He came to America to inspect the Moravian establishments in general here, and especially to acquaint himself with the fruits of the Brethren’s labors among the Indians. He certainly did not come to this country with a view of founding Moravian congregations.
The nobleman’s activity consisted chiefly in preaching in Philadelphia and the neighborhood, and holding seven synods or free meetings of all denominations, most of them at Germantown, each lasting two or three days. These meetings were without practical results, but they surely served to awaken a greater interest in religious matters.
December 31, 1741, he appeared for the first time in an American pulpit, preaching to a large congregation in the German Reformed Church at Germantown. A few months later the Hon. James Logan wrote to a friend concerning Zinzindorf as follows:
“He speaks Latin and French, is aged I suppose between forty and fifty years, wears his own hair and is in all other respects very plain as making the propagation of the gospel his whole purpose and business.”
Zinzindorf’s stay in this country was a period of varied and strenuous activity. Few men could have accomplished in the same time what he did.
Dr. Gill, in his “Life of Zinzindorf,” says the Count gave the Indians among whom he went on his several missionary tours “a practical insight into the religion he came to teach by simply leading a Christian life among them; and, when favorable impressions had thus been made and inquiry was excited, he preached the leading truths of the gospel, taking care not to put more things into their heads than their hearts could lay hold of. His mode of approaching them was carefully adapted to their distinctive peculiarities.”
Early in the spring of 1741 David Zeisberger and his son David, John Martin, Mack and some four or five more of the Moravian Brethren, who had already established several missions in this country, began a new missionary settlement near the “Forks” of the Delaware, on land derived from William Allen, Esq., of Philadelphia, and lying at the confluence of the Lehigh River and Monacasy Creek, in Buck’s (now Northampton) County.
On Christmas Eve of the same year this settlement received the name of “Bethlehem” from Count Zinzindorf, who had arrived there a few days previously. Ever since then Bethlehem has been the headquarters in this country of the Moravian Church, now known as the “Church of the United Brethren in the United States of America.”
From Bethlehem and other Moravian mission stations the Brethren went out among the Indians, making converts and establishing new missions. The Indian wars had hardened the hearts of the New England Puritans against the aborigines, and it was left to the Moravians to preach a gentler creed to the Indians.
In May, 1742, Zinzindorf was called by the Lutherans of Philadelphia to be their pastor, but he declined, as he intended to journey to the Indian country.