When accounts of Stuyvesant's proceedings reached Amsterdam, however, he received from the Chamber a letter of stinging rebuke, informing him that "the consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate, inoffensive, and not hostile to government." The Chamber, after reminding the Director that toleration in old Amsterdam had brought the oppressed and persecuted of all countries to that city as to an asylum, recommended Stuyvesant to follow in the same course. Herewith ended the brief period of religious persecution in New Netherland.
The amiable Domine Megapolensis who acquiesced in these persecutions came over to the colony of Rensselaerswyck in 1642 in the service of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. He was to have a salary of forty guilders per month and a fit dwelling that was to be provided for him. So the "Reverend, Pious, and learned Dr. Johannes Megapolensis, junior," set sail for America "to proclaim Christ to Christians and heathens in such distant lands." His name, by the way, like that of Erasmus, Melanchthon, Æcolampadius, Dryander, and other worthies of the Reformation, was a classical form of the homely Dutch patronymic to which he had been born.
Apparently the Reverend Johannes was more successful in his mission to the heathen than in that to the Christians, for he learned the Mohawk language, wrote a valuable account of the tribe, and understood them better than he understood the Lutherans and Quakers of New Amsterdam and Long Island. In 1664 when Stuyvesant was in the mood to fire on the British fleet and take the consequences, Megapolensis, so tradition runs, dissuaded him with the argument: "Of what avail are our poor guns against that broadside of more than sixty? It is wrong to shed innocent blood." One wonders if the domine had any room in his mind for thoughts of the useless sufferings which had been inflicted on Hodgson and Townsend and the Lutheran preachers while he stood by consenting.
When Megapolensis arrived at New Netherland he found the Reverend Everardus Bogardus already installed as minister of the Gospel at Fort Amsterdam, his predecessor Michaelius having returned to Holland. From the beginning Bogardus proved a thorn in the side of the Government. He came to blows with Van Twiller and wrote a letter to the Director in which he called him a child of the Devil, a villain whose bucks were better than he, to whom he should give such a shake from the pulpit the following Sabbath as would make him shudder.
The difficulties which Bogardus had with Van Twiller, however, were as the breath of May zephyrs compared to his stormy quarrels with Kieft. This Director had taken Bogardus to task for having gone into the pulpit intoxicated, and had also accused him of defending the greatest criminals in the country and of writing in their defense. The fighting parson promptly countered on this attack. "What," he asked from the pulpit, "are the great men of the country but receptacles of wrath, fountains of woe and trouble? Nothing is thought of but to plunder other people's property—to dismiss—to banish—to transport to Holland." Kieft, realizing that he had raised up a fighter more unsparing than himself and, unable to endure these harangues from the pulpit, ceased to attend the kerk; but the warlike domine continued to belabor him till Kieft prepared an indictment, beginning: "Whereas your conduct stirs the people to mutiny and rebellion when they are already too much divided, causes schisms and abuses in the church, and makes us a scorn and a laughing stock to our neighbors, all which cannot be tolerated in a country where justice is maintained, therefore our sacred duty imperatively requires us to prosecute you in a court of justice." The quarrel was never fought to a finish but was allowed to die out, and the episode ended without credit to either party.
Like everything else in the colony of New Netherland, the original meeting-places for worship were of the simplest type. Domine Megapolensis held services in his own house, and Bogardus conducted worship in the upper part of the horse-mill at Fort Amsterdam, where before his arrival Sebastian Jansen Krol and Jan Huyck had read from the Scriptures on Sunday. These men had been appointed ziekentroosters or krankenbesoeckers (i.e., consolers of the sick), whose business it was, in addition to their consolatory functions, to hold Sunday services in the absence of a regularly ordained clergyman. In time these rude gathering-places gave way to buildings of wood or stone, modeled, as one would expect, on similar buildings in the old country, with a pulpit built high above the congregation, perhaps with intent to emphasize the authority of the church.
The clerk, or voorleser, standing in the baptistery below the pulpit, opened the services by reading from the Bible and leading in the singing of a psalm. The domine, who had stood in silent prayer during the psalm, afterward entered the pulpit, and then laid out his text and its connection with the sermon to follow—a part of the service known as the exordium remotum. During this address the deacons stood facing the pulpit, alms-bag in hand. The deacons collected the contribution by thrusting in front of each row of seats the kerk sacjes of cloth or velvet suspended from the end of a long pole. Sometimes a bell hung at the bottom of the bag to call the attention of the slothful or the niggardly to the contribution, and while the bags were passed the domine was wont to dwell upon the necessities of the poor and to invoke blessings upon those who gave liberally to their support. When the sermon commenced, the voorsinger turned the hour-glass which marked the length of the discourse. The sermon ended, the voorleser rose and, with the aid of a long rod cleft in the end, handed to the domine in the pulpit the requests for prayers or thanksgiving offered by members of the congregation. When these had been read aloud, another psalm was sung and the people then filed out in an orderly procession.
The principle of competitive giving for the church was evidently well understood in New Amsterdam. De Vries has left us an account of a conversation held in 1642 between himself and Kieft in which he told the Director that there was great need of a church, that it was a scandal when the English came that they should see only a mean barn for public worship, that the first thing built in New England after the dwellings was a church, and that there was the less excuse for the Dutch as they had fine wood, good stone, and lime made from oyster shells, close at hand. The Director admitted the justice of the plea but asked who would undertake the work. "Those who love the Reformed Religion," De Vries answered. Kieft replied adroitly that De Vries must be one of them, as he had proposed the plan, and that he should give a hundred guilders. De Vries craftily observed that Kieft as commander must be the first giver. Kieft bethought himself that he could use several thousand guilders from the Company's funds. Not only was he as good as his word, but later he contrived to extort private subscriptions on the occasion of the marriage of Bogardus's step-daughter. As usual when the domine was present, the wine flowed freely. "The Director thought this a good time for his purpose, and set to work after the fourth or fifth drink; and he himself setting a liberal example, let the wedding-guests sign whatever they were disposed to give towards the church. Each, then, with a light head, subscribed away at a handsome rate, one competing with the other; and although some heartily repented it when their senses came back, they were obliged nevertheless to pay."
In view of this story it was perhaps a fine irony which inspired the inscription placed on the church when it was finished: "Ao. Do. MDCXLII. W. Kieft Dr. Gr. Heeft de Gemeente desen Tempel doen Bouwen," i.e., "William Kieft, the Director-General, has caused the congregation to build this church." The correct interpretation, however, probably read: "William Kieft being Director-General, the congregation has caused this church to be built."[[1]]
Evidently religion prospered better than education in the colony, for the same lively witness who reports the Bogardus affair and the generosity stimulated by the flowing wine says also: "The bowl has been passed around a long time for a common school which has been built with words, for as yet the first stone is not laid; some materials only have been provided. However the money given for the purpose has all disappeared and is mostly spent, so that it falls somewhat short; and nothing permanent has as yet been effected for this purpose."