SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, AND RELIGIOUS SECTS.
Early schools in Pennsylvania.--German Schools.--Churches,
and Religious Sects.--Lutherans Predominate.--German Reformed
Numerous.--Swedish Lutherans.--Moravians, and other Sects.
With the founding of Penn’s province, and the organization of a civil
government for it, there was established a moral code in which the
principles of the Quaker sect furnished the groundwork; but it was
not the purpose of Penn to exclude persons of any religious sect,
from participation in the new political regime which he had set up.
He opened wide the doors to people of different mind and faith from
himself. The only conditions imposed were, that all who came should
be peaceably disposed, and loyal to the government which was erected
by him. To that end schools and churches were established at a very
early day; first by the Quakers; then by the adherents of the Anglican
church, and the Germans soon followed in their footsteps.
The German emigrants embarking for America were often furnished with
religious books, chief among which was “Arndt’s Wahres Christenthum,”
which not many generations ago was found in the family of almost
every Pennsylvania German, and it no doubt still serves the purpose
of offering consolation to many German readers. Ministers often
accompanied the emigrants on the same ship, as also did school
teachers. The latter would frequently read printed sermons, and prayers
to the people when the supply of ministers was short.
By far the larger portion of the German emigrants who came to
Pennsylvania were Lutherans and German Reformed,--the Lutherans
predominating. There also came German Quakers, Mennonites and later
German Catholics, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Moravians, and a few minor
sects.
The Lutherans and German Reformed embraced the tenets of the
Reformation in their native country at an early day, and when they
began to emigrate to Pennsylvania, they brought with them the germs of
their religious convictions, which were soon planted in the new soil,
where they grew into flourishing churches.
There were however Lutherans within the limits of Pennsylvania before
the granting of the province to Penn, and before the Germans came here.
About 1638 a small colony of Swedes made a settlement a short distance
from where the city of Philadelphia was afterwards founded. Pastors
were sent to them from Sweden, who organized a Lutheran church, where
its members were worshipping God according to their conscience, when
their countryman Gustavus Adolphus was fighting for religious freedom
in Europe.
Dutch Lutherans from Holland, established a church at New Amsterdam
(New York), a few years prior to the founding of the Swedish church
near Philadelphia. The Holland Lutherans were the subjects of much
persecution in their new home, on account of their non-conformity with
the Calvinistic religion, which was chiefly in vogue. After the English
captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, they gained religious
freedom.
The Lutheran Church however did not become an organized religious
hierarchy until Melchoir Muhlenberg was sent to America, upon
application to the Lutheran pastors in London, to look after the
Lutherans in the colonies. He arrived in 1742, and immediately
proceeded to organize the church by which he earned the title of the
“Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States.” He was highly
educated, and while pastor in New York, he preached three times every
Sunday in as many languages viz: German, Dutch and English.
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, son of the former, born in Montgomery
county, Pa., became even more distinguished than his father. He was
clergyman, soldier, and statesman. He went to Woodstock, Va., to
preach in 1772, where he was serving a Lutheran Congregation when the
Revolution broke out. One Sunday after the services were finished,
he threw off his gown in the pulpit, displaying a military uniform;
read his commission as a colonel, and ordered the drums to beat for
recruits. He served with distinction during the war; rose to the rank
of Major-General; served in Congress after the war, and was elected
to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania in 1801. He died near
Philadelphia Oct. 1, 1807.
The Lutherans compose an evangelical body of Christians who have as a
basis for their creed the Augsburg Confession.
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THE GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH, in the United States owes its origin to
the Reformed churches of Switzerland and Germany, of which Zwingli
and Calvin were the most prominent leaders. Rev. Michael Schlatter
was to the Reformed Church in the United States and Pennsylvania,
what Muhlenberg was to the Lutheran. He was sent here by the Synod of
Holland in 1746, and with his coming the Church began its organized
existence as a united ecclesiastical body; although such eminent
clergymen as Johann Philip Boehm, and George Michael Weiss preceded
him several years, preaching to various Reformed congregations in
Pennsylvania.
