page xxvi

Free years, have places assigned them gratis for the building of their houses, for which purposes they need only apply to our Military and Domainen Chambers.

"We do therefore command our Superior Colleges of Justice and Finance, as also all mediate Princes, Lords, Magistrates, etc., carefully to observe the same.

"In Witness whereof we have signed this present Edict with our own hand, and caused our Royal Seal to be affixed.

"Done at Selowitz, March 8th, 1742.
[L. S.] "FREDERICK,
"V. COCCEJI. "Per C. V. MUNCHON."

Much as they loved the Fatherland in spite of the cruel wrongs which they and their ancestors for two centuries had suffered, none of the Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania availed themselves of the royal invitation to return to their former homes. They had become attached to the government under which they had for eight years enjoyed absolute freedom and a measure of prosperity that promised better things in the future than restoration of their estates in Silesia. They had come here to stay, and had laid foundations which they were loath to abandon. They had acquired permanent homes; they had established and thus far maintained public worship; remembering the words of Christ: For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good; they had established a Poor Fund, which, increasing with increased prosperity, has, for nearly a century and a half, satisfied every call upon it from within their communion and scattered its blessings outside; and they had established a School Fund which supplied every want intended to be supplied by the system of public instruction established by the State many years later. In short, they had taken root in the soil of Pennsylvania.

For many years they could not be said to have had an organization as a church. Indeed, the want of an organization was not felt while there were but few families, and they widely