which Muhlenberg found set before him when he entered upon the wild and disordered field which had been allotted to him here, was such that, if any one in Halle had been able to tell him and had told him what was awaiting him in America, he would hardly have found the necessary courage and cheerfulness to lay his hand to the plow which was to convert this wild bramblepatch into an arable field. Still, where could a second man have been found at that time who would have proven equal to the task in the same measure as Henry Melchior Muhlenberg? Richly endowed with a robust physique and a pious mind, with faithfulness in matters great and small, with cheerful, but firm courage, with restless activity and a spirit of progressive enterprise, with wisdom and prudence, with the ability to inform himself quickly and to accommodate himself to the circumstances, and, in addition to this, with the necessary independence of volition and action,--characteristics seldom found combined in one and the same person,--Muhlenberg was splendidly equipped, both as to degree and variety, with the gifts which a missionary and an organizer has need of. And from the very first day of his planting and watering God gave a rich increase to his labors, so rich, that Muhlenberg could say with a grateful heart: 'It seems as though now the time had come that God would visit us with special grace here in Pennsylvania.' Furthermore, self-exaltation was utterly foreign to him. 'God does not need me,' he would say; 'He can carry out His work also without me.' Likewise, he was ever content although he never saw much money. During the first half-year of his stay in Philadelphia he earned his board by giving music lessons." (279.) Dr. A. Spaeth: "Though there were Lutheran congregations and pastors among the Dutch on the Hudson, and among the Swedes on the Delaware, as early as the first half of the seventeenth century, and, later on, among the numerous German immigrants, still the real organization of the Lutheran Church in America, on the foundation of the fathers, only dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, and is due to the Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, by common consent the patriarch of the Lutheran Church on this continent, through whose efforts the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, 'The Mother Synod,' was established in 1748. In missionary zeal, in pastoral tact and fidelity, in organizing ability and personal piety, he had no superior." (_C.P. Krauth_, 1, 316.) MUHLENBERG'S CONFESSIONALISM.