of Paris, for the independence of our coun-ily granted to them."* In 1686, a grant try, was framing, the grandson of a Hugue-of 11,000 acres was made to another comnot, acquainted from childhood with the pany of French Protestants who had setwrongs of his ancestors, would not allow tled at Oxford, in the same colony.† In his jealousies of France to be lulled, and that year, too, a French Protestant Church exerted a powerful influence in stretching was erected at Boston, which, ten years the boundary of the States to the Missis- after, had the Rev. Mr. Daillé for its passippi. In our northeastern frontier state, tor. A century later, when the French the name of the oldest college bears wit-Protestants had ceased to use the French ness to the wise liberality of a descendant language, and had become merged in other of the Huguenots. The children of the churches, their place of worship fell into Calvinists of France have reason to respect the hands of some Roman Catholic refuthe memory of their ancestors."* gees from France. The emigration of the Huguenots to In 1666, an act for the naturalization America is an exceedingly interesting of French Protestants was passed by the event in the history of that country. It Legislature of Maryland: acts to the like commenced earlier, and was more exten-effect were passed in Virginia in 1671; in sive than is generally supposed. Even the Carolinas in 1696, and in New-York in previously to the massacre of St. Bartholo-1703.‡ mew's day, some of the Protestant leaders, historian of that colony, says, that next to the Dutch, they were the most numerous and wealthiest class of the population. From an early period they had in that city a church, which exists at the present day. It has long been attached to the Protestant Episcopal Church, and has a Frenchman for its rector. New-York became an asylum for the as we have seen, whether from feeling their Huguenots at a very early date, for even position to be even then intolerable, or from before it was surrendered to England, their anticipations of a still darker futurity, namely, about 1656, they were so numerproposed to establish a colony and a mis-ous there that the public documents of the sion in Brazil-the mission being the first colony had to be published in French as ever projected by Protestants. The Ad-well as in Dutch; and in 1708, Smith, the miral of France, the brave Coligny, who was afterward a victim in the above massacre, entered warmly into the undertaking, and Calvin urged it on with all his might, and selected three excellent ministers, who had been trained under his own eye at Geneva, to accompany the emigrants. The expedition set out in 1556, but proved peculiarly disastrous. The commander re- New-Rochelle, about twenty miles above lapsed to the Roman Catholic faith, and the city of New-York, on the East River, having put the three ministers to death, or Sound, as it is more commonly called, returned to France, leaving the remains of was settled solely by Huguenots from Rothe colony to be massacred by the Portu-chelle, in France, and the French tongue, guese! Nor did better success attend two attempts made by the good admiral to plant colonies in North America, the one in South Carolina, the other in Florida. It seemed as if the time had not yet come for the planting of good colonies, and that neither religion nor persecution had as yet sufficiently ripened the Protestants for the enterprise. From the time of the siege of Rochelle to that of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, there had been a continual emigration of French Protestants to the English colonies in America, which, after the latter of these two events, was greatly augmented, as is abundantly proved by the public acts of those colonies. The first notice of the kind to be found is an act of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in 1662, to this effect," that John Touton, a French doctor and inhabitant of Rochelle, made application to the General Court of Massachusetts, in behalf of himself and other Protestants, expelled from their habitations on account of their religion, that they might have liberty to live there, which was read * Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. ii., p. 180-183. both in public worship and common parlance, was in use even until after the American Revolution. There are many of the descendants of French Huguenots in Ulster and Dutchess counties in the State of New-York. The Rev. Dr. Miller, professor of Church History in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New-Jersey, had the following interesting facts, respecting the early inhabitants of New-Rochelle, communicated to him: "When the Huguenots first settled in that neighbourhood, their only place of worship was in the city of New-York. They had taken lands on terms that required the utmost exertions of men, women, and children among them to render tillable. They were, therefore, in the habit of working hard till Saturday night, spending the * Holmes's "American Annals" for that year. + Ibid. Carolinas and New-York before they were naturalHuguenots had long been settled in both the ized. This arose solely from internal difficulties, which rendered their naturalization, for the moment, impossible, not from any unwillingness to receive them. ◊ Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. ii., p. 302. night in trudging down on foot to the city, nots, who had first taken refuge in Holland, attending worship twice the next day, and and afterward emigrated to America. Nor walking home the same night to be ready must we forget the descendants of Huguefor work in the morning. Amid all these nots who found their first asylum in Enghardships, they wrote to France to tell land and Scotland. Among these was the what great privileges they enjoyed."