Chapter XI: 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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.