a meeting of the Moravians in Aldersgate Street, London, John Wesley was converted ("felt my heart strangely warmed") by the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, during the reading of Luther's preface to Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The Methodist Church in America owed its beginnings to Philip Embury and Barbara Heck, who came from Ireland, but were both descended from the Palatines. Their direct ancestors were a part of that great exodus of German emigrants from the Palatinate who appeared in London in 1709, and greatly perplexed the Board of Trade. About five hundred families, thirty-eight hundred persons, were sent to the north of Ireland, and settled as agriculturists in the province of Munster. Barbara Ruckle, born in the County of Limerick in 1744, became in her eighteenth year a communicant of the Methodist group which had been visited by Wesley's itinerants, and concerning which he said, in 1758, such another settlement could hardly be found in the British Isles. Barbara Ruckle married Paul Heck, a devout member of the little community, in 1760, and in the same year they emigrated with her cousin, Philip Embury, his wife and two brothers, with their families. It is said the devout spirit for a time declined somewhat in the circle of her acquaintance. On one of her visits Barbara Heck found a company, to which her brother, Paul Ruckle, also belonged, at a game of cards, and her spirit was roused. She seized the cards, threw them into the fire, and warned the party concerning their danger and duty. She went immediately to the house of her cousin, Philip Embury, and appealed to him to break his silence and preach the Word without delay. Philip Embury, a meek and diffident man, said, "How can I preach, for I have neither a house nor a congregation?" 1 See Volume I, Chapter IV, pp. 78-79.

"Preach in your own house and in your own company first," was her reply.' Embury consented, and the first Methodist meeting in America took place, in 1765, at Philip Embury's house, located on Barrack Street, now Park Place, in New York City. The audience consisted of the few persons whom Barbara Heck had gathered ; they were enrolled in a class and Embury preached weekly. The meetings were soon held in a sail-loft, and in 1768 the first church was erected, in John Street, at a cost of three thousand dollars. Captain Thomas Webb, of the British army, soon became an efficient worker with Embury. The Revolutionary War intervened,' and of the missionaries sent over from England only Francis Asbury remained, who, however, became the great representative of Methodism in the United States. On Asbury's missionary tours his traveling companion and principal helper was Henry Böhm, who preached mainly in German and, for this very reason, had in some places, as in the Ohio Valley, larger audiences than Asbury. Böhm may be called the apostle of German Methodism. He lived to the unusual age of one hundred and one years, serving his church to the end. Wilhelm Nast, born in Stuttgart, 1807, has been called the father of German Methodism. He had studied theology and philosophy, taught German at West Point, modern languages at the Gettysburg Seminary, Greek and Hebrew at Kenyon College, Ohio, before entering the Ohio Conference in 1835. In 1839 he became the editor of "Der Christliche Apologete," which had a wide circulation

3

1 Cf. J. M. Buckley, A History of Methodists in the United States, p. 101. At the outbreak of the war, Paul Heck took his family to Canada. Fitting tributes to Barbara Heck were the erection of Heck Hall for Women at Victoria University, Toronto, and Heck Hall at Evanston, Illinois (Garrett Biblical Institute).

See Volume 1, Chapter XIII, pp. 429-431.

throughout the country, and opposed the dropping of the German language, which is retained in a number of German Methodist conferences. Among noted Methodists of German descent, there is Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, for a long time secretary of the Freedman's Aid and Charity Extension Society, and missionary bishop to Africa since 1896.

Baptists: In Germany, the first Baptist congregation was founded in 1834 by Johann Gerhard Oncken, who labored against severe persecution until his congregation in Hamburg was yielded full privileges in 1848. In America, K. A. Fleischmann, of German Swiss birth, founded the first German Baptist community, in Newark, New Jersey, in 1842, and this was followed by similar organizations in Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Rochester, and St. Louis. There are now about two hundred and seventy congregations, with over twenty-six thousand members. These are not the same as the Dunkards (often called German Baptists) who came to America in 1719, and settled in Pennsylvania. The Dunkards or Tunkers chose as their pastor Andrew Mack; Christopher Sauer, the printer of the German Bible, was one of their number; and at the present day their descendants, embracing the various sub-sects (the Conservative and the Progressive Brethren, the Old Order and the Seventh Day, German), number together 73,795 communicants.

Unitas Fratrum (Moravians): The Unity of Brethren, Unitas Fratrum, commonly, though not correctly, called Moravians, have been repeatedly mentioned in the historical part of this work. They trace their origin back to the time of Huss, and their abode to Bohemia and Moravia. But their order was suppressed until resuscitated in 1722-1735 by Count Zinzendorf, who invited them to settle on his

lands, where the town of Herrnhut was built. Some of the number came to Georgia in 1735, but did not remain long. Under Count Zinzendorf's guidance they soon after founded Bethlehem, and later, Nazareth and Lititz, all in Pennsylvania. They were the most successful missionaries among the American Indians in the history of our country, founding stations of Christian Indians in various states. They erected schools for the education of young women, and were prominent in the musical history of the country. Their settlement on the Wachovia tract about Winston-Salem, in North Carolina, begun in 1753, is still one of the most attractive spots in the South. They are not rich, they are not numerous, yet, wherever they have gone, their presence has been felt as an influence for social and moral betterment. Their number now is not quite twelve thousand; more than one third are located in Pennsylvania; North Carolina and Wisconsin possess the next largest numbers.

United Brethren in Christ: The United Brethren in Christ should not be confused with the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravians. The United Brethren in Christ, also of German beginnings, originated in the United States about the year 1800, under the fervent preaching of Philipp Otterbein, a native of Prussia, and Martin Böhm (father of the Methodist, Henry Böhm), a Mennonite pastor of Pennsylvania. These men met with eleven others in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1800, and founded a new denomination with a number of Methodistic features, as the practice of revivals, the system of itinerant preachers, elders, conferences. The church grew strong among the German element, and there still are German conferences, but gradually the German language was displaced by the English. In 1900 there were 4526 organizations and 225,281 communicants.

The Evangelical Association: A very similar history is that of the "Evangelical Association" founded by Jacob Albright (Albrecht), who was born in 1769 of German Lutheran parents living in Pennsylvania. Albright used the German language among his people, and adopted the doctrines, practice, and polity of Methodism. He gathered his converts for the first conference in 1807, and was elected bishop, but died in the following year. For some time the denomination was known as "The Albrights," or "The Albright People"; subsequently the name “Evangelical Association" was adopted. A division occurred in 1891. The number of organizations in 1900 was 2310; of communicants, 133,313. The English language has also in this denomination very largely encroached upon the German.

German Catholics: Though the Mother Church was brought over by the Spanish and the French, and is the oldest church in America, though it was established early (1634) in Maryland by English and Irish immigrants, it did not prosper until a much later period. In 1790 Bishop Carroll estimated the number of Catholics in the United States at about thirty thousand,' sixteen thousand of whom were in Maryland, seven thousand in Pennsylvania, and the rest widely scattered. From this inferior position the Roman Catholic Church rose in the nineteenth century to be the largest in the United States. This was accomplished first by the large Irish immigration, and beginning with 1840, by the ever-increasing German immigration. The importance of the latter was acknowledged by the church government in the appointment of the Reverend Johann Martin Henni as bishop of Milwaukee in 1844. Henni was the great pioneer of the Catholic Church in the Northwest, and 1 Cf. H. K. Carroll, p. 68.