* late excellent Divie Bethune, whose anIn 1679, Charles II. sent, at his own ex-cestors came originally from the town of pense, in two ships, a company of Hugue- Bethune, not far from Calais. nots to South Carolina, in order that they On looking over the roll of the Presbymight there cultivate the vine, the olive, terian churches of Charleston, South Car&c., and from that time there was an ex-olina, there may be found the Huguenot tensive emigration of French Protestants to the colonies. Collections were made for them in England in the reign of James II., and the English Parliament at one time aided them with a grant of £15,000.† In 1690, William III. sent a large colony of them to Virginia; in addition to which, that colony received 300 families in 1699, followed successively by 200 and afterward by 100 families more. In 1752, no fewer than 1600 foreign Protestants, chiefly French, settled in South Carolina, and above 200 more in 1764. In 1733, 370 Swiss Protestant families settled in South Carolina, under the conduct of Jean Pierre Pury, of Neuchâtel; the British government granting them 40,000 acres of land, and £400 sterling for every hundred adult emigrants landed in the colony.‡ names of Dupré, Du Bosse, Quillin, Lanneau, Legaré, Rosamond, Dana, Cousac, Lequeux, Bores, Hamet, Rechon, Bize, Benoist, Berbant, Marchant, Mallard, Belville, Molyneux, Chevalier, Bayard, Sayre, De Saint Croix, Boudinot, Le Roy, Ogier, Janvier, Gillet, Purviance, Guiteau, Boyer, Simon, &c., &c.* It As the entire population of the American colonies amounted only to about 200,000 souls in 1701,† more than forty years after the commencement of the Huguenot emigrations, a large proportion of that number must have been French Protestants, and Huguenot blood accordingly must be extensively diffused among the citizens of the United States at the present day. is very obvious that so large an accession of people, whose very presence in America proved the consistency of their reliIn some of the colonies where an Es- gious character, and who were generally tablished Church was supported by a tax, distinguished by simple and sincere piety, special acts were passed for relieving must have been a great blessing to the land French Protestants of that burden, and for of their adoption, especially to the Southgranting them liberty of worship. Thus, ern States, where it was most required. in 1700, the colony of Virginia enacted as Their coming to America, on the other follows: "Whereas, a considerable num-hand, has been blest, under God, to them ber of French Protestant refugees have and their descendants. Many of the first been lately imported into his majesty's families in New-York, Maryland, Virginia, colony and dominion, and several of which and the Carolinas, as well as other states, refugees have seated themselves above the are to be found among them, as may be fall of James's River, at or near the place seen in many cases from their names, alcommonly called and known by the name though these have often been lost through of the Monacan towns, &c., the said settle-intermarriages, or can with difficulty be ment be erected into a parish, not liable to other parochial assessments." This exemption was to last for seven years, and was afterward renewed for seven more.§ recognised, owing to their being spelt as they are pronounced by Anglo-Americans. Some of the most eminent persons that have ever adorned the United States were of Huguenot descent. Such were no fewer than three out of the seven presidents of Congress, and, in a sense, of the whole nation, during the war of the Revolution, namely, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Elias Boudinot-all excellent men. I conclude this chapter in the words of a distinguished clergyman of the Episcopal Church in America.§ "And never, probably, did any people better repay the hospitable kindness of the land which afforded them a refuge. Many of their de * Lang's "Religion and Education in America," p. 24. + Holmes's "Annals." Lang's "Religion and Education in America," p. 22, 23. Rev. Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church in Virginia." scendants are still left in New-York, Vir-, “"German Flats," and in some other parts ginia, the Carolinas, and other parts of our of the latter province. country; and among the brightest orna- In Pennsylvania this immigration is said ments of the state, in the halls of legisla- to have commenced in 1682 or 1683, when tion and of justice, as well as in the sacred Germantown, near Philadelphia, was foundoffice, may be found the names of some of ed; and in subsequent years, such was the the French refugees. No man in Ameri-influx of those emigrants, that they and ca need ever blush to own himself one of their descendants were estimated, in 1772, their descendants; for the observation has at a third of the whole population of that more than once been made, and it is believ- province, then amounting to between ed to be true, that among their descend- 200,000 and 300,000.* In a letter dated ants the instances have been rare indeed October 14th, 1730, Mr. Andrews says: of individuals who have been arraigned for "There is besides in this province a vast crime before the courts of the country." number of Palatines, and they come in still every year. Those that have come of late are mostly Presbyterians, or, as they call themselves, Reformed; the Palatinate being about three fifths of that sort of people." There were, however, many CHAPTER XIII. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- Lutherans mixed with them, as Mr. A. NISTS. EMIGRANTS FROM GERMANY. afterward remarks, while he adds: "In GERMANS began to emigrate to America other parts of the country they are chiefly in the latter part of the seventeenth centu- Reformed, so that, I suppose, the Presbyry, and the first comers were probably suf-terian party are as numerous as the Quaferers in the devastations committed by the kers, or near it.”† In the year 1749, French under Turenne in the Upper Palat- 12,000 Germans arrived in that colony, inate, a country lying on both sides of the and for several years thereafter nearly Rhine, having Manheim for its capital, and the same number came.‡ including a portion of the territory which has since been transferred from the German Empire to France. In 1674 the whole of it was rendered almost utterly desolate by the troops of Louis XIV., who had no better motive for perpetrating such atrocities than that the invaded province was part of the empire with which he was then at war, and, next, that its inhabitants were almost all Protestants. So effectually did these troops do their master's bidding, that the Elector Palatine could at one time see, from his palace at Manheim, two cities and twenty-five villages in flames! In this work of horror Turenne, no doubt, proved to his royal master's sat-been, from all ordinary taxes for the term isfaction the sincerity of his conversion from Protestantism to Romanism, but he forever tarnished by it his own great name. As persecution continued what war and rapine had begun, on the Palatinate falling under the government of a bigot, many German Protestants emigrated to the English colonies in America; and it may be remarked, that previously to the American Revolution, the German emigration, though not always confined to the Palatinate, and though many of the emigrants came from the northwest of Germany, continued to be almost purely Protestant. From Pennsylvania they spread into Maryland and Virginia. "The year 1713 was rendered memorable by an act of kindness shown to certain emigrants, similar to that which had been manifested towards the French refugees. It seems that a small body of Germans had settled above the falls of the Rappahannock, on the southern branch of the river, in the county of Essex. This was at that period the frontier of civilization; and, therefore, it was alike the suggestion of interest and humanity to afford protection and encouragement to these foreigners. Accordingly, they were exempted, as the French had of seven years, and were formed into the "Parish of St. George," with power to employ their own minister and upon their own terms." Many Germans emigrated to the Carolinas also. In 1709 above 600 arrived, and from the name of their settlement, Newbern, they are supposed to have been Swiss-Germans from the canton of Berne.|| From 1730 to 1750, South Carolina received large accessions from Switzerland, Holland, and Germany, and a great many "Palatines" arrived every year. In 1764, 500 * Proud's "History of Pennsylvania," vol. ii., p. 273. † Dr. Hodge's "Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church,” vol. i., p. 50. 273, 274. About 2700 "Palatines," as they were called, who had sought refuge in England, were sent out by the British government under Colonel Hunter in 1710, when that officer was transferred from the governorship of Virginia to that of New-York; and German settlements were formed about that time, and some years following, on the P. 11. in Proud's "History of Pennsylvania," vol. ii., p. Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church i., p. 184. Ramsay's "History of South Carolina," vol. i.,` or 600 were sent over from London, and had a township set apart for them.