CHAPTER XI I .
MORAL AND. SOCIAL CONDITION, AND PROSPECTS.
■ The gospel was preached to the Iroquois, as
well as to, the several tribes of Algonquin origin,
who, under various names, lined the banks
o£ the H u d s Q n ; and, Delaware rivers, early in
the seventeenth century. The Reformed church
of Holland does not appear to have underrated
its duties in this respect. While the
Holland states,, under a hereditary president or
stadtholder, were extending their civil jurisdiction
and commercial power on this continent,
the ecclesiastical courts of Amsterdam took
eognizanpe- of the incipient religious wants of
the newly founded colony,* and sent out preachers
and catechists, to their settlements, who
sought the conversion of the Indian tribes., It
was in this quality that Pyrlaus and Rorneyn,
labored respectively, at different eras, among the
* * Vidb “Proceedings of the Nevtr York Hist.' Society for a
neftice of the Itev?. Thomas De Witt’b visit to the claseis of
Amsterdam, androther ecclesiastical bodies of Holland, 1846.
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