the French armies in 1688. So numerous
were the fugitives from the Palatinate that the name of Palatine came to
be applied in general to German refugees, from whatever region. This
migration of the German sects (to be distinguished from the later
migration from the established Lutheran and Reformed churches) furnished
the material for that curious "Pennsylvania Dutch" population which for
more than two centuries has lain encysted, so to speak, in the body
politic and ecclesiastic of Pennsylvania, speaking a barbarous jargon of
its own, and refusing to assimilate with the surrounding people.

It was the rough estimate of Dr. Franklin that colonial Pennsylvania was
made up of one third Quakers, one third Germans, and one third
miscellaneous. The largest item under this last head was the Welsh, most
of them Quakers, who had been invited by Penn with the promise of a
separate tract of forty thousand acres in which to maintain their own
language, government, and institutions. Happily, the natural and
patriotic longing of these immigrants for a New Wales on this side the
sea was not to be realized. The "Welsh Barony" became soon a mere
geographical tradition, and the whole strength of this fervid and
religious people enriched the commonwealth.[118:1]

Several notable beginnings of church history belong to the later part of
the period under consideration.

An interesting line of divergence from the current teachings of the
Friends was led, toward the end of the seventeenth century, by George
Keith, for thirty years a recognized preacher of the Society. One is
impressed, in a superficial glance at the story, with the reasonableness
and wisdom of some of Keith's positions, and with the intellectual vigor
of the man. But the discussion grew into an acrimonious controversy, and
the controversy deepened into a schism, which culminated in the
disowning of Keith by the Friends in America, and afterward by the
London Yearly Meeting, to which he had appealed. Dropped thus by his old
friends, he was taken up by the English Episcopalians and ordained by
the Bishop of London, and in 1702 returned to America as the first
missionary of the newly organized Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts. An active missionary campaign was begun and
sustained by the large resources of the Venerable Society until the
outbreak of the War of Independence. The movement had great advantages
for success. It was next of kin to the expiri