divine service, and so regularly did they
attend our conferences that, aside from the different languages in which
we and they were called to officiate, no difference could be perceived
between us." (131.)

12. Absorbed by the Episcopal Church.--The evil influence which the
unionism practised by the Swedish provosts and ministers exercised upon
the Lutheran congregations appears from the resolution of the
congregation at Pennsneck, in 1742, henceforth to conduct English
services exclusively, and that, according to the Book of Common Prayer.
In the same year Pastor Gabriel Naesman wrote to Sweden: "As to my
congregation, the people at first were scattered among other
congregations, and among the sects which are tolerated here, and it is
with difficulty that I gather them again to some extent. The great lack
of harmony prevailing among the members makes my congregation seem like
a kingdom not at one with itself, and therefore near its ruin." (335.)
The unionism indulged in also accounts for the trouble which the Swedes
experienced with the emissaries of Zinzendorf: L. T. Nyberg, Abr.
Reinke, and P. D. Bryzelius (who severed his connection with the
Moravians in 1760, became a member of the Pennsylvania Synod, and in
1767 was ordained by the Bishop of London). Unionism paved the way, and
naturally led to the final undoing of the Lutheran Swedes in Delaware.
It was but in keeping with the unionism advised from Sweden, practised
in Delaware, and indulged in to the limit by himself, when Provost
Wrangel gave the final _coup de grace_ to the first Lutheran Church in
America. Dr. Wrangel, the bosom-friend of H. M. Muhlenberg, openly and
extensively fraternized not only with the Episcopalians, but also with
the Reformed, the Presbyterians (in Princeton), and the Methodists,
notably the revivalist Whitefield. And, evidently foreseeing the early
and unavoidable _debacle_ of Swedish Lutheranism in Delaware, von
Wrangel, at his departure for Sweden, suffered the Episcopalians to use
him as a tool to deliver the poor, weakened, and oppressed
congregations, whose leader he had been, into the hands of the
Anglicans. (392.) On his way home Wrangel carried with him an important
letter of introduction from the Episcopalian Richard Peters to the
Bishop of London, the ecclesiastical superior of the Anglican ministers
and congregations in the American Colonies. The letter, dated August 30,
1768, reads, in part: "Now Dr. Wrangel intends to ut