The Reformed Church is Calvinistic, and the Heidelberg Catechism is the
only confession of faith recognized by it.
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MENNONITES.--This sect arose in Switzerland in 1525. It was named
for Menno Simons, the founder of the sect, whose members differ
in matters of religious belief from some of the other evangelical
churches, among other things in opposing infant baptism, the taking
of oaths, accepting civil offices, and bearing arms. They suffered
great persecution in Switzerland where the sect had its origin. After
Penn offered religious freedom in his new province, they emigrated to
Pennsylvania, where they formed a society at Germantown as early as
1683.
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DUNKERS.--The doctrine of the Dunkers is similar to that of the
Mennonites, only differing with respect to baptism, with regard to
which they believe in trine immersion. They are also known as German
American Baptists; but they call themselves Brethren. They arose in
Germany about 1709, and after being much persecuted they emigrated to
Pennsylvania during the first quarter of the last century.
SCHWENKFELDERS.--Hans Kasper von Schwenkfeld was born in Silesia in
1490. He was in the service of the Duke of Leignitz, when he embraced
the Reformation; but later took issue with Luther, concerning his
teaching with regard to the Lord’s Supper. He denied that there was any
change in the elements employed in the sacrament. He founded a church,
which would conform to his ideas, which brought him in conflict with
the Reformers, whose antagonism drove him from his home to Strassburg,
where he was tried for heresy and banished. Most of his followers
emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1734.
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MORAVIANS.--This sect takes its name from one of its principal seats
in the fifteenth century, which was Moravia. Its official name is the
_Unitas Fratrum_. The martyrdom of John Huss, gave rise to the church,
and was founded by his followers at Lititz in Bohemia in 1457. Its
fundamental doctrines are in harmony with other evangelical churches.
They began to arrive in America in 1735, and established a colony in
Georgia; and in 1740, they came to Pennsylvania, and founded Bethlehem
and several other places; the former continuing its chief seat in the
United States.
* * * * *
CATHOLICS.--Among the emigrants to Pennsylvania in the last century
were numerous German Catholics. As an ecclesiastical body they do not
differ from their English-speaking co-religionists. The Roman Catholic
Church antedates all other Christian churches. Catholics claim that
Christ conferred special attributes on Peter, making him the rock on
which the church is built. The primary of Peter as one of the apostles
is perpetuated in the Pope of Rome, who as Peter’s successor “enjoys
not merely a pre-eminence of honor, but a real, immediate jurisdiction
over the entire church, and over each of its members.”
* * * * *
MINOR SECTS.--There were other minor sects among the early arrivals:
Mystics, who believe in a pure, sublime and wholly disinterested
devotion, who claim that they have direct intercourse with the divine
Spirit, and that they gain a knowledge of God and of spiritual things
by the natural intellect, and as such cannot be analyzed or explained.
Separatists who dissent from all sects, and refuse to conform to any
church government. Inspirationists, who believe that inspiration
extends to the very words and forms of expression of the divine
message. All these were represented in the early German emigration.
* * * * *
METHODISTS.--During the period of German emigration into Pennsylvania,
no German speaking Methodists came here, because Methodism had not
gained any foothold among the Germans at that time, although since
then it has spread largely among the Pennsylvania Germans. Methodism
did not make its appearance in the province of Pennsylvania until long
after George Whitfield, who led the advance guard of Methodism in the
United States came here to preach the new tenets of the sect. Its first
organized existence in America dates with the building of the famous
old “John Street Chapel,” in New York in 1763, which is believed to be
the first Methodist church erected in the Western Hemisphere. There
are other religious sects among the Pennsylvania Germans, but they are
off-shoots of other denominations, and had no existence among the early
emigrants. There are numerous descendants of Pennsylvania Germans who
after they became Anglicized, joined other evangelical denominations,
such as the Presbyterian, Episcopal and other churches.
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