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the quaker colonies-第7部分
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umbers; was important in ability and influence。 After Penn's death; his sons joined the Church of England; and the Churchmen in the province became still stronger。 They formed the basis of the proprietary party; filled executive offices in the Government; and waged relentless war against the Quaker majority which controlled the Legislature。 During Penn's lifetime the Churchmen were naturally opposed to the whole government; both executive and legislative。 They were constantly sending home to England all sorts of reports and information calculated to show that the Quakers were unfit to rule a province; that Penn should be deprived of his charter; and that Pennsylvania should be put under the direct rule of the King。
They had delightful schemes for making it a strong Church of England colony like Virginia。 One of them suggested that; as the title to the Three Lower Counties; as Delaware was called; was in dispute; it should be taken by the Crown and given to the Church as a manor to support a bishop。 Such an ecclesiastic certainly could have lived in princely state from the rents of its fertile farms; with a palace; retinue; chamberlains; chancellors; feudal courts; and all the appendages of earthly glory。 For the sake of the picturesqueness of colonial history it is perhaps a pity that this pious plan was never carried out。
As it was; however; the Churchmen established themselves with not a little glamour and romance round two institutions; Christ Church for the first fifty years; and after that round the old College of Philadelphia。 The Reverend William Smith; a pugnacious and eloquent Scotchman; led them in many a gallant onset against the 〃haughty tribe〃 of Quakers; and he even suffered imprisonment in the cause。 He had a country seat on the Schuylkill and was in his way a fine character; devoted to the establishment of ecclesiasticism and higher learning as a bulwark against the menace of Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of the Revolution he might have become the first colonial bishop with all the palaces; pomp; and glory appertaining thereunto。
In spite of this opposition; however; the Quakers continued their control of the colony; serenely tolerating the anathemas of the learned Churchmen and the fierce curses and brandished weapons of the Presbyterians and Scotch…Irish。 Curses and anathemas were no check to the fertile soil。 Grist continued to come to the mill; and the agricultural products poured into Philadelphia to be carried away in the ships。 The contemplative Quaker took his profits as they passed; enacted his liberalizing laws; his prison reform; his charities; his peace with the savage Indians; allowed science; research; and all the kindly arts of life to flourish; and seemed perfectly contented with the damnation in the other world to which those who flourished under his rule consigned him。
In discussing the remarkable success of the province; the colonists always disputed whether the credit should be given to the fertile soil or to the liberal laws and constitution。 It was no doubt due to both。 But the obvious advantages of Penn's charter over the mixed and troublesome governmental conditions in the Jerseys; Penn's personal fame and the repute of the Quakers for liberalism then at its zenith; and the wide advertising given to their ideas and Penn's; on the continent of Europe as well as in England; seem to have been the reasons why more people; and many besides Quakers; came to take advantage of that fertile soil。
The first great increase of alien population came from Germany; which was still in a state of religious turmoil; disunion; and depression from the results of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War。 The reaction from dogma in Germany had produced a multitude of sects; all yearning for greater liberty and prosperity than they had at home。 Penn and other Quakers had made missionary tours in Germany and had preached to the people。 The Germans do not appear to have been asked to come to the Jerseys。 But they were urged to come to Pennsylvania as soon as the charter was obtained; and many of them made an immediate response。 The German mind was then at the height of its emotional unrestraint。 It was as unaccustomed to liberty of thought as to political liberty and it produced a new sect or religious distinction almost every day。 Many of these sects came to Pennsylvania; where new small religious bodies sprang up among them after their arrival。 Schwenkfelders; Tunkers; Labadists; New Born; New Mooners; Separatists; Zion's Brueder; Ronsdorfer; Inspired; Quietists; Gichtelians; Depellians; Mountain Men; River Brethren; Brinser Brethren; and the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness; are names which occur in the annals of the province。 But these are only a few。 In Lancaster County alone the number has at different times been estimated at from twenty to thirty。 It would probably be impossible to make a complete list; some of them; indeed; existed for only a few years。 Their own writers describe them as countless and bewildering。 Many of them were characterized by the strangest sort of German mysticism; and some of them were inclined to monastic and hermit life and their devotees often lived in caves or solitary huts in the woods。
It would hardly be accurate to call all the German sects Quakers; since a great deal of their mysticism would have been anything but congenial to the followers of Fox and Penn。 Resemblances to Quaker doctrine can; however; be found among many of them; and there was one large sect; the Mennonites; who were often spoken of as German Quakers。 The two divisions fraternized and preached in each other's meetings。 The Mennonites were well educated as a class and Pastorius; their leader; was a ponderously learned German。 Most of the German sects left the Quakers in undisturbed possession of Philadelphia; and spread out into the surrounding region; which was then a wilderness。 They and all the other Germans who afterwards followed them settled in a half circle beginning at Easton on the Delaware; passing up the Lehigh Valley into Lancaster County; thence across the Susquehanna and down the Cumberland Valley to the Maryland border; which many of them crossed; and in time scattered far to the south in Virginia and even North Carolina; where their descendants are still found。
These German sects which came over under the influence of Penn and the Quakers; between the years 1682 and 1702; formed a class by themselves。 Though they may be regarded as peculiar in their ideas and often in their manner of life; it cannot be denied that as a class they were a well…educated; thrifty; and excellent people and far superior to the rough German peasants who followed them in later years。 This latter class was often spoken of in Pennsylvania as 〃the church people;〃 to distinguish them from 〃the sects;〃 as those of the earlier migration were called。
The church people; or peasantry of the later migration; belonged usually to one of the two dominant churches of Germany; the Lutheran or the Reformed。 Those of the Reformed Church were often spoken of as Calvinists。 This migration of the church people was not due to the example of the Quakers but was the result of a new policy which w
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