office it was to instruct the children, and preside in their religious meetings on the Sabbath and other days, leading in the devotions, and reading a sermon, until the regular ministry should be established over them. An individual was often designated as a Zickentrooster, (comforter of the sick,) who for his spiritual gifts was adapted to edify and comfort the people."

In 1633 the first minister came over, and associated with him was a schoolmaster, who organized a church school. The introduction, at this early period of the settlement of the colony, of the church and school combined, cannot, therefore, be claimed as the peculiar distinction of the Puritan emigrants, as the direct aim and the provision made in the early settlements by the Dutch was to extend and preserve in the midst of them the blessings of education and religion.

The Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church of New York was the first founded in North America, and dates from the first settlement on Manhattan Island. The first religious meetings were held in a temporary building, till in 1626 an emigrant, in building a horse-mill, provided a spacious room above for the congregation. At an interview, in 1642, between a famous navigator, De Vries, and the Governor of the Colony, the former remarked "that it was a shame that the English when they visited Manhattan saw only a mean barn in which we worshipped. The first they built in New England, after their dwelling-houses, was a fine church: we should do the same." This led to the erection of a new and spacious church-edifice.

In a letter written on the 11th of August, 1628, by Rev. Jonas Michaellus, the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States, there is found the following statement:

"We have established the form of a church, and it has been thought best to choose two elders for my assistance, and for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical matters as might occur. We have had at the first administration of the Lord's Supper full fifty communicants, not without great joy and comfort for so many,-Walloons and Dutch; of whom a portion made their first confession, and others exhibited their church certificates. We administer the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper once in four months.

"We must have no other object than the glory of God in building up his kingdom and the salvation of many souls. As to the

natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, proficient in all wickedness, who serve nobody but the devil. Let us then leave the parents in their condition, and begin with the children who are still young, and place them under the instruction of some experienced and godly schoolmaster, where they may be taught especially in the fundamentals of our Christian religion. In the mean time it must not be forgotten to pray to the Lord, with ardent and continual prayers, for his blessing.

In 1636, the Puritans of New England began to add largely to the New York colony. In ten years after the Puritan emigration began," there were so many at Manhattan as to require preachers who could speak in English as well as Dutch." "Whole towns," says Bancroft, "had been settled by New England men, who had come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and to plant New England liberties in a congregational way.”

The colony of New York, after being under the jurisdiction of the Dutch for fifty years, passed, in 1664, to that of England. This political revolution secured a rapid colonization from various quarters. "English, Irish, Scotch, French, and Dutch, chiefly Presbyterians and Independents," now began to emigrate to the colony of New York. The Episcopalians claimed "that the province was subject to the ecclesiastical government of the Church of England, and that theirs was the religion of the state." The Duke of York, afterwards James II., maintained an Episcopal chapel in New York at his own private expense. "Ministers," said Andros, the civil Governor of the colony, in 1683, "are scarce, and religion wanes." "There were about twenty churches, of which half were destitute of ministers. But the Presbyterians and Independents, who formed the most numerous and thriving portions of the inhabitants, were the only class of the people who showed much willingness to procure and support ministers."

The seventeenth century, constituting an important era of Christian colonization of the New World, brought to the North American colonies the rich Christian contribution from the Huguenots of France. All the colonies gave them a heartwelcome as refugees from a frenzied and cruel religious persecution. They were ardent lovers of liberty, and declared that, with "their ministers, they had come to adore and serve God with freedom." These Christian exiles were warmly welcomed to the colony of New York, and became one of the richest

portions of the population. In 1662 they had become so numerous that the colonial laws and official papers were published in French as well as in Dutch and English. The French church in the city of New York became the metropolis of Calvinism, where the Huguenot emigrants out of the city came to worship.

"The character of the first Huguenot settlers," says Dr. De Witt, "was eminently worthy, both here and in other parts of the State and the United States. An interesting fact is related concerning the first settlers of New Rochelle, in Westchester county. When they entered the forests, and with toilful labor engaged in clearing and cultivating the fields, they resolved, in the spirit of deep piety which they brought with them, to unite with their brethren in New York in the public worship of the Sabbath, though at a distance of twenty miles. Such was their reverence for the sanctification of the Sabbath that they would take up their march on foot in the afternoon of Saturday, and reach New York by midnight, singing the hymns of Clement Marot by the way. Engaging in the worship of the Sabbath, they remained till after midnight, and then took their march in return to New Rochelle, relieving the toil of the way by singing Marot's hymns." Happy and proud," says Bancroft, “in the religious liberty they enjoyed, they ceased not to write to their brethren in France of the grace which God had shown them."

In 1665, the colonial legislature of New York passed the following act in reference to Christianity and its ordinances :

"Whereas, The public worship of God is much discredited for want of painful [laborious] and able ministers to instruct the people in the true religion, it is ordered that a church shall be built in each parish, capable of holding two hundred persons; that ministers of every church shall preach every Sunday, and pray for the king, queen, the Duke of York, and the royal family; and to marry persons after legal publication of license."

It was also enacted that "Sunday is not to be profaned by travelling, by laborers, or vicious persons," and "church-wardens to report twice a year all misdemeanors, such as swearing, profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, fornication, adultery, and all such abominable sins." "Persons were punished with death who should in any wise deny the true God or his attributes." These were the laws of the colony of New York until 1683.

The following paper will show better the attention that the

early settlers of New York paid to education, and is an amusing relic of colonial antiquity. It belongs to the ancient local history of Flatbush, Long Island:

ART. 1. The school shall begin at 8 o'clock and go outt att 11; shall begin again att 1 o'clock and ende att 4. The bell shall bee rung beefore the school begins.

ART. 2. When school opens, one of the children shall reade the morning prayer as it stands in the catechism, and close with the prayer before dinner; and inn the afternoon the same. The evening school shall begin with the Lord's prayer and close by singing a psalm.

ART. 3. Hee shall instruct the children inn the common prayers and the questions and answers off the catechism on Wednesdays and Saturdays, too enable them too say them better on Sunday inn the church.

ART. 4. Hee shall bee bound too keep his school nine months in succession, from September too June, one year with another, and shall always bee present himself.

ART. 5. Hee shall bee choirister off the church; ring the bell three tymes before service, and reade a chapter off the Bible inn the church between the second and third ringinge off the bell; after the third ringinge he shall reade the ten commandments and the twelve articles off ffaith and then sett the psalm. In the afternoone after the third ringinge off the bell hee shall reade a short chapter or one off the psalms off David as the congregatione are assemblinge; afterwards he shall again sett the psalm.

ART. 6. When the minister shall preach at Broockland or Utrecht he shall be bounde to reade twice before the congregatione from the booke used for the purpose. Hee shall heare the children recite the questions and answers off the catechism on Sunday and instruct them.

ART. 7. Hee shall provide a basin off water for the baptism, ffor which hee shall receive twelve stuyvers in wampum ffor every baptism from parents or sponsors. Hee shall furnish bread and wine ffor communion att the charge off the church. Hee shall also serve as messenger ffor the consistories.

ART. 8. Hee shall give the funerale invitations and toll the bell; and ffor which hee shall receive for persons off fifteen years off age and upwards twelve guilders; and ffor persons under

fifteen, eight guilders; and iff hee shall cross the river to New York hee shall have ffour guilders more.

[The compensation of the schoolmaster was as follows:]

1st. Hee shall receive ffor a speller or reader three guilders a quarter; and ffor a writer ffour guilders ffor the daye school. Inn the evening ffour guilders for a speller or reader, and five guilders ffor a writer per quarter.

2nd. The residue off his salary shall bee ffour hundred guilders in wheat (of wampum value) deliverable at Broockland Fferry with the dwellinge, pasturage and meadowe appurtaininge to the school.

Done and agreede on inn consistorie, in the presence off the Honourable Constable and Overseers, this 8th daye off October, 1682.

I agree to the above articles, and promise to observe them.

JOHANNES VON ECHKELLEN.

NEW JERSEY

Became an independent colony in 1664. "Its moral character was moulded by New England Puritans, English Quakers, and Dissenters from Scotland." An association of church-members from the New Haven colony resolved with one heart "to carry on their spiritual and town affairs according to Godly Government;" and in 1668 the colonial legislative Assembly, under Puritan influence, transferred the chief features of the New England codes to the statute-book of New Jersey. New Jersey increased in population and prosperity under the genial presence of Christian institutions, and became distinguished for intelligence, industry, and enterprise. "The people," says Bancroft, "rejoiced under the reign of God, confident that he would beautify the meek with salvation."

The Christian teachings of the Quakers, in union with Presbyterian and Anabaptist influences, made New Jersey, in its colonial structure, a model Protestant republic. "These were interwoven into the earliest elements of the political society of