Your obedient
JOHAN. MEGAPOLENSIS.
Amsterdam in New Netherland the 18th of March, 1655.
Addressed to the Reverend, Pious and very Learned Deputies ad res Ecclesiasticas Indicas, in the Classis of Amsterdam.
Revs. J. Megapolensis and S. Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam (August 5, 1657).
Reverend, Pious and Learned Gentlemen, Fathers and Brethren in Christ Jesus:
The letters of your Reverences, of the 13th of June 1656, and of the 15th of October of the same year have been received. We were rejoiced to learn of the fatherly affection and care which you show for the welfare of this growing congregation. We also learned thereby of the trouble you have taken with the Messrs. Directors, to prevent the evils threatened to our congregation by the creeping in of erroneous spirits; and of your Reverences' desire, to be informed of the condition of the churches in this country.
We answered you in the autumn of the year 1656, and explained all things in detail. To this we have as yet received no reply, and are therefore in doubt, whether our letters reached you. This present letter must therefore serve the same end.
The Lutherans here pretended, last year, that they had obtained the consent of the Messrs. Directors, to call a Lutheran pastor from Holland.(1) They therefore requested the Hon. Director and the Council, that they should have permission, meanwhile, to hold their conventicles to prepare the way for their expected and coming pastor. Although they began to urge this rather saucily, we, nevertheless, animated and encourage by your letters, hoped for the best, yet feared the worst, which has indeed come to pass. For although we could not have believed that such permission had been given by the Directors, there nevertheless arrived here, with the ship Meulen(2) in July last, a Lutheran preacher Joannes Ernestus Goetwater,(3) to the great joy of the Lutherans, but to the special displeasure and uneasiness of the congregation in this place; yea, even the whole country, including the English, were displeased.
(1) There were Lutherans at Manhattan at the time of Father
Jogue's visit (1643), and they are called a congregation in
1649. In 1653 they petitioned to have a minister of their
own and freedom of public worship. Stuyvesant and the
ministers were disposed to maintain the monopoly of the
Reformed (Calvinistic) Church. In 1656 he forbade even
Lutheran services in private houses; but the Company would
not sustain this, though they upheld him in sending
Gutwasser back to Holland in 1659.
(2) "The Mill."
(3) Johann Ernst Gutwasser.