* Some years later a considerable number of German families, after having settled in Maine, left that province to join their countrymen at Londonderry in South Carolina, but most of these repented having taken that step, and returned to Maine, where their descendants are to be found at this dayt. Georgia had Germans among its very first colonists. A band of these were led thither by Colonel Oglethorpe, and re-enforcements from time to time arrived from Europe. The Germans who emigrated to America during the colonial era, being almost all Protestants, organized upon their arrival two Communions or Churches, upon the great doctrinal principles which had divided them into two denominations in Germany-the Reformed, or the Calvinists, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession, or Lutherans. The history of these churches down to the present day will fall under our notice elsewhere. But although difference of language compelled them in the first instance to have churches of their own, many of their descendants, partly from having adopted the English tongue, partly from their wide dispersion over the country, are now members of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist Churches. Among the Germans who settled in America were two small, but interesting portions of the ancient Sclavonic churches of Bohemia, as if to show that even the great Eastern branch of the Christian Church was to have its representatives also in the New World, and to contribute to lay the foundations of a Christian empire there. These were the United Brethren, or Moravians, as they are more commonly called, and some members of the churches of Bohemia. The Moravians came directly from Herrnhut, the mother city of the whole fraternity that adopt the renovating system, received by some of the remains of the ancient race from Count Zinzendorf, in the early part of the last century. The Bohemians came in a dispersed state by way of Holland, but not having organized themselves as a distinct communion, these children of John Huss and Jerome of Prague were soon merged in the Protestant churches of the land of their adoption. Not so with the United Breth * Holmes's "American Annals," vol. ii, p. 268. †There is an interesting account of this colony in the American Quarterly Register for Nov., 1840. It was commenced, it would seem, in 1739, and received several accessions from Germany, but never became very strong. It suffered much in its early days from the Indians, and also from lawsuits about the titles to the lands occupied by the emigrants. The chief place in the colony is called Waldoborough, where there is a church and a pastor, but the German language is now disused. F ren, who preserve their own organization and peculiar institutions to this day. Besides a few churches in such large cities as Philadelphia and New-York, and some scattered throughout the interior, they are chiefly to be found in the three settlements of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz in Pennsylvania, and Salem in North Carolina. But I shall speak of their history and present number in another part of this work. Previous to the Revolution, the German emigration was not only extensive, but also, to a considerable degree at least, pure. The emigrants had left Europe on account of their religion, and brought with them into America the simple and tranquil habits, and the frugal industry that characterize the nation from which they came. Not only was their general standard of morality high, but there was not wanting among them a goodly number of sincere Christians, distinguished for the cultivation of all the Christian virtues. But ever since the Revolution, and especially during the last thirty years, a very numerous emigration from Germany to the United States has taken place, consisting both of Protestants and Roman Catholics, influenced in expatriating themselves chiefly by worldly considerations, and much inferior in point of religious character to those godly emigrants of the same race who had been driven to our shores by persecution and oppression at home. The descendants of German settlers are very numerous in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the other Southern States, as well as in New-York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and the Territories of Wisconsin and Iowa. Indeed, they are by far the most numerous of all the emigrants to America that are not of the British stock. But their influence on the religious character of the nation has not been equal to that of the Puritans, the Scotch, or the Huguenots. The first Bible printed in America was Luther's version. CHAPTER XIV. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. EMIGRANTS FROM POLAND. EVEN Poland was called upon to furnish her contingent towards the colonization of America, and sent over some excellent people, whose descendants are now dispersed over the country. I know not whether the fact I am about to mention stands recorded in any history, but it may, without hesitation, be received as true in all material points. I received it myself from some excellent ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, who are personally acquainted with a considerable number of the descendants of the colonists to whom it relates. They state that in the | ting that among those there should be some, early part of the 18th century, a Count So- at least, to represent that martyr-people, bieski, a lineal descendant of the famous veritable living relics of those churches in John Sobieski III., who routed the Turks the north of Italy and southwest of France, at the battle of Choczin in 1673, and cha- which had remained faithful to the Truth sed them from the walls of Vienna in 1683, during long ages of apostacy, and whose led a colony of about 200 Protestants from preservation was so appropriately symbolPoland to the shores of America, there to ized by "the bush unconsumed in the midst enjoy a religious freedom which was not of the flames." to be found in their native country. In this tradition there is nothing strange. The doctrines of the Reformation made a considerable progress for a time in Poland, and one or two of the kings of that country were well disposed towards it. Stipulations somewhat like the Edict of Nantes were even made, for securing liberty of conscience and of worship to the Protestants. But these were afterward disregarded, the Protestants persecuted, and their doctrines so effectually suppressed, that a Protestant Pole is hardly to be found now in the whole kingdom; for those Protestants whom one meets with there are of the German, not of the Polish race. Thus there is nothing incredible in Poland, too, being represented in a country where the persecuted of every land have found a home. These had heard, in the recesses of their valleys, of the wonderful movement of the Reformation in Germany and France. They sent a deputation to Basel to learn from Ecolampadius what were the sentiments of the Reformers, and what those doctrines which were turning the world upside down. They heard with joy that the faith of the Reformers was the same as their own, and hastened, accordingly, to unite themselves to the general body of faithful men, who, through much tribulation, were casting off the yoke of that spiritual Babylon, drunk with the blood of saints, which had been endeavouring for so many ages to crush their forefathers. But before long the persecution, which was to fall upon the whole Protestant body, reached them also, and with fresh violence. Neither the seclusion of their This Polish colony settled in the valleys valleys, nor the insignificance of their numof the Passaic and Raritan Rivers in New-bers, could save them from this stroke. Jersey, where there are some of their descendants at the present day, while others are dispersed over various parts of the country. The name of Sobieski, corrupted into that of Zabriskie, is retained by a highly respectable family, some members of which are to be found in one district of New Jersey, and others in the city of NewYork. How wonderful are the ways of God! Poland chose to cleave to Romanism and rejected the Protestant Reformation, and how has Romanism served her in her recent dreadful struggle for national independence? This question is best answered by the pope's bull,* addressed to the bishops of the kingdom in relation to that war. CHAPTER XV. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- Then it was that the voice of Cromwell spoke for them with a power which even the Emperor of Germany dared not disregard. And then the pen of England's greatest poet was no less ready to teach a persecuting prince the duty that he owed to suffering humanity, than it was "to assert eternal providence, and justify the ways of God to man." Those valleys contain enduring monuments of British benevolence; the fund contributed at that time by the Christians of England has aided the preaching of the Gospel to their poor inhabitants ever since. But those who had fled from persecution before the voice of Britain was thus lifted up, had to be provided with an asylum, and for this they were indebted to the city of Amsterdam, which offered them a free passage to America. There the few hundreds that embraced the offer found a welcome reception awaiting them.* CHAPTER XVI. SUMMARY. WHILE even Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland thus sent forth their little bands of faithful men to America, it is not surprising that we should find some witnesses to the Truth proceeding from the Sucн, as respects the religious characvalleys of Piedmont, to place themselves ter of the colonists, was the early colonizain the ranks of those whom God was thus tion of the United States; and well may it calling from so many nations to take part excite our wonder as altogether without a in peopling the New World with profes- Albany Records," vol. iv., p. 223. Lambrechtsors of the pure Gospel. It was most fit-sten, p. 65, without quoting his authority, says 600 came over. Mr. Bancroft, vol. ii., p. 322, thinks this an over-statement. A second emigration was proposed in 1663, but the project failed. * This bull is given at length in the work of the Abbé de la Mennais entitled "Rome." * 66 |