Representatives of the United States of America, none
knew better than they that it was only a fitting tribute to the
character and abilities of their former pastor.

Kunze's is one of the great names on the roll of our ministers. He was
a scholar, a teacher, a writer, and an administrator of distinction.
Trained in the best schools of Germany, when he arrived in America in
1770, he at once took high rank among his colleagues in Philadelphia.
Besides his work as a minister he filled the chair of Oriental and
German languages in the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1784 he accepted a call to New York. He did this partly in the hope
of establishing a Lutheran professorship in Columbia College. He
accepted a call to the chair of Oriental languages in Columbia. He was
also a regent of the university.

Kunze was not only an able man, he was also a man of deep piety, a
qualification not altogether undesirable in a shepherd of souls. His
writings indicate that in his preaching and catechization he strove not
to beat the air but to win souls to a personal experience of salvation.

While it is doubtful whether he would find admission to some of the most
orthodox synods of our own day; he was comparatively free from the
latitudinarian tendencies which had been brought over from Germany
during the last quarter of the century.

Along with General Steuben and other influential citizens he founded,
the German Society, an association which is still an important agency
in the charitable work of this city.

[illustration: "John Christopher Kunze"]

He was instrumental in 1785 in reorganizing the New York Ministerium.
This work was begun in 1775 by Frederick Muehlenberg, but had been given
up for a while, probably on account of the war.

As a writer he is credited in Dr. Morris' Bibliotheca Lutherana with
eight books of which he was the author or editor, from Hymns and Poems
to A History of the Lutheran Church and A New Method of Calculating the
Great Eclipse of 1806.

These and many other things must be set to his credit. For what he
accomplished he deserves a large place in the history of our Church in
this city. But with all his gifts he was unable to cope with the chief
problem which confronted our Church at the close of the eighteenth
century, that of the English language.

There had been a demand for English services ever since the middle of
the century. The descendants of the Dutch families had all become
English. The