The people are, as a rule, poor.
In a congregation of three hundred members scarcely fifteen can be found
able to contribute toward the building of churches; and the
responsibility for debts incurred must, therefore, as a rule, fall upon
the pastors themselves. Many thousands of Lutheran people are scattered
throughout North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York,
etc. No provision is made for the traveling expenses of the pastors or
supplies for their places, if these Lutherans are cared for. People come
often one and even two hundred miles to hear a sermon and receive the
Sacrament, and weep bitterly over the destitution, which no one
endeavors to remove. They [the signers of the appeal] contrast the
condition of a pastor in the New with that of one in the Old World. The
latter has the assurance of necessary support, of protection in his
office, of all needed buildings, of provision for the proper instruction
of his people. The former has none of these. Among ten families there is
scarcely one or two that contribute according to their promises. The
sects diffuse among the people the ideas, to which they lend too ready
assent, that the pastors as well as their hearers ought to work at a
trade, cut wood, sow and reap during the week, and then preach to them
gratuitously on Sunday. They hear such things wherever they go--in
papers, in company, on their journeys, and at the taverns. The picture
is a very dark one. The pastors feel that they do not see how it is
possible for them to advance; and yet to recede or even to be stationary
must be fatal." Jacobs continues: "Such representations probably had
something to do with the impression current for a while at Halle that
Muhlenberg was visionary and eccentric, so strange do his statements
seem to those incompetent from personal observation to appreciate the
urgency of the situation in Pennsylvania. If there was any time when,
even for a moment, Muhlenberg entertained the suggestion of transferring
the care of the Lutherans of Pennsylvania to the Church of England, it
was only at some such time when he and his associates in the synod were
allowed to struggle on under such burdens almost unaided, while union
with the Church of England would at once have provided all missionaries
sent thither with an appropriation almost sufficient for support, and
with far better protection against the prevalent disorder. If the
Lutherans in Europe could not meet the demands of the