e of the great states of the world. Some of our own men were taking a
large part in the making of American history. In the church they were
content with a more restricted outlook. Our people, it is true, were of
humble origin, yet some of them had attained wealth and social standing.
The Van Buskirks, the Grims, the Beekmans, the Wilmerdings and the
Lorillards were men of affairs and influence in the growing town of
30,000 that had begun to extend northward as far as Canal Street and
even beyond. But we look in vain for any positive contribution to the
life of the embryo metropolis of the world.
Our church had lost its roots. The Rhinebeck Resolution indicates the
feeble appreciation of the distinctive confession to which she owed her
existence. The English hymn books and liturgies of this period are
equally destitute of any positive confessional character.
But after all, the church in New York only reflected in a small way the
conditions that existed on the other side of the Atlantic. In the
Fatherland the national life had been declining ever since the Thirty
Years' War. In 1806 Germany reached the nadir of her political life at
the battle of Jena. In the church this was the period of her Babylonian
Captivity. Alien currents of philosophical and theological thought had
devitalized the teaching of the Gospel. The old hymns had been replaced
by pious reflections on subjects of religion and morality. The Lutheran
Liturgy had disappeared leaf by leaf until little but the cover
remained. With such conditions in the homeland what could be expected of
an isolated church on Manhattan Island? Take it all in all, it is not
surprising that only two congregations survived. It is a wonder that
there were two.
In "Old New York" Dr. Francis presents a vivid picture of the social and
religious life of this period and from it we learn that the Lutherans
were not the only ones whose religion sat rather lightly upon them.
French infidelity had taken deep root in the community and Paine's Age
of
Notka biograficzna
Święta torebki Książki Increase dla każdego Malczewski Stanislaw Szczepanski
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (September 29, 1864December 31, 1936) was an essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher from Spain.
John Middleton Murry (August 6, 1889 March 12, 1957) was an English writer. A prominent critic, Murry is best remembered for his association with Katherine Mansfield, whom he married, as her second husband, in 1918. Following her death, he edited her work. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, along with the writer Joyce Cary, a lifelong friend.