THE established church in the United Netherlands was the
Reformed Church. Its polity was that of Geneva or of
Presbyterianism. The minister and ruling or lay elders of
the local church formed its consistory, corresponding to the
Scottish or American kirk session. The next higher power,
administrative or judicial, resided in the classis, consisting
of all the ministers in a given district and one elder from
each parish therein, and corresponding to the presbytery. It
had power to license and ordain, install and remove ministers.
Above this body stood the provincial synod, and above that
the (occasional)national synods. In 1624 the synod of North
Holland decreed that supervision over the churches in the
East Indies should belong to the churches and classes within
whose bounds were located the various "chambers" of the East
India Company. The same rule was applied in the case of the
West India Company's settlements. Under this rule the first
minister sent out to New Netherland was placed under the
jurisdiction of the Classis of Amsterdam, since the colony
was under the charge of the Amsterdam Chamber. Many extracts
from the minutes of that classis, and what remains of its
correspondence with the ministers in New Netherland, are
printed in the volumes published by the State of New York
under the title _Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York_
(six volumes, Albany, 1901-1905). From 1639, if not earlier,
a committee of the classis, called "Deputati ad Res Exteras,"
was given charge of most of the details of correspondence
with the Dutch Reformed churches in America, Africa, the East
and foreign European countries.
As mentioned by Wassenaer, "comforters of the sick," who were
Ecclesiastical officers but not ministers, were first sent
Out to New Netherland. The first minister was Reverence
Jonas Jansen Michielse, or, to employ the Latinized form of
his name which he, according to clerical habit, was accustomed
to use, Jonas Johannis Michaelius. Michaelius was born in
North Holland in 1577, entered the University of Leyden as a
student of divinity in 1600, became minister at Nieuwbokswoude
in 1612 and at Hem, near Enkhuizen, in 1614. At some time
between April, 1624, and August, 1625, he went out to San
Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), recently conquered by the West
India Company's fleet, and after brief service there to one
Of their posts on the West African coast. Returning thence,
He was, early in 1628, sent out to Manhattan, where he arrived
April 7. It is not known just when he returned to Holland,
but he appears to have been under engagement for three years.
In 1637-1638 we find the classis vainly endeavoring to send
him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company,
which had a veto upon all such appointments in its dominions.
About half a century ago the following precious letter of
Michaelius, describing New Netherland as it appeared in its
earliest days to the eyes of an educated clergyman of the
Dutch Church, was discovered in Amsterdam, and printed by
Mr. J.J.Bodel Nijenhuis in the _Kerk-historisch Archief_,
part I. An English translation of it, with an introduction,
was then privately printed in a pamphlet by Mr. Henry C.
Murphy, an excellent scholar in New Netherland history, who
was at that time minister of the United States to the
Netherlands. This pamphlet, entitled _The First Minister of
the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States_ (The Hague,
1858), was reprinted in 1858 in _Documents relative to the
Colonial History of the State of New York_, II. 757-770, in
1881 in the _Collections of the New York Historical Society_,
XIII, and in 1883, at Amsterdam, by Frederik Muller and Co.,
who added a photographic fac-simile of full size and a
transcript of the Dutch text. In 1896 a reduced fac-simile
of the original letter, with an amended translation by
Reverence John G. Fagg, appeared in the _Year Book_ of the
(Collegiate) Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of New York
City, and also separately for private circulation, and in
1901 the Dutch text with Reverend Mr. Fagg's translation
was printed in _Ecclesiastical Records_, I. 49-68, which
also contains a photographic fac-simile of the concluding
portion of the manuscript. Another is in _Memorial History_,
I. 166. The original is in the New York Public Library
(Lenox Building). Reverend Adrianus Smoutius, to whom the
letter was addressed, was an ultra-Calvinist clergyman, who
led a stormy life, but from 1620 to 1630 was a minister of
the collegiate churches of Amsterdam, and as such a member
of the classis under whose charge Michaelius served.
For many years this letter of August 11, 1628, was supposed
to be the earliest extant letter or paper written at
Manhattan. But a letter of three days earlier was recently
discovered, which Michaelius wrote on August 8 to Jan Foreest,
a magistrate of Hoorn and secretary to the Executive Council
(Gecommitteerde Raden) of the States of the Province of
Holland. This letter mentions epistles also sent to two
clergymen in Holland and to the writer's brother. It was
printed by Mr. Dingman Versteeg in _Manhattan in 1628_ (New
York, 1904). All these letters were presumably prepared to
be sent home on the same ship. The two which are extant
parallel each other to a large extent. That which follows,
though second in order of time, is intrinsically a little
more interesting than the other. Mr. Fagg's translation
has in the main been followed.