39. Self-sacrificing Halle Emissaries.--The help which Pastor Schulz and his laymen had requested from Halle in 1734 arrived nine years later. Francke's hesitation with regard to questions of salary, etc., drew the matter out until Muhlenberg declared himself willing to accept the call to America without further conditions. He was the instrument whereby it pleased God to preserve the Lutheran Church in America from complete deterioration and disintegration and from the imminent danger of apostasy through Zinzendorf. Muhlenberg (Muehlenberg) was born at Eimbeck, Hannover, September 6, 1711. In 1738 he graduated from Goettingen. He spent one year teaching in the Orphan Home at Halle, and served a congregation in Upper Lusatia from 1739 to 1741. In 1741 he also published his only work, a defense of Pietism against B. Mentzer. In the same year he accepted the call to the congregations in Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Providence, and New Hanover. September 23, 1742, he landed at Charleston, visited Bolzius and the Salzburgers in Ebenezer, and arrived in Philadelphia, November 25, 1742. From the very beginning Muhlenberg was successful in his opposition to Zinzendorf, who had come to America in 1741 to convert the Indians and to merge the pious of all churches in the _Unitas Fratrum_. Pretending to be a Lutheran, he had wormed his way into the Lutheran congregation at Philadelphia, assuming the title and functions of Inspector-General of all the Lutheran churches in America. However, unmasked by Muhlenberg, he now, January, 1743, returned to Germany in disgrace. In spite of many other difficulties, Muhlenberg rapidly won recognition from all the congregations. In 1745 he dedicated his first church in Philadelphia. The _Hallesche Nachrichten_ contain vivid pictures, from the pens of Muhlenberg and his assistants, of their untiring, self-sacrificing, blessed, and constantly increasing missionary activity, which at the same time served the purpose of encouraging Halle to send additional laborers. The close of January, 1745, saw the arrival of Peter Brunnholtz (who took charge of Philadelphia and Germantown) and of the two catechists Nicholaus Kurtz and J. H. Schaum, who at first served as assistants and were later on ordained as pastors. Muhlenberg wrote to Halle: "To be brief: the church which must be planted here is at a very critical juncture (Hier ist ecclesia plantanda in einer recht kritischen junctura). Hence we ought to have experienced and strong men, able to stand in the breach and to dare with patience and self-denial. You, highly venerable fathers, know full well that I am not the man. But I regard my dear colleague Brunnholtz as such a man, and wish that he had two or three colaborers like himself; that would help us. God would easily direct me to some smaller corner." (290.) In 1743 Muhlenberg sent Tobias Wagner to the Palatines in Tulpehocken Creek, where Gerhard Henkel had already preached, and where, in 1745, Wagner solemnized the