The first great increase of alien population came from Germany,
which was still in a state of religious turmoil, disunion, and
depression from the results of the Reformation and the Thirty
Years' War. The reaction from dogma in Germany had produced a
multitude of sects, all yearning for greater liberty and
prosperity than they had at home. Penn and other Quakers had made
missionary tours in Germany and had preached to the people. The
Germans do not appear to have been asked to come to the Jerseys.
But they were urged to come to Pennsylvania as soon as the
charter was obtained; and many of them made an immediate
response. The German mind was then at the height of its emotional
unrestraint. It was as unaccustomed to liberty of thought as to
political liberty and it produced a new sect or religious
distinction almost every day. Many of these sects came to
Pennsylvania, where new small religious bodies sprang up among
them after their arrival. Schwenkfelders, Tunkers, Labadists, New
Born, New Mooners, Separatists, Zion's Brueder, Ronsdorfer,
Inspired, Quietists, Gichtelians, Depellians, Mountain Men, River
Brethren, Brinser Brethren, and the Society of the Woman in the
Wilderness, are names which occur in the annals of the province.
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