Few of these found their way into the Lutheran churches of New York.
They were the intellectuals of the German community and had outgrown the
religion of their countrymen who still adhered to the old faith.

Our churches received but little support from this large and influential
class. Many of them had long since renounced allegiance to Jesus, and in
the free air of America looked upon churches as anachronisms and
hearthstones of superstition. Their influence upon the common people and
upon the social life of the German community was hostile to that of
Christianity. The churches had to get along without them, or rather, in
spite of them. There were notable exceptions. But as a rule the
"Achtundvierziger" did not go to church.

Still, in spite of their unchurchly views, most of them were unable to
shake off wholly the forms of their ancestral religion. There were too
many remnants (_superstites_) of the old faith binding them to ancient
customs. Independent ministers with no synodical relations, with or
without certificate of ordination, or the endorsement of organized
congregations, unmindful of the _nisi vocatus_ clause in the Augsburg
Confession, helped to maintain the forms of an inherited Christianity by
performing such ministerial acts as were required by the people. At one
time these free lances were quite numerous. At present no
representatives survive in New York.

But there was another class of immigrants that came to us from the
Fatherland. They, too, sought to escape from political and economical
conditions that had rested like an incubus upon a divided country for
centuries. But they brought with them a spirit of Christian aspiration
and the ripe fruit of a traditional Christian culture which became a