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A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America
A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America Author:Samuel Wilberforce Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. From 1608 To 1688. Neighbouring colonies—New York—New Jersey—Philadelphia—Carolina—Maryland—New England—Its settlement—Rise of Puritanism in E... more »ngland—Emigration, to Leyden, to New England—Piety of the early Puritans—Their hatred of Church-principles—Severity —Treatment of Indians—Proselyting spirit towards other communions. Hitherto the thread of our history has run along almost entirely with that of the single colony of Virginia. But from this time we must include in our notice many of her sister settlements : and for this purpose it will be convenient to survey their religious posture at this time, and from their first beginning. Very different now was the condition of that great western continent from its state when the first settlers in Virginia landed on its shores. Then, in all the great wilderness around them, the Lord of heaven was an unknown God. The echoes of its vast forests had never yet awoke to the name of Christ; the whole expanse was only dotted here and there by the scattered wigwams and hunting-lodges of the savage Indians. But now, along the whole coast, and continually more and more inland, a busy swarming people, bearing the Christian name, were overspreading all its extent, and driving back before them the retiring wave of Indian life. Some of these settlements had been formed but little later than Virginia, though under a widely different religious influence. Thus the district of Pennsylvania had been settled in 1608, one year after Virginia, by the Dutch, assisted by some Swedish emigrants, who seated themselves at New York and New Jersey, and long held possession of them. For, though the English laid claim, as first discoverers, to the whole northern continent, it was not till 1664 that the Dutch governor surrendered to the su...« less