of New York.

There are no material remains of the Labadists in this country. They
did not affect either the institutions or the spirit of their times,
nor leave memorials behind them. That Augustine Herrman's sentiments
towards the strange visitants and settlers upon his estate became
radically altered, before his death in 1686, is indicated by a codicil
in his will in which he directs that certain of his neighbors
administer his estate in the place of his son Ephraim, giving as his
reason his son's alliance with the Labadists.

The Labadists abroad exerted an appreciable influence upon the life of
their times, and did much to infuse a spirit of evangelical
earnestness into the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, which, at the
rise of Labadism, was formal and pedantic in its modes of worship and
given to theological disputation. Labadie has importance in the
history of that church, and is accorded honor in its records. The
futility of the sect in the New World was due not wholly to its
communal form of organization, but is to be attributed as well to the
fact that the Labadists migrated in obedience to no high and lofty
impulse, but because in their nomadic passage from place to place,
under the pressure of religious and civil proscription, due in most
cases to acts of insubordination, there seemed no place remaining for
them except the shores of the New World. No history of communism can
be complete that does not include the experiment entered upon by Jean
de Labadie and his followers in the Old World, and by the Labadist
colonists in America. It is unfortunate that more complete information
with regard to the actual economic value of the Labadist community
cannot be had, but such information could not greatly differ from the
facts that are well known as to the economic and industrial character
of the Maryland population in general.

BARTLETT B. JAMES.

NOTE B

Since Dr. James's introduction was written, I have come upon some
facts of interest respecting the two Labadist travellers which were
not known to Mr. Murphy, who indeed had practically nothing to say
regarding their previous life.

Jasper Danckaerts was born at Flushing in Zeeland May 7, 1639, the son
of Pieter Danckaerts and Janneke Schilders--which explains his using
Schilders as a pseudonym during his American expedition. He became a
cooper in the service of the East India Company at Middelburg.[17] A
curious book in which Pierre Yvon, pasto