exclusively to do with the German language and the
German immigrant population, to wit, 9. The German Reformed; 10. The
Lutherans; 11. The Moravians. Some of these, as the Congregationalists
and the Baptists, were of so simple and elastic a polity, so
self-adaptive to whatever new environment, as to require no effort to
adjust themselves. Others, as the Dutch and the Presbyterians, had
already organized themselves as independent of foreign spiritual
jurisdiction. Others still, as the German Reformed, the Moravians, and
the Quakers, were content to remain for years to come in a relation of
subordination to foreign centers of organization. But there were three
communions, of great prospective importance, which found it necessary to
address themselves to the task of reorganization to suit the changed
political conditions. These were the Episcopalians, the Catholics, and
the Methodists.

In one respect all the various orders of churches were alike. They had
all suffered from the waste and damage of war. Pastors and missionaries
had been driven from their cures, congregations had been scattered,
houses of worship had been desecrated or destroyed. The Episcopalian and
Methodist ministers were generally Tories, and their churches, and in
some instances their persons, were not spared by the patriots. The
Friends and the Moravians, principled against taking active part in
warfare, were exposed to aggressions from both sides. All other sects
were safely presumed to be in earnest sympathy with the cause of
independence, which many of their pastors actively served as chaplains
or as combatants, or in other ways; wherever the British troops held the
ground, their churches were the object of spite. Nor were these the
chief losses by the war. More grievous still were the death of the
strong men and the young men of the churches, the demoralization of camp
life, and, as the war advanced, the infection of the current fashions of
unbelief from the officers both of the French and of the British armies.
The prevalent diathesis of the American church in all its sects was one
of spiritual torpor, from which, however, it soon began to be aroused
as the grave exigencies of the situation disclosed themselves.

Perhaps no one of the Christian organizations of America came out of the
war in a more forlorn condition than the Episcopalians. This condition
was thus described by Bishop White, in an official charge to his clergy
at Philadelphia in 1