winning the confidence of his instructors. The pious teachings of Dr. Oporin, who had kindly received him into his family and employed him as an amanuensis, exerted over him a most favorable influence, awakening in him a deeper insight into his own character, and a clearer apprehension of the plan of salvation. " By his lectures," he saj's, "on the total depravity of our nature I was much moved, and so convinced of my sinfulness that I loathed myself on account of my folly. I was convinced by the Word of God that tiU this period my understanding in spiritual things was dark; that my will was disincUned to that new life which proceeds from God; that my memorj' had been employed only in collecting carnal things, my imagination in discover- ing sinful objects for the gratification of my perverted affections, and my members by habitual use had become weapons of unrighteousness. But as I learned to rec- ognise sin as sin, then followed sorrow, repentance, and hatred of it — shame and humiliation on account of it — hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In this state of mind I was directed to the crucified Saviour; the merits of his death gave me Ufe; my thirst was quenched by him, the Living Spring." From this period he became a most earnest Christian, He burned with an ardent desire to do good. On his grad- uation at Gottingen he repaired to Halle. There he continued his studies, and taught in the Orphan House. He lived on the most intimate terms with Franke, Cel- larius, and Fabricius. By their advice he was led to prepare himself for the missionary work, and Bengal was the point selected as the field of his operations. While arrangements were making to send him to India, and just after he had been solemnly set apart to the work of the ministry, a most importunate application from congregations in Pennsylvania reached Germany for some one to supply the great spiritual destitution that existed. The attention of the faculty was imme- diately directed to Muhlenberg, then in his thirty-first year, as a most suitable person for the position. Cheer- fully yielding to the call, and with unshaken confidence in God, he was ready to abandon the comforts of home and the society of friends, as well as the prospects of future distinction to which a mind so highly gifted might have aspired, and to settle in this remote and, at that time, wild and inhospitable region as a humble in- strument for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. He reached this country in 17-12. His arrival was an occa- sion of great jo3' and inexpressible gratitude to his Ger- man brethren. The Church he found in a most wretch- ed condition; in his own language, it was not pluntata, but plantanda. There had been numerous settlements in different parts of the country, and some of them had been furnished with able and faithful ministers, but as a general thing the Lutheran population had been sadly neglected. Muhlenberg's advent therefore marks a new £era in the history of the Lutheran Church in this coun- try. Its character soon changed; its condition gradu- ally improved; its position was at once strengthened, and permanence given to its operations. Frequent ac- cessions were made to the ranks of the ministry — men, educated at Halle, imbued with the spirit of their Mas- ter, and wholly devoted to their work, upon whose labors the blessing of Heaven signally rested. Entering upon the discharge of his duties, Muhlenberg assumed the pastoral care of the associated churches of Philadelphia, New Hanover, and Providence, which had united in a call for a minister. These three congregations contin- ued to form the more prominent scenes of his ministerial labors, altliough there was probably not an organized Lutheran church in his day in which he did not preach ; and when a difficulty occurred in any congregation, his aid was always invoked, and seldom did he fail in rec- onciling differences and restoring confidence. His du- ties, in many respects, resembled those of an itinerant bishop whose diocese extended over a large territor}\ Often he undertook distant and irksome journeys for the purpose of gathering together the scattered flock,
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