In 1696 Domine Selyns, the only Dutch pastor in New York City, in his annual report congratulates himself, "Our number is now full," meaning that there are four Dutch ministers in the whole province of New York, and adds: "In the country places here there are many English preachers, mostly from New England.

They were ordained there, having been in a large measure supplied by the University of Cambridge [Mass.]." The same letter gives the names of the three eminent French pastors ministering to the communities of Huguenot refugees at New Rochelle and New York and elsewhere in the neighborhood.

The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, more important to the history of the opening century than any of the rest, were yet to enter.
The spectacle of the ancient Dutch church thus dwindling, and seemingly content to dwindle, to one of the least of the tribes, is not a cheerful one, nor one easy to understand.

But out of this little and dilapidated Bethlehem was to come forth a leader.

Domine Frelinghuysen, arriving in America in 1720, was to begin a work of training for the ministry, which would result, in 1784, in the establishment of the first American professorship of theology;[81:1] and by the fervor of his preaching he was to win the signal glory of bringing in the Great Awakening.
FOOTNOTES: [69:1] Dr.E.T.Corwin, "History of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America" (in the American Church History Series), pp.