the congregation at
this time was greatly improved.
Houseal, the pastor of Trinity Church, was a tory, and when in 1783 the
American troops marched into New York, he with a goodly number of his
adherents removed to Nova Scotia and founded a Lutheran church in
Halifax.
Both churches were now without pastors. Tribulation must have softened
the spirits of the two contending congregations, for when Dr. Johann
Christoph Kunze came to this city from Philadelphia in 1784, he became
pastor of the reunited congregations, worshipping in the Swamp Church.
[illustration: "Frederick Augustus Conrad Muehlenberg; Pastor of the Old
Swamp Church; subsequently member of the Continental Congress; Speaker
of the Assembly of Pennsylvania; President of the Convention which in
1787 ratified the Constitution of the United States; Speaker of the
first Congress of the United States of America."]
Before closing this chapter and taking up the account of Kunze's
pastorate, let us follow the steps of Frederick Muehlenberg, the former
pastor of the Swamp Church. We recall his unceremonious flight from New
York. We cannot blame him. The British had threatened to hang him if
they caught him.
We remember too that in Pennsylvania he was called upon to take an
active part in political affairs. He was a member of the Continental
Congress, also a member of the legislature of Pennsylvania and Speaker
of the Assembly. He was President of the Convention which ratified the
Constitution of the United States.
Thirteen years have passed since he left New York. It is A. D. 1789. New
York was just beginning to recover from the disastrous years of the
Revolution during which the British troops occupied the city. The
population had sunk from 20,000 to 10,000 in 1783, but by this time had
risen again to 30,000. The people were getting ready to celebrate the
greatest event in the history of the city, the inauguration of the first
President of the American Republic. Preparations were made to honor the
occasion with all possible ceremony. Great men had gathered from all
parts of the country. But to the older members of the Swamp Church there
was doubtless no one, not even Washington himself, who stood higher in
their esteem and affection than the representative from Pennsylvania,
the Reverend Frederick Muehlenberg. And when a few days later the
erstwhile German pastor of the Swamp Church was elected Speaker of the
first House of Representatives of the United States of America, none
knew better than they that it was only a fitting tribute to the
character and abilities of their former pastor.
Kunze's is one of the great names on the roll of our ministers. He was
a scholar, a teacher, a writer, and an administrator of distinction.
Trained in the best schools of Germany, when he arrived in America in
1770, he at once took high rank among his colleagues in Philadelphia.
Besides his work as a minister he filled the chair of Oriental and
German languages in the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1784 he accepted a call to New York. He did this partly in the hope
of establishing a Lutheran professorship in Columbia College. He
accepted a call to the chair of Oriental languages in Columbia. He was
also a regent of the university.
Kunze was not only an able man, he was also a man of deep piety, a
qualification not altogether undesirable in a shepherd of souls. His
writings indicate that in his preaching and catechization he strove not
to beat the air but to win souls to a personal experience of salvation.
While it is doubtful whether he would find admission to some of the most
orthodox synods of our own day; he was comparatively free from the
latitudinarian tendencies which had been brought over from Germany
during the last quarter of the century.
Along with General Steuben and other influential citizens he founded,
the German Society, an association which is still an important agency
in the charitable work of this city.
[illustration: "John Christopher Kunze"]
He was instrumental in 1785 in reorganizing the New York Ministerium.
This work was begun in 1775 by Frederick Muehlenberg, but had been given
up for a while, probably on account of the war.
As a writer he is credited in Dr. Morris' Bibliotheca Lutherana with
eight books of which he was the author or editor, from Hymns and Poems
to A History of the Lutheran Church and A New Method of Calculating the
Great Eclipse of 1806.
These and many other things must be set to his credit. For what he
accomplished he deserves a large place in the history of our Church in
this city. But with all his gifts he was unable to cope with the chief
problem which confronted our Church at the close of the eighteenth
century, that of the English language.