to become independent and self-supporting. A better solution of
their problem lay in the Western World: The Germans needed homes
and the Queen's overseas dominions needed colonists. They were
settled at first along the Hudson, and eventually many of them
took up lands in the fertile valley of the Mohawk.

For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured
into America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen
hundred a year, and that colony became the distributing center
for the German race in America. By 1727, Adam Muller and his
little company had established the first white settlement in the
Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist Heydt went south from York,
Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan Creek at or near the
site of the present city of Winchester.

The life of Count Zinzendorf, called "the Apostle," one of the
leaders of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of
those dark and troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture,
he forsook whatever of ease his station promised him and fitted
himsclf for evangelical work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming
Valley to bring his religion to the Delawares and Shawanoes. He
was not of those picturesque Captains of the Lord who bore their
muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to preach.
Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the spirit, his feet "shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace," he went out into the country of these
bloodthirsty tribes and told them that he had come to them in
their darkness to teach the love of the Christ which lighteth the
world. The Indians received him suspiciously. One day while he
sat in his tent writing, some Delawares drew near to slay him and