office, of all needed buildings, of provision for the proper instruction of his people. The former has none of these. Among ten families there is scarcely one or two that contribute according to their promises. The sects diffuse among the people the ideas, to which they lend too ready assent, that the pastors as well as their hearers ought to work at a trade, cut wood, sow and reap during the week, and then preach to them gratuitously on Sunday. They hear such things wherever they go--in papers, in company, on their journeys, and at the taverns. The picture is a very dark one. The pastors feel that they do not see how it is possible for them to advance; and yet to recede or even to be stationary must be fatal." Jacobs continues: "Such representations probably had something to do with the impression current for a while at Halle that Muhlenberg was visionary and eccentric, so strange do his statements seem to those incompetent from personal observation to appreciate the urgency of the situation in Pennsylvania. If there was any time when, even for a moment, Muhlenberg entertained the suggestion of transferring the care of the Lutherans of Pennsylvania to the Church of England, it was only at some such time when he and his associates in the synod were allowed to struggle on under such burdens almost unaided, while union with the Church of England would at once have provided all missionaries sent thither with an appropriation almost sufficient for support, and with far better protection against the prevalent disorder. If the Lutherans in Europe could not meet the demands of the hour, we can pardon the thought, which never became a fixed purpose, that, sooner than have the thousands for whose care he felt himself responsible neglected, some other mode of relief would have to be sought." (246 ff.)