New Sweden.

The first Lutherans in America were Swedes who assembled on the banks of the Delaware River in 1638 in the settlement of Sweden's West India Company. New Sweden was served by a continuous line of ministers, the most famous of whom was John Campanius, a missionary to the Native Americans who translated Martin Luther's Catechism into the Delaware language. The church languished after the Dutch drove the Swedes out in 1655. When the king of Sweden realized that the church had no ministers, he sent a large supply of books and three ministers, who arrived in 1697 and established the Holy Trinity at Tranhook Church near Wilmington, Delaware, and Gloria Dei at Wicaco near Philadelphia. For seventy-five years all national branches of the Lutheran Church were supervised by a provost or personal deputy of the archbishop of Sweden, who was allowed to ordain ministers. Unfortunately none...