untry known in those days as
the German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants were being
massacred by the troops of Louis of France, then engaged in the War of
the Spanish Succession (1701-13) and in the zealous effort to extirpate
heretics from the soil of Europe. In 1708, by proclamation, Good Queen
Anne offered protection to the persecuted Palatines and invited them to
her dominions. Twelve thousand of them went to England, where they were
warmly received by the English. But it was no slight task to settle
twelve thousand immigrants of an alien speech in England and enable them
to become independent and self-supporting. A better solution of their
problem lay in the Western World: The Germans needed homes and the
Queen's overseas dominions needed colonists. They were settled at first
along the Hudson, and eventually many of them took up lands in the
fertile valley of the Mohawk.

For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured into
America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred a
year, and that colony became the distributing center for the German race
in America. By 1727, Adam Muller and his little company had established
the first white settlement in the Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist
Heydt went south from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan
Creek at or near the site of the present city of Winchester.

The life of Count Zinzendorf, called "the Apostle," one of the leaders
of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of those dark and
troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, he forsook whatever
of ease his station promised him and fitted himsclf for evangelical
work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his religion to the
Delawares and Shawanoes. He was not of those picturesque Captains of the
Lord who bore their muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to
preach. Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the spirit, his feet "shod with the preparation of the
gospel of peace," he went out into the country of these bloodthirsty
tribes and told them that he had come to them in their darkness to teach
the love of the Christ which lighteth the world. The Indians received
him suspiciously. One day while he sat in his tent writing, some
Delawares drew near to slay him and were about to strike when they saw
two deadly snakes crawl in from the opposite side of the tent, move
directly towards the