as possible.

In 1804 Strebeck, the pastor of Zion, joined the Episcopalians and
subsequently became rector of St. Stephen's Church. Here he was
followed in the course of years by a constant procession of his former
parishioners. It will be recalled that Zion had not been received into
connection with the Ministerium.

In 1805 Ralph Williston was chosen pastor. In 1810 he also became an
Episcopalian. Not long after, the entire congregation followed him into
the Episcopal fold. The resolution effecting the change read as follows:

"Whereas, many difficulties attend the upholding of the Lutheran
religion among us, and whereas, that inasmuch as the doctrine and
government of the Episcopal Church is so nearly allied to the Lutheran,
and also on account of the present embarrassment of the finances of this
church, therefore

"RESOLVED, That the English Lutheran Church with its present form of
worship and government be dissolved after Tuesday, the 13th day of March
next, and that this Church do from that day forward become a parish of
the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the present board of officers of
this church take every measure to carry this resolve into effect."*
*On West Fifty-seventh Street, a few steps from Carnegie Hall, the
visitor interested fn Lutheran antiquities may find the stately
Episcopal Church of Zion and St. Timothy. It has a membership of 1,300.
Its communion vessels still bear the inscription: ZION LUTHERAN CHURCH.

Kunze died in 1807. His successor, Frederick William Geissenhainer of
New Hanover, Pa., took charge in 1808 and remained till 1814 when the
state of his health compelled him to return to Pennsylvania.

He was succeeded by Frederick Christian Schaeffer of Harrisburg, a
gifted man who preached equally well in German and in English. On the
tercentenary of the Reformation in 1817 he preached a Reformation sermon
in St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Broadway, which attracted widespread
attention. A copy is preserved in the New York Public Library.

[illustration: "Fragment of Kunze's Gravestone discovered by the author
in 1907, in Greenwich Village, where some laborers were digging the
foundation for a new building. Kunze's ashed repose in the Lorillard
vault of the churchyard of St. Mark's in the Bowery, Tenth Street and
Second Avenue."]

After twenty years the promise of a separate English church was
fulfilled, when in 1822 a large and beautiful structure was erected in
Walker Stre