to this
they are scandalized by the wicked life of the Christians, and
especially by the trade carried on with them, and merely acquire vices
which were unknown to them before, such as drunkenness, theft, etc. The
few Christians here are divided in almost in numerable sects, which kat'
exochen [tr. note: two words in Greek] may be called sects and rabbles,
such as Quakers, Anabaptists, Naturalists, Libertinists,
Independentists, Sabbatarians, and many others, especially secretly
spreading sects, regarding whom we are at a loss what to make of them.
However, all of them agree in their beautiful principles (si Dis
placet): Abolish all good order, and live for yourself as you see fit.
The Quakers are the most numerous because the Governor [William Penn]
belongs to them, so that one might call this land an anatomical
laboratory of Quakers. For much as our theologians have labored to
dissect this cadaver and discover its entrails, they, nevertheless, have
not been able to do it as well as the Quakers are now doing it
themselves in this country. It would fill a whole tract if, as could be
done easily, I were to describe how they, by transgressing their own
principles, make it apparent what kind of a spirit is moving them, while
they, by virtue of the foundation of such principles, are scoffers and
Ishmaels of all well-ordered church-life. _Hic Rhodus, hie saltant_
(Here is Rhodes, here they dance)." "Also here" (as in Europe), Falckner
proceeds, "the Protestant Church is divided in three nations; for there
is here an English Protestant Church, a Swedish Protestant Lutheran
Church, and people of the German nation belonging to the Evangelical
Lutheran and the Reformed Churches. The Swedes have two
congregations.... But not without reason have I spoken of the Germans
merely as some Evangelical Lutheran Germans and not the German
Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they are roaming about in this
desert without altar and the ministry (scilicet qui ara sacerdotuque
destituti vagantur hoc in deserto), a miserable condition, indeed.
Otherwise there is a great number of Germans here. But a part of them
have joined the other sects, who use the English language, which is
learned first by all who come here, and some of them are Quakers and
Anabaptists. Another part of them are freethinkers, uniting with nobody
and letting their children grow up in the same way. In brief, there are
Germans here, and probably the most of them, who des