valent, if not universal usage of the congregations, before
Muehlenberg's arrival, to elect these two classes of officers, to whom
the direction of their affairs was intrusted. In the congregational
constitution furnished the Salzburg emigrants to Georgia in 1733 by Drs.
Urlsperger, Ziegenhagen and Francke, based on that of the Savoy Church
at London, Elders and Deacons, annually elected by a majority of the
members, were provided for.

The question very naturally arises and claims consideration, Whence came
this usage of the Pennsylvania German Lutheran congregations? This
arrangement is almost entirely unknown in the Lutheran Church in
Germany, where the church is united with the State, and has little right
of self-government. That the same mode of organization should have been
adopted at the outset by them all is not only in itself strange, but
shows that this arrangement must have been brought to their notice from
some quarter, and having been tested commended itself to them. We
believe that this provision of Elders and Vorsteher or Deacons, was
accepted by them from the Swedish Lutheran Churches on the Delaware, the
early Dutch Reformed and German Reformed Churches in Pennsylvania, and
the Dutch Lutheran Churches in New York and New Jersey, and ultimately
from the German Lutheran Church in London, and the Dutch Lutheran Church
in Amsterdam. And as these earlier organizations exerted an influence
not merely upon the first shaping of the German Lutheran congregations,
but continuously upon the whole formation of their congregational
constitutions, until they assumed their final complete condition, it is
the more proper that they should receive careful consideration.

ORIGINAL SOURCES OF ORGANIZATION IN THE GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCHES IN
PENNSYLVANIA.

1. _The Swedish Congregations._ Acrelius, in his history of New Sweden,
does not describe the earliest organization of the congregation. The
instructions given by the crown to Gov. Printz, 1642, simply say: "Above
all things, shall the governor consider to see to it that a true and due
worship, becoming honor, laud and praise be paid to the Most High God in
all things, and to that end all proper care shall be taken that divine
service be zealously performed according to the Unaltered Augsburg
Confession, the Council of Upsala, and the ceremonies of the Swedish
Church; and all persons, but especially the young, shall be duly
instructed in all the articles of their